Breakaway Box 750/750ex Support Library

Description: This is the English quick start guide for Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box 750 and eGPU Breakaway Box 750ex. This is revision D of this document.

Description: This is the Windows 11 eGPU setup guide for Sonnet Breakaway Box 850 T5 and eGPU Breakaway Box 750/750ex. This is version A of this document.

See this Adobe reference page for GPU-accelerated effects.

For the eGFX Breakaway Box to turn on, you must (1) turn on the power switch AND (2) connect the Breakaway Box to a computer with the supplied Thunderbolt 3 cable.

If you have an NVIDIA Quadro dGPU, then the installed driver will automatically support NVIDIA Quadro eGPUs.

If you have an NVIDIA Quadro dGPU, and you are using an NVIDIA GeForce or Titan eGPU, then you may need to:

Step 1:

Uninstall the Quadro dGPU driver and install the GeForce eGPU driver, which will support both an external GeForce or Titan GPU and the internal Quadro dGPU. Download and run the latest Driver Display Uninstaller from Wagnardsoft.

Step 2:

Install the latest NVIDIA desktop driver for the GeForce or Titan GPU.

Neither Apple, nor Sonnet, nor NVIDIA, nor AMD currently supports eGPUs with Boot Camp.

Internal video acceleration for games is supported only under macOS 10.14+.

If you are using macOS 10.14.6+, you can accelerate applications and games with the eGPU if they support GPU acceleration...

• Select the app in Finder

• Get Info

• Select Prefer External GPU

To get the maximum game acceleration, connect a game display to external graphics.

Sonnet has made a power cable for the Avid HDX card that is compatible with the Breakaway Box. The part number is TCB-HDXB and is available from Sonnet or Sonnet-authorized resellers.

The LG Ultrafine 5K Display connects via Thunderbolt 3. To give both the display and the Breakaway Box/Puck each maximum bandwidth, connect them to independent Thunderbolt 3 controllers, if possible.

The 13" Macbook Pro with Touchbar, 15" MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac Pro have two independent Thunderbolt controllers. Connect the Display and the Breakaway Box/Puck to ports on different sides.

The 13" MacBook Pro without Touchbar and the iMac with Retina display and the have only one Thunderbolt controller. The LG Ultrafine Display will reserve all the bandwidth it needs, and the Breakaway Box/Puck will be allocated the remaining bandwidth, which may affect performance of the Breakaway Box/Puck.

If you are using macOS 10.14.6+, you can accelerate applications and games with the eGPU if they support GPU acceleration...

• Select the app in Finder

• Get Info

• Select Prefer External GPU

Do not select Prefer External GPU for Adobe Premiere or Apple Final Cut Pro. These applications automatically manage eGPU usage.

Professional applications that use an external GPU generally may have a preference selection inside the app to select the external GPU.

The maximum size GPU card that will fit in a Breakaway Box is 312mm x 160mm* x 54mm.

*At maximum size, the auxillary power connector must be recessed by 30mm.

Sonnet recommends that you remove the card and ship it separately. Because graphics card lengths vary, the Breakaway Box could not offer support for the back end of cards. Some cards have stiffeners, but many do not, and are at risk when shipped inside the box.

On newer Gigabyte computers, you have to enable boot ridge 2.0 (Gigabyte) in the BIOS/UEFI.

\ql On older Gigabyte motherboards, you may need to take these steps to get an eGPU working :

1. Install latest BIOS (e.g. use Gigabyte Q-Flash utility within the BIOS to update via USB-drive)

2. Install latest Thunderbolt firmware (available on Gigabyte.us support site)

3. Uninstall the existing Thunderbolt bus driver, and then install the latest Thunderbolt bus driver.

(We got bus driver version 16.3.61.275 working,. This is the latest one as of February 2018)

4. Change settings in the system BIOS to allocate enough PCI resources to the Thunderbolt bus.

....Boot into BIOS by pressing Delete key during boot

....Go to "Peripherals" > "Thunderbolt (TM) Configuration" > "ThunderBolt Detachable Graphics Support" > switch to "Enable"

....Increase the following settings to its maximum values:

........"Reserved Memory for Dgpu" > enter maximum allowed value, typically 299

........"Reserved PMemory for Dgpu" > enter maximum allowed value, typically 499

........"Reserved Memory" > enter maximum allowed value, typically 4096

........"Reserved Memory" > enter maximum allowed value, typically 4096

....Save settings and exit BIOS

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Displays. If your Mac doesn't recognize a display you've just connected, hold down the Option key to make the Detect Displays button appear, then click that button.

