DIY eGPU experiences

Little update on my E6220.

I opened up the machine to upgrade the RAM and found two open mPCIe slots. I will be checking if they are connected to the PCI bus.

Also, may parts will be here next week, at the latest. Wish me luck!

 

There is a lot of talking around the PE3A adapter but till today no real life review.
Since I received it today I am going to add my experiences.

I am giving a name to this adapter to refer to it easier. PE3A- R

More Details on how to build your PE3A- R adapter here.

I personally used an 2.27$ riser adapter which is about 15cm to connect my 5850 Extreme to my PE3A.
The cable looks like this



Since I didn't want to mod my PE3A I did all the mods on my riser cable.
All I have to do was to add 12V on the red pins 1,2,3 of the side you can see, add ground on the yellow pin 32 and cover with some tape the blue pin 2,3 and the pins 1,2,3 on the side that is hidden (it the same you added 12V). I will upload a picture of my modded riser soon.

That way I protect my laptop from high Voltage (tape) and I can use my PE3A standalone to connect an raid card or something that doesn't need power, or even return it if it is problematic as Khenglish's.



My setup run ~ 5h solid rock benchmarks with an 5850 Extreme @ x1 2.0. This is as far as I know the cheapest x1 2.0 solution that can be used everyday. I am also looking for bigger riser which will extend the card from the laptop even more.

So far I will upload only results from external screen while I plan on uploading results from internal screen (using Virtu driver) on a seperate post.

You have to connect the 5850 after boot and you need to run PCI-compaction 32A in order to prevent error 12.

[/TR]

	3Dmark06	RE5	3Dmark Vant.gpu	dmc sc4	3Dmark 11	Unigine
5850 Extreme @ x1.2	17765	139.9	15021	89.24	P3555	909
6950 MSI @ x1.1	17071	90	13064	52.23	P3447	793

​

Just for instance I am uploading the results with an 6950 MSI and EC2C-PE4L v1.4 that I did a couple of weeks earlier on the same setup.
The 6950 is now sold so no further test can be done


I will upload more pictures of the setup soon. Pls be patient...

I hope this post help other people save money and time. (don't have to wait till 20/2).

 

Very interesting !!! Thanks !!!

Im lookin forward to your mod pictures. The fact that you add 12V at the end of the riser is interesting since there's no power cable connected directly on the PE3A that may turn things messy near the expresscard slot.

 

modded PE3A is cheaper but riskier - your mileage may vary

This was a hit on your system and fine work at that. On my 2560P, the PE3A would not work out of the box. It simply did not detect the card until I removed the U3 and L1 internal ICs involved with 3.3V->12V and 3.3V->5V voltage regulation (see details). That meant carefully removing the PE3A's expresscard bottom plate for access but evenso it would not reassemble back together again in the same clean way. I had to cellophane tape it into shape.

The other problem is you have no auxilery 3.3V input. You are relying on the 3.3V/1.3A of the expresscard to be sufficient to drive the HD5850. This seems to work OK for you but the pci-e spec says 3.3V/3.3A (max) so other cards might overdrive the expresscard slot. The PE4L 2.1 can supply an additional 3.3V/2A if plug in a USB cable to your system which combines to be the 3.3V/3.3A total per spec.

So the modded PE3A + riser is a cheaper but riskier solution. I would only suggest it to electronically minded people prepared to spend a little bit of time to make it work and are OK running the eGPU at 90 degrees to their notebook.

The PE4L 2.1 will be an out-of-the-box solution that novice users can plug and play with. The PE4H 3.0 even more friendly with a self-supporting base and it's own 12V->3.3V voltage regulation without needing the USB cable, but will be pricier yet again. No details on PE4H pricing, or even sample pics provided, other than it will be similar to the current $91 PE4H 2.4 price. The PE4L 2.1 / PE4H 3.0 thinner and flexible cabling also giving greater choice as to where you position your DIY eGPU.

LucidLogix Virtu drive for ATiAMD internal LCD use

More details please .. and can you pls do HD5850@x1 1.0 comparative benchmarks? You can switch the expresscard slot to Gen1 either using Setup 1.x or in your bios.

