DIY eGPU experiences

hi, any progress there?

 

Hello everyone
I am new to this egpu thing kinda brainiac for me need some advice.
Here is my config:
Vaio TT mn11 with original expresscard slot 4gb ram 32 bit windows 7
Integrated gma 4500
The Pe4h+gts450 seems to be powered by the expresscard slot so adding psu doesn't changeanything . I get 2 green leds (2 and 3). The card doesn't get detected. Tried with 2 gb ram , sleep mode not ok. I have ordered setup still waiting the link for download.

Does my laptop support egpu? ( pcie ports show x1 @ 2.5gbs but nothing like x16). Is it memory allocation issue or pcie port mapping?

Can't seem to find wich pcie port my egpu is connected.
2 pcie ports have errors 1200 and others occupied by wifi +igpu...
I will post more details soon as i get the setup.


Thanks for your help!

 

Hello all,

I am a newbie at this and I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

Current Setup:
Lenovo T510 with Nvidia NVS 3100M (with the latest BIOS)

Trying to make a external ATI Radeon HD 6990 work with the PE4H. (6990 is probably too extreme, but its from a friends gaming machine to test the system)

When I plug in the expresscard windows detects a new device, installs drivers, but Video card is never found. It switches the drivers to generic windows VGA drivers. No ATI card is found. No crashes, no blue screen.


I installed the latest ATI Catalyst drivers, but that do anything new. Rebooted a couple of times, hard reboot, battery pull - still the same.

What am i doing wrong?
Am I missing a step? Wrong drivers?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

The GTS450 will require a 120W PSU to drive it, up to 75W for the slot and the remainder for the single pci-e power connector. Suggest use an ATX PSU to get it up and running. Would be great to have a Sony TT working example.

HD6990 is a dual-GPU card requiring 2x256MB pci-e config space to accomodate. It will be challenging to get it up and running. However, the problem with the drivers should not exist. I'd suggest use AIDA64 or Setup 1.x to probe the pci-e bus slot, see what pci-e ID is identified there, then look up your drivers INF file to ensure it's in there.

If your T510 is a switchable graphics version with Intel HD, then suggest disable the NVS3100M and run it with an NVidia Fermi or Keplar card for maximum performance.

Lenovo T510 can run a [port3+port4] x2 link

If you have only the NVS3100M version then to get decent smoothness would require running a x2 link. The schematic shows it has port1=wifi/mPCIe, port3=UWB/mPCIe, port4=expresscard. So you could run a [port3+4] x2 link.

 

You mentioned: "So you could run a [port3+4] x2 link."

does this mean run two hdmi cables from the PE4H to the motherboard on the thinkpad? That means can't use the expresscard solution?

 

Will x2 link still be the way to go for a single GPU video card?
The T510 that i have does not have switch able graphics, so i am stuck with the NVS3100M.

 

One of the cables will be connected to ExpressCard slot. What you need is one PM3N card to do x2 setup.

BTW, did you try boot your notebook with eGPU already connected?

Without Intel HD Graphics you can't do Optimus setup with Nvidia Fermi graphic card. So, the only way to get better/good performance is by doing x2 setup.



@nando, I sent you PM. Please reply.

 

im trying to get chainloading to work on my setup. i have a macbook pro with windows 7 installed via bootcamp. when i use disk utility in mac os x, it tells me that my windows partition is on disk0 partition 4, so in in my menu.win, i changed it to say

Code:

chainloader (hd0,4)/bootmgr

but it just sends me to a grub4dos prompt (grub>). so i typed "ls (hd[tab]" and i think my windows partition was being seen as disk1 partition 3, so i went back to change that but I get the same problem (grub prompt). how do i know for sure which partition my windows install is on, and why does it throw me to a prompt. i am missing something. can someone help me chainload my system?
thanks.

