DIY eGPU experiences

Is it possible to run an eGPU on a netbook?

If yes will the results be good?

Well, since my brother left his HP mini 2133 @ home I thought I could try.
This netbook although it is one of the rare ones to have expresscard slot it is also one that have a very slow VIA C7 Processor @1.6GHz. This way all benchmarks were capped by the CPU ( check cpu load + my 5850 wouldn't pass 35C). I tried to apply a PLL pinmod but the netbook wouldn't boot. So set-FSB or set-pll is the only viable solution but my pll is not yet supported and I don't think I feel like spending 10€ for a Set-FSB licence. So down to results.
I only did DirectX9 Benchmarks since in my opinion it wouldn't worth more time.

Screen​	RAM​	GPU​	Direct X 9​		Ports​
			3D06​	RE5​
External	1GB	HD5850 @x1 1.0	1659​	6 +​	EC​
Internal				4.6*​

+ Rerun benchmark @ 16bit Color Depth to achieve 11,6% increased fps.
* Dragged the game @ windowed mode from active HD5850 screen to internal screen

---

Netbook Specs : VIA C7-M 1,6GHz | 1GB DDR2 | 8.9' 1024x600 | Apacer 64GB SSD

GPU Specs :HD5850 1GB GDDR5

eGPU : PE3A-R

 

How much performance loss do you think you would get by dragging to windowed mode on a more powerful laptop (say a Core2 Duo or i5)?
And one more thing: in order to use internal screen with ATI cards (excluding Virtu) do you always need to have the external monitor plugged or are there some workarounds (for example dummy display)?

Thanks!

 

Chipset HM57 - CPU Intel Core i7 620M - RAM 8Gb -Intel HD Graphics -
nVIDIA 330M GT - DIY Vidock GTX 560 Ti 448 x1.opt + external monitor
(PE4H 2.4 + EC2C)

GPU model : EVGA GeForce GTX 560 TI 448 Cores Classified

 

Will Optimus work with pci-e 2.0 or is it just pci-e 1.0?

 

Ran 3DMark06 again on external, but on a native 1280x1024 monitor, went up.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i5-2520M Processor,Dell Inc. 0D1CTR score: 14846 3DMarks

 

What is the PSU specification? Max current on +12V?

 

Amazing! Thanks!! I'll be reading a lot for the next 2 days

 

In my opinion, results wouldn't be different than the ones with the Virtu drivers (~35-40% of the performance of the External screen, which you can check here @ x1.1 results. Since you are talking about older than SB systems the performance drop will be more, cause ich10 and older results with amd are very bad. On an older laptop that I owned with an OC T9300 @ 3.3GHz and the 5850 3Dmark06 would be ~13000 and RE5 ~30fps, which means that either you do an x2 link (if your laptop supports it) or you get an Nvidia Fermi card to have Opt. compression (if your laptop have intel IGP). If not, I would suggest to save some mpney and trade your laptop and get a new SB laptop which these days start used or new as low as 300$.

I suggest that because internal screen modes with ATI GPU @ x1.1 are as shown on the Virtu driver as good as the Intel HD3000 results (or maybe worse). I could ran shift 2 unleashed on my internal screen @720p with everything medium-low to achieve reasonable frame rates while running @ x1.2. I guess that @x1.1 most games are unplayable.

 

ICH9M and older can apply the x1E tweak if the expresscard slot is an odd number to get them another 15-30% performance. It's the 1st gen i-core systems with a Series-5 chipset that can do neither a x1E or x1 2.0 link, but could do x2 1.0 or x4 1.0 link (if have the ports for it).

This info is covered in the First Steps-> 2. Which video card do you recommend for best performance on my system?

I agree with timhour. The changeover costs to get a SB notebook capable of x1.2Opt are quite low these days (eg: HP 4530s, Lenovo E420/E520, Dell Vostro 3450/3550). There you'd get a simple single-cable solution capable of significantly higher performance than older notebooks utilizing a x1.Opt (pci-e 1.1) or x2 1.0 link. That's if your aim is high performance.

 

Hi
I am a newbie and was planning to build a eGPU with the excellent tutorial by nando4.
I would like a little help with it. My laptop is an Thinkpad SL500 with the following config
Intel Core2Duo T5870 @ 2.00GHz
3GB RAM,
160GB HDD
Intel GMA4500MHD
Windows 7 Professional.