 

Maybe adding 12V directly on the riser prevent the U3 and L3 internal ICs issue. Also, if i got it right his mod allow not to run the egpu parallel to the notebook since there's the riser. And if the 12V line is pluuged at the end of the riser, it could be pretty handy. We would just have a ribbon cable getting out of the PE3A instead of a mHDmi cable.

 

How much power does a gtx 560 draw? a gtx 560 ti?

Will the vidock 4+ (225W) be able to drive these cards? If I go with an egpu solution, is there any modded power adapter I will be able to use? If I go with a power supply, what connectors will it need to have (I'm guessing the answer will be in terms of the number of 4-pin power connectors)?

If someone could shed light on my questions, that'd be great.

 

I think eGPU will be able to work with sonnet express card/thunderbolt adapter. BTW, that is not the correct way to check TOLUD. Some notebook need to reduced RAM to 3GB due to high TOLUD.

 

Does that mean I would have to install less amount of RAM inside my laptop? From what I have read, you can change the BIOS if needed. Would this work in OS X or just windows 7?

 

The E6220 has an expresscard slot. No reason to look at the mPCIe slots as setting x2/x4 link widths is locked into the flash descriptor so cannot be altered by Setup 1.x. Would need serious bios hacking to unlock it. Looking forward to a E6220 x1.2Opt implementation. A great little notebook that's been selling at bargain base Dell Outlet prices.

ViDOck questions go to the ViDock facebook page. ViDock | Facebook . Consider too http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/598920-z1-vidock-gtx-570-ftw-z2-pmd-killer-38.html#post8087603 . The ViDock4+ uses a large 150W and a smaller 75W adapter to achieve 225W like shown below which imho, is not a compact or tidy solution at all.


Source: here

A GTX560Ti was powered by a modified 203W XBOX360 AC adapter here using a PE4H. It wires through it's 12V (and 5V if using a PE4L) like shown below (Yellow=12V, Red=5V, Black=GND)



Source: here.

 

You need to check TOLUD to know for sure. Just need to check in Device Manager. Please refer to Pre-Purchase FAQ --> How can I check if my notebook is compatible with an eGPU?. OR, if you can get DSDT dump on your Macbook, I can check it for you.

I don't have the expertise to change TOLUD in BIOS. Let say if I can do it, it will effect both Mac OS X & Windows.

 

Ok, well I read a forum saying how to extract the dsdt. From the looks of it, would it all go into a separate file I could give to you?

And I read through if my notebook is compatible with an eGPU, and I don't think I can check just yet. I do have a sandy bridge processor which is said that a new BIOS makes it work with 4gb+ of RAM, but I can't find where I can check the TOLUD on mac os x. I actually don't have Windows 7 yet (being shipped) but when I do I can check my TOLUD.

 

Depend on the tool you're going to use, it can dump ACPI tables to several files. Look at the one with "dsdt" in the filename. If you know how to use "iasl", you can decompile DSDT to readable format (.dsl). (If you don't know, just send the files to me) Open the .dsl file with text editor & look at the beginning of the content for something like this:-

Code:

OperationRegion ([B][COLOR="Blue"]GNVS[/COLOR][/B], [B][COLOR="Blue"]SystemMemory[/COLOR][/B], [B][COLOR="Blue"]0xA779AC9E[/COLOR][/B], 0x0200)

In the above example, TOLUD is 0xA779AC9E (~=0xA8000000).

0xA8000000 = (dec) 2818572288 bytes = 2818572288 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 GB = 2.625 GB

You can refer to the table at Pre-Purchase FAQ --> How can I check if my notebook is compatible with an eGPU? If it is equal or lower than 3.25 GB, then you don't need to reduced the RAM.

