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2012 15" MBPr GT650M + GTX970@10Gbps-TB1 (AKiTiO Thunder2) + Win10 [LukeHero]


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I appreciate it, looking forward to doing this. Since you got it working with the internal display, how much of a performance hit is there? It'd be cool if there was a way to get the discrete Nvidia 650m to do solely the internal display while the eGPU did the heavy lifting, but I know thats not possible.

From what I can tell, that's how I've got it running right now. No noticeable performance hit. My 650M is just displaying the game that's being powered by the eGPU.

Thanks, but the bottomline is: No games in fullscreen on the internal monitor, right?

Right now I haven't got a game in full screen. I've only had time to play around with it once for an hour to see if my dummy even worked and what software I needed. I'll have another poke around with it tomorrow and see if I can get anything in full screen. Will report back on any progress.

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Right now I haven't got a game in full screen. I've only had time to play around with it once for an hour to see if my dummy even worked and what software I needed. I'll have another poke around with it tomorrow and see if I can get anything in full screen. Will report back on any progress.

So you can play the game on the internal monitor windowed is what you mean? I didn't realize the 650M could be used to display and then the eGPU power the game, didn't know that was possible. Even if you can play it windowed thats good.

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So you can play the game on the internal monitor windowed is what you mean? I didn't realize the 650M could be used to display and then the eGPU power the game, didn't know that was possible. Even if you can play it windowed thats good.

Yep that's right. Also today I managed to run the Dolphin emulator in full-screen on my internal display while the eGPU was powering it. Worked flawlessly.

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Yep that's right. Also today I managed to run the Dolphin emulator in full-screen on my internal display while the eGPU was powering it. Worked flawlessly.

Wow thats awesome, I actually have a Gamecube controller and adaptor I use to play on Dolphin, thats good to hear. I bet they look great on dolphin with some real graphics behind it.

What do you think the future use of the eGPU, i.e. how future proof is the setup? Can you still get OS updates without worry, at least on the windows side?

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  • 3 weeks later...

I understand you said you got it to work with EFI installed Windows? I recently have reinstalled to Windows 10 Pro. Do you know anything about getting this to work on Windows 10? If you don't do a EFI Install what problems does that create, I know you said it makes it plug and play, but can it be done without reinstalling windows?

I literally just upgraded my hard drive and spent 2 days configuring my new Windows partition... sounds like I'd have to do it all over again. I have read on a couple of forum posts that it is easier on Windows 10 to get it to work with Bootcamp partition than it was with Windows 8.1? Have you upgraded to Windows 10 at this point yet?

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  • 2 weeks later...
I understand you said you got it to work with EFI installed Windows? I recently have reinstalled to Windows 10 Pro. Do you know anything about getting this to work on Windows 10? If you don't do a EFI Install what problems does that create, I know you said it makes it plug and play, but can it be done without reinstalling windows?

I literally just upgraded my hard drive and spent 2 days configuring my new Windows partition... sounds like I'd have to do it all over again. I have read on a couple of forum posts that it is easier on Windows 10 to get it to work with Bootcamp partition than it was with Windows 8.1? Have you upgraded to Windows 10 at this point yet?

I haven't upgraded to Windows 10. I'm gonna stick with 8.1 for now, it does the job just fine. I have EFI Windows and I am able to wipe and reinstall that Windows without issues each time. Never tried to use Bootcamp Windows with my eGPU so no experience on that.

Also in terms of future proof, this setup totally is. I could go and upgrade my graphics card, install the drivers for it and that's it. I've upgraded my OSX and it still works, as soon as I upgraded the OSX the Nvidia web driver thing that you need to make your eGPU work just gives you the update for that and it continues to work.

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  • 5 months later...

Hi,

 

I've (somewhat) successfully re-built this setup on my non-retina mid-2012 MBPr using a Zotac GTX970. The whole setup works brilliantly under El Capitan, that actually was incredibly easy thanks to goalque's script!

 

There's "only" 2 problems I still have right now:

1) I can't get this setup to work in Windows 10...I tried Win8.1 (via an EFI install) but for some reason it gave me massive problems with any bootcamp drivers I tried. I got repeated blue screens because of the display adapters, all of that while installing the bootcamp drivers. Tried disabling the adapter, didn't work either (it also seems to be a somewhat widespread problem, anyone else had that experience?). In the end I settled for Win10, bootcamp drivers installed just fine and the eGPU gets recognized in Device Manager (3 adapters). BUT when I try to install the NVIDIA web drivers the whole setup crashes – I disabled the dedicated GT650M as in the instructions, but then while starting up with the eGPU attached, the whole thing freezes at the Win boot screen. My external display gets a signal at some point I think and "recognizes" the card, but nothing happens apart from every fan spinning up (eGPU and Mac) because it's stuck at the boot screen.

