Let's figure out how to make a DIY eGPU (previously DIY ViDock)

Would it be possible to use 2 mPCI+xpress card? Many laptops come with 3 slots for the wlan, tv tuner and turbo memory modules.

 

I guess...if you want like 4 displays. I don't think you can do crossfire/sli.

 

So they are saying "november" for stock arrival of the PE4H,, hopefully it's not too late in the month i am keen to try this out

 

Did this thread die or something?

 

Nothing new to report until the new shipment is available.

 

How many are they making each time. How can it get sold out and no posts. Afterall i'm sure users learnt how to set up such thing first here

 

You have a point there, either they make one at a time, or people don’t want to share their experience

 

Or there could be large manufacturer/reseller interest buying large quantities in bulk. Eg: MAME-type arcade machines using low cost atom cpus + hwtools components to give decent gpu performance. Keeps bulk and costs down. We're not privy to the order details so can only guess. I know of at least one person on here that was interested in such a venture.

 

One at a time piece by piece by hand. employing teenagers

thats interesting. But wouldnt u require a whole MB anyway which has those components.

 

EUREKA HABEMUS DIY VIDOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ITS WORKING!!!!!!!!
I figured out that my HD4850 wasnt faulty, it uses a different power connector!. I modded my card and checked the power points, added 1.5gb of ram to my laptop and ended up with this: .(sorry for the big mess )





I used Windows 7 pro. BTW I installed the driver, then restarted and now the crt display doesnt show any image after the "loading windows 7 logo", maybe it doesnt support that resolution cuz it says that I should check the resolution . Ill try with an LCD display this weekend and will show benchmarks .

 

Since your running Win7, you can just bootup your system, suspend, insert PE4L, resume and the HD48xx will be detected and can play with the Display settings to have it as an additional display. So can tinker with the display settings on your notebook's display until your CRT/LCD supports one.

Oh - and the Vista/Win7 ATI drivers didn't work for me in Win7. Seems it needs both my integrated X3100 AND the HD4670 active at the same time and only the WDM1.1 supplied Win7 driver does that.

 

haha nice congrats! wow thats a wierd power connector. did it not come with one standard? normally something that needs external power would be told specifically.

see if you can post some benchies too

 

Benchmarks posted at the diy vidock experiences . I bought an used card it didnt come with one.

@Nando: well dude I HAD to disable my HD3650 in order to use it, it seems that my laptop is "a little bit special" I used the catalyst 9.7 drivers, works more than fine in widows 7, the biggest issue is that it underclocks but performs nicely. Well I CAN ONLY use the HD4850 if I plug it before my bios starts, I cant get it woriking with plug and lay even if I put it on hibernate or sleep modes, I tried almost everything. Btw I use windows 7 PRO 64 bits.

 

Maybe only Ultimate supports it?

 

where at? link plz?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=418851&page=5

 

@MexicanSnake. The Vidock folks told us that the Vista driver works as long as it's the same family as the notebook's gpu. Since you have a HD3650 the Vista driver works.

Your HD4850's 3dmark06=8495 is better than I expected. Looking at the sm2.0/sm3.0 data only, it represents a 60% performance improvement over my HD4670-1GB. Wow. That 60% improvement would place your HD4850 at x1 1.0 to deliver the equivalent performance of a HD4670 at x16 2.0.

Question now is, how does this translate into real-world performance? Based on my HD4670's RE5 DX9 30.6FPS @1280x800, I would expect 50FPS on your box. That is unless your 512mb restricts performance. I'd also expect your performance scaling by resolution to be less drastic than what I saw with the HD4670 here. Notice your system has now an entry in that table

Can't wait to see more benchmarks.

 

So is his vidock setup the same as yours nando just a different gpu? Also how are you guys getting the power supply to run without a on switch?

 

MexicanSnake = P9700/HD3650 + desktop HD4850 / 3dmark06=8495
nando4=U7600/x3100 + desktop HD4670 / 3dmark06=5340

The HD4670 is being powered with a 80W/12V DC adapter. A nice compact solution.
The HD4850 is being powered with an ATX PSU. It can be jumpered to be on using a paperclip as shown here. Can add a switch in place of the paperclip if want on/off functionality.

 

>.> well I thought the idea for a high end setup that uses a desktop psu, was to put it in some kind of case. So I would think people would want a power switch.

 

It seems my laptop will take 2x mode, which is great, but i am also on solar power, so power consumption is a worry, tossing up whether to do the DIY vidock or buy a new cheap laptop for a little bit more $ than the vidock setup would cost..

Found some power consumption figures



the 4850 would use way too much, but the 4770 could be a possibility, decisions decisions!

 

there is a power switch on desktop psu's, it won't turn on without being connected to mobo that's why u use a paperclip

those figures look way off compared to all other sites unless those other sites measure consumption as videocard+cpu+hdd+etc idle vs load. 4670 is ~65W and 4770 is~80W http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic=264

would be great if someone measured the consumption of the videocard connected to a PE4* idle+load with a multimeter

 

most other sites i found did measure the whole system

 

hmm well I read up on this a little more, I was under the impression that you had to remove/insert the paper clip each time you wanted to turn it on and off.

 

On/off switch for the PSU driving your graphics card? Easy:

• The cable that lead to the ATX PSU can be unplugged
• OR a switch soldered in place of the paperclip to give an on/off facility.
• OR can buy a 1U rack mount PSU which has a switch.

