DIY eGPU experiences

@Fabi3n, @Bjorm

I am planning on ordering a PE4L 2.1 from redtrontech. Did either of you have to do any rework/ soldering on the expresscard or did they send out the 2.1b revision?

Thanks

 

They send rev 2.1b without any rework to do

 

Thanks!! Just ordered it now

 

Just a heads-up, i contacted MSI and got a reply saying the MSI GUS II will be released next week

BTW, i know someone compared the gtx580 vs gtx 680 in egpu situation but i cant find it, could anyone give me the link?

 

Awesome! too bad its going to be limited to 150W I also inquired whether or not they plan on releasing a model that supports more than 150W, and they said not at this time (this was probably three days ago).

I have a fancy new 680 waiting for the first Thunderbolt solution

Edit: Check out page 919. There is the comparison there.

 

Look a few pages back, nando and some other guys were discussing that, saying that it could probably be expanded in some way, adding a PSU

EDIT: page 933

 

so i tried updating bios but no way.

I saw that when i plug the card gpuz see x2 link and few seconds later it see x1 link.
I don't understant and don't know what to do !?
Help are welcome !

 

I assume you mean 2.0 instead of x2 since no one knows how to do x2 on sandy bridge systems. What you see is normal. The link will slow down to 1.1 speeds if there is little traffic to save power.

 

yes 2.0 not x2 sorry.

How to activate optimus also ? Is it normal that the nvidia control panel is disabled ?

 

it's normal, in gpuz, clic on "?" case (at the right of "bus interface"), clic "start render test", and normaly, bus interface must change to 2.0

 

No when i clic start render test i see the 3 cards igpu dgpu and egpu but i had desactive the nvs4200 ?! and dgpu and egpu stay in 1.1
i think it's not normal that i can't launch nvidia control panel.
Tomorrow i will test on a fresh install.

 

Yeah ~ I am just really hoping it comes out next week, especially if it will be sub-$200. Magma's solution is way too expensive at almost $1000. As long as the interfaces work, I'm sure we could butcher some power supplies.

I'm especially eager for the Thunderbolt ViDock though...if it ever comes out.

Edit: Perhaps this will work ~ http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...e=product_info&cPath=22_161&products_id=31784 ; an additional 90Watt external power supply that has a 4pin molex connector (which can be converted to whatever we need for our GPU).

 

Whats Magma's solution? and why are you so eager for the vidock, whats the difference between that and the MSI GUS II?

 

This is Magma's PCIe to Thunderbolt solution: Magma Thunderbolt Expansion | ExpressBox 3T

The only big difference between the ViDock and the MSI GUS II is that the ViDock will support up to 325W, as well as provide a USB hub function. It wasn't very clear, but I believe they mentioned that at some point, they want to incorporate more ports, such as Ethernet.

The ViDock was estimated to release for around $400; but all these 'specifications' were made during an announcement like 5 months ago - and there hasn't really been any updates since. Supposedly, there will be an annoucement in the coming week(s).

 

But if you don't need the 325W, there will be a $50 TB upgrade kit if you buy a Vidock right now. BTW, a card like the new 680 fits under the requirements of the Vidock 4+, so that means the TB one would cost $320.

Minnus, if you want TB right now, you could buy the Sonnet TB adapter .

And I too can't wait for TB egpus to start popping up. If the MSI GUS really does have a price point of $150 (even 200) it will hopefully bring down the prices of other egpus.

 

Yeah, the Sonnet TB adapter would be a little silly for me at this point, since the adapter would be useless to me once a real PCIe to Thunderbolt interface is released ~ resulting in a $140 brick (the 1x speeds aren't very appealing to me either...). I would rather wait with bated breath for the release (I'd settle for an annoucement!) of the MSI GUS II / ViDock G4 / ExpressBox 3T.

 

True. I bought my sonnet adapter about a month and a half ago for $120 and it has served me very well; I think if I sell it for $80 I will be happy with the performance it gave it.


It's just crazy how long its been since these egpus were announced... I hate waiting but it sure feels nice once it's all over

Edit: btw, what type of macbook do you have? My 13inch mbp's CPU is definitely a hold-up, seems like the 15 or 17inch quad cores would pair much more nicely with an egpu (especially a 680 in your case).

 

Hi Kizwan, I have tried that last night. Booting without eGPU, do PCI compaction on all devices (well, only iGPU left anyway) and chainload. It fails at the same time as with the eGPU, which is when windows 7 logo starts to appear. The laptop reboots after a BSD is shown for a split second. I still have the old versions of the software, shall I give them a shot? I have a feeling that this might relate to the sudden malfunction of my dGPU about a year ago which it simply disappeared from device manager and could not be switched on. A faulty motherboard perhaps.

