DIY eGPU experiences

It was my first diy build and was a full day to finish it. I wanted something portable and small which could work as a notebook stand to not further take space.
In the end I was to lazy to integrate my docking station to have important ports like usb and network...

 

After doing two eGPU configurations, I'm in the same boat as you.
Can you give us an update?


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Thanks!

 

Very nice enclosure.
What is the gpu inside ? How about the psu ? i'm curious cause it's damn small.

 

REALLY like this idea of having a DIY eGPU enclosure that doubles up as a notebook stand. Can you elaborate in your post how you did this? Eg: started off with some stand, cut fan + mount holes, added the PE4L, etc.

If you bought your gear from HIT on or after November 1st 2011, then it gives you entitlement to the software for freely as part of your purchase of the hardware. Please contact HIT to organize if you satisfy that criteria.

If not, then please donate to acquire Setup 1.1x.

Given how easy is is to make a <A HERF="http://forum.notebookreview.com/8356280-post8754.html">DIY-expresscard-to-pci-e adapter[/URL], you can appreciate the software side has been more complex and time consuming to sort out. The resultant Setup 1.0x software was provided freely until the honor system to recoup costs became unworkable (piracy-by-user-as-proxy by commercial vendors + cost blowout). Consider that Villagetronic had far more $$resources to play with yet had not resolved the error 12 issue until they perused our solution and plundered the first bootdisk implementation of it (and/or referred their customers to Setup 1.0x).

Setup 1.x has now had over 2 years now of fixes and development gone into it, with many refinements to bring it up to near commercial grade in quality. Donations means more development can happen and costs recouped. It's still in negative cost territory. Please donate if you have the means to do so to support the effort. It's a reasonable $15 donation (with coupon) for NBR users.

 

nando4 your hard work is very much appreciated.
I had no idea that "in the old days" there was an honor system where users where asked to donate for the use of the software.

 

I have no stuttering issues to speak of with the PE4L plugged in, but I haven't had it plugged in very long (the fan on the 9800gt is blowing at max speed). Bplus has informed me that they may have a solution this week or the next. They're currently looking at using a gigabit expresscard enclosure to prevent the twisting force directly on the cable-EC2C connection.

 

If you look closely, the 2GB card have reference (standard) clocks, while the 1GB card is OC-ed. So, better get the 1GB card. Unless you're running software like 3ds Max Design, most likely you will not needed the 2GB of VRAM. 1GB is more than enough. There is no significant performance increase with higher VRAM.

 

Setup 1.10b4 released

Speaking of which, I've just pushed out Setup 1.10b4 to HIT and the HTML online help to Palda.

HIT maintain an update list so 'donated' users will get this as a free upgrade. HIGHLY recommend doing so as compact has a critical bug fixed. Previous versions resulting in failed wifi/sata and perhaps chainload too.

The htmlhelp has been extended and will encompass a lot of the FAQ/Troubleshooting text currently on the Setup 1.x page now being merged. Means the online help and Setup 1.x help are all synced and viewable with either browser into the single location. Yay!

See the history.txt on the Setup 1.x page for fixes and new feature details.

 

Hi! We finally got our eGPU work almost perfectly with my friend. Everything is in place now and benchmarks has been taken with 3DMarks.

So first of all, here are my laptop's specs:

Acer Aspire 5755G

OS: WIN7 64 Home Premium
Chipset: Intel HM65
CPU: Intel i7 2630QM @ 2,0ghz
RAM: 8GB DDR3
iGPU: Intel Graphics HD3000 and dGPU: NVidia GeForce GT540m

and hardware for the eGPU Setup:

PE4H + PM3N + 60cm miniHDMI cable, and 30cm mini HDMI cable. (after taxes, price for these were 124euros including shipments to Finland)
GPU: ZOTACs NVidia GeForce GTX560 Stock OC model. (180euros in Finland)
PSU: Corsair CX500, 500W 12V/34A. (58euros in Finland)
NVidia Verde drivers 295.62 with kizwan modded inf = 1.Opt Setup

Making this eGPU wasn't so difficult at all. Main key to making it work was disabling GT540m in BIOS("Switchable graphics = "Integrated"). We tried day after day to get eGPU setup work and we were almost ready to quit trying because the chainloading win7 wasn't working, PCI compaction wasn't working and our feelings were like anything won't work for us. But after we disabled GT540m in BIOS this project moved much easier. I also made clean WIN7 Install, but I think it wasn't necessary after all. I made that just because I wanted to get rid of Acer's recovery partitions and other Acer's own bootprograms in windows startup. Now we have to say a BIG thanks for nando and kizwan. They helped us when we were almost ready to quit.

And now to benchmarks:

3DMark 06: 17605p with external LCD and 13038p with laptops own display.
3DMark Vantage: 13950pts with external LCD. GPU scores 13348p and cpu scores 16132p.
3DMark 11: 3755p with external LCD. Graphics scores 3570p, Physics scores 6089p and Combined scores 3171p.
RE5: 125,9fps

And Windows system rating:

Processor scores: 7,4
Memory scores: 7,6
Graphics and gaming graphics: 7,7
Primary hard disk: 5,9

Here's some photos of the eGPU setup and handy enclosure with on/off switch for two led-lamps and an extra fan:





Good luck for others eGPU-projects, feel free to ask for help and thanks!

 

Congratulations! You have nice eGPU enclosure there.