eGPU experiences [version 2.0]

[Quadrider10]

HELP!?!?!?!?! i can not figure this out for the life of me.....

watch from beginning sorry its sop long. i am now using a GTX 560Ti and still same exact same problem.

[naturbo2000]

My PE4L-EC200A arrived today (2m cable). Just wanted to mention that it behaves perfectly well at PCIe 2.0 speeds (tested with Heaven and a bunch of games). Obviously any issues with the non-captive cables are two do with signal reflections at the connectors - 2m of cable length has no problem with signal integrity.

[FJR308]

Hello : )

I got me a bare PE4H v3.2 module (the one with the enclosure, except without)

it works just fine with an ATX PSU, but I would rather use it without the extra bulk since it's capable of supplying the power to the GPU via AC adapter

I'm hoping someone that has the full thing would be willing to share some pictures or at least describe to me what it would normally come with to allow the video card to be powered by the module... liiiike would I need to connect the 24 pin atx on the module to the 6 pin pci on the card? or one of the two 8 pin pci on the module? or is there anything extra on the enclosure that I'm missing by just having the module?

[Splitframe]

Hey there,

you could go for this something like this:

12V DC Netzteil Trafo LED RGB Leiste Stripe Strip 15A 20A 30A 180W 240W 360W | eBay

for the GPU. With the 180W version you would have 2 Lanes for each PCIe power jack most GPUs have.

And it's only 3cm thick.

The Problem would be the 3,3V, you'd need a voltage converter for it ( about 3-5 bucks at most ).

Then you could just solder the appropriate lines to an old ATX jack.

But beware! I have no experience with this. I am just about to build an

eGPU myself and have a friend who is an electrician who'd help me with this.

It's just a possibility!

[Splitframe]

I wonder, when I search on ebay.com or .com.au or .de the search doesn't spit out any PE4L or PE4H.

When I click your Link I could order it, but when I search for PE4L nothing shows up!?

[FJR308]

Thanks a bunch!

honestly appreciate the input, but I don't think all that's necessary in my case

the module already includes the necessary components for a direct hookup

I'm just missing wires and not sure which ones I would need to buy/ make, and that's what I'm trying to find out

Unless I'm mistaken, of course o.o

sure hope not...

[JohnnyEM]

Your UEFI bios needs CSM mode to boot the DOS-formatted USB stick. REF: Compatibility Support Module - PhoenixWiki

If you can boot it then the second problem then is chainloading out to Setup 1.x to your OS without the pci-e registers being reset. 1.10b5 has the Tianocore UEFI image which I found was resetting the pci-e registers on my HP 2560P/2570P.

I looked thoroughly in my Asus AMI Aptio BIOS/UEFI bios, but there's no option to enable the Compatibility Support Module.

However, I was trying to boot with a 4GB USB Thumb drive without success and decided to try with a 2GB USB Thumb Drive. It worked. I can boot into Setup 1.10b5 with the 2GB Thumb Drive.

Now, the problem is with chainloading. I'm using chainloader uefi that chainloads to the Tianocore UEFI image. After navigating to the Tianocore image Boot Manager, I'm presented with 3 options (my laptop has 2 hardrives):

EFI USB Device

EFI HARD DRIVE

EFI HARD DRIVE 1

Selecting EFI HARD DRIVE stops at the grub rescue> prompt ( I also have Ubuntu 12.10 UEFI installed)

Selecting EFI HARD DRIVE 1 gives some booting activity, but it stops at a black screen with a cursor

The OS I'm trying to boot into is Windows 7 x64 UEFI.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hello nando, I am having trouble

I am having a problem with a Gigabyte GTX460 OC 768MB. It won't get detected. Although it worked on a desktop system, when I tried to connect it to my PSU the fans work at full. Is it the PSU or it is a gpu that won't allow x1 connection?

Thanks

Usually when the fans go on full it means there is some problem with power to the video card. That could be 12V or 3.3V. Ensure all the 12V pci-e power leads are connected. Then try hotplugging the EC2C end to see if that solves the issue and/or use the PCI Reset Delay switch.

I looked thoroughly in my Asus AMI Aptio BIOS/UEFI bios, but there's no option to enable the Compatibility Support Module.

However, I was trying to boot with a 4GB USB Thumb drive without success and decided to try with a 2GB USB Thumb Drive. It worked. I can boot into Setup 1.10b5 with the 2GB Thumb Drive.

