would this contraption work ?

im stationed in iraq now and i dont wana blow 4-5 grand on a new laptop with 8800 gtx's in SLI . i also dont wana build my own desktop and have it get beat up by the sand here .
im gona buy a power supply , a brand spanking new 9800 GX2 and figure out a way to connect it straight to the mobo in my sager 5760 where the 7950GTX used to sit so the card could work at full power ( order something online or just fabricate my own adapter ) . what do u think ?
i didnt like the ASUS XG and MSI LUXIUM cuz no matter what u do , u will be constrained by the express card pcie 1X bandwith limitations .
i know its far fetched , but im gona do it anyway . so just wanted to know if someone has tried this before , or if anybody got some input . feel free to get technical . thanks !

 

How will you connect the video output of the card to the LCD?

And are you sure that the mobile PCIe slots are pin compatible with the standard PCIe slots?

 

I doubt it'll work and at the worst, it'll burn out the video card and the laptop.



Size of 7950mGTX:



Size of 9800GX2:

 

arent laptop card mxm and desktop cards are pci express 2.0...

you cant even connect a power supply to a laptop...

lets say you do get this thing working by some miracle. the heat produced by the gx2 would kill your laptop...

 

you most likely fry your mobo with the psu and you would need a lot of adapters and stuff if its even possible
you dont need 5 g for a good gaming laptop
look at the gateway p series and some of the sager laptops
they have 8800s in them
there like 1300-2000

 

What he's referring to is keeping the Graphics card outside, powering it with an external PSU, and somehow connecting the pins to the slot.. I am guessing it would take a lot of fine soldering... Very Very difficult, but certainly not impossible.

 

You need to know exactly which pins are doing what on the mxm slot and pci-e 2.0 connecting thingy. maybe soldering them individually, and connect them with a ribbon cable or something like that. We don't even know if that's theoreticaly possible.
would you like to test it out for us?

 

Don't get a standard PSU, build one that outputs whatever you need. Otherwise I think you're going to run into even more issues when your card isn't being powered properly.

But I don't think this is possible, I doubt the pinouts are the same.

 

A standard PSU would do fine, IMO. Just mod a ATX power supply to be always on.

 

yep exactly my plan . its definately gona take me time to figure out the pinouts AND figure out how to get the card's display output BACK INTO the mobo to power up the lappy's LCD ... like u said very difficult but not impossible .
i guess ill be the guinea pig here and try this . i got nothing to do off duty anyway out here ...
when i said 4-5 g's i meant something like a fully souped up sager 9262 with 8800 gtx SLI and a quad core ...

 

It's figuring out the pin out's that'll be the more difficult part. From the sounds of it, the end result cannot be mobile anyway, so I suggest you can even get an external monitor. Or, alternatively, you could bypass the mobo, and connect the video out of the card directly to the LCD. That should be easier than trying to get the o/p to the mobo. Assuming of course that the LCD i/p is one of the DVI/VGA standards.

 

You've got brass ones, my friend. Might I recommend using a cheaper card to practice with first? Gosh, I'd be afraid of ruining it all in 10 minutes.

 

yes definately not a mobile solution , but my lappy sits on the desk 99% of the time anyway . what u said is actualy a pretty good idea . ill use the laptop as a platform for the card , and use the LCD i will buy 4 it as a display (they r pretty cheap these days) . thats pretty much cutting work in half . only thing left is the pinouts from the card's pcie to the lappy's mobo . its gona be a head scratcher but ill figure it out , hopefuly . ill also take stormeffect's advice and test this on a cheap card first , just in case . so thats it my mind is set . newegg here i come lol .
p.s : if anybody got some input on some good PSU and LCD to get , it is welcome .

 

newegg ships to iraq?

 

Why not just get a laptop with an 8800m GTS or GTX in it? Unless you're trying to fill your downtime in Iraq, but I'd rather be playing games than soldering your PC and risk frying it.

