DIY eGPU experiences

[Wolf_vx]

Move to a dedicated DIY eGPU host?

A user (who wishes not to be named) has ...

Ha.. Not exactly. The reason I asked Nando to propose the idea in the thread is because of the group psychology. If the idea came from me it would probably be ignored or flamed. So I pushed the idea to Nando and Nando pushed it here. Since it is coming from "leader" then its most likely to be considered by others because "leader" is thinking it too. Something along those lines.

Now.. I generally think that getting a sub-forum might not cut it. It will sort some of the discussion but we are bound to get thousands of threads asking if it will work on their systems. And since no one gets a mod rights it will just become a huge dump of 2 posts a thread threads. Again, something along those lines (can't seem to express myself today).

Wolf

[Jayax87]

There's a Fujitsu AH531 implementation on the first page that has similar specs (ie: iGPU+GT520M dGPU+eGPU). You should also be getting a PE4L 2.1b instead of the PE4H 2.4 to gain the doubling of bandwidth your Series-6 chipset can provide, ie: x1.2Opt.

A GTX560 has the same cores with slightly upped clocks as a GTX460-1GB. The latter usually available for low prices on the s/h market. So it only makes sense then to jump up to a GTX560Ti (384 cores) or get a s/h GTX460-1GB (336 cores) overclock edition. A s/h GTX460 is the highest bang-per-buck card for eGPU implementations.

Thanks much for the help Nando =D

1. Is this the PE4L 2.1b you were talking about? the Bplus website lists it as PE4L 2.1a though: PE4L ( PCIe Adapter ver2.1 )

2. I read in your post at DIY eGPU experiences that Opt is only avail if it detects a 4500MHD, Intel HD or x3150 (Pine Trail) primary adapter? Since mine's using a GT520M, doesn't that preclude it from the list? Or am i outdated in this

3. nice! yah that makes sense, i'll prolly get the GTX560 Ti then
Many Thanks,
Jayax

[prosetheus]

Hey guys,

Was wondering if anyone was interested in benchmarking their x1.2 Opt fermi-powered egpu's and competing on PPBM5 Benchmark which is basically a tool to assess how one's system stacks up against other systems in video editing prowess.

This is a huge and unexplored opportunity because if a DIY egpu can compete well against other very expensive editing systems, (see laptops section in benchmark results), the people in this segment of a market would be very excited.

A free trial version of Adobe premiere can be found at: Download Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 5.5.2 Free Trial - Capture, edit, and deliver video online, on air, on disc, or on device - Softpedia

If anyone can put up their results on the benchmark, that would be cool.

Thanks.

[Khenglish]

I will be very soon, I'm just waiting on a molex to 6-pin adapter. My laptop is an i7 x220 tablet and I picked up 2 HD4890s for a very good price. I was thinking I'd probably sell the two and pick up a cheap optimus compatible card, but for the moment i'll be giving these two a go. It is my first eGPU build though so it might take me a while to solve any issues

I've got a cheap 300w power supply which i believe is single rail running at 12v 15A. The power draw under load had been recorded to be 120W, but I was wondering what would break if anything did due to overload- I am right in assuming it would just be the PSU? or does this risk damage to the card/ PE4L?

In the past you used to hear of cheap PSUs failing catastrophically, particularly when overloaded, but you don't really hear of this anymore. This failure would take out multiple system components. When a non-cheap PSU is overloaded it will simply shut down.

But since the PSU is rated for 180W and you'll only be putting 120W on it, I think you'll be fine. I know that the PE4H has a fuse built in to protect the laptop from a power surge. I do not know if the PE4L has this.

[will9895]

In the past you used to hear of cheap PSUs failing catastrophically, particularly when overloaded, but you don't really hear of this anymore. This failure would take out multiple system components. When a non-cheap PSU is overloaded it will simply shut down.

But since the PSU is rated for 180W and you'll only be putting 120W on it, I think you'll be fine. I know that the PE4H has a fuse built in to protect the laptop from a power surge. I do not know if the PE4L has this.

Thanks! I'll post the results up here soon hopefully!

[User Retired 2]

IVB Lenovo E430/E530 no longer havean expresscard slot

Lenovo's next-gen budget business offering will no longer be a DIY eGPU candidate. Means interested DIY eGPU users may want to get a runout-deal on a E420/E520 instead which do have an expresscard slot.

I'm wondering if the IVB HP Probooks and Dell Vostros will also drop the expresscard slot?

[Diaamond]

Hi guys! I'm new to this and would greatly appreciate some help with my setup.

