DIY eGPU experiences

Hi,
Are Nvidia optimus drivers only work with Intel GPU??
I asked because in my Asus A8js is geforce go7700.

thanks

 

[email protected] will see FFXIV results somewhere b/w the T6600-2.2 [email protected] and the i5-430M [email protected].

FFXIV is a DX9 game so may see better performance with a HD6850. Though I'd still go a GTX4xx.

MCP79-based Dell XPS M1340 has been implemented. See first post. The NVidia chipset giving full x1 1.0 performance with ATI cards, unlike the Intel chipsets that require the x1E tweak.

hwtools give you an option to buy a PM3N later for US$20+$18-shipping. THe shipping cost is so pricey that I'd suggest just buy a PE4L+EC2C+PM3N as the initial purchase.

x1.Opt is unlocked only upon the driver detecting a Intel 4500MHD or Intel HD IGP. Details here.

 

Does anyone know where to get the thinner, cheaper, version 1.0 PE4H?

HWtools now has PEH4 version 2.4 on their website "buy it now". They used to have version 1.0 and it said it was out of stock but now its not anywhere on the site.

 

This is my firts 3dmark score for dell e6500 3gb of ram +gtx 460 768 MB superclocked:

3DMark Score
5171.0 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score
2092.0
HDR/SM3.0 Score
1972.0
CPU Score
2302.0

One of the strange things is that 3dmark sees my card as having 258 MB ram while windoes do see the full 768 of it. Does anyone knows if that matters?


Just for comparison these are the results with the allmighty nvidia Nvs 160m dedicated card:
3DMark Score
2301.0 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score
852.0
HDR/SM3.0 Score
814.0
CPU Score
2283.0

An improvement I should say...

 

Awesome. Thank you for the link! I can't wait to try this out; I will post up results as soon as I can.

Another question: would I benefit from paying $50 more to get the 1GB GTX 460 or would there not be a notable difference in FFXIV performance from the increase in memory from 768MB to 1GB?

I worry that my CPU is a bottleneck in and so my setup would not benefit from the slightly better graphics card.

 

Is there any way to order just the PM3N from harmonicinversion. I know the hwtools site sells just that part alone, but the shipping is a lot more and will take longer compared to if i ordered from harmonic inversion. I don't see just the PM3N sold on harmonic inversion.

 

@fatpolomanjr: See GTX460: 768MB versus 1GB. I would go either one that fits your budget but with black Friday hitting soon, this may be your chance of snatching a 1GB card for less!

@lingo124: I tried to contact HIT about a month ago, asking if they would provide me with a PE4H+EC2C+PM3N without any response in my mail, that's why I'm going to just order mine from hwtools/bplus, cause i can actually get response from people working in Taiwan lol.

 

^^^
Ahh, yes I've seen that post you linked before. Amen to Black Friday deals, but I won't stress out if I can't find a decent deal on the 1GB GTX 460 (I'm aiming for $150 AR or less).

Thank you!

 

So i did some benchmarks on my system...
System:
HP Tx2 1224ca
RM-74
Win7 64bit
2GB Ram
XFX HD5770 + PE4H + EC2C


3dMark06 -7437 3D Marks
SM2.0 - 3026
SM3.0 - 4090
CPU - 1542

RE5 DX10 - 32.9FPS

still cant get it to run on 4GB, but even with just 2GB, im only off of the other tx2 on the front page by about 400 3DMarks and that one was with 8GB of ram
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks go out again to Nando4 for helping me to get my system up to full power (4GB of ram!!)
Benchmarks will be up soon.
here is the script added to Startup.bat:


Call tx2.bat
:: Relocate all devices starting at D0xxxxxx to E4xxxxxx
:: This will free up D0000000 (256MB) for HD5770
:: Confirm range is free by running 'pt PCI map'
echo Performing PCI Reallocation to free up 256MB window..