 

yep they do . its called the APO/FPO shipping system . it falls under the United States Postal Service and it takes about 5 days on average for mail to get to my base .

well u are right i am trying to fill my downtime down in this sandpit . i honestly tought about getting a laptop with a couple of 8800 GTXs in SLI like a sager 9262 . but hey if i get this to work then why not . i would have a handmade solution that would leave those 2 8800 GTXs in the dust . if i fry the laptop then i guess it would be the ultimate excuse to get that sager i just mentioned . right now im running a sager 5760 with a core2duo T7600 , 4 gigs of ram (of which only 3 are recognized) and a single 7950GTX ...

 

I'm not sure I understand. You don't want a desktop because the sand could be an issue, but you think an external video card will work better? And regardless sand will still get into your laptop if it's getting into a desktop through fans, although I guess you can pack it up when not in use.

 

Get a Shuttle. It's compact and portable. Not as much as a laptop, but if it sits in the same spot most of the time, it will fit a standard PCI-e GPU and run it fine without this science project. But I understand if it's something you just want to do to have fun. TBH I'd like to see if it works.

 

This might help, if you could get the datasheet for this thing... in figuring out the pins...

 

In the words of Han Solo...."I've a bad feeling about this".

Also, quick question of curiosity, where in the ever so lovely sand trap are you at right now?

 

There are devices like this out on the market, just do a google search for external video cards. Though all the options use the pci express card slot instead of accessing the motherboard, I think the latest i've seen had a 7950 as the highest card, which doesn't really do you much good.

You will also need to do a bit of programing, as i doubt the current bios will work for the newer cards.

 

The Asus XG Station isn't out yet.. and is doubtful it'll ever be...
Also, the HIghest 3DMark06 scoreacheived with a 7900GS in it was around 4K or less... Quite a waste.. besides, it'll be fun to do..

 

Well the ViDock is out and available, however, it's limited by the express card bus speed. But maybe there's a way to use this rig and find out a way to O/C the express card bus.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vidock-expresscard-graphics,1933.html

 

OCing the Express Card Bus will get you nowhere... It is a PCIe 1x bus.. No amount of OCing can get you even twice the bandwidth. I admit that the ViDock is a good solution for multiple displays. But gaming is still a far cry(pun intended)..

 

in the words of Indiana jones 4 i have a bad feeling about this

 

you are right about the sand getting in it . but i'd rather mess up a card and a psu alone instead of a whole desktop that i would've built . as far as the laptop , well , i consider it expandable lol . im surprised it lasted me so far . u should see how much sand comes out of it when i stick a duster tube in it and blow some compressed air . im gona check out the "shuttle" specs and see watsup . maybe ill get it if this project fails cuz its too late now anyway , i already ordered the card and the psu . everybody might be wondering , so , honestly , the only reason im doing this is because im tired of the dissapointing performance of mobile cards . might be a waste of money , but i might actualy learn something here bcuz i love taking stuff apart .
Sotsu im currently stationed in AL ASAD AIRBASE in the ANBAR province . what a nice vacation spot isnt it ? lmao

 

disappointing mobile graphic cards ?
the 8800 series for laptops are definitely not disappointing
they can play crysis as well as desktops
and nvidia is expected to be releasing cards now like the 9600 gt for laptops
and also if sand is such an issue it would be a problem for laptops as well

 

I'd also like to mention, you said you want to run the video back from the video card to the LCD display, which is also pretty close to impossible. They're two different types of signals. It's not a matter of matching wires, you'd have to build an intermittent device to convert the signal. There was a writeup on hackaday ages ago, I searched to no avail, only finding this ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Laptop-Converted-to-2nd-Monitor/) which is similar but different. Trust me though, this is a lot more than just running ribbon cables and careful soldering... this is building PCBs from scratch. Unless you have experience with that, I'd suggest just selling that laptop and buying that other one before you destroy your expensive hardware.