Your display may not support 60Hz. Your display might require a firmware update to support 60Hz operation. Contact the maker of your display for details.

Many early 4K displays use Multi-Stream Transport (MST) to achieve 4k @ 60Hz. Follow these steps to use the display's built-in controls to enable this feature:

Sharp PN-K321: Choose Menu > Setup > DisplayPort STREAM > MST > SET

ASUS PQ321Q: Choose OSD menu > Setup > DisplayPort Stream

Dell UP2414Q and UP3214Q: Choose Menu > Display Setting > DisplayPort 1.2 > Enable

Panasonic TC-L65WT600: Choose Menu > Display Port Settings > Stream Setting > Auto

Other DisplayPort displays: check with the display manufacturer for compatibility information.

HDMI:

Make sure the HDMI cable you are using is a Premium High-Speed HDMI Cable certified by HDMI.org.

If you are trying to connect at 4k@60Hz via HDMI 2.0, you may have to set the color depth to 8-bit at 4:4:4, 10-bit at 4:2:2, or 12-bit at 4:2:0, or you may exceed the HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. A few 4K TVs (2017 Element Fire TV and 2017 LeEco Super 4, for example) don't support 4K@60Hz@4:4:4 at all.

For connecting to a 4K TV, you may need make a custom color resolution. Set resolution to 3840x2160 at 60Hz and set Timing standard to CVT-RB (reduced blanking). Some TVs require you to turn on "UHD Color" or "Advanced" or "Enhanced" setting manually in the picture settings for the HDMI port.

See this Dell support article.

If you are using macOS 10.14.6+, you can accelerate applications with the external GPU (if they support GPU acceleration)...

• Select the app in Finder

• Get Info

• Check Prefer External GPU

Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro automatically use the eGPU when appropriate. Do not select Prefer External GPU for these applications.

Some professional applications let you select the external GPU (or multiple GPUs) in their preferences.

With macOS 10.14.6+, Final Cut Pro X 10.4.6+ automatically uses the GPU in the Breakaway Box, Breakaway Puck, or DuoModo eGPU Module is used to accelerate Final Cut Pro X.

The DisplayPort output of a graphics card is not compatible with the Alt Mode DisplayPort input of the LG UltraFine 4K Display.

The LG Ultrafine 4K Display can be connected to one of the Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports. To give both the display and the Breakaway Box/Puck each maximum bandwidth, connect them to independent Thunderbolt 3 controllers, if possible.

The 13" Macbook Pro with Touchbar, 15" MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac Pro have two independent Thunderbolt controllers. Connect the Display and the Breakaway Box/Puck to ports on different sides.

The 13" MacBook Pro without Touchbar and the iMac with Retina display and the have only one Thunderbolt controller. The LG Ultrafine 4K Display will reserve all the bandwidth it needs, and the Breakaway Box/Puck will be allocated the remaining bandwidth, which may affect performance of the Breakaway Box/Puck.

If you are using macOS 10.14.4+, you can accelerate applications and games with the eGPU if they support GPU acceleration...

• Select the app in Finder

• Get Info

• Select Prefer External GPU

Professional applications that use an external GPU generally may have a preference selection inside the app to select the external GPU.

If you are connecting from a DVI (or sometimes DP) port on your GPU Card--via an adapter cable--to an HDMI port on your monitor and the display looks magenta, you can fix the issue in the monitor control panel. Go to the monitor Color Settings; select Input Color Format; change from RGB to YPbPr. That should solve the problem.