Any idea how to proceed from here and try next? I'm kind of stuck. Haven't reinstalled Windows yet, but I might try that soon. Otherwise I wiped the NVIDIA drivers several times with DDU and reinstalled, all with the same result...

 

2) I noticed the hairpin 8-pin to 6-pin connection from the Dell PSU to the GPU is a bit wobbly in my setup, so sometimes the whole thing shuts down because it doesn't get enough power I assume. Is something like that cosher to use, instead of the 6-pin female to 2x 6-pin male Y-splitter: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/8pin-To-2-port-Dual-6Pin-6p-PCI-Express-pci-e-graphics-Video-Card-Power-Cable-/381552596151?hash=item58d64e94b7:g:fDEAAOxyeR9TIeUw I just have a feeling that would fit better on the Dell 8-pin. But...seeing no one else has used this, there's a reason for that? :X Sorry for being stupid about this...

I also thought about buying a different PSU (like an EVGA 500W), that should work as well, right? That way I can have a 6-pin output cable without the fuzziness.

 

Anyway, any help is greatly appreciated – and thanks to @LukeHero for this brilliant guide and @goalque for his awesome script! This community is quite amazing.

 

Cheers,

chana

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  • 1 month later...

Hey sorry for such a late reply. Did you get everything working in Windows okay?

 

When the Windows boot screen freezes, this is good, this means that the eGPU has loaded in to Windows. You should see Windows appear on the monitor connected to your eGPU after about 10 seconds. If you don't have an external monitor connected then you need to use a dummy like me and figure out the keyboard strokes required to deactivate your 650M like I have to.

 

In regards to your hairpin, just find something that fits well, I got a hairpin jammed right inside and it's pretty stable. Just find something that fits well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just playing "rise of the tomb raider" on my new akitio thunder 2 with dell da2 and gtx1060 mini. I'm blown away by how good games look these days. Bootcamp with win10 and egpu setup 1.2 was quite easy to get up and running. One tiny correction in your description under update 3: the file that i copied to c:\config was in v:\config instead of v:

anyways, thanks for laying the groundwork for fellow macbook owners with the 650m!!

Also many thanks to @Dschijn and @Tech Inferno Fan for the help and the great software!

Edited by mrchrister
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On ‎2016‎年‎10‎月‎16‎日 at 0:33 PM, mrchrister said:

Just playing "rise of the tomb raider" on my new akitio thunder 2 with dell da2 and gtx1060 mini. I'm blown away by how good games look these days. Bootcamp with win10 and egpu setup 1.2 was quite easy to get up and running. One tiny correction in your description under update 3: the file that i copied to c:\config was in v:\config instead of v:

anyways, thanks for laying the groundwork for fellow macbook owners with the 650m!!

Also many thanks to @Dschijn and @Tech Inferno Fan for the help and the great software!

Did you just create c:\config by yourself? Because I couldn't find the folder. And by skipping that process, I'm not sure if it's because of that, I've been encounter system crashes such as "nvlddmkm.sys" BSOD when gaming in Windows 10 many times, Thanks in advance if you have any idea about how to fix it.

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55 minutes ago, simon753 said:

Did you just create c:\config by yourself? Because I couldn't find the folder. And by skipping that process, I'm not sure if it's because of that, I've been encounter system crashes such as "nvlddmkm.sys" BSOD when gaming in Windows 10 many times, Thanks in advance if you have any idea about how to fix it.

 

Once you've followed the Setup 1.20 instructions, it overcomes error 12 against the eGPU. It then becomes configured and can be used.

 

Power starvation from an insufficient PSU, a video card clocked beyond it's ASIC's capabilities or use of a PCIe riser rather than directly in the enclosure are more likely the cause of your BSOD. Try using another PSU and/or downclocking the video card using MSI Afterburner.

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12 hours ago, simon753 said:

Did you just create c:\config by yourself? Because I couldn't find the folder. And by skipping that process, I'm not sure if it's because of that, I've been encounter system crashes such as "nvlddmkm.sys" BSOD when gaming in Windows 10 many times, Thanks in advance if you have any idea about how to fix it.

Yeah, I created c:\config myself and then copied the defcon file in there. Just to make sure I also left a copy in the c:\egpu folder. Not sure if that's being read at all...

I've only had my egpu setup for 2 days with a total gaming time of maybe 6 hours (tested gta5, rise of the tomb raider and overwatch) and didnt have a single crash or BSOD. The Dell DA2 for powering the GTX1060 mini works really well so far!

