Barzenberg

On June 21, 2016 at 3:07 PM, nasiryahm said:

Hi All,

 

I'm new to the forums but I found a lot of great information here so I thought I would share. I have successfully run an NVIDIA GTX 1070 with my Early-2015 Macbook Pro. My setup is the following:

 

- Akitio Thunder2 PCI-E Box

- NVIDIA GTX 1070

- Powered 16x PCI-E Riser

- EVGA NEX650G PSU (I know it is overkill, it was my only option in a pinch. Paperclip trick for power.)

 

 

I have outlined the pieces, my excitement and some issues at my blog.

 

Issues:
- I initially had an issue where my system would not boot correctly with the eGPU powered and plugged in. The screen remained black and no boot chime. Booting into and shutting down from OSX solved this issue but it occasionally returns.

- The first PSU I tried (EVGA 500W) would spontaneously turn off when I started using the GPU at high load (e.g. intense gaming). I replaced it with the EVGA NEX650G which I had from an old project.

- Windows 10 still holds issues for me. I often have to get to the boot screen (holding alt at boot) and then plug in the eGPU + Power before selecting Windows. Even then I have a high failure rate (>70%). Windows 10 often hangs at the loading screen (spinning circles) and never moves on. This happens 3/4 times. I am currently re-installing windows 10 to see if it helps. When I get through to windows the eGPU works great. Tried with Witcher 3 @ 1080p with ultra-high settings. I believe that Optimus is also running with the current driver.

 

If there are any requests for benchmarks, I am happy to do them. I am new to this world though and therefore don't know the defaults.

 

Nas

 

[EDIT: 23/06/2016]

 

After using the setup for a number of days, I have come across a few problems and solutions. I am using a 2015 Macbook Pro and others on this forum have had issues making eGPU builds with this macbook. After installing Windows >5 times and Linux > 3 times, here are my outcomes:

 

Issues:

-> Windows 10 or 8.1 installed via bootcamp to the local disk barely works. One boot out of every 20 allows you access to the GPU, otherwise infinite spinning wheel or blank screen.

-> Linux is a bit tough too as we are using an integrated graphics card. From what I have understood, to get the eGPU working you must uninstall the nouveau drivers and use bumblebee (for optimus on linux). Still trying to make that work.

 

Solution:
-> To get the setup working on Windows, install to an external drive. Following that, every time you want to use the eGPU do the following:

1) Turn off everything

2) Plug in the eGPU -> Thunderbolt2

3) Power up the eGPU and wait for ~10s

4) Turn on the Macbook Pro while holding alt and get to the boot option screen

4.1) It the GPU starts up but the mac does not, hold the power button until the GPU dies down and then try again. If it fails repeatedly, boot into Mac OSX and then shut down.

5) Success! 

 

This above technique has allowed me to boot around 7 out of every 10 times I try. I am now running Windows 8.1 but I shall also try this technique with windows 10 sometime. Much better.

Unplug and power off everything. Press power button and hold alt to get the boot options. Turn on your gpu psu. Press enter on Windows partition then plug in thunderbolt cable ~a second after pressing enter. 100% boot rate now. 

On 6/27/2016 at 2:31 AM, P-Mac said:

 

You can also hibernate or sleep the computer and wake it back up and it'll fix the Intel drivers churning away at the CPU. (Works for me on Win10)

 

On a side note, have you ever experienced the whole setup refusing to boot randomly? Like you won't even get to the startup chime...whenever this happens, I have to hold the power button until the computer turns off (I watch my USB drives and/or the eGPU's LEDs) and then try again to start up. It only boots with some luck, but once it boots it's rock solid...

 

I'm only asking because I have the same exact Mac and was wondering if it was system dependent.

I finally got it to work every time. Unplug the thunerbolt cable and turn off everything. Press the power button and hold alt to get the boot options. Plug the thunderbolt in and turn on your gpu psu. Boot into Windows. 

Dieovb, I have a question about your process. I'm happy running games on an external monitor but benchmarks on the external monitor are using both graphics cards (1070 and 750m) and that is hindering the performance. Does the method you described solve this?

Thanks,

Austin

Thank you for your help. I thought Nvidia's Optimus automatically did this. Is it because there are two graphics cards inside your macbook (mine has two as well)? Could you please provide links to what you downloaded and a short description of what to do. I'm very new to all of this and your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Austin

Thank you. Rocket League at 1800p 60hz probably has more bandwith than with the GTA test so I don't know if it's a bandwidth issue. Any tips on setting it up or did it go smoothly?

Thanks,

austin

@goalque First, thank you so much for supporting the community like this. My setup is arriving this wednesday and I want to make sure that this script will work for my particular setup: GTX 1070 with a powered pcie riser to Akito thunder 2 running off a 430 watt psu. Computer: MBP late 2014 OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.4 (15E65). My main question is will the new pascal architecture of the GTX 1070 work with the nvidia drivers (downloaded by the script) and will it work on this version of OSX. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Austin

My 1070 egpu is arriving this wednesday. Have you been using it under heavy load (does it work well)? What FPS are you pushing with various games?

Thanks