setpci -s 9:0.0 22.w=e500
setpci -s 0:6.0 24.l=E501E501
setpci -s 9:0.0 1a.w=e510
setpci -s 8:0.0 12.w=e510
setpci -s 0:5.0 20.l=E510E510
setpci -s 0:4.0 20.l=E610E520
setpci -s 1:05.0 26.w=E620
setpci -s 1:05.0 1a.w=E630
setpci -s 0:1.0 20.l=E630E620
setpci -s 0:14.2 10.l=E6400004
setpci -s 0:13.1 10.l=E6405000
setpci -s 0:13.0 10.l=E6406000
setpci -s 0:12.1 10.l=E6407000
setpci -s 0:12.0 10.l=E6408000
setpci -s 0:11.0 24.l=E6409000
setpci -s 0:13.2 10.l=E6409400
setpci -s 0:12.2 10.l=E6409500
setpci -s 0:14.5 10.l=E6440400

call grub4dos w7

Soo Happy now

 

hey everyone,

here is a psu i was given. is this adequate to power a gtx 460? i believe the gtx 460 takes around 150 watts?

i plan to overclock it as well. the max the 460 will eat is 225 W i believe. is this power supply adequate to supply a 225W card?




also if it is not adequate, what is the max watts it can output to a video card for diy video card purposes?

 

Codegen - don't try this at home! ;>

I've modded 260.99 drivers for working my GTS450 with Optimus.

It's easy to add new device ids (just copy/replace GTSs string and edit it), but I'm lazy ;]

 

On paper, it looks like your PSU is spec'd for 168W (14W * 12V) max on the 12V rail so it reckon it might be fine for a GTX 460. My GTX460 doesn't suck more than 140W peak under heavy load so you should be in the clear. As for overclocking, it depends on how aggressively you do it. I think you need cleaner power and more headroom for stable OCing so I wouldn't use this PSU for that purpose.

 

Make sure that it won't mess up your videocard or laptop. Take the cover off and check the capacitors for leaking or bulging up.

 

Galaxy GTX460 768MB $115 after rebate

Newegg.com - Galaxy 60XMH6HS3HMW GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) GC 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

 

So does anyone have experience with DIY ViDock with ATI Eyefinity? Im just waiting for a HDMI cable to arrive and i will be able to hookup my 3rd LCD monitor!

Philips 221E - 22" LCD Widescreen 1080p HDMI
Viewsonic VX2235wm - 22" LCD widescreen DVI
Dell HP vs19e - 19" LCD VGA

It wont be the best setup with the 22"ers and the 19", but the HDMI was less that $4 free shipping on Ebay and the 19" is lonely in my basement

 

x1.Opt tweak details added to the NVidia Optimus file.

This article tells us we are likely using the Pine Trail (x3150) x1 tweak:

The first post shows x1.Opt performance improves with faster CPUs. Meaning then it is highly likely that x1.Opt has setup a compressed data stream across the x1 link. It was found here that this performance tweak only applies to x1 links. Now wish NVidia could grant us that performance boost on systems with primary video cards other than 4500MHD/HD or use x2 links.

 

hi there.. i have a old laptop acer aspire 5315 with gma x3100.

the problem with this graphic card is that it cant play latest games...
i believe that i have xtra slot same with my wifi slot.. can i use it for external video card? just like what i saw on the first page of this forum.. and where can i get an external video card?

 

You have to build it.

 

HI again, tnx Nando for suggestions, I got the ATI 6850 to the end.

...I have not figured out to make my HP 6930 see the card yet...
I went through all the Vidock installation process in the right way...
then reboot. I have two Vidock 1x selections at bios.
I select the first but then glrdr file seems not to be present anywhere

[hd/0,0]... glrdr not found
so on.... press spacebar or other button to exit Vidock

so it didn't work. Probably I did s.thing wrong through inst. >
I had to install twice the Vidock setup img twice 'couse at first I didn't get UAC completely off. With adm priv it seemed to work fine, got the message that glrdr files needed to be copied manually:
I havent got if the cmd did that or I had to do it.
I got this files installed in the default C:/ location within The Vidock folder
Do copy my output config line in V: also worked.
The Driver V: is needed just for the right setup of the bios files am I right?
I mean it disappear after reboot, imdisk just worked fine... what have I might have dropped???
SM ideas? Sh I reinstall ( and uninstall B4 ) ?

