DIY eGPU experiences

[Khenglish]

Where would Install the pm3n for the x2link? do I have to open all the screws on the back of my laptop to find it or is it in a little section where there are some screws for that particualr part?

varies from laptop to laptop. Some have an easy to access compartment, others require work.

[nlooije]

Getting 2 Nvidia cards working correctly seems to be a common problem. Below I have summarized the key idea:
ONE DRIVER GOOD, 2 DRIVER BAD

Lol thx for the summary :P

I have gone ahead and tried what you suggested. The result is still a code 43 error upon boot. I have tried booting normally, booting through the setup with pci compaction, booting with VD off and hotplugging... all give code 43.

what i have done since the previous post:

1. Install w7 64bit which allowed me to use my other 2gb Ram module as well as use the drivers + modified inf file supplied by nando4 a couple of posts ago. This was done in the hope it would prevent the code 43 error.

2. I uninstalled the 8600m gt drivers and installed the new drivers for both cards as you suggested in your previous post. Unfortunatly, i am not able to stop w7 from installing standard VGA drivers upon boot (it goes too quick), but applying the new drivers afterwards leads to the 8600m gt and 460 gtx showing up in the device manager. See picture below. might this be a problem?

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/4...icemanager.png

any other ideas on what i am doing wrong?

nlooije

[Khenglish]

Lol thx for the summary :P

I have gone ahead and tried what you suggested. The result is still a code 43 error upon boot. I have tried booting normally, booting through the setup with pci compaction, booting with VD off and hotplugging... all give code 43.

what i have done since the previous post:

1. Install w7 64bit which allowed me to use my other 2gb Ram module as well as use the drivers + modified inf file supplied by nando4 a couple of posts ago. This was done in the hope it would prevent the code 43 error.

2. I uninstalled the 8600m gt drivers and installed the new drivers for both cards as you suggested in your previous post. Unfortunatly, i am not able to stop w7 from installing standard VGA drivers upon boot (it goes too quick), but applying the new drivers afterwards leads to the 8600m gt and 460 gtx showing up in the device manager. See picture below. might this be a problem?

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/4...icemanager.png

any other ideas on what i am doing wrong?

nlooije

Hmm idk why you are getting an error 43. Do you get an error 43 with no driver installed? The only time I ever got error 43 was when messing around with the HDMI cables and trying to do x4, so all I can think of now is checking your cables and expresscard or mini-pcie connector.

[skylineboi]

varies from laptop to laptop. Some have an easy to access compartment, others require work.

let us say that I found where to put the pm3n. When I installed it what do I do after in the setup 1.x? Is it like the x1 as in ports and compacion or how would I put port 1 and port 2 to have x2 because in my port 1 has a marvell yukon pcie ethernet thing something like that.

[Khenglish]

let us say that I found where to put the pm3n. When I installed it what do I do after in the setup 1.x? Is it like the x1 as in ports and compacion or how would I put port 1 and port 2 to have x2 because in my port 1 has a marvell yukon pcie ethernet thing something like that.

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, but if your ethernet chip is on port 1 then you can't do x2 with ports 1 and 2. You can do x1 on port 2 or you can do x2 with 3 and 4 if they are both empty.

[pirkko]

I've got some problems getting my diy vidock working with a dell M1530 (with nvidia 8600M) and ati 4870 as external gfx with 400W PSU. Vidock is connected via expresscard (PCI#5).

I have decreased my ram to 2GB and also installed newest ati and nvidia drivers. Wifi card is removed.

Setup 1.x detects my both cards and lets me do 36-bit compaction to the external gfx (32 bit gives no solutions).

win7 to sleep -> connect the vidock, power it on -> wake up win7 -> bsod in 10 seconds. Same bsod without sleep. Bsod caused by atikmdag.sys.

After removing drivers (also with driver sweeper) win7 detects external gfx without any problems but then turns if off 5 seconds later. Sometimes it works, detecting both cards without any errors and sometimes internal gfx gives error 12.

Furthermore, there hasn't been any sign of activity on my external display (4870>dvi<>hdmi>hp w2207h). Should I disable my internal gfx somehow?

Any advice from M1530 users who've got this working?

My setup 1.x diag files are available here:
devcon.txt: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7219115/vidock/devcon.txt
diag folder zip: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7219115/vidock/DIAG.zip

[nlooije]

Hi,

I have been getting BSODs when hotplugging mPCIe.

