DIY eGPU experiences

this thread is epic!

 

I got my new PSU in today 550w. 12v+ at 30amps. I was able to play Starcraft 2 without any glitches or anything. I shut my laptop lid, and it started glitching out really bad. So, now I've restarted, sleep, turn on DIY external, turn on, try the FFXIV benchmark. I was able to get through it, but there are glitches/weirdness in two parts and only two parts every time. The raining fire part just before the steps and right after the ship scene with the sunny skies. This is worlds better than it was with my previous PSU. The only difference I notice is that in my new PSU there is a buzzing noise when heavy graphics load occurs. I'm not sure what the cause of this is, or if it's normal.

After getting the new PSU, not sure if the GFX is the problem. I really can't tell, especially since this is a very different approach to upgrading graphics. I have no real way of knowing. (I don't own a desktop PC.)

Update: During an SC2 game, started doing it's old tricks, but I bumped into the DIY ViDock when shutting my laptop lid. Not sure if this caused it or not. PSU buzzing noise still occurring when heavy graphics load.

Update 2: Got a Paged Pool Memory error in Starcraft 2, have no idea what this means. May have something to do with glitches.

Update 3: Could this be the source to all my problems here? GPU may not be defective.

Update 4: Another example of what I see, final update until I decide for sure whether to RMA card or troubleshoot more. It only does this in two parts of the benchmark. Still getting Page Pool errors in SC2. About to give up.



Just an update on me, thanks for all the help thus far Mr. Nando.

~Soyaku

 

sounds like something having to do with power saving modes.
Some laptops tell certain parts to shutoff when the lid is closed.
Perhaps you should check your power settings. It could also have something to do with LCD/primary display settings.
Many laptop manufacturers come with their own utilities to subplant the Windows built in systems, so you might want to check both settings and make sure they are not conflicting with each other.

 

I know that post from Agentyura but it doesnt work for me . The only way i managed to boot up windows recognizing my gtx is if i boot up with the visetup, it seems i even have to do the setup all over again each time i boot(i guess im doing something wrong).

Another Problem is that i cant connect my 2nd display, it shows up and everything but nvidia controlpanel tells me "this gpu supports 1 display" and not more. is this because of the optimus-driver? is there a workaround?

Specs:

Laptop: x201 Thinkpad i5-540 - 2x2 Gb Ram 1033mHz - QM57 Intel Chipset - 128 Gb SSD
Graphics: Gigabyte 460GTX 1Gb - Factoryclock: 715/900/1430
Power - Corsair 400w 2.2
and im using P4EH

Benchmarks:

3dMark Vantage: 12166
more inc....

 

I did it!

Hi DYI folks,
i'm from over the pond and i made it! >>> 7850 3dMarks

Many thanks to all of them who distributed to this forum, to support the realization of DIY VD.
Here my machine, and the results: sure that this is a ballpark and give some range to OC.

MSI M610
AMD Turion 64 X2 @2,3Ghz (originally it's @1,6Ghz, but was replaced )
RAM 2Gb
Windows XP

PE4H 2.0a with EC2C
ATX 350W Xilence+
Asus HD 5670 1GB DDR5
Monitor @ VGA (not sure if DVI gives more performance )


Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!

 

Hi all,

I just got my DIY ViDock and GTX460. After sevaral hours I got the card to show up in Win XP. I have 4GB of RAM so code 12 error. The thing is that no compaction combination works. I got "no solution" for every single combination (including ignoring stuff etc.) I do some graphics so I dont really want to remove that 2GB of RAM (haven´t tried it yet though honestly) . The laptop is Toshiba Satellite Pro U400-150. Any suggestions pls? Thanks

 

Certainly the mobility HD5870 and HD5770 can be be allocated and work concurrently. Example being JamesBond's gts9800+HD5770@x2 here. As to crossfiring them, it would require testing to do confirm. A world first.

A GTS450 officially needs 150W but has been measured to peak at 120W. Could try to underclock the gpu and RAM with MSI Afterburner to see if that solves the problem. If so then the card has components that cannot work at factory clocks and needs to be RMAed.

