DIY eGPU experiences

[villiankknd]

I tried booting my computer after I reformat my usb and everything works fine as usual for the first time.. then I restart again with the vidock turned off... and also I edited the startup.bat before the restart then in the bootdisk menu, I selected automated startup and again it gave me a dark screen just like the problem before... I am pissed.. it always hang when trying to start vista...

[User Retired 2]

2) Ok. So this leaves me with 2 options. Using the bootable usb disk, or turning on the video card when I see the os load up. Which is preferable??
...
Best choice for performance/reliability??

You want to generate devcon.txt on the candidate system you are running on.

p2 is your wifi card. p4 is your expresscard slot. You need a mPCIe port1 or port3 to do a x2 link. Likely turbo memory is port3 (like on a x200). Can confirm by installing the wifi card in it. If it appears as port3 then 'save' port3 for anti-whitelisting. Then can reboot, attach PM3N to port3, EC2C to port4, restore port3, set x2 link width on port3, turn on DIY ViDock, do a PCI compaction, chainload XP and enjoy x2 performance

If doing x1 1.0 and don't need PCI compaction to overcome error 12, anti-whitelisting or x2 linking, then just need to edit \boot.ini to give you a timeout on bootup (or hit F8), so can poweron your DIY ViDock and boot straight to XP.

[jam7000]

Do you think i can try p5 for 2x? (would i need to turn on p6 then tho?) I really dont want to open up my laptop/buy more stuff lol.

edit:using device manager for the wifi card i get this "PCI Slot 1 (PCI bus 3, device 0, function 0)"

edit2: Also, aside from the video controller the unknown's location says "Location 65535 (Internal High Definition Audio Bus)" So this isnt the PE4H board, this is just audio related, and would be resolved with ati's drivers??

[jam7000]

Any tips on setting up the external monitor to be the default display? This way game without a windowed mode can be run using the external video card (right?). Maybe some display software or? Trying to mess with the computers display settings, catalyst's settings, and my intel driver settings with no results, the external monitor is made to be extended desktop only.

[User Retired 2]

Any tips on setting up the external monitor to be the default display?

With XP need to disable the onboard Intel display in Device Manager to make the desktop graphics the default. Can also do that too by using DIY ViDock Setup 1.x's \scripts\igp_disb.bat (experimental) which causes the onboard Intel graphics to error12 and makes desktop graphics the primary display. Works with XP or Win7+XP drivers.

Win7 is easier. Can set an adapter+monitor to be the primary or secondary.

[villiankknd]

more problems now, can't even complete the bootdisk process hence vidock cant be run since this afternoon...

here's a rundown of what happen and some clues to see if it means anything...

i download the 1.0d Bootdisk again and then i deleted the C:\DIYVDock and created a new one using the 1.0dBootdisk i downloaded...
then did all the steps like formatting a usb into a bootdisk and copy files and running devcon etc....
so everything runs ok, now i restart my computer with the vidock turned off, the bootdisk was able to run, then i selected the 2nd option(winmenu), well i still can see "A:\command.com cannot be found" when loading into the menu.....

ok i ignored that like before, then i go straight to setting chainload, iport, then turned on my vdock and refresh and then i went on to do the pci compact...

i changed it to 32bit, then i pressed one of the option which always give me success to allocating 256mb of space, THEN something weird happen and i had not been able to go past it for the last 6 hours.....
on the last line when processing the freeing 256mb space, this 2 lines came out:
"Performing PCI write resultant pci.bat"
"call R:\core\pci.bat"
THEN NOTHING HAPPENS, it just get stuck(hanged indefinitely) there where normally the "Press any key to continue" would come out....

ANY SOLUTION? THIS IS GETTING FRUSTRATING BY THE MINUTE....
i also saw "devcon.txt" not found while compacting...


also there is another issue i experienced, as i was able to boot from my 512mb usb flash drive with some problems(but since you say the problems might be associated with my usb), then i proceed to buy a new usb drive(4GB FAT32), did all the process and when i try to reboot from the new usb i bought, NOTHING HAPPENS, IT WENT STRAIGHT TO LOAD FROM MY MOTHERBOARD.....ok, i thought the usb is faulty, i tried 2 of my friends usb stick(one 1gb and another 2gb, one FAT and one FAT<---if this info is of any use), did everything and VOILA, SAME THING HAPPENED, REBOOTED straight from motherboard..
SEEMS like it can't detect the usb stick or system just ignored it???

AND NOW I TRIED USING THE 512MB USB DRIVE WHICH I WAS USING PREVIOUSLY, then i reboot, it works and i was able to enter the bootdisk menu.......HOWEVER THE PROBLEM ABOVE STILL EXISTS.....




HELP

[ithildin]

more problems now, can't even complete the bootdisk process hence vidock cant be run since this afternoon...

here's a rundown of what happen and some clues to see if it means anything...

i download the 1.0d Bootdisk again and then i deleted the C:\DIYVDock and created a new one using the 1.0dBootdisk i downloaded...
then did all the steps like formatting a usb into a bootdisk and copy files and running devcon etc....
so everything runs ok, now i restart my computer with the vidock turned off, the bootdisk was able to run, then i selected the 2nd option(winmenu), well i still can see "A:\command.com cannot be found" when loading into the menu.....

ok i ignored that like before, then i go straight to setting chainload, iport, then turned on my vdock and refresh and then i went on to do the pci compact...

i changed it to 32bit, then i pressed one of the option which always give me success to allocating 256mb of space, THEN something weird happen and i had not been able to go past it for the last 6 hours.....
on the last line when processing the freeing 256mb space, this 2 lines came out:
"Performing PCI write resultant pci.bat"
"call R:\core\pci.bat"
THEN NOTHING HAPPENS, it just get stuck(hanged indefinitely) there where normally the "Press any key to continue" would come out....