 

I read post about eGPU implementation with 8460p. everything ok but I'd like to ask is there any reason to not buy 8460p instead of E6320? is there possibility to change CPU for QM version as with 2560p? is there any issue I need to know before I decide buy 8460p with bargain price? I know that i need to avoid version with AMD GPU cause no switchable option issue. I'm strongly devoted to Dell but 8460p is gorgeous!

 

You are comparing a 12.5" 2560P, 13" Dell E6320 and 14" 8460P. It makes sense to group the first two since they are both 1366x768 units with pretty much similar specs with the 2560P being slightly lighter and has a socketted CPU. The 8460P has similar styling lines as the 2560P but bests the 2560P/E6320 by offering a 1600x900 LCD and has a factory i7-quad option. So if those features are important then it would make sense to go for a 8460P over the others. If you do get a lower dual-core i5/i7 version then you too can user upgrade it to a i7-quad since it too has a socketted cpu.

If want a more compact unit then I'd be getting the 2560P or even look at a Lenovo X220 and Dell E6220. Though the Dell and Lenovo have soldered CPUs so no i7-quad upgrade is possible.

I'm expecting 35W i7-quad IVB CPU options in upcoming refreshed Lenovo and Dell ultraportables though at a hefty $$premium. That will target the user wanting maximum performance in the smallest chassis.

 

thanks for answer.

I've been considering 2560p but I'm afraid of its size. There is no a big differences between E6320 but direction arrows scares me. At this moment there is no bargains for 2560p in poland. I found a 8460p as bargain with WWAN, 8GB RAM an on-site warranty with price lower than for 2560p without WWAN and on-site. I do not need HD+ and QM for this moment because of use external monitors (U2312HM).QM upgrade maybe possible after IVB entry on market (to reduce QM sandy bridge prices). I wouldn't be keen on to pay huge prices for IVB QM.

I used to have Vostro 3450 and his size was good, according to descriptions 8460p is not bigger than V3450. another reason is troubles eGPU with E6320.

 

I was looking to replace the flat mHDMI cable of the PE4L 2.1 with a standard one (round) or another type of cable (to increase its length and make the curves easier). Any suggestions on what kind of cable should i use?

 

Thanks for the information.

I have ordered PM3N card.

What would be the fastest single eGPU supported with this setup?

Will the ATI Radeon HD7970 work and perform well?

 

BPlus' rounded cable certainly was easier to handle and might work at pci-e 2.0 speed if soldered onto the ends since it was the mHDMI connectors that caused the problems. I'd anticipate you'd need to shorten the cable to get reliable transmission. Consider that at pci-e 1.0 speed, their maximum rounded cable length for reliable transmission was 2m. With the flat cable they were able to extend that out to 5m. Running the individual wires in a parallel fashion minimizing crosstalk.

 

Successful eGPU allocation to 36-bit space using DSDT override

I changed the range a little bit <strike>but it doesn't matter (see below), I think</strike>. (Edit) It does matter. My memory range is suitable for up to 12GB of RAM while the suggested range (see below) is suitable for up to 48GB of RAM.

Code:

QWordMemory (ResourceProducer, PosDecode, MinFixed, MaxFixed, Cacheable, ReadWrite,
    0x000000000000000,  // Granularity
    0x000000320000000,  // Range Minimum,  set it to 12.5GB
    0x000000F0FFFFFFF,  // Range Maximum,  set it to 60.25GB
    0x000000000000000,  // Translation Offset
    0x000000BF0000000,  // Length calculated by Range Max - Range Min.
    ,, , AddressRangeMemory, TypeStatic)

Modified DSDT: dsdt_Dell 1557_C8000000_36bit.aml

Boot procedure:-

1. Boot with eGPU turn OFF
2. Enter Setup 1.x OR halt windows loading by pressing F8
3. Turn ON eGPU
4. If in Setup 1.x, press F5 & make sure eGPU is detected
5. If in Setup 1.x, Chainload
6. Boot windows

suggested_rangeI also tried the suggested range from nando4's DSDT Override page.

