eGPU, Chrome, and a lot of heat

Tidefury-proudmoore · July 1, 2019, 1:17pm

Here is my current setup:

2017 MBP
AMD Vega 64 with Sonett Breakaway Box 650
eGPU powering a LG ultrawide monitor.
WoW plays on the external monitor full screen.
Settings are at 7

If I have Chrome running on the retina display monitor while I’m playing WoW at anything above graphic setting 5, after a couple of hours the MBP gets really hot above the touch bar and will cause the egpu crash (external screen goes blank and the Vega fans go to max) and I have to reboot.

If Chrome is not on the retina screen, I can play at higher settings no problem. Which is kind of a drag if I’m using Wowhead to look up things while I play.

I’m sure I’m a bit of an edge case, but wanted to report my experience.

Zhyxen · July 1, 2019, 3:37pm

This doesn’t happen with any other browser? One thing you might try is disabling hardware acceleration for Chrome. This can be found under Settings > Advanced > System > Use Hardware Acceleration When Available.

Akumabelle-exodar · July 2, 2019, 1:05am

I’m wondering if this is my issue as well.

2016 MBP with touchbar
AMD Vega 64 in Razer Core X
eGPU powering an LG monitor
WoW is on the external monitor full screen (windowed)
settings were at default 5, but I put it down to 2

Suddenly my GPU will run fans at max, and the external screen goes blank. I can’t control my mouse but I can see things on the retina screen and I still hear sound in Discord and I have to hard reboot to fix it. It just happened three times in a row tonight.

I also have Chrome open on the retina display. I have 71 tabs and 6 windows (I’M A MONSTER!) and I notice things run better when Chrome is closed. I will also try this option, because this is driving me crazy.

UPDATE: I disabled hardware acceleration on Chrome, but I crashed three times. It definitely seems to be worse in 8.2 than it was in 8.1.5. I’m currently updating this in Safari

Oky-wyrmrest-accord · July 2, 2019, 7:02am

Chrome has sort of a reputation for being a memory hog as it is, and 71 tabs open at once is quite a lot.

Are you running extensions in Chrome as well?

If possible, try using another browser like Firefox or Safari and see if that improves things.

I know “try something else” isn’t a great answer, but it’s worth testing if you haven’t. You could also try another Chromium-based browser like Brave or Edge Insider - they are very similar to Chrome but could potentially run better for you.

Rommax-1333 · July 2, 2019, 6:50pm

It may be worth double checking WoW is running on the eGPU by explicitly setting it in System > Advanced > Graphics Card

The game should also be logging what GPU it’s using in the gx.log file if you want to check it that way.

The default path for that is:

/Applications/World of Warcraft/_retail_/Logs/gx.log

Akumabelle-exodar · July 3, 2019, 1:22am

Thank you. It literally just happened again and I hard just rebooted. I have made it down to 55 tabs and I’m trying to close more. I do have a bunch of chrome extensions including “The Great Suspender” which is supposed to suspend background tabs that haven’t been active within an hour.

Here is the contents of the gx log. It does seem to be choosing the external? “Choosing gpu with monitor attached” is not the most descriptive

7/2 20:45:48.390  LogOpen
7/2 20:45:48.390  Adapter 1: "AMD Radeon RX Vega 64" vendor:0x1002 device:0x687f  isLowPower:false isRemovable:true
7/2 20:45:48.390  Adapter 2: "Intel(R) HD Graphics 530" vendor:0x8086 device:0x191b  isLowPower:true isRemovable:false
7/2 20:45:48.390  Adapter 3: "AMD Radeon Pro 460" vendor:0x1002 device:0x67ef  isLowPower:false isRemovable:false
7/2 20:45:48.393  Choosing GPU:
7/2 20:45:48.393  	"AMD Radeon RX Vega 64" isLowPower:false isHeadless:false isRemovable:true
7/2 20:45:48.393  	"Intel(R) HD Graphics 530" isLowPower:true isHeadless:false isRemovable:false
7/2 20:45:48.393  	"AMD Radeon Pro 460" isLowPower:false isHeadless:false isRemovable:false
7/2 20:45:48.393  Choosing gpu with monitor attached
7/2 20:45:48.399  AFR Groups: 1/1
7/2 20:45:48.399  Feature Level: DX=0, MTL=4
7/2 20:45:48.443  NotifyOnDeviceCreate
7/2 20:45:48.443  <IsGPUDriverOutOfDate> No
7/2 20:45:48.479  GxDevice::NotifyOnDisplayChange: 1
7/2 20:45:48.510  CPU Processor Detection: 8 H/W threads
7/2 20:45:48.510  Memory Detection: 17179869184 bytes of physical memory available
7/2 20:45:48.510  Detected Graphics Defaults: 4 (CPU = 6, GPU = 4, MEM = 6)
7/2 20:45:48.628  RenderSettings::NotifyChanged
7/2 20:47:38.847  RenderSettings::NotifyChanged

Tidefury-proudmoore · July 3, 2019, 1:23am

I have the eGPU and external monitor explicitly selected in System options. Will test Safari, and Firefox over the holiday and will report back.