 

On the Sony Viao VGN-SZ412N, disable the dGPU using Video cards->dGPU[off]. Ensure the system can chainload into Win7 OK when set. Then try:

1. Hotplugging the eGPU in Windows, do a Device manager rescan. Is it detected?

2. 32-bitA PCI compaction on eGPU-only. Chainload into Win7. If it BSODs then post the the resultant \config\pci.bat file so I can edit it down into the minimal changes needed to configure the eGPU.

3. After cold booting the system. Do a Save Diags->compact fails. Archive the resultant \diag folder files and post a link here.

 

Hi, everybody

I bought PE4L and connected it to R500 (t8100,2g), and zotac gtx460 ua.
However, the laptop will beep if I use the 2g+1g ram when I booting with eGPU powered on.
I then used 2G RAM only.

3D MARK 06 TEST 5833
win7 ex rate 5.5 5.5 6.1 6.1 5.9

What can I do to improve the performance of my eGPU?

Thanks in advance.

 

The R500 has a 4500MHD iGPU. To get significantly faster x1.Opt pci-e compression active, the iGPU must be primary video card on bootup.

To ensure the iGPU is active, halt Win7 loading with F8, then hotplug the eGPU and continue loading Win7. If there is an error12 against the GTX460 then refer to FAQ error 12 for methods to resolve it. The DSDT override method is most comprehensive solution that ensures no 4GB+ RAM issues.

 

Yeah, i'd have to agree with that, your CPU doesn't help.. if only you had the i7 i noticed you scored 14.6k in 3dmark06, i have a 15" mbp early 2011 fully upgraded and i score 10.6k normal and 12k with some GPU overclocking , do you know what was your cpu score so that i can compare with mine? mine was 5.7k btw.

Yeah, sure the usb hub and the 325w are nice, but if we can expand the MSI GUS II to that power, even without the hub, for 150$ its damn great!

 

Hmmm, I have the 13" Air, i5. I've read your reviews, and I have been secretly hoping that bottleneck is from the 1x link. I am actually holding out for the next MacBook Pro 15", potentially slim, release. I travel a lot, so I was actually hoping to have a mobile setup. Having a 13" Air has definitely made traveling much easier (would you believe that there was a time when I traveled with an M18x?! that was painful), and I was hoping only to move to a 15" as a sort of 'last resort.'

@ captainvera

I agree completely that sub $200 would be very sweet ~ but I wouldn't mind paying a premium for a package that will include everything I need. I can't see myself traveling with an ATX PSU in my luggage (they're pretty heavy to begin with!), especially for a meager 45 watt deficiency.

 

if you want portability don't even bother with these egpu solutions. There's no way a desktop graphic card egpu will be portable. it never will be. In fact most solutions will weight as much as a notebook if not even more.
your best chance is hopping for a mobile egpu solution. there have been around some stuff like AMD XGP that worked great, very small and light and it worked. But anyway it won't happen in a near future.
And 200$ is very expensive. An egpu is just a simple adapter and eventually a psu + enclosure. It's really very cheap to manufacture, just like your insanely overpriced macbook.

 

Oh! I didn't realize you wanted to travel with it, i to travel quite a bit on work, that is why i invested in a mbp in the first place, instead of getting a desktop. And i want the Egpu to be home waiting for me when i want to play games.

And please, for someone who traveled with a m18x it will be child's play ^^

 

That is not true, it is just common opinion of non-mac users... Quality above eveything! But we really don't want to start a mac vs pc discussion here

 

Hi all,
i just reinstall OS and i don't understant anything.
I just can't launch nvidia control panel and i don't know why.

I post a picture of control panel.
Help welcome before i resell the kit ...

 

Branche ta carte graphique Plus sérieusement, essaie de démarrer ta carte en passant ton ordinateur en veille.

 

have you a screen connected on gpu?

 

Non, et ce qui est bizard c'est que le nvidia control panel ne s'ouvre plus non plus avec la NVS4200.
Je pige pas...

 

The modded NVidia Verde driver appears to be confused as to what to do when it sees two NVidia gpus. So first thing to try is disable the NVS4200M in Device Manager and see if it allows the NVidia control panel to work OK. If not then correct the problem by either:

1. running the NVS4200 using the Verde driver and the GTX560 using the standard desktop driver

2. disabling the NVS4200M using Setup 1.x's Video Cards->Hybrid GFX.dGPU[off]. Setup 1.x is required as you have no bios option to disable the dGPU.

 

Thx nando, i'll try this afternoon

 

Hi Nando, could you tell me why I cannot activate the Optimus option ? I installed the nando driver as described at the beginning of this topic...
Here is a screenshot of the nvidia control panel :


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

This is because you are booting your T400 with the eGPU powered so the bios makes the eGPU the primary video card. The NVidia driver requires the iGPU to be the primary video card for the Optimus features to engage (including the x1.Opt pci-e compression) so disconnected the eGPU, boot the system, halt Win7 bootup with F8, power on the eGPU and hotplug the EC2C into the expresscard slot, then resume Win7 bootup. You can avoid having to do the hotplugging if you set the PE4H PCI Reset Delay to 15s.