There is a condition, even if TOLUD is equal or lower than 3.25 GB, eGPU refused to work (in windows, eGPU is detected with Error 12). To fixed this issue, you need to do "PCI compaction" using Setup 1.x. However, you might not able to get Setup 1.x to work because Macbook, for sure, the HDD is formatted to GUID Partition Table (GPT). You still can do "PCI compaction" using Setup 1.x but I don't know how to "Chainload" into windows or Mac OS X with GPT disk.

 

Since they are both passive adapters I don't see the reason why PE3A won't work as the PE4L. All you have to do is add 12V to the card (from the riser) and tape the riser so you don't give any 12V inside. Sure the cable of the PE4L will be thinner and more flexible but the price difference is almost 40$ and it is not removable while riser will be swappable...
Can I use converter to add 3.3V from 5V (although I don't think that a GPU will rely so much on 3.3V.)

I really don't have enough time to prepare a post for users so far due to exams. As soon as I finish I will post results. I already have results from [email protected] but I want to add x1 2.0 results with my 5850.

I will soon add 5850 comparative benchmarks. I didn't do because I thought it was useless...

also to add successful result on another operating system.

Added my HD 5850 @ x1 2.0 running OSX Lion 10.7.2. Result show big difference from Intel HD on external screen only.Intel HD run @ ~10 fps while 5850 hit 32.92 @x1.2 and big difference even from x1.1 21.72 . No need for PCI compaction or anything else. Just plug the 5850 and GE=yes on chimera 1.6.0

System Profiler and Cinebench R11.5 screenshots

 

I own the model with the 4570, about the mpcie port im trying to find out where it is. How can i now if my card is "fermi" or not? It's an GTX 560 (non ti).

Regards

 

GTX560 is Fermi card but it doesn't matter because your notebook doesn't have Intel GMA 4500MHD iGPU. You will not be able to do Optimus setup. Unless your notebook have two mPCIe ports with both are either [ PCIe port #1 + #2 ] or [ PCIe port #3 + #4 ] or [ PCIe port #5 + #6 ], you can only do x1 link setup. Performance will be poor with x1 link setup.

Probably mPCIe port(s) located under the keyboard. Try look under the keyboard.

 

Hi everyone,

I just took delivery of a PE4L PCI 1.0, and am trying to use it with a GTS450 and a Thinkpad x220 with 8gigs of RAM and Windows 7 64. I've installed the nvidia Verde Drivers (285.62) with the modded nvam.inf. Everything is fine, the GTS450 appears in Device Manager as working properly. So far so good.

However, when I try starting nVidia Control Panel, it just crashes. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? I'm so close to eGPU goodness...

 

Yes - isolating the 12V tracks on the riser end that connects to the PE3A with cellophane tape may have been the easy fix. Removing the U3 and L1 ICs probably being unnecessary then. As I didn't have a riser cable it was my only solution to get the PE3A slot working.

As you aren't using a pci-e 2.0 compliant PE4L 2.1 you need to set the expresscard slot port to Gen1 (pci-e 1.1) speed to prevent it from crashing due to failed attempts at getting a pci-e 2.0 link going.. Do that in the bios or use Setup 1.x.

 

I've set it to Gen1. After installing the v290 beta drivers from nVidia it starts. However, I now get a Bluescreen everytime an app wants to use the GTS450. Running on the internal LCD...

Oh and the x220 has the latest BIOS installed (v1.26)

 

Khenglish mentioned an issue with the V290 beta drivers. Try the older official ones. Also load the latest Intel HD3000 drive and check that your PSU is OK and can deliver enough power to drive the GTS450.

 

Thanks for the tips. Back to crashing nVidia control panel with v280... 275 here I come...

edit: 275.33 crashes too. I don't understand this anymore

I followed the portable suggestion, the PSU is a 150w Notebook PSU. I figured that should cover the GTS450 nicely.

 

Should do. One thing that plugging into the AC jack doesn't provide is a 5V input. So plug a USB cable from your notebook to the USB connector. That will supply 5V. Solder a small patch wire from the USB +5V to the floppy molex 5V (RED). Needed so it will prove additional 3.3V if the 3.3V/1.3A from the expresscard slot isn't enough for your GTS450. Some of those ebay AC adapters have an additional USB plug. If yours has one then plug into that instead of your X220.

