Mac Studio doesnt recognize HDX card

[Intern]

Hello all!

I've been looking around the forums to find any source of help regarding my difficulties, but seeing as Mac Studios are brand spankin' new, I'll have to make my own thread.

We just recently purchased Mac Studios to upgrade the old trash cans we have in the studios and I'm running into a brick wall getting the HDX cards to be recognized by the system. I followed all of the troubleshooting tips, I even did a fresh wipe and reinstall of everything, including the system recovery and selecting the limited security to allow kernels. I swapped back to the old computer/chassis to make sure the card was still operational and it is.

We are running Monterey 12.3, protools 2021.12, the HDX drivers are 2021.12 as well. we use a server license that reads our license seats. We are using a Sonnet Breakaway eGFX 650 PCi chassis with a thunderbolt3 cable directly to the back of the Mac Studio. I even purchased a new HDX power cable thinking that it was that since avid's table about external chassis stated that it was required.

I'm at a loss. in system information the computer recognizes and connects to the chassis, but doesn't see the card installed inside of it. It also doesn't show up in the pci category, in fact, the Mac Studio doesn't see and PCi hardware connected, but it recognizes and sees it from the thunderbolt category. something i noticed on the sonnet website is that the eGFX chassis isnt compatible with silicon M1 computers, but it shows in the avid compatible chassis's as a device thats compatible.

I did a force run on the drivers, and it was able to run. The Digitest doesnt read the cards which leads me to believe its a chassis/communication issue between the HDX card and the computer, but IDFK

I hope I explained everything properly. If i missed anything or I'm being a dope and missing something so blatantly in front of my face, let me know!

[arche3]

I think the 650 chassis do not work in M series macs. Even though they claim it does. I’ve seen a few posts about this in the web.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DetroitT]

HDX seems to require TB2 speeds.
See if there is a switch in the chassis like their bigger chassis-HDX has.

[Darryl Ramm]

Edit: I posted here that Sonnet Thunderbolt 3 eGPU boxes were never designed to or claimed to support HDX, I was wrong, they clearly were/are and I expand on that in a later reply below.

As pointed out you need a box that provides PCIe 2 slots for the Avid cards, thanks to a design flaw by Avid.

You need to get a Thunderbolt expansion chassis that is actually designed/intended to/claimed to support HDX cards.

Thunderbolt 3 eGPU boxes were never designed to or claimed to do that.

Thunderbolt 3 eGPU boxes are dumb as a plank of wood and do nothing except hardwire the 4 x PCIe 3 raw PCIe lanes out the back of the Intel Thunderbolt chip and run them into a single PCIe 16 physical slot. That, a power supply and a big fan, which is why they are so cheap.

No PCIe switches, no smarts, no ability to run at PCIe 2 for compatibvility.

Now if you found an old Thunderbolt 2 eGPU box and run though an adapter that might actually work since it's PCIe2 internally. But why not buy a box actually qualified to run what you have. Again, Sonnet has amazingly clear documentation/specs on their web site so I'm at a loss for what exactly you are looking at that incorrectly implies this will work.

[BScout]

Strangely, Sonnet has in fact qualified this chassis for HDX support (see website)

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by BScout

Strangely, Sonnet has in fact qualified this chassis for HDX support (see website)

Ouch, time for me to eat humble pie. I did now find the stuff on their website, not much detail, but yep Sonnet obviously claim it works, ever want to sell you a power cable for the HDX card for these chassis.

When I google for this stuff I find this article: https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/hom...erbolt-chassis.

Mmmm. Is there a subset of some HDX cards that worked in the chassis or all of them?

So my fuzzy understanding was the problem with the HDX (and HD Native) cards was around identifying themselves correctly as PCIe 1 or PCIe 2 cards and so the chassis does not end up working with the cards. Why do they work in computers with PCIe 3 slots... well PCIe things are complex. And it sounded like Avid got lucky with implementing stuff not strictly to standard that still worked in many cases, just Thunderbolt expansion chassis were an issue.

I have an older eGPU 550 chassis (actually in parts in front of me on my desk having goodies installed in it). But I think all the later ones are largely evolutions of these, with increase in power delivery. The 550 is well built, an Alpine ridge chip directly driving the PCIe slot. There is a lot of other hardware on the circuit board, most of that extra stuff looks like power management, sequencing etc. There is no switch to force PCIe2 mode and there are quite a few unlabeled jumpers on the board none are labeled to force the slot into PCIe 2 mode and I've can't find any documentation that explains what any of those jumpers do and I don't see any mention in any Sonnet documentation about having to install a jumper. Maybe Sonnet really did actually fake out enough other stuff in these eGPU boxes to allow the non-standards compliant cards to work as if they were really in a computer PCIe slot.

Outside of this eGPU box(es) Sonnet Thunderbolt 3 chassis either have a switch inside them that puts a slot in PCie 2 compatibility mode or they have some slots in multislot chassis that only implement PCIe 2. I expect those slots should work with HDX (that's what the earlier "HDX" co-branded connect chassis had internally).

How sonnet labels eGFX compatibility kinda makes sense: eGFX chassis can't ever be "compatible" with Apple silicon Macs as Apple Silicon Macs today don't support anything but the embedded Apple GPUs. And any HDX or other card use with these chassis is secondary/not really Sonnet's focus, they have whole lines of other products for that. I can't think of any reason a chassis would need changes specific to Apple Silicon.

To the OP: (not trying to be more helpful)

You have multiple of these Studio+eGPU+HDX ? Do they all fail the same? Or is this the first you are trying?

This exact HDX card was working in this exact expansion Chassis before with your trash can mac? Can you move it back to confirm it still works? Or at a minimum try reseating the HDX card and double check the power cable is connected correctly.

in system information the computer recognizes and connects to the chassis, but doesn't see the card installed inside of it. It also doesn't show up in the PCI category, in fact, the Mac Studio doesn't see and PCi hardware connected, but it recognizes and sees it from the thunderbolt category.

Yes the HDX card should show up in the System Information PCI devices section even if the driver is not loaded or blocked for some other reason. So until it does don't spend any more time chasing driver install procedure or Digitest etc. Sounds like you are ... but make sure you are looking in the PCI not Thunderbolt section. It should be listed as pci11af,ef70. Do you have any other PCIe card you can put in the Thunderbolt chassis just to see if it shows up listed in the System Information PCIe session.

At this point it may be worth contact Sonnet or Avid support.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You got an exact link? I looked earlier and did not see this.

I expect any such info is a typo/mistake coming from Thunderbolt 2 eGPU products.

Anyhow great, the OP hopefully gets to upgrade the a proper box at reduced cost after contacting Sonnet support.

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/l...kaway-box.html

blue side box


Also, "Tech Specs" tab, look at the right column.
Also
https://www.sonnettech.com/support/d...patibility.pdf
left-most purple column

[Darryl Ramm]

Ugh sorry for replying out of order, I had typed a reply earlier today and forgot to hit send. I'll also flag I was wrong in the earlier post.

[martthie_08]

sorry to revive this old thread, but what's the current status on the eGFX breakaway boxes?

from what I could make out of the above written is that only the older TB2 models work...

but this AVID website it still states they are compatible:
https://resources.avid.com/SupportFi...ity_2023.9.pdf

[Darryl Ramm]

https://avidtech.my.salesforce-sites.com/pkb/articles/compatibility/Pro-Tools-Thunderbolt-Chassis-Compatibility

Avid is explicitly listing TB3 e-GPU chassis by part numbers... in the pdf you shared as well.