DIY eGPU experiences

Heh, that's pretty much what was said a couple of weeks ago that it was expected next week. Hopefully it'll be in before the rebate on Newegg for the video card expires. Thanks for the reply!

 

I'm having some trouble setting up an eGPU for my Lenovo E420.
I bought a PE4L 2.1b (Expresscard), and a GTX 460.

I'm using a 203w Xbox PSU, wired according to this thread...
( http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/4455/xbox203w.jpg)
And I planned on following these instructions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/7762211-post4695.html

I've wired everything up and confirmed voltages with a multimeter (all I need to do is plug the PE4L onto the GTX 460, hook them both to my PSU, and connect the expresscard cable to my laptop, right?).

My laptop won't detect the connected eGPU... for testing purposes I have a monitor hooked up via dvi and the GTX 460 shows no signs of life, ever (are the fans supposed to be on?)

The PE4L's lights 1 and 3 are on... SW1 is on 1, and SW2 is on 2-3.

I installed Setup 1.x and it was also unable to detect my graphics card, it suggested changing the PCI Delay time to 7/15s (I'm assuming that's talking about SW1? I don't have a 7/15s option; just 0, 500ms, and 6.9s)

Any help would be appreciated. Cant seem to detect it at all. I tried installing the drivers without detection but that obviously didn't work either.

 

Is the graphics card OK? Can you check it on a desktop PC?
Despite the correct voltages, it could be something with the PSU, try to check your setup with a good PC PSU.

Does the lamp on the xbox PSU become green, when you plug everything in?

 

The fan should be on if the PSU is powered on and connected properly to the GPU. It's likely not related to the laptop, Display or Windows, but rather an issue with the power or PE4L.

 

Please share a picture of your Z2 egpu setup , im considering to buy this laptop too

Is it practical too plug-in and plug-out?

 

When off .. my modded 360 psu shows amber (i installed a rocker switch between the 5v, and power enable) .. when on .. the psu light will be green, and the gpu will have power and the fans are on. On the pe4l my switches are x16, and 0s

I power on the 360psu first, so egpu powers on, then the lenovo after

Do you have the ability to use a desktop psu temporarily to rule out that variable?

 

Does anyone know where can i get at least 3ft flat hdmi cables for egpu.
Any types or brands i should look out for?
The ones provided are a little too short for my set-up.

Thanks

 

Hi, I've tried to read as much as I can from the thread but still don't understand which component would be best suited for me. Below are my laptop specifications, I wondered which adapter is better for a sandybridge processor to get the best performance a PE4L+PM3N using a mPCIe slot or PE4H+PM3N using mPCIe slot. And does anyone know of any issues installing a GPU on the following laptop:

Laptop Specs Acer Aspire 5750:

Intel I5 2430M 2.4ghz (3ghz turboboost)
Intel HD 3000 graphics
6gb DDR3 Ram
750 GB HDD

And hopefully this card PALIT GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards+-+NVIDIA/GeForce+GTX+550+Ti/PALIT+GeForce+GTX+550+Ti+1048MB+GDDR5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=49726

What power psu would I likely need for this card to run.

I also hope to be able to use it on its internal display using Optimus? I heard thats possible.

Thanks

 

Well I did some changes in the bottom plate in order to connect the eGPU.
I've been thinking, for a long time, in an eGPU setup for the VPCZ2 (and SVZ1 now) that is at the same time, not too ugly and as practical as possible.
I've made everything myself.

Here are the pictures !
























I couldn't test it much yet.
The only test I had done was before my mod was ready and it showed enthusiastic results.
It was with an GTX 560 Ti with a PE4H-PM3N x1.1opt only though. (x1.2opt will be possible soon .)




I will post a lot of benchmarks results on Tuesday.


Drawbacks :

- No more WWAN & Bluetooth but WLAN is working well.
Explanations : There's only 1 mPCIe port on the Z that can be used for eGPU. The WWAN port is a mPCIe-shaped USB port, intel WLAN won't work on it, just a few WLAN card can and they do not have bluetooth combo.