 

You did find a 12V/150W adapter with standard jack barrel ? Every 12V power adapter i found above 120W comes with a 4 pins barrel like that :

http://www.insidecomputer.com/pictures/AC_adapter/ACALCD12V5A5P.jpg

Edit : Nevermind, I finally found a 150W/12V with standard jack barrel output.

 

Yes it under the keyboard, propably i cant connect the cable :x.
Thanks for the info anyway.

 

Did you do this on a macbook pro or hackintosh? And its nice to see that you have gotten this to work on OS X.

 

Ok i have a question, i got a used club 3d GTX 560 green edition at a very good price. This gpu is rated < 140W and i can eventually undervolt it a bit without lowering the clocks if needed. It's fraking small too, only 16,6 cm long and it seems to be very cool when loaded according to the review i read.

GeForce GTX 560 Green Edition - Graphic solutions GeForce & Radeon

Say i buy this kind of 12V/150W adapter with standard jack barrel output :
eBay | AC-DC 12V 12.5A 150W Switching Power Adapter (110/220V)

Will i be able to run the gpu with the PE4L 2.1 with it by using the portable setup like the HD 5750 and GTS 450 ones ?

Should work, no ?

 

Nice, small, powerful and efficient card. Good find.

You mean run the 150W via the DC jack then use the floppy molex to split the power? It *could* work, but PE4L PCB tracks are not designed to carry that much power. They are designed for max 75W slot power. Yes, we've had successful use of up to 116W previous (GTS450) so it could still work.

To be on the safe side, a very easy workaround is to solder a yellow 12V and 2 black GND leads on the underside of the PE4L b/w the DC jack the the floppy molex. Those leads would be the same as found on a molex-to-pcie adapter. Being gauged for ~25W each, they would do the job so then all the only remaining point of failure would be the DC jack itself which I doubt would be a problem here.

 

OK I got it to work. First of all, thanks for all the help and for making all this information available in such an easily readable form! Your work is much appreciated.

Turns out it was the cheap 150W PSU that was the cause of the trouble. For one, it says 150W, but can only do 8.3A @ 12V. Also the USB voltage was a bit iffy. Anyway I picked up a cheap 400w PSU with 15A on the 12V rail. Hooked everything up, installed the 290 beta drivers again (the rest still crash nVidia control panel), and it runs!

So for the record:

x220i, i2350m, 8GB RAM, BIOS v1.26, no Setup 1.x needed, just set the PCI to Generation 1 in BIOS
PE4L 1.5a, 400w PSU, Palit GTS450 1GB GDDR5
Here are my 3dmark06 scores:
HD3000, internal LCD: 5400ish
GTS450, internal LCD, Optimus: 10892 points
GTS450, external LCD: 12262 points
Ran the benchmark at 1280x768, standard settings

€55 for PE4L, €11 customs, €30 for the PSU, €85 for the GTS450. €181 total. For the financial outlay I am very happy with the result Working on an easy to build enclosure, will post pics once its done.

 

I bet it was some sort of universal 150W adapter with voltage selection ?

These power adapters are trash when it comes to 12V they only reach 150W when 19-20V is selected but have very low amperage in 12V mode.

 

Yeah it was one of those. Oh well, lesson learnt
Only downside: I might need to get a PE4L v2.1 after all

 

Yes thats what i meant. So it *could* work
Your mod suggestion to spare PE4L tracks from high load is interesting. Could be a good alternative. I have a soldering iron so i could give it a try if needed.
Too bad i have only a PE4H with a damn DC 19V at the moment i would have did some experiments right now.

I will try something on my PE4H too in the next days. Some kind of portable setup trial. Don't know if it will work but it *could*

I'm doing a small enclosure too, will post pictures whan it's done

 

Quick question for you guys: would a Geforce 9800GT or a Radeon HD4850 make a better eGPU? I'm looking to construct an eGPU setup for my Dell Inspiron (see signature) so that I can play some games on it. I know that either card would be plenty fast; my main goal is to be able to play Portal & Portal 2 at reasonably high settings, and both of these cards have performed admirably. I'm selling one of these cards some time next week (as part of a C2D desktop), so even though I won't be constructing an eGPU until the PCIe 2.0 adapter comes out, I need to decide now.

