x220 Power on issue possibly related to EGPU

[sona1111]

Hello All,

I have been experimenting with EGPUs over the last six months or so, but it seems possible that EGPUs and the x220 do not agree on something, despite that I have seen many success stories online.

First I bought a PE4C-EC100C base to use with a hd6900 and a regular ATX power supply. This worked great: I was quickly able to install drivers and use the video card as I wanted. However, in the following weeks, after connecting and disconnecting this device a few times. I started getting an issue where the laptop would not power on. I would press the power button, all of the leds would come on for about two seconds, then turn off for three seconds, and this would cycle forever. Sometimes I managed to fix it by removing the battery or using a different power adapter, but the problem normally came back a day after using the EGPU setup, so I stopped using it. A little after that the problem happened and I could not end up fixing it, so I had to purchase another mainboard from ebay, which is what I am using now.

Because I had read and seen so many other success stories using the x220 and no mention of this issue, I thought that the EGPU adapter could be at fault, so I bought an updated model which was recommended to me over IRC: The PE4L-EC060A. Again, when I started using it, it functioned great and gave no obvious crashes or issues, but now today again I have symptoms of the power issue. The power would not fully come on as described before, and I had to remove the battery to get it to turn on again. I am, of course, afraid to use the egpu again, when through it is serviceable to me. (It allows me to use more than two monitors, which is not possible using the intel GPU)

When using the EGPU, I always shut down the computer, then plugged or unplugged the expresscard connector, then turned it back on. When I did this, it would often power on for a second, shut down again, and then power on correctly. This is unlike the error I have where it just keeps cycling.

So now I want to have this thread documented incase anyone else has the same issue, to know they are not alone. I am also awaiting any suggestions that the community may have to allow safe operation of the EGPU, which provides great benefits to me.

Setup information:

Lemovo X220
Bios version 1.4
Bios setting > 'pci express speed' : 'generation 1'
i7 16gb ram (I have not had any '100% cpu' issues described elsewhere using 16gb)
PE4L-EC060A with 300W ATX power supply and AMD hd6900 ; using the expresscard connector

Please let me know any other required information.

Thank you for reading.

[bluefruit]

The key to avoid that issue is to always make sure your eGPU is plugged in whenever you restart or turn on your laptop, so that when the laptop POST it detects the eGPU.

In my case, I encounter the issue you described if I do not boot with the eGPU:

1. eGPU plugged in, system on
2. Restart without eGPU plugged in
3. Put system to sleep and upon attempting to wake the system, I encounter that issue.

The problem will go away on the following system restart. Normal shutdown and startup are not affected, only sleep mode. Do you happen to be using hibernation?


Also FYI you could hold the power button for 5 seconds to shut off the system instead of removing the battery

[sona1111]

Your response is interesting ; indeed on the last motherboard I tried almost everything possible to get it to work again, but I did not try hooking up the EGPU to try that. What is strange is that the problem is sometimes fixed by using the power cycle trick with the battery: if the BIOS is really frozen waiting to find the EGPU, why does this work?

Secondly and more importantly - if the system has problems because it is looking for the EGPU and it does not exist, how are you supposed to take the laptop with you? What I have always done in the past is to completely shut down the computer, and then remove or add the EGPU. However, with the EGPU disconnected, I will use sleep or hibernate quite heavily when carrying the laptop with me. Should I restart multiple times after disconnecting the EGPU?

Possibly where is some kind of BIOS mod which will improve functionality in this area...

Thanks for the reply.

[bluefruit]

Secondly and more importantly - if the system has problems because it is looking for the EGPU and it does not exist, how are you supposed to take the laptop with you? What I have always done in the past is to completely shut down the computer, and then remove or add the EGPU. However, with the EGPU disconnected, I will use sleep or hibernate quite heavily when carrying the laptop with me. Should I restart multiple times after disconnecting the EGPU?

For me, what I do is, say I'm at home gaming with the eGPU plugged in and I need to take my laptop out somewhere, I will unplug the eGPU while in Windows (using the Safety remove hardware feature and then physically removing the expresscard), and just put the laptop to sleep and I can wake my laptop without any problem. So I fully use sleep mode while on the go and when I'm home and ready to game, I'll wake my laptop and just plug in the eGPU (while in Windows)

For clarification, the problem starts to come in if I'm on the go in the same situation and I need to restart my laptop and have no access to my eGPU, after restarting, one should not put the laptop to sleep as now, on attempting to wake the laptop up, it will encounter the issue you described.

On the next reboot, proper sleep and wake function will be restored.

I do not use hibernate as I have no idea how it will interact with eGPU as it's a kind of partial sleep mode.


I am unclear on the technical details on why this occur, perhaps you could try posting @ Techinferno eGPU forums , the folks there are more knowledgable about eGPUs.