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

yeah there's Bob's Video Card Adapter Kit 3000 that gives you 23000 FPS on any game u want. It's $19.99 but if you act now you'll get 2 for the price of one. You can find it at www.bobsvideocardapater.com. It makes your comp so fast it will literally spontaneously combust right there on your table or in your lap unless you underclock it!

You dont need to read 105 pages. It took me about 10 mins of researching the DIY vidock to figure out the components needed.

1) PE4H combo w/ fries from hwtools
2) PSU - power supply unit not play station unit lol
3) GFX card of your fancy (PCIe no doubt)
4) a monitor, other than ur notebook display
5) a human, or homo-sapien to perform installation procedures
6) a wall outlet, to power your power supply unit =)

oh yeah and a laptop of course, with ExpressCard34/54 (NOT CARDBUS, oldschool cards with gold 3" strip runnng down the end) port.

...a stroke of good luck and a prayer to the mighty thundergod Thor to ensure everything will work properly, and voila! Your games runnin smooth, yer high-def pRon ain't choppy anymore, and ur one happy feller.

 

2560 x 1600? I really have no interest running any game on such rez, anyway my monitor wont support it, and I sure as heck aint gonna buy another monitor just to play my games @ 2560 x 1600. 1920 x 1200 is fine with me.

on a side note, anybody out there have issues running at xxx x 720 or xxx x 1080? These resolutions appear grainy, off-centered, and distorted. I have to set to xxxx x 768, 800, or 960. and 1920 x 1080 same case, It must be set to 1920 x 1200 in order to appear correct. Strange..

 

1280x720 and 1920x1080 are for widescreen monitors with 16:9 aspect ratio, your monitor is streching the image. without stretching you should have black areas at the top and bottom


see attachment, mess around with those options

 

My monitor is a Samsung T240HD that supports full 1080p, and it obviously appears to be widescreen. However, like I said before 1080 and 720 look grainy, and a bit disporportioned.. but x728, 800, 960, and 1920 x 1200 appear fine.. No matter what I set the aspect ratio to it still looks the same. very strange, in every game it's like this, even when i set res in windows to 720 or 1080 it looks like that.. I dunno..

 

Hi,

I have windows vista with an intel chipset. I know that Vidock2 isnt supposed to work on vista with a intel chipset because vista won't support multiple video drivers.. But I was wondering if it is possible to download windows 7 video drivers onto vista and overcome the problem???

Or does any1 have any other suggestions that don't involve buying a whole new operating system??

Please help, I really want to get this vidock2 without having to upgrade to 7

thanks in advance!

 

Did you try removing intel video drivers and cleaning any trace of them with driver sweeper, etc? Then don't let windows install/search drivers for it. Works in XP.

 

Hmm good idea!

Could I install the windows 7 drivers then, and use the vidock with say a nvidia 9800GTX+?? I just want to make sure before I fork out $300 some bucks lol

anyway, how would I go about removing the video drivers??

Oh and, Thank you so much for the fast response!!

 

A couple of examples problems with 2.5GB or more. Can anyone report if these problems exist with Win7 64-bit using a WDM 1.1 driver? See instructions to add Win7 WDM 1.1 HD5xxx driver support for more details. There is a report here of a Inspiron 1525 with 4GB + HD5770 working under Win7/64-bit.

 

Just to clarify a bit, can i use an ati card as the external card although a have a nvidia card that is being used by my lappy or must it have the same same type.

 

Vista: No, won't work
Any other operating system: Yes

From what I gather the limitation is in the Vista operating system, the driver makes no difference.

 

Ok well, There has to be somthing in vista that is stopping multiple drivers from being installed.. It can't just be the operating system as a whole. is there anything that I can patch? or change? All I want to do is save myself having to go out and by a whole new OS. if worst comes to worst then maybe I'll have too. but First I would like to be sure that there is nothing I can do to fix the issue with vista.