Specs: Dell e6320 with Core i5-2520M, Intel HD3000, 4GB of RAM, 128 Gb SSD + 250 Gb HDD and Windows 7 64-bit. Could not figure out TOLUD from PCI bus values:
[00000000000A0000 - 00000000000BFFFF] PCI bus
[00000000CFA00000 - 00000000FEAFFFFF] PCI bus
[00000000FED40000 - 00000000FED44FFF] PCI bus

eGPU: PE4L 2.1b + Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550 Ti (~116W) and a 120W/12V DC adapter.

I bought a molex gender changer (single, so one of two molex connectors from 6-pin adapter is not connected) and connected floppy socket on PE4L to one of the molex connectors of the 6-pin adapter that came with the card. SW2 = 2-3, SW1 = 3, J1 is closed.

I turned on the DC adapter, then laptop and plugged in E2C2 right after the first BIOS screen. The card's fan became quieter as expected. Windows recognized new display adapter: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1244&SUBSYS_35361458

Then I installed 296.10 desktop driver.

In NVIDIA Control Panel I am able to select "Preferred graphics processor" (High-performance NVIDIA processor or Integrated Graphics), which I assume means that Optimus is activated.
Device manager reports that "The device is working properly" for GeForce GTX 550 Ti.
I do not have an external screen and only use internal display.

Today I figured out that I need to re-install the driver after each VGA crash. So after a fresh install I'm able to run 3DMark06 for about 20 seconds and then the system crashes. My guess is that the card does not get enough power.

Should I get a molex splitter instead of molex gender changer? Or should I get a PSU?

[Insifada]

Hey there, so I received all my parts today :
-PE4H v2.4
-PM3N
and a GTX 460

My computer is a Dell Latitude E5510, win7 32bits, 4G of RAM.

I plugged everything in ( pm3n was kinda hard to fit into my comp because its usually a half-lenght card that fits in that mpcie port )

I boot up my comp, power egpu at windows loading and everything loads fine. There is 3 green lights on the PE4H and the gtx fan spins quite fast. There is 2 lights on the pm3n that will light on a yellow and green one.

One problem, nothing is happening... I tried to use the Verde 293.XX driver with modified nvam.inf file, drivers tell me cant find the card.

So the card fan just spins but nothing happens, no error no nothing

What now ? I dont know what to do ?

Ive read some more pages of this thread, and I just realized my psu doesnt have any pcie connector. So I think that may be my problem, i need a new psu with pcie connector to connect to my card ?

[Kuro-D]

so I was able to get my gtx680 working on my t520, but only with 4gb ram.

not sure what the issue is, but I'd like to get 16gb back, so will perform a dsdt override

I have been able to get the aml compiled (with a couple warnings), and loaded, but did not get the large memory in the device resources, and with reboot I get a bsod.

so..

here are the warnings I got:

C:\root>iasl dsdt.dsl

Intel ACPI Component Architecture
ASL Optimizing Compiler version 20091214 [Dec 14 2009]
Copyright (C) 2000 - 2009 Intel Corporation
Supports ACPI Specification Revision 4.0

dsdt.dsl  5020:                     Method (_Q16, 0, NotSerialized)
Warning  1088 -                                ^ Not all control paths return a
value (_Q16)

dsdt.dsl  7073:                     Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
Warning  1088 -                                ^ Not all control paths return a
value (_DSM)

dsdt.dsl  7073:                     Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
Warning  1081 -                                ^ Reserved method must return a v
alue (_DSM)

dsdt.dsl 12086:                 Name (_T_0, Zero)
Remark   5111 -                          ^ Use of compiler reserved name (_T_0)

ASL Input:  dsdt.dsl - 13889 lines, 464875 bytes, 5836 keywords
AML Output: DSDT.aml - 52235 bytes, 1133 named objects, 4703 executable opcodes

Compilation complete. 0 Errors, 3 Warnings, 1 Remarks, 2562 Optimizations 

also attached are the orginal dsl, the dsl I added the qword to, and a screenshot of my device resources

not sure what to try next to get the dsdt to working

any help would be great!

[jacob_s]

Not sure if this was mentioned before, but it seems that ESET NOD32's latest signatures aren't liking the file: tianocore_uefi_udk_duet_x86_64.img provided by Setup 1.x (for putting on a flash drive). I had to disable my AV temporarily for the final step where it copies the files to the USB drive since I previously had it actively scanning files on access. An interesting false positive, though it could cause trouble.

See:
tianocore_uefi_udk_duet_x86_64.img MD5:2a706311a2c93e801c7ae3e07990c2ee - VirSCAN.org 3% Scanner(s) (1/36) found malware!

I've submitted the file for analysis as a false-positive. Hopefully this will be cleared up shortly. The quick fix is just a temporary disable :-)