DIY eGPU experiences

Well according to Nvidia Control Panel, and Gpu-Z the Memory Clock is 1800 Max. Also both core clock and Memory Clock speed are fluctuating, is that normal?

 

yes it is normal, the card automatically downclocks when its not needed. Run furmark in window mode with gpuz open and then post a screen shot.

 

Here is with furmark running, temps rose to 60 and fans didnt kick in automatically so then i turned them on 100 %, and stabled around here.

 

thats true actually... well if i buy a notebook in the next few months it would have usb3.0 anyways...

Anyone know when the first books with pci16x come?

 

Just real quick what can I expect to pay for an external GTX460 set up? I have a normal express card slot. I am thinking of waiting until Sandy Bridge for the better data transfer wait, and obviously cheaper GPUs. Good idea?

 

From what I read at Anandtech, Sandybridge notebooks will use Expresscard 2.0 so yes, I'll wait.

 

My setup should be kinda close to a 460 setup.
I just got a 465, an overkill psu, the pe4h, the express card adapter, the mpcie adapter and some mini hdmi cables.
All in all I spent about $450.

Everything has arrived so far except the stuff from hwtools, and it's so annoying to have everything sitting on my desk but having no way to use it....

 

plug your 470 into a x1 slot and run the benchmarks again I've never seen anyone do a comparison between x16 and x1 in a desktop, only x2, x4, x8 and x16 and that was like pci-e 2.0

 

Well I got a 460 and my laptop seems not to need resource reallocation. The problem is major driver conflict issues with the internal card. To keep the computer from crashing i have to disable the internal card so far. If i don't, windows will crash as soon as it detects the card and tries to load the driver. cannot get the 460 to output to its display yet. when it tries pc crashes.

I read somewhere on here that someone got 2 nvidia cards working, but looking through 160 pages is slow and easy to miss things. I looked through several pages and did not see the post.

 

Try removing all existing 9600GT and GTX460 drivers, then load the Optimus drivers from here. The INF has support for both video cards. You may still want to use the DIY ViDock setup 1.x to allocate MEM and I/O for the GTX460 if still have conflicts.

Sandy Bridge specs say the platform has pci-e 3.0 ports, rated at 8Gbps after overhead. Expresscard 1.0 is 2Gbps after overhead. So those ports will be equivalent to x4 1.0(!!), or four times faster than what we have now. That's only if you have a pci-e 3.0 gfx card. pcie 2.0 gfx cards like the GTX460 will run at 4Gbps, equivalent to x2 1.0.

 

well with the optimus driver, the internal lcd will power off when windows gets to its splash screen. The 460 will display the splash screen for one second, then power off completely.

also the DIY ViDock setup does not work for me. it'll say i have 256MB free, but grub cannot find my windows install

 

Ok I now have both cards capable of running 2d at the same time. when I try to run anything 3d though off of either card, the 460 powers off and the system hangs.

The way I got 2d to work was start the system with the 460 off, disable the 9600, standby and turn on the 460, then re-enable the 9600. The 460 will not operate until I turn the 9600 back on.

 

So I installed the diy vidock 1.0e2, but I cannot allocate the sources
I don't even know if it recognizes the video card
is it 32 bit or 36 bit for gtx460?
and how should I configure chainloader, Intel pci-e ports?
I have p300 with pe4h and gtx460
help please

 

I'm selling my PE4H kit with an EC2C and a PM3N included with all the accessories sans a power supply to anyone who's interested.

PE4H EC2C PM3N ExpressCard PCI-E Adapter 2.0a + Extras - eBay (item 320588363874 end time Sep-16-10 20:21:34 PDT)

I'd continue attempting with the GTX 295, but then I realized the Final Fantasy XIV is around the corner and decided to build a rig instead .

 

So, say if I were to get a laptop with the intention of having a DIY ViDock situated and wanted to use the internal LCD, would I need to go for laptops with USB 3.0? What about with Optimus? What are the viable paths for only using the internal LCD and keeping decent frame rates for games?