@key001,

If I were to wipe the intel drivers off and install the windows 7 version of them.. How would I know that everything was working as it normally would in widows 7 with the vidock2? is there any way I can test this?
(just to know for sure before I buy this thing lol)

 

Ask the guys that sell it @ that VillageTronic place, they may know... go right to the horses mouth man.. Im sure they get bombarded with questions like this all day long, something this forum doesn't specifically address, per se.. I believe our goal is to best devise a method to produce a working replica or DIY ViDock, although not to answer vidock-related questions.. I know the two go hand in hand functionality-wise, but for a specific question like that would best be asked at the guys @ http://harmonicinversion.com/products/manufacturer/villagetronic.html

give it a go..

 

As you may or may not know, Windows operating systems use slightly different driver models:
XP: XPDM (Windows XP Display Driver Model)
Vista: WDDM 1.0 (Windows Display Driver Model, supports desktop compositing aka. Aero, DirectX 10 and other advanced features)
Windows 7: WDDM 1.1 (Improved WDDM with lower memory requirements, better performance, etc.)

XP and Windows 7 can use multiple graphics cards with different drivers (Microsoft calls this heterogeneous multi-adapter) because XPDM and WDDM 1.1 supports it. WDDM 1.0 however does not.

I did a bit of research, and here's what I found: ( Wikipedia is awesome, as always)

• WDDM 1.0 drivers are forward compatible with Windows 7, however new functionality introduced in WDDM 1.1 won't be available. [1]
• WDDM 1.1 drivers are backward compatible with Windows Vista. When installed on Windows Vista, such a driver simply acts as a WDDM 1.0 driver. [1] i.e. no heterogeneous multi-adapter support.
• XPDM drivers can be installed on Vista and this will enable heterogeneous multi-adapter support! [2] New functionality introduced in WDDM won't be available. This means no Aero, no virtualized video memory, no DirectX 10 and so on. Also, all graphics cards must use XPDM drivers, you can't mix WDDM and XPDM drivers on the same system.

One problem you might run into is that driver installation packages from ATI, Nvidia or Intel may enforce certain system requirements and prevent installation if the rules are not met; the XP driver installer may for example refuse to run on Vista. If this happens, it might be possible to extract the driver files from the installer package and install manually.

 

That's because 1920x1200 is your LCDs native resolution. LCDs pixel size is fixed unlike CRTs. If you use any other resolution that is not a perfect fraction of your native resolution, it will have to use lets say 2 pixels to represent 1.5 pixels.

 

it won't fit into vidock2 http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5382175&postcount=287 and PE4L may or may not fit depending on the cooler design because the molex connector is located near the pci-e slot
this may work http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133246&cm_re=9800gtx-_-14-133-246-_-Product
and with this you'll have to cut the plastic somewhere or use PE4H http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339&cm_re=9800gtx-_-14-130-339-_-Product

sweeper - http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-(Setup)-download-1655.html

 

Wait, you can get the PE4H from NewEgg?!? The links are dead though.

 

Aren't most comp. monitors LCD screens?? If so, why arent more people complaining about this problem??

 

Thanks for all your help guys! In the end I decided to go with a desktop as I could also do with a new cpu and a ram upgrade! thanku anyway!

cheers

 

Yes, most screens are LCDs today, but that does not change the fact that this is a known technological drawback of LCDs. You can read it up on Wikipedia:

You might be able to disable scaling somehow so that it shows 1080p or 720p, but then you will see black boxes on the sides.

Btw, you'll have the same issue with projectors. That's why it's always important to pay attention to native resolution of the device.

 

@ Scott 1620 : I would really enjoy learning more about what you meant in terms of an external cpu and electrical engineers. In addition what are the size and dimensions of the card have you got in there? Do you think it would fit in an external ITX case with a 300w psu?
@ Max Headroom : The graph was brilliant. This has given much fruit to thought. What im thinking would be a real seller is a external quad core which adds to the inner core. This quad core would be created of micro-processors which have the same integrity and power of a normal core. In order to achieve this It is suggested we move from the Newtonian model of understanding the science behind making processors and move towards quantum mechanics. By focusing on manipulating sub atomic particles and utilizing nano-technology. So we get computers and tiny micro robots to make these and thus we have micro processors which are much much smaller than any processor currently available. How about the heat? Well if we can purify water by de-ionizing it, if we can affect the electrical impulse on the same molecular level, then it may be possible to affect the capacity of this electricity to emit heat - OR - manipulate the physical components it will be based in. Therefore we can make external CPU’s at the size of those tiny dongles Logitech gives for wireless.

