Irons324

That's more than likely your issue. If there's not a solid connection there when the aikito draws full power it will drop out, which makes sense with your symptoms. 

Heres what I did:

1) use the barrel plug off the akitio power pack! Cut it off with a decent length of cable to use to join it. It's a coax style cable, so bare back the outer insulation about 5 or so cm and twist the outer braid into a 'wire' and bare back the white wire. The white is + and the twisted braid is earth. 

2) test which wires are supplying the correct voltage for the akitio. I think it's 5v but check before you do anything else. Go to an auto parts store and buy some "red bullet connectors" and connect the white wire from the barrel plug to the 5v + from the connector you have and the twisted outer cable to ground. 

3) voila! Done. You now have a solid power connection. I found the barrel connectors you buy don't fit neat, which is why you're having problems. 

20 hours ago, Ricky said:

I think it has something to do with my power delivery for the akitio box, i read online that i can use a pcie riser(with power), and i do not need to power my box because the adapter already gives the power? Is that true?

I don't know much about powered risers, but every post I've read with people saying they're going to use one has been told not to do so. 

You should be able to run the set up the way you have it configured. 

Double check all connections and make sure they're clean and tight, get some canned air and blow out connections to make sure there's no dust/dirt in any ports. Dust where it shouldn't be can cause all sorts of headache. 

I'm not saying it's not good, just that mine wasn't. Wiggle those connections when it's on and see if you can simulate the problem. 

The crackling sounds you're hearing before crash definitely sounds like a power issue, once the card draws/wants more power and can't get it it will go into panic and restart the computer. 

How have you hot-wired the psu? 

I just solved a similar issue with my old Akitio T2 using a GTX 970. Every time I'd load the unit up with a game or unigine, the computer would crash. Ended up being high resistance in the molex-to-barrel harness where I'd soldered the joins. 

Are you using the stock power pack for the akitio or have you put a molex-to-barrel in? 

SOLVED: Ended up being high resistance in the molex-to-barrel connecting harness. Removed solder joins and put in crimp terminals. 

Re-tested with benchmark on unigine and got around 40fps at 1080p on ultra settings, no crashing issues. 

UPDATE: Above issue has been solved, was running in mirrored display and not utilising eGPU. 

 

Still crashing as soon as load put on GPU - unigine on lowest settings crashes computer immediately. 

UPDATE: eGPU not being used when furmarking or using unigine benchmark. It's posted in system information and is running external monitor. Have tried -a and -m mode, no changes.

So, I sold my eGPU setup, which was a GTX 970 in a Thunder2 enclosure using a Corsair VS550 psu. Worked fine when I owned it, my MacBook died, so I've sold it to a friend. 

 

Set it up fine on his mid 2012 MBP no worries, everything seemed to work fine at first. Now, a day later, every time he loads heroes of the storm (or any game for that matter) the computer black screens and resets, throws up a GPU panic error code. Sometimes it will last a little longer than others, but the predominate issue is that the fans often aren't spinning when the radiator gets hot. The fans work, because they spin up on start up. 

 

Ideas for what could be causing this issue?

 

Thanks.

This setup is for sale. 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/-/262918497156?

Hi all, 

 

As anyone using nVidia cards with OSX will know, we're limited to the 900 series cards, whether they be in eGPU's, Mac Pro or Hackintosh. Of course there is the AMD option for cards, but they simply don't meet up to any expectation I have of a card comparable to nVidia's hardware. 

All of my diggings has shown people saying to wait for nVidia to release webdrivers for OSX and that's going back nearly 8 months now. 

Honestly, I severely dislike Windows as an operating platform, and have miles of trouble getting my eGPU to work with it on my MacBook Pro. But, in lieu of Pascal support for the newer 1000 series cards, I WILL eventually switch over. I know lobbying to Apple is a dead cause, because, well, it's Apple, but I've started a petition to try and gather support for convincing nVidia to write webdrivers for 1000 series cards for OSX. 

So, sign and share this around, I know it's a long shot but hey, a digital signature costs you nothing. 

 

Thanks. 

 

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pascal-support-for-osx 

I'd try another monitor. Given the steps you've taken it should be working. 

Have you run any scripts to install drivers and get the mac to recognise the GPU when OSX boots? 

Smelling burning is unsettling... How have you wired up the PSU to turn on? Is the PSU controlling both the 970 and the Akitio? When you say you disconnected the GPU, did you just remove the TB cable or actually pull the GPU from the Akitio with it live? Pulling a GPU live from a board could short out power, don't do that. 

