DIY eGPU experiences

You can try reduced the core clock first. If still crashed, reduced memory clock too.

Congratulation on the successful eGPU implementation.

 

Hi guys. Anybody try to play in Alan Wake? On x220t 2520 +8gb+560 940/2400+P4EH 1280*800(playing on 100" projector) i have only 15-19fps in any graphic settings. I finish game but it was rather freezing.















I think game require PCIE bandwidth. anybody test p4el 2.1 on GTX560.

 

What would you suggest for reducing stuttering? I have the SuperClocked GTX560 and have turned down the core clock to stock speed, though it has not helped in terms of stuttering. Would OCing my CPU require less from the eGPU? I have also thought about OCing PCIe bus but I know that causes instability.

 

It stutters because of limited bandwidth, only 5Gb/s concurrent with PE4H v2.4. You can try OC CPU & PCIe bus. It may help a little bit. You don't have to downclock your graphic card though. You should be able to get better result with PE4L v2.1 (10Gb/s concurrent).

 

Does that means there won't ever be anymore any mini-HDMI with a PCI 2.0 signal ?
And for mPCIe PE4L/PE4H v2.1/v3 does it means that it won't be possible to unplug the PM3N like stuff from the PE4H/PE4L wire ?

 

theres no way around upgrading ?

 

I just tried it, and with I5 2410, 8 GB, PE4L v2.1 + 560ti I had around 30-35 FPS, but sometimes it lagged though. 1080p, all maxed out.

 

Nando4,

I updated my results with the new PE4L 2.1 (page 857) if you would like to put them on the first page...

D

 

Fardavid 2.1 really double fps!) Does you get 4087 2011 3Dmark on 2.1 version? On P4EH 2.4V i have just 3750 marks. On iCore2500k i have 4500 marks. Do you can test compare P4EL 1.5v and 2.1 on 560? BF3, Metro2033, Alan Wake/ 3Dmark 2011? I want change my P4EH to P3EH/P4EL 2.1v.

 

Got my GTX 570 working today with 1x through expresscard! Skyrim on ultra + a bunch of mods 28fps, 60 indoors! Now trying to get the 2x setup going.

On device manager my ports read like this:
1)nothing
2)GTX 570
3)wireless
4)nothing

so when I open my motherboard up, I see my wireless card, and one free pcie slot, so naturally, i hook up my adapter i got from HIT, and try to run it simply 1x through that free slot (little power connector next to it labeled 3g), but my machine acts like the port isnt on or anything. i took out my wireless card, and plugged in the adapter through that slot and it worked just fine. i couldnt find any way in my phoenixsetup bios to activate it. also I can't even find the 4th hookup.

also i noted that the wireless pcie slot is alot taller than the free one. any ideas how i can get this port active? thanks so much for the help guys, skyrim even on 1x looked great.

 

Thank you,

Btw, is there any noticed changes in this driver, such as fps, graphics options?

 

Done. If you provide a link your new 3dmark11 results here it will mean you'll probably get to move from third to second place on the DX11 chart. I need the GPU value, not the total.

Not from BPlus unfortunately. We discovered the mHDMI connector was the culprint preventing successful pci-e 2.0 signals. That was with both the flat cable, using a ReDriver IC and even if only one mHDMI connector was used. I wish it wasn't so as I too preferred the mHDMI cable arrangement.

Either boot with the wifi card in the system and hotswap OR use Setup 1.x's anti-whitelisting features.

Setup 1.x help files are now available for online viewing

Thank you to Palda for hosting the DIY eGPU Setup 1.x Help for online perusal. We are still sorting out some of the niggles but it's mostly there. Have added an extra line to Setup 1.x page's banner:

Contributions to improve the help documentation are most welcome.

 

Hi, One question - i purchased eGPU device
PE4H ver2.4 with EC2C

got Dell Vostro 1700 with xp and linux (archlinux) but when connected the express card nothing happens - is that okey do I need that DIYeGPU-Setup-110b3 ?? someone with dell vostro 1700 make it work with some external GPU ?

edit:
I noticed that my version on the board says Ver2.4a

 

I don't think it works on XP...?

 

Hey guys, great to see all these 2.0 results coming in, very encouraging. I'm about to go ahead and buy a PE4L 2.1, and I was just wondering how it gets power to the PCIe slot for the card. I see a DC jack and a USB...will I need to wire my PSU to plug into one of these to give the slot 75W for the GPU? The other power connections are obviously directly on the card itself in the case of a gtx560ti. Thanks!

