Comment by 9oliYQjP | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 9oliYQjP | Hacker News Reader

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I've been using an eGPU (15" 2018 MBP i9, RX 580, 10.14.x) for over half a year and only ran into connect/disconnect issues once. If you're having disconnect issues I'd urge you to see if killing the QuickLookUIService process causes the eGPU to immediately disconnect. If it does, you probably have a buggy QuickLook plugin with one or more apps. In my case there was a QuickLook plugin from a recently installed trial app that was preventing the eGPU from disconnecting. I uninstalled the app and everything went back to normal. I've googled around and it appears like other people are also having this issue with QuickLookUIService. Hope this helps.

I love my 2018 MBP + eGPU setup to the point that I chuckle whenever I see people claiming how awful these MBPs are. I've finally reached computing nirvana. The i9/32GB RAM in my MBP is powerful enough for me needs at home and on the go. The eGPU makes for a great dock and access to a more powerful GPU at home. It has built-in gigabit ethernet, an SSD, and several USB 3.1 ports.

The comment regarding QuickLookUIService is interesting. Not because I use an eGPU but because QuickLookUIService is always reported as using significant energy on my mid 2014 15” MBP.

This has encouraged me to dig deeper and to try to find the reason for this once more.

I found my problematic quick look plugin by running ```qlmanage -m plugins``` and doing a hack binary search where possible. I identified 3rd party plugins, assumed the problem was there, then disabled half of them by temporarily removing the associated apps. It only took a few iterations over a couple of days of casual use to pinpoint the culprit and the problem has not returned.

Bloody hell. At this point my Linux Desktop + MacBook Pro solution is looking pretty good.

Which enclosure are you using?

Mantiz Venus: https://mymantiz.com/products/mz-02-venus. It can do 87W power delivery (so you can run a 15" MBP at full tilt while charging up the battery), has a number of USB 3.1 Get 1 ports on front/back, GbE ethernet, and a SATA adapter that can house a SSD.

While researching eGPUs I couldn't find one that was spec'd out quite like the Mantiz, particularly with respect to the 87W PD. Do keep in mind that like all the other eGPUs out there, the USB ports and anything connected to them share 5 Gbps of theoretical bandwidth. In the case of the Venus, that means the SATA SSD, GbE ethernet, and connected USB devices all share that bandwidth. But I have never seen my ethernet throttle while doing reads/writes to the SSDs and I have 1 Gbps up/down fibre optic internet. I just point that out as a lot of people were upset that all these devices hang off the USB for the Mantiz. But if they didn't they'd just eat into the TB3 bandwidth available to the GPU itself.

Would it make much difference for a standard developer multi-screen workflow?

I actually run my setup in clamshell mode while connected to the eGPU and just use one big display. So I'm not a great person to provide a testimonial there. But I have periodically run with the MBP display open and enabled. The biggest difference is a subtle but noticeable improvement in user interface latency, which is interesting given the video signal is going out over an additional cable.

My understanding is that for the 15" MBPs, the built-in discrete GPU would always be used to drive an external display. So the following doesn't apply for them. But the 13" MBPs have the built-in Intel graphics and you can definitely feel a difference driving even one bigger external display using Intel graphics vs something more substantial like an AMD Polaris (RX580/RX590) or Vega cards.

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