Code:

QWordMemory (ResourceProducer, PosDecode, MinFixed, MaxFixed, Cacheable, ReadWrite,
    0x000000000000000,  // Granularity
    0x000000C20000000,  // Range Minimum,  set it to 48.5GB
    0x000000E0FFFFFFF,  // Range Maximum,  set it to 56.25GB
    0x000000000000000,  // Translation Offset
    0x0000001F0000000,  // Length calculated by Range Max - Range Min.
    ,, , AddressRangeMemory, TypeStatic)

36-bit allocation also successful.

Modified DSDT: dsdt_Dell 1557_C8000000_36bit_C2.aml

 

After spending quite some time on following latest egpu progress and watching the recent deceleration with pcie 2.0 extender kit (ofc I know there're a couple of functioning units on sale currently ), I ultimately decided not to wait any longer and to come up with another, equivalent solution.
Well, at the time I spotted this post, I knew it is possible to make an egpu on my own with my (limited) ordinary engineering skills and instruments, since pinout and wiring has never been an issue with all the required documents being published by pci sig and bplus (schematics) for a long time.

To cut a long story short ... Since Ivq Bridge and therefore the development and commercialization of the (most) promising (in terms of speed and egpu purpose) interface Thunderbolt still lag behind its (former) schedule, I've built my own adapter for presumedly not expresscard 2.0 complaint dell 1340 (although spec sheets contradict in this case), just to bridge the 3-4 months till computex and products announcements:




I'm still working on suitable case and and system's performance e.g. due to a successful established 2.0 connection (wondering whether it is possible with my current device at all )

 

so i was able to get past the grub prompt by typing "quit", but then it gives "error, chainboot failed"

when i open the grub prompt to check my hard drives by typing " ls (hd" and [tab], it tells me my available drives are "hd0 hd1 hd2". i have 2 hard drives in my laptop. when i type "ls (hd1" and tab, it shows me the partitions in my first hard drive. My windows partition (the only one partitioned as ntfs) is labled as partition 3, so my menu.win looks like this atm (the only thing in the "user edittable section" now)

Code:

chainloader (hd1,3)/bootmgr

however i still get a chainload error

i have changed the chainload settings to chainload win7 in setup 1.x, but im not sure what the problem is. any help would be appreciated. perhaps i am overlooking something.
thanks

 

The disk image is mapped in as (hd0) and the first harddisk is (hd1). So the top part of menu.win7 remaps hd1 as hd0. Based on your indication that (hd1,3) is your ntfs partition, your \config\menu.win7 should have the RED line modifications below. You can even just do a test at the grub> prompt with 'chainloader (hd1,3)/bootmgr; boot' to see if it boots Win7.

Spoiler

Code:

#############################################################################
# menu.win - boot using VISTA/W7 /bootmgr                                   #
# Use 'grub4dos.Prompt' menu, type 'ls (hd[tab] to see drive mapping        #
# DRV var passed by grub4dos: A=USB-FLOPPY(fd0), C=USB-HDD/DISKIMAGE(hd0)   #
#                                                                           #
# NOTE: Acer 3830TG will fail with a "vector probe" error. For those systems#
# comment out the MAP lines below and chainload off a specific partition.   #
#############################################################################
# Quiet operation
debug 0\ntimeout 0

# Appears need the following line for highest compatibility across machines
# If still see a A20-related chainloading halt then edit %DRV%:\fdconfig.sys
# and change the himemx.exe /METHOD parameter as described in config.sys
map --a20-keep-on=0

#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# DRV=boot drv. If it's C then swap real hdd(hd1) as hd0 and set harddrive
# count=1 so the find doesn't use USB drive (clobbered USB sup)
# NOTE: Acer 3830TG users getting "vector probe" hang during chainloading
#       will need to comment this out and chainload off a specific partition.
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# Cater for USB-HDD boot/clobbered USB controller
echo .
echo ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
echo If hangs with "Vector Probe" error then edit your config: Chainloader->!Edit
echo ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
if "%DRV%"=="C" map (hd1) (hd0)
if "%DRV%"=="C" map --harddrives=1
if "%DRV%"=="C" map --rehook