 

Hey guys! Here is the new plan .
Im planning to build a custom box, with a power switch, LED indicators etc etc etc . Also since I have many friends at my university and some of them study innovation and desing I guess Ill have a nice case!.

Hey nando we should start naming this thing, I hate to say DIY vidock .

 

How about we name it the GF8x. Since that would be the maximum bandwidth (8x).
(PCI2.0 and 3 miniPCIe slots + express card slot).

 

do we want to add hw or ex or mp to that name to make it more clear. hw for hwtools' , ex for external, mp for minipcie.

or EDGL. External Desktop Graphics for Laptops

 

I would add that to the name.

 

lets see some gaming benchmarks.

 

At me Acer Aspire 4720z, at connection has faced a problem. External video shows DOS mode and can see BIOS, but at loading WinXP hangs. Hangs both Usual mode and Safe mode. Where the problem?
At connected external video, built in video does not work. It and should be?

atiflash -ai

 

wow, i havent checked this thread in a long time...


I should be ordering my PE4L and ATI 4870 on Tuesday
...yeah, a 4870 , i cant afford one of the new 5850's...

 

You are running in bios bootup mode. The solution is to ensure your bios does not see the external video card. So suggest hotplug it *after* bootup and use the PCI configuration scripts in the DIY ViDock - My experiences so far. The example DV2000 with a Phoenix Bios performs exactly the same. It is possible to get Linux/XP working in bios bootup mode if you disable ACPI. Linked thread has more details.

MexicanSnake got 3dmark06=8495 with his HD4850 + P9500 shown here. Will be interesting to see what a HD4870 does. Hoping to see some HD48xx real gaming performance benchmarks like Resident Evil 5.

 

In BIOS is not present possibility to disconnect ACPI pnp. I need to make other variant of loading WinXP "Standard PC" in boot.ini and it will be loaded with flash drive (PCI Bridgе Config)?

 

What I was saying is disconnect the PE4L/PE4H during bios bootup, then hotplug it and use flash drive+PCI Bridge Config.

If you want to get bios bootup mode to work, try WinXP "Standard PC". Not really recommend running this way since you miss out on ACPI battery info and other stuff and requires a complete new PNP set of configuration data in the registry.

BTW - what video card and product (PE4L/PE4H, VIDock) are you using?

 

Thanks! I will check up in the evening, results will write.

No, I have made an adapter

 

Please give more detail?

Did you just connect the pins directly with wires?

 

wow, nice

Yeah, i will definetly be posting a ton of benchmarks in many games.
unfortunately, it will be on a laptop with a T5450... so the CPU's wont be matched. but it should still give us a good idea

 

Thanks Used a patch from MAGMA

 

Cautiously. Despite simplicity, can damage the laptop

 

Cool what did you use as the expresscard adapter?

 

Has broken eSATA

Sorry for bad photos

 

Hey, wow I was researching external video card solutions for my laptop yesterday and came across this thread. I am going to try to get 2x pci express to work on my dell xps 1530, I have 2 empty mini pci express ports.

I have the PE4H with the express card adapter and the PM3N mini pci e adapter (and cable) on the way. Ill be posting results soon hopefully.

How long did it take for hwtools to ship for those that have ordered from them already?

 

Check the mapping from expressport/mPCIe port to port numbers as shown here (DV2000 - expressport=port1, mPCIe=port3/port4). Only port1 and port2 can be combined to form a x2 link. So you either want EC2C+PM3N or PM3N+PM3N depending on what is port1 and port2.

 

Thanks for the tip nando, I will check that when I get home. Hopefully I can use the EC2C with the PM3N that I ordered.

happyantix, you should check out the ati 5000 series that just came out, the power consumption is great. The 5750 uses only 15w standby and 86 peak, review is Here.

I may get the 5770 if I can get the PE4H to work on the old pci express x16 card thats in my desktop...

 

Does the PE4L throttle any graphics card, or just those cards that use > 1x PCIe bandwidth?

i.e. I haven't purchased a new video card in about three years. I have a Geforce 7900 GS that is about half as fast as a Radeon HD 4670. Will this solution throttle each of these equally, or will the Geforce 7900GS solution get close to full through put?

For that matter, is there any benefit of the 4670 over the 4650 if each is getting throttled? Do they get throttled to the same level?

I am just trying to determine the cheapest thing that I can get away with that might be fully utilized in a 1x slot.

 

The amount of bandwidth that is throttled depends on how much bandwidth the card uses. Older can generally use less bandwidth compared to newer once card so u might get better bandwidth ie closer to how they perform with 16x connection compared to newer one. That why i think it is mention some in this thread that a 4670 will probably perform the same as a 4800 series as they require less bandwidth than the 4800 series

 

That is kind of what I thought. If that is true, I would be better off pulling my old 7900GS out and building an outboard adapter for my laptop, and putting a new better (the 4670 ... even at $50.. is twice as fast) graphics adapter into my server system.

 

Damn it, I tried to use newer drivers and my card is performing worse... Please give me some advices of how to FULLY remove all the ATI drivers... Im getting mad because its not that easy I tried driver sweeper...

On a side note: I dont know what you think guys but I call my setup "Hydra" because the more pci lanes you use the more performance you get with the same card .

 

thanks mate will check it out