1. Boot with VD on, run compaction etc through Setup, unplug mHDMI
2. Boot W7, sleep, plug mHDMI, resume
3. scan for pnp hardware in device manager leads to BSOD

i am not sure but hopefully solving the BSOD will lead to a working VD

any ideas?

[nlooije]

Hmm idk why you are getting an error 43. Do you get an error 43 with no driver installed? The only time I ever got error 43 was when messing around with the HDMI cables and trying to do x4, so all I can think of now is checking your cables and expresscard or mini-pcie connector.

I am not sure if it is a faulty HDMI as when i disable the 8600m gt drivers, on boot the 460 gtx drivers work without errors (see picture). But i am still not able to output anything to the external display in this configuration since the primary video drivers are disabled. Is there anyway to force the 460 gtx to be the primary video?

also on some posts there is talk of a pci dump of the configured gfx card and loading that in the setup. since nvidia-flash in setup shows that the 460 gtx is unconfigured before compaction, is this something i should do? I am not sure what the reason for this dump is or how to do it, so if any1 could show me how if at all applicable?

Edit: argh booting VD with an MSI notebook worked straight away. indicates that HDMI, gfx card, external display work fine. must then be something i am doing wrong in the settings.

[skylineboi]

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, but if your ethernet chip is on port 1 then you can't do x2 with ports 1 and 2. You can do x1 on port 2 or you can do x2 with 3 and 4 if they are both empty.

port 1 and 2 and 3 are occupied. port 2 is my external graphics card. Does that mean i have to put it on port 5 and port 6? If I do then how would I move my external graphics card port 2 on port 5 and use the port 6 pm3n i am guessing to make it x2?


Looking in setup 1.x it shows me port 1: occupied with something
port 2: ati radeon hd 5850
port 3: occupied with something.
is it possible to switch port3 to port 2 and use port 3 and port 4 at x2 link?

[exe]

YES!!!!! After about upteen hours of reading and trying and confusion..AND big help from Khenglish and Nando, and a shout out to Panzer (read his old post), I finally got my setup to work!

My problem I had already detailed a few pages back. Basically, I can't hook up the DIYDock to my laptop when it is from the off state (won't go to BIOS), nor at the desktop (bsod). I did the sleep/resume trick and upon resume, I get a connection sound (for the DIYDock) and disconnect sound, screen goes off, and another disconnect. I suspect it disconnected both my internal and external cards. I can't see anything to know what is going on.

So the first thing I had to do is to mod the mobile inf file that Nando had modded, to include my 9600GT desktop GPU. That took hours to learn as the instructions here were a little lacking.

After that, I still had no joy. I would get into windows, do sleep/resume and find myself in connect/screen off/2disconnect darkness all over again. I've lost count how many times that was, once I got to read error 21, which Khenglish said is Windows telling me it's going to disconnected my internal screen. Another time my wireless mouse usb dongle gave me BSOD.

Anyhoo, then I read up some of Panzer's post, his laptop is very similar to mine, but his screen didn't back out so he could at least read the error messages. But his suggestion was to just try hot plugging in the DIYDock at various stages of Windows start or at desktop to see what would happen.

Well, I had just removed all my mobile drivers and was reading what he wrote, so I thought, what the heck, just stick the DIYDock in while I'm at this standard windows vga driver mode and see what happens. And lo and behold, windows recognizes the external card and it flashed and actually CAME BACK ON! Windows had automatically installed a nvidia driver external GPU, the internal GPU stayed at vga standard. And from previous failures and being told I need to use one driver, I tried to manually install for the desktop GPU my modded mobile driver, it didn't take. So i remembered I can also run the setup.exe, and that worked. When it was installing, usually windows will warn me 1 time that I am installing a non trusted driver, I click allow, and off we go. But this time, I had that warning twice, which is what you want since it is installing both the internal and external GPU.[ I redid the procedure and only got one install confirmation the second time around] And after which I checked to see that the driver versions were exactly the same!

Rebooted, (I have to unplug my DIYDock otherwise I don't get to BIOS) and got to desktop and voila! Just to pinch myself, I did this twice to replicate success, it finally works!

So my almost last question here would be, how do I avoid this plugging in/out when I reboot? I guess I can try the 7sec switch delay and see how that goes.[This didn't work either, so I have to hotplug when at windows desktop]

HP HDX18T C2Q 6GB RAM 9600M, running
PE4L with 9600GT pushing 2560x1600.









[A final note, the mobility modder program I was recommended to mod desktop GPU driver, it's from circa 2009 and doesn't work with any recent drivers. The drivers will not load.]