#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# User edittable section below
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#Use find to set root to location of Win7/Vista's /bootmgr then chainload it.
[B][COLOR="Red"]#find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /bootmgr
#chainloader /bootmgr
[/COLOR][/B]
#OR chainload bootmgr off a specific partition, eg:hd0,1
[B][COLOR="Red"]chainloader (hd0,3)/bootmgr[/COLOR][/B]

 

I've been reading this thread since a long time, and thought I should contribute.

I recently sold my G73 and, thanks to this thread and Nando4's compilation of egpu-approved notebooks, I chose to purchase an Elitebook 8460p.

Today, I received my PE4L V2.1a kit, which I ordered on ebay (redtrontech) on 01/03/12. I read about issues regarding this particular model, but my sample did not have any problem (shipped on March 14th).

I used an antique LiteOn 300W PSU (19A on the 12V) and an almost-as-antique Geforce GT 430. ExpressCard Port set at x2 in BIOS, switches set accordingly with no delay. Notebook specs in sig, OS is Win7 Ultimate x64.

The installation was surprisingly simple and straight-forward; you wouldn't believe at first that those kind of things are plug-and-play, but it was (almost).

Basically, all I had to do was to connect everything, plug the card in the notebook with the computer booted-up, open the Device Manager, scan for hardware changes. The card was detected as a generic VGA adapter. Then, I installed the latest Nvidia (desktop) drivers (296.10), unplugged the card and rebooted. According to a post by danenick1212 describing his experience with the same notebook, it is necessary to plug the card just after the POST to have the card working with the integrated display, which is what I wanted. I did no further testing on the matter, so I cannot confirm if this is really necessary. With the drivers installed, the only thing left to do was to set the e-gpu as default in the Nvidia control panel.

I did not do any benchmarking yet, I will probably update this post in the next few days, I, however, tried to play Mass Effect 3. The results surpassed my expectations: around 40 FPS, with all graphic options enabled, 8xAF and 1600x900. On the internal LCD.

Edit: Ran some benchmarks, will update when I have time for more.

External screen, pcie 2.0
3dm06: 7488
RE5 : 57.4 FPS
DMC4 : 67.8 FPS
3dmV : 3611
Heaven : 318
3dm11 : 964



Internal screen, pcie 2.0





Edit: Upgraded to a GTX 460 1GB and a Corsair CX430. That card is impressive, from a price/performance standpoint. I did a quick benchmark on "The Witcher 2", with a light overclock. 43 fps average on a 25 minutes gameplay run. 1600x900 (internal screen), Ultra preset with ubsersampling and cinematic DOF disabled.

Some benchmarks:

All scores on the internal LCD, @ 849/1698/1920.

3dm06*: 16883
3dmV: 14033
3dm11: 3595

*1280x800 resolution used

 

Hello again, i finally got my PE4L 2.1a to work, by redoing the solder. I'm now having some issues making the gpu run at the desired speed. I'm currently getting x1 1.1, and i know the 2.1a is designen to run at 2.0. i tried the disconnect sleep connect trick, and it didn't work, and now i'm afraid it won't even be possible for me.

I looked around, and people suggested that it might be because my EC is not set to 2.0, so i went ahead and checkedmy LCAP values, but i don't really know how to understand it, so i took a screencap of my values. If someone of you would be so nice as to help me, and point me in the right direction it would be great, since i would love to not being stuck at 1x speeds, since it doesn't really utillize my GPU.


Specs: Dell Latitude E6510, with an intel 450m CPU, 4gb 1333mHz RAM, and a Nvidia NVS3100m dGPU.

I think the dGPU might be the issue, but in steup 1.X it won't let me disable it, even though there is and iGPU in the 1st gen i5 450m

As always, i'd appreciate all the help i could get!