HP 6930p [xp/w7 32 bit] 2gb Ram ATi 3450/70

 

I believe the 6930P has port3=expresscard slot, in which case can do a x1E link, though without having the port2=wifi concurrently active. I'd be curious to see HD6850@x1E performance.

DIY eGPU Setup 1.x disk image boot file structure

To ensure the disk image install is successful proceed to:

1. Extract DIYeGPU-Setup-110b5.exe to the default C:\eGPU directory. The contents will be

Code:

C:\>dir c:\eGPU

[B] Directory of c:\eGPU[/B]

09/03/2012  10:28 AM        16,450,560 eGPU-Setup-110b5.img
17/09/2011  01:48 PM             1,357 eGPU-Setup-mount.bat
18/11/2011  08:31 AM               949 eGPU-Setup-mount.lnk
14/02/2012  01:46 PM    <DIR>          extras
22/02/2012  06:04 PM           286,471 grub.exe
24/05/2011  06:16 AM             9,216 grub.mbr
08/03/2012  08:18 PM               616 menu.lst
14/02/2012  01:46 PM    <DIR>          pciutils
18/11/2011  10:19 AM               904 setup-disk-image-linux.bat
04/03/2012  08:37 AM             6,969 setup-disk-image.bat
08/03/2012  10:43 AM             2,678 uninstall-disk-image.bat
              10 File(s)     16,759,783 bytes

2. Run setup-disk-image.bat which will detect if it's XP or Win7. It will add the following files to C:\

Code:

C:\>dir c:\

 [B]Directory of C:\[/B]

09/03/2012  11:56 PM    <DIR>          eGPU
22/02/2012  06:04 PM           286,471 grub.exe
08/03/2012  08:18 PM               616 menu.lst

and create BCD or boot.ini as follows:

Win7 setup (identifier will be different on your system)

Code:

C:\> bcdedit

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {29c7ad30-5753-11e1-a3f2-a64b44d744fb}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \eGPU\grub.mbr
description             DIY eGPU Setup 1.10b5

XP setup

Code:

C:\> type c:\boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)p
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition
/NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT
[B]C:\grub.exe="DIY eGPU Setup 1.10b5"[/B]

For Win7 and XP: importance here is to ensure the menu.lst and grub.exe are in c:\ with DIYeGPU-Setup-110b5.img and grub.mbr in c:\eGPU as shown above.

Now just reboot your system and select "DIY eGPU Setup 1.10b5" from your XP or Win7/VISTA bootmenu.

 

Ok. I just bought a gts 450 and the PE4L. I totally have no clue where to begin with the PSU. I was initially getting the 5670 + ac adapter but changed my mind at the last moment to the gts450, and I have absolutely no experience building computers so can anybody help point me in the right direction in terms of PSU and wiring the thing. The card needs around 106watts of power i think? thanks

 

LINGO124: You need to connect the PSU ( You can actually recycle an old PSU with at least 300~400w ; google 450gts watt spechs ) with the switcher that lit the PSU up; normal Desktop PSU are connected to a motherboard with a 20>24 pin cable.... I hope this helps. Bye.

@t work with GRUB.EXE and reconfiguring the bios...

 

Hi!

I found this topic about the DIY vidock, but I'm just asking myself if it's possible to do that on my laptop. I have an asus Z53J, with XP pro installed. 2go RAM, graphic card is X1700 mobility.Processor = T5500 (1,66Ghz).There is an expresscard 1.0.

What can be done, and what graphic card should I get? Is it possible to have & X2 link? Thanks everybody. And excuse my english, I'm french.