- There's an other solution that can be possible, though, but it's less practical.
You could also have WWAN and eGPU at the same time + wifi with a USB dongle. Once you are done with your eGPU you could replug the WLAN and the antenna connector without opening the laptop thanks to my mod. (not very practical though)

 

Wow! That is ingenious! Nice scores, too. The clip is an especially nice touch.

 

^ thank you

It was quite a challenge, because all of this couldn't be higher than 1mm.

 

Being an engineering student, I love these kinds of problems.

 

I'm having a weird issue with my eGPU setup.

Here's my config:

Thinkpad X220 (bios set to gen 1) - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
PE4H + EC2C
Power supply
eVGA GTX460 768MB
Verde 295.73 + kizwan's nvam.inf (32/64-bit) - Optimus

The eGPU works fine when going through the internal LCD display AND when I connect my external LCD monitor to the LAPTOP VGA port.

However, when I connect the external LCD monitor to the back of the video card (using VGA -> DVI dongle that came with the card), I get nothing. When the computer starts up in this configuration, the LCD is blank. If I take the DVI connection off the video card, my internal LCD display will show up. If I plug in the connection to the video card after I've booted and then attempt to detect the monitor, I get nothing. If I plug the connection into my laptop VGA port, it's fine so the monitor isn't bad. I've tried different DVI/VGA dongles with no success.

Would I even get a performance benefit if I ran the display out of the back of the graphics card as opposed to the laptop VGA port? If not, I'm not going to even bother with this.

 

I may now, try to design a eGPU logo and print it on a sticker and stuck it nicely on the steel plate. But I like the color of the steel too.

 

Wow, very nice! I'm a little bit jealous of you having the audacity (and cash!) to cut up a vaio Z...

It would be great if all laptops came with totally removable bottom panel. My dad has got a Dell e4200. Fantastic machine, solid, long battery life, good keyboard, and 2 screws hold on the entire bottom panel.

If that was commonplace you could have an easy way to dock an eGPU, and put in a massive TDP processor, restricted when undocked but which could then be given better cooling with the removal of the panel.

 

Any other games tested with results? My 670 should arrive on Tuesday/Wednesday, so i'm interested about the difference compared to the 560Ti

 

The sliding metal door idea is elegantly simple and genius I've noted your solution in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/600942-vidock-4g-light-peak-z21-possible-37.html#post8539346

While I realize that the pci-e 2.0 mPCIe solution is pending the new BPlus PE4L-PM3N 2.x hardware to get max performance, can I suggest that you place these pics and answer some of Crystal1988's concerns as FAQ items in perhaps a rework of your http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/619904-vpc-z2x-convenient-egpu-setup.html thread? These nuggets might otherwise get lost in this thread.

 

Hi everyone! I just set up my eGPU (PE4L 2.1b + EVGA 560 Ti) to my T520 i7-2860QM, 8GB, Intel 520 SSD! A problem I'm running into is when I hook up my external monitor and try to update to the latest (296.10) nVidia drivers I get an error that says "Drivers failed to install". I then get a notification in my start menu that states "Your GTX 560 has been successfully installed". However, my card is a 560 Ti!

When I ran 3DMark06, I only got a measly score of 11110 3DMarks. Did I do something wrong (i.e., is my setup is not running on 1.2Opt as I thought)?

 

Yes, I meant other than these

 

The DVI-VGA adapter is possibly the problem. Try to plug a native DVI or HDMI monitor. If it works, then you can switch back to your VGA monitor and install older drivers.(The 175.33? works on my VGA monitor while the latest driver fails.)

 

Hello All,

Long time reader, first time poster. I am not very computer savy so this project was very difficult for me. My current set up includes:

hp pavillion dv6t quad edition
PE4H (express card>mhdmi>pcie thing>card>monitor)
GTX 560ti
external monitor

I have it working and all, that is, the external monitor is working fine, but I feel like I am not getting anywhere near the performace I should be getting from that card.

I have read about this bottle neck deal, but thats where my understanding stops. Is it possible to get around this bottleneck with my equipment? What would I need to buy to get around it? How would I go abvout doing this?

Help!

Thanks in advance. Anxiously awaiting any info. Cheers.

 

So reporting back, x220 with GTX 560 Ti does drop to low frame rates in some of the outdoor areas on Diablo 3. Has anyone else seen this issue? It seems to drop from 59/60 (Vsynced), to low teens. Still very playable (max settings).