 

best would be to wait for usb 3.0. Optimus does provide decent frames when used on the internal lcd but there is still quite a large drop.

 

FINALLY got everything.
I plugged it in on the expresscard slot and after almost an hour of restarting, hotplugging, and turning the psu on and off, I finally installed the drivers!

Except every now and then my laptop screen flickers, the external display doesn't have the problem.

Also, my 2nd harddrive(in the ODD bay) had mysteriously disappeared? ?

Now all that's left is to set up the 2x link and somehow fix the HDD.

edit----
2x success!

 

The laptop I'm looking at actually has USB 3.0 and Optimus. So, from what I see, there's no DIY ViDock that utilizes USB 3.0 yet?

 

Ok I now have the 460 working in x1 mode. (didn't have enough power) I can't get x2 working though. I thought that it was possible to do x2 with disabling and reenabling the card with the proper pci-e configuration for x2, but it sticks to x1. If i reboot with x2 set, the card crashes when windows loads

 

Can you set x2 mode in DIY ViDock Setup 1.x, chainload, standby/attach GTX460, resume and it keeps x2? Some bios keeps x2, some will reset the ports back to x1. You can do the test without the GTX460 attached to find out. If it keeps x2 mode, then great. That's the simple solution for you.

If not, then can you advise what happens when you:

1. run DIY ViDock Setup 1.x
2. attach GTX460. Unplug mini HDMI port1 plug if it's not recognised then replug.
3. Do PCI Compaction if you need it.
4. chainload into Win7.

Does it work? If so, then repeat above but set your port into x2 before doing (2). If it doesn't work then likely you are seeing the same problem I had on the GTX470. It needed to be 'configured' as otherwise it would hang my Win7 load.

Configuring it is a bit of a pain. I needed to save a 8kb dump of it's PCI space when 'configured' and load it prior to pci.bat/grub4dos chainloading. The NVidia DOS-based flashing tool 'nvflash' will tell you if it's 'unconfigured'.

 

The bios does in fact keep x2 and x4 settings during standby and reboot, and will also keep the proper ports disabled for x2 or x4 to work properly. I confirmed this by making the internal lcd and gfx card primary, setting x2, and rebooting. Windows never detects the 460 even though it was running properly before the restart, and when checking bar-edit I still see that x2 is set. The odd thing is that I can't even set it back to x1. If I sleep the system to turn the 460 back on after restarting in x2 mode it reverts to x2 after resuming. I also tried this with port 3 (even though 4 is not accessible) and had the same exact results.

DIY Vidock Setup cannot chainload my OS btw. Whenever I try I get a black and white screen telling me windows failed to boot. I'm not sure if windows is giving me the screen or grub. I used to dual boot xp and vista, then replaced vista with 7, then later on got rid of xp. I tried the setup program on all 3 os installs and none of them would load, although I would get different black and white error screens from each os which makes me think that grub did in fact find windows, but something went wrong.

When I would run compaction all it would say was it saw duplicate entries in bios and basically that it couldn't do anything, but that 256MB was free afterward.

 

The default configuration scans your HDDS and boots off the first HDD it finds the /bootmgr binary on. If you have multiple OS setup, Recovery partitions, or multiple HDDs, then you'll likely need to 'Edit config' in the chainloading menu to setup grub correctly. Can also just go to dos, run 'grub', hit C for command, then type "ls (hd1[tab])" for it to list the partitions and their filesystem type it sees on hd0,hd1,hd2).

 

not sure what you mean by "configured" in nvflash, but it lists my 460 as "D12U-15" while it calls the 9600 by its proper name.

On a side note, I can run 3d things in windowed mode on the 460s monitor and drag them over to the laptop's lcd and the 460 will keep rendering it. 60% fps loss doing it, but it works. Is it normal to be able to do that? The impression that I got was that people could only run internal lcds from external cards with optimus and its annoying overlay.

Update: tried setup10.e and got some strange results. On the 1st flash drive I tried, hardly anything worked. When i booted to the drive the menu did not auto-load. When i manually started it in /setup it gave a bunch of errors, and the menu based setup would load, but with a lot of missing options, most notably all port configuration options. when i went to /core/startup.bat, the system would successfully chainload.