 

yuuma,

How did you install Optimus on Z12? I did absolutely the same steps as you described in your google doc, but my 330M is always having troubles - Code 43. The only difference - I have Z13, but IMHO it should not be a problem (or it should? ).

I would like to ask the same question to everybody on this forum - guys, is there any chance to fix the annoying code 43??? Any idea why it happens?

 

hey guys I just bought a HP dv5-2135dx and I'm not sure if my laptop will be compatible with this. Can someone help me out?

Specs Here

 

@vinceboi, @kantoulf, see first post FAQ items:

3. I don't have an expresscard slot. Can I still do a DIY ViDock?
5. (Performance) Can my system do a PE4H x2 or x4 link as shown in PCI-E Scaling Analysis?
6. (Performance) What recommended candidate notebooks should I buy for best performance?

ATI versus NVidia back-to-back benchmark results (HD5750 versus GTX470), interpolating results for a HD6850 based on relative performance, knowing a GTX460 overclocks to ~GTX470 levels.

If it was my Z13 I'd used Driver Sweeper to get rid of all previous NVidia drivers installed then uninstall the Intel HD drivers, load Intel's latest HD driver and Nautis' Optimus driver. Test by ensuring a reboot sees the Intel HD is active and working OK. Then attach the GTX4xx and see if error is gone. Optionally: use DIY ViDock Setup 1.x to disable the GT330M via Video Cards->dedicated.off

 

I'm having problems with my display, whenever I play youtube videos on 720p or 1080p, the audio and video are out of sync. Is there a way to fix this? It always seems that there is a delay when using the external video card. I have the gtx460 and dell m1530.

 

After a bit of a hiatus, I attempted to set this up again with.. SUCCESS. Below is the current configuration, which isn't quite good enough for what I need. But it does function!

Laptop: HP dv7-3300 Series Laptop
Video Card: Radeon HD5570 [1GB]
System Memory: 2GB
On-Board Video: GeForce GT 320M [1GB]
Device: ViDock 4 Plus

Configuration Steps:

1) Turn on computer.
2) Plug in video card.
3) Enjoy.

I have used and tested the Dummy DVI and Ultramon swap and it appears to function wonderfully.

Things I have to work on:

A) I only have 2x4GB ram sticks [had to steal my wife's for the test]. I need to figure out a way to get as much ram as possible while retaining both the external and internal video. [I don't have an external monitor]. I've attempted many combinations of compaction to no success.

B) I was trying to use a GeForce 470 before, but I discovered the card itself was dead, so I bet it would function if I still had it.

C) 2GB of ram is not enough to do any real gaming tests, as windows sucks most of that up itself. Once I get it configured correctly, I'll post some results.


So now that it's working I'm very excited to see if I can get it to the point where I can use it in normal scenarios.

Questions:

Q1: Any magic tricks for disabling RAM without actually removing it?
Q2: What is the most RAM that has been used with DIY-ViDock so far?

 

hi everybody!

I have an asus Z53J with a F3Jp motherboard. I have an external expresscard 1.0 installed, and a wifi card on a mPCIe (internal). Is it possible to create a X2 link? I understood that I have to get a PEH4+EC2C+PMN3 to create this link. Is that right?

Thanks fot answers, and excuse my english, I'm french!

 

@fardavid : hey! est ce que tu est français? je suis sur ce forum depuis 1 ou 2 semaines et j'aimerai vraiment pouvoir échanger avec des francophones! réponds moi si tu veux qu'on discute et qu'on s'entraide concernant le Vidock! Y'as aussi omega91 qui est français je crois. A+ j'éspère

 

@omega91 : hey omega91! je suis français aussi! je suis sur le forum depuis 1 ou 2 semaines max, et j'aimerai bien échanger avec des français sur le vidock! réponds moi si ça te dit. Voila aussi mon adresse mail : [email protected] a bientot j'espere

 

Sorry, I don't speak French...