Rename the \config\devcon.txt file and try again. If still don't get a solution do a 'Save diags', upload and link here the contents of your \diag directory.

Another solution would be to install Win7 to get 36-bit PCI allocation support in case you have limited 32-bit space to accomodate the GTX460. The second good reason to do that is your U400-150 has Intel X4500 graphics, meaning you'd get the Optimus performance enhancements which benchmark faster than x2 1.0 non-Optimus.

 

Hi Nando,

thanks for the reply (and for the whole thing by the way )! Anyway, solution one did not work. Here´s the diag: http://k14.cz/jirka/DIAG.TXT

two problems - I dont know if the diag was done right. When I normally start the DockSetup, the card does not show up. I need to boot with the dock switched off, then switch it on in the setup --> F5 --> not showing, so unplug the dock --> wait --> plug in --> F5 and dock found (mostly). When I did this and then run the diag, computer froze.

So I boot with the dock switched off, then start the diagnostics. Only after that did I do the un-plug, plug-in procedure, so I can only hope that it was actually detected. Note: PCI snapshot froze the computer.

Win7:
Well, ok, I will buy it. On the other hand - I got no solution found with every combination, including the 36 bit allocation, so I thought it wouldn´t work even under win7. If so, then off to the shop I´ll go

 

Win7 will work without any problems. You also have already a 256MB window, so can try this by booting Setup 1.x to a DOS prompt:

1. Compact devices that your bios hasn't allocated:

Code:

%DRV%:
cd config
compact pciend f8000000 useonly 8086:2a42 8086:2a43 8086:293e 8086:2930 11ab:436c 8086:4232 makebatch pre.bat
call pre.bat

2. Plug in your GTX460, ensure it appears in 'lspci -tv' output on a 0:1c.x branch. Peform PCI compaction on it, ensure it finds a solution.

Code:

compact pciend f8000000 useonly 10DE:0E22 10DE:0012 makebatch pci.bat
call pci.bat

3. Turn off the GTX460. This is needed because hotplugging the GTX460 has it in an 'unconfigured' state and will hang OS loading. A workaround wil be given in Setup 1.0f.

4. Chainload with 'grub4dos XP'

5. Standby/attach GTX460/resume. Do a Device Manager scan. Does it work?

I would recommend getting Win7. It will certainly work with your setup, probably just requiring standby, poweron GTX460. The Optimus performance well worth it.

 

Hey Nando, im still stuck.

The only way i can load my 460gtx into win7 64bit is to manually do the DIY vidock setup menu (yes i have to do the menu all over again each time i boot, somehow it doesnt save what im doing -> automated startup doesnt work for the 2nd or 3rd boot) and then chainload into win7 with leaving the 460gtx on and connected after the menu. so step by step i do:

1. boot
2. select diy vidock setup
3. power on 460gtx (its allrdy connected)
4. in the menu activate pcie port 4 (this is the expresscardslot)
5. do a 32 bit computation on both my intel HD and nvidia 460 graphics
6. do a bridge computation, btw its sometimes saying 256mb free and sometimes 64mb
7. chainload (orig/w7)
8. boot win7 64 bit.

i have to do that everytime i boot, what am i doing wrong? any suggestions?

oh and is it possible to get 2 displays working with optimus drivers? (both in the 460gtx) for me it says my gpu can only handle 1 sreen .

aside from the that the vidock works really well, i havent done any big benchmarking or stress testing yet but a view games i tried look amazing, im so happy thanks for all the excellent work!!

 

The expresscard slot is a hotplug device and should be enabled by the bios on bootup. If not then check your bios settings and/or ask Lenovo why it isn't enabled. It is for this reason too why resources are not allocated, requiring DIY Vidock Setup 1.x to enable and do it for you.

The solution for you to get 'automated startup' working until you fix your port4 issue is:

1. 'Edit startup.bat'. Add a line 'call iport on 4' on a line just before 'call pci.bat'
2. Perform a 32 or 36-bit compaction selecting only the GTX460 which will create you a new pci.bat.