My question really boils down to whether I'd have a better driver experience with AMD or nVidia. My Dell has solely Intel graphics, but I might be getting a new laptop in the coming months (the Dell is starting to show some issues); if so it would probably be a T420. I know if I got a laptop with nVidia graphics built in (which I don't realistically see myself doing--they're expensive!) I would want a nVidia eGPU, but with an Intel HD3000 built in would I notice any difference compatibility-wise between the AMD and nVidia? I don't foresee getting a laptop with an AMD GPU.

Thanks guys!

 

On my sig's rig

 

The 9800gt is too old to do optimus and both cards would require x1E for full x1 performance. I would advise going with the stronger card, which is the 4850. Keep in mind that you would need a new laptop for PCI-E 2.0.

 

OK 2 more benchmarks for the comparison table,

3dmark06 @ 1280x1024, external LCD, 12064 points
http://i.minus.com/iY88v5BFoeKYy.PNG

RE5 1280x800 var, 89.3fps
http://i.minus.com/iGGr7PguDTY9d.PNG

 

I recognize that I'd only get PCIe 1.0 speed with my current laptop, but I do believe that it makes sense to get an adapter that would be faster on a future laptop.

Is this the x1E that you are talking about?

All Sandy Bridge laptops with an ExpressCard slot have PCIe 2.0, correct?

A final question: I would have to use an external monitor with either of these cards, correct?

 

I have also a Vostro 3750. At the moment i have 8gb memory with a i7-2630qm. I also have a GT525 and HD3000 grafichs. Are we with a Vostro 3750 limited to 4gb if you want to use a eGPU? I read the pre-faq and other links, but i don't understand all of it.

Thanx if you want to help me

 

I have a mini display port on my Graphiccard, I dont know if it has to be connected, or is this unimportend? (I dont have it done yet).

 

Hi ! No, as far as i know we are not limited by any amount of ram. Mine came with 8GB ram too but i just sold back the second memory stick.

As for egpu on Vostro 3750, it works perfectly for me but i got error 12 and had to run eGPU Setup 1.x PCI Compaction. Solution#3 on this link :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...iy-egpu-troubleshooting-faq.html#error12_faq1

Not a big deal really cause it's a one time thing, after that the egpu works flawlessly, but still you have to run this pci compaction via a bootable usb stick or bootloader menuitem.

Now since you have a discrete gpu GT525M on board i don't know if you will encounter the same issue as me. Maybe you will just have to disable your dedicated gpu with Setup 1.x. I can't really help on that cause i didn't experienced it since i just have HD 3000.

Anyway, people here can help you on that and it will work in one way or another for sure.

And don't buy a PE4H or PE4L yet !!!!! Wait a little cause PE4L 2.1 will be released the 20th of february and it will support pci-e 2.0 that considerably boosts the performances. It's worth the wait.

 

How do I know my laptop is pci-e 2.0? I own a 13inch macbook pro 2011 model with thunderbolt. It is an i5 sandy bridge dual-core 2.3 ghz

 

Oke, thanx very much.

I'm going to run it with a 8800GT card. It's laying around from my old desktop.

I have 2 x 21.5'' displays and one is connected by the HDMI with HDMI-DVI adapter and the other by the VGA. But now i have colour differents, and the VGA one is a little bit unsharp. So this eGPU will be the perfect solution.

But the 8800GT won't fit in a PE4L, or does it?

Greetzz

 

A 8800GT will work i guess. But since you have a Sandy bridge rig with intel HD 3000 on board, it would be a shame not using a fermi gpu/optimus setup. If you're planning on playing games i mean. Performances are so much better.

