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US$189 AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Box (16Gbps-TB2)


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Ok, next thing to consider is the much discussed "powered riser"

In my experience it is completely unnecessary and may in fact be a source of instability.

Are we ready to stop telling people to use one? Or are there people who can genuinely point out issues solved by using one?

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Testing environment:

- Apple MacBook Pro 15” Iris Pro (Mid 2014)

- DVI monitor

- ST45SF-G 450W PSU

- GPU attached into x16 slot

I have tried several soldering methods, here a new one:

- self-made 8-pin to 4-pin molex adapter (2 X 12V + 2 X GND)

- 4-pin yellow/black wire completely removed

- one thick 12V wire soldered to three 12V spots on the rear side of the x16 slot

Stable cards (10 sequential 3DMark11 physics passed):

- EVGA Geforce GTX 780 6GB SC w/ ACX Cooler

- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 (reference model)

- MSI Radeon HD7970 3GB OC

Unstable cards:

- Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3GB (100% system crash in 3DMark11 physics)

- Asus Radeon R9 270X DirectCU II TOP 2GB (max 2 3DMark11 physics pass and then system crash)

The results stay mostly the same when using those commons powering methods: (1) a back-powered riser only (2) a molex-to-barrel adapter or combinations of (1) and (2).

The stability of Asus cards can be improved with the 6-pin taping trick and other soldering methods, but it just provides some extra time. In the best case, when AKiTiO has not been used for a while, max 4 or 5 sequential 3DMark11 physics passes for the R9 280X. Interestingly, Asus R9 280X attached to NA211TB with the same setup (the same PSU too) passes 10 times physics looping. I have bought the advanced edition of 3DMark11, so easy to test.

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Ok, next thing to consider is the much discussed "powered riser"

In my experience it is completely unnecessary and may in fact be a source of instability.

Are we ready to stop telling people to use one? Or are there people who can genuinely point out issues solved by using one?

It depends on what kind of powered riser you have - there is much variation such as the thickness of the inner wires, back-powered or not, and does it have a capacitor.

The riser is not necessary, I agree. But if not using any back-powering, a molex-to-barrel adapter is compulsory and I would cut the wire of the AKiTiO's 60W power adapter to make one. That x4 slot can spit out enough current for the x16 slot (67W for the GTX 780) even though it is specified 25W. Does work for some cards, but Asus AMDs will crash.

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Yeah, I think someone needs to pare down some of the "guides" as some of them are bloated with unnecessary steps that are likely frightening some folks away.

As a good case-in-point I have seen many that say:

1. You NEED the Nvidia Web Drivers

2. To install these Web Drivers you NEED to use a flat package editor, open them up, add/remove machine id check, repackage, etc.

Here are the facts on that:

The only cards that actually REQUIRE those drivers are:

1. GTX780Ti

2. GTX Titan Black

3. GTX750/750Ti

4. GTX960/970/980

Al of the rest of the Nvidia cards are in the basic OS drivers from 10.8.5 onward.

And to install the Nvidia Web Drivers there is an EASY back-door way. As long as you connect an Nvidia card, ANY Nvidia card with the exception of the ones I just listed, the Nvidia drivers will install.

They are designed to install in a Mac Pro with or without an EFI card.

They are also designed to install in ANY Mac, as long as it has an Nvidia card BUT ONLY IF THE CARD HAS NO EFI. This is to keep a rMBP from installing them based on it's GT650M. Put a lowly 8800GT or 9500GT or any old Nvidia card you have laying around into the Akitio and MAGICALLY the Web Drivers will install. Then you can put one of the "excluded" cards I mentioned before.

Point is, for people wanting to run a GTX680 or GT640 or GTX760, they can skip the Web Driver install, unless they want to. And once they have the card in, they can just download and install. So all the tedious steps regarding them can be removed except for people who have one of the listed cards and don't have any older Nvidia cards to trigger the install.

So, if Johnny Newb comes by and sees that he needs to get a powered riser and play with soldering to get it stable and then learn hex editing to get drivers installed, etc, he is likely to give up.

Removing these unnecessary steps might get more people involved.

And like I mentioned before, if there are people with SPECIFIC USE CASES involving SPECIFIC GPUs that actually DO require the powered riser, happy to hear about it.

But if I can run a 4K at 60Hz on Far Cry 4 with no extra power on a 980, then it needs to be known that there is NO REASON to get a powered riser for that card. If anything, it will just lead to more trouble.

