DIY eGPU experiences

you can buy molex (the 4 pin rectangular psu connector) to PCIe adapter, they're very cheap on eBay. Just watch out- I bought the very cheapest one and it burned out, though that could have been due to my power supply blowing out too. I managed to buy a 700w power supply for £17, I personally thought might as well pick one up for reliability and future use. There are some really good deals online

 

Hello there. So I've been looking at the DIY ViDock and it seems interesting so I wanted to give it a try. Just wondering if it will work fine on my laptop. This is the exact laptop that I want to try it on. Curious to know if after I complete it all, will it be able to run Guild Wars 2 fine.

VPCCW21FX/L | VAIO® CW Series Notebook PC

These are the parts that I plan on getting to see how it will run.
ExpressCard External Graphics x16
Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-1361-KR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

 

Win7 and XP allow different manufacturer video drivers to co-exist. Vista doesn't allow that but may or may not work if you manually install the XP drivers. You'd lose Aero and DX10 support if running XP drivers. Vista is imho a poor performing operating system so a Win7 upgrade is recommended for better performance.

Appears your system has a non-switchable G310M already, so no Intel HD graphics are available meaning no x1.Opt is possible. Furthermore, you don't have an expresscard slot.

The poor performance you'd get and inconvenience of a mPCIe implementation means I'd suggest offloading your system for a better DIY eGPU candidate that can do x1.Opt. x1.2Opt being the best performance we can get from expresscard solutions with Sandy/Ivy Bridge candidate systems listed in the thin-and-light link in my sig. Some of those are available for ~$400.

 

nando4, thanks for the reply and I will defiantly check that out.

 

Hi,
Just a quick question: I'm planning to buy a portable laptop for college, but I game as well, so I'd like an eGPU setup. I've just read the Lenovo X230's review and it seems to be quite awesome. Is there any info on it's eGPU compatibility yet, as I know that the X220 was very popular with eGPU using people (I mean if it can be done witout taking the laptop apart to reach ports).

 

It should be compatible, nothing has really changed. Except the increase in CPU power and a noticeable power slide in the integrated GPU performance It should work without hiccups!

Enjoy

 

That's great, thanks. You'll probably hear about my progress too, when I shower you with questions after I got it ^^.

 

Just for info : Max Payne 3 works like a charm with Thinkpad T400 T9400 + PE4H & EC2C GTX460 1Gb ! 1280x1024, every options maxed out.

Haha, 'love this gizmo !

 

I'm looking for a way to make my current laptop Diablo 3 compatible if possible. I have a
VAIO NW Series Notebook PC
VGN-NW270F/W | VAIO® NW Series Notebook PC | Sony | Sony Store USA


My System Specifications

Operating System:
Windows 2.6.1.7601 (Service Pack 1)
CPU Type:
Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU T6600 @ 2.20GHz
CPU Speed:
2.22 GHz
System Memory:
3.84 GB
Video Card Model:
Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Video Card Memory:
1.72 GB
Video Card Driver:
igdumdx32.dll
Desktop Resolution:
1366x768

I ideally wouldn't like to spend too much over 250 total.
Any Suggestions?

 

Pe4H+EC2C (about 90) and GTX460 (about 90)...

 

Thanks nando4, I upgraded to windows 7 yesterday. Gotta say it is a much better OS. No idea why I waited so long to make the switch. Thank you for all your help, it is much appreciated. I'm going to get the GTX 460, just going to wait a while to see if the price will drop back down to the 90 region. Once I do that I'll probably post an update letting you know how it went for me and for my laptop type.

Also thanks to kizwan for helping me out too. Both of you are awesome!

 

This is a really interesting thread. I'm going to be upgrading and buying a new laptop soon and would want to try this out but it seems complicated. I can't test it on my current laptop since it's Clarksfield but my basic understanding of this is that you buy the kit listed and connect it all together to make an external GPU? I've been glancing at the thread but I can't seem to find it anywhere so forgive me if this is a stupid question. What tools do you actually need to make this work, besides the kit, as in actual tools (hardware) to connect the parts? I would PM this to someone but I'm not able to use PMs for some reason.

 

Was this directed at me?
and if so is there any direction you could point me to for an installation guide?