As to the single-gpu issue running multiple displays, I'm not sure. Ask Nautis who created the modified driver to chime in. It may well need you to revert to the original desktop drivers to get working, losing the Optimus performance enhancements.

 

I finally caved and RMA'd it. Reallllllly wanted it to work, now I have to wait longer. T_T;

Gonna test card in a desktop PC before testing on laptop next time to make sure I'm doing this correctly. No configs needed for Toshiba A505-S6025 laptop though. Which is a plus.

Will report back asap, thanks for all help.

 

yeah expresscard was disabled in bios and i found it under "security" in the bios.

now the startup script works (no need to edit now since expresscard is detected)thanks nando! but hotplugging the gtx still wont, it gets detected but i got some driver installing problems.

btw here the 3dmark06 benchmark(optimus driver + physX, default settings), interesting is the comparison to agentyuras scores.

total: 13910

sm2.0: 6022
Proxycon: 50.24 fps
firefly: 50.13 fps

sm3.0: 7227
canyon: 81.61 fps
deep freeze: 62.94 fps

cpu: 2917
cpu1: 0.939 fps
cpu2: 1.451 fps

 

If by hotplugging you mean hotplugging in DIY Vidock Setup 1.x, then chainloading without switching off the GTX460, then yes, it will result in either a driver error or a Win7 startup hang. The GTX460 needs to be configured and doing that without doing the standby/resume method is a pain. I'll be adding instructions in DIY ViDock Setup 1.0f on how to do that.

Since you have enabled your expresscard in the bios, then standby/resume should work and likely you no longer need DIY VIdock Setup 1.x

Can you post full benchmark results your i5-540M+GTX460 Optimus x1 1.0 setup? i5-540M 13" Dell E4310 owners would get the same result. They've sold for US$535 at the Dell Outlet and could do x2 1.0 Optimus, likely getting 3dmark06 > 15k.

EDIT: full benchmarks as in 3dmark06/3dmarkvantage/RE5/dmcv4 as per first post.

 

actually chainloading into win7 works without switching off the 460gtx.

if i try to do the sleep/switch 460gtx on/resume i have problems installing the driver. i guess for me its the other way around ?!

when u mean full benchmarks, what benchmarks are u missing? re5?

 

As a fellow Austrian, may I ask how much you paid (customs, shipping etc. included) and how long shipping took?

 

I orderd from hwtools and i paid 85 dollars + 22 dollars shipping, and when the package arrived i had to pay another 21 euros for taxes(mehrwertsteuer) to the ups guy. i was amazed how fast i got the stuff. it was 3 or 4 days!

the rest i bought from geizhals (peluga in my case the best choice).

I can really recommend the gigabyte. i dont like it for looks, actually i wanted a evga card, but those werent/arent in stores and i didnt want to wait another week. but the gigabyte card just doesnt make any sound its so quite it actually scares me xD

 

You could tell them to send package as low-priced, as I did - about 5 USD. No taxes at all ;d

 

Has anyone had success with an ICH6 based board?

I have an HP ZD8000 3.4ghz/2gig memory(will upgrade to 4) with an ATI X600 that is just not getting it done anymore.

I have an express port and a PC card slot ( before express port )

I also have a mini-express port currently occupied by my wifi ( but I can use usb wifi )

I'd like to either set up a 2x link with express port/mini-express or put a PC card to express adapter in and link those two together if possible.

Either way I need to know if anything will work with my ICH6 chipset ?

Thanks!

 

Your zd8000 has only the expresscard slot on the pci-e bus as shown by the schematic so could only do a x1 1.0 link. Also the onboard X600 is a legacy device without WDM 1.1 support so would need an ATI card covered by the same driver set to work with Vista/Win7 OR revert to using XP and/or Win7 with XP drivers and tinkering as well.

FUll benchmarks = RE5/dmcv4/3dmark06/3dmark vantage ones on the first post of this thread.

 

I'm wondering what PSU is this? Is it a Meanwell one? I am looking for a compact one like this.