I plan on buying Nvidia GT430 graphics card and use it with PE4L.
I plan to use the internal LCD screen and hence have to use the Optimus 1.x config.
Please let me know if my machine is compatible. I know that there is a express card slot, but wold like to make sure. I also would like to know if its whitelisted or not (I read that lenovo would have whitelisted it and I dont have an express card right now to make sure). Also, the earlier mentioned nando4's post do not contain any reference to a PSU, so can i manage with an adapter?
Also could you please let me know whether to use PE4L or PE4H for this config?

 

I will be attempting this mod for a GTX 570 this weekend too connect to a lenovo t420, thanks for the info.

Re the 3.3V aux, couldnt you just wire in a 3.3v orange sata cable from the PSU too power this correctly?

 

Hi, I need help to with the Error 12.

My specs:

ATI HD 6950
Fujitsu T731
Window 7 Pro
4 GB

-----
I could not get 256MB free with 32-bit and 32-bit A compaction.
I tried different ways, select iGPU+eGPU, ALL, none of them worked.

I tried using 36-bit on select iGPU+eGPU and got 256MB free.
But I couldn't fix the error 12.

I tried using the DNA driver (with F8+disable driver signature on each boost).

Please help

 

I'm sorry, but I cannot support the MSDOS-based Setup 1. 0x versions as it sits on the MS-DOS platform and doing so would be advocating piracy of MS-DOS. MS-DOS is still licensed so we need to use FreeDOS instead. Please obtain a FreeDOS-based Setup 1.10+ version here for a small donation. Your donation will be used to fund some long outstanding bug fixes to the compact program.

Once you've obtained Setup 1. 1x, hit F1, select Main menu at the bottom left and follow the Status Window link reading careful what it explains about the pci_alloc_valid field.

 

If extra current is needed it can be added directly from the PSU. Well, since I haven't tried it yet I can't supply info as to where you should connect it. If your card won't start we can ask nando4 which pins we have to connect to the 3.3V rail. It will probably be pins A9 and A10.

 

what do you guys estimate x1.2 optimus performance to be compared to using the GPU on a desktop? (GTX 460)

 

Hi
I am a newbie and was planning to build a eGPU with the excellent tutorial by nando4.
I would like a little help with it. My laptop is an Thinkpad SL500 with the following config
Intel Core2Duo T5870 @ 2.00GHz
3GB RAM,
160GB HDD
Intel GMA4500MHD
Windows 7 Professional.

I plan on buying Nvidia GT430 graphics card and use it with PE4L.
I plan to use the internal LCD screen and hence have to use the Optimus 1.x config.
Please let me know if my machine is compatible. I know that there is a express card slot, but wold like to make sure. I also would like to know if its whitelisted or not (I read that lenovo would have whitelisted it and I dont have an express card right now to make sure). Also, the earlier mentioned nando4's post do not contain any reference to a PSU, so can i manage with an adapter?
Also could you please let me know whether to use PE4L or PE4H for this config? Will i possibly encounter a error 12 problem?

 

@vivekm85,

Please don't double post. To know the answer to all of your questions, please read:-

1. Pre-Purchase FAQ
   2. How can I check if my notebook is compatible with an eGPU?
2. First Steps
   1. What parts do I need and where can I buy them?
   2. Which video card do you recommend for best performance on my system?

 

It's hard to tell since desktops also have stronger CPUs, so when comparing performance desktops not only perform better due to PCI-E, but a faster CPU too. I would estimate from comparing PCI-E 1.1 to 2.0 though that in most cases it's around 90% of x16 performance. There are some cases where it's worse than that though. It varies from game to game.

 

90% is a lot better than what i was expecting tbh

what kind of games do you think will have issues? older dx9? newer dx11? or just random? main games i want to play atm are tera and swtor lol

 

Hi, I have some problems: I use NEC Versa E6500 laptop with a GTX 460 and 620W PSU. I connect my GTX 460 card to a 23" Dell LCD support 1920x1080 through a VGA port.

I was able to install modded NVIDIA 285.62 modded driver for Optimus.

and


However, In my Screen Resolution, my LCD is detected as "2. Display device on:VGA", and the Resolution available is only 1920x1200, 1600x1200, 1600x1024 and so on. 1920x1080 was not found.

I tried all the method: uncheck "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display", look at Advanced Settings => List All Modes but 1920x1080 cannot be found. It looks strange, because usually when I connect my LCD to my laptop, it shows the display name as "Dell ST2320L" and default switch to 1920x1080 on the LCD...

PS: link to 285.27 Optimus Retrofit driver Post Link died, could we have an alternatives?
Thank you so much

 

I've done a full windows seven reinstall and in fact my Vostro 3750 doesn't need any pci compaction to make the egpu work. It wasn't simple to get internal screen to work since it doesn't seem to activate with all modded drivers for some reasons while they worked before the reinstall...I mean Egpu is correctly installed without any errors in device managers but 3dmark06 and games still use Intel HD even if i select Nvidia gpu prefered in Nvidia control panel...Anyway it worked with the last Nvidia desktop drivers, don't ask me why cause it's a mystery.