"Sandy Bridge's expresscard is a x1 2.0 link (5Gbps), the latter approximately doubles to 10Gbps with NVidia Optimus' pci-e compression that activates on a x1 link with Fermi cards"

 

​

Well, maybe it's a shame. But i don't play games actually.

I also came across this: Targus

The main point off getting this eGPU, is that i want 2 screen on my laptop.

 

Yup that's x1E. As far as I know all Sandy Bridge systems do have PCI-E 2.0. I don't think anyone has heard of one without it.

Yes you would have to use an external monitor.

 

How to mod your PE3A+ riser (photo guide) in order to adapt a GPU.

Well I wish to name this adapter PE3A- R I hope there is no problem on that

Before you continue reading make sure that you are willing to take the chance that this setup may not work. Either because you have a defective PE3A or you didn't do something right. If you are willing to continue this guide make sure you don't blame me for anything that will happen.​

​

I have posted my results here and i will dedicate this post on how to mod your riser to connect an GPU using an PE3A. PE3A is originally designed to hold cards that don't require additional power 12V or 3.3V auxiliary, so we have to add this manually. On this guide since my HD5850 doesn't need more 3.3V I will only show you how to add a molex to give your card 12V.

First you have to use tape to protect your laptop from the high 12V Voltage you are giving to your GPU.


- First use tape to cover the 3 pins you see on the photo.




- Use tape to cover only pins 2,3 (do not cover pin 1!)



- Use a soldering iron to connect 12V power to pins 1,2,3 as shown. I personally used an older riser I had laying around but you can apply the same soldering on your riser.



- Use a soldering iron to connect GND to pin 32 (it is the latest pin on the same side). GND will be delivered where needed by the PE3A and the card.
Note that you can also add GND on the PE3A (where it says GND).



- Connect the riser carefully to your PE3A (so that the tape you applied will not be removed)



- You are ready! Connect the card to your riser, and the power supply and connect to Express-Card...




Note1!!!: Note that you can also cut the wires of the riser and connect to 12V and GND. If you are going to cut the cable, make sure you also cut pins 2,3 from the opposite and connect to 12V. This way you don't have to apply any tape and you may not need a soldering iron.

Note2!!!: Some cards may need additional 3.3V auxiliary power. (PCI-E specs require 3.3A while EC provides only 1.3A. If that's the case you may need some kind of converter (from 5V to 3.3V or from 12V to 3.3V) for the additional 2A.

Note3: There are some ready risers (with molex) on ebay but they cost ~23$, so I don't think it worth it.
I just contacted a seller for bigger cabling but I think I have to wait since it is public holiday in China these days... Be happy to answer questions.

 

Ok, I am moving a bit forward.
The only problem I have is that D1 on the PE4H platine does not lightning up (I guess it should be that it works), all other D's are lightning up. The function of D1 = PERST #
PM3N Modul there is lightning up D2 orange and D3 does not lightning up.
Does someone have an idea?

 

Thanks timohour

As for ready riser with molex on board you're talking about this ?

eBay | Extender Riser Flex Kabel PCI-E PCIe x16-Karte x1-Slot inkl. Molex

Could spare a little work, it's not that expensive. There's only a yellow cable out of the molex, i wonder why there's no black ground cable.

Edit : Wait i didn't see the 20 euros shipping cost

 

It is because it only provides 12V since it is supposed to be used on motherboards which are already grounded. Provided the fact that most graphic cards use 6-pin connectors it's not mandatory to connect GND since it will be provided by the 6-pin connector...

If you take under consideration that the PE4L will be priced ~92$ shipped and it is very easy to connect the moles the riser, it doesn't worth to give more than 5$ on a riser unless it is more than 60cm.

 

Here is a test by anandtech that shows how the new amd flagship 7970 scales with x2 - x16 pcie3.0 http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7970-reprise-pcie-bandwidth-overclocking-and-msaa

 

All Sandy Bridge notebook should have PCIe 2.0 5Gb/s. BTW, you don't want to give me the DSDT dump? For checking TOLUD?

 

Sorry been a bit busy. I'll send it to you as soon as possible. And how should I send it? (email, message, etc.)