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

[prazisions]

Try DX9 RE5 benchmark, rather than the slower DX10.

Hmm... The result I posted was actually done in DX9 RE5, and I haven't installed 3dmark06 yet.
Although, it seems like GeForce Go in my laptop is not disabled, and I still can use my laptop monitor as secondary display. Maybe this has something to do with low benchmark result?

Anyway, I will try to get benchmarks for current state, and hopefully improved state if possible, and finally x1E applied state soon .

Thanks for the advice!

[User Retired 2]

Hmm... The result I posted was actually done in DX9 RE5, and I haven't installed 3dmark06 yet.
Although, it seems like GeForce Go in my laptop is not disabled, and I still can use my laptop monitor as secondary display. Maybe this has something to do with low benchmark result?

Anyway, I will try to get benchmarks for current state, and hopefully improved state if possible, and finally x1E applied state soon .

Thanks for the advice!

Are you running the fixed or variable benchmark? The fixed benchmark would probably give you ~24FPS since a T6600-2.2 gets 25FPs. The variable benchmark should get you >40fps at 1280x800 dx9 with a HD5750 and your 2Ghz CPU. The RE5 benchmark is CPU bound so I'm considering using DMCV4 to compare x1, x1E, x2 on low end CPUs.

[yuutsumi]

I believed I have determined why some laptops are showing external GPUs with PCIe 2.0 x1 buses/

I determined from this that the Expresscard Port on the HP Tx2 is a Expresscard 1.0 slot connected to a PCIe 2.0 x1 bus... which makes me suspect the that rs780m design is basically the x8 bus divided out as follows:

4 PCIe Lanes to the HD 3200 onboard GPU.
1 Lane to the Realtek Onboard Sound card.
1 Ports to the 1Gbps Ethernet
1 Port to the WLAN card.
1 port to the ExpressCard.

What Everest is recognizing is the PCIe 2.0 x1 bus that the Expresscard 1.0 slot is connected to. (Theoretically this could mean hard core mod-ers could swap out their ExpressCard 1.0 slots for the 2.0 when some OEM parts hit the market).

I hope I'm not repeating already known information... but this seems like the most logical reason for this occurence... However I might be able to use the mpcie slot for the WLAN card to achieve PCIe2.0 speeds. I'll update this post with screenshots of everest and dxdiag to back up my assertions soon.

[Khenglish]

My laptop (sager np2096/compal JHL90) has an expresscard and 3 mini PCI-e ports. Could all of these be combined to make a 4x connection to a graphics card?

Sorry if this was already brought up. There are a lot a pages and I didn't look at all of them.

Edit:

I looked into this more and it looks like all the PE4H does is convert some voltages and makes it easy to hook everything together. I'm thinking that an easy way to do this without soldering directly to the gfx card is get a PE4L or PE4H and 3 of the mini PCI-E plug ins and 1 expresscard plug in. Then I could get a pci-e riser, and solder the connections that the PE4H couldn't handle to the riser. This riser looks amazing for this idea: http://www.genesistech.com.au/PCIE-2PR.jpg Can easily solder to the holes in the middle to add in the additional pci-e lanes.

Anyone see any tragic flaws with my idea?

Another Edit:

Did some testing and apparently one of the mini PCI-E ports doesn't work. With my wifi card installed, everest reported that I only had 2 empty PCI-E slots, even though 2 ports were physically empty and the expresscard port was empty. I moved my wifi card around and found that 1 of the ports simply doesn't work. I don't really know what to make of this. I don't know if was the connector installed with no intention of having it work electrically, or if it's just broken.

[vgt19]

Hello,

I only have access to one pcie 1.0 X1 slot in my notebook, I was just wondering if increasing the pcie clock speed would help alleviate some of the bandwidth problems?

thanks for posting all of this info by the way, it's pretty awesome

[User Retired 2]

I moved my wifi card around and found that 1 of the ports simply doesn't work. I don't really know what to make of this. I don't know if was the connector installed with no intention of having it work electrically, or if it's just broken.

It's likely a WWAN slot, with only the USB pins connected.

I only have access to one pcie 1.0 X1 slot in my notebook, I was just wondering if increasing the pcie clock speed would help alleviate some of the bandwidth problems?

It will give a minor improvement in performance, as would overclocking the video card. If using an Intel chipset with your expresscard slot being an odd numbered port AND there is no device on the next sequentially numbered port, then a x1E link will give a more substantial 20% performance improvement.

[Khenglish]

It's likely a WWAN slot, with only the USB pins connected.

I looked up the system's datasheet and it's definitely supposed to be a mini PCI-E port. Emailing back and forth with tech support atm.

[User Retired 2]

I looked up the system's datasheet and it's definitely supposed to be a mini PCI-E port. Emailing back and forth with tech support atm.

Can visually inspect the pins. If pin 23/25/31/33 are connected, then it has pci-e lines. If only 36/38 are connected, then it's only USB. See full pinout details here.

If the pci-e lines are connected, can enable all the ports just in case the mPCIe slot is a port that the bios has disabled. Then can swap over the wifi and see if it's detected. See here and here to see how to access RCBA+3418h to enable/disable ports.

[Mackan]

Hi, what about the ThinkPad X201?



Anyone knows what speeds the X201 is capable of in terms of ViDock?

Sorry to quote myself, but was there a ever a confirmation about the pci-e 2.0 speed for the PM55 that the X201 uses? Basically, 2.5 GT/s or 5.0 GT/s? I read through this thread, but it seems no one got around to actually check the mentioned speeds.

[User Retired 2]

Sorry to quote myself, but was there a ever a confirmation about the pci-e 2.0 speed for the PM55 that the X201 uses? Basically, 2.5 GT/s or 5.0 GT/s? I read through this thread, but it seems no one got around to actually check the mentioned speeds.

See PM55/HM55 details here. Summary -> no x2 1.0 performance on these chipsets. Need to wait for expresscard 2.0 chipsets. Likely will have USB 3.0 as well, since both are rated at 5Gbps.

12" X201 probably can do x2 1.0 as discussed here. The T400 has the same port layout, where the expresscard slot is port4. Likely the same on the X200/X201, so then X200/X201 could do x1 1.0 via expresscard or x2 1.0 via expresscard + mPCIe turbo-memory slot. It can't do x1E using expresscard.

12" HP 2530P can do x1E using expresscard port3, likely the same on the 2540P. It can't do x2 1.0.