I feel like people repeat things and don't always analyze the "why".

So if Johnny Newb's buddy Fletch puts in a powered riser because Johnny told him his has one and he needed it then he notices that his first good boot came after his doberman barked, he then considers this as "cause" and his instructions include 1. Flat package Editor to make drivers install . 2. Power Riser 3. Barking Doberman, etc.

When he may very have been able to just get by bending the back of his Akitio and using a good PSU and paperclip to run his GTX770.

The Code 12 fixes from Nando are different, if you need them, you know it.

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@MVC: I think you can see in my first guide that a riser wasn't really necessary. The AKiTiO can provide a really high amount of power to the AKiTiO: http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/7879-%5Bguide%5D-2013-13-macbook-pro-gtx970%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-osx10-10-a.html

To me the powered riser had (and still has) two advantages:

- powering the AKiTiO and the GPU

- using long and powerful cards and placing them away from the AKiTiO

The common agreement back than was, that two PSUs might create ground loops and could damage your setup. That is knowledge from Bitcoin miners that are using up to 8 cards on one computer and multiple PSUs to power that whole setup.

That Bitcoin scene is also the source of the powered risers, without them there wouldn't be so many powered risers.

I am still not comfortable with recommending someone to use the AKiTiO PSU with an addional one.

What I can say for sure is that the quality of most powered risers isn't good at all. The riser cables are thin and the capacitor isn't soldered to the riser in a professional way.

High end riser cables are super expensive (3M up too 100$US) but offer a good quality and have an isolation for electromagnetic interferences.

But in the end I agree. We are not experts and nobody can really see the big picture of eGPUs. For a better support we should collect more informations and do further testing to avoid misinformations.

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I tried Dirt 2 on my 7970 eGPU. It ran the intro animation at 10-20fps, then it froze and crashed. Akitio, barrel plug, powered riser. Booooo!

To sum things up - my 6750m is running circles around it in pretty much all realtime stuff I've tried. The 7970 is severely under performing in Dirt 2, Blenders viewport, and Company Of Heroes running in Crossover. If it turns out that it doesn't work well with Indigo, then this has been a complete waste of time.

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I'm running a MBPr late 2k13 15".

EVGA GTX 970 + Akitio.

When I first got it, I didn't have a riser, and the GPU would boot me in, no problems etc. But it crashed every single time I tried a game.

I used two PSU's (550W psu for gpu, and one for the akitio)

After I got a riser, the problem stopped, and now I'm only using the 550W psu.

So in my case, the riser is 100% essential.

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@MVC: Yep, most of the OS X instructions include unnecessary steps and Nvidia web driver is not required for my GTX 780 for example. But it’s good to keep mind that there may be slight performance difference whether you use Apple’s native driver or the latest from Nvidia.

Until I make a script for both the AMD and Nvidia cards, my OS X guide gives an easy-to-follow way via Terminal commands.

My goal is to make AKiTiO 100% stable with any GPU without a powered riser, but it definitely needs warranty voiding methods. With your suggested method it’s a hit-and-miss solution. I guess everyone wants a future proof solution regardless of the GPU vendor or the model.

You actually didn’t mention if you are using AKiTiO’s own power adapter, are you really using it or a molex-to-barrel adapter? Moreover, I still haven’t got an answer what’s your experieces with the AMDs?

A quality made riser is still recommended for the following reasons besides what Dschijn and Nando have said:

1) The PCIe board inner power lines from x4 to x16 may be too thin. Exceeding the specified 25W via TB card->x4 and using those GPUs that eat close to 75W from the x16 slot + using AKiTiO’s 60W power adapter may lead to dangerous situations. I tried that in the beginning and at some point AKiTiO’s PSU started making irritating buzzing sound.

2) Attaching the GPU directly into the x16 slot is possible, but I partially melted the small 4-pin yellow/black wires as the hot metal backplate of a GTX980 touched those wires.

Torturing AKiTiO’s power adapter or using unsafe powering method is not very wise. You may burn your house as one electrical engineer brought to a head.

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A quality made riser is still recommended for the following reasons besides what Dschijn and Nando have said:

1) The PCIe board inner power lines from x4 to x16 may be too thin. Exceeding the specified 25W via TB card->x4 and using those GPUs that eat close to 75W from the x16 slot + using AKiTiO’s 60W power adapter may lead to dangerous situations. I tried that in the beginning and at some point AKiTiO’s PSU started making irritating buzzing sound.