The Opticis DPAX DisplayPort 1.2 Data Recovery Repeater is an active repeater for DisplayPort video signals, increasing video transmission of a DisplayPort signal up to a combined length of 18m:

Locate repeater up to 3m (10ft) from the Source and up to 15m (49ft) to the Display at DP1.2.

DPAX complies with DisplayPort 1.2 standards and supports Ultra High Definition (up to 4096x2160) at 60Hz.

If you have a 2018 or newer Mac mini with FileVault turned on, you must connect your primary display directly to the HDMI port on your Mac mini during startup in order to enter your encryption password. After you log in and see the macOS Desktop, you can unplug the display from Mac mini and connect it to your eGPU.

Under macOS 10.14.6, a 2018 Mac mini with some GPU cards must be booted with a monitor connected to the Mac mini's HDMI port. If you have a Mac mini with an affected GPU card, you must either:

(a) Update to macOS 10.15.7+

(b) Connect an HDMI display emulator plug to the Mac mini HDMI port and mirror displays. (You must make sure that the HDMI display emulator is the Master Mirror. Drag the menu bar to the HDMI display emulator window before mirroring.)

(c) Connect a monitor to the Mac mini's HDMI port to log in, and then move the HDMI monitor connection to the eGPU.

Use at least one active DP-to-HDMI adapter.

Display Port signal is not compatible with HDMI.

However, on most modern GPU cards, the DisplayPort output is a Dual mode DisplayPort (DP++), which has the ability to recognize and adjust the signal to HDMI when a passive DP-to-HDMI adapter cable is connected, but only up to a point. If the HDMI monitors you are trying to connect are identical (use identical video signal timings), then you should be able to use passive adapters for all. However, if the monitors are different, then there may be a limit of two special clocks to drive passive DP to HDMI adapters; ergo only two HDMI monitors may be supported with passive adapters; the third and subsequent monitor would need to be native DisplayPort or would need to use an active DP-to-HDMI adapter.

Older generation GPU cards require the use of active DP-to-HDMI adapters on every DP port.

That is likely because you are using a passive DP to HDMI adapter. Use an active DP-to-HDMI adapter, which generates the clock needed for HDMI, and it will work.

The Breakaway Box 750/750ex and DuoModo eGPU Module support the AMD Radeon 6800/6800 XT/6900 XT. Mac support requires macOS Big Sur 11.4 or later.

According to BenQ support, the BenQ SW271 monitor fails to calibrate with either the BenQ or i1 profiler software with eGPUs.

macOS does not support disconnecting or powering off an eGPU during sleep. If you do so, your Mac will kernel panic. This is an issue that persists through at least macOS 11.2.3. Sonnet has reported the issue to Apple.

If you had Filevault turned on during the update, then you need to turn Filevault off and then on again. This should fix the issue.

If you had Filevault turned on during the update, then you need to turn Filevault off and then on again. This should fix the issue.

We recommend the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti VENTUS 3X 12G OC, which fits nicely.

Changing the Power Management Mode by going into the NVIDIA Control Panel settings under Manage 3D Settings, then the global tab, and change it to “Prefer Maximum Performance” .

Remember to change the settings each time you update the driver.

macOS 14 (Sonoma) and macOS 15 (Sequoia) will crash when an eGPU is hot disconnected. It will work fine if you connect or disconnect when the computer is shut down. Sonnet has filed a bug report with Apple.

The Acer Swift 5 has a Thunderbolt firmware bug that prevents it from supporting eGPUs.

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Displays. If your Mac doesn’t recognize a display you’ve just connected, hold down the Option key to make the Detect Displays button appear, then click that button.