 

Guys please check the difference PC/EGPU P4EL/P4EH GTX 560/GTX 670.
GTX 560 at P4EH lose 20% EGPU between desktop. P4EL lose 10%. GTX670 lose 50% between 3Ghz DualCore i5?

 

I'm confused what you are asking specifically..

the front page has lots of links to comparisons, and what kind of performance you might expect from various configurations.

 

Diablo 3 seems to be working well with eGPU. There are still some micro lags at 1080p maxed out, but some of that is just latency from Blizzard's servers, which still seems to be a problem occasionally. Has anyone found any good configurations for optimal performance? I set the Max foreground FPS to like 60, and have everything else turned up to high with AA on, but I'm curious if there are settings in some ini file to tweak somewhere.

I am still having some trouble with chain loading the MBR in Setup 1.x - it seems I have to have my secondary HDD removed in order for it to boot to the correct primary drive (though it appears configured correctly in the BIOS). I then have to quickly reinsert the drive immediately after I start the chain load since that drive has all of my games and stuff.

Also, what kind of benchmarks would be beneficial for me to run for posting here? I'm wondering if I have enough bandwidth to run FRAPS in the background and get some stats that way.

 

I asked whats % of desktop perfomance i can achive from P4EH/P4EL at GTX560/670. I have 560 and suppose that i2520/P4EL is bootle neck for GTX670.

 

Anyone? Any online stores that sells them?

 

the PE4L even running at x1.2opt is going to bottle neck any performace card, probably the same 10-25% less than equivilant desktop performance depending on application (my guess)

now as for is the 670 worth the upgrade from a 560?.. thats up to you

there will be a performance increase in certain apps... when comparing my gtx680 to similasr systems with a 560, to me it looks like a nice increase.

And since I was gonna lose speed via the pcie connection, I wanted all the "extra speed" I could get to kinda make up for it..

but is it worth the money??, probably not to most people.

and to me the 670 is a great card (I have two in sli on the desktop), comes within just mere % of the 680 once you over clock it. (definitly better bang for buck between the two)

So to me... if you want a comparison between the 560 and 670, google has lots of review sites with numbers.. and for whichever you decide on just assume that it will be worse case, 25% less than those review speeds on average (due to pcie bottleneck.. your cpu is more than fast enough to not bottle neck performance much, if at all)

you are going to have to make some judgements and infer from other sources, because nobody is going to have a perfect compare on those two cards over an egpu connection with a laptop similar to yours.. hence why I stated refer to front page in my previous comment

 

I bought simply one at ebay: eBay: Neue und gebrauchte Elektronikartikel, Autos, Kleidung, Sammlerst?cke, Sportartikel und mehr ? alles zu g?nstigen Preisen

But i bought it for my DIY ViDock, that i`m making right now.

 

You're correct. I updated my drivers to the latest desktop ver and the vga->dvi connection works fine via the external video card. After re-reading the Optimus post, it looks like I don't need Verde anymore for the pci-e compression or driving the internal LCD anyway.

Thanks.

 

I've tried searching for an answer but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for help! I finally got all the required power cables for my eGPU but I can't get it to be recognised by my laptop.

I've got an x220t i7 2620m with 8gb RAM and 1.29 BIOS on Win 7 64bit.
My eGPU consists of a PE4L 2.1b and an HD4890, supplied by a 300W power supply with 180W on the 12V rail.

I can connect USB devices fine through the PE4L, and my card appears to power up fine with the fan spinning. I can't get it to be recognised however. I've tried turning on the psu first then booting my laptop, turning on the laptop and plugging in eGPU at the windows boot logo, hotplugging when Windows is running, and putting the laptop into sleep then plugging it in, all with no luck. I've also tried all this with the Expresscard set to Gen1, and with the switch on the PE4L set to both x1 and x16 pci.

I've tested with 2 4890s, but I won't have access for a week to a desktop to test the cards. What tests can I do to find out what's wrong, and does anyone have any suggestions for making this work?
Thanks!