2) Attaching the GPU directly into the x16 slot is possible, but I partially melted the small 4-pin yellow/black wires as the hot metal backplate of a GTX980 touched those wires.

Torturing AKiTiO’s power adapter or using unsafe powering method is not very wise. You may burn your house as one electrical engineer brought to a head.

Exactly. The AKiTiO Thunder2 is clearly not meant to deliver 75W to the PCIe slot - it may work on some scenarios but it's clear that some modifications (ATX->DC barrel mod or alternative power brick, soldering extra capacitors to improve power filtering, etc.) are required to provide reliable power to the PCIe slot through the DC jack . Besides, if we are thinking about the average user not wanting to make his own DC barrel plug mod or solder power wires to the AKiTiO board, then a powered riser cable is a much simpler solution that is far from "silly".

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Hi Guys!

After long time reading here in the forum I have finally bought my Akitio Thunder2 and I did even manage to solder the cables on the board so I can now supply up to 75 W to my Card.

My question now is: Is it normal, that the fan from the enclosure is always on when the Akitio is plugged to ist PSU but NOT active (blue LEDs are OFF).

I find this strange and wanted to know if someone could test that on its Akitio, since I believe most People don't even use that fan and therefore this never mattered in this forum.

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Regards,

salut

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Um, sorry if my question is so noob.

But if I understand correctly I can ditch off the riser and just put the VGA card into Akitio then plug DIY Barrel to Molex to PSU?

Yes, that’s what I did with the GTX780 several months ago:

http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/7580-%5Bguide%5D-2014-15-macbook-pro-iris-gtx780%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-a.html#post103029

Please note the risks if you are planning to do so.

The thumb of rule is that you can feed power in either direction: x16 -> x4 with a back-powered riser OR via DC jack -> TB card -> x4 -> x16.

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Thank you @goalque

I've read your post and really like the portable setup.

But it seems that the power provided by Molex to Barrel DC is limited not more than 25w. if I have the GPU that eat more power than that will it has any problem?

Do you know what is the max watt that Molex from PCI riser can provide?

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Thank you @goalque

I've read your post and really like the portable setup.

But it seems that the power provided by Molex to Barrel DC is limited not more than 25w. if I have the GPU that eat more power than that will it has any problem?

Do you know what is the max watt that Molex from PCI riser can provide?

My GTX 780 takes max 67W (both the TB card and x16 slot) and if we assume that TB card takes 5W-10W, that leaves approximately 57W-62W for the x16, absolutely exceeding 25W. That did work and I didn’t notice stability problems, but the TB card became hot. Safety is the first priority to me, so protecting the cable and providing good ventilation with a 12cm fan towards the PCIe board is important. I have bypassed that 25W "limit" by soldering - of course not an easy method for an average user, so a powered riser is a good option.

http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/7205-us%24189-akitio-thunder2-pcie-box-16gbps-tb2-97.html#post122115

You can see that there is much variation depending on the GPU. I took a big risk with two ATX PSUs in order to get power consumption numbers of specific parts of the eGPU.

A molex with two 12V yellows should be capable of supplying 75W, the thickness of the inner wire is relevant.

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So if I use the barrel method it means the PCB will get hot and power limit can be overcome? If I solder the cable directly to PCB it will be cooler and also no 25w limit to the card?

I haven’t compared how much hotter the PCB becomes, but I would assume that bypassing by soldering as Nando suggested would help:

http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/7205-us%24189-akitio-thunder2-pcie-box-16gbps-tb2-99.html#post123431

Much easier is to solder one thick wire to the three 12V corner spots on the rear side of the x16 slot from the bigger 12V spot of the DC jack, and confirm with a multimeter that there is no connections between 12V spots and GND spots. Nando said that GND seems to be shared along the whole plane. No one knows for sure the absolute correct way to power AKiTiO, these are still the best guesses based on the multimeter readings. I have not completely solved the stability issues with some cards, but I won’t give up very easily :D

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Hey,

I was using my eGPU for a while now with a black screen some times. Now I can't even use it anymore, I can't get into Windows with the eGPU. Everytime I get the black screen.

- rMBP 2013L GT750.

- AKiTIO Thunder2.

- GALAX GTX 970.

- Windows 8.1 64-bit.

- Without molex powered, without riser. Should work perfectly though.

(I always booted successfully into Windows by hotplugging the TB cable right after the Apple startup sound, right before Windows starts loading.)

Is there any advice?

Thank you!

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