eGPU freezing when in game
I have a GPD Win 4 8840U and I’m using a Thunderbolt/USB4 eGPU dock with a 5700 XT. This model:
TH3P4G3 (https://a.aliexpress.com/_mKYalAO)
I’ve tested this with an Intel-based TB device, so I know the dock and cable works.
I managed to get the dock to authorize and trust in the KDE settings. I used the all-ways-egpu script and used Method 2 and 3.
In gaming mode, I plug in the eGPU and after a second it’s recognized. I’ll launch a game (Helldivers is what I’m testing, but other games are the same) and it’ll initially work. MangoHUD will show the iGPU at little to no utilization and the game runs really great. All expected. However, after a minute or two, the entire system freezes and cuts to a black screen. No way to interact except to hard power cycle.
I can’t tell if this is a problem with Bazzite, the dock, my cable, or the handheld. Is there a log or event viewer I can review to help me pin down where and why I’m crashing? I am hoping to document this for others in the future.
8 Replies
you can use
journalctl -f to follow the event log. Secondly you can use CTRL+ALT+F2 to jump to a terminal session, you might be able to do this while the UI is frozen. To jump back to the UI session it's CTRL+ALT+F1.
So I'd jump to a terminal session start tracking following the log then start your gaming. When it freezes, hopefully you can see the error when you press CTRL+ALT+F2I had the same issue on Ayaneo geek 1s + Rx 6800. The solution was setting the refresh rate at 60/80hz on the external monitor. There is even a kernel parameter on the arch(or gentoo) wiki if I remember correctly but I never bothered
Another thing that worked ony previous setup was setting "3d Fullscreen" under lactd. You can install lact through ujust.
Since the dock was a freebie, I decided to order a Razer Core X Chroma to compare. I'll look into that suggestion to track the log to see if I can get some idea of why I'm locking up.
No dice on CTRL+ALT+F2, the system really hard locks on itself. I imagine it may have something to do with the dock itself. It's tough to say. If I lower the graphical settings, it seems to "last longer." I made sure the GPU was fine by running FurMark using another machine with the dock. I also took the card out and put it into a completely different machine. Ran fine.
It may just be a compatibility issue with AMD's USB4 implementation on the 8840U. Thunderbolt 3, Intel-based machines don't seem to have any problems. I'll also add that testing the GPD and dock with Windows was even worse. It wouldn't even detect.
Try this, take note of exactly when the freeze happens then you can extract your log around this time
journalctl --since "2020-07-10 15:10:00" --until "2020-07-12" It might give you a useful error message. Just remember to change the example start and end dates and timesI'll give that a try
I had a chance to test a Razer Core X Chroma with a variety of Thunderbolt cables, same issue. I'm going to try and catch the crash in logs. I think it's just a GPD thing.
One other thing to try is to rebase to the 39 image and see if your issues is a fedora 40 issue.
Rebasing to 39 made no difference. I looked at logs, and I think PCIe is talking at x1 speeds or 2.5 GT/s. Not fast enough, that could explain the crashing. Tested another machine with thunderbolt, same. I have an active TB cable on order to see what that does for me.
Either this coming week or the week after, an Oculink DiY eGPU setup will arrive at my place and I too will be joining the eGPU gang with my GPD Win Mini 7840U/1TB/32GBDDR5. It's already running Bazzite, the difference here will be that it's going to be using an Intel Arc A580 that a friend gifted me. Any ideas if you can enable rebar in the GPD BIOS our models share?
Also, I feel it may be a good idea to create a forum post for this so we aren't gatekeeping it to Discord: https://universal-blue.discourse.group/c/bazzite/5
Universal Blue
Bazzite