An interesting market yet with Chrome OS coming out soon, who knows what could happen to the computing world in over a year or so. For now I’ll focus on what I want, and if the market is still there i’ll sell it.
@ Max – second post:

On electricity:
Focusing purely on manipulating the hardware components in order to calibrate the electrical current seems a lost cause here. What is needed is to calibrate the electrical current itself. As Electricity itself is, professional, simply, not understood, people “don’t know what it is” this leaves much room for possibility and endeavours of creative conduct. Insofar as calibrating electricity to do what one wants, well, that goes only so far as what the current worldview of science pertains, the evidence of which is currently shifting. The wires don’t seem an issue with nano robots. Ok I had a ponder and what we need for that is modified electricity. This is how we manipulate the electrical impulses to do our bidding without need for any transmitters or additional complications of wiring and such. Yeah. In the same way you get purified water that has been de-ionized we alter the molecular structure of electricity on an atomic scale and we put some in these micro-processors like lithium mini batteries for a mother board.

On software:
I agree the software we have today is really not up to scratch. There could be much much more. The potential is there, put it that way. For example the computers we have now are so powerful and there are so few programs which are utilizing that potential. Its almost like one part has developed miles ahead of the rest. It is an interesting paradigm, the reasons which are questionable, but that is another line of enquiry. Well software is soft and mushy and with Google, a proven and reputed billion dollar business evidently stating you can now run your PC without an operating system and just chrome, in terms of software- anything’s possible. Learn more here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QRO3gKj3qw

On GPU/CPU amalgamation:

Well in that case you don’t fully integrate the CPU and GPU but you house them in the same enclosure for means of space spacing, product attractiveness and mobility. Those aspects of the cpu and gpu you can integrate for what is beneficial for the totality of operations you do so.

I am in gratitude of your long and efficacious post Max.
The Adeptus Mechanicus grows strong.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs40/f/2009/005/f/0/Adeptus_Mechanicus_Wallpaper_by_Kjiverx.jpg

@ Malumake

Cheers man. Im gonna get one now. Its too good to miss and something nice to be part of. This is an interesting enterprise. A break through. I have everyone here to thank for that.


For anyone who didn’t read it - Nando raised an important point, if any guys appear here not wanting to read through 107 pages of Tech-mechanicum please refer them to http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5324240
When I encountered this summary it was a real relief.

@ Panzer
Quote----

“I believe our goal is to best devise a method to produce a working replica or DIY ViDock, although not to answer vidock-related questions..”

Has anyone got any ideas of how this is progressing or is it simply not time yet?
The three letter DIY is nice and true to the forum and the people, thats my cut for now.

 

This thread is a great scratch pad for ideas and discussion which rather quickly became a hwtools product. The experiences thread for those who wanted to get to the nitty gritty quickly and decide if its for them. The closely related Let's figure out how to convert internal MXM connector an external PCI-E x16 box thread together with the DIY ViDock thread giving notebook manufacturers a very clear message that external desktop graphics integration is highly desirable. Perhaps Asus can make it a commercial reality??

 

Sorry I still do not fully understand. It's says right on the box, and right on the monitor "1080p : FULL HD". Now why wouldn't that resolution appear perfect on my screen in Windows or any other game, regardless if the native resolution is "1920 x 1200"? And anways, 1200 is higher than 1080 so it's a "good" problem to have, per se, right??

