DIY eGPU experiences

[xxbadboys93]

1/ mPCIe and expresscard give same performance. They are just different packaging of Intel's ICH I/O pci-e ports. Each is a x1 1.0 pci-e link, unless it's expressport 2.0 (just released PM55 express chipset) in which case it's a x1 2.0 pci-e link. To get best performance would require linking 2 such ports together. See MiniFAQ section of first post to understand what may be required for this. hwtools announced last week they would be doing some testing this week so we may see some real x2 1.0 performance data using the PE4H.

2/ If using a x1 1.0 link, I would recommend a HD4670-1GB simply because any more gpu grunt is being wasted by the bottleneck in pci-e bandwidth and it's low power consumption means it can be driven by a 12V notebook power adapter. If a HD4770 could run off your notebook adapter then I'd get that, but it's a bit touch-and-go since it does have the pci-e power plug on it which would mean an proper external ATX style PSU should ideally run it.

If going a x2 1.0 link, then can look at higher performance cards HD47xx/HD48xx or even the HD58x cards as they have some room to spread their wings. Suggest ATI cards over Nvidia since they have lower pci-e bandwidth requirements.

3/ Win7 64-bit would be required to use the full 4GB. Win7 is a breeze to setup and use. Can activate the external graphics without a reboot. I just suspended my system, connected the EC2C, resumed and the HD4670 would be available to setup as part of the multiple display. Depending on how it is setup, is may even automatically disable the primary LCD display when the external graphics is detected.

Only issue is the setting up of the pci bridge memory window as highlighted in the first post. Without that the system will give the error 12: cannot allocate resources error. Can do that using the example pci config scripts to setup a USB bootdisk with grub4dos to chainload your OS. You can thank Microsoft and your bios vendor for that if require such a workaround.

So it is confirmed that the hd 4670 can run on the notebook powersupply without ANY PSU.

Can someone post a video of how they connected and set it up and also testing it on a game, it would be very helpful. Thanks

EDIT: btw do we have to solder anything?
Mike

[hanming]

I found an issue regarding the PE4L. In order for it to work, it needs to connect the molex connector to the power supply. However the 5770 that my friend ordered has a big cooling fan that will block the molex connector. So my friend exchange his 5770 to a 4850 with me that has a smaller fan. My friends thinks that the molex connector will some how break apart. So he had to do it. Now he is enjoying his 21.5'' monitor to play games

[Scott1620]

It's not clear if previous reported problems of only < 2.5GB working were due to use of the ATI Vista/Win7 drivers.

I tryed the steps you posted to mod the inf and it did the same thing that it did before with 4 gigs (error 12 on onboard nvidea card, ati card non functional)... So maybe its a dell bios issue, no idea... Maybe others will have better luck like hanming...

[hanming]

Weird, even the compatibility list in vidock said that my friend's inspiron 1525 will work fine using 4GB of RAM. Now i encountered a problem. Do i need to use ATI mobility driver for the diyvidock or the normal desktop driver? I installed the desktop driver for my friend which is ATI 9.11. However, it shows that most of the information in the information center is unknown even the clock speed is unknown. Is this normal?

[hanming]

Ok.. i finally convinced my friend to do the 3dmark06 for me. He has a T5850 2.16ghz cpu and the 4850 asus graphic card. The total score he got was 7281. SM 2.0 3378. SM3.0 3134 CPU 1824. Looks like his cpu bottleneck the gpu but it is much better than the intel one.

[theneighborrkid]

Wondering if there has been progress on these:
-4GB of RAM on any system with PE4H
-Powering PE4H on notebook LCD w/ drivers for AMD chipset
-If there is a way to get a x2 connection (or x1 2.0) on the new AMD chipset
-Can anyone post results on Unreal Engine (UT3, Bioshock, Assassins Creed), COD4/6, Fallout 3, or similar. (Don't care for Crysis, DMC4, RES5)

I have an 8800GT and may buy a new card but I would like to know that people are getting good performance on their cards with the games above, and I might get a tablet for school (HP) and if I could, use more than 2GB RAM, power LCD with PE4H, at x2 (or x1 2.0) , and get good performance on sed games, then I'm sold. It seems like a few people have the ability to test most of my questions (my PE4H is at home, finals till 12/17 and I don't have new AMD chipset on my laptop)
thanks guy!