 

Run the script in the post listed below if you havent already. 

 

On 02/02/2016 at 9:14 AM, willex said:

I'm experiencing the same issue. EVGA GTX 970 + Akitio 2 on a 2014 15" MacBook Pro under OSX 10.11.3. The card is identified and installed correctly with the 0.96 eGPU script.. but performance on the Desktop lags really bad with stutters, animation problems etc. Running a game though is fine... I also tried different drivers but the problem remains the same.

 

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Try enabling "displays have separate spaces" in the window shown here. 

Picked that up off the build I followed in the implementation section. 

 

Interesting about the disable monitors app, I'll have to look into that. I seemed to work out my kinks by just making the external monitor the main display and leaving the laptop open on the right of the desk, so I can use essentially a dual-monitor setup. 

With the computer still fully assembled, I don't think it would work. You can buy kits that adapt into iMac screens and you can turn them into essentially free-standing monitors, but not really worth it if you have a working iMac. Just buy a 27" screen that's 1080p, it's not like you're getting a retina display... If the goal is to keep everything apple, you can't use a 1070 to run OSX at the moment anyhow, get a 970 or 980. 

(Having trouble uploading images here, I'll try again later)

 

Hi all, 

 

I'm green as here, but been closely following peoples implementations for eGPU and MBP. After finding some inspiration from P-Mac here, I decided to build one. I knocked this all out for around $600 AUD. Being from Australia, it was hard to come by a Thunder2 box. So I bit the bullet and bought one from the US as cheap as I could find it. Picked up a second hand MSI Gaming GTX960, the twin frozr fan edition, also overclocked edition, cost me $200. Grabbed a Corsair VS550 PSU too for $80. I'm pretty handy with electronics and good with a soldering iron so I thought, no worries mate. Anyway, after waiting 3 weeks for the Akitio to arrive, it finally showed up and I knocked this all out in about 1.5 hours. 

 

Opening up the Akitio

I unboxed the package, and opened it up. These things are TINY, I thought. I knew I'd have to open the case up to make the GPU fit, but jesus, the GPU dwarfs this thing. I removed the fan from the Akitio and set it aside, probably never to be used again. A lot of people have just bent the back plate of the Akitio away, then gaff taped it up, etc. I didn't like that idea, so I took to it with a dremel and cutting wheel with the box facing DOWN, as grinding sparks and PCB's tend to disagree with each other. I cut a decent line into the steel, then bent it away with some pliers, then fatigue snapped the cut line. 

 

Inserting the GPU

Pretty straightforward. Removed the 2 retainer screws for the PCI cards, pushed the card firmly into place. I re-inserted the two screws and nipped them up with a screwdriver. 

 

Easy peasy. 

 

Wiring up the CPU PSU

Now, I've seen all sorts of dodgy behaviour like jumping PSU's on with paperclips. That's live power, flapping around sensitive electronic components. I didn't like that idea. I also didn't like the idea of chopping up the PSU cables in case I ever want to re-purpose the PSU. So, I bought a molex to something connector (I can't remember the name) and chopped the red and black wires off at the molex plug end, chopped the yellow and black at the something end. Got some automotive twin core 3mm wire and a barrel plug I bought from JayCar and soldered the red to the centre post and the black to the outer post. Heat shrink over the exposed solder connections and electrical tape inside the barrel plug to ensure that it didn't short out, BAM, one 12V barrel plug to power the Akitio. Plugged the PCI-E connector into the GPU, simple. To "hot-wire" the PSU, I used a jumper wire and two electrical bulkhead crimp terminals. They're a little big to fit in the ATX connector of the PSU, but I squished them up with pliers and they fit in there snug, no exposed metal to short out on the case, or anywhere else, with the added bonus of the entire setup being plug and play. 

 

Plugging in and recognising

I used the instructions here (see below) to get OSX to recognise and install the drivers. Followed the instructions, no problems. Had to go and disable system protection out of the recovery partition, but that's no biggie. I re-started, flicked the switch on the PSU with the eGPU plugged in, took a little while to get through the load screen, but away it went. I ran a benchmark on Cinebench, got 77fps which was an improvement over the 59fps I would get out of the GT750m. 

 

Teething issues

Being new as hell to all of this, I'm still working out how to tweak settings etc. I opened up WoW, being an avid player, and expected to be dazzled. I copped a heaping load of disappointment when my recommended settings went to 1 from 4, and the game ran like a wet turd. However, after some playing around, trying a different monitor, enabling automation of the eGPU in the script, I'm getting a solid 40-60fps at high, not ultra, settings at 1080p. 

