MBP 15" 2013 Retina, Akitio Thunder2, GTX1060, Win10, no device or boot hangs

[orkus 0]

Hi eGPU fans,

 

 

here is my setup:

 

• MacBook Pro 15" Retina late 2013 with Nvidia GT 750m
• Windows 10 genuine and native on an external and exclusive USB3-SSD, no Bootcamp (I think)
• Akitio Thunder 2
• Zotac Geforce GTX 1060 mini (brandnew) with external HDMI display (TV set or projector)
• DELL DA-20 power supply with self-made connector

 

On the hardware side, everything looks well. As soon as the box is connected to the MacBook, its LEDs light up and both fans start running. On fan of the Akitio, the other one of the graphics card. So, power supply should be good.

 

But: Powering up the MacBook with everything already connected and running isn't always successful. But when it is, after booting Mac OS X, I can see the Akitio in the system info, section Thunderbolt. No sign of the Zotac.

 

When booting Windows 10, it gets stuck while still rotating balls on the black screen.

 

I can plug it in later on. If I do it rather early, the boot gets stuck, too. If I do it later, booting succeeds, but there is not visible sign of the Geforce, especially not in the device manager. I tried uninstalling, updating and reinstalling the Nvidia driver. But the Zotac does not show up. And the HDMI display hasn't shown anything, so far.

 

What I haven't tried, but will, in this order:

1. physically reinstall the PCIe card
2. Make the Intel graphics show up in Windows
3. Use DIY eGPU Setup

 

Any more hints?

Edited July 28, 2016 by orkus

[JohnyB33 3]

Try going into the windows side and disabling all other graphics drivers. It should revert to windows basic adapter or something like that. If it requests a restart just reset the system. After you do that change your bootcamp setting to automatically boot into the windows side. This did the trick for me!

[MattGarland 0]

Does the card fit nicely in the Akitio Thunder2?  I'm hoping that I can try the same setup with my Macbook Pro (Windows10 bootcamp ), so I'll be interested to see how you get on.

Please keep us posted if you manage to get it working!

[orkus 0]

46 minutes ago, MattGarland said:

Does the card fit nicely in the Akitio Thunder2? 

 

I took some pictures for you to see. I will have to load them to the Mac to be able to shrink them first. 

 

The card itself fits really nicely, but the power plug is a bit too high. Maybe I can modify it. Until then, I will leave the box open. 

 

46 minutes ago, MattGarland said:

Please keep us posted if you manage to get it working!

 

You bet, I will!

1 hour ago, JohnyB33 said:

Try going into the windows side and disabling all other graphics drivers. It should revert to windows basic adapter or something like that. If it requests a restart just reset the system. 

 

 

Reset the system? You mean restart?

I already tried that. Multiple times. 

 

1 hour ago, JohnyB33 said:

After you do that change your bootcamp setting to automatically boot into the windows side. This did the trick for me!

 

I don't use bootcamp. I have a dedicated USB SSD to boot Windows from

[JohnyB33 3]

8 minutes ago, orkus said:

 

I took some pictures for you to see. I will have to load them to the Mac to be able to shrink them first. 

 

The card itself fits really nicely, but the power plug is a bit too high. Maybe I can modify it. Until then, I will leave the box open. 

 

 

You bet, I will!

 

Reset the system? You mean restart?

I already tried that. Multiple times. 

 

 

I don't use bootcamp. I have a dedicated USB SSD to boot Windows from

I suggest installing windows to the drive using bootcamp assistant then. 

Edited July 28, 2016 by JohnyB33

[orkus 0]

6 minutes ago, JohnyB33 said:

I suggest installing windows to the drive using bootcamp assistant then. 

 

Bootcamp assistant can't do that. It helps in partitioning the main drive and providing an EFI boot manager as well as Apple drivers. It's not needed for external drives.

[JohnyB33 3]

35 minutes ago, orkus said:

 

Bootcamp assistant can't do that. It helps in partitioning the main drive and providing an EFI boot manager as well as Apple drivers. It's not needed for external drives.

Mhm well dam not sure what to tell ya

[orkus 0]

These images show, how well the Zotac Geforce GTX 1060 Mini fits into the Akitio Thunder2. Note the 6-PIN PCIe power connector blocking the way for the outer chassis.

 

[orkus 0]

I just noticed, my HDMI cable broke. On the last pic you can see the broken plug still firmly in the socket... 

[orkus 0]

Update:

 

I copied the DIY eGPU Setup disk image to a USB stick and tried to boot from it. But it just says, I should remove all disks. Which I can't. Game Over. 

 

I also carefully re-inserted the Zotac and used the other two Thunderbolt ports. 

 

I am running out of ideas...

[orkus 0]

OK, I left unable-to-boot Windows alone for a while and looked what I could do in MacOSX. I downloaded and ran automate-eGPU.sh. On first run it said I had to disable an Apple security feature called "System Integrity Protection", or "SIP". This can be done after booting into the recovery partition. Afterwards, the script ran through and offered the following driver package:

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Mac/Quadro_Certified/346.03.05f02/WebDriver-346.03.05f02.pkg

This is of course the wrong driver, but I don't think, there is a proper one, so I tried it. Afterwards, I had the following entry in the Mac system info, GPU section (!):

 

  Typ:    GPU

  Bus:    PCIe

  PCIe-Lane-Breite:    x4

  Hersteller:    NVIDIA (0x10de)

  Geräte-ID:    0x1c03

  Versions-ID:    0x00a1

  gMux-Version:    4.0.8 [3.2.8]

  Information zur Kernel-Erweiterung:    Keine Kext geladen

 

Yeah! This is the first life sign of the eGPU! It just misses the driver. So I believe it should work, once f***ing  Windows finally boots!!

