DIY eGPU experiences

[chx1975]

Hey this is awesome! I am not interested in 3D but I am very, very interested in driving a lot of monitors at 1920x1200 (I am at three at this point but you know, adding a 4th would create me a 44" LCD with 3840*2400 and that's just cool).

I have a T400s which can only drive two and I was eyeing the P4L without knowing of this thread. It's surprising that you dont need to hunt for rare x1 video cards however! Good stuff.

The only question is, enclosures...? I have read the summary post, tried to skim the whole 33 pages but can't really find enclosure ideas aside from the name of a generic box manufacturer in the summary post.

As Nando have asked, while I do not have Everest, I can run lspci and lspci -tv

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection


+-1c.0-[0000:02]--
+-1c.1-[0000:03]----00.0 Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
+-1c.3-[0000:05-0c]--

the WiFi card as shipped is clearly in Port 2. There is a WWAN slot but I am not too inclined to tear apart the poor notebook to move the card there to figure out whether it's Port 1 or Port 4, sorry. Once I can put my paws on an Expresscard I will let you know what port is that.

However! http://www.2xlc.de/t400s.html if you look there, that guy has an SD card reader on 05:00.0. Compare that to the above and you will immediately see that the ExpressCard is on Port 4. So combining is fairly out unless you want to use both mPCI slots.

[avlan]

You can just swap wifi card between two ports, like I did.

[trailro]

Hi guys,

Just as a side note, not really the right place to post this but I thought that someone might actually be interested in this: I am selling my PE4H-PM3N adapter with all cables and everything. I have only used it for a few weeks and it is in perfect condition. The reason being that I just bought an Alienware laptop.

I am from the UK and if someone is interested in buying I can do it via paypal - even put it on ebay.

Should anyone be interested in this, please email me to trailro@gmail.com and I'll be happy to find a new owner for the module. It's a shame to just throw it away when this little piece has generated all of this discussions.

Many thanks.

[ithildin]

Hi everyone,

I've been following this thread with quite some interest and recently decided to pull the trigger and get myself a PE4L + Sapphire Vapor-X HD5750 for my aging Asus F8SA/P (Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2 GHz, 4 GB RAM, hacked in Mob Radeon HD3650 1 GB). The laptop has an expresscard slot for a 1x link but I am going to try x2 1.0 by replacing the Wifi card with a PM3N. I'm looking for a flat mini HDMI cable to connect the PM3N through an opening on the laptop casing without much luck. Any tips on where I can order one from? I'm in the UK btw.

I'll post some details and benchmarks as soon as I get it running.

Cheers!

[chx1975]

http://www.amfeltec.com/products/min...pcie-riser.php found this. Flat cable looks promising. Also there is a PCI-E x1 to 3 or 4 PCI-E x1 which is heaven in case you are interested in driving your monitor farm from your laptop

[pongle]

Recently received a PE4H + EC2C from hwtools.net and trying it out on my Lenovo X200 running Windows 7 32-bit using an NVIDIA GeForce 210 16x card. Unfortunately I have not had any luck getting the PC to recognize the card, or acknowledge the presence of the PE4H at all.

I have not tried any of the chain loading tools as the instructions above imply they are only required if you get errors (which I don't since nothing appears to happen when the device is plugged in). The device doesn't appear in the device manager or in lspci when booting from a Ubuntu boot disk.

I have tried soldering TP1 to no avail. Could the mini-HDMI lead be broken? Any other suggestions for good tests to debug this?

Many Thanks,
Tim

[User Retired 2]

I have tried soldering TP1 to no avail. Could the mini-HDMI lead be broken? Any other suggestions for good tests to debug this?

Try:
- suspend system when running Win7, powerup PE4H + G210, resume system. Does it detect the card?
- if not, try PE4H on another system to confirm expresscard functionality.
- if still no go, try another mini HDMI cable, eg US$6-shipped DX cable.

Can you also swap the wifi card over into the other two mini PCIe cards so we can map out what the port layout is? Here is what we know of the X200.

[iofthestorm]

It looks like the PE4L is still not available. Should I just get the PE4H? a $30 difference is not too bad for me, I guess.

Also, it seems like you can still go through with an order for the PE4L, what's up with that?

Edit: Looks like the PE4L will be back in stock ~first week of April, according to the guy from hwtools who answered my email.

I'm still confused about the power supply thing with this though; is there any way to use the PE4L/PE4H without any external power, or do I always have to have either a separate laptop adapter or ATX power supply?

[pongle]

Thanks nando, ran out of time this weekend to sort it out. I don't have a second laptop to test out the Express Card with, but I'll do some continuity testing on the cable. If you PM me some detailed instructions on the command-lines you'd like run for determining the mPCIe ports, I'll try and give that a go too.
Cheers,
Tim

[User Retired 2]

Thanks nando, ran out of time this weekend to sort it out. I don't have a second laptop to test out the Express Card with, but I'll do some continuity testing on the cable. If you PM me some detailed instructions on the command-lines you'd like run for determining the mPCIe ports, I'll try and give that a go too.
Cheers,
Tim

Pongle - not enough posts to PM. The easiest way to map out the mPCIe physical ports to port numbers is:

1. Run Everest. Select Motherboard->Chipset->Southbridge, note port listed against the wifi card as shown here.
2. Shutdown system, move wifi card into next slot.
3. Repeat 1-2 for all mPCIe slots available. There are 3 mPCIe slots in a Lenovo X200.

I'm still confused about the power supply thing with this though; is there any way to use the PE4L/PE4H without any external power, or do I always have to have either a separate laptop adapter or ATX power supply?

You must supply 12V to power the pci-e slot either using a DC adapter or an ATX PSU.

PE4L v1.4 and PE4H v2.0 are on sale now. Differences from previous versions shown in linked table.