• Mac (M series) computers do not support eGPUs

• Windows under Boot Camp does not support eGPUs

• macOS 10.13+, Intel Macs with Thunderbolt 3 ports (except Mac mini)

- Initial support for AMD RX 570 and 580

- NVIDIA GPUs will never be compatible with macOS

• macOS 10.14+ addition features

- Support added for AMD RX 560 and 590

- Support added for Vega 56, Vega 64, WX 8200, and WX 9100

- Windows support added under Parallels Desktop for Mac

- Support added for two eGPU Breakaway Box eGPUs

• macOS 10.15+ additional features:

- Support added for Mac mini

- Support added for AMD RX 5500, 5500XT, 5600, 5600XT, 5700, 5700XT

- Support added for AMD RX 6800, 6800XT, 6900XT, Radeon Pro W6800

• macOS 12+ additional features:

- Support added for AMD Radeon RX 6600, 6600XT

• macOS 14+ compatibility caution

- macOS 14+ will crash when an eGPU is hot unplugged. It will work fine if you connect, boot, shutdown, disconnect. Sonnet has filed a bug report with Apple.

To see which GPU cards are supported in each of the Breakaway Boxes, please see our list here . If your preferred card is not on the list, it is because we have not hand an opportunity to review the specs of the card. Please send us a link to the card, and we will determine whether it it is compatible or not.

Sonnet recommends that you remove the card and ship it separately. Because graphics card lengths vary, the Breakaway Box could not offer support for the back end of cards. Some cards have stiffeners, but many do not, and are at risk when shipped inside the box.

macOS does not support disconnecting or powering off an eGPU during sleep. If you do so, your Mac will kernel panic. This is an issue that persists through at least macOS 11.2.3. Sonnet has reported the issue to Apple.

Win10/11 solutions for eGPU BSOD, crashing, freezing and stuttering - Link State Power Mgmt, Nvidia Power Mgmt, TdrDelay/TdrDdiDelay, Disable iGPU/dGPU, Disable DynamickTick, Use AMD PCIe (3GIO) Driver, Disable Nvidia reBAR + more

If Win10/11 solutions for eGPU BSOD, crashing, freezing and stuttering, try the following troubleshooting steps.

- Turn off bitlocker, especially for the boot drive. a lot of people reported trying to boot with a new thunderbolt device plugged in for the first time causing failure to boot at all, blue screen, or bitlocker violation flag.
- The old XPS 15 doesn't have a video gpu outside of the cpu, the new XPS 17 has an Nvidia RTX 4060 on the motherboard as well as the Intel GPU inside the cpu. So trying to get windows to recognize and install the 3090 while there was a functioning 4060 on the motherboard just wasn't going to work. It is no simple task to uninstall and disable the internal discrete gpu, as you will see from the attached document from egpu.io.
- Using the free program DUU.exe to completely remove all traces of anything other than the gpu inside the cpu was necessary (BUT NOT RISK FREE, THE PROGRAM ITSELF SAYS DO THIS IN SAFE MODE ONLY).
- Windows fights the thunderbolt to pcie installation all the way by continually trying to update any driver changes in the background, such that one is certain that they are losing their mind and seeing things ... it wasn't that way a second ago ... I had to disconnect my internet router.
- Here is the critical web address for the egpu.io installation secrets:
https://egpu.io/forums/pc-setup/guide-generic-windows-10-solutions-for-egpu-bsod-crashing-and-system-freezing-link-state-power-management-tdrdelay-tdrddidelay-nvidia-power-management-settings/

1) We have seen that some Windows OEMs may have additional options within the BIOS/UEFI or firmware of the computer.

Try entering the BIOS/EFI screen of your host computer, then look for settings like 'Thunderbolt Security' 'DMA Kernel Protection' 'DMA Access' 'PCI Security' 'Boot Security' or similar, and set them to 'disable'. Then save and exit, then try again.
Whereas, other settings like 'PCIe Tunneling' and 'DisplayPort Tunneling' must be set to 'enable'.
Seemingly unrelated settings like 'Intel Virtualization', 'Intel VT-d', or the use of a hypervisor can all allocate resources away from the PCIe/Thunderbolt bus, which can cause unusual problems.

The host computer may also have proprietary software that interferes with the use of third party peripherals such as ours.
For example, Asus may have an 'Asus Support Center' application that may need to be disabled, along with the firmware changes mentioned above.

Windows will also install other applications natively (like Xbox live) which may also automatically enable at startup, but can interfere with Thunderbolt connectivity and other third-party hardware like ours.