I copy/pasted the files onto another flash drive, and it properly loaded the setup menus with port config options, however, chainloading off of that would lead to the windows boot manager stating that windows could not be loaded and gives no reason why. Even if I boot to this drive, change nothing and go to command line, then run core/startup.bat, I get the same boot loader message.

 

@antichamp could you post some benchmarks for games. Really looking forward to how the 465 gtx performs at x2

 

The geforce GTS 450 is already available, priced similar with the Radeon 5770. I wonder how the new GTS 450 performs with the DIY vidock with the optimus driver.

 

what is the difference between these two versions?

PE4H + EC2C ExpressCard to PCI-E Slot Adapter /w Cable - eBay, Other, Computer Accessories, Computers Networking. (end time 09-Oct-10 04:58:33 AEDST)

PE4H + EC2C ExpressCard to PCI-E Adapter Ver 2.0a - eBay, Other, Computer Accessories, Computers Networking. (end time 01-Oct-10 12:16:13 AEST)

which version should I get?

 

Saw this on Engadget and thought I'd share... GTS450 is appearing on Newegg:

Newegg.com - gts 450

Still requires a 6-pin power connector though. I wonder if the GTS430 or 440 will be fully powered over the PCI-E slot?

 

Well I got x2 working without the setup program. I needed to 1st boot with the gfx on, change register values in bar-edit, disable the 460, reboot, then disable port 2, then turn the 460 back on. The problem with keeping the 460 active the whole time was that the bios would re-enable port 2 on reboot. The restart is needed because I think windows must boot with the port in x2 mode, or else it thinks its x1 even if you change it later. After that I tried x3 mode. i hooked up port 3 and tried to set x4, hoping that at least I'd get x3 mode. When trying to re-enable the card the device manager would say that the card reported problems and refuses to re-enable it.

Cord length makes a BIG difference! When testing in x1 mode and using the short hdmi cable that the pe4h shipped with, I could do 20% pci-e overclock. With the much longer 1.5m cables from deal extreme, I could only do 7%. In x2 mode with the short cable to port 1, and a long one to port 2, I can do 10%. I ordered extra cables, so I'm gonna cut one shorter and solder it back together to try to get 20% back in x2 mode.

Scores so far (rounded some since they are from memory):
9300 in 3dmark06 at x2 with 10% oc
8500 in 3dmark06 at x2, no oc
never ran 3dmark at x1 with no oc since performance was so terrible
6025 in 3dmark06 at x1 with 20% oc.

RE5 dx9 mode variable 83.7 fps at x2, 10% oc
dmc4 scene4 was around 115fps at x2 and 10% oc

note that these numbers are with the cpu , memory, and fsb overclocked as well. cpu is a 2.53c2d with 6MB cache

I seem to be pretty badly pci-e bottlenecked in some situations still, so I'm thinking of returning the 460 and getting a 5850, or a 5830. Even though the 5830 is a slower card I think it will end up being faster with the extra bandwidth unless I somehow get optimus working.

 

@Khenglish I am not sure about the 5830 but in my experience, the 5850 does not perform better with than a 5770. I have a slight overclocked 5770 and when i compared benchmarks with the 5850 in x2 the difference is quite small and does not warrant the extra money you pay for it. Plus you won't have to do a x2E to get the extra bandwidth as this only effects the ati and older nvidia cards. Just some friendly advice . Also what do you mean by "pretty badly pci-e bottlenecked in some situations"

 

What do you want me to bench with?
I don't have any programs.
FF14 beta performance is disappointing.
The WEI gives it a 6.1 on both graphics categories.
Maybe this would mean something to you:

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Does anyone have an idea as to why my ODD hard drive doesn't get detected if I have the video card connected?

 

what did you get in ff14. Also if possible benchmark with just cause 2 using concrete jungle. It seems to me to be the best test to tax the system.

