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#1 2021-07-28 17:33:11

taraf
Member
Registered: 2021-07-28
Posts: 3

hot swapping egpu (thunderbolt3)

First, I apologize if this belongs in another forum (such as kernel/hardware). If so, please move it. I did search the forums, but couldn't find anything that answered my question already, nor anything on the wiki.

Second, I apologize that I can't do pacman -Syu prior to posting (I know it's in the rules for a good reason).  As long as this bug remains open, updating the linux kernel will break thunderbolt entirely: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/71569. As such, while everything else is updated, I've rolled back to a 5.12 kernel. As this is an issue I've been putting up with for almost 2 years, I doubt that updating the kernel will fix it but remain ever hopeful.

Third, this is a minor annoyance, and if the answer is "no fix possible" I'll live. What I have is workable.

That out of the way -- has anybody managed to configure an eGPU in such a way that it can be hot swapped without needing to reboot?

I've got my setup working, but currently while I can plug in the eGPU (Razer Core X w/ an 8GB XFX RX580) I still need to reboot after plugging in/authenticating the device on thunderbolt to get better than single digit framerates. Additionally, if I unplug it without first shutting down the computer, the system completely freezes - can't even drop to a terminal to see if the kernel has panicked as it no longer accepts any input. Even if I've dropped to a terminal before unplugging, and have shut down the display-manager service, it still freezes in this way with no text showing up on the screen to explain why.

It's also worth noting - I have a 2nd boot option in grub, for iommu & hardware passthrough for virtualization, but I was experiencing this behaviour for over a year before I set that up. This is so that I can have a (Redmond) virtual machine for playing games that just don't work on Linux. It is *not* the default boot option - normally the kernel boots without the necessary modules loaded or iommu groups defined. (the wiki article on setting up passthrough was excellent). I mention this because when I do boot with the virtualization option, I *can* hot plug & unplug the eGPU without needing to reboot - it passes through to the VM and works as well in that OS as it does natively (at least, close enough that I can't tell the difference). An alternative option that'd work for me is figuring out a way to get Prime to offload to the device in the iommu group for rendering - for the life of me I wasn't able to figure out how, even when I manually unloaded the vfio modules & loaded the amdgpu driver then restarted the X server.

Thanks in advance

Obligatories -
Linux tuxmonster 5.12.11-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 16 Jun 2021 15:25:28 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
xorg-server 1.20.12-1
xorg-server-common 1.20.12-1
gnome-shell 1:40.3-1
bolt 0.9.1-1

System: Clevo N131WU (branded as a Tuxedo InfinityBook 13.3). Core i5 8250u, 32GB DDR4. Primary HDD is a 1TB Intel 660p NVME, and secondary HDD (passthrough to the VM) is a 240GB Kingston SATA3 SSD.

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