Actually i think i have a small clue. During my first attemps, i was uninstalling nvidia drivers before installing new ones. It didn't worked at all. Tried ten times at least with different drivers !!! Each time internal screen failed to work even with last beta desktop drivers. Last attemp, i installed last beta drivers without uninstalling 275.33 and it worked. Blah.

Funny thing with my lap is if i plug the Egpu before windows boot, the egpu doesn't work and i get an error 12. If i put windows 7 in sleep mode and then plug the Egpu, it works like a charm, no error 12.

 

Ah, you may be onto the problem. Would the card not be recognized at all, even at idle, if the psu wasn't strong enough? I have a Cooler Master Extreme Power 460W with 18A across 12v+ rails one and two. But I couldn't get that one to jump using a paper clip. The fan will twitch when you flip the switch, but then it stops and the thing won't turn on. It WILL turn on as soon as you hook the 20pin into a mobo, so apparently some pin besides PS ON and a COM need to be connected to jump that PSU. So I've had to use a PSU pulled from an old Gateway desktop, which will put out 256W across the +12v rails combined (two of them), which should be sufficient though not ideal...now that I think of it though, I don't know which of its connections are on which rail, since I obviously don't have a spec sheet for it. The Cooler Master PSU as is would be carrying 150W on one rail and 75W on the other since I have two 6 pins on rail 1 and the pcie slot on rail 2. I can't remember the Amperage rating for the old PSU. I will check when i get home and edit this post. I will try to find an adequate PSU to test with before I give up on the PE3A. Thanks for the help Kizwan.

 

Actually, eGPU will only draw power from +12V1, not both. +12V2 is only for CPU (4-pin power connector). Other connectors are connected to +12V1.

GTX560Ti power requirement is minimum 170W & can consume up to 205W when at peak 3D. So, PSU must have at least 19A of max current on +12V1 or +12V (12V * 19A = 228W, calculated with 10% margin).

 

I have the PE3A wired to the +12V2 4 pin, using a 4 pin adapter that I cut the yellow and black leads from the male end I,m not using. So those power and gnd wires are soldered directly to the PE3A's 12v terminal posts, and the PE3A's internal power regulation system has been cut in such a way that it only allows a 12V connection to the PE3A and not a 5v or 3.3v connection Wouldn't that work? Giving me 75W at 6.25A on +12v2? Also, I tested the PE3A and gateway PSU (made by HIPRO, it's 18A across both rails. combined, that should be much greater than 19A) with the old gateway GPU, an ATI pcie card that has only a pcie connection - meaning its power requirements are pretty low - obviously, if the HIPRO was running the whole gateway system before, it should be able to do just the card, but I couldn't get it to pick up. Unless, of course, the 4 pin thing doesn't work - it does send at least some power though, because both gpu's i've tested warm up a little, and the 560's fan starts even while plugged in only to the PE3A, with no 6 pin connection. It will not turn on under 6 pin power with no PCIE power.

 

Are there any brick and mortar retailer that sells the PE4H adapters, or are they such a niche item that they must be purchased online?

Anywho, despite using the older Arrendale Core i5, the PE4 setup with the GTX 460 would still be somewhat more practical than building a desktop just for gaming, and more enjoyable than a similarly priced console for myself. I really appreciate the information this thread has provided. Before, the only such solution I've heard of was ViDock, and that would be ludicrously expensive.

 

Pretty positive you have to get them through HIT or Bplus, otherwise we would all be buying them from somewhere else and not paying $20 shipping

 

@kizwan
thank you very much for your reply. Can i use this tutorial to use with GT430?(There was a post whcih used it for GTS450 not GT430) i want to get the maximum out of GT430. So would you recommend the PE4L or PE4H to use with GT430?
My device manager looks like this

 

I just opened up my laptop and the wireless card is half length. I might have trouble fitting the adaptor.

 

It's random. SWTOR runs very well on a PCI-E 2.0 link, however on PCI-E 1.1 it microstutters around 30% of the time. I do not know about tera.

 

You also need to make sure the two 6-pin PCIe power connector able to supply enough power to drive GTX560Ti. Unless the graphic card is faulty, I'm sure your PSU unable to deliver enough power. I bet it unable to deliver 18A on +12V1 at all. Must be less than that.

Yes, you can follow that tutorial. GT430 power requirement is only 49W. You can use either PE4L-EC2C or PE4H-EC2C. They both deliver the same performance.

