The Kraken 4080 on Linux & Windows with K43SG M.2 link
ITX case of and older Syber V (Vapor 1) gaming PC (bought in 2015)
MoBo: B550I AORUS PRO AX
eGPU: NVidia GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Ed
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (Radeon Gfx);
OS: Linux Manjaro: 5.15.106-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 5 09:58:14 UTC 2023 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Windows 10
eGPU: ADT-Link K43SG with 50 cm cable to the first NVME M.2 connector
* Stand:ADT-Link eGPU stand with power base for ATX SFX PSU aluminum frame support ADT R43SG/R43SG-TU
* PSU: ATX Corsair TX550M (550W)
* the card connector costs about £60, the stand about £20, the PSU about £55.
Installation steps
1. Assemble the stand - it is quite self-explanatory, pictures are on AliExpress site, no instructions, but you can't really make a mistake.
- you need to take off the base off K43SG (unscrew the feet)
- assembly - the cross with the bar under PSU first
- put on the bars under K34SG loosely and attach that first (loosely)
- install the card - holder bars also fairly loosely
- gradually tighten everything going round
- put on the back bar and then the feet
- lastly the 4 plastic ends for the bar-ends. They are a bit brittle, don't use a mallet
2. Put the card on. It is a three-slot card, but K43SG board is by default for 2 slots
- fear not, stand holds this firmly, take a file and make a notch so that RTX can fit
- notch will be less than a cm deep, about halfway to the 2-slot cutout
- fix the card by the bolts, they should go straight up.
3. Installing the PSU is easy, using the provided bracket. You may need 2 screws with bigger thread
Attach the adaptor safely to the M.2 socket. I could have done with a 25cm cable, but I am happy with having 50cm.
Attach PSU wires. The 24-Pin connector goes to the big slot on K43SG. Then half of the CPU power connector goes to the 4 pins just left of the 24-pin connection. Examine picture on Aliexpress or ADT-Link website and you will see which half. Then two of the PSU PCIe power plug into that three way adaptor which shipped with your NVIDIa card. The third one is from the ADT-Link PCIe splitter cable which comes out of the last (leftmost) socket on your K43SG. Then attach keyboard, mouse, ethernet and graphics cable that goes to the monitor. I found it quite useful that I had a HDMI splitter that allowed me to switch input from 2 hdmi cables - one from 4080, the other from the built in Readon-GFX (mobo connector). Lastly plug in ePSU and computer PSU and switch on first the external, then the computer.
Due to inexperience I had to restart several times. I <grin> think that the computer took exception to me assembling everything neatly on the first try. I just got black screen and did not know what was going on. I then partially disassembled it (you will see when I can put pictures on) and started to investigate. Explanation of the 4 control lights on K43SG on the original site and copy-pasted here is not very helpful. It does not explain exactly what the leds are for, it says about the only configurable things (3 switches and 2 jumpers) something like "software unsupported, don't use". It is plain confusing. In addition the previous model R43SG (supports PCI v3) apparently has 4 green leds (D1-4), but on this one first 2 are red, the others green.
So here are my simple observations on LEDs:
- D1 = 3v (should be on all the time, means simply the board is powered on)
- D2 = 12V (should be on all the time, means simply the board is powered on)
- D3 = RST (reset, should not be on while working. Does blink a few times during boot detection)
- D4 = CLK (some sort of clock sync or delay, should not be on, perhaps is on if you need to work switches to introduce detect-delay on boot)
As I did not see anything first, I felt a bit of panic. I tested the M.2 slot with a NVME stick from my laptop - it showed up normally. I reattached the card's M.2 connector taking care that it should be horizontal and fit well. I did couple of "possibly hot plugs" - put computer to sleep, switch on the eGPU PSU, bring computer back from sleep, do hardware detect - nothing. I would not go to the length of attaching different things to M.2 slot whilst computer is sleeping. It seems to me that is asking for electrical troubles.
Lastly I made sure I was using the eGPU hdmi cable, switched the system on and waited, then I saw the GRUB prompt and then I got the whirling dots, then an 800x600 resolution login screen. From there on it was easy. Download and install latest NVIDIA for windows and the drivers work right away. Reboot, everything still works. My kids (who named the rig The Kraken) stress tested it for 2 days with KSP2, CS-GO, UltraKill, Blender, Muck, TABS, Roblox on windows and Garry's Mod, Black Mesa, Blender, The Long Dark on Linux. Everything is fine and without glitches. GPU load seems to go up to 50% tops, most of the time temperature hovers around 40C, Garry's mod managed to lift it to 50C.
Linux installation - after regular GRUB menu you get a black screen, because nouveau drivers don't do this setup:
- edit linux image boot line adding 3 after rw field. I.e. runlevel 3 - multi-user without graphics. Link will explain in detail.
- check your card is detected inxi -G - will detect card and say driver is nouveau
- Firstly do a proper update from root prompt pacman -Suyy
- then install NVIDIA proprietary drivers with mhwd -a pci nonfree 0300
- check it is detected (or do so after a reboot) inxi -G and see that the driver is nvidia
- boot normally into the graphics (I use Gnome / Wayland) and enjoy
Benchmarks
Seem alright.
CUDA-Z on Linux says about MemCopy:
- Host to Device: 3124.42 MB/s
- Device to Host: 3220.46 MB/s
- Device to Device: 307.023 GiB/s
Comments:
There is one important bit about AMD Ryzen processors that end with G. It means built in graphics and that means they can only support PCIe V.3 standard. If I upgrade it to one of the processors that fit AM4 slot but end with X it means there will not be built in graphics but there will be PCIe v.4 bandwidth between the M.2 slot A and the CPU. This is from the Aorus B550I Pro AX manual. I might be able to do that in a month or two. So CUDA-Z bandwidth measure should double (in theory). But the experiment is fairly successful; there was no space in the case for a big card, no Thunderbolt connector. We were attached to the old case for sentimental reasons, and now The Kraken runs cool and stable.
As I learn more I will write better details about K43SG related things.
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