DIY eGPU experiences

[avlan]

I tried the driver, but my 460 can't output to my monitor with it. Whenever i plugged the monitor in the driver would either hang causing a BSOD, or the driver would think it was outputting a signal, but really wasn't so I'd just have a black screen. I managed to get the internal LCD working, and saw that in some places the driver now thought my monitor was a TV. When plugging the monitor in to the laptop itself to make the internal card drive it, it worked fine. To get it working again I had to clean install an older driver, for some reason I can't get the 275.27 beta working again either and have to resort to the 270.61 WHQL now.

Have almost the same with DVI -> D-SUB display. While card see it and Windows create second desktop, the screen stays black.

[Khenglish]

Have almost the same with DVI -> D-SUB display. While card see it and Windows create second desktop, the screen stays black.

I got an SSD today. 275.33 driver installed without a hitch on a fresh win7 install. Oh and if you haven't heard yet, SSDs are amazing.

[sprtnbsblplya]

Work is progressing on the enclosure, this should give you an idea of where I'm at:





The fan I'm using to push air into the case is this, Thermaltake Mobile II. It is powered by a USB port, which the hwtools boards conveniently have built into them, and it is adjustable by a little knob, so it can be as quiet or as loud as I want.
The knob will be accessible underneath the enclosure so I can adjust it anytime.

[VonZippySays]

Have almost the same with DVI -> D-SUB display. While card see it and Windows create second desktop, the screen stays black.

Same Here I tried both the Beta and WHQL of the latest 275 drivers, had issues with FF-XIV being a little rough, and when hooking up my projector using VGA caused black screen when trying to switch back and Nvidia tools to fail, at that point if I logged off to try and see if closing every thing would fix it, system would freeze, needed to be manually shut off, this happened more than once. Found best performance and stability with 270.61 with my Optimus setup i3 2.6 450GTS OC using PM3 x1.0op, score 9712 on 3DMarks06 using internal LCD. Even switched back to 270.61 then back to 275.33 to make some tests with FF-XIV to verify. I use FF-XIV because it is very noticeable when its not running smoothly, RE5 always works pretty smooth for me probably due to the fact that even the IGP can render about 20fps with RE5, shoot Intel HD can run dx10, but FF-XIV can barely load at all on the IGP, it's a total computer killer if you don't have the correct hardware to run it.

From my experience in the past the beta driver gets pushed up to the WHQL driver with little or no changes if Nvidia doesn't see anything wrong with it after testing period. Of course there not tailoring to us.

I'm gonna stick with 270.61 until the next driver release comes out.

[beatTheRestrictions]

Well the PE4L came today

Took 1 week from Taiwan -> Melbourne, pretty fast

Nice packaging, nice looking build quality, good communication from the company.

Just need to get the ATX and G-Card today.

The instructions from the website for PE4L aren't really clear about the jumper settings..

I have SW1 set to 2-3 (x16)
SW2 set to 1-2 (Disable perst#) since I want to use the sleep - wake method

Now JP3 and JP4?

I want to use all power from ATX so 3.3 from ATX floppy connector
and 6pin pci-e for 12v..

It says on the PCB of PE4L that default position of JP3 and JP4 is CLOSE.. kind of confused.. can someone tell me what jumper setting I need for 3.3v from ATX?

Thanks,
BTR

[pyr0]

It says on the PCB of PE4L that default position of JP3 and JP4 is CLOSE.. kind of confused.. can someone tell me what jumper setting I need for 3.3v from ATX?

JP3 is for 3.3V from floppy jack (DC/DC converter does 5V->3.3V stepdown).
JP4 is for 3.3V from PCIe bus from your laptop.

JP4 is not really required, you can just pull the jumper for protection of your laptop. That's what I did and its working fine for me.

[dragonchi]

Hi,

I'm getting stuck trying to load W7 64bit.
I've got a Dell D630, Zotac 560 Ti, 4 GB ram.
The sleep/hiberate trick doesn't work for me.
I have to boot with the miniHDMI plugged in for the system to recognize that the card is there.

When I boot with the boot disk, I go to chainboot, it hangs, and beeps once in awhile.
When I boot with it plugged it, the system reads it but on loading W7, I get a BSOD about AHCI.
When I boot without it plugged in, it doesn't recognize it later on.

I've got a PE4L + mPCIE combo from harmonic inversion.

Can anyone help?

Update, so I boot with boot disk, and compact under 36bit, and I get 256 MB in the left pane, chainload, get the vista loading screen, sleep, plug in the miniHDMI and scan for new hardware.

I get the 560ti to show up in the device manager but it says, "This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12)"

[sprtnbsblplya]

Hardware being used:
Thinkpad T420 w/ 6gb RAM
PE4L w/ EC2C
eVGA GTS 250

Getting the Error 12 message.
Tried running compaction with the latest Setup 1.x. It seems like it can't detect/work with the Sandy Bridge chipset.

Any suggestions?

[Aluminum]

I got my x220T finally, so going to start looking around for deals on a good gpu match for it. Going to test some stuff with a 4890 and a SAS card, found a very short "high speed" mini hdmi maybe I can coax 2.0 out of it.

The hardest part about all this is the case. Custom building is neat but a big hassle, I've been looking at the dimensions and configurations of a lot of small uATX/ITX/NAS/etc cases. I'm betting sooner or later one of them ends up just the right size and layout for a 2 slot gpu and fullsize psu with minimal or no dremel work required.

Might want to trademark or register eGPU as a generic term somehow before some random faceless company tries to take it for themselves

eGPU©®™℠

[wicked20]

Hardware being used:
Thinkpad T420 w/ 6gb RAM
PE4L w/ EC2C
eVGA GTS 250

Getting the Error 12 message.
Tried running compaction with the latest Setup 1.x. It seems like it can't detect/work with the Sandy Bridge chipset.

Any suggestions?

Hi sprtnbsblplya,
Have you tried w/ 2GB ram first? I was only able to get ATI 5870 working w/ my Sandy 8GB RAM. Very limited success w/ GTX460: crashed during 3dmark06. So it seems possible w/ better software / drivers / bios. You might need to try (if using 3+ GB RAM) different compaction options.

I will try more when I have time.

Best wishes to you.