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2013 11" MBA + TITAN@10Gbps-TB1 (Sonnet EE III-D) + OSX10.9.4 [ kryzaach]


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Nando4>> Exclusive!! T|I user kryzaach modified a Sonnet III-D's internal PSU to supply up to 300W for eGPU use. The mod simply crimped and attached a dual 8 pin PCIe power lead to the ring terminals . A NVidia TITAN then being fully enclosed and powered in a plug'n'play eGPU implementation. 

This being a first since previously squink's Sonnet III-D eGPU implementation used supplementary external ATX PSU power to drive a GTX780Ti. 

While done simply and easily, the Sonnet III-D enclosure retails for a whopping US$979!! It would have been far more cost effective to modify a Thunderbolt2 capable US$200 AKiTiO Thunder2 enclosure instead.

Note too the Sonnet III-D is 16Gbps Thunderbolt2 compatible. This solution ends up being 10Gbps Thunderbolt1 due to the attached Macbook Air (MBA) being only Thunderbolt1 capable. As as all MBAs to date. If kryzaach upgraded to a 2013 Macbook Pro with a Thunderbolt2 chip then he'd see a 60% PCIe bandwidth improvement (10Gbps->16Gbps) using the same Sonnet III-D Thunderbolt2 eGPU hardware.


 

 
Desktop Replacement Ultrabook - Thunderbolt GPU Expansion posted by kryzaach at OCAU

 
OK that's a pretty weird title, but bear with me.

Ages ago, when eGPUs were brand new, I decided to try building an eGPU rig with my macbook air. This was just to see if it could work, more than anything, as no-one else was doing it with pure thunderbolt at the time.

So, I ordered a Sonnet Echo Express SE enclosure and got chopping.

Spoiler

12090012.jpg

These things don't support Video Cards and definitely aren't designed for them.

With that in mind, I ordered a very specific card, knowing I could cram it in to the limited space. This was a Palit Geforce 650GTX half length card, that for some reason came with a double slot cooler, but only a single slot bezel.

12090013.jpg

As it only came with an 8x mechanical slot, I had to convince it to take a 16 lane card.
It's still only electrically 2x, but that's not really a concern in the broad scheme of things. There are guys out there with 1x eGPU builds who are also running optimus, so they are effectively a fraction of that even..

12090022.jpg

No pins were harmed in the modding of this hardware(ok, so i bent a pin.. I did bend it back again though).

The card fit the chassis perfectly

12090026.jpg

...sort of

12090027.jpg

Then, as the SE version of Sonnet's boxes only pump out 60W, and only through the PCIE interface, I had to get some power to the card.

12090031.jpg

I decided to use an external HDD power pack with a molex plug for this as the power requirements for the card aren't too high.

12090032.jpg

Then, to keep things neat, I built a molex to molex cable that ran through the rear mesh of the unit.

12090042.jpg

P1010036.JPG
The end result, surprisingly, worked



Anyway, fast forward 2 years and I'm getting sick of running multiple machines again. For study and work, the laptop is always used, but for gaming, I have to use the desktop rig.

This means that I get no study or work done at all, as I'm always sitting in front of my gaming machine and I traditionally tried to keep it restricted to games and supporting software only.

I start thinking about using the eGPU fulltime, so I resurrect it to try it out again, but I keep hitting issues with the grunt of the macbook air.

CPU wise, it seems to keep up fine, but my VM workload has increased to the point that 4GB of ram just doesn't cut the mustard anymore.

As it is baked into these things, I shelved the idea for a few months, but it started getting to me again and I decided, screw it.

I bought a new 11" macbook air and took a pair of metal snips to the Sonnet enclosure.

Oh, for those wondering why I keep buying chintzy little machines, it's because I walk to work and, without having to lug a backpack about, the macbook air is about as big as I'm happy to carry with me.

Anyway.

I stuck an old 680 GTX in my newly butchered thunderbolt box and gave it a test. It worked brilliantly, so I thought, why not try the Titan.

It spun up without a hitch.

