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Macbook Pro Crashes When Plugging In eGPU

gigatiggatwitter

gigatiggatwitter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 22, 2019
5
0
Hi, i have a 2019 MacBook Pro, with the i9 9980h and the Radeon 560x internal GPU. In an attempt to have a "one connection" desk dock, i bought a visiontek eGPU enclosure and an xfx rx 560. I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Beta 18G48f (but i have also tried in the catalina beta 2 as well).


I am new to mac eGPU, but i have tested this configuration with a windows laptop and the GPU and enclosure function perfectly. When i plug the eGPU into my macbook pro, the system freezes up, then reboots. It will boot loop until i unplug the eGPU.


I do see for a moment the GPU title bar icon appear, before the machine blacks out and reboots. I have tried making sure that my system start up security is set to the least secure options, to avoid any conflicts, and i have also tried disabling system integrity protection and the problem stays the same.


According to visiontek this egpu enclosure is supported by macOS. I am seeing after some googling that apple removed the RX 560 from their support, but then added it back. I'm not sure if i'm running into a naming issue since the macbook pro has a built in rx 560, but i can't imagine thats the issue.


The fans momentarily spin up (half a second or so) before the system reboots. The machine does report it was rebooted due to an error, but the contents of the error are illegible. It seems like the text is encrypted, that kind of illegible.


Does anyone have any ideas of things i can try?


Thank you
 
You should expect some instability on Beta versions. Have you tried using a standard release?
 
Yeah, i wouldn't call this instability though, it just straight up doesn't work at all. 100% of the time, plug in the eGPU, boom. Machine reboots.
 
Yeah even with the normal mojave version (which i have installed on a samsung t5) the same thing happens :(
 
No expert on eGPU, but it sounds like a driver issue. Have you checked the oem website for updates?
 
I agree that it seems like a driver issue, but as far as i understand, with AMD gpu's there are no drivers to install, theyre included along with the OS. I know that the GPU/eGPU are functioning perfectly as when attached to a windows machine, the combo works great. So i'm not sure where to go. It seems like from my fairly extensive googling, this issue isn't super common (although eGPU issues look like they are)
 
Know anyone with an alternate card you could test to narrow down the issue? I’m betting the 580 and Vega 64 are the common choices for Mac egpu setups.

My setup is 2018 MacBook Pro, Razer core x and sapphire Vega 64 on Mojave, which for the most part works.

Main issue I find is when “ejecting” the egpu to unplug. It used to just restart any running apps using the egpu, but lately it hangs and demands I force quit them. And perhaps worse if I quit all apps before ejecting, the eject process totally hangs until I log out.

Hope you get your situation resolved!
 
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gigatiggatwitter said:
Yeah even with the normal mojave version (which i have installed on a samsung t5) the same thing happens :(
Click to expand...

As another poster mentioned, do you have a friend or someone who can loan you an RX 570 or RX580, preferably NOT an XFX branded card? If so, borrow it and try it out on 1.14.5 and/or 10.14.6, if that is what you have installed.

I could have sworn that back when High Sierra implemented this feature, I read an article written by an early eGPU adopter (TB1/2 and earlier than HS) that the only trouble he ever had was with XFX brand graphics cards. I wish I could put my hands on that article and I do not know if it still runs true or not, which is why it would be good if you can get your hand on a non-XFX GPU.

You can always look at http://egpu.io or on reddit.com/r/egpu/ for additional answers.
 
Did this ever get resolved? I'm having the same issue with an egpu and an XFX RX 5700Xt card.

Can't find anything this exact problem.
 
gigatiggatwitter said:
Hi, i have a 2019 MacBook Pro, with the i9 9980h and the Radeon 560x internal GPU. In an attempt to have a "one connection" desk dock, i bought a visiontek eGPU enclosure and an xfx rx 560. I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Beta 18G48f (but i have also tried in the catalina beta 2 as well).


I am new to mac eGPU, but i have tested this configuration with a windows laptop and the GPU and enclosure function perfectly. When i plug the eGPU into my macbook pro, the system freezes up, then reboots. It will boot loop until i unplug the eGPU.


I do see for a moment the GPU title bar icon appear, before the machine blacks out and reboots. I have tried making sure that my system start up security is set to the least secure options, to avoid any conflicts, and i have also tried disabling system integrity protection and the problem stays the same.


According to visiontek this egpu enclosure is supported by macOS. I am seeing after some googling that apple removed the RX 560 from their support, but then added it back. I'm not sure if i'm running into a naming issue since the macbook pro has a built in rx 560, but i can't imagine thats the issue.


The fans momentarily spin up (half a second or so) before the system reboots. The machine does report it was rebooted due to an error, but the contents of the error are illegible. It seems like the text is encrypted, that kind of illegible.


Does anyone have any ideas of things i can try?


Thank you
Click to expand...

Yes, sell it, and get a proper laptop.
 
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