 

Change the scaling setting to "constant aspect ratio". That way 1920x1080 will display perfectly without scaling artifacts, but with thin black bars at the top and bottom parts of the screen (120 lines of pixels will be unused)

 

I know what u are talking about, aspect ratio. Even when I set aspect ratio to AUTO it still has this very strange, jagged-edged effect and the colors look brighter yet off... a bit difficult to explain but it definitely doesn't look normal, like the other resolutions.. Nothing wrong with monitor for sure, I just dunno why 1080 and 720 appear like that. maybe ill take some screenshots and show u what im talking about..

thanks for replies max.

 

The MXM thread is not working man.

 

HD5670 announced and shown here. An ideal card for those preferring to use only a 12V/75W AC adapter. Keypoint of it's features being:

* < US$100
* draws power from the pci-e slot, so is < 75W total consumption
* a graphics core clocked at 775MHz and 1GB of GDDR5 memory operating at 1,000MHz on a 128-bit bus. Furthermore a GPU-Z screenshot shows it has 400 stream processors, 16 ROPs and 64GB/s of memory bandwidth.
* scores 859 on the Unigine benchmark, a 23 percent increase when compared to the previous-generation Radeon HD 4670. It also showed a nice 47 percent improvement compared to its predecessor when running Street Fighter 4 at a resolution of 1600 x 1200, with no anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering; scoring 10,473 points with average of 95 frames per second.

Interestingly, a HD5750 is rated at 86W and we have some performance data for those already in the experiences thread. So I wonder if it can be made to work with a 80W AC adapter, slightly underclocked, with a power splitter driving the extra pci-e power connector it. So some more choices for those wanting a PSU-free compact solution.

 

Is says 1080p because your monitor supports that resolution albeit with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. It is a good problem to have as you have the highest available resolution monitor and you can display anything on there. Just make sure to set the aspect ratio as Max described.

 

Taking a screenshot using the print screen key won't help, if you want to show the problem you'll have to take a photo of the screen.

An external LCD monitor has its own scaling settings that can be configured using the buttons at the front of the monitor frame. In addition, you have scaling settings in the ATI/Nvidia/Intel graphics card control panel. If the graphics card is performing resolution scaling then this will override the monitor's scaling feature. Your choices are:

• Disable the graphics card's scaling feature and change the monitor's setting to "fixed aspect ratio", or
• Set the graphics card setting to "fixed aspect ratio" and ignore the monitor's setting

The scaling settings may be called different things; on my monitor, the settings are:

• Full screen (Stretch image to fit the screen, no matter what)
• Enlarged (Enlarge, but don't distort the aspect ratio, a 16:10 monitor will get black horizontal bars for 16:9 resolutions and vertical bars for 4:3 resolutions. This setting is what I recommend.)
• Normal (Don't scale, lower resolutions will have a black frame all around the image)

On my Intel card, the same settings are called Full Screen, Maintain Aspect Ratio and Center image. The Nvidia control panel calls them NVIDIA scaling, NVIDIA scaling with fixed-aspect ratio and Do not scale.

A laptop screen does not have scaling settings, so only the graphics card settings will be available.

 

Pardon me for the noob question, but I want to confirm something. My current laptop(Fujitsu T5010) doesn't have an ExpressCard slot(don't ask why). So is the mini PCIe my only option or is there something else I could connect the PE4H to? I doubt an ExpressCard adapter would work(found USB ones) since I read somewhere that it's not PCIe compliant.

 

Yes you have to use a miniPCIe port.

 

mini PCIe is the only option. Based on this T5010 underside image, there is a half-height mPCIe slot hosting your wifi card and a free full height mPCIe slot. That free mPCIe slot could either be a real mpcie slot, or it could be a 3G slot with only the USB pins active. You could prove if its the more desirable former by moving the wifi card into and seeing if it's detected in Device Manager. If so, then can easily add a PE4L-PM3N to use that slot. If not, then you only really have a single half-height mPCIe slot which you'd need to sacrifice the wifi to use external desktop graphics. hwtools' PM3N mPCIe component can be used in a half-height slot.

 

so from reading the OP.. is it finalized? Super confused. What do I need to get started? I'd prefer to just buy parts to plug n play. External monitor, a video card (4670) and then some parts? Thanks and yeah noob question.