According to screenshot, PCI bus with 8 digits memory address is 0xBDE00000, which means TOLUD is 2.97GB. Please compare it with TOLUD table at Pre-Purchase FAQ ( 2. How can I check if my notebook is compatible with an eGPU?). As long as TOLUD is equal or lower than 0xD0000000 (3.25GB) your notebook will have enough 32-bit PCI space for a eGPU to work with 4GB or more of system RAM.

If you buy PE4L/PE4H from HIT, you will get Setup 1.x for free. Setup 1.x might be needed to fixed, for example, if you get Error 12 in Device Manager.

 

GTS450-to-go is complete!



Plastic toolbox that cost €15 for 3 (13", 16", 19", I used the 16" one), a couple of holes and screws later...

The little knob on the outside is a fan regulator for the GPU fan. The GPU fan is an 80mm case fan that I had lying around. Had to do the mod because I managed to fry the fan the GPU came with

 

Hi,

I'm new here and I've planned to build DIY eGPU with my friend. My laptop is Toshiba L500 with T4300 2.1gHz, 4GB RAM, dGPU RADEON HD 4650M and also IGP 4500MHD with isn't in use at all.

I've checked from Everest that I have 2 PCI-e ports open so how do I know that can I use them with PM3N. Because I need the WLAN card I can't use it for the eGPU.

Also my friend with Mobile Intel HM65 Express chipset (6-series I think? ) Acer, would like to know can he get the PCI-e 2.0 bandwith with HM3N v1.2?

This is a cool thread!

-azori

 

Great job. I think though that 450gts cam be driven by a more compact 12V 120w. Anyway that's a great idea.
You can post this on the DIY enclosure thread for other users reference.

 

That was the original plan, but the 150w external couldnt drive it, so I used the 400w that I got from a buddy.. at least this way I can upgrade to a card with a higher TDP in future...

 

Finally successfully setup eGPU a big thank you to nando4 Nautis and kizwan. Stuffs: PE4L, Seasonic 620W PSU, Palit GTX460, NEC Versa E6500 core 2 duo P8400 2.26GHz with 4gb ram, Windows 7 64 bits.



How I did it:
- Install latest driver for your integrated graphic card.

- first start up your laptop, connect ExpressCard to your laptop, your Device Manager will auto install and show a VGA Graphic Driver.

- download and install Optimus Retrofit driver version 285.27 link (old links dead) made by Nautis, for my case, all other driver version just doesn't work(266.58, 275.33, 285.62 etc.)

- then shutdown your comp, unplug ExpressCard, start up your comp, Sleep, plug in ExpressCard, Wake up, go to Device Manager => Scan for hardware changes => Done

3DMarks 06 got about 10500
can play most of the games Civ 5, Starcraft 2, Sims 3, World of Warcraft at 1920x1080 ultra graphics.

Everything is cool, thank you again

 

Hi,

Most likely the Intel GMA 4500MHD iGPU in your Toshiba is disabled & not electrically connected to output. So, you can't use it to do Optimus setup. You can only do x1 link setup which means the performance will be poor. Only x2 can give better performance but you need to use two PCIe ports (PCIe port1+2 or port3+4 or port5+6). Everest/AIDA64 only report enabled PCIe port but it doesn't mean they're physically available. So, you need to check to confirm. If the mPCIe port doesn't have any label on it, e.g. WWAN, for sure you can connect PM3N card to it. If it is labeled with WWAN, you need to find schematic for your notebook to confirm whether it is connected to PCIe or only USB lane. eGPU need the former. BIOS will most likely have whitelist, so you will need to use Setup 1.x to overcome it.

With PE4L v2.1, your friend will be able to use full PCIe 2.0 bandwidth on his/her notebook.

 

So, I've got an issue. The eGPU works fine in my laptop, and the benchmark scores are about where they should be, if a little low. However, everything stutters pretty badly, causing games to not be very playable. Any suggestions? I'm running a 1.1Opt link on a PE4H and 460GTX.

 

More information please. Which games? Internal or external monitor? Drivers version? Certain games required more bandwidth & can stutters at certain maps.

 

Your 14.8k 3dmark06 score is on the low side for a GTX460-1GB. Consider Warwickeo's results showing 15.8k. There's RE5 and dmcv4 bench results there you can compare against. You may have something other than bandwidth causing problems, eg: DPC latency issues.

The way to improve gaming performance is: (1) disable the eGPU's audio controller to maximize video bandwidth (2) set color depth to 16-bit in Display control panel and run the game in windowed mode or (3) lower game detai, resolution and/or apply other game-specific tweaks (4) get a PE4L 2.1 to double the bandwidth.

