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[GUIDE] Macbook: enabling Optimus internal LCD mode


Evo*

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yes it is working without the egpu otherwise my screen freeze in black after the windows logo. Do you have any idea no remove this screen freeze?

Unfortunately, no. The guide is meant for iGPU equipped MBPs only.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey guys,

maybe you can help me out.

My specs:

Macbook Pro Retina 2015 13 i5

Akitio Thunder 2 (power via barrel plug)

Corsair VS350 (till my da2 arrives)

Zotac GTX 970

My situation:

1. The first time i installed bootcamp and tested the egpu, everything worked and seemed fine. I got 1450 points out of heaven unigine benchmark. After some restarts and the use of the optimus setup the egpu stopped booting my windows. (black win 8 spinning screen)

2. I thought it has to do with the efi mod provided in this thread...so i tried to revert it back (the efi backup copied it files, but the grub loader stays in the efi.) So i decided to format my machine with a time machine backup. After that i found out my Setup worked in Windows with the following boot order. [1. Turn on the psu | 2. Activate the macbook with alt. | Put in the thunderbolt cable, wait 5 seconds and boot ].

With that boot order i can boot and enjoy games (The windows logo appears. Never happend before in the windows loading sequence). But the performance is now quiet low. Guess to missing optimus? I only get 1000 points out of the heaven unigine benchmark.

3. And now to the point where i'm stucked again. I tried to install again the efi mod. After the installation of the efi mod my boot order from "2." isn't working anymore. The "revert back try" is doing the same again.

I'm a bit frustrated and i hope one of you guys can help me out. :drunk:

PS.

1. If I boot into Windows and then plug the egpu in the system crashes.

2.

The script in the beginning post to revert back is not 100% correct I guess -> i tried it that way.

"2.

mkdir /Volumes/efi

sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/efi

3.

hdiutil attach ~/Desktop/EFIBackup.dmg

ditto -V --norsrc /Volumes/EFIBackup /Volumes/EFI

has to be:

ditto -V --norsrc /Volumes/"Efi 1" /Volumes/EFI

Efi 1 is the volume name of the copied efi in the "EFIbackup.dmg".

sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s1

4.

Profit"

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1. The first time i installed bootcamp and tested the egpu, everything worked and seemed fine. I got 1450 points out of heaven unigine benchmark. After some restarts and the use of the optimus setup the egpu stopped booting my windows. (black win 8 spinning screen)

If everything worked well by default Boot Camp Windows, why did you use this method? Optimus should work by default Boot Camp drivers, at least with a 2015 15" rMBP (Iris Pro).

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@zackbummente: It's normal that internal screen Optimus won't give the same performance as the external monitor. You said that with the default Windows install in the beginning, you got 1450 points. Was that a result from the external or internal screen, or when both in use? The program settings have an effect as well. The performance drop was after using this hack, right? And you cannot anymore get the same result?

I cannot test the 2015 15" model right now, but I have seen earlier that there is some significant change by Apple, since the 2015 15" model shows the eGPU under display adapters in device manager if you just plug in the TB cable after logged into Windows, when Nvidia drivers aren't yet installed. You can detach the cable and repeat this without system crash. After Nvidia drivers installed, internal screen was activated after each reboot with default Boot Camp drivers, and no need to detach/attach the TB cable. It might matter what display configuration you are using (only internal, external, or both). At the moment, I cannot confirm more than I just said.

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@zackbummente: It's normal that internal screen Optimus won't give the same performance as the external monitor. You said that with the default Windows install in the beginning, you got 1450 points. Was that a result from the external or internal screen, or when both in use? The program settings have an effect as well. The performance drop was after using this hack, right? And you cannot anymore get the same result?

I cannot test the 2015 15" model right now, but I have seen earlier that there is some significant change by Apple, since the 2015 15" model shows the eGPU under display adapters in device manager if you just plug in the TB cable after logged into Windows, when Nvidia drivers aren't yet installed. You can detach the cable and repeat this without system crash. After Nvidia drivers installed, internal screen was activated after each reboot with default Boot Camp drivers, and no need to detach/attach the TB cable. It might matter what display configuration you are using (only internal, external, or both). At the moment, I cannot confirm more than I just said.

I used an external screen (without mod). I cannot understand why my benchmark scores are now so much lower. *

With the mod i cannot even boot at the moment.

If I can follow you i see that the Optimus EFI installation is not clever to install with the newer 2015 models :livid:

*I'm a bit confused about the booting behaviour...in the beginning my macbook showed only the spinning ball and booted straight to windows (this configuration just stopped working after a few reboots).

With my newer way to power the setting up, it shows the Windows logo, but I got the lower benchmark scores.

