Got my Adapter (living in Germany), Kyle is a really good guy and the Adapter/Card is working just perfect. PCIe 4.0 x 4 with DEG1 + Radeon 7900 XTX. Great Work!
Are you planning another order?
They are available now.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/4441909217/custom-oculink-adapter-for-framework
I have more available than may be shown in the listing, but I actually ran low on padded envelopes and labels so I had to reduce the “in stock” number temporarily. ![]()
Finally got time to try out the adapter with a Minisforum DEG1 dock and the included cable. Slick setup, thanks @Kyle_Tuck!
My initial test was with an Intel Arc A380 based GPU, and it wouldn’t show up at all. Tried 2 different A380 GPUs, no dice. On a hunch, I started trying other cards, which did work about how I would expect
| Card | Card Limit | Actual Link | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock Arc A380 Challenger | PCIe 4.0 | - | Not in lspci at all |
| ASRock Arc A380 Low Profile | PCIe 4.0 | - | Not in lspci at all |
| PNY Quadro P400 | PCIe 3.0 | 1.0 x4 | Might be in power save mode? |
| Intel X710-DA2 (10Gbps NIC) | PCIe 3.0 | 3.0 x4 | Seems fine |
| Micron 9100 Pro SSD | PCIe 3.0 | 3.0 x4 | Benchmarked >3GB/s |
This is all with the DEG1’s included OCuLink cable for now. Ordered a shorter one to compare, just in case.
Has anyone else used an Intel Arc based GPU successfully with this adapter (or any adapter)? Next weekend I’ll temporarily pull the RTX 3080 out of my desktop and see what it does, as that is the only other PCIe 4.0 GPU I have access to right now.
I have a suspicion the problem is the Intel Arc being weird, not the adapter/cable/dock; I’d expect a weak/marginal connection to simply train down to PCIe 3/2/1 rather than simply not show up like the A380 does.
It sounds like it’s an Intel thing.
Others have commented about not finding ReBAR support in the Framework BIOS. Not sure if that’s the issue.
I think I will update the listing with a warning about Intel cards for now.
I’m sure it would be beneficial for folks to know ahead of time just in case, but I’ve also been reading around about things of that nature and it is likely a FW issue, not your adapter when it comes to intel cards. Unless someone else here can educate us otherwise.
I agree, this is not an issue with the adapter, as everything else I have put in the dock works as I would expect, at least up to PCIe 3.0 speeds I have tried.
I installed @Kyle_Tuck’s adapter today with no issues! However, the GPU I installed on my dock doesn’t seem to be recognized by Windows. It doesn’t show up at all in Device Manager. Tried resetting BIOS to optimal settings and disconnecting the battery via BIOS as well. The dock powers on with the laptop, so I’m thinking it’s some BIOS or OS issue?
I am using Minisforum DEG1 with the included Oculink Cable (tried with a different cable with no change in symptoms), with an AMD Radeon 7800XT, and the FW16 with a Ryzen 370 mainboard running Windows 11.
Try disabling fast start up.
Disabled fast startup in BIOS and restarted. No change. The eGPU fails to appear in Device Manager and Task Manager.
Sorry I should have been more specific, try disabling Windows fast start up. Not the bios setting.
That’s the Control Panel setting right? That’s been disabled as well.
Hey there!
Here are things I tried when I received the first batch of adapters that didn’t work.
- Have you installed an SSD in the M.2 to make sure the expansion bay is working?
- Did you have a different OCuLink adapter (ribbon type) that you were using before? I went back and reconnected the one I had to make sure.
- Does the GPU work in a different system?
- Can you connect the dock to a different system? (I have a mini PC with OCuLink as well)
Keep us posted!
Edit:
- Have you tried booting into Linux (Live USB)?
- Does anything happen with the GPU? Do the fans start spinning?
Another, perhaps related, interesting post from yesterday.
I reinstalled the GPU to my desktop and everything works there. You mentioned the GPU fans. I’m not sure the intended behavior of the GPU, but when installed in the dock it does not boot up (no lights, no fans). The PSU fans do spin. Is this a compatibility issue between the dock and the GPU or a defective dock perhaps?
I don’t have a DEG1 to test with, but did you follow the link in my previous post? It lead me to a blog post about the DEG1 and some specific troubleshooting steps the author took. I guess the first question is, did you use the cable that came with the DEG1?
Yes, I am using the OCuLink cable that came with the dock. Interesting results in the blogpost. I seem to recall seeing a table in another forum post in which somebody with a 7800XT was able to use the DEG1 but I did not save the post. I’ll need to try another dock and I’ll report back if it goes any better.
Other thing too I didn’t see you comment back on based on Kyle’s recommendation, did you try an ssd in the m.2 slot just to make sure it is working? Could be a board issue.
Hey mate, the Battlemage cards don’t come up automatically for whatever reason, same happens with the FW desktop.
On Linux you can get it to boot up by:
- Connecting the eGPU dock as normal and powering on the laptop
- Hop into a terminal
- Turn off power to the dock and wait for GPU fans to spin down
- Turn on power to the dock, wait for GPU fans to spin up and spin down
- Rescan PCI bus with
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/rescan - Profit
The same steps should work with Microslop, I’m sure there’s a way to scan for hardware changes somewhere in device manager.
Holly cow, I can’t believe it worked!
04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Battlemage G21 [Arc B580] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
isn’t it dangerous for hardware to turn it of and on on live system like that?
Nah, PCI hotplug is an old standard, you’d be amazed at what you can hot plug/unplug, there’s zero danger in doing this outside of maybe a bluescreen/kernel panic - Thunderbolt eGPU is literally setting up a new PCI device that tunnels through the USB link while it’s all running, and when graphics cards bug out they sometimes just fall off the bus and the worst you get is a system freeze ![]()