 

Pretty much finalized yes, just read this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5324240

 

Check the image carefully and you'll see that the free slot (right above the wifi card) is also half height.

I have a European model T5010, both half height mPCIe slots in it are real slots with PCIe connectivity. There are differences between mine and the North American version though, e.g. it has an ExpressCard slot instead of the CardBus slot.

 

just so i understand
if you want to use the x2 link option
you have to use both expresscard connection and a mpcie
i get that

but in order to use mpcie, don't you have to disassemble your laptop every time you want to hook up the vidock to get to the mpcie port? so, you can use the x2 link, but your laptop is laying in pieces on your desk every time you want to play a game?

 

Some notebooks have their miniPCIe ports in easy to reach places.

Might also be worth buying a spare case part of the notebook so that you could modify it.

 

I imagine the solution wouldnt be very practical if you are a person that takes your laptop around with you most of the time.. but mine just sits on the desk 99% of the time so any device I Attach to it will just sit there with it.. I consider it a desktop practically cuz it never moves unless I have a specific reason for bringing it somewhere with me..

 

yeah you're right the screenshots dont display what Im trying to show... tried taking a few.. all my montior has is 4:3 and 16:10 widescreen.. Ill try looking in the nvidia control panel for these options you speak of but I dont recall ever seeing anything having to do with scaling, etc.. but info is much appreciated nonetheless..

 

You typically get access to the mPCIe ports (plus CPU, HDD and RAM) by taking off the bottom plastic cover, the laptop equivalent of popping the hood of a car... Only the few laptops that don't have this easily removable cover will have to be disassembled. I agree that it may be a bit impractical either way though.

 

I just paid for my PE4H/EC2C package this morning, and ordered an Nvidia GTX260-896megDDR3 card (I don't do ATI) and 22" AOC screen at the same time.

I'm hoping it works for my HPdv6645 laptop (Nvidia 8400Mgs/Expresscard). If not then I'll just bulld a desktop out of the parts.

I'll post pics and experiences in "DIY Dock - My Experiences" thread.

Wish me luck

 

Awesome bro good luck, im gonna be ordering the same pe4h and gx 250 also.. already got a great monitor so im set!

 

Anyone know if an 8800 gts (230mm) will fit into this case?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:GB:1123#ht_1484wt_1165

Its an ITX case which includes a 300w PSU, and dimensions
320mm D x 200mm W x 180mm H

On face value it looks like it will fit. But if anyone has first hand experience it would be great.

 

found something interesting here
http://www.liantec.com/photo/TBM-1610.htm

 

Has anyone able to use their laptop's screen (no external screens)? Can the mini pcie power up a low end gpu without the need for external power?

 

I've tried fiddling around a bit but there isn't any alternative to the external screen without it getting a bit awry. The desktop graphics card outputs its image through the ports in the back of the card so the only way to get it to show up on your laptop's screen would be to open up the laptop and find the display's connector and somehow manage to plug it into the graphics card since it doesn't use standard DVI nor VGA plugs(at least mine doesn't).

 

The miniPCIe probably wont be enough to power a GPU that's worth having.

You could try using a capture card to get your laptops screen working, but you would have to use 800x600 or something (otherwise you will probably get lag).
Unless you use a capture card that works with a PCIe lane.

for example you would use a miniPCIe port for the DIYvidock, then also put an capture card in the express card slot. That might work without lag. But those capture cards are not cheap.

Also there is some hope for future drivers to make it work with your internal screen, you can read about that on the real vidock website.

 

Sorry for re-asking this question, I remember seeing it answered somewhere, but I can't seem to find it anymore. How do I figure out if my laptop is x2 compatible?

I think I use Everest, then remove the WiFi card and check again or something?
Thanks in advance!