Oh yeah almost forgot. I have one completely brand new, never opened PE3A for sale if anyone wants it. PM me with an offer if interested.

 

OK. When you put wireless card in the empty mPCIe port, did you checked in AIDA64 what is the PCIe port number?

On my notebook PCIe port #1 (WWAN) also doesn't detect my eGPU when I tried running x1 using it. Also when I plugged in wireless card to port #1, wireless card is detected. PCIe port #2 (WLAN) able to detect eGPU when I tried running x1 using it. So, what I did is, connect PE4H port1 with PCIe port #2 (WLAN) & PE4H port2 with PCIe port #1. It works for me.

I haven't running any games yet since I updated the driver. These are some of the enhancements/fixes:-
(source: NVIDIA DRIVERS 295.73 WHQL )

 

Well, ver. 2.1 doesn't double the FPS, perhaps with internal screen. You can check my comparison chart in my post. Basically with external display it can provide around 25-35% FPS increase, but it really depends on the game, if that is bottlenecked by the bandwidth or something else (CPU, RAM etc.)
I only have those games I mentioned, so cannot test BF3 and Metro2033 unfortunately.

 

That score is the GPU score I updated, but I'll post the link later today.

 

So that there was no respond from system I should consider normal thing ?
but what about linux why it didnt see any hardware change.

I'll find some time and install w7 then, And hope it will work.

 

If you have wired it up correctly and your expresscard is working, then the eGPU should show up on the pci-e bus regardless of your operating system. That can be checked with 'lspci -tv' in Linux. The eGPU will appear under one of the pci-e ports (0:1c.*). Alternatively can use AIDA/Everest in Windows (chipset, southbridge) to show the same info.

 

You need to plugged in graphic card on PE4H before system can detect it.

 

So in my case its broken someway - I checked now in work on ibm thinkpad T60 (which has two express bays one /34 and one old cardbus pc card)
and it didnt find any new device (we have here win xp too - but I booted from parted magic) or maybe my graphic card is broken - didnt use it for long long time 8600gt pci-e 1024MB ddr2 hdmi dvi. without graphic card the expresscard adapter (the one with hdmi) will not be detected and see in system ?

okey Ive checked that graphic card - and it works fine ... howto check that express card,
the guy that sold me that device didnt make it to work with his laptop - xi1546
but he gave me the pictures where it shows external graphic card in "hardware manager" (on windows 7)

 

Well I'm back!
After a period of relatively issue free I seem to be having problems with my GPU.
Sometimes at random I get a BSOD with atikmpag.sys and this has only started on Tuesday after insalling new physx because of mass effect 3 demo. I have since uninstalled both but I still get BSOD.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks !

Specs:
Corsair CX430 PSU
Dell Inspiron 1545 Core 2 Duo T9400
EGPU ATI Radeon HD 4890 (pre owned).
4 gb RAM
PE4H 2.4a

 

Hello everybody!

As you can see I am just new registered to this forum and recently bought a
Lenevo T520 for my studying.
In addition I collected a lot of information about DIY eGPU issues and I´m wondering now if there is also a (bios?) fix available for the problem with the "TOLUD". I´ve followed the ongoing discussion on the lenevo community board and tried to get some further information about the BIOS update which JameZ provided for the x220 and T420 models but will there also a release for the T520 series?

I´m likely to to do some testings with:
PE4L ( PCIe Adapter V2.1a )
Zotax GTX 560Ti AMP!
and some good PSU

But before I grab all the stuff I just wanted to have some replys on my post.

Thanks a lot!

 

Hey guys,

does someone know how long shipment will most probably take to Germany for the PE4L 2.1 Kit from HW.

And is the new PE4L 2.1. also useable with the PM3N?

Thanks

 

This is my shipping log: PE4H-PM3N Shipping to Germany - Pastebin.com

 

Hi All,
Anyone having performance issues with the new OPT drivers Verde 295.73 + kizwan's nvam.inf?

I was using OPT Verde 275.33 + nando's nvam.inf with no issues - 3dmark results 13822:

SM2.0 score - 6053
HDR/SM3.0 score - 6946
CPU score - 2995

I just upgraded my drivers to 295.73 + kizwan's nvam.inf , ran 3dmark and the results came to 8655:

SM2.0 score - 3680
HDR/SM3.0 score - 3707
CPU score - 2440

Is there anything I should be aware of? Is it a matter of restarting my machine? Should I revert back to the old drivers?

Your input is highly appreciated.

Thanks
Ramiz

 

I would be happy to host the help files, can you send me zip (or link to it).

