Quackingplatypus

On 10/4/2016 at 1:30 AM, darwin86 said:

Hi fella,

 

I recently published a thread discussing the 2015 13" Retina - may be worth reading through:

 

Many thanks

David

 

It looks like I shouldn't need either the DSDT override or the REFIND boot process, as I have iris graphics. However my booting with windows 10 still remains at zero successful boots. I reinstalled windows 10 on external, it worked once, then never booted again, nor did hot-plugging work. Since you were able to get a stable windows 8.1 installation working, I tried a windows 8.1 installation on my external ssd. Unfortunately, that never even worked once. It recognized the card enough to install drivers, but that was it. What exactly did you do to get a stable windows 8.1 installation, and what is your boot process? 

thanks so much,

-Hunter

On 10/4/2016 at 1:30 AM, darwin86 said:

Hi fella,

 

I recently published a thread discussing the 2015 13" Retina - may be worth reading through:

 

Many thanks

David

 

Thanks! I'll take a look at a DSDT override or varyl's setup process. Will report back what works and what does not.

Hey tech inferno,

I started my eGPU/docking station project a little while ago, using a cooler master elite 120 white as the enclosure, an akitio board, a gtx 970, and a 1tb samsung ssd (for external windows 10). Everything is powered by a 650 watt evga power supply, and the akitio is connected with a soldiered barrel plug to a chopped molex cable. The first time I tested it with a 750ti (before buying a 970) everything just worked. I pugged the thunderbolt in while windows was booted, and installed the latest drivers. The screen flickered, and that was it. Done. Everything worked. Optimus worked flawlessly, external monitor worked flawlessly, frame rates were amazing (for a macbook) and my computer itself stayed cool. I immediately returned my friend's 750ti and bought a 970. Once I got around to installing it I was at college, but it was the same as before. Once I got the computer to recognize the card (in device manager), I installed the drivers, the screen flickered, and everything worked, just faster. I had a blast playing some games that I had been missing while working on the project. For several days I was able to either connect the egpu by plugging it in while the computer was off, turning on the power supply, waiting 15 seconds, and then booting, holding alt, and booting onto my external ssd; or just booting into windows and then hotplugging my egpu. It always worked, and it was better than I ever expected. Then, one day, I came back after class, and nothing worked. No hotplugging, no successful boots, and no accelerated video. Once in a while I could get it to boot, but when it did that it was only because it didnt recognize the card at all, and just used iris pro. Can someone help me get my setup working again? My laptop is the 2015 macbook pro 15" (for which there are few guides). I'm hoping someone else has overcome this problem. I have tried reinstalling drivers, but it no longer freezes the screen and works, it instead requires me to restart, and when I do, it breaks. Major karma to anyone who helps me out. I can put pictures (or video of boot failures) if someone wants me to.

thanks!

-Hunter

I know, that's why I couldn't find any  I found one on amazon.co.uk that I can import, but it won't be here until early October. Oh well, I guess I will have to wait. 

1 hour ago, Dschijn said:

You will need a riser angled to the right. Sth. like the DeLock 41914 and also a flexible riser.

 

Take a look at my build (last picture):

 

Thank you, that DeLock 41914 is exactly what I am looking for! Unfortunately, I do not see a place to actually purchase it on the delock website. Do you know where I can buy it or have a link to the one that you have for your setup?

Edit: I live in the U.S, but if I have to order it from Europe, then oh well.

Hello everyone!

I am currently working on an egpu/docking station project for my 2015 macbook pro, and I am having some issues mounting everything into the case I've chosen. So far, I have gotten it to work with my windows 10 installation (on an external samsung evo ssd inside the mini-itx case) with my gtx 970, but now I am trying to actually mount the akitio thunder2 board and the graphics card inside a mini itx enclosure. The power supply, hard drives, and usb hub are already mounted inside of the case with plenty of room left. The graphics card has to mount in the slot that it would use if there was a mini itx motherboard in the case, because it won't fit anywhere else.

Here are my problems:

If you look at the first attached image, this is the graphics card mounted where it would go normally. It is currently only being held in by the two screws holding the IO side of the card onto the case. As you can see in image 2, the pcie connector is underneath the card and very close to the bottom of the case. I bought a pcie riser, but having it being under the card and bent to the side put it under too much stress, and the cable tore. It also pushed the graphics card up so that it was just barely able to mount in place. What I decided I needed was a right-angle for the pcie connection, but every one I found online, and I mean EVERY ONE, went the wrong way (left instead of right) , which put the connecter against the wall of the case, making it worse. Can someone help me find a right angle adapter that bends the correct way, or find another solution? I accidentally bought this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007Q92R7M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

but it was not the pcie connector on my graphics card. It was a little different. 

Another problem is that the akitio thunder2 board has issues with facing the right way. If you look in picture 3, you can see the board in its enclosure. In order for the pcie connector to be oriented the same as the graphics card, the board has to be mounted so that the black plastic pcie connector is closest to the graphics card, and unfortunately, facing away. Also, the thunderbolt ports and power port end up smushed against the wall of the case, or close to it? Again, how can I fix this? 

