15" Dell XPS L502x + GTX650Ti@2Gbps+c-mPCIe2 (PE4H 2.4a) + Win7 [daver160]

[mrbauer]

@Tech Inferno Fan

I tried it and still get code 12. Im starting to think maybe its a problem with win8. In the devicemanager my egpu is listet as PCI-Bus 2.

Tech Inferno Fan edit>> mrbauer's problem was solved via PM.

[Zhengyang Liu]

Hi, I'm having a problem. My L502X can not detect my egpu(gtx 560ti).

What I did is uninstall my gt525m and installing my egpu, I think I installed it in right way, both fans of egpu and psu are working and there is a green LED and a yellow LED appear on my PE4L.

Then, after I restart my laptop, it can only detect the gt525m and install its drive automatically.

Please help.

[daver160]

Hi, I'm having a problem. My L502X can not detect my egpu(gtx 560ti).

What I did is uninstall my gt525m and installing my egpu, I think I installed it in right way, both fans of egpu and psu are working and there is a green LED and a yellow LED appear on my PE4L.

Then, after I restart my laptop, it can only detect the gt525m and install its drive automatically.

Please help.

Did you disable the GT525M? You need to disable it for Windows to properly detect and use the eGPU. Also, does Windows see the eGPU at all?

[Zhengyang Liu]

Did you disable the GT525M? You need to disable it for Windows to properly detect and use the eGPU. Also, does Windows see the eGPU at all?

I think I did, I can not see it in the device manager manu, or there are something else I need to do? And the Windows can not see the eGPU at all.

[daver160]

I think I did, I can not see it in the device manager manu, or there are something else I need to do? And the Windows can not see the eGPU at all.

OK, well to me step 1 should be making sure that the eGPU itself is working. The yellow LED on the PE4L probably means something is not working correctly.

Even without disabling the dGPU, Windows should still detect the eGPU by displaying your graphics card in Windows Device Manager (e.g. "NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti") but show a yellow exclamation mark indicator for the Error 12. Since you are not seeing this in Windows, it means that your eGPU itself is not properly configured.

How have you connected your eGPU kit?

The PSU should be connected to the PE4L board (4-pin floppy), SWEX board (24-pin ATX), and the GPU (6-pin PCI, you should need 2 cables for your GTX 560). Then the PE4L should be plugged into the mPCI-e card on the underside of your laptop. With this, powering on the eGPU kit should display all green LEDs. Yellow means something is probably not plugged in properly; Windows' not detecting your eGPU at all (nothing in Device Manager) confirms that.

[sasuke769]

Hello, I am totally new to this eGPU concept and may be also lack the skills to do all of the work but I still want to have a go with it.

Dell XPS L501x

i5 M460 2.5GHz

8G RAM

GeForce GT 420M

My eGPU is a GTX 550 ti 1GB.

I didn't follow your exact instruction but use simple procedure without using the Setup 1.x. Everything works fine, i got the Laptop to recognized the eGPU and install driver directly from Device Manager. Now in it shows in Device manager that the GTX 550 ti is working properly without any error.

When I connect it to a external monitor and reboot, it didn't show on the external monitor. I tried to change the main display, it shows that there is available display output on the GTX 550 Ti but no display detected. I figured that it could be because i didn't turn off the dGPU as the GT 420M still appear in Device Manager so I installed Setup 1.x and give it a try. I cam across the same issue you had when trying to turn off the dGPU, tried the troublesooting with startup.bat but nothing works.

From reading this thread, I edit the startup.bat just like yours fix, reboot then run startup.bat script and it just stuck there. Did I mess up the whole thing when installing the eGPU driver without using Setup 1.x in the first place ? It seems right to me since the eGPU is showing without any errors in Device Manager.

[sasuke769]

Hello, I am totally new to this eGPU concept and may be also lack the skills to do all of the work but I still want to have a go with it.

Dell XPS L501x

i5 M460 2.5GHz

8G RAM

GeForce GT 420M

My eGPU is a GTX 550 ti 1GB.

I didn't follow your exact instruction but use simple procedure without using the Setup 1.x. Everything works fine, i got the Laptop to recognized the eGPU and install driver directly from Device Manager. Now in it shows in Device manager that the GTX 550 ti is working properly without any error.