 

Informational Update Only:

I've been able to free up 256MB space with manual reallocation with 8GB of RAM installed. However, when connecting the HD5770, it still ends up with code 12 in windows. [plugged during boot, and when sleep-plugged]

Going to investigate further and fiddle some more.

Oh yea, forgot to put my proc in my previous post:
Intel i7 Q820M

 

F3JR schematic, likely the same as your F3Jp, shows port2=wifi and port3=expresscard slot. So no x2, but can do x1E with an ATI card. You couldn't however have wifi mPCIe running concurrently with a x1E link.

Can 100% confirm this analysis by evaluating port layout as detained in first post FAQ item 5. (Performance) Can my system do a PE4H x2 or x4 link as shown in PCI-E Scaling Analysis?.

 

Thank you nando4, I've turned GT 330 off in the DIY Vidock Setup, it helped!

 

Does that mean you have a x1.Opt Z13 setup working? Others have wanted to do the same so it would help if you posted details of your experience: the steps required, benchmark results - at least dx9's 3dmark06 + RE5, so it can be added to the first post.

 

Sure I will post my experience here, just let me combine everything together
3d mark 2006 trial version standard settings gives me 15527 "random units". The system configuration: VAIO VPCZ13GDX i7 640, 8GB RAM + EVGA GTX 460 SC 1GB, Optimus drivers 258.96 x64 + Nautis' INF. Integrated Intel HD on, Nvidia GT 330M off (thanks to you and to DIY Vidock setup 1.x ).
For some reason, GTX 460 works only when I plug it in the sleeping laptop and then wake it up. Otherwise the laptop and the external monitor show a black screen (same problem as yuuma has). GTS 450 is working fine though (i.e. I can plug it in whenever I want). I'll try to install the 259.xx driver tonight.

 

Great news. Yes, you likely have to standby the system, power on the DIY ViDock, then resume. That ensures the NVidia card is configured. An alternative since you are using DIY ViDock Setup 1.x already: if you power on the GTX460 and it's detected OK in Setup 1.x, then can use the Video Card.PCI Config. Save/Load dump feature to 'configure' it prior to chainloading. See the !Edit Startup.bat *DV4-2000* example of the commands you'd setup to do that. That would then alleviate the need for the standby/resume.

Request: back-to-back benchmarking of your GTS450 and GTX460 @x1.Opt

Since you have both cards, would you be willing to do back-to-back benchmarking of both as a service to the community? Your system is certainly not CPU bound so would be interesting to see how much more performance the GTX460 offers over the GTS450 in a x1.Opt setup.

 

nando4, thank you for the recommendation, I'll do it tonight.

Will do. Also I have couple more video cards (XFX GTX 285 and GTX 460 768MB), will run tests on them too (tomorrow, today is a really busy day, sorry...).

 

nando4, I'm really sorry - I've got tons of work today (had to catch the time I've spent messing with video cards ). I had no ability to play with the GTS 450 card, but I modified the DIY Vidock Setup's startup.bat (added the pcicap reservation for the external card and the "iport integrated off" line). Everything is working really nice now - no hardware conflicts when I plug in the video card.
Just ran 3d mark vantage in the default perf mode - got P12828 3DMarks -
Result.
I promise to test the 450 & 285 on this Sat.

 

I came across a thread (on another site).....
In short, we are able to connect a PCI-E 16x card to a 1X slot by simply cutting the final part of the 1X Slot, or we can use something like this:

Newegg.com - StarTech PEX1TO16 PCI-Express x1 to Low Profile x16 Slot Extension Adapter

And we have to consider the fact that there are some 1X PCI-E cards (even if they aren't to powerfull)

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Video Cards & Video Devices,Desktop Graphics / Video Cards,PCI Express x1

Are Vidocks usefull at all considening all this???