 

At first, I'd try with a different PSU. What PSU are you trying with? Low quality, unknown brand PSUs are known to be sometimes unable to supply the power they claim to supply.
I also think that 180w is about what the 4890 requires. I suggest that you check on google the power consumption of that card, in case it's higher than 180w.

 

Try plugging the eGPU in and then powering on. On my x220, resume from sleep, hotplugging, etc does not work well/at all.

 

Thanks yeah I'll give it a go. I was hoping I could get it detected at least. I have tried to plug in and turn on the GPU before powering on the laptop already, with no luck.

I'm aware that a Fermi card is preferred but am I right in saying there should be no need for the setup 1.x program when using Sandy Bridge and ATI?

 

HIT finally has PE4L v2.1b in stock. We have the 60cm edition in and ready to ship. Sorry it took us so long to get them in. The pictures on our site still need to be updated (it still shows the v1.5).

 

Good news !

 

Thanks LoneNF,

Can the above cable replace the one i am using on (PE4L V1.5 + EC2C +SWEX + 60cm Flat HDMI+SPB087 PCI Express) ?

I'm thinking of a 3ft in length at least, will it affect the set-up in anyway?
Will this work as well?
http://www.gimmedigi.com/catalog/bu...-flat-cable-with-ethernet-hd2220k-p-1876.html

There are just too many variants of the HDMI cable and im confused which to get.

Thanks

 

5ft, US$5.61-shipped, confirmed by DIY eGPU to do the job: Gold Plated 1080P HDMI Mini V1.3 M-M Connection Cable - Black (1.5M-Length) - Free Shipping - DealExtreme . Only dilemma is waiting for it to arrive.

You should have no issues with any moderate length (<7ft) 1.3/1.4 specced mHDMI cable running pci-e 1.x on your PE4L 1.5.

 

lovely, just what i needed.

Thanks alot, Nando.

 

If the card has not enough power, it's possible that it isn't even detected.
With an ATI card it's true that you don't need to use setup 1.x in order to get the card detected.
But once the card will be detected by windows, it's possible that you'll get error 12 and in order to solve error 12 you'll need to use either setup 1.x or DSDT override method.

 

Hello everyone, would you recommend a good online shop for video cards I'm planing on making an external setup for my HP 4530s and I'm looking for a good card on a good price. A gtx460 or a gtx560. I've found a lot of offers from different shops on the internet but I can't decide on either of them, because I'm concerned about quality, shipping cost and etc. If you can suggest a quality online shopping service that is reliable and not very expensive I would appreciate it.Thanks in advance.

 

eGPU on USB 3.0 is dead ?

(Sorry for my very bad english, i'm french.)

 

Success plus enclosure:

T420 PE4L 2.1b.

 

my company has developed a wireless PCIe implementation (1x moving to 4x), we are able to show complete cable free setup for eGPU, would love to get in touch with you nando4 to get help on various code 12/HPUP issues

 

Wow! Thank you for your post. If you have a reliable wireless mPCIe 2.0 solution then it would be very highly desirable by users who have no expresscard slot. Pretty much ever notebook has a mPCIe slot and routing cables to it can prove challenging if there is no access door for it or the wifi slot is under the keyboard. eg: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/619904-vpc-z2x-convenient-egpu-setup.html . Furthermore, USB 3.0 eGPU solutions hit a wall with driver support so don't look to be happening anytime soon. Ultrabook owners too could then have an expansion option with your solution. I just hope it's affordable and runs at pci-e 2.0 speed.

As for the software required to use it, you'll encounter whitelisting issues with Lenovo/HP/Acer notebook mPCIe slots so the port need to have configured using a number of techniques by using software like DIY eGPU Setup 1.x. That software is currently distributed as restricted donationware by HIT here.

It's unusual timing as I've just implemented a F5-rescan mode in the upcoming Setup 1.11a release to do 1sec looped poll for the eGPU till it's detected or user hits ENTER to exit. A sneak peek of the new features as they stand today are in the spoiler.

Spoiler

Code:

1.11a (2012-05-23)
-------------------

Version inc from 1.10->1.11 indicating moderate improved functionality.