Vlick-arthas · July 7, 2019, 12:02am

Figured I would share that I had similar issues back in patch 8.1. I thought it was an isolated issue with my brand new VEGA 64 and since gave up on it for playing WoW. Screen would go black, EGPU fans would ramp to max, and sound etc would continue to work.

I was using my 2017 13" MBP and a Dell 1440p 144hz monitor. I was hopeful that it would be a setup that would finally allow me to play WoW while in Mac OS, but unfortunately I gave up and went back to my windows machine.

Bellexandria-exodar · July 14, 2019, 5:22pm

I have made it down to 25 tabs, two windows. I’ve explicitly changed my settings to choose the AMD card as the chosen graphics card now.

7/14 11:15:42.934  Adapter 1: "AMD Radeon RX Vega 64" vendor:0x1002 device:0x687f  isLowPower:false isRemovable:true
7/14 11:15:42.934  Adapter 2: "Intel(R) HD Graphics 530" vendor:0x8086 device:0x191b  isLowPower:true isRemovable:false
7/14 11:15:42.934  Adapter 3: "AMD Radeon Pro 460" vendor:0x1002 device:0x67ef  isLowPower:false isRemovable:false
7/14 11:15:42.934  Choosing GPU:
7/14 11:15:42.934  	"AMD Radeon RX Vega 64" isLowPower:false isHeadless:false isRemovable:true
7/14 11:15:42.934  	"Intel(R) HD Graphics 530" isLowPower:true isHeadless:false isRemovable:false
7/14 11:15:42.934  	"AMD Radeon Pro 460" isLowPower:false isHeadless:false isRemovable:false
7/14 11:15:42.934  Choosing gpu by name
7/14 11:15:42.939  AFR Groups: 1/1
7/14 11:15:42.939  Feature Level: DX=0, MTL=4
7/14 11:15:42.976  NotifyOnDeviceCreate
7/14 11:15:42.976  <IsGPUDriverOutOfDate> No
7/14 11:15:43.011  GxDevice::NotifyOnDisplayChange: 1
7/14 11:15:43.081  CPU Processor Detection: 8 H/W threads
7/14 11:15:43.081  Memory Detection: 17179869184 bytes of physical memory available
7/14 11:15:43.081  Detected Graphics Defaults: 4 (CPU = 6, GPU = 4, MEM = 6)
7/14 11:15:43.209  RenderSettings::NotifyChanged
7/14 11:16:25.448  RenderSettings::NotifyChanged

I’ve gotten the black screen twice in the last 24 hours, which is down from what I was initially seeing. Rebooting before I go to raid seems to help, but it’s quite annoying to reboot every day. Is there any more information we can provide to help with this issue? I don’t feel like having a few chrome tabs should cause issues with this.

Bellexandria-exodar · July 14, 2019, 6:07pm

Update update: I can reliably reproduce this when fighting Zomera in Mardiva’s Lab in Nazjatar. The second sandstorm always triggers it.

Omegall-stormrage · July 15, 2019, 4:55pm

Instead of having 71, or 25 tabs open, have you tried actually just using bookmarks manager and only having page open you need at that moment? Chrome will peg down at least one GPU all on it’s own, generally the IGP is preferred because it doesn’t need dedicated one. You also have to realize that these days websites are toxic with cpu and gpu usage. Websites go for a design that serves the site the most not the user. That means they are riddled with fishing java scripts watching your clicks, tons of ad scripts etc. It’s a LOT better (for now) if you have ublock origin protecting chrome, but even that will be going away soon when google not just ad blocking but any type of connection blocking.

The reason safari isn’t as bad is that it isn’t as bloated and can’t do nearly as much as chrome when also limits the crap the websites can do in the background. Plus safari actually far more strictly honors power nap feature (meaning tabs that are hidden automatically use less resources). Now, I’m not a safari user myself anymore because it has some SERIOUS issues with modern video playing technologies compared to chrome, but I’m never ever gonna trust chrome (or the web) enough to just leave tabs open and monitored. If I have a page open it’s like 1-2 tabs i’m switching between but everything else is CLOSED until I need it.

TL/DR, don’t run resource hogging websites on a resource hogging browser when also running a game that’s demanding those resources to be available. that’s like the equiv of hopping in car, flooring pedal and leaving the needle on the redline until the engine dies, only your computer is smarter and actually black screens/shuts off over taxed resource to protect itself from user when they overdo it.