 

Having problems with graphics display on Final Fantasy XIV,errors: texture stretching.Is there any way to resolve this ? adjusting game configuration,Nvidia display configuration,& latest driver updates has not helped resolve graphics display issue in FF XIV.Game runs smooth,only texture stretching errors; graphics function normally for first 30 seconds or so,texture glitches occur soon after.help yes?

system specs/setup :
Sony VAIO laptop
Intel® Core™ i5-540M processor
(2.53GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.06GHz
OS Windows 7 64-bit
connected through : express card slot to PE4H-EC2C
Grahpics card : into a N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC 1GB
Powered by : TR2 600W ATX 12V v2.2 Power Supply
Screen connection : Wide LCD monitor through DCMI to VGA output (HDMI tested as well)

DIY ViDock experience :
Fast plug & play setup,mild inconsistency in device recognition,
need longer mini HDMI plug for express card to PE4H.
Most nerdy thing i have ever done,but excite !like building robot that sucks 600w of power.

http://markpichay.tumblr.com/post/1247283441/final-fantasy-xiv-errors-texture-stretching

 

does that happen in fullscreen mode also?

 

Yup,in full screen too,resolution 1600 x 900 to match the screen.Its odd,crispy clear for first couple of seconds,once you start navigating about it starts.Almost like clockwork.

 

(New member, by the way; joined specifically for this discussion)

I'm running an Asus G1s, and the case design makes it the easiest thing in the world to expose the lvds connection for the display, without opening up anything else. I'm thinking I could just grab the appropriate controller off ebay as discussed here (but mounting it to the external GPU setup rather than the notebook case) and physically plug into it. Looks like it would run about $30 to add this to the whole setup - maybe it is a useful solution for other people, too?

I can free up two mPCI-e slots by replacing the wireless with a usb adapter hidden in the ODD bay (seriously, who even uses optical media? ) and ditching the turbo memory (not so useful, as I switch OS every couple of boots).

If I end up with multiple mPCI-e slots available, plus the ExpressCard, how realistic would it be for me to put some less power-hungry onboard graphics in there somewhere (additional to the DIY ViDock hookup) so that I never have to run the 8600m?

Edit: After disassembly/reassembly, I am left with one (1) screw extra. Clearly there is unnecessary redundancy in this model. Even better, the disassembly guide I used shows a picture with 17 screws clearly indicated, but tells me to remove 18. Apparently I achieved this impossibility.

 

Has anyone found a way to remove/hide the Optimus watermark?

 

I have had this same problem and thought that it was a result of a defective video card. Whenever I played SC2 I got a paged pool error. I have posted a screenshot or two about this as well. I actually RMA'd my card thinking it was defective.

Ran multiple tests, all passed, but when I play games they become unplayable.

I have no idea what could be causing this problem, I did not have a desktop to test this out.

I'll have my card back in about......2 weeks.......

Anyways, I have a GTS 450 if that makes a difference at all. I tried everything you did probably. I even bought a new PSU. Made no difference at all.

Edit: After seeing a few others that have this problem, I believe it may indeed be the driver. Some users on the FF14 forum have installed Driver Sweeper, Uninstalled Drivers through Add/Remove, Ran Driver Sweeper, Restart, Installed driver (again.), Restart. I've personally tried this and it did not work. (As well as many other ways.)

Edit 2:"Fast plug & play setup,mild inconsistency in device recognition"
Mine is also done in the same manor with the same inconsistency, but with PE4L-EC2C. Just added to note that we both have done somewhat, the same thing.

 

I am wondering, I have a Acer 1410 SU3500 with 4500HD IGP, it currently is running starcraft 2 at around 10-15 fps all settings set to low. Would it help if I got a GTX 450/460 hooked up to it? Or the bottleneck is currently my CPU? I don't mind leaving everything to low if needed.

 

.

A lot of effort and may indeed be possible. For the effort and cost I'd recommend just selling the system and getting a Dell E4310/E6410/E6510 and doing a x2 1.0 Optimus setup. Will outperform the G1s and give a stack of portability. They were selling for US$500 at the Dell Outlet a week ago. Expect more good deals like that as we approach the release of Sandy Bridge platform notebooks (Q1 2011).