 

Guys a quick question why is only Nvidia cards considered?? I know even ATI works but i see lately only Nvidia is being used for eGPU!! any particular reason other than its performance of the cards???

 

performance is a big reason, due to the ability to use optimus compression on the limited pcie bandwidth we have, nvidia cards are just better for egpu configs at the moment.

 

I have bought a GTS450 and a PE4H with an 12v DC adapter. Which the DC adapter cannot be function on the PE4H, therefore, i did some research and found a solution said to make a DC-to-molex adapter and connect it to the ATX connector.
Although i got this information, but im still confuse about how that works. Is there any image of making this kind of stuff?
Thanks.

 

is the th03 available yet? if so, does anyone know if it would work on a thunderbolt equipped macmini?

 

Now that Computex news are rolling in I see that there will be quite a few Thunderbolt equipped Ultrabooks released in the near future. Does anyone know how ULV CPUs compare to dual core 'm' CPUs in performance and if the ULV CPUs could be a bottleneck for a 560Ti caliber GPU? (Also Thunderbolt DIY eGPU setups wouldn't require one of these, would they?)

 

there are no tools required, it all just pushes together. The expresscard/mPCIe card both are standard laptop connectors, then at the other end of your PE4L/PE4H there is a standard desktop PCIe connector which the graphics card slots in to as it would in a desktop PC. In terms of power supplies, using a desktop ATX power supply the only connections to make are to attach the floppy 4 pin connector to the PE4l/PE4H and as many PCIe connectors as you graphics card requires. Then it's just plugging that into the wall and you're done, it's all modular and requires no DIY of any sort, unless you want to build an enclosure or create you own DC power supply. Message me if you want and I can send you some close up pictures

 

I finally painted my enclosure, now I'm REALLY done.

Homemade Sticker (Still WIP)

Vertical Position

A bit dusty back

On the top!

 

Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist - Notebookcheck.net Tech
imo there isn't a cpu bottleneck at least at medium performance ones.
a thunderbolt egpu would require somekind of device like that. how did you expected to connect it to the notebook? wireless? magic?

 

I'm having a bit of trouble getting mine working.
I'm using a PE4L 2.1b, a Shuttle pc35i2402 psu, and a GTX 460. If I don't insert the card into the PE4L, the power supply fan spins and the PE4L lights up (but the GTX 460 fans don't spin). But if I insert the card into the PE4L, nothing spins or lights up. Any ideas?

 

With shuttle psu's usually the 12v on the psu is split into various 12v1, 12v2, etc

Using the molex connectors are on 12v1, the CPU p4 connector is 12v2, and if has a second 6pin pcie connector gets dedicated to 12v3 like the 500w version of their psu

On your psu, I would power the pe4l with the floppy, and then mod the CPU p4 connector 12v line to a 6pin pcie connector for your gpu, instead of using a molex adaptor you are currently likely using

That should work, and it what I had to do to use my 300w shuttle pc60 with my gtx680

 

Very nice...

 

Hello All,

Seems like this thread is one giant KB for issues with the DIY setup. Just wondering if anyone can help me out with my new setup.

I'm new to all this, so excuse my attempt to describe my issues.

I just bought my PE4H setup.( PE4H (PCIe passive adapter ver2.4)) using GTX 295. My attempt was on a 8440w HP laptop with an internal nvidia card ( i believe it was a 380M). Win 7 was able to see the card but i'm getting error 12. After spending hours trying to fix it using the DSDT method, I decided to go with the DIY egpu setup method (Setup 110b5). Now i'm running into the issue where the setup doesnt see my egpu. I've tried the suggested method in the menu, but i'm still not having any luck. I've attached some screen shots, hoping someone can help me out.

Thanks in advance

 

Oh, thanks!
I'm kind of new to this, how would I go about modding the connector?

 

I would buy a 6 pin to molex adaptor for a dollar or two at your local shop, the black wires are ground, yellow are 12v.. Simply cut off the p4 molex, and connect the colors, so to speak.

 

Power on the eGPU, hotplug the EC2C into the expresscard slot, press F5. If it's not detected then do a 32-bitA PCI compaction, chainload Win7, do a sleep, poweron eGPU, resume and see if the eGPU is detected and error12 still exists. If it does, then please boot Setup 1.x and run Save Diag->compact_fails, linking the results here for analysis.