Now, the problem is with chainloading. I'm using chainloader uefi that chainloads to the Tianocore UEFI image. After navigating to the Tianocore image Boot Manager, I'm presented with 3 options (my laptop has 2 hardrives):

EFI USB Device

EFI HARD DRIVE

EFI HARD DRIVE 1

Selecting EFI HARD DRIVE stops at the grub rescue> prompt ( I also have Ubuntu 12.10 UEFI installed)

Selecting EFI HARD DRIVE 1 gives some booting activity, but it stops at a black screen with a cursor

The OS I'm trying to boot into is Windows 7 x64 UEFI.

Tianocore UEFI boot from Setup 1.x appears to not be working for you. Now since you are using Ubuntu 12.10 UEFI then it would have installed grub2-uefi which supports setpci commands within it's configuration file. So I'd suggest you transpose your Setup 1.x's pci.bat and any other setpci commands over to the the grub2 /boot/grub2/grub.cfg menuitem entry and use that instead.

[thebranded]

I've been running a eGPU for a few months now.

Hardware:

HP 2530p

HP 2530p Dock

Samsung 24" Screen

GTS450

Accelero S1 GPU Cooler + Turbo Fans

PE4H 1.4

Xbox360 PSU

Screen is plugged into the dock via the VGA port and to the eGPU via the DVI cable.

With the laptop docked eGPU off, I get dual screen via the dock VGA port to the 24" and the internal laptop screen.

When I turn on the eGPU wait about 5 seconds then plug the express port card in and switch over my screen to the DVI i get the screen driven by the eGPU.

To go back to normal, i eject the eGPU via the add/remove hardware icon in the task bar, then switch over the screen back to VGA input and power of the eGPU.

never did any proper gpu tests, but can play TF2/Borderlands1/Borderlands2 at mid to max settings so its doing well for me.

One question regarding the 1x pci-e limit, what GPU am i limited to? or at what point is it pointless to get a better card as i have maxed out the 1x port? This is assuming i do not run dual pcie cables tot he laptop.

[Quadrider10]

what are the requirements to do a x2 link? and how do i check to see if i can do it? i have a dell studio 1458. i wanna do an x2 link, or something similiar to get this gpu up to faster speeds. i alsol have an ati dGPU. i am really confused on how to go about doing this tho....

any help? thanks!

[4DoorGTZ]

One question regarding the 1x pci-e limit, what GPU am i limited to? or at what point is it pointless to get a better card as i have maxed out the 1x port? This is assuming i do not run dual pcie cables tot he laptop.

See this thread An PCI Express 3.0 card on a PCIe 1.1 slot - compatible? Performance? - Graphics Cards - Graphics & Displays

Seems you can stuff anything in there, it will work.... you'll just be penalized performance wise. A 680 on pcie 1.1 x4 will be ~27% slower then the same card on pcie 3.0 x8.

[yugiyao]

proxy maybe? or your ISP restriction? parents controls? I'm not sure...

[Tech Inferno Fan]

I've been running a eGPU for a few months now.

Hardware:

HP 2530p

HP 2530p Dock

Samsung 24" Screen

GTS450

Accelero S1 GPU Cooler + Turbo Fans

PE4H 1.4

Xbox360 PSU

Screen is plugged into the dock via the VGA port and to the eGPU via the DVI cable.

With the laptop docked eGPU off, I get dual screen via the dock VGA port to the 24" and the internal laptop screen.

When I turn on the eGPU wait about 5 seconds then plug the express port card in and switch over my screen to the DVI i get the screen driven by the eGPU.

To go back to normal, i eject the eGPU via the add/remove hardware icon in the task bar, then switch over the screen back to VGA input and power of the eGPU.

never did any proper gpu tests, but can play TF2/Borderlands1/Borderlands2 at mid to max settings so its doing well for me.

One question regarding the 1x pci-e limit, what GPU am i limited to? or at what point is it pointless to get a better card as i have maxed out the 1x port? This is assuming i do not run dual pcie cables tot he laptop.

2530P doesn't have a port layout to allow a x2 configuration.

A faster video card will certainly get better performance when bandwidth isn't an issue. You might want to try a GTX650Ti Boost edition which gets near GTX660 performance for at a discounted price. Only issue about the GTX650Ti is one user found that it required 256MB of pci-e space rather than 128MB+32MB+16MB as required by a GTX660Ti. That user's system could not host a GTX650Ti without doing a DSDT override but a GTX660Ti was fine.

Now before forking out for a faster video card consider the following tweaks to get better performance with your GTS450:

1. Do a TME-unlock of the 2530P PLL as described. This allowed a +25% pci-e overclock in my 2530P DIY eGPU implementation in addition to the 1.86Ghz->2.64Ghz (+42%) dualIDA+PLL CPU overclock.