Don't have a solution yet. It's a problem dogging wner's of notebooks with retrofit Optimus solutions have as well. The watermark looks to be a DirectX overlay so if it was possible to hijaak that then perhaps it could be disabled.

If can access the mPCIe wifi slot then could do a PE4L-PM3N or PE4H-PM3N setup. The 4500HD IGP unlocking Optimus, so a GTX460 would see your SCII performance increase substantially. If CPU is bottlenecking you then consider Inteks has his SU3500 1810T overclocked to 1.7-1.85Ghz. See details here and Gaylord Fister is running 1066Mhz FSB here by doing a FSLx+BSEL pinmod.

 

Thanks nando, but unfortunately, my PLL is a SLG8SP513V and, from what I gathered, TME has not been disabled yet on this one. If someone has a solution for this, I am (kind of) comfortable working with SMD parts.

 

Yeah i noticed the texture stretches on your FF14 benchmark test.I will give your driver suggestion a try.

I was wondering,when your external graphics card is installed automatically through plug & play where windows makes the configurations,does it miss any important drivers that would come with the installation disc like OpenGL 4.0 or directX 11 ? could that affect the textures or pool error ?Not familiar with how these things.

I also noticed when i plug in my external graphics card with windows on,it can't register because theres not enough space for the driver,other drivers need to be disabled for it to function.I am going to disable some unneeded drivers like bluetooth and see what happens.

I read a forum chain that went on about how Tomzon's graphics card kept messing with his games graphics,they looked at many possible causes from, drivers to temperature,to power supply,nothing worked for the poor guy.they had soooo many suggestions, hardly any to none worked,but boy was there alot of people out there with the same graphics problems.

Board Message

 

Well, hopefully it was just a defective video card. I will know for 100% sure when I get the new one back from EVGA. I've eliminated that it wasn't the PSU at least. If the card gets back and produces the same error, then it's either the DIY ViDock, Driver, or I need to run a script. I've disabled many items in my bios to attempt to get it working right.

As always, once I get it in, I'll report back.

 

Finally got the DIY ViDock working, Ati HD5850 only running at x1 right now, hopefully I'll receive the EC2C tomorrow to run x2



and here's one benchmark for now and very impressed with the results.



I can't seem to get 4GB RAM working, even 3GB. I also have the latest ATI drivers. I do that sleep thing and my laptop does recognize the card but says something is wrong with the driver and the resources. Once I fix this issue, I'll start benchmarking.

 

I am having issues getting the GeForce8800 to work with my lenovo R500

I setup the startup script and I was able to get the video card to be detected during the startup script. Windows 7 then detected the video card and downloaded the NVidia driver. After I install the driver and restart I enable the external monitor, the laptop display turns off, then on, then off again and about 5 seconds later I get BSOD.

does anyone have any ideas on why this is happening? or what I can do to fix it?

Thanks

 

Ok, i've my GTS 450. Now the problem is I can't set it up. Win7 and Linux don't detect it ;s

EDIT:
System detected it but still have error 43, just like was with my 6600GT ;s

 

win7 might be downloading a microsoft-made driver for nvidia, check the manufacturer in device manager

what's your onboard video? disable it and then install nvidia winXP driver for 8800 to eliminate the chances of 8800 conflicting with onboard

 

ACTUALLY
NJYtouch is a VERY good company. They have gotten LED panels to work with their boards before, they will source cables and connectors for you, and they are very nice about it!

If you send in your LCD to them they will no doubt program a converter board for you as well as build an LED backlight unit power system. Then you can use a your desktop card VIDOCK flawlessly with your built in LCD.

Just email christina at their website dot com.

 

I feel like no one believes me. LVDS panel to DVI is not that hard.
but hey a high res pic can have a billion words... or whatever...


http://www.njytouch.com/driver/lcdcontroller/User Manual for Controller Board Programming.pdf

 

Although it looks like nando4 shut me down in his reply, note that he did update the original post to alert people to this option.

