Minisforum DEG2 with Radeon 7800 XT or GeForce 1070 ti.
I just bought a Minisforum DEG2 to get me back in the game during the current economy after my motherboard died in my gaming PC.
I’ve spent a few working on it, but I am not seeing the GPU appear in Device Manager under Display Adapters. I do see the DEG2 on Devices and Printers. I’ve tried 2 PSUs, and 2 GPUs in 3 different configurations. The troubleshooting lights on the DEG2 show the top 5 lights on (ATX_ON, PSU_ON, TBT_ON, GPU_PLUG, PCIE_TST).
Since this is my first go with eGPU, I’ve looked up videos and forums and found some tips that I tried. I made sure the switch is moved to thunderbolt while the power supply is disconnected. I can see the GPU fans spinning, and when I plug in HDMI, the monitor lights up with “no signal”. I’ve tried the included TB5 cable on both of the USB C ports closer to the screen. My PSU is 700W, and 100% is available on the 12v rail, so it should be more than enough. When I plug in the eGPU while already powered on/logged in, I see an error “Use different USB port”, noting there may be limited functionality, but again the DEG2 is available in Devices and Printers.
I’m out of ideas of what to try. Anyone have experience with Framework 13 and eGPU that might have some helpful tips? I haven’t played games for 6 months and I’ve got some time I can spend on making this setup work.
Correct. Both GPUs have 2x 8-pin connectors. I’ve tried attaching both connectors, and on the 1070 ti there is a power light that turns from red to green when both are plugged in fully.
That is probably what is going on, you may need a different cable. The device is available in devices because newer thunderbolt and usb4 chipsets have usb fallback for displays and usb devices and stuff but of course not pcie tunneling.
I will see what I have lying around, but I assumed the Thunderbolt 5 cable that came with the device would be sufficient. Are you suggesting that the DEG2’s cable is the issue?
I think another test I can try is to see if this thing will work when plugged into my work laptop.
That is not entirely unreasonable but it is a chinesium uncertified cable so they can be hit or miss (and there also have been quite a few reports of chinesium tb5 cables doing tb5 fine but having issues at tb4/usb4 for some reason). The tb5 one that came with my TH5P4 does work fine with my 7840u fw13 though.
Windoze telling you “Use a different port” sugests it is aware that the device can do usb4 but it is not actually running usb4 and given you were using the back ports that are usb4 the cable is a likely candidate.
Thank you for sticking with me on this. I have some more information.
I was able to get my work laptop (a Dell Pro 16 Plus) working with both GPUs, same power supply, same USB cable. To me, this is an indicator that the cable (and the rest of the eGPU setup) is ok.
I did notice a difference in the diagnostic LEDs when testing my work laptop. Not only were the top 5 LEDs lit, but also the bottom 2, all solid. Those 2 LEDs are labeled PCIE_RST and M2_LED. I’m not sure what to make of this since I can’t find anything about troubleshooting with the diagnostic LEDs in the user manual, but my best guess is something on the link side has recognized the PCIe and M2 devices?
Using the same plug-in and reboot process on the Framework 13, the M2_LED does blink for a bit, but then goes dark. PCIE_RST never lights up.
Also, I tried a few high-performance USB C cables I have lying around, but none of them had an effect on the framework vs eGPU situation. None of them are rated for TB4/5, though, so if I need to go down this route, I’d love a recommendation for a known-good cable.
The pcie reset stuff only happens one usb4 communication is established so that isn’t too surprising.
Them blinking may sugest it is at least trying to do usb4 at some point which makes the windows message a bit odd.
Before jumping to buying cables there are at least 2 more things you could try:
Try connecting the cable directly to the laptop without a usb-c expansion-card, if the cable is marginal that might help it just enough to work.
Boot a recent linux live enviroment (catchyos may be a good option) and observe sudo dmesg -w when plugging in, that could give us more information to what is going on.
It behaving the same with an “usb4” cabe and non usb4 cables does point in the direction of the cable being marginal, minisforum doesn’t strike me as the type of company intentionally selling you stuff they know won’t work at all so the cable being at least kind of functional but maybe a bit too low signal quality to cope with some devices.
For cases like this going with a certified (either for tb4/5 or usb4) cable is probably a good bet (usb4 you can check here).
Personally on my 7840u fw13 I have not had any of my mystery meat chinesium cables refuse to do usb4 if they were capable (some were just lying and actually usb3 or even usb2 but since it works with the dell that isn’t the case here) some of them would just only connect at 20Gbit but just not doing it while having the wires and e-marker to do it is not something I have had happen before.
Hey Boss, I have the same egpu setup except with a 7700xt. Did you every find the solution to this issue? Please let me know as i’ve been going through headaches trying to solve this. :,)
Dude, I’m sorry didn’t mean to ping you lol. But, yeah this has been giving me nightmares for the last couple of days. At first nothing powered on and I had to rule out a bad psu and now im dealing with similar issues Regardless, have a good one
No I haven’t, sorry. I’ve had a really bad string of luck with my computers this year, and a lot of competing priorities for my time with young kids and new (to me) house problems.
I still have the unit, and it’s past my return window, so I’ll eventually need to get it working.
It’s baffling/frustrating to me that the unit works with my work computer, but not my Framework. My instincts are telling me it’s not a problem with the cable or the setup, since it’s working when plugged into another USB C laptop, but I suppose I could order a cable if I was prepared to return it.
First, I feel I still need to dig into what Linux tools can do for me in terms of troubleshooting the connectivity, since those give more information than Windows.
Regardless, have a good one