2. Can also get rid of NVidia x1.Opt microstuttering by setting a FPS limit with 300.x drivers here (Khenglish).

Lastly, you may want to do the math to see the cost of a system upgrade to a pci-e 2.0 capable 12.5" HP 2560P/2570P, Lenovo X220/X230 or Dell E6220/E6230 would be instead. That doubling eGPU bandwidth along with a considerable CPU performance boost. Note: only the 2560P/2570P has a socketted/upgradable CPU from this list allowing a 45W i7-quad to replace the factory supplied 35W i5/i7 dual-core CPU. Only additional expense is you'd need to change your pci-e 1.x capable PE4H 1.4 to a pci-e 2.0 capable PE4L 2.1b.

[hchris]

@Tech Inferno Fan

Thx for your great work

[JohnnyEM]

Tianocore UEFI boot from Setup 1.x appears to not be working for you. Now since you are using Ubuntu 12.10 UEFI then it would have installed grub2-uefi which supports setpci commands within it's menu.lst configuration file. So I'd suggest you transpose your Setup 1.x's pci.bat and any other setpci commands over to the the grub2 /boot/grub2/grub.cfg menuitem entry and use that instead.

That's a great workaround. Thanks.

[antweb]

Hi everyone,

I've got myself a eGPU setup and after some initial testing, I'm having some stability issues.

My driver keeps crashing (sometimes manages to recover, other times it just gives me BSOD) and the overall performance on Windows is bad (even dragging windows is sluggish and leaves a nice trails, etc...). But only when I do these things on my external screen (so through the eGPU).

According to GPU-Z, the system sometimes boots up with a x1 2.0 link but then falls back to 1.1 when the card is under load.

The whole problem does seem to be somewhat random though, as I was able to play Battlefield 3 for at least 15min with the 1.1 link before it crashed. Other times it crashes the second I open my browser.

I've tried several driver versions (both Desktop and Notebook), but all have the same issue.

Strangest thing is that I didn't have these issues when I tested the setup for the first time with my old windows installation. I'm not sure about the link speed, but the driver was working fine. Can't exactly remember, but I think I was using the desktop 314.22 back then. Am I just missing an option somewhere or did I mess up my hardware?

Here's my setup:

ThinkPad T420 with Quadro NVS 4200

EVGA GeForce GTX 660

Corsair CX430M PSU (430W)

PE4L v2.1b with EC060A

External screen with DVI connection to the eGPU

Windows 7 x64 (clean installation)

NVIDIA Verde 314.22 (modded inf)

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hi everyone,

I've got myself a eGPU setup and after some initial testing, I'm having some stability issues.

My driver keeps crashing (sometimes manages to recover, other times it just gives me BSOD) and the overall performance on Windows is bad (even dragging windows is sluggish and leaves a nice trails, etc...). But only when I do these things on my external screen (so through the eGPU).

According to GPU-Z, the system sometimes boots up with a x1 2.0 link but then falls back to 1.1 when the card is under load.

The whole problem does seem to be somewhat random though, as I was able to play Battlefield 3 for at least 15min with the 1.1 link before it crashed. Other times it crashes the second I open my browser.

I've tried several driver versions (both Desktop and Notebook), but all have the same issue.

Strangest thing is that I didn't have these issues when I tested the setup for the first time with my old windows installation. I'm not sure about the link speed, but the driver was working fine. Can't exactly remember, but I think I was using the desktop 314.22 back then. Am I just missing an option somewhere or did I mess up my hardware?

Here's my setup:

ThinkPad T420 with Quadro NVS 4200

EVGA GeForce GTX 660

Corsair CX430M PSU (430W)

PE4L v2.1b with EC060A

External screen with DVI connection to the eGPU

Windows 7 x64 (clean installation)

NVIDIA Verde 314.22 (modded inf)

Same symptom occurs if running a non Gen2 compliant PE4L 1.5 or PE4H 2.4. You have a PE4L 2.1b so that shouldn't be occurring. That is unless you've inadvertently bent the PE4L cable causing the TX/RX pair to no longer conduct data correctly. Would need another PE4L 2.1b to confirm if that's the problem. Still, try setting the link speed to Gen1 using the bios options or Setup 1.x. Other reason your drive could be failing would be due to the video card being factory overclocked beyond the GPUs stable limits. Worth downclocking the card to see if it makes a difference.

[antweb]

Same symptom occurs if running a non Gen2 compliant PE4L 1.5 or PE4H 2.4. You have a PE4L 2.1b so that shouldn't be occurring. That is unless you've inadvertently bent the PE4L cable causing the TX/RX pair to no longer conduct data correctly. Would need another PE4L 2.1b to confirm if that's the problem. Still, try setting the link speed to Gen1 using the bios options or Setup 1.x. Other reason your drive could be failing would be due to the video card being factory overclocked beyond the GPUs stable limits. Worth downclocking the card to see if it makes a difference.