 

Thank's a lot! This sounds great to me as i will only stay in Germany for one more month and was afraid that ordering PE4L would not make any sense right now due to long shipping times.

 

Hi

i own a Lenovo L520 and my pe4L arrived yesterday. I tried to plug in a GTX 8800 but without any success. The card isnt detected at all.
What i did:

connect everything, than start PSU with Swex: fan starts to blow with high intensity and Leds D1 (power) and D3(detect) start to glow. then when i plug in pci express nothing happens. SW2 ist set to 2-3 and SW1 to 2.
My operating system is Windows 7 64-bit professional.

Any ideas?

PS: The gpu is working, just removed it from my desktop pc.

 

Ensure you have the latest bios installed in your system. If it's anything like the X220/T420 one, then it will detect an eGPU and adjust TOLUD to give sufficient pci-e space to host it.

Ensure the expresscard slot is enabled in the bios.

SW1 to 1 (0sec delay) and SW2 to 2-3 (x16 slot) is the right way of having it connected. The eGPU is even being detected. Power on the eGPU, power on the system, load Win7 where it should detect the eGPU.

Worth also unplugging/replugging the EC2C with the eGPU powered to see if the fans quieten down. The quietened fans means it's now linked to the system successfully.

If it's still not detected then poweron the system without the eGPU connector, hit F8 to halt Win7 loading, poweron the eGPU, plug it into the expresscard slot, select Win7 to continue loading after which it should detect the 8800GTX.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I have the latest bios installed, but the bios for the L-series is different from the T or X. My Tolud entry is D0000000, so that should be fine?

In Bios i have two options for expresscard, one is express energy management (disabled/enabled) and pci express speed (generation1/automatic). I played a little bit with these settings but nothing changed. Standard is disabled and automatic.

None of the two possibilites you mentioned is successful. When connecting the EC2C with the notebook while its not powered on the red D4 LED is on and turns off when i start the notebook.

Unplugging/replugging the EC2C has no effect on the fan speed. I don`t know if that helps but the fan speed is the same as the speed when i powered on my desktop pc but it kept that speed only for 1-2 sec and then went silent.

I tried to hotplug the egpu to another laptop but its not detected there too.
Perhaps i connected sth. wrong? I have a 500 W PSU that is the one that powered my Desktop. I connected the 6-pin to my gpu and a molex to the PE4L. The Swex connector is also connected and working.

 

I've got the same symptoms as ghopesc (except with a 9800gt and x220), and I tried all your suggestions nando, with no result...card is still not detected in Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Using a PE4L v2.1. Help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Try flipping SW2 to position 1-2 (x1 card) and repeat method outlined in previous post. If not, then there are three fault possibilities (1) the PE4L-EC2C (2) the expresscard slot or (3) the video card. The last can be checked by running the card in a desktop system. The first two by testing the gear in another notebook with a known good expresscard slot.

Please advise if this solves the problem.

 

I tried it with SW 2 set 1-2, it wasnt succesful but the leds changed. Switching swex on D1 is on, plugging EC2C in D1 and D4 (red) are on.
I will later upload some pictures.

Pictures:
http://s7.directupload.net/file/d/2811/cbpdfafr_jpg.htm
http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/2811/ukmszzaq_jpg.htm
http://s7.directupload.net/images/120225/to7epw2d.jpg



If you compare the last Picture with the one posted in the first PE4L 2.1 Test, you see some differences. My question is if it is intended that there is one "big" soldering point instead of two single ones at the point the red arrow indicates?

PS: A friend brought his gpu (gts450), still no success

 

Hi Everyone,

Some time back, I got my 1015pem eee netbook to work via mpcie with an nvidia GT430. I'd intended to post some benchmarks but haven't had a chance to do anything about it until now.

The current setup is:

• Asus 1015PEM Netbook, 1Gb DDR3, Atom N550 CPU @ 1.5Ghz, NM10 Chipset, 3150 igpu, 1024 x 600 display
• Leadtek GT430 Nvidia egpu, 2Gb DDR3
• PE4H over mpcie (wifi) connector, x1.opt
• Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit)
• Verde 295.73 + kizwan's nvam.inf (32-bit)

I couldn't get any of the DX9 benchmarks working as the netbook insists on using the igpu (3150) for DX9 despite the global setting in nvidia control panel being set to default to the GT430. I also tried the context menu to force the benchmarks to use the egpu. Still no go. For the record, the DX9 benchmarks on the 3150 igpu run at about 6 - 8 fps. (On a side note I have been unable to "clone" the desktop between the egpu and igpu (no option available in nvidia control panel). Instead, I have had to use "extended desktop" via windows settings and select the netbook lcd as my main display).

