DIY eGPU experiences

[jacob_s]

Edited to be more concise:

My Setup is:
* GTX 570HD
* 8GB RAM
* i7 2720QM
* Dell Lat. E6420
* PE4L

So far, most things seem to be going as planned. I did encounter a slight issue when I had my laptop monitor set to "extend" mode (that is the external and internal were both on at the same time) where the computer froze entirely when launching League of Legends. All the Steam games I had readily available ran beautiful, with only a slight microstutter every so often (all maxxed out).

Some questions if you have the time:

* I have replaced my ODD in my laptop with a HDD caddy where I have a second HDD. When the second (not the bootable one) is unplugged, I can chainload with MBR just fine from Setup 1.x. However, when the second drive is plugged in, I just get the no operating system error. Admittedly this could be something in the BIOS that I have fiddled with and forgotten though. I know I also have troubles booting (not using Setup 1.x or egpu or anything) if I previously had a HDD/ODD plugged in via the eSATA port... for some reason it seems the Intel Raid driver fiddles with something and the BIOS decides to make the second HDD the primary one for boot sequence... any thoughts?

* Is there a quick way to confirm that I am getting the Optimus speed boost? All I'm doing special is booting to Setup 1.x on a USB drive, disabling the dGPU under PCI config, and chainloading from there. No compaction or anything since I don't know what those do.

* What is TOLUD? I don't seem to be having any troubles, but I keep seeing the E6*** referenced in the Troubleshooting guides as being peculiar. Are there supposed to be problems with my 8GB setup? Does this effect the fact that my video card is supposed to have 2.5Gb VRAM?


Thanks for the help everyone. So far I am really enjoying being able to really game on my otherwise overpowered laptop :-)

[grapherd]

X220 + PE4L + ATi HD4670 successful on arch linux x86_64

[Hunter20]

@above why would you do that? Are there any games out for linux?:P

[aodioxp]

Finally, it works. It turns out that last PE4L2.1b I received was a faulty one. They exchanged a new one for me and it works fine. 3Dmark11 GPU score 4216 is on par with other GTX 560 ti users on the forum.
Special thank to Fausts, arsenal243 and jemino who helped me test the old unit.

And BTW, I got an old version PE4L1.5 lying around in perfect condition and willing to sell it to anyone with PCI-e 1.0/1.1 only systems. Just PM me.

Thanks,

[AlphaHeX]

X220 + PE4L + ATi HD4670 successful on arch linux x86_64

Could you please describe the process step by step? I'm interested in eGPU running under Linux.

[jp3600k]

how do I know if im able to do a 1.2Opt connection? I'm running a hp dm4 1160us. I'm almost done setting up my egpu but i'm kind of interested in the 1.2Opt

[Diaamond]

If in NVIDIA Control Panel you see "Preferred graphics processor" (High-performance NVIDIA processor or Integrated Graphics), then Optimus is activated. Link speed can be checked by GPU-Z.
Got 2.0 link on my Dell E6320. Had to power-off PSU and remove EC2C and then power-on and plugin EC2C. My 3DMark06 is 15,360 on 1024x768. Overclocking the card does not change the score much

[bjorm]

Got 2.0 link on my Dell E6320. Had to power-off PSU and remove EC2C and then power-on and plugin EC2C. My 3DMark06 is 15,360 on 1024x768. Overclocking the card does not change the score much

can you describe how to activate eGPU od E6320? i was trying to do it but i couldn't. i swap latitude with elitebook where eGPU works perfectly.

[SoftReaper]

hi guys,

i'm back with a new laptop.

an acer Aspire 5750G (i7 2630qm (2GHz - 2.9GHz)/ 4Go/SSD 64Go samsung/GT540m)

i'm not able to use my PE4H on it (it freeze at everytime i use it) unable to boot or to hotplug it.

i've saw a 2.75Gb TOLUD in egpu tools, do you think that's the reason why i can't use my GTX570 on it

(this GPU works with my old amilo ...)

thanks by advannce

[noric]

hi guys,

i'm back with a new laptop.

an acer Aspire 5750G (i7 2630qm (2GHz - 2.9GHz)/ 4Go/SSD 64Go samsung/GT540m)

i'm not able to use my PE4H on it (it freeze at everytime i use it) unable to boot or to hotplug it.

i've saw a 2.75Gb TOLUD in egpu tools, do you think that's the reason why i can't use my GTX570 on it

(this GPU works with my old amilo ...)

thanks by advannce

As far as I know if the problem were related to memory allocation (ie TOLUD) you should get error 12 but still be able to boot with egpu into windows. Anyway 2,75 is good: you certainly have enough space to accomodate an egpu. If you're unlucky you'll have to use setup 1.x, but in the end you'll be able to solve any memory problems.