We also recommend disabling this and similar applications as well.

We recommend consulting the host computer manual for additional options.

If available, does the same issue occur on other Thunderbolt equipped host-computers, as well as with other video cards (Mac/Windows, AMD/Nvidia)?

2) Symptoms like this can sometimes be caused by a faulty Thunderbolt 3 or power cable.
Have you also tried testing new known-good Thunderbolt cables, as well as power cables with this?

Additionally, we have seen similar symptoms occur with debris in the chassis or cable line.
We would also recommend removing the PCIe card(s) from the enclosure, cleaning the card, chassis, PCIe slot channel, and cable-plug-ends, with a can of compressed air, re-seating the card(s), and testing this again with known-good cables.

Also, if available, an application of contact cleaner like this here and using 91% isopropyl alcohol (or higher) and a q-tip on the cable-plug-ends and ports can also help with connectivity issues.

3) Also, make sure to have the latest generic Nvidia/AMD drivers installed for the eGPU.
The Asus may include a built-in (discrete or integrated) graphics card from Nvidia/AMD, that has it’s own proprietary driver that may interfere with eGPU usage.

See our tech note here for more information on removal of other drivers.

As an alternative, you can disable the driver (not uninstall) by entering Device Manager, finding the discrete GPU, right-clicking, and choosing ‘disable.’ The monitors will blink and may change, but you can then try installation of other drivers for the eGPU at that point.

4) Not all applications will natively use an eGPU. Other applications will need to have their in-app settings modified (under 'Options' > ‘Graphics’ in most games.) Additionally, some applications are used within other applications.

As an example for games: Some applications, like Steam games, are generally opened from within Steam, and the game has it’s own application separate from Steam. Both Steam, and the application, must be set to ‘High Performance’ under Settings > Display > graphics settings.

Some game platforms must also have the game launcher (not the app or Steam) set to ‘high performance’ as the application by itself, Steam itself, or their respective shortcuts, are insufficient.

You may need to navigate to the file path where your Steam games (applications) are installed on your computer, modify these settings within the directory (choose ‘high performance’ there), and the executables, then try re-launching the game.

This is the case for other applications like Epic Game Launcher, Origin, etc.

This is also the case for general applications as well as benchmarks like the Geeks3d

Has this been tested with other graphically intense applications like, the Unigine Heaven Benchmark, or games/applications from ~2018 and beyond like 'Tomb Raider' or the 'Battlefield' series for example?

If so, do you see any eGPU utilization, or, does changing the 'performance settings' like above change any results?

If you open Task Manager then check >Performance does the GPU tab show any use when applications are in ‘high performance’ mode?

Additionally, there are some applications or games that may not be able to utilize an eGPU altogether.

We would also recommend referring to the software developer to verify if eGPU’s can be used with their application.

5) Windows will often require additional setup for optimal use with an eGPU, and sadly, Windows updates can break optimal settings in one configuration.

Have you also updated your BIOS/EFI, Thunderbolt firmware, and Windows OS of the host-computer, then tried this again?

Our Windows eGPU setup guide here has additional steps that may help.

Once updated, enter BIOS/UEFI again and look for the ‘hybrid graphics’ or ’Thunderbolt Security' settings as above, and set to ‘disable’ then make sure Nvidia drivers are installed as well.

6) Lastly, if this was working for you previously, but stopped suddenly, a Windows update may have 'broken' working settings in a previous configuration, as many of these updates (e.g. a .NET framework update) may change settings on the host-computer without user-consent, or user-knowledge.
If this is the case, you may be able to go to the search bar, and type RSTRUI.EXE, and restore the system to a previous known-good working state.
We recommend performing a backup of data prior to this, and only performing this action if you feel comfortable with its limitations and caveats.
This action can sometimes help, if the problem is isolated away from a hardware problem (e.g. cabling) or a setting (BIOS/UEFI changes have no effect).
See this Microsoft article here for more information on this action.

Let us know more when you can, and if any of this helps, or if issues persist, and we can proceed from there.

Thank you for your patience while we work through this.

Regards,
Sonnet Team