I had more success with the DX10 & 11 benchmarks as they simply can't run on the igpu, so the egpu fired up as expected. Running these taught me a lot about how important cpu is when running x1.opt. The little atom is worked very hard on all of these benchmarks (it runs pretty hot), with the lightest load on the cpu seeming to be the DX10 "Devil May Cry 4" benchmark.

I've attached two screenshots of the "Devil May Cry 4" benchmark, the first with the atom at the standard clock rate of 1500mhz, the second overclocked using setfsb to 1840mhz (stable but probably can't go any further). The video output was via the netbook's lcd. The screen resolution is 1024 x 600. I realise this isn't the recommended screen resolution for benchmarking but it seemed appropriate to me as this is the usual netbook lcd resolution and is the way I intend to use this.







I think some improvement in these scores will come from additional ram for the netbook and possibly also a quicker hard drive. There were times when the fps went into a hole due to disk activity.

I'm thinking about getting a low powered GT520 for this setup. I think that a lower wattage card may work just as well in this configuration given that the CPU looks to be the main bottleneck here. It would be nice to find a way to run this on batteries

On a final note, I have had some correspondence with Amfeltec regarding their mpcie to pcie adapter. They are currently developing an adapter with an x16 connector for easier attachment of standard pcie cards (current adapter only has an x1 connector with no "cutout" to allow for fitting of x16 cards). It should be close to a release and looks like it will be ideal for compact setups like this one.

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully this info is useful to anyone else nutty enough to try this on a netbook!

Mark

 

Hello,

Please refer to Pre-Purchase FAQ, especially " 2. How can I check if my notebook is compatible with an eGPU? "

 

Ok, so I had my egpu setup working. I couldn't find a definitive way of getting it to work, but it worked.

Now I can't get it to work anymore. I keep getting stuck on error 12. I freed up a ton of stuff in device manager (hidh definition audio, motherboard resources, broadcom sd host controller, broadcom netxtreme gigabit ethernet, intel manageement engine interface, lsi 1394 ohci compliant host controller, system board, and of course intel hd graphics family). All of these are disabled when I am first looking for my card (unninstalled the card with all these disabled, then the nvidia drivers installed with all these disabled.

No idea why its not working anymore... Any suggestions would be appreciated. And my macbook pro has 8gb ram

 

Thanks a lot kizwan!
Can´t figure it out but somehow I missed this information a lot of times!

As soon as I have results with my built up system I´m going to post them here, too!

 

Yes, looks like SW1 should be set to 2-3 (x16), as I found was required on my 2560P.

Likely a manufacturing weakness in the first batch of PE4L 2.1a units

My own PE4L 2.1 ES is still detecting the eGPU but cannot drive the eGPU. My analysis being that there is a weakness in the connection between the EC2C end and the mHDMI cable, where the cable would try to twist when I ran my eGPU perpendicular to the expresscard slot and has likely unhinged itself internally. I've advised BPlus asking them to reinforce that point. It may well be that the units you guys have have the same weakness and have also become undone there if you too had it try to twist around that point.

timohour's PE3A-R is a better solution until BPlus get this sorted.

Any chance you can try to run the DX9/DX10/DX11 benchmarks as per the first page on an external LCD attached to your GT430? The results should be better and then I can include your pioneering netbook results in the list with sample performance achieved.

Recommend working with borealiss who is pioneering the Sonnet adapter + DIY eGPU hardware running @x1.1Opt on a Macbook. He has an engineering background so is clued up on what needs to be done and has Setup 1.x to help do it.

A Macbook brings it's own set of challenged to overcome, something I have zero experience with. It will be a groundbreaking result when all finalised - an interim solution for those who might not want to wait for x4 2.0 Thunderbolt eGPUs. Those can only become a reality when Intel/Apple decide to release the devel kit and chips to the manufacturers.

 

Thanks Nando, so there is still a mPCIe version planned right ?
I hope that just like for PM3N it will be possible to shorten it to the half size.

I now have a new idea for the Z2x to make a succesful and convenient eGPU 1.2opt ! And I have checked TOLUD, there is likely to be no issue.

 

Yes, but it would all be a PE4L-PM3N all wired together with ETA set for April as I've documented in the update. You can see also mabrown has just told us that Amfeltec may also be offering an mPCIe solution. Though not sure if it's pci-e 2.0.

 

Tried it with no result...I am trying to run it perpendicular to the ExpressCard port and so the cable is twisting, but only very mildly, so it might suffer from the unhinging as you said. Although, it would be a extraordinarily weak cable if that were true.