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I used an external screen (without mod). I cannot understand why my benchmark scores are now so much lower. *

With the mod i cannot even boot at the moment.

If I can follow you i see that the Optimus EFI installation is not clever to install with the newer 2015 models :livid:

*I'm a bit confused about the booting behaviour...in the beginning my macbook showed only the spinning ball and booted straight to windows (this configuration just stopped working after a few reboots).

With my newer way to power the setting up, it shows the Windows logo, but I got the lower benchmark scores.

I recommend formatting and reinstalling from the internet recovery to get the factory settings back. If that doesn't help, you can try resetting NVRAM, PRAM and SMC (look for the right key combination from Apple).

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I recommend formatting and reinstalling from the internet recovery to get the factory settings back. If that doesn't help, you can try resetting NVRAM, PRAM and SMC (look for the right key combination from Apple).

Thanks in advance :). I will give it a try as soon as I'm home (i'm from germany).

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Hi, I have been able to install everything as described and it worked just fine until today. Now I am getting the GRUB command line. Tried over and over again but nothing... Any Idea?

Thx!

Did you change anything? New disk? Filevault?

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Hi, I have been able to install everything as described and it worked just fine until today. Now I am getting the GRUB command line. Tried over and over again but nothing... Any Idea?

Thx!

I've found that if you have a USB external flash drive or hard drive attached at boot up the gpt partition table gets rearranged, so the default settings that come in this guide need to be modified.

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Hi, I have been able to install everything as described and it worked just fine until today. Now I am getting the GRUB command line. Tried over and over again but nothing... Any Idea?

Thx!

Unplugging all USB devices on boot bacame the solution for me. Otherwise I get the Grub Prompt.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

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@Dschijn

Hi, I really need some help here. I did everything says on the guide, but I still encountered some problems.

1. I only have two choices: EFI Boot, Macintosh HD when I hold Option Key.

2. When I use EFI Boot to start the system, it will take forever to load when the Windows Icon shows up.

My setup:

MBPr 13'' 2015 Iris Pro 6100 only

Gigabyte Gtx 980Ti

Akitio Thunderbolt2

Sorry for my poor English!

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@dark330: Are you William Xie? I can't answer you on Youtube, don't know where you entered the question? Seems that you posted the Youtube question somewhere else?!

Anyway... Did you install Windows 8.1? With Bootcamp? All driver installed? After that you did the Optimus installation?

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@Dschijn Yes, that was me. Here's what I did:

1. install win8.1 with bootcamp

2.install bootcamp in win8.1 and restart

3. install all the updates for win8.1 and restart

4. boot into system with eGPU connected, and install the Newest driver and restart

5. Fail to start win8.1 with eGPU

6. Enter into OS X 10.10.3 and install Optimus

7. Still fail to start win8.1 with eGPU

Oh...and BTW I succeed once, when I turned on the PSU and chose the EFI boot at the same time, but ever since that it takes me forever to load when the windows icon shows up.

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can you try to switch on the eGPU after you reached the boot selection? And unplug every USB device!

After installing Windows with Bootcamp you had a Windows option in the boot selection and that is now gone?

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I tried to do so, but after that neither my keyboard nor my touch pad works. I plugged in my USB mouse after that and found out that I could move my mouse but I can't click. And yes, I used to have the windows option but it's gone after I did the Optimus installation.

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@dark330: If you look in page 8 of this thread, someone has reported issues with installing Optimus on the 2015 13" MBP. I wrote an implementation guide for this model at http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides-apple/10614-2015-13-macbook-pro-gtx970%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-osx10-10-%5Btranj10%5D.html. I do not use the Optimus boot file modifications at all. Take a look at my power up process in the guide. It gives me a very good success rate (~90% from my experience).

To get rid of Optimus boot modifications on your MacBook you can try to restore your EFI backup or reset your MacBook to factory settings after disabling FileVault from OS X.

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Following the guid i installed the image on EFI partition, and while booting from it i got a grub message Error: unknown filesystem. and 'rescuing mode'.

Windows 8.1 is installed on external USB HDD.

EDIT: Followed the guide under section 6.x and this did not helped me at all.

I've edited the grub.cfg, but still when i check the environment variables list i see root=hd0,gpt1 meanwhile it should be hd0,gpt2

The content of grub.cfg:


apple_set_os
insmod part_gpt
insmod chain
set root=‘(hd0,gpt2)’
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
boot

I was able to boot to windows using these commands in rescue prompt:

set prefix=(hd0,gpt2)/EFI/Grub

set prefix=hd0,gpt2

insmod normal

normal

Modifying grub.cfg won't help because it cant even find it

PS I have to type all these command everytime i wanted to boot in Windows.

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