 

well 3dmark06 should be 2x as high with the cpu I have and a gtx 460. A 10% gpu overclock yields the same fps increase as 1% cpu and pci-e bandwidth. A 12% gpu overclock only got me 100 more points.

3dmark06's performance in itself isn't an issue, but its a sign that there are problems.

nando4 i tried that 5.0Gt/s transfer rate idea back from May. The system would not hang after disabling the pci-e link, but it would not accept changing the bits to 5.0Gt/s either. Maybe someone with a newer chipset can try it and see what happens.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/397667-lets-figure-out-how-make-diy-vidock-140.html

 

With setting x2, I found the port needed to be set to x2 *before* attaching anything to it. If anything was attached to the port prior to setting x2 mode, it would stubbornly remain in x1 mode requiring a reboot to unset.

series 5 chipsets are still running 2.5GT/s pci-e I/O ports off the southbridge. Need to wait till Q1 2011 for a pci-e 3.0 equipped Sandy Bridge notebook to get x1 2.0 performance. That platform means if you plug in a pci-e 3.0 video card then will get the equivalent of x1 4.0 performance.

The fastest performance atm would be x2 Optimus for which you'd need to acquire a different notebook like a HD/4500MHD equipped Dell E43*0/E64*0/E65*0.

In terms of using your current notebook for Optimus, below is the official word from NVidia:

response I have from NVidia on my request to enable Optimus for systems using a primary video card other than a 4500MHD/HD.

Spoiler

NVidia are definitely doing a locking down the Optimus driver as shown at the bottom of this post. So could have a go at hacking the driver?

10-22 update ManuelG on http://forums.nvidia.com responded by PM:

Spoiler

 

Alright, I need some help please.

I used the DIY Vidock with my system before.

Now I installed Win7 64 bit and I can't get it to work.

I followed nando4's instructions * here and used the 1.0e2 file and made sure to save the devcon in the right location.

* I did not do "Step 4: Create a XP/Vista/Win7 bootloader menuitem using the disk image" because I wish to use the USB to load all the necessary files; I don't want windows to run them every time I boot the computer.


When I boot from the USB I get the w98 prompt, not a menu.
If I go to the CORE dir and run grub I get some error about A:\ and I don't have an A drive. However, the (boot) menu does appear and I can get to the "Setup v1.x (menu based)" screen.

My problems are:
The external card is not recognized. It's simply not showing up.
The using_devcon_file says no
The settings/changes I make are not saved for the next boot.


Your help will be greatly appreciated!

 

Alright, I am finally getting past all the technical issues in ordering the adapter. To clarify, I have an M1330 and am hoping for either a x1E or x2 link. The x2 link being confirmed to work quite a while back. I have a CaseGears 480W PSU and a Sapphire Radeon 5870, and am going to order a PE4H 2.0, 2 PM3N's, and a EC2C.

 

I noticed that some people disabled their graphics card's hdmi port to get some more bandwidth. How do you do that? I went around disabling everything I saw with nvidia and audio in the same line, but I didn't gain any fps.

 

10x Boost

So i finally got around to run benchmark tests on my rig, and the results were mind blowing. The results file are attached.

Configuration - Dell Vostro 1320. C2D 2.2GHz, WinXP, 2GB using PE4H2.0 & EC2C in 1x configuration.

Scores are -
Without DiY ViDock - 2087
With DiY ViDock - 21780!!
(3DMark03 tests)

Thanks nando & team.

 

I have recently bought a Vaio Z129GG, and I would like to get a DIY ViDock,
it originally doesnt have optimus but after hacking it I have finally own my optimus, ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...ng-latest-optimus-drivers-work-win7-64-a.html) , but I would like to know if the hacking optimus will really work with DIY ViDock, also does the DIY ViDock work with GTX480? my notebook 330M can only run FFXIV 950 Benchmark on low resolution, even if the benchmark goes up to 2000(at least) will satisfy me, but I will only use 1X for the DIY ViDock, is it possible?
and last question, will the internal LCD work with the external videocard? and will it affect the performance compare to use external display?