I was so excited to get this project working and am now having a headache trying to make it all fit together! This community has been absolutely excellent in helping me get my egpu working, and I cannot thank those that have taken the time to make guides enough. Thanks in advance to anyone who has any ideas how to get this mess together.

-Hunter

There's one final thing I still need to get this all working. 

I need a way to connect the molex connectors on the power supply to the power plug on the powered USB hub here: http://www.amazon.com/Anker-Charging-Adapter-Included-VL812-B2/dp/B014ZQ07NE?ie=UTF8&colid=3TCGMRAW8DP7Y&coliid=IP327B1BMJ3W7&psc=1&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl

I assume some soldering is involved.

Thanks!

1 hour ago, Yukikaze said:

Something like this comes to mind:

http://www.amazon.com/Anker®-Converter-Adapter-Cable-included/dp/B005B3VO24/ref=pd_sim_sbs_147_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=41NRVzaqsWL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=01PVER34H2D5G6T1VN6S

 

You'd mod a power input for it from the ATX PSU in place of the ac/dc mini-brick it comes with. I am also pretty sure you could get a cheaper version somewhere.

Thanks!

Looks good, I found a cheaper one on amazon with good reviews: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CV855BC/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3TCGMRAW8DP7Y&coliid=IRDNP7GBJHSED

I'm going to connect the 3.5" drives with SATA data extention cables to these, so I can use the sata power from the power supply. This should be neater than modding molex cables to barrel plugs.

On 6/2/2016 at 1:48 AM, Yukikaze said:

I cannot comment on getting the eGPU to play well with your Mac, but plenty of people have done eGPU on Macs and the implementations forum has plenty of material to take a look at. Someone probably has an identical Mac there with a working eGPU.

 

What I can comment on is having all external stuff in that one case: The short version is that it is possible (even including the case ports working).

 

Here is the longer version

 

The simplest way would be to put a USB3.0 powered hub (with like 8 ports) into the case, alongside the PCB of whatever eGPU enclosure you plan to get and use USB to SATA adapters to enable the laptop to access the external drives. To get the external case USB ports working, you will need some way to connect the case headers to the USB hub. Thankfully, adapters exist for this and are readily available. To power the external drives and USB hub you can use the same PSU that will power the eGPU, since you will have plenty of connectors to spare (and all the USB hub needs as far as extra power goes is 5v).

 

The end result will have you connecting two things to your Macbook: 1 Thunderbolt cable for the eGPU PCie and 1 USB3.0 cable for everything else. If you hook up the keyboard and mouse (or their wireless receiver if you use a wireless set that needs one) to the same hub inside the case, that means no extra cables to hook up.

 

The aforementioned adapters for USB3.0 (this is for a typical USB3.0 motherboard header connector - it might be different for your case, but since you already have it it will be easy to check):

https://www.amazon.com/RAYSUN-20Pin-Header-Adapter-Motherboard/dp/B00P5VG1DE/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1464845877&sr=8-5&keywords=usb+3.0+to+internal+header

 

For USB2.0:

https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-designed-motherboard-external-connector/dp/B000V6WD8A/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1464845836&sr=8-7&keywords=usb+to+internal+header

Yeah, it looks like USB 3.0 will have more than enought bandwidth for what I'm doing. I have a list of all the parts I need, except for a way to connect the hard drives to usb. All the cables I can find connect USB 3.0 by both data AND power to a 2.5" drive. While this is fine for the SSD, I still need to connect the 3.5" 3tb drives and the Blue-Ray Drive. These require sata power from the power supply, so I need data-only USB 3.0 to SATA cables. Do you know where I can find these?

thanks

Yukikaze,

Thanks for your help! I think having a usb powered hub is a great idea, as I could leave all my desktop stuff (microphone, mouse, keyboard, ect) plugged into the external enclosure. However, I don't think one usb3 is going to cut it for the usb connections and the hard drives, since one of them will be a 1tb samsung ssd used for booting windows. I would much rather connect all of this over a second thunderbolt to minimize the bottleneck. How could I do this?

Hello tech inferno!

This is my first post here. This seems the place to be for info on setting up eGPUs. I've done some research, and I'm pretty sure I'm willing to take the plunge down the eGPU rabbit hole. 

Here's my idea:

Since I love the idea of having all my stuff on one sleek, organized computer, I would like to have a 15 inch macbook pro (2015) with an external 'docking station' of sorts that houses hard-drives, a disk drive, and extra ports (usb, ethernet, ect.), and of course, a powerful gpu. I would have two thunderbolt cables: one for the graphics and one for everything else. I would like the external docking station to be housed entirely within a cooler master elite 120 white that I have laying around. The thing is really good looking and seems to be the perfect size. I have attached some pictures of the case for reference.

I would like to put the power supply, the graphics card, the hard drives, and the disk drives in their natural places in the case, and I would also really, really like the egpu to work in both windows and mac. It would be cool to have the ports on the case work, but this is in no way necessary.

Questions:

Will this work? What is possible and what is not? Will the macbook retina with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X be ok for egpu, or should I stick with the iris-only? 

Any help would be appriciated, as I am eager to learn, but a total noob on egpus.

thanks so much,

          Hunter