 

Congratulations on the 8460P - it's certainly quite a stylish notebook, moreso than a flashy G73JH with barge-like dimensions by comparison.

Benchmarks would be most welcome. We have less than expected pci-e 2.0 benchmark contributions so need some to add to the first page. Keplar gpu results are highly desirable. Though Fermi cards will be the better value choice.

A Dell E6510 uses a Series-5 chipset (QM57). It's only capable of pci-e 1.1 speed (2.5GT/s). You need a Series-6 E6520 to run pci-e 2.0 speed (5.0GT/s).

 

Ah, thanks alot mate!
So, what about optimus, to achieve extra speed, that is not possible either is it, because of my dGPU?

 

The iGPU must be the primary bootup video device for the NVidia driver to enable pci-e compression on the eGPU.

I can see from your SIVS output that there is no 0:2.0 (iGPU) device. This looks to me like you are booting the E6510 with the eGPU powered and connected which the bios sees and uses as the primary video device. Or you've disabled Optimus in the bios which then sets the dGPU as the primary video device.

So proceed by:

1. Ensure Optimus is enabled in the bios if such a setting exists so the iGPU becomes the primary video device.

2. Set the PCI Reset Delay (7/15s) switch on the PE4L/PE4H or hotplug the EC2C after halting Win7 bootup (F8) so eGPU doesn't become the primary video device.

Then you'll be booting into Win7 with the iGPU+dGPU+eGPU all active. The eGPU may then just work, or you may see error 12 requiring one of these solutions.

 

First of all thank you so much for your great support
I will try to proceed with turning on the iGPU in Setup 1.x, since it says that it is off
My issue is though, that the Dell bios is an idiotproof model, and it doesnt show optimus anywhere, is there any other way to make sure it's enabled?

 

According to this E6510 Owner's Lounge post, the NVS3100M model has no switchable/Optimus graphics. Meaning you won't be able to enable the iGPU as the primary video device. Only way to get more performance is to either swap out the systemboard for the iGPU-only version or do a x2 implementation.

The E6510 schematic shows that wifi/mPCIe=port1 and WWAN/mPCIe=port2. So you could do a x2 [port1+2] implementation. Though I'd advise doing a complete system update to a SB iGPU/switchable E6520/M4600/T520/8560P (or others in the thin-and-light link in my sig) as a better value solution with more eGPU performance.

 

You are an absolute god among men!
Thank you so much for clearing out all of my confusion, since this is a school project, and i only have the hardware temporarily, i might just as well get myself one of those PE4H models then, since a new laptop, is, sadly a bit out of my current budget. In any way though, i will probably get a new laptop once thunderbolt becomes the standard, in a year or something like that
Yet again, i will thank you for all your help

Even though this have not been the most succesful result ever, if you want benches or anything like that, just for the archives, feel free to ask

 

Hi everybody.

I recently bought a pe4h with EC2C with GTX460 from Gigabyte (1gb ddr5). I have a Lenovo T400 6474 with NO ATI card and a 650W alim. When I plug everything together, then plug the express card and then turn on the GPU and computer, nothing shows up and my computer seems to be booting again and again... I don't know what to do, could you help me ?

Edit : I forgot to say I have 8Gb ram...
Thanks a lot =)

 

Could you test some modern games with more dx10/11 features? Maybe Arkahm City, Civ 5, bf3?

I know we have a bandwidth bottleneck with things like texture memory, but I wonder if more gpu intensive things like tessellation will make the egpu 680 shine in newer games.

 

thanks a lot for the help nando. I figured that might be the case, and so I have tried what you suggested, but I still get "ERROR! Chainloading failed" after the grub prompt , which lead me to believe that the reason why I was getting thrown at grub prompt (the one i get when i try to "chainload win7") in the first place was because it was unable to run the commands correctly. So at that grub prompt, i tried to type "chainloader (hd0,3)/bootmgr", but it said "Error 21: Selected disk does not exist", so i tried to type "ls (hd[tab]" to see if the drives would still show, but it would not show any drives.