 

hi nando4, any other results or configurations that I posted here to put it to the results chart? I'm after clean installation so I will try do tests with internal screen (without nvam) where 1.2opt makes the biggest impact.

 

Your RE5 result is far lower than it should be. Also your 3dmark results don't show the GPU score. That's what I use. Please just paste the link to the futuremark page instead. Best if you re-run the benchmarks after you do your clean install. NVidia 295.xx desktop drivers don't need modded drivers to be able do x1.Opt or drive the internal LCD with an eGPU installation.

After those results are corrected I can add your system to the first page as the next x1.2Opt implementation.

 

Thanks for the advance. I am perfectly okay with carrying around an additional 6-8 pounds (With my Air + power adapter clocking in at under 4 pounds, this is still lighter than the 12lb m18x!...and that doesn't include the 330w external power brick). The thing with me is that half of my travels involve staying at a location for one to two weeks. Leaving an eGPU in the hotel room would be AWESOME. To me, a ViDock + power brick is a perfectly acceptable alternative. If someone wants to weigh in as to how much that weighs, that would be cool, but I don't think it would exceed the 8lb threshold that I have. The Magma ExpressBox is a little excessive though, since it supports three slots...

I've done a lot of DIY stuff, and if they release it for 200, it is certainly NOT expensive (for me). First, the current PE4L/H kits cost 70/90 to order. Then the cost of a PSU (personally, I have a spare 550W LZP-500 to use, but it was pretty expensive to begin with, so I won't use that price) is around $30-50 for a low end power supply. Lastly, there is the enclosure. This part is highly variable depending on how professional one wants it to look ~ and whether they have the spare parts kicking around. I've done a few case mods, and unless one has the tools, its very difficult to create one that is A) Good, B) Cheap, C) Fast. I'd be more than happy to pay anything under 100 for a premade enclosure that doesn't look like I went to town a pair of sheers and a mallet.

 

For a while, I thought about selling my Air for a 15" MBP for the added power. I ended up not doing it because I felt that the graphical capabilities were pretty lame; certainly better than the Air, but not by a large enough margin to warrant an upgrade (I basically wanted a machine that can do 'high' on max resolution on games such as Skyrim). I went through a phase of trying out various gaming machines. I went from a lower M11X to a fairly loaded M18x (580M SLI). The M11x was too weak, and the M18x was to cumbersome (it wasn't really the 'weight', it was mainly that it couldn't be handled with one hand...it was an interesting sight to watch me leverage the M18x into a sleeve, then into a bag.)

Then, I learned of eGPUs...

 

I all tried.
Desktop drivers, disconnect nvs4200, hotplug the egpu, start pc with egpu , halt os startup ...
In every time, i see the card in control panel but noway to launch optimus because nvidia control panel don't want to launch.
I don't understand because joss has the same system as me and i did the same steps.
I don't want to buy setup 1.x because if it don't work i'll loose 25 USD more ...

 

So I'm trying the DSDT override. On step-2 for the dsdt guide, it says capture the dstd table using: iasl -g

Would I write this is in the command line?

 

I don't know what you mean by "max resolution" but if it is the mbp's max res. then the 15" mbp can do that and more ^^ i run it on ultra with everything on except anisotropic filtering which is of and AA which is 4x...
But yeah, if you can get some decent thunderbolt Egpu's to put your gtx 680 in, the mba should become even more powerful than my mbp, unless your CPU doesnt allow it... If you were looking for a part gaming machine, you should have invested in the higher end air, with the i7, the mobile i5 Dual core is pretty weak in comparison with a 680...

 

The i5 in my mbp is definitely a bottleneck. Reeeally regretting not buying the faster 2.8ghz i7

 

the optimus is activated in bios?

 

Yes ... Je desepère !

 

What is the max resolution of your 15"? I know they offer a standard version, and then a high resolution version. If I were to get a Pro, I would most definitely get the high resolution screen. I believe people were saying (at least at the time when Skyrim first came out) that the pro could only handle medium at the higher resolution (1680x1050).

Yeah, I fear that I may need to upgrade to the next gen when the time comes if CPU is too big of a bottleneck...

 

From cmd, locate the iasl and execute the command to capture the file.

Right now im at the QWord dMemory.

Is this correct ?