I'm having often problems booting out of sleep, the computer crashes and won't turn back on without a hard reset, no boot chime or anything. Sometimes switching off the PSU to kill the eGPU is needed to get into the OSX loading screen, then flicking it on once it's loading is needed. Sometimes it works fine. This seems to be common but I'll keep looking for fixes for waking up from sleep. Even with NoSleep enabled and not closing the lid, eventually it'll go dark and won't wake up. However sustained use and gaming doesn't kill the computer, so I don't think it's an overheating issue. Also keeping a close eye on temps everywhere and setting the fans to max when gaming, as I always do as these things overheat like crazy during gaming. 

 

 

To be done

At the moment the Akitio is sitting open on the desk and the PSU next to it with wires fucking everywhere. It's messy and cluttered and I hate it. I've got access to tools and equipment some probably don't, so I'm going to build a custom case for both the PSU and the Akitio, and put some nice big fans on it to keep it all nice and cool under high load, hopefully preventing the GPU from needing to use it's active cooling at all, thus letting it work without strain. 

 

 

Any tips or advice would be great!

 

Updates

Managed to pick up a GTX 970 locally for the same price as I paid for the 960. Same card build, MSI Twin Frozr fans etc, slotted right in with no changes needed. Getting 57 fps on furmark within OSX, 82 fps out of cinebench, which is a slight improvement over the 960. I've upped the settings in WoW and it's running between 50-60 fps no worries. 

I also installed windows to try and get some benchmarks done, however furmarking is crashing the whole show and requiring a hard reset. I can get furmark to run in OSX though through some command lines found from the guys at geek3d.com. Windows has way more trouble posting the eGPU from startup, and has A LOT of trouble rebooting/shutting down. Really re-enforcing my love for OSX but I would like to play some higher end titles that simply aren't available on OSX in the future. Got Unigine to finally install (had a lot of issues downloading the entire file for some reason) and ran that on the 970. Didn't get to test it on the 960. 

 

Also, from what I've seen on others eGPU setups for this MBP, the native display runs through the Intel Iris, whilst both screens on mine seem to be running from the GTX 960. 

I seem to have made things settle a bit, getting SOLID fps in WoW, even on high settings, but not much above 36-40 fps, 60 in some scenarios. On the 750m I would get lots of spikes and as soon as the game became GPU intensive i'd drop down to around 20 or less and get obvious screen lag. I guess it's working well enough, perhaps the 960 just isn't beefy enough to handle ultra settings. It does seem as though both screen are trying to be run, even with the lid closed on the MBP, which previously shut the display off and used only the external display. On mirrored displays I can still send the mouse over to the native display with the lid closed. 

Still open to thoughts guys, any tips appreciated. 

Just an update, downloaded iStat, it says the GT 750m is active and loading FPS for system use, maybe OSx is still using the onboard GPU to try and work? The GTX 960 spins up and appears to be working when playing wow, however. 

Hey everyone. 

 

Inspired by P-Mac's eGPU build, I decided to finally go ahead and build one. It was a toss up between building a Hackintosh beast or eGPU for my MBP, and I decided the eGPU for cost. I'm avidly against Windows as an OS so I'm using Sierra.  Long story short, I knocked it all together in about an hour and a half, ran the scripts and fired it up. No issues recognising the eGPU is there, it's running my 32" 720p TV I've been using for a monitor no problems. I essentially wanted some more oomph out of my gaming experience (I'm a relatively dedicated WoW player) so I was very excited to fire up the game and max out some settings.

 

However, booting into the game I was getting less FPS than what I was getting on the GT 750m. I had the settings tweaked to allow 60fps in low load situations. Using the eGPU I was getting around 40, and my recommended settings went from 4 to 1. The GPU also got hot FAST and the fans spooled up, which I read is uncommon. The MBP also starts ventilating quickly. I've used Cinebench to benchmark the setup and got 77fps within OSX. To me this seems like I should be able to run WoW at high settings on 720p... 

 

Tips for what I've done wrong in the setup, or what I can change or implement? Do I need to use Optimus? 

 

EDIT: I just ran the CPU benchmark as well and got what seems like a low(?) score, could this be affecting my setup?

 

Thanks all. 

Hi mate, 

I can't see why that won't work, I think most eGPU setups choose to use the PSU with a modded barrel plug to use the same power supply to both the card and the thunder2. Best way to find out is try, if it doesn't work, mod the barrel plug and try again. From what I've read AMD cards are power hungry hence why most people go for nVIDIA cards. 

Good luck!