Razer Core X Chroma eGPU

[Jean-Marc_Le_Roux]

Hi there,

@Jean-Marc_Le_Roux

As a result:

• The eGPU works. As far as I can tell it works 100% of the time as long as the USB-C/Thunderbolt port being used is always the same one. Presumably because the PCI device ID is hardcoded in the X11 conf generated by egpu-switcher.
• USB support is unreliable at best. Some devices are recognized (external SSD, webcam), others are not (keyboard, ethernet). And as far as I can tell, it’s not necessarily consistent between boots. Unplugging/plugging devices might make them work. But it breaks at the next boot. The external SSD is always working though. Other devices are kind of random.

New important stuff! Using the latest BIOS (3.06) I have found a way to reliably get all the USB-C peripherals plugged to the eGPU to work as expected. If works 99% of the time on both Windows and Linux (Fedora 35, Linux 5.15.5-200.fc35.x86_64):

• Unplug the eGPU.
• Boot.
• At the GRUB screen, plug the eGPU (I’m using the top left slot of the laptop).
• Select the OS and resume boot.

With this technique, the following peripherals are connected to the eGPU and work at boot and do not disconnect:

• The embedded Ethernet card (though its chipset driver is buggy on Linux)
• My SSD (Samsung T5).
• My webcam (Razer Kio).
• My keyboard (Keychron K9).

My conclusion is that the eGPU (including the USB hub support) issues are mainly caused by a faulty BIOS.