QWordMemory (ResourceProducer, PosDecode, MinFixed, MaxFixed, Cacheable, ReadWrite,
0x0000000000000000, // Granularity
0x0000000C20000000, // Range Minimum, set it to 48.5GB
0x0000000E0FFFFFFF, // Range Maximum, set it to 56.25GB
0x0000000000000000, // Translation Offset
0x00000001F0000000, // Length calculated by Range Max - Range Min.
,, , AddressRangeMemory, TypeStatic)

Name (_HID, EisaId ("PNP0A08"))
Name (_CID, EisaId ("PNP0A03"))
Name (_ADR, 0x00)
Method (^BN00, 0, NotSerialized)
{
Return (0x00)
}

Method (_BBN, 0, NotSerialized)
{
Return (BN00 ())
}


And im lost at step 4.... do i save the above file ?

 

The quad core i7 in the 15inch should be more than enough. Its just that the GPU is a 6450 or something like like (it is now a 6750).

The quad core and egpu would be a very nice combo.

 

what is the version of nvidia drivers? me i use 285.62

 

Hello Nando4, thank you for looking into this...

My dGPU is off by default (since it stopped working a while back). It has been using only the iGPU ever since.

Unfortunately it is not.

It BSODs on all compactions when chainloading windows. It says "no solution found" when doing the 32-bitA compaction on eGPU only. Here is the contents of PCI.bat

REM r:/core/compact.exe pciend F8000000 useonly 10de:0611 import devcon.txt makebatch R:\config\pci.bat
REM created Mon Apr 2 01:21:07 2012
echo Performing PCI write (compact@Mon Apr 2 01:21:07 2012)

I also did 32 bit eGPU only:

REM r:/core/compact.exe pciend 100000000 useonly 10de:0611 import devcon.txt makebatch R:\config\pci.bat
REM created Mon Apr 2 01:22:31 2012
echo Performing PCI write (compact@Mon Apr 2 01:22:31 2012)

@echo -s 2:0.0 COMMAND=0 BASE_ADDRESS_1=e000000c BASE_ADDRESS_2=0 COMMAND=0 BASE_ADDRESS_0=fd000000 COMMAND=0 BASE_ADDRESS_3=fa000004 BASE_ADDRESS_4=0 > setpci.arg
@echo -s 9:4.0 COMMAND=5 BASE_ADDRESS_0=fefff000 BASE_ADDRESS_5=fff00000 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 BASE_ADDRESS_3=fff00000 BASE_ADDRESS_4=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.0 MEMORY_BASE=fa00 MEMORY_LIMIT=fdf0 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=e001 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=eff1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.1 MEMORY_BASE=f800 MEMORY_LIMIT=f800 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.2 MEMORY_BASE=f810 MEMORY_LIMIT=f810 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.3 MEMORY_BASE=fff0 MEMORY_LIMIT=0 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1e.0 MEMORY_BASE=f820 MEMORY_LIMIT=fef0 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 2:0.0 COMMAND=0 COMMAND=0 COMMAND=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 9:4.0 COMMAND=7 >> setpci.arg

setpci @setpci.arg
set pci_written=yes

And 36 bit eGPU only with none on 32 bit:

REM r:/core/compact.exe pciend 310000000 useonly 10de:0611 import devcon.txt makebatch R:\config\pci.bat
REM created Mon Apr 2 01:23:01 2012
echo Performing PCI write (compact@Mon Apr 2 01:23:01 2012)

@echo -s 2:0.0 COMMAND=0 BASE_ADDRESS_1=c BASE_ADDRESS_2=3 COMMAND=0 BASE_ADDRESS_0=fd000000 COMMAND=0 BASE_ADDRESS_3=fa000004 BASE_ADDRESS_4=0 > setpci.arg
@echo -s 9:4.0 BASE_ADDRESS_5=fff00000 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 BASE_ADDRESS_3=fff00000 BASE_ADDRESS_4=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.0 MEMORY_BASE=fa00 MEMORY_LIMIT=fdf0 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=3 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=ff1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=3 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.1 MEMORY_BASE=f800 MEMORY_LIMIT=f800 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.2 MEMORY_BASE=f810 MEMORY_LIMIT=f810 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1c.3 MEMORY_BASE=fff0 MEMORY_LIMIT=0 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 0:1e.0 MEMORY_BASE=f820 MEMORY_LIMIT=fef0 PREF_MEMORY_BASE=fff1 PREF_BASE_UPPER32=0 PREF_MEMORY_LIMIT=1 PREF_LIMIT_UPPER32=0 >> setpci.arg
@echo -s 2:0.0 COMMAND=0 COMMAND=0 COMMAND=0 >> setpci.arg

setpci @setpci.arg
set pci_written=yes

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Byeq8fsOoBQSQ2xQRmRNMXBUcTJrT2NfRnBfYVBhUQ

Once again, thank you for your time.

Cheers,
Max

 

i tried with the last 295.73 + nvam modded

edit: i just tried with your drivers version, and it's the same thing.