 

Thank you for the response. I appreciate it. That was exactly what I was looking for. I can't wait to try it when I buy a new laptop!

 

Hi there,

i have a Lenovo T420s (8GB RAM, iGPU HD3000 only) and was wondering if i could use my old Nvidia 8800GTS as an eGPU (ExpressCard Slot is available). Could someone please tell me if it is possible with the PE4H 2.4? Thanks!

 

It should be. I've got a similar W520 and 9600gt to work just fine, with a PE4L 2.1a in my case. Should work. Keep in mind that the performance won't be staggering. It will probably outperform a HD3000 however.

I've also got a question. I received an GTX480 yesterday, and got my PE4l 2.1a setup with my lenovo W520 with a quadro 1000m. Is there any way I can still use the quadro card when I'm on the road? If I boot without egpu connected the nvidia settings won't open and says something in the lines of "no compatible card detected". I could reinstall the mobile drivers, but then my GTX480 probably wont work anymore.

Is it possible to have both the mobile drivers for the 1000m and the desktop drivers for the GTX480 installed at the same time and switch between them (so I can use the GTX480 at home, and the 1000m when away from home)?

 

Are these reccomendations for me? Also will I need an additional Power Supply besides the one inside my laptop and what would be good for that? Do I have to have an additional monitor or can it route back into my laptop? I was under the impression that I could still probably use my laptop screen if I didn't mind the graphics

 

Hello guys!Just to report one more successfull implementation.Laptop Toshiba Satellite A135 2286 with cpu pentium dual core 1.6 Gz OC to 2.4 with pin mod two giga ram and W7 32 OS.DGPU ati express200M,eGPU GT430.A special tank to SimonTav for help with this difficoult implementation.This toshiba has a slot which i belive is a PCMCIA 54 pin were i tried to connect an ec2 express adapter with no success card isn't detected but may be is the adapter i use that is not adeguate (any suggestion?).than i tried via mPCI using the usual triks and getting error 12.Than i tried to overcame the error 12 by istalling the set up x1software but no success because i get a strange error during installation which i was informed shall be solved in the next version of set up x1.At the end i find out that if i just start the pc with eGPU connected, powered and with an external monitor connected windows just start and all works fine..the only thingh the dGPU isn't in the device manager anymore!Now i am not really sure of what happen but ..it works.I attach some pics with 3dmark test etc.

 

no luck
I've attached the diag hoping these are the right ones.

 

Per the instructions printed when you run the diags, please RAR/ZIP the \diag directory contents, upload somewhere and link here. Thanks.

To get the GTX480 running at full x1.2Opt performance requires disabling the FX1000M. That can be done either in the bios or using Setup 1.x. Setup 1.x would be easiest for your purposes as it can disable your dGPU as a simple bootup menu item.

While running a desktop + mobile driver works, I'd be inclined to mod the Verde (mobile) drivers to include the GTX480 so as to have a single driver for both. See modded drivers for details.

 

Hello again!

So I've got my 5770 connected, and a fresh win7 install, it was detected, installed the default drivers, and then I installed the newest DNA-ATI driver...I have a Mobility x1600 dGPU, and both cards are detected; in device manager it lists both the Standard VGA Adapter and ATI 5700 series. How can I get it to switch over! On startup I got a message that the DNA drivers didn't support the current (dGPU) card, and to switch over, I disabled the dGPU but no luck.

Any ideas I'd really appreciate it, I'm so close!

Expresscard setup, ASUS Z96Js

 

see ajscorpio's fix on getting a X1600 + HD6850 working together under Win7/32.

 

Hello World,
I have bought a GTS450 and a PE4H with an 12v DC adapter. Which the DC adapter cannot be function on the PE4H, therefore, i did some research and found a solution said to make a DC-to-molex adapter and connect it to the ATX connector.
Although i got this information, but im still confuse about how that works. Is there any image of making this kind of stuff?
Thanks.

