DIY eGPU experiences

[nickemand]

Hello again, i finally got my PE4L 2.1a to work, by redoing the solder. I'm now having some issues making the gpu run at the desired speed. I'm currently getting x1 1.1, and i know the 2.1a is designen to run at 2.0. i tried the disconnect sleep connect trick, and it didn't work, and now i'm afraid it won't even be possible for me.

I looked around, and people suggested that it might be because my EC is not set to 2.0, so i went ahead and checkedmy LCAP values, but i don't really know how to understand it, so i took a screencap of my values. If someone of you would be so nice as to help me, and point me in the right direction it would be great, since i would love to not being stuck at 1x speeds, since it doesn't really utillize my GPU.


Specs: Dell Latitude E6510, with an intel 450m CPU, 4gb 1333mHz RAM, and a Nvidia NVS3100m dGPU.

I think the dGPU might be the issue, but in steup 1.X it won't let me disable it, even though there is and iGPU in the 1st gen i5 450m

As always, i'd appreciate all the help i could get!

[User Retired 2]

I did not do any benchmarking yet, I will probably update this post in the next few days, I, however, tried to play Mass Effect 3. The results surpassed my expectations: around 40 FPS, with all graphic options enabled, 8xAF and 1600x900. On the internal LCD.

Congratulations on the 8460P - it's certainly quite a stylish notebook, moreso than a flashy G73JH with barge-like dimensions by comparison.

Benchmarks would be most welcome. We have less than expected pci-e 2.0 benchmark contributions so need some to add to the first page. Keplar gpu results are highly desirable. Though Fermi cards will be the better value choice.

Specs: Dell Latitude E6510, with an intel 450m CPU, 4gb 1333mHz RAM, and a Nvidia NVS3100m dGPU.

A Dell E6510 uses a Series-5 chipset (QM57). It's only capable of pci-e 1.1 speed (2.5GT/s). You need a Series-6 E6520 to run pci-e 2.0 speed (5.0GT/s).

[nickemand]

A Dell E6510 uses a Series-5 chipset (QM57). It's only capable of pci-e 1.1 speed (2.5GT/s). You need a Series-6 E6520 to run pci-e 2.0 speed (5.0GT/s).

Ah, thanks alot mate!
So, what about optimus, to achieve extra speed, that is not possible either is it, because of my dGPU?

[User Retired 2]

Ah, thanks alot mate!
So, what about optimus, to achieve extra speed, that is not possible either is it, because of my dGPU?

The iGPU must be the primary bootup video device for the NVidia driver to enable pci-e compression on the eGPU.

I can see from your SIVS output that there is no 0:2.0 (iGPU) device. This looks to me like you are booting the E6510 with the eGPU powered and connected which the bios sees and uses as the primary video device. Or you've disabled Optimus in the bios which then sets the dGPU as the primary video device.

So proceed by:

1. Ensure Optimus is enabled in the bios if such a setting exists so the iGPU becomes the primary video device.

2. Set the PCI Reset Delay (7/15s) switch on the PE4L/PE4H or hotplug the EC2C after halting Win7 bootup (F8) so eGPU doesn't become the primary video device.

Then you'll be booting into Win7 with the iGPU+dGPU+eGPU all active. The eGPU may then just work, or you may see error 12 requiring one of these solutions.

[nickemand]

The iGPU must be the primary bootup video device for the NVidia driver to enable pci-e compression on the eGPU.

I can see from your SIVS output that there is no 0:2.0 (iGPU) device. This looks to me like you are booting the E6510 with the eGPU powered and connected which the bios sees and uses as the primary video device. Or you've disabled Optimus in the bios which then sets the dGPU as the primary video device.

So proceed by:

1. Ensure Optimus is enabled in the bios if such a setting exists so the iGPU becomes the primary video device.

2. Set the PCI Reset Delay (7/15s) switch on the PE4L/PE4H or hotplug the EC2C after halting Win7 bootup (F8) so eGPU doesn't become the primary video device.

Then you'll be booting into Win7 with the iGPU+dGPU+eGPU all active. The eGPU may then just work, or you may see error 12 requiring one of these solutions.

First of all thank you so much for your great support
I will try to proceed with turning on the iGPU in Setup 1.x, since it says that it is off
My issue is though, that the Dell bios is an idiotproof model, and it doesnt show optimus anywhere, is there any other way to make sure it's enabled?

[User Retired 2]

First of all thank you so much for your great support
I will try to proceed with turning on the iGPU in Setup 1.x, since it says that it is off
My issue is though, that the Dell bios is an idiotproof model, and it doesnt show optimus anywhere, is there any other way to make sure it's enabled?

