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Please help, abrupt Power shut downs during Starcraft 2


mjurge

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My system;
Computer-
Samsung RV 711 Notebook, i7-640M Motherboard Chipset QM55 A01 (BIOS:Phoenix Technologies---)
8GB RAM

Crucial BX200 480 GB SSD

Intel HD Graphics

 

eGPU components
GTX 580
Superflower SF-650P14P
Sawake EXP GDC Beast (mPCIe)
Samsung Syncmaster T260

I finally got around to setting everything up for my eGPU.  prepared for the worst of software problems with all the reading I could do.  Found no one with a remotely parallel system, so I'm on my own here.  Any help is welcome! I powered on my eGPU with the 6 and 6+2 pins PCI cables from the ATX PSU, and powered the board with the 8pin to 20pin and 4 pin connector that came with the EXP GDC.  The 20 pin as most of you know is there to short the power connection so that the GPU can draw from the PSU by activating it. (I admit I'm a little unclear about how exactly that works, but it does.)  The 4 pin I've been directed to plug into one of the 4+4 CPU power connectors from the PSU.  Only one of them seems to fit properly, and my set up now looks like every other set up I've seen (Cable connector wise. . .) 
I power everything on, and its easy, peasy, beautiful breezy.  Boot up normal, no hangs, drivers all downloaded.  Had to restart, but as soon as I did, it was all reconfigured no errors, no problems.  Everything recognized it.  In short, stupidly easy. . .  Too easy you might say. . .


So thinking everything jolly and ready for a test.  I started Starcraft 2 up.  Low and behold, the card is detected!:D  Even ran everything from the built in display, automatically. . . Everything set to Ultra that isn't governed by my crappy processor core. . .  So away we go, right?  WRONG.

I get to the game screen, and the GPU and Adapter board lose all power.  The PSU stops drawing, and my computer loses all data from the driver.  No error aside from the obvious "Your driver has stopped responding"  I can run other games that are way less intensive, doesn't seem to be problematic.  But SC2, the whole purpose of my project, doesn't seem to be able to launch, without the GPU going lights out.

TDP for the GTX580 is 244 watts.  Everything I read about every benchmark I can find says that even under load, the 580 doesnt draw more than 17 amps of power at any time.  My PSU puts out a minimum of 21 Amps on either of the 2 12V rails.  I know next to nothing about the Beast's power requirements or what those connectors plug into.  Some clarity there might be helpful.
I didnt try a benchmark, and I'm worried if I do this too many times, Ill burn something up. 

So my questions are:

1.  Do I have my connectors right?  How much power is required for the x16 slot on the adapter?  Is my adapter underpowered?

2.  Could my problem have something to do with confusion over which display to use?  Is there a conflict between trying to run through the iGPU versus straight to the external display?  How do I get the card and driver to feed data to the display and usurp the iGPU?

3. How can I find out if this really is a hardware problem definitively?

4.  I know some people need to bypass a circuit breaker on Bplus adapters.  Could I have a similar problem?  If so, is there any way to fix it with the EXP GDC?

Please help, my girlfriend is pissed because I am keeping her up at night trying to figure this out. . .

Edited by mjurge
Found further information through experimentation
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So, on further fiddling and reading, I have discovered that the original problem was in fact a registry problem limiting the voltage paramaters allowed to the GPU.  Ran Nvidia Powermizer, in lieu of going into the registry myself.  Now it works perfectly! Problem Solved!

I still cannot get the eGPU to run through my external monitor.  When I run GPU-Z  I get an "OpenCL bug detected, bypassing OpenCL detection."  I have the updated driver. Anyone have any idea what the deal with that is?

Also, can anyone recommend a good benchmarking program.  I want to illustrate for myself the difference in performance.  I already know its night and day, I just want to be able to assign a value to it. . .

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