However in "Chainloader->Prompt" i can type "chainloader (hd1,3)" and "boot" and it boots just fine. Im guessing its having problems reassigning the disks when i select "chainload win7". is there a way to fix this, i would prefer to use that button as opposed to going to the prompt through "chainloader->prompt"
thanks

 

Change your \config\menu.win7 to have the RED line modifications shown in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Code:

#############################################################################
# menu.win - boot using VISTA/W7 /bootmgr                                   #
# Use 'grub4dos.Prompt' menu, type 'ls (hd[tab] to see drive mapping        #
# DRV var passed by grub4dos: A=USB-FLOPPY(fd0), C=USB-HDD/DISKIMAGE(hd0)   #
#                                                                           #
# NOTE: Acer 3830TG will fail with a "vector probe" error. For those systems#
# comment out the MAP lines below and chainload off a specific partition.   #
#############################################################################
# Quiet operation
debug 0\ntimeout 0

# Appears need the following line for highest compatibility across machines
# If still see a A20-related chainloading halt then edit %DRV%:\fdconfig.sys
# and change the himemx.exe /METHOD parameter as described in config.sys
map --a20-keep-on=0

#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# DRV=boot drv. If it's C then swap real hdd(hd1) as hd0 and set harddrive
# count=1 so the find doesn't use USB drive (clobbered USB sup)
# NOTE: Acer 3830TG users getting "vector probe" hang during chainloading
#       will need to comment this out and chainload off a specific partition.
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# Cater for USB-HDD boot/clobbered USB controller
[B][COLOR="Red"]# echo .
# echo ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
# echo If hangs with "Vector Probe" error then edit your config: Chainloader->!Edit
# echo ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
# if "%DRV%"=="C" map (hd1) (hd0)
# if "%DRV%"=="C" map --harddrives=1
# if "%DRV%"=="C" map --rehook[/B][/COLOR]

#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# User edittable section below
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#Use find to set root to location of Win7/Vista's /bootmgr then chainload it.
[B][COLOR="Red"]# find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /bootmgr
# chainloader /bootmgr
[/COLOR][/B]
#OR chainload bootmgr off a specific partition, eg:hd0,1
[B][COLOR="Red"]chainloader (hd1,3)/bootmgr[/COLOR][/B]

 

Below are my tests for Crysis 2 & Lost Planet 2. Despite the x1.1Opt bandwidth limitation, I was able to crank up the setting to MAX for all games I have including The Witcher 2 (UberSampling off), Crysis 2, Mass Effect 3 with smooth gameplay. Rage was the only game I had to switch off 'GPU Transcode' for faster texture loading.

</img>
</img>

 

Hi nando4

I have Pe4h+ec2c. So i have tried with setup and the fun part it's exact same results while using psu. Nothing could be detected and stuck with 2 green lights. Makes me wonder if this laptop has really expresscard slot but seems yes.
Not exact same model tough but slot is there and card powers the adapter hotplug and is quite warm.
It seems that it has 6 pci-e ports and wlan comes on first
So whitelisted port 1, couldn't manage how to CLKRUN pci-e signal. Disabled wlan port reboot connect the card after bios post scann chainload to windows
7 write ....nada! Also compacting, linking ports x2 and stuff without any results. Only thing it did was re-arrange my pci-e ports.
here is report at this stage
------------

 

Quick question for finding free space...

So the Nvidia cards need a decent amount of consistent free space to work, would I be able to just go to memory in device manager and disable a bunch of stuff?

 

Fantastic!. Hate to be annoying, but how do those compare to the 580?

 

Hello everybody,
I Boughta pe4h with EC2C and a EVGA GTX460. I Have a Sony Vaio VPCEB23FM with 8GB Ram and intel i5 460m, External Monitor works fine without trouble, but I just can't use the x1.1opt. I tried DSDT and setup 1.x getting just negative results. can somebody tell me what else i should try?