According to this E6510 Owner's Lounge post, the NVS3100M model has no switchable/Optimus graphics. Meaning you won't be able to enable the iGPU as the primary video device. Only way to get more performance is to either swap out the systemboard for the iGPU-only version or do a x2 implementation.

The E6510 schematic shows that wifi/mPCIe=port1 and WWAN/mPCIe=port2. So you could do a x2 [port1+2] implementation. Though I'd advise doing a complete system update to a SB iGPU/switchable E6520/M4600/T520/8560P (or others in the thin-and-light link in my sig) as a better value solution with more eGPU performance.

[nickemand]

According to this E6510 Owner's Lounge post, the NVS3100M model has no switchable/Optimus graphics. Meaning you won't be able to enable the iGPU as the primary video device. Only way to get more performance is to either swap out the systemboard for the iGPU-only version or do a x2 implementation.

The E6510 schematic shows that wifi/mPCIe=port1 and WWAN/mPCIe=port2. So you could do a x2 [port1+2] implementation. Though I'd advise doing a complete system update to a SB iGPU/switchable E6520/M4600/T520/8560P (or others in the thin-and-light link in my sig) as a better value solution with more eGPU performance.

You are an absolute god among men!
Thank you so much for clearing out all of my confusion, since this is a school project, and i only have the hardware temporarily, i might just as well get myself one of those PE4H models then, since a new laptop, is, sadly a bit out of my current budget. In any way though, i will probably get a new laptop once thunderbolt becomes the standard, in a year or something like that
Yet again, i will thank you for all your help

Even though this have not been the most succesful result ever, if you want benches or anything like that, just for the archives, feel free to ask

[vincentbihler]

Hi everybody.

I recently bought a pe4h with EC2C with GTX460 from Gigabyte (1gb ddr5). I have a Lenovo T400 6474 with NO ATI card and a 650W alim. When I plug everything together, then plug the express card and then turn on the GPU and computer, nothing shows up and my computer seems to be booting again and again... I don't know what to do, could you help me ?

Edit : I forgot to say I have 8Gb ram...
Thanks a lot =)

[needsloomis]

This is my NVidia 680 GTX benchmark, compared to 580 GTX, the performance is quite good, yet the price of both cards is pretty much the same in the UK. It is definitely worth an upgrade in my opinion. I'm running the latest 301.10 driver for the 680 GTX.

3DMark06 saw very little benefit since it's mostly CPU-dependent. Yet, both 3DMarkVantage & 3DMark11 saw good improvement.
There's no huge fps gains in Game-specific tests, could be because of my limited bandwidth.
It's worth noting that the 580 GTX is already a good card, so going from 580 to 680 wouldn't see so much different.

Could you test some modern games with more dx10/11 features? Maybe Arkahm City, Civ 5, bf3?

I know we have a bandwidth bottleneck with things like texture memory, but I wonder if more gpu intensive things like tessellation will make the egpu 680 shine in newer games.

[thaatz]

The disk image is mapped in as (hd0) and the first harddisk is (hd1). So the top part of menu.win7 remaps hd1 as hd0. Based on your indication that (hd1,3) is your ntfs partition, your \config\menu.win7 should have the RED line modifications below. You can even just do a test at the grub> prompt with 'chainloader (hd1,3)/bootmgr; boot' to see if it boots Win7.

........
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
# User edittable section below
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#Use find to set root to location of Win7/Vista's /bootmgr then chainload it.
#find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /bootmgr
#chainloader /bootmgr

#OR chainload bootmgr off a specific partition, eg:hd0,1
chainloader (hd0,3)/bootmgr

thanks a lot for the help nando. I figured that might be the case, and so I have tried what you suggested, but I still get "ERROR! Chainloading failed" after the grub prompt , which lead me to believe that the reason why I was getting thrown at grub prompt (the one i get when i try to "chainload win7") in the first place was because it was unable to run the commands correctly. So at that grub prompt, i tried to type "chainloader (hd0,3)/bootmgr", but it said "Error 21: Selected disk does not exist", so i tried to type "ls (hd[tab]" to see if the drives would still show, but it would not show any drives.

However in "Chainloader->Prompt" i can type "chainloader (hd1,3)" and "boot" and it boots just fine. Im guessing its having problems reassigning the disks when i select "chainload win7". is there a way to fix this, i would prefer to use that button as opposed to going to the prompt through "chainloader->prompt"
thanks