DIY eGPU experiences

[Khenglish]

A NVidia GTX 580 x1.Opt implementation - where are the limits of Optimus?

Nice writeup. It would be interesting to see how a 580 scaled with PCI-E overclocking. Feel free to send me your 580 to do x2 testing!

Also, I made a post on the Nvidia Optimus forums asking about getting around the OPtimus hardware requirements. Optimus with 2 Nvidia cards? (no intel IGP) - NVIDIA Forums

[nlooije]

guys, my current Acer Aspire 7720 is dying on me and i figured it is time to get a new notebook.

I want the focus to be on a SB system which has decent gpu capabilities of its own but will make the most optimal use of my ViDock when i want to use it for gaming etc.

My current interest go out to the Clevo W150HR/W170HR

These systems have all the requirements i need: relatively low price (less than 1000 euros), decent midrange dGPU with optimus for improved portability/battery/life on iGPU and most important an optimus VD setup.

The problem i have with these systems is the number and accessibility of the mPCIe slots. The W150HR shows two slots; 1 for half-height WLAN card with PCIe and USB interface and 1 for a mini-card with a USB interface. The W170HR show only one slot; 1 for half-height WLAN card again with PCIe and USB interface.

Can anyone provide some advice on the usability of a VD with these systems; more specifically if the PE4H+PM3N will work with these systems. I am not familiar with half-height mini-cards but google shows these are half the size (duh) of normal mini-cards and i am wondering if it will fit.

If these systems are not suitable are there any other SB system which would meet my requirements?

[Gamer90]

Hello everyone,

I am at a loss with no knowledge of hardware.

I am really eager to do a ViDock. But i have no express card slot. In the first page of this forum number 3 article says without having no express card slot its possible to do a ViDock by the m pcie slot.

But how do i get to know that i have that one or not??
How does it look like even??

Additional Informations i can give are :

I have no HDMI port.

From AIDA i got to know:

PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #1 Empty
PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #2 In Use @ x1 (Dell DW1501 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card Network Adapter)
PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #3 In Use @ x1 (Atheros AR8132 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller)
PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #5 Empty

I have SD card slot.

There is an ATI HD4330 512 VRAM in my laptop. (4 GB RAM)

No internal graphics support.

So how do i do the ViDock??

Please give me solution.

[AgentYura]

pyr0, great job! Thank you for sharing your amazing results. I'm thinking about getting rid of GTX 460, as far as i have lag/shutter in some games such as GTA 4 or Prototype(!). Could you please try playing GTA 4 and share your experience?

[trylle]

@Pyro

I did a test on the internal display with a Asus GTX 580. I got a score of 10554 3DMarks06, so it is working. One strange thing I have noticed though is that I get about 1k higher score if I use Setup1x to configure the PCIe ports as x2. Maybe this is because the ricoh controller get removed from the bus...

Result

[pyr0]

@Pyro

I did a test on the internal display with a Asus GTX 580. I got a score of 10554 3DMarks06, so it is working. One strange thing I have noticed though is that I get about 1k higher score if I use Setup1x to configure the PCIe ports as x2. Maybe this is because the ricoh controller get removed from the bus...

I got it working as well, but having crappy performance with that. I'm using 270.61 drivers and I can get it only output to internal lcd when booting with the GPU connected (I plug it in right after POST, when RAID is checked).

What I don't understand is, what has the Ricoh controller to do with x2 mode? It is on port2 and EC is on port3. If you would like to set up x2, you would need p1+2 or p3+4 - am I missing something?

[trylle]

When I reconfigure the the ports to 2x mode the ricoh controller disapperars. Only port 1 and port 3 remain. I am only using a single cable to the 1x port on the dock, so I think it is still x1 even though the ports are configured as 2x.
Unless I am mistaken I would need a second cable to port 4 if I was to get 2x running, and I don't think this is possible for us. So I am also at a loss as to why I get better performance this way...

I also have to disconnect the dock when the bios boots. Same as you I can connect it after the bios is done, or I can connect it with windows suspended.

[key001]

PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #1 Empty
PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #2 In Use @ x1 (Dell DW1501 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card Network Adapter)
PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #3 In Use @ x1 (Atheros AR8132 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller)
PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #5 Empty

#2 is could be a useable mpci-e port... as for the others you'd have to take a look at them

it looks like this
http://tombeauchamp.com/misc/ssd%20a...lan%20slot.jpg

http://www.lckdanny.com/images/dell_1555/18.jpg

[wicked20]

[QUOTE=wicked20;7473483]

Hi,
I'm hoping more users can help test and improve since many newer laptops could be similar to mine.

History: Got HD5870 working w/ Setup 1.x 3DMark06 = 18024

Now I'm using only 2GB RAM,
Device Manager recognizes GTX460 fine but using Nvidia Property says:
"Nvidia Display settings are not available"
"You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDIA GPU"

W7-64-Ult sometimes can output 1080p from GTX460 but cause BSOD.

W7-64-Home Prem (shipped w/ system) doesn't ever output 1080p from GTX460 and no BSOD. However, using new 270.61 from laptop2go Nvidia Property recognizes GTX460 only as PhysX. I tried all 4 previous versions of drivers notebook, desktop, and Nando modded inf. I can use MSI Afterburner to control GTX460 fanspeed.

We appreciate any ideas.

Much thanks again.

Could someone w/ Nvidia Hybrid share similar experience or problems and solutions?

I also tried 32bit W7 but same problem w/ "Nvidia Display settings are not available"

Much thanks.

Some progress, I got gtx460 running 3dmark w/ external hdtv but crashed half way. Strange, that I cannot get that working again but bsod at login or error 43 or the other previous problems.

It seems inconsistent, sometimes I get 256M free in Setup.1x and other times, 512M doing the same thing???

Could someone help modify inf:
525m hardware ids:
VEN_10DE&DEV_0DF5

I may have not done it correctly for desktop, notebook, laptop2go.com and 270.61 Verde driver + nando4 nvam.inf versions.

Much thanks to all.

[Essenar]

Since someone got this working with L502X does this mean I can use Vidock with the Thinkpad T420? Or should I go with something not Sandybridge to ensure I can use Vidock? I'm close to pulling the trigger on a T420 with Intel HD graphics but I'm not sure if it'll work with Vidock so I'm hesitating.