20140609_204731.jpg

Only, now I had a problem, and that was I'd tasted an ultrabook with a Titan strapped to it.
The issue here was that the enclosure really couldn't keep up with the card, it wasn't delivering enough power through the lanes, and it was prone to overheating, so I went back to the 650 GTX.

Up until now, GPUs aside(and I had those anyway, from various gaming rigs), I hadn't wasted too much money on this stupidity, as the enclosure was only a couple of hundred bucks and gave me something to do for a while.

I started counting my pennies and began wondering if I should pull the pin on the big daddy Sonnet enclosure.

Meanwhile I put up with the anaemic performance of the 650GTX. Not to say it was terrible, but it wasn't anything special.

My mates and I started lanning again recently and I realised that lugging the desktop around was a major pain in the ring, however I no longer had a gaming laptop, so I was kind of locked in.

That was the deal breaker though. I got back from a lan recently and ordered the Sonnet Echo Express III D.

It arrived today, so here is the latest build of the retarded desktop replacement ultrabook.

One last look at my old faithful SE sytem, goodnight, old girl.

Spoiler


20140910_175028.jpg

The new enclosure has a lot more space, and a 300W power supply, although I'm not sure if that will be up to the Titan because I have not idea how the power is split
between rails.

20140910_175035.jpg

The more I chop this open, the more I realise it is a modders dream. It is, after all, pretty simple.
Also, Jackpot! 300W and only one power rail! Also, it's just crimped ring terminals held in place with screws, so adding additional feeds will be a piece of piss.

20140910_175651.jpg

Already comes with a 6 pin AUX, but that gets its feed from the top board and is only rated up to 75W, so I'm removing it.

20140910_180013.jpg

Here's my candidate, a spare modular dual 8 pin PCIE power feed for my corsair AX860i

20140910_181232.jpg

Better get the trusty workhorse out to make sure there's nothing funky going on with that Corsair cable..

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Added the feed in! Looks like a bought one!

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Make sure that everything is secured and wasn't jostled when I replaced the shielding

20140910_185728-MOTION.gif

Slots in pretty cleanly!!

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Sitting on the old ones head!

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Purdy

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And finally, after all that, it booted with no magic smoke escaping...

Screen%2BShot%2B2014-09-10%2Bat%2B7.12.0


Just a quick test of Heaven 4.0 with extreme tessellation and everything else maxed under OS X.



Pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I'll test it out for windows, lanning, etc etc etc and report back.
ack.
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Such an innovation! bravo!

..

As for me, I am waiting for like half a month now for my lappy under warranty service!

I agree, and have thanked kryzaach on his

for his innovation.

Still, a US$810 Sonnet III-D or US$979 (retail) is quite pricey. I couldn't justify that sort of cost when it still needs to be modded.

A US$225 AKiTio Thunder2 is affordable and can justify modding to circumvent it's 25W PCIe slot limitation.

Rhetorical question: how long before Thunderbolt vendors give us an out-of-box affordable native Thunderbolt eGPU adapter/enclosure that requires no power supply modding (powered risers, soldering)?

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I agree, it looks neat, but way overpriced against AKiTio. The size of the chassis could also be smaller as it has quite an unused space.

Wonder if kryzaach purchased his Sonnet III-D before the AKiTiO Thunder2 was identified/hacked for powerful eGPU use? Or whether he just wanted a fully enclosed solution with PSU included that could be easily modded to host his TITAN?

If yes to either then that might explain why the Sonnet III-D was chosen over the much more affordable AKiTiO Thunder2.

kryzaach has electronics skills galore. Would have been easy for him to hack a AKiTiO Thunder2 too host his TITAN if he'd gone that way instead.

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Hi Guys,

Thanks for the kind words! Yes, the enclosure is expensive.

I actually considered taking the internals from the Echo Express SE and making my own case for it, but it really does struggle to push power through the PCIE slot.

I suspect that was leading to the instability I was seeing on Titan initially.

It would have been a way cheaper option!!!

Oh well.

Righto, time for first impressions.

It's stable!

I haven't had any issues whatsoever in terms of performance or stability, unlike what I was seeing with the SE version.

So far I am very impressed, but there is one big con.

The fans are bloody noisy!