 

Hi ! I'm a total newbie, and not the most computer-savvy (though I do have a little background in electronics from my days as a submarine sonar tech), but I can learn quickly. I have a Sony Vaio VPCF115FM, with a core i7 (1.60GHz) and a Geforce GT 330M GPU, and it performs poorly with C.O.D:black ops, so I wanted to get set up with an external GPU as cheaply as possible. Has anyone put together anything like a step-by-step guide (I'm guessing that this is not that simple), or can someone point me in the right direction for figuring out what setup would work with this computer? Honestly, I don't know much about port configuration, but what would be the best way to get the info needed to figure this out? Any help that you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated!

 

I just got a email from ViDock; it says:"ViDock 4 Plus with an Nvidia 460GTX, Nvidia 470GTX, ATI HD5870, or ATI HD6870
are all high-end options. ViDock 4 Plus will support all of these.

Assuming you are running Windows 7, the OS should support the drivers for your
internal and external graphics GPUs at the same time. Read the release notes on
the graphics drivers for your chosen card to make sure it does not exclude your
laptop." So, I'm wondering if either the DIY ViDock, or theirs, and one of the above-mentioned cards, would work with my computer, and if it would benefit from such a high-end card.

 

The purpose of the Vidock systems are more towards laptop computers, where you can't just replace the graphic card at all and not so much for desktop computers, in my understanding.

After all, for $200 you can buy a new mainboard and a graphics card for just about any desktop easily.

 

Yeah - see Getting Started section on the first post.

Your i7+GT330M Sony can't do a x1.Opt nor x2 link, nor is the x1E tweak available on series-5 chipsets. Meaning you'd be bandwidth limited to performance levels worse than your GT330M. High performance cards like a GTX460/GTX470/HD58xx would be working far below their peak potential.

If want faster performance suggest trade up to a notebook with a faster gpu, eg: Lenovo Y560 with HD5730 or get one that can do x1.Opt, ie: has a i5 cpu and provides Intel HD. Better yet, wait for Sandy Bridge notebooks to be released with x1 3.0 expresscards (5/10Gbps) slots come Feb 2011.

 

Oh crap. Hey nando4 would my laptop work. Itss an hpdv2610us with some weird igp: its an nVidia 7150m. Will it work? Sigh I should have checked before because ive bought everything already... just waiting on my adapter to arrive haha.

GTS 450 SC
2/3/4 gb of ram (i have 2 x 2gb and 2 x 1gb ram sticks)
expresscard 34

Thanks

 

So here are my benchmarks so far.

HP TX2-1224ca
RM-74 2.2GHz
4GB Ram 350GB HDD
RS780M ATI HD3200 Onboard GPU
XFX ATI HD5770 via PE4H --> EC2C


7799 3D Marks
3352 SM2.0
4270 SM3.0
1538 CPU

RE5
DX9.0 - 37 FPS
DX10.0 -34.7 FPS

 

I know, but If you have a mPCI-E slot in your notebook, I don't know why you need to buy a Vidock....
You can do the same thing I posted before to notebooks too....

I know what a Vidock does, Bu I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S USEFULL AT ALL...

Why in the world I need to buy a 85$ adapter (considering all the cables and the fact that PE4L/PE4H aren't sold outside usa...) , when I can simply mod the mpci-e slot in my notebook and buy a new video card???

And even if I don't want to mod my mPCIe slot, I can still buy a 1x PCIE videocard and simply put it into my notebook......

 

No notebook has a normal PCIe slot.

All they have are miniPCIe slots, these are not the same (pinout is very different). You can't fit a GPU into one of these no matter what you do. You need the adapter.

x1 PCIe slot /= miniPCIe slot.

Open your notebook and compare the slot with the one in your desktop.

And a desktop card wont fit inside your notebook.

I'm guessing you have never seen a miniPCIe slot

 

Really?
I saw a mpcie alot some time ago and later I saw in a post over this site something like:

pcie 1x = mpcie

So I thought: Oh really? That's weird! I thought that the pinouts were different!

Obviousely the guy forgot to tell that he was using an adapter....

Sorry guys!