NEW! Series-7 Chief River chipset support (5GT/s), hosting Ivy Bridge cpus.
NEW! DSDT override now integrated with these changes:
     PCI compaction->method[] changed to endpoint[]
     32/36/64bit endpoints listed. User matches one to their root bridge.
     Run compact menuitem issues warning if using 36/64-bit endpoint.
     Diags now capture 3.87MB and 56.25GB endpoint test compaction.
     Updated doco about DSDT override and new endpoints.
NEW! F5-rescan will now poll for the eGPU if it's not detected.
NEW! Extra boot menuitems for extended functionality:    
     'DOS prompt (clean)' - useful for bios/video flashing.
     'Setup 1.x DOS Prompt (safe mode)'. Skips scrnshot util for prob sys.
NEW! Improved Setup 1.x DOS prompt:
     eGPU/devcon 'not found' banner now matches menu-based one.
     added F1, F3, F5/F6, F10 hotkeys for banner to make sense
     Hitting F5/F6 now shows chipset+GPU+port status like menu-based.
     better names: grub4dos.bat->chainload.bat, capture.bat->scrnshot.bat
     'ifs shell' now does countdown while waiting for shell option.
NEW! Cosmetics: bootitems banner, warning msgs, iport help improved.
     Changed all anti-whitelisting references to undo-whitelisting.
NEW! Mouse now works on Dell Latitude series.
FIX! Extended wait_e command with keys_list parameter.
FIX! Windows Diags' \devcon\mkpcidmp captures lspci config space info.
FIX! Simplified grub4dos menu.lst file replaces menu.[xp,win,lin,uef,mbr].
FIX! iport command passes up to 8 params to underlying cmds.
FIX! Countdown now reads keys using wait instead of xewc (Macbook prob).
FIX! Prevent second menu-based Setup run (eg: setup->IFS shell->setup).
FIX! Using pciids.gz, making distrib ~200KB smaller.

compact (2012-4-22) details:

NEW! Don't close unused bridges (no devices behind them). If want the old
     behavior of closing them, pass "closeunusedbridges" as an argument.
FIX! Fixed a bug where the DEVCON resources importer was incorrectly
     ignoring certain ranges. Earlier it was ignoring ranges bigger
     than 80000000. The intended threshold is 0x80000000 in hex!

Update: grub4dos-0.4.5c-2012-05-22, nvflash-5.117.0.1-2012-3-2,
        pci-ids-2012-5-7, Tianocore_UEFI_UDK_DUET_X86_64.img-2012-4-21,
        doslfn-041b-2012-2-7.

Can discuss commercial licensing with HIT or PM me (need to have 5 or more posts).

 

Hi, I have just recently started reading through this thread after looking for external graphics cards solutions. I am very interested to see if I can pull this off but before I go invest money I would like to make sure that my system is compatible with an eGPU.

System Specs:

Windows XP Professional
2x Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA NVS 160m GPU

TOLUD is 3.5

External Monitor Will be used.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to do this because I have Windows Xp. All the examples I see are with Windows 7 so I wasn't sure if it was possible in Xp.

I also understand that because my TOLUD is 3.5 I will have to do a DSDT workaround, but I didn't understand the instructions on how capture and edit the DSDT table.

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

Specs look like a Dell E6400, so the Dell E4300 DSDT override examples could almost be copied straight. The E6400 should also be x2 capable which you'd want to implement for best performance since the NVS160M model isn't x1.Opt capable.

I found XP doesn't need the primary adapter working so you could consider an alternative to the DSDT override where the dGPU would be disabled using Setup 1.x, a eGPU hijaaks it's pci-e space and boot to only the active eGPU. Only issue is there would be a blind boot b/w disabling the eGPU and WinXP starting up.

Before proceeding you may want to (1) ask other E6400 users to see if someone wants to do a NVS160M to 4500MHD systemboard swap so you could get x1.Opt performance (2) consider obtaining Win7 for a better user experience and (3) consider selling up and grab a SB/IVB notebook that capable of significantly faster x1.2Opt performance .

Expect good deals on SB runout 14" models such as a Dell E6420/3450, Lenovo T420/E420, HP 8560P/4430s. Can see others in the thin-and-light link in my sig.

 

nando4, any way we can discuss off forum? not sure what I have in mind would be of public interest