I only have shitty mics, so I can't really demonstrate on video. They're not as bad as the banshee that lived in the SE before I chopped it out, but they are loud enough to be annoying.

As this is meant to be the final enclosure i settle on, it's up to me to fix it. I don't want to completely remove cooling from this enclosure, because I'm also going to be sticking an SSD in it soon and the Titan can really heat up small spaces.

Ultimately, I'd like to replace them, but they seem to be 76mm fans, unless I measured them wrong.

So in the meantime I'm going to quiet them up somehow

Here's a comparison with a Scythe KAMA

20140911_192621.jpg

They even look cheap!

I have some old speed reducing cables for PC fans that were kicking around in my box of parts. They should work fine for this.

20140911_193521.jpg

I'm just going to place the resistor from the cables in line with these horrible little things

20140911_193909.jpg

Then I just need to neaten things up again and make sure there is no slack to get in the way of things

20140911_200129.jpg

And the final results?

Magic, nice and quiet, still getting decent-ish air flow too.

I'd still like to replace them, but at least they're not driving me nuts for now.

I remeasured them too and they're 80mm, so I need to find some quiet and thin 80s to put in their places.

Any suggestions?

- - - Updated - - -

Wonder if kryzaach purchased his Sonnet III-D before the AKiTiO Thunder2 was identified/hacked for powerful eGPU use? Or whether he just wanted a fully enclosed solution with PSU included that could be easily modded to host his TITAN?

If yes to either then that might explain why the Sonnet III-D was chosen over the much more affordable AKiTiO Thunder2.

kryzaach has electronics skills galore. Would have been easy for him to hack a AKiTiO Thunder2 too host his TITAN if he'd gone that way instead.

To be honest, this thread was the first I'd heard of the AkiTio Thunder2. It looks awesome, I'm sure that would have been a far cheaper way to go.

I really did want an enclosure that included everything. I'm also going to fit my Windows SSD in the Sonnet, so 3 slots was essential.

I briefly looked at the Magma ExpressBox 3T, but it is very expensive and didn't look as flexible as the Sonnet.

Overall there are few options for us out there.

When will Asus get around to releasing the XG Station 2?!!

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If this are 80 x 80 x 15 fans, I would highly recommend Noiseblocker BlackSilentPRO Fan PC-P8, they still pushes decent amount of air, yet they are silent. I have used one of this to replace the loud fan in Silverstone 450W SFX PSU and I cant hear the fan spinning.

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Kryzaach you mentioned that this enclosure is stable but how extensive was your testing and gaming under OSX? You didn't encounter any freezing or kernel panics of the system? Some other folks here encountered those issues with their non III-D sonnet chassis. Can you share your experience?

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If this are 80 x 80 x 15 fans, I would highly recommend Noiseblocker BlackSilentPRO Fan PC-P8, they still pushes decent amount of air, yet they are silent. I have used one of this to replace the loud fan in Silverstone 450W SFX PSU and I cant hear the fan spinning.

Awesome, thanks for this, they are 80 x 80 x 10, but a 15 should clear the GPU fine.

- - - Updated - - -

Awesome that you are around here now! You confused me about the fans… are they 72 or 80mm? They have to be slim? 25mm thick fans will not fit?

Sorry about that, yes, they are 80mm x 80mm fans. a 25 mm thick fan would hit the GPU, as there is not a whole lot of room in there.

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Kryzaach you mentioned that this enclosure is stable but how extensive was your testing and gaming under OSX? You didn't encounter any freezing or kernel panics of the system? Some other folks here encountered those issues with their non III-D sonnet chassis. Can you share your experience?

The instability I was getting was occasional graphic glitches and wierd buzzing noises, which sounded like an out of whack rectifier.

This was only when I ran the Titan in the SE chassis. The 650GTX was fine.

I suspect this is due to the chassis not supplying enough power through the PCIE slot, but I suppose it could also be due to a potential floating ground, given that I was using 2 different power supplies.

I never measured it though, so I can't be certain.

Since moving to the III-D, none of this is occurring anymore. I'll watch it over the next few weeks closely, to be sure though.

I've done a few mammoth gaming sessions of Diablo 3 since I built it and it has been rock solid.