 

K I got around to making some official screenshots. All tests were run with the 460 at 815/4220. cpu is a c2d 6m at 2793mhz, 1176mhz system bus, and pci-e is at 111mhz. Sorry for the big screenshots, thought it was just taking one screen.

9520 36mark06. 1280x1024
Imageshack - 3d06e.jpg

10478 graphics score vantage performance mode. 1280x1024
Imageshack - vant.jpg

112.23fps dmc4 scene4, dx10 mode, 1280x800
Imageshack - devilmaycry4benchmarkdxe.jpg

89.5fps re5 dx9, 1280x800
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2202/re5dx92010091202005643.jpg

For kicks I also ran 3dmark03 and 01SE. 03 was 35k, 01 was 32.5k. 03 scales amazingly well with faster gfx cards even though its so old.

 

So is USB 3.0 not feasible in light of the speeds with a converter compared to an ExpressCard? Since I want to use the internal LCD. I had just recently ordered a Sager 5125 but that doesn't have an ExpressCard port, but does have USB 3.0. I'm guessing that the data transfer rate still won't do then?

Given that I want to use the internal LCD when I want to, having the 1980x1020 resolution on the Sager 5125 was a pretty big plus. Battery life and Optimus were also good, but from what I've read the lack of ExpressCard port makes all of this moot.

I want to get a laptop with the DIY ViDock in mind, but I guess pricing is also and issue now. I was thinking Sager 5125 + all necessary components would be a bit over an Envy 15, but far more powerful, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Should I stick to the Sager 5125 or look for something with an ExpressCard port?

 

Why not hold off the 4 months or so for Sandy Bridge to arrive? SB's pci-e 3.0 ports giving x4 1.0 equivalent bandwidth when using a pci-e 3.0 video cards, or x2 1.0 with current video cards.

Suggest do a disk image install of 1.0e2 to get the files setup right. You will then be presented an option to your Win7 bootloader to load DIY ViDock Setup. Which after chainloading will return you back to the menu where you select Win7 to continue loading with your PCI space setup correctly. If you card isn't seen in Setup 1.x, unplug, replug it the hdmi cables. You just need to get it detected *once* to get the PCI config space allocated right for it. Then just boot Windows, standby/attach video card, resume and it will all work.

Congratulations on a the Z12 pocket-rocket purchase. You'll easily get > 2k with FFXIV in high on your i7 with a GTX460+. Some FFXIV results are here. A GTX480 will work fine if you do Panzer's fuse bypass or wait for PE4H 2.3 release with the bypass jumper.

Since Optimus already works it means your Intel HD passes it's check so a desktop GTX4xx will have Optimus enhancement unlocked. If needed, the GTX330M can be disabled if there are any contention issues. The GT330M can be disabled using either DIY ViDock Setup 1.x (setpci -s 0:0.0 52.l=0:8) or baredit+device manager.

Thank you for posting your results. You are linked from the first post, being the top DX10 result and a leading DX9 result. So we have a complete comparison now of x2 NVidia (Khenglish) versus X2 ATI (JamesBond007) versus x1 NVidia Optimus (nando4/AgentYura). Just missing a x2 Optimus setup to shake things up.

 

School's coming up soon, so I need to get a laptop pretty soon. Had originally planned for the Envy 15, but the Sager 5125 with Optimus and a better battery life coupled with a DIY ViDock seemed to work better. However, if the lack of ExpressCard means suboptimal performance as opposed to just getting an Envy 15 (with a HD5830 Mobility), not so sure.

I would like to be able to have my purchase revolve around getting extremely good gaming prowess out of my laptop at a cheaper cost, but I can't really find anything that works with a good screen (I was looking for 1980x1020 FHD ones). It seems like with what's currently done with the DIY ViDock that internal LCD isn't exactly the best right now, but with newer things on the horizon, such as Sandy Bridge, I'm not sure what the best purchase would be right now.