Setting the link speed to Gen1 in BIOS actually got rid of the Windows glitches. I tried to force the speed to Gen2 in Setup 1.x afterwards and that just destroyed my OS. Now I can't even boot it up properly with the eGPU attached. It hangs at the logon screen and then shows the desktop with the classic Windows theme (same as in safe mode).

I suspect that the driver for my ExpressCard USB 3.0 controller messed things up for me. It crashed the system, so I uninstalled it. But who knows what might be left of it. I'll just do another clean Windows installation without it and see if it changes anything.

[yugiyao]

One thing I need information for, is it necessary to have setup 1.x in egpu setup? even if it doesn't get error 12...

[Shelltoe]

Short answer: No

[FJR308]

I read somewhere it fits just fine.... can't remember where, though, so don't take my word as absolute confirmation.

Personally, I don't see what the appeal is of spending so much money on something that amounts to a pretty box... without a mobo to make use of all the spiffy extras that's all any PC case is...

anyways, does anyone know what I even mean by the original post?

Anyone out there with a PE4H v3.2 that could help me?

[MikjoA]

<center>Hi eGPU folks !

It's been a long time I didn't post anything but I've always kept an eye on the official eGPU thread.

And today I though it could be nice to share about my eGPU stuffs.

With eGPU at first I wanted maximum performance and I didn't care about cumbersomeness but now I do, I really do. Otherwise isn't it better to buy a big tower which will easily outperform the eGPU setup.

My eGPU setup :

The Laptop : Sony VAIO SVZ1311 it's a very tiny but quite powerful laptop, but have to be modded : See my thread about it

The GPU : Then I've picked up a GTX 660 Ti from zotac because its cooler wasn't longer than GTX 660 Ti / GTX 670 reference PCB, but I wanter more power so then I've bought an eVGA GTX 670 SC 4Gb and I've switched their cooler

The PSU : At first I've used an XBOX 360 psu that I've modded according to thendless work, but then I wanted to try something else to see if it is a viable solution. So I've bought a cheap and slim 22$ server PSU Dimensions (WxLxH): 76.0 x 280.0 x 40.0 mm.

My desk

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089446.jpg" width="1000">

The GPU

I've removed the plate, it shortens the card a bit

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089442.jpg" width="1000">

and also enables it to stand up.

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123115755611089447.jpg" width="1000">

Size comparison :

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089443.jpg" width="1000">

The PSU

This PSU can provide up to 400W and 32.5 A on the 12V (220V, if 100:110 -> 360W) and has the 80 PLUS silver certification.

Server PSU can be noisy and so does this one, when you power it on, it's 80 DbA (measured myself 20cm away, the fan's speed is insane : 13000 RPM).

But it is noisy for only 5-6 sec then it become much more quieter (45 dba).

My GTX 670 4Gb can theoretically draws a maximum of 255W (power limit +150%) but the PSU has never get hot so far.

Since internal temperature was very good, I wanted to make it quieter, so I've added a resistor on the red wire of the fan, now it's no more noisy.

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089444.jpg" width="1000">

Here I've added a switch to power it on without SWEX. And removed every unused wires.

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507122915755611089441.jpg" width="1000">

It's longer than the XBOX 360 PSU but slimer

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089445.jpg" width="1000">

And now the benchmarks !

3DMark 2013

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,Sony Corporation VAIO

Fire Strike Graphic score : 6584

3DMark 11

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,Sony Corporation VAIO score: P8256 3DMarks

Graphic Score : 8827

3DMark Vantage

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,Sony Corporation VAIO score: P25839 3DMarks

Graphic Score : 28598

Unigine Valley eXtreme HD

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041508252515755611089808.png">

Unigine Heaven 3.0

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041508274515755611089817.png">

</center>

[Quadrider10]

delete .

[MikjoA]

^

X2 speed means nothing as long as you do not tell which PCI-e generation you are talking about.

However, you can achieve approximately X2 2.0 speed with a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge laptop and with a PE4L 2.1b which will be connected to your expresscard or on an accessible mPCI-e.

These port are like PCI-E 2.0 X1 (instead of X16). but optimus will compress bandwidth and increase performance which will approximately be like X2 2.0.

You can also achieve X2 2.0 with thunderbolt and TH05 but TH05 is discontinued because of Intel.

[Quadrider10]

i have intel series 5 MOBO. and first get i5. my limit is PCI 1.1, and have a dGPU, so optimus wont work. so the fastest i can get is PCI 1.1 X2 because i can connect an EC and mPCI adapters...? would i need setup 1.x for that? as of now, i dont receive any errors.