 

I know with the 680 now out that my 580 is a bit of "old news", but here is the absolute best my card can do on the night of winter's last hurrah (23F out):

1110mhz core, 1.5V (yes 1.5V. 1.4V was only 10mhz slower but i figured why not for just some benchmarks)
5000mhz memory 1.9V

Idle temps were 0C and load was 20C. That is a HUGE jump for water under load. The 580 drawing over 500W probably had something to do with it.

I may have been able to do 10mhz better if I removed the IHS, but surprisingly I have NOT voided the warranty on this card, and doing that would void it so I figured it wasn't worth it.

Annoyingly my windows recently became slightly corrupted resulting in me no longer being able to run 64bit 3dm11. I can still run it in 32bit mode, but the physics and combined scores are significantly lower. Nothing else seems affected.

3dm11: 7471
3dmv: 26767
3dm06: 22793
heaven: 2293
dmc4s4: 225.54
RE5: the 193fps was amazing rng. can't beat it even with the gpu over 10% faster

The 5ghz mem was not stable. If you look you'll see a nice artifact in the heaven SS. The drop in dmc4s1 was due to me opening speedfan to make my fan run faster while the test was running. Note that I did not add the extra HS and fan to the CPU for these tests. Probably would have helped 3dm06 and RE5.

 

Strangely enough, installing windows 7 64 did solve the problem! The graphics card was recognised straightaway and it worked like a charm! Thank you, kizwan.

However, Laptop 1 suffers from black screens (both of them) if I chainload to windows without PCI compaction (although I still can hear the boot up sound it's just the screen is black). Any thoughts?

 

Has anyone experienced worse performance with an eGPU than with Intel HD 3000 graphics? I will post pics of my benchmarks tomorrow, which are great, but I am having more trouble emulating FFXII with PCSX2 than on integrated graphics. Optimus is activated, and I have it set to use my gtx 460 as the graphics card to use for that specific program.

Another issue: how do I output to my internal screen? I tried going to the Display Settings in the NVIDIA control panel and the drivers destroyed my Intel graphics tray, so I am not sure of what I should do.

Edit: Nevermind! All I had to do was allow 8-bit textures. Now I can play FFXII at 2x resolution perfectly, and 4x resolution with 5 frame drop in menus. Woo-hoo!

 

Because my current 301.10 driver is specific for the 680gtx only, I have to re-install 296.10 to bench the 580gtx. I could do more this weekend.

 

Vista doesn't support two graphic cards from different vendor. That's why Win 7 is recommended for eGPU.

I don't know what's wrong with Laptop 1. Please try boot without eGPU, do PCI compaction & chainload. This is to see whether PCI compaction worked OK or not on your notebook.

 

I've been following this thread for a while and am looking forward to the ExpressCard version of PE4H 3.0. I have a HP Probook 4530s which from what I have read elsewhere is a perfect candidate for an eGPU.
My question is: Does anyone know when v3.0 of PE4H is set to get released?

 

Just a small OT:
For anyone in Europe interested in the purchase of a PE4L 1.5 (with both EC2C and PM3N, EC2C adapter, SWEX and the power cable), i'm planning to sell it.

 

How much do you plan to sell it?

 

I asked the same on their facebook

"PCIe Gen2 version of PE4H (v3.0) is now under developping.
The engineeering sample was fine, so now we are now developping another version for mass production.
We hope we can release in May."

 

needsloomis
Can you spot me the link to their facebook? Thanks

 

Bplus Technology Co., Ltd. | Facebook

 

I'd say 45€ + Shipping (depends on where you're located)
For further info, send me a PM.

 

Can you please help me with my .dsl? I just keep getting parse error expecting '$' and I couldn't figure out how to fix it

 

To get the Optimus to engaged on internal LCD, make sure eGPU is connected before windows loading. Please make sure you have "preferred graphics" option in Nvidia control panel.