When I connect it to a external monitor and reboot, it didn't show on the external monitor. I tried to change the main display, it shows that there is available display output on the GTX 550 Ti but no display detected. I figured that it could be because i didn't turn off the dGPU as the GT 420M still appear in Device Manager so I installed Setup 1.x and give it a try. I cam across the same issue you had when trying to turn off the dGPU, tried the troublesooting with startup.bat but nothing works.

From reading this thread, I edit the startup.bat just like yours fix, reboot then run startup.bat script and it just stuck there. Did I mess up the whole thing when installing the eGPU driver without using Setup 1.x in the first place ? It seems right to me since the eGPU is showing without any errors in Device Manager.

Ok, so I tried uninstall the GT 420M driver completely from Device Manager, try Setup 1.x again, the problem is not there anymore. But in Device Manager now, there appear to have 3 display adapters, one is Intel HD Graphics and the other two is Standard VGA Graphics Adapter ?! Btw, I tried to set the pci_alloc_valid to yes, but when I chainload it keep appearing that I havent done so.

[daver160]

Hello, I am totally new to this eGPU concept and may be also lack the skills to do all of the work but I still want to have a go with it.

Dell XPS L501x

i5 M460 2.5GHz

8G RAM

GeForce GT 420M

My eGPU is a GTX 550 ti 1GB.

Just going to throw out there that though yours is the L501x, I don't think there would be much of a difference in getting it to work.

I didn't follow your exact instruction but use simple procedure without using the Setup 1.x. Everything works fine, i got the Laptop to recognized the eGPU and install driver directly from Device Manager. Now in it shows in Device manager that the GTX 550 ti is working properly without any error.

What specifically did you do to get this to work? What were you steps? Did you just assemble the eGPU, plug it in to your machine and power it on?

What eGPU kit do you have? PE4H or PE4L?

The eGPU will always be detected by Windows; whether or not you get Errors depends on certain steps for different computer models. In this case, please share what you did to NOT get an Error 12 upon simply assembling and plugging in your eGPU kit - this would be extremely interesting to hear.

When I connect it to a external monitor and reboot, it didn't show on the external monitor. I tried to change the main display, it shows that there is available display output on the GTX 550 Ti but no display detected. I figured that it could be because i didn't turn off the dGPU as the GT 420M still appear in Device Manager so I installed Setup 1.x and give it a try. I cam across the same issue you had when trying to turn off the dGPU, tried the troublesooting with startup.bat but nothing works.

From reading this thread, I edit the startup.bat just like yours fix, reboot then run startup.bat script and it just stuck there. Did I mess up the whole thing when installing the eGPU driver without using Setup 1.x in the first place ? It seems right to me since the eGPU is showing without any errors in Device Manager.

So this confirms my suspicion that while your eGPU was detected by Windows, it wasn't really working. Because we have iGPU + dGPU, we must disable the dGPU in order for the eGPU to take its place and take over the primary display.

As for the startup.bat problem, this might be due to the hardware ID not matching. Because your dGPU is not exactly the same as mine, your hardware ID might be different. So for the line in startup.bat that says

call vidwait 60 10de:11c6
call vidinit -d 10de:11c6

Make sure you change the "10de:11c6" to whatever your eGPU hardware ID is reported by Setup 1.x (it shows up in the top right box when it first loads). You didn't mention if you've done this, so I'm assuming that you have not, and also that your hardware ID is different (it could be the same, but I'm assuming otherwise just in case).

Ok, so I tried uninstall the GT 420M driver completely from Device Manager, try Setup 1.x again, the problem is not there anymore. But in Device Manager now, there appear to have 3 display adapters, one is Intel HD Graphics and the other two is Standard VGA Graphics Adapter ?! Btw, I tried to set the pci_alloc_valid to yes, but when I chainload it keep appearing that I havent done so.

If Setup 1.x worked properly, you should have only 2 displays (Intel HD iGPU and GTX 550 Ti eGPU. In this case, it looks like the dGPU was not properly disabled by Setup 1.x. As for the "Standard VGA Adapter" names, that's just because you currently do not have any Nvidia drivers installed.

Could you please download and install