ANY SOLUTION? THIS IS GETTING FRUSTRATING BY THE MINUTE....
i also saw "devcon.txt" not found while compacting...


also there is another issue i experienced, as i was able to boot from my 512mb usb flash drive with some problems(but since you say the problems might be associated with my usb), then i proceed to buy a new usb drive(4GB FAT32), did all the process and when i try to reboot from the new usb i bought, NOTHING HAPPENS, IT WENT STRAIGHT TO LOAD FROM MY MOTHERBOARD.....ok, i thought the usb is faulty, i tried 2 of my friends usb stick(one 1gb and another 2gb, one FAT and one FAT<---if this info is of any use), did everything and VOILA, SAME THING HAPPENED, REBOOTED straight from motherboard..
SEEMS like it can't detect the usb stick or system just ignored it???

AND NOW I TRIED USING THE 512MB USB DRIVE WHICH I WAS USING PREVIOUSLY, then i reboot, it works and i was able to enter the bootdisk menu.......HOWEVER THE PROBLEM ABOVE STILL EXISTS.....

HELP

Hi villiankknd,

Since your Asus A8S is very similar to F8S, I'll send you my bootdisk files so that you can try them out. It's likely to work since the motherboards are 99% identical in configuration. If it does works, it should give you something to compare the bootdisk 1.0d with (mine is an older version). I'll send you a zipped file once I get home tonight.

Yeah it seems your brand new USB stick is not being picked up by the laptop as a boot device. Try pressing Esc at bootup right when the Asus logo appears (press several times until you see something happening). I'm quite sure this brings up the boot order menu and you can pick which device to boot from. If the USB stick is properly formatted with a bootable image, it should show up on that list. Select it and it should boot. If it doesn't work, try formatting and copying the DOS image again.

Don't worry, we'll figure this out.

[User Retired 2]

HELP

Ensure you have a \core\devcon.txt file on your USB stick, which was created on your system as per the installation instructions. Your symptoms sound like there is no devcon.txt file. Boot up, choose Setup 1.0d (DOS prompt), powerup your DIY ViDock then run:

iport x2 5
compact pciend 100000000 import \core\devcon.txt
grub4dos mbr

I have also found the reason for the command.com error. I hadn't included the fix in 1.0d(!!). So here's just the update you need. Just extract the files to your Setup 1.0d's \core folder.

[villiankknd]

Ensure you have a \core\devcon.txt file on your USB stick, which was created on your system as per the installation instructions.

i nv forget the devcon step in the installation steps....does the devcon.txt suppose to be an empty txt file?
everytime i did the "cd \devcon\i386 & devcon resources ACPI\PNP* > \core\devcon.txt", i went to my usb core folder and check the devcon.txt file, there is nothing inside it, no letter no numbers....just a blank white notepad....


update: ok i just did a reboot with the new files u gave me and done the

iport x2 5
compact pciend 100000000 import \core\devcon.txt
grub4dos mbr

but when it chainload to mbr, i got the windows to load then it just hangs there.....then i restarted and now i used the win menu, and it was worse, blank screen after i did everything and choinload to mbr...still the problem persists...
i took a picture during the compact process.....it actually says can't open devcon.txt, not "cannot find devcon.txt"
sorry...here is a ss of the thing...





ok i did another format of the bootdisk(like 100times before) and suddenly it works again, i really have no idea why it sometimes work and sometimes don't??????????????? this will be troublesome in the long run.....




since i got it running now, problems keep coming.....there is this one online game called Cabal Online which run on a private server which i installed and ran without problem using my laptop gpu(Mobility HD2400), well i ran everything at low settings....
then i tried to run it on my ViDock using the same settings, i have never been able to open the game at all using ViDock as when it loads, my laptop screen will show the bluescreen and it restarted after that....happens everytime when i try to run it on my ViDock......i even tried higher settings and also revert the HD5750 to the default gpu clock and processor clock but the blue screen still pops out to say hello....what might be the problem?
i was able to run RE5, Street Fighter 4, NFS Shift using ViDock without any problem, running perfectly even when overclocked...so what might be the problem???

[clmerlin]

i nv forget the devcon step in the installation steps....does the devcon.txt suppose to be an empty txt file?
everytime i did the "cd \devcon\i386 & devcon resources ACPI\PNP* > \core\devcon.txt", i went to my usb core folder and check the devcon.txt file, there is nothing inside it, no letter no numbers....just a blank white notepad....


it actually says can't open devcon.txt, not "cannot find devcon.txt"
sorry...here is a ss of the thing...

Ok, so I am having this same exact issue...I get the can't open devcon.txt message as well as opening a blank devcon.txt file in windows. Unfortunately I don't know what to do about it as of yet, so if any one has any suggestions about this that would be awesome. If I should so happen to stumble across something I will be sure to post as well.