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On 2016年10月17日 at 3:04 PM, Tech Inferno Fan said:

 

Once you've followed the Setup 1.20 instructions, it overcomes error 12 against the eGPU. It then becomes configured and can be used.

 

Power starvation from an insufficient PSU, a video card clocked beyond it's ASIC's capabilities or use of a PCIe riser rather than directly in the enclosure are more likely the cause of your BSOD. Try using another PSU and/or downclocking the video card using MSI Afterburner.

Thanks for replying quickly, I've been trying so many ways to get it work, changing PSU doesn't help, my original PSU is Cougar 850W which I think would be powerful enough for my setup, and I changed it to Corsair RM650W which is less powerful but reliable, and the problem persist, I tried it without the riser, the problem persist, I downclock with -105, the problem persist, so I doubted the card itself can be blamed, but I tested it on a normal desktop it works like a charm without any problem. Now I'm trying to reinstall my win10 and change another bootcamp driver to see if it would be any different. Btw usually I gaming with two gpu actively, GTX TITAN and GT 650M, I've been thinking about if I should disable my dGPU(GT 650M) when gaming? Since my laptop is Mbpr 2012 mid with dGPU build-in, but it crash in both situation(single gpu and double gpu).

Edited by simon753
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2 hours ago, NeNo said:

@LukeHero I have similar MBP as you have, only mine is non-retina. When you updated to Win 10 did you use latest NVIDIA drivers or some other? What about bootcamp drivers did you use 5.1.5621 or older ones?

 

Thanks

 

NeNo,  as you are using Setup 1.20, it's important that you create a MBR partitioning scheme on your HDD and boot MBR Windows installation media. AFAIK, the trick can be accomplished by specifying in Bootcamp that you wish to install Win7. Alternatively, Bootcamp 4.0 would do MBR installations.

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6 hours ago, Tech Inferno Fan said:

 

NeNo,  as you are using Setup 1.20, it's important that you create a MBR partitioning scheme on your HDD and boot MBR Windows installation media. AFAIK, the trick can be accomplished by specifying in Bootcamp that you wish to install Win7. Alternatively, Bootcamp 4.0 would do MBR installations.

 

Yes, I know, all ready using Windows 10 on MBR partition. I have Winclone software which has ability to change partition style of bootcamp installation (UEFI or Legacy aka MBR).

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey guys, quick question:

 

Does anyone of you experience the problem that from time to time when you start Windows on your Macbook the selection menu for "egpu setup 1.20" of windows's boot manager comes up on the external screen connected to the egpu?

whenever this happens, I have to restart until the boot manager appears on the internal screen, quite annoying... @Tech Inferno Fan do you know why this might be happening?

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4 minutes ago, mrchrister said:

Hey guys, quick question:

 

Does anyone of you experience the problem that from time to time when you start Windows on your Macbook the selection menu for "egpu setup 1.20" of windows's boot manager comes up on the external screen connected to the egpu?

whenever this happens, I have to restart until the boot manager appears on the internal screen, quite annoying... @Tech Inferno Fan do you know why this might be happening?

 

Windows is mucking with the BCD entries. To restore back to the text mode bootmenu, run the following at an admin command prompt:

 

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 27/09/2016 at 4:45 PM, CodeSix said:

I don't quite understand how can you install osx and windows in mbr mode, is it wiping the whole hdd, reformat the hdd as mbr (no gpt) then restore everything from backup? does it affect osx when running without gpt?

The reason I had to wipe my whole drive first is because I had an EFI installation of Windows on my system and you cannot install bootcamp unless OSX is the only partition on the drive. If you only have OSX on your drive you don't need to wipe anything.

 

On 21/10/2016 at 5:46 AM, NeNo said:

@LukeHero I have similar MBP as you have, only mine is non-retina. When you updated to Win 10 did you use latest NVIDIA drivers or some other? What about bootcamp drivers did you use 5.1.5621 or older ones?

 

Thanks

 

When I installed Windows 10 via bootcamp I just went with the latest bootcamp drivers this time.

 

On 18/11/2016 at 5:35 AM, mrchrister said:

Hey guys, quick question:

 

Does anyone of you experience the problem that from time to time when you start Windows on your Macbook the selection menu for "egpu setup 1.20" of windows's boot manager comes up on the external screen connected to the egpu?

whenever this happens, I have to restart until the boot manager appears on the internal screen, quite annoying... @Tech Inferno Fan do you know why this might be happening?

 

I get this sometimes also, performing a reset also fixes it for me, no big deal really.

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