 

Anybody tried Alan wake on eGPU ?

 

I have a HP EliteBook 8460p arriving. It has a discrete GPU on it already. How can I disable it (for when I use my eGPU) short of uninstalling the drivers for it?

 

Hey guys after messing with some settings, my GTX 570 runs a very modded Skyrim at ultra (no AA) at 30+ fps outdoors and 60 indoors with just my 1x link. Time to take it to the next level though. I'm trying to do the anti-whitelisting but I can't get setup 1.x to work. I run setup-disk-image and I can see the V drive DIYEGPUIMG in My Computer on Win7. When I try to boot it though, I choose the setup 1.x option rather than windows 7, but it takes me to a fullscreen terminal for about a second, and then brings me right back to the boot menu. Any idea how to get rid of this problem and use setup 1.x? Searching through old pages for a solution now.

 

Hi!
Question to participants of a forum
Someone could collect working system (in a simple variant) PE4H ver.2.4a with expresscard adapter and Acer 5920g win7 x64 sp1? Probably there were similar problems?

As I have an error 43 (at the exposed delay 7s on PE4H, the driver 285.62 iGPU with modding nvam.inf)
Has put a delay 0s (after perusal FAQ an error 43), the laptop doesn't start, and in last attempt the video chip iGPU was damaged, repair was required

Despite breakage, nevertheless it would be desirable to connect eGPU if such it is possible

 

Hello eGPU community, Hello Setup 1.x Devs,

this piece of software is worth every dollar! After reading over hundreds of pages in this thread I got my own egpu running with some unresolved problems. I want to write down how I got this particular setup running.

Here's my setup:
Fujitsu Lifebook S6420
Intel C2Duo P9600
4500MHD Intel Graphics
8GB Ram
only internal mpcie (3 of them)
GTX560
PE4L V1.5 + PM3N

1. egpu connected and powered on
I get a never before seen bios loading screen on the external display but it get stuck after loading finished and the internal display stays dark.

2. hot plugging PM3N after booting into Setup 1.x
no card detected (mpcie port seems to stay deactivated when there is now card detected at boot time)

3. booting into Setup 1.x with wlan card plugged in and switching it with PM3N
first I didn't get my computer to recognize the nvidia card. I had to activate the delay switch in the PM3N. After that I got my nvidia detected.
But now I always have to switch my notebook on with my wlan card plugged in and then switch over to my egpu mpcie. Is there a nicer solution to this?
I tried white-listening and even if it would work I would still need to get over my bios screen and then hotplug the card otherwise it get stuck at bios screen.

4. chainload my diskcryptor hdd
I found a workaround for loading the DiskCryptor loader.iso in Grub4Dos. But I never got it to work. I ended up to remove my encryption being able to use the chainload feature.
If there is anyone who got a DiskCryptor to boot please let me know.

5. chainloading windows
I tried almost every kind of Compaction and ended up using 32bitA for the nvidia card only.

Thanks to the devs and all the people and their time that went into this thread.

 

Revert to a USB install as a backup if disk image doesn't work. Can otherwise work through the Setup 1.x FAQ to try to solve it.

You have a 7s delay switch on the PM3N and the PE4L/PE4H. PM3N 1.2 delays the CLKRUN signal. The PE4L delays the PERST# signal. In your case set the delay on the PM3N and see if you can boot past the bios with eGPU attached. There's no point in trying anti-whitelisting measures until that's sorted.

If you include at least a 3dmark06 benchmark result then I can add your system to the table on the first page. Better would be if you can do all DX9, DX10 and DX11 benchmarks so can have an entry in each table.

 

Guys, does the ICH8-ME chipset support PCIE at x16? My GTX 560 is only outputting its bandwidth at x1 according to GPUZ, and my 3dmark06 score is half of what it should be.

I shouldn't be getting a 5000 score with a 2.6ghz core 2 duo, 3gb ddr2, and a gtx 560, thus, this leads me to believe either my ExpressCard slot is only capable of x1 output, or isn't there that tweak that is posted on this forum (I don't remember what it was, something like a x1e tweak I can't find it). What do you think the culprit is? My PCIE slot 2841 is used by the GTX 560, and the next odd numbered slot 2843 is used by an intel 4965agn wifi card. If I disconnected this wifi card would that boost my bandwidth for my ExpressCard slot?

I own a Sony Vaio All-in-one desktop VGC-LT28E
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...&langId=-1&partNumber=VGCLT28E#specifications