 

Alright, I recreated the usb bootdisk and its now loading properly and can detect the external card.
I don't have enough free memory using the default reallocation, but I can free 512 using the 36bit method or 256mb using the 32bit method.
But either way, when I try to load windows (after reallocation) all I get is a black screen with a blinking prompt in the upper left corner.

Also, when you say standby/resume you mean sleep mode?

Thank you

 

Hey, can anyone tell if my card is running in 2x mode from this screenshot?

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The only thing I did to set this up is:
-boot to setup from usb
-set port 1 to 2x mode
-chainload to W7
-sleep
-turn on card
-wake up

 

It might be, but the card can still be running at x1 mode if the port is set to x2, and Everest only reports what the port is set to, not the card. GPU-Z is good for seeing what pci-e mode the card is running.

 

Ahhhh, gpu-z says its running at x1

Do you know what I would have to do to set it to x2?

 

Suggest confirm that 2GB works first. Ensure you have the latest NVidia and ATI drivers that support 36-bit allocation loaded. Then proceed to do a 4GB+Setup 1.x configuration knowing your drivers are all sorted. Suggest use selective 36-bit compaction only on your HD5770.

Since your bios is preserving the port status after resume then a standby/power on GTX465/resume should get you x2 link mode.

So then maybe your mPCIe port2 is not properly connected? Certainly could be the case if it's a tight fit or the mini HDMI cable is connected on an angle. Suggest do a test run of your GTX465 off port2 in x1 mode to confirm the connectivity of your port2.

Last I checked all FHD systems had some dedicated graphics card. If you don't need gaming on the go then a Dell E4310/E6410/E6510 would give you an Optimus capable setup. Could even do a x2 setup. x2+Optimus would be the fastest setup available atm and likely the x2 would give enough bandwidth to give perfectly acceptable internal LCD performance. Can get great deals from the Dell outlet too. E6410/E6510 also has 1440x900 and FHD panel options but careful.. you want the Intel HD graphics for the Optimus capabilities.

 

Thanks for the tip.
I tried running it in x1 mode with the mPCIe port, no luck.
I switched the mini-HDMI cable, so I was using the one known to work, no luck.

Here is what I tried:
Boot > sleep > turn on card > wake up > nothing.

Turn on card > boot > will not boot.

Boot > turn on card after bios > nothing.

Boot > turn on card after windows loads > nothing > sleep > resume > nothing.


There is a blue light on the mPCIe card that is normally on when the card is connected, whether the laptop is turned on or not.

Any ideas?

 

Swapping your wifi into port2 did have it detected as you indicated here. So can try these to get a port2 x1 setup confirmed working:

1. Use DIY ViDock Setup 1.x to enable port2. Your bios disables it with no card detected in it. This is probably the reason why you are not getting a x1 link on port2 working.

2. Open JP3 on the PM3N so the PERST delay jumper is inactive.

3. Put a blob of solder on PM3N's TP5 (hot plug detect).

4. Apply mPCIe anti-whitelisting. Install the wifi card in port2. Boot DIY ViDock Setup 1.x -> pci-e config -> save-> port2. Removing the wificard, reboot and do DIY ViDock Setup 1.x -> pci-e config -> enable port2, then pci-e config -> restore port. Power on your GTX465, unplug a mini HDMI port if need to. Is the GTX465 detected? Poweroff the GTX465, chainload to Win7, standby, powercycle GTX465, resume. Is it detected?

 

I don't have 4GB ram so I made sure I have updated drivers and tried doing selective 36-bit compaction only on the 5770 and than selected NONE for the 32bit option.
Windows loads, and it detected the ATI card. I manually installed the latest ATI "driver only" from their website and did a reboot when asked.

When I loaded the USB menu again it "forgot" all the settings from the last time so I did them again and loaded W7. This time, the built-in 8600gtm was not working well (see pic) and I couldn't change the display to the 5770.
In fact, the 5770 was only showing on the device manager, it wasn't an option on the "Display" window.



As you can see from the pic, my USB drive was also not recognized after I installed the ATI drivers.
And finally, the transparency feature of Aero was not working and the Sleep / hibernate options were grayed out.


Any ideas?