In my particular case, he's right that it would be better to make a cost-neutral upgrade from a platform whose only claim to fame is an outdated gpu to one that allows a software-only lcd solution.

 

No idea how, but it worked: screenshot. Probably the problem was with PSU. I'll post benchmarks later.

Next step is get compacting working, and later Optimus.

 

true, your case is one in particular. but many want to run their LCDs off of hardware and I don't think anyone has realized it can be done.

Although I haven't actually worked with these boards yet, I'm soon going to placing an order of nearly 50. So I'll let everyone know how it goes and try to get some LED panels working. I have an ASUS G series LED panel, I think its from the g73.

This is what I'm talking about, scroll down. http://cgi.ebay.com/LCD-Controller-...Components&hash=item3f038e7ef4#ht_7499wt_1173
I tried to hotlink more pics but it didnt work

 

I'm back to report a strange issue with the Sapphire HD5670 card. I've gone through two cards failing. After the first failed, I purchased a new same model (which worked for a couple weeks), and the new one just failed again. The symptom is that the card is not recognized at all and the fan speed is extremely high. Is the PE4L destroying the card? I'm thinking of moving to a different manufacturer or getting an Nvidia card instead.

 

Do you have any errors?

In my case card isn't detected instantly after switching on. I need login to Windows, wait until detected (sometimes coplue of minutes) until gpu fan stops. Next, reboot, compacting Intel to 36-bit and again booting to Windows, this time with working Nvidia. Otherwise I've code 43 error.

No idea why. I thought, it because PSU. I've noticed also that built-in audio isn't working while Nvidia is.

 

Usually resume/standby will detect the DIY ViDock. If you are hotplugging it in Windows *should* signal Device Manager to do a device rescan. If not, do a manual one to get the video card detected.

It may happen also that when you hotplug then compact in Setup 1.x, then chainload it will be slow or freeze. At least is the case with my GTX470 since it's 'unconfigured'. I'll be adding instructions to Setup 1.0f on how to correct that.

To get the inbuilt audio back diable the NVidia audio in Device Manager.

Is it all working with 4GB now? If so, can you post Optimus benchmarks so we can see how a GTS450 performs compared to the other results already posted.

 

Some benchmarks (without Optimus for now):

3DMark Vantage: 5162 GPU points

3DMark06: 4664 points
RE5 DX9: 62.8 FPS

No DMC4, because I'm not able to set resolution higher than 1024x768. Too old CRT monitor

I've also tested Mass Effect and Civilization 5 - both working very good.

Benchmarks @ 265.90 drivers:

Opt. 3DMark06: 10317 points
Opt. 3DMark Vantage: 6566 points ( 7547 GPU points)
Opt. RE5DX9: 73.2 FPS

Opt. Internal 3DMark06: 9141 points @ 925/1850/2000

Mass Effect is still fully playable on 1280x800 and textures high on internal LVDS ;>

 

Did anyone figure out how to disable onboard video in win7 yet?

 

Quite impressive results. Hoping for full 4GB and 3dmarkvantage ones so we know how the GTS450 fares against the GTX460. With your 3dmarkvantage startup issue, try deleting files in the following directory and try again.

C:\ProgramData\Futuremark\3DMark Vantage\cache
C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Local\Futuremark

In the display properties, the primary monitor can be disabled so it goes blank but the primary video card must still be enabled in device manager. The only way I was able to disable the primary video card was to use XP drivers, losing aero and dx10 in the process.

 

OK, got Win7 installed and DIY ViDock is up and running after two weekends. Thanks for this nando!

 

My pleasure. Can you post full details and benchmarks to be included on the first post? If so, please install the Optimus driver to accelerate performance. Would be interesting to see how your Celeron T3200-2.0+GTX460.Opt performs, being only the second Toshiba DIY ViDock experience.

@update: another portable NVidia entry added to the suggested NVidia setups link. A great value setup.

US$155 12V/72W GT430-1GB DIY ViDock Portable setup (GT430=56W TDP)

US$65-ground_shipped PE4L + US$80 GT430-1GB+ US$10 12V/72W AC adapter = US$155.