 

Windows xp still can see x1400 after doing all of this:

pcitool /Wd:01:00:00:10=0
pcitool /Wd:01:00:00:14=0
pcitool /Wd:01:00:00:18=0
pcitool /Wd:01:00:00:1C=0
pcitool /Wd:01:00:00:20=0
pcitool /Ww:01:00:00:54=341

the last line disables the laptop's lcd lamp, which is awesome! now i need to make it invisible to windows

Everest port info is totally off, at least for me, while pcitool pciscope or device manager provide the correct bus/port info that correlates with device id

first post here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=418851
also what's your chipset?

 

Yes.. it's great to turn off the LCD lamp. I have my notebook running on battery, consuming very little power running the externally powered HD4670. Appears you've used the 2510P.BAT as a reference which may or may not apply to the ATI X1400. I found the DISABLE_IGP_CONFIG code would not work with Win7, so if curious suggesting testing that with XP.

2510P.BAT from DIYVDOCK-conf USB Bootdisk

Code:

:BLANK_IGP_CONFIG
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
: Refer to Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family Datasheet to set video params :
: http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/316273.pdf                           :
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: This will prevent VGA output to LCD, eg: XP/Ubuntu Splash screen
:: Not such a good idea as may need response to chkdsk/fsck prior to OS load
:: A better idea is to incorporate this *after* Windows/Linux has loaded
:: using baredit/setpci. Can extended battery life if running on battery

:: IGD disabled, no more text output to after this
setpci -s 00:00.00 52.b=32 
:: Blank LCD by turning backlight off
setpci -s 00:02.00 F4.l=0

::----------------------------------------------------------------------
:DISABLE_IGP_CONFIG
:: Disables resources associated with X3100. Require this OR X3100
:: disabled in Device Manager& reboot otherwise get X3100 graphics with
:: HD4670 as an extended desktop option, which games don't seem to "see".
:: I prefer to do it here as it's easier than disabling in Device Manager
:: followed by reboot. This DOES NOT work with Win7. Win7 needs to bootup
:: with X3100 graphics enabled.

:: Enable VGA mode on the bridge hosting HD4670
setpci -s 00:1C.01 3e.b=C
:: Enable VGA Palette snoop
setpci -s 00:1C.01 4.b=27
:: Disable X3100 graphics resources by closing Memory & I/O Windows
setpci -s 00:02.00 10.l=0,0,0,0 
:: Disable and hide X3100 altogether so it doesn't appear in Device Manager
:: If do this without blank_igp=true often get spotty display
:: Comment out the following line if still want XP to display any severe
:: errors it may encounter to X3100 (in VGA mode)
setpci -s 00:00.00 54.l=341

Loading the external video graphics BIOS to be primary display

As the DV2000 I was testing on had a 'bios bootup mode' where the external video card was the primary display, I was able to compare differences to when it boots with the GMA950. The only *real* difference I could see was the VBIOS at C000-CFFF was now the HD4670 instead of the GMA950. So the question was, how could I make the external HD4670's bios be the primary bios when it was hotswapped in after bios bootup? If this indeed was possible would it screw the up the ACPI tables [I needed to disable PNP on the DV2000 to allow XP to load in bios-bootup mode]?

I've proceeded to try to use the Loader/Rambios below to dynamically replace the shadowed VBIOS with my HD4670's one instead. Loader has source code below and from what I can tell it would likely work if my bios had D_LCK bit not set.. allowing such memory remaps.

Other may wish to try this and report success or not. You'd need the DIY ViDOCK USB bootdisk, capturing your current video bios using the supplied atiflash as well as provide an environment to try this, then use supplied grub4dos to chainload your OS and test.

Loader
http://testmem.nm.ru/loader.zip
http://testmem.nm.ru/loadersrc.zip

Rambios
http://www.radeon.ru/bios/util/rambios.zip

Really wish we had the expert knowledge of a Xorg ATI or Intel programmer to provide guidance here. Phoronix forum a good place to request for assistance. Though not sure if they'd be disabling onboard graphics. In which case may need to look at switchable graphics systems and what they do. Lenovo T400/T500 with switchable ATI graphics/X4500 graphics.

 

Thanks! And I have a Intel GL40 chipset. I expect to be getting the PE4H soon, but I still need a good graphics card. I have a Radeon 2600 I can test with though.