Granted, that's not the most demanding game, but I will stress it out over the last few weeks with a few other titles over extended periods and see how it goes!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here you can see how the cables of the III-D are connected. The upper cables ending is with round "eyelets" separated into yellow (should be 12V) and black (should be ground):

post-26280-14494998409007_thumb.jpg

He than modified a old PC PSU cable which has 2x8pin connectors:

post-26280-14494998409467_thumb.jpg

removed the "normal" end and modified it to round "eyelets". These ends could than be connected to the III-D PSU.

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Oops sorry, I think I had a brain fart when I wrote that question...

What I meant is that how did he modify the AX860 cable into the ones with eyelets? Which of the eight pins are the 12V supply and which ones are for the ground? (They are all black so there's no easy way of telling haha)

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Here's an update: I have indeed done something similar to kryzaach. However, I have modified a more commonly found 6 pin to 2x 6+2 pin splitter instead. I tried it on a 780 Ti, and it worked... until it crashed when running Unigine Valley on OS X for around 2 minutes.

I guess my 780 Ti just draws too much power, being a factory overclocked card to start with. Can't wait to swap it for a 980!

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

A lot has changed in this build since I last updated this thread, so here goes:

The fans were still annoying me, so I rechecked everything and ordered some Noctua Redux 80 fans, 1200rpm versions.

20140916_165146.jpg

These are dead silent, however, the chassis was getting noticeably warmer so I upgraded them the the 1600rpm versions.

I also added some gaming storage to the chassis using sonnet's PCIE -> SATA adapter

_8RVpMcZig-nqTgUCrHSfkq2Ks169bNnnQJ38M99mkw=w1522-h856-no

It's a pretty tight fit, but it all works well

iFCERv34pX-_oykz2IzmugMLFhXMkSJj0m_7spiaiPo=w1522-h856-no

Putting it all back together gives almost no clearance, but 0.2mm free is 0.2mm free!!!

20140916_171940-MOTION.gif

The system has been running like that with no glitches for pretty much the entire time since my last post.

Recently I decided to try and get past the annoying missing hardware "feature" that occurs when you UEFI boot Windows on a modern Apple machine.

It's still early days and I have yoinked a lot of the hard work ah- over on the macrumours forum.

The binary is still not perfect as I'm missing the built in keyboard and trackpad, but as you can see from the following video, I've finally got Optimus working with the standard boot process.

So, still plenty of work to go, but at least this machine is now usable as a lanning rig with no external monitor!!!!

- - - Updated - - -

Haha, oh wow.

Just checked the stickies and realised that this has already been done!

Ah well, was a good learning experience.

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  • 4 weeks later...

this is EXACTLY what i want to do for my MacBook Pro (2013). I have a cMP 5.1 with a GTX Titan (additional int PSU) and it only gets used for video editing on daVinci Resolve and GoPro video editing. If i could have a eGPU running the Titan connected to my rMBP i think this would be a match made in heaven. i could stick a spare R9 280X back into the MP and consider if its required anymore...

- - - Updated - - -

A lot has changed in this build since I last updated this thread, so here goes:

The fans were still annoying me, so I rechecked everything and ordered some Noctua Redux 80 fans, 1200rpm versions.

Ah well, was a good learning experience.

i have the Noctua fans in my internal PSU and cannot rate them enough they are incredibly quiet.

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  • 1 year later...
On 16/04/2015 at 1:27 PM, kryzaach said:

These are dead silent, however, the chassis was getting noticeably warmer so I upgraded them the the 1600rpm versions.

 

I tried to change the fan to the same one you put, but I faced with two problems.

One is the connector, the new fans have 4pin connector and sonnet echo has 2pin fan chip. Do I have to cut the original fan wire and solder them to new one to replace the connector? 

Second problem is that the 25mm fans are too big to fit in. After I set the fan on the chassis, I could not put the body in. 

Could you please give me some brilliant insight?

Edited by Chrisp
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  • Tech Inferno Fan changed the title to 2013 11" MBA + TITAN@10Gbps-TB1 (Sonnet EE III-D) + OSX10.9.4 [ kryzaach]

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