[key001]

UT3 + this http://downloads.guru3d.com/Unreal-T...load-1816.html

texture detail 5, level detail 5,1920x1080, 16 AF set in CCC, AA set in CCC too

vCTF-suspense flyby, 90 sec
8x SS AA - 22.54 avg fps - 0.61% over 30 FPS
4x SS AA - 31.58 avg fps - 63.99% over 30 FPS
2x SS AA - 45.59 avg fps - 92.09% over 30 FPS - now that's weird, it's almost the same as 0xAA
8x MS AA - 39.18 avg fps - 87.95% over 30 FPS
0xAA - 45.97 avg fps - 93.51% over 30 FPS

vCTF-suspense bots, 90 sec
32 bots, 8x MS AA - 24.54 avg fps - 36.59% over 30 FPS
16 bots, 0xAA - 40.63 avg fps - 77.64% over 30 FPS

[invisibleman]

I have a Gateway MD2614u (RS780m chipset), Windows 7 x64. My setup is a PE4L + HD 3870. Everything powers on and both LEDs light up on the PE4L. The fan on the HD 3870 seems to randomly run either fast or slow when I power on the PSU.

The issue is Win7 is not detecting anything. Everest says I have PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #1, and port #3 in use by the Ethernet and Wifi adapters, but port #247 (???) empty. I am able to get USB drive working when I have that plugged into the PE4L.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[User Retired 2]

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Replied with troubleshooting suggestions here.

[growbag]

Complete failure

Here's the setup I tried -

HP Pavilion dv6654eg laptop
AMD 64x2 CPU
2 gigs RAM
Nvidia Geforce 8400mGS (built in)
Broadcom wireless adapter in miniPCIe slot (internal)
Expresscard slot
AOC 22" external screen

PE4H + EC2C (expresscard adapter)
Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 PCIe 16x v2 896megs DDR3
440watt power supply


I tried it under 3 different OSs -

Windows Vista - Card is detected, but it hates having the card inserted at boot time. If you do, then it keeps doing the "badump badump" sounds, as if a device is being inserted/removed rapidly. Once I figured that out, I rebooted without the Expresscard plugged in and it asked for the videocard driver. I installed the driver, and it now recognises the GTX260. Sadly the external screen still stays black and in power-off mode. The USB thumb drive IS detected, and I believe it's accessible.

Windows 7 - Detected the card as a standard VGA adapter but said it was disabled.

EDIT - I tried to install the Nvidia driver but it aborted on an error saying that the device could not be started. Win7 then hung on shutdown and after 10 minutes of waiting I powered off. This completely hosed Win7.

openSUSE 11.2 (Linux) - The card is detected through lspci, but I could NOT get it to work by adding a second device/screen/display section in xorg.conf. I'm using nvidia driver version 190.42.

lspci | grep VGA                                                   
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G86 [GeForce 8400M GS] (rev a1) 
09:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT200 [GeForce GTX 260] (rev a1)

In all cases both lights on the PE4H light up (the front one comes on to indicate that the PE4H has power, the second rearmost light comes on when the video card is powered on by the power supply).

The fans on the card start up, and when the Expresscard is plugged in, spin up to full balst (really annoying!!).

I can also access a USB thumb drive when I plug it into the USB slot on the PE4H, so I guess at least the Expresscard and PE4H adapter are working.

The video card is brand new, and I do NOT have a desktop system to try it out in, so it could be DOA, I have no idea.

If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears.

EDIT - I decided to give Windows XP a try (seeing as Win7 was destroyed), it detected the card and allowed me to install the driver. All the time the internal screen was flashing on and off. After some fiddling, I managed to see the message in device manager "This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use, Code 12". I believe this refers to the memory hole. My next step is to try to understand all the stuff about configuring PCI resources from a boot image.