 

Up Next: reveal the Intel Iris under Windows...

Edited July 28, 2016 by orkus

[orkus 0]

After installing rEfind and using it to reveal the Intel Iris, Windows suddenly booted through and showed all 3 graphics adapters for the First time!

Look at this!

[orkus 0]

Almost... *sigh*

[ssamydla 3]

this guy managed to make it work. But he's on a mac mini and use it on it's OSX

2014 Mac Mini + [email protected] (AKiTiO Thunder2) + OSX 10.11 [lilins]

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?url=https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/topic/10267-2014-Mac-Mini-%2B-GTX960%4016Gbps-TB2-%28AKiTiO-Thunder2%29-%2B-OSX-10%2E11-%5Blilins%5D&share_tid=10267&share_fid=33421&share_type=t

[orkus 0]

Yes, Mac OS is not a problem. Windows is. What a nightmare:

[GUIDE] DSDT override to fix error 12

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?url=https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/topic/5874-%5BGUIDE%5D-DSDT-override-to-fix-error-12&share_tid=5874&share_fid=33421&share_type=t

But not for me. After things looked like I was finally almost there, Windows has now stopped booting at all. What a f***ing OS!!

[ssamydla 3]

lol. i feel you. took me 2 months to make it work on windows, bricked 2 my quadro cards and re-order cables from china

if i may suggest, if possible test with PCIe card other than GPU (sound card, LAN Card, video capture card) it is good to test it run on your Akitio T2 on stupid windows. Since we're facing so many possibilities that could make troubleshooting harder

[orkus 0]

I think I will have to reinstall Amok-Windows first. And probably all the games. Oh. My. God.

[Dschijn 329]

It really seems like you have to somehow disable the 750M to create enough "free recources" for the eGPU.

[orkus 0]

Yes, it already WAS disabled, by the time Windows stopped working altogether. In the last 2 days I disabled it countless times. It must be sore from disabling!

 

Well... time's up. Tonight, my girlfriend will return from Italy and I will spend my time with her instead of Windows...

[orkus 0]

Since I have now rEFInd, there actually is no more need to press Alt while booting. But I just did it again. Intel Iris will stay hidden that way. And Windows booted! Phew! Hot plugging Thunderbolt had no effect. It never has had, actually.

So I got bold and booted again, this time using rEFInd and with the Intel Iris revealed and with Thunder2 running and plugged in. My MBP seemed to boot, but the screen stays dark. Has the Zotac magically taken over? External screen is dark, as well, but that might be the next problem.

No, I connected some USB device. There is no USB-connection-sound and it does not start up.

[orkus 0]

Update and Summary:

1. Connect and turn on eGPU, then turn on MacBook and wait for rEFInd: works half of the time. Why is that? But okay, could live with it.
2. Boot MacOSX: No problem. Nvidia WebDriver is installed, have not investigated further, since we are waiting for the Pascal drivers.
3. Boot Windows: With or without revealing the Intel Iris Windows won't boot. The spinning circles stops, HD LED keeps blinking. How can I find out, what's the problem in this stage? Some kind of log file? Where?
4. Don't connect eGPU at startup
   1. When enabling the Intel Iris, Windows won't boot. See 3.
   2. Without Iris and eGPU Windows boots. I can disable the dGPU (750m), but afterwards, I can't put Windows to sleep mode anymore. Hot plugging eGPU does not seem to have any effect.

All in all:

I can not reproduce the screen shots from above, anymore. During the last week, I booted about a hundred times, and I got the 1060 to show up in the device manager only ONCE! Since so many people can get it running, there MUST be a way! How can I convince my Windows 10 (EFI) to boot with my eGPU connected? Any help appreciated.

[orkus 0]

Finally! It appeared! Hallelujah! I saw the Windows Login-Screen on my external display, which is connected to the 1060 via HDMI!

I had booted without revealing the Intel Iris and with the 750m deinstalled.

But then Windows decided, this would be enough joy and hope and disabled the 1060 in favor of the 750m. Yes. That's right. This f**** system decides, the user (me) is obviously stupid and it knows better. 3 seconds. A short glamorous moment.

Then the login screen switched to the internal display and the device manager showed error 12 for the 1060.

After AGAIN disabling the 750m Windows several times refused to boot again.

How can I tell Windows that I really mean it, when disabling and deinstalling the dGPU?!

[orkus 0]

I got it working again! I always try to boot without the Iris, 750m uninstalled, 1060 connected from the beginning. Whenever Windows shows the recovery screen, I select the log file option. And I believe, it was one of those logging boots, when suddenly, after logging in, the external screen flickered to life, extending the desktop. I started Nvidia Experience, but the external screen kept flickering and finally went black. Device Manager said, the 1060 was shut down after reporting error 43.

Now I can't get it to boot again. As usually...

[ibanez_bass 1]

I was having very similar issues to you. No boot when thunderbolt was connected, GPU wasn't detected most of the time, all kinds of issues. Sadly it turned out to be the Thunder2 itself, which I could not return because I had already modified the chassis. So I had to order another one, which I will be keeping the unmodified chassis in a closet just in case. But all is good now. I have the same 750m/Iris Pro 5200/GTX 1060 setup. Just make sure you run GPU switch integrated, disable the 750m, and reboot. Connect the thunderbolt cable at the boot loader.

[WBJ 0]

Which Thunderbolt port  you are using? When I was setting up R9 Nano eGPU I met the same issue. But when I use the TB port close to the MagSafe rather than close to USB one, everything works fine!