 

Considering that 14.8k was a one time thing I can't seem to replicate, I'm a bit worried. I get about 14k flat usually. My 3400 3DMark11 score is a bit low too. I've tried the 16-bit color, and gotten little performance increase.

Hopefully, I can sell my PE4H and grab a PE4L 2.1.

 

The issue is still there. If you do not identify & fixed the problem, even if you get PE4L v2.1 later, your performance will be lower than everybody else.

 

I noticed the clocks on your 3dmark06 result are set to 815/2000. I'd suggest use MSI Afterburner to set reference 675/1900 clocks, re-run 3dmark and see if you are still getting those poor results. The vbios can start the throttle the gpu if hit instability or thermal limits. If you are still getting lousy results then consider a fresh Win7 install.

 

The clocks are because I'm using an overclocked Gigabyte SOC cardd. I'll try that.

And, good point kizwan. Didn't think of that.

 

Okay, so what I've seen here Toshiba Satellite L505/L505D of my motherboard is that there is only 1 (WLAN) mPCI-e slot. So basically with this old CPU and only like 40% capacity of the eGPU doesn't do a much for my pc. Yeah the anti-whitelisting would be quite easy with the Setup 1.x (i think) but if there's nothing speacial to come with it, maybe I'll just pass the project.

But for my friend's project; so it's not possible to get the full 2.0 bandwidth with the combination PE4H v2.4 and PM3N v. 1.1 ? I think that he already ordered it :S

Thanks for the answers already !

 

Okay, so, I need some info. My Devices panel says CFA00000 under PCI BUS. This is the only 8-digit memory line, so I figure this is the TOLUD. However, this value is not in the table on the first page. Does anyone know what the TOLUD is?

Edit: Re-ran 06 after disablinbg NV Audio and my SD Card reader, and putting it at reference clocks.

http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16450593

I'm going to re-enable the OC and see if that was the problem.

Edit 2: With OC: http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16450638

Faster, but with that kind of overclock, I'd expect it to significantly outscore Warwickeo's results. I'll keep looking into it, and will be re running 3DMark11 in both configs right now.

Edit 3: My 3DMark11 score went down substantially w/o overclock. http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2713900

Edit 4: Last edit. The score went down 200 pts from the last time I ran 11... http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2713931 No idea why it went down, not cool...

Also, Vantage crashes on me before the last CPU test every time.

 

Regardless, the system isn't even detecting the super low powered ATI card - the old PSU used to run an entire desktop and that card - which leads me to believe it is the PE3A that's causing the main issue. Sure, the PSU may not be able to handle the 560ti, but it should at least run the ATI... i have no problem going out and buying a good PSU, I just think that isn't going to solve the whole issue. Unless the ATI card is incompatible with my mobo or bios...which I guess is a possibility given the card's age. I'm simply using it as a test item to eliminate some variables. Thank you for your help Kizwan, i really appreciate it. Any other input?

 

Yes, your friend should wait for PE4L v2.1 instead. If the PE4H is still not shipped out, your friend can cancel it.

The TOLUD table on first post is just a guideline. If you compare your TOLUD with the table, it clearly show TOLUD is low & this means there is enough PCI space for eGPU with 4GB or more system RAM. If you want to know the exact TOLUD in your notebook, this is how to calculate it:-
0xCFA00000 = (dec) 3483369472 = 3483369472 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = ~3.24 GB

At the beginning I use eGPU, my 3dMark06 score reduced every time I ran benchmark. Games also stuttering & lagging after playing them just less than 30 minutes. It turn out CPU is throttling due to overheating. I got it fixed after I changed thermal paste to good one. (Good one is not necessary expensive but this is another story.) Now, CPU throttling is not necessary because overheating. CPU start throttling when passive cooling trip-point reached. If your CPU is not overheating, probably trip-point is too low. Try run ThrottleStop in the background (monitoring mode) & makes sure to tick "Log File" & "More Data". Then play games until you experience stuttering & lagging. When it stutters, quit games, quit ThrottleStop & check the log file. Check "CKMOD" (Clock Modulation) value. If it less than 100, then CPU is throttling.

 

The thing is, I already checked the temps on the CPU, they never top 65C. I'll do the ThrottleStop log as reccommended.

 

I think that my friend doesn't have an expresscard slot in his laptop so the PE4L v2.1 is a no-go then? That's why he ordered the PE4H combination with the mPCI-e card. He have i7-2630QM CPU and Optimus so can he get anyhing out from the eGPU (GTX460, GTX560 Ti or something with that price)