 

OK, so the Dell Latitude E6x30 series come in play:
Latitude E6530 Laptop- High Performance and Productivity | Dell
Estimated Ship Date:6/20/2012
It has the same chassis, as the E6x20 series, so they have expresscard.
But, Ivy Bridge,
Intel® CoreTM i7 (3720QM, 3520M)
Intel® CoreTM i5 (3360M, 3320M, 3210M)
Intel® CoreTM i3 (2350M)

QM77 Express Chipset

Intel® HD Graphics 3000 for Intel Core i3/i5 Processors
Intel® HD Graphics 4000 for Intel Core i3/i5/i7 3xxxM Processors
NVIDIA®NVS™5200M (GDDR5 1GB) Discrete Graphic with Optimus

Sooo, waiting for the first E6530 eGPU

Need money, want this baby Finally they have a native USB 3.0

 

Thank you for the answer. Will it also be possible to power the internal LCD via the expresscard link (optimus tweak) and what driver will i have to use so i can switch between graphic solutions? Thanks.

 

Nope, for that to work you need a at least a fermi graphicscard (4xx or higher). By the way, your system supports pci-e 2.0 over the express card slot, so instead of a pe4h (limited to pci-e 1.1) you should also consider a pe4l-2.1b (which supports pci-e 2.0). This would allow you to effectively double the bandwith availible to the graphics card.

I disabled the 1000m in the bios atm. I'll try to get the modded mobile drivers working with the 1000m and the 480gtx now.
EDIT: Installed the mobile drivers for the quadro 1000m, but i can't seem to find nvam.inf... Running with desktop drivers and mobile drivers at the same time now, no problems so far. I disabled the 1000m in the bios at the moment; as expected optimus doesn't work when 1000m is enabled aswell.
EDIT2: I'm currently away from home, and re-enabled the 1000m in bios. Everyting works just like before the installation of the eGpu. Just need to go in bios every time I want to switch grapics card. Takes a little bit longer, but except for that it works fine.

Benchmarks
Benchmarks were run with the GTX480 at stock speeds on an external screen. Nvidia's HD audio was disabled in device manager. Optimus was enabled, as was pci-e 2.0.
3dmark06: 18125 points ( http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16706455). A bit on the low side.
RE5 dx9:166.1 FPS. http://i46.tinypic.com/22dbt1.png Right between the 560ti and 580 as expected

more benchmarks will be added as I run them.

Pics
I haven't had time to make an enclosure yet, so the GPU en PSU (CM M620 btw) currently lie on my desk. Don't mind the rubbish on my desk . The GTX 480 drives my two screen, quite nicely I might add.



Specs: Lenovo W520 - 2630QM - 2x4GB 1333 DDR3 - MSI GTX 480 + VF3000 - Samsung 830 256GB SSD - pe4l 2.1a (with soldermod)

 

OMG this is awesome!

 

Dear everyone,
Today I received my PE4H.

When i try to start it, there are only 2 lights on.
The D1 light turns on red, and the D3 light is green.

When i plug it into the expresscard slot, nothing happens.
I was wondering if I am doing something wrong, or if I need to buy the Setup 1.x software.

Thanks

 

Whoops, here we go. Hoping this will show the info you guys need.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k0ncvbkgjk8lq8x/diag.zip

 

There is no pci.bat which would imply then that no compaction has been performed.

 

When I ran the compact, i got the following message. "No solution found. Set another method then try another PCI compaction." Did I miss something along the way?

 

Hey guys

Consider me a noobie...have a mbp15 2011...will a DIY egu with a sonnet adapter pro (5gb/s) work for gaming ....like bf3 on ultra etc

 

I just tried to configure a Latitude 6430 at the Dell store, but it always requires the purchase of a nvidia adapter if you select the quad core processor. Is there a technical reason why they force the purchase of the nvidia card for quad core? I don't need the nvdia, the built-in 4000 is more than sufficient for my needs. Thoughts?

 

Hello friends!

I just messed up my setup I was making egpu enclosure and in order to free up some space in the box I cut ofF unneeded cables from psu (wire with 2 4pin (YYBB) connectors and wire with eSata power cables (OrangeYBBR)). The thing is that now the video card will not start up (fan dosent start spinning). The psu fan itself starts spinning, but seems like it is in "safe" or "broken" mode Did i messed up big time or is there something still to be saved?

 

reattaching the cables seem to solve the problem, but can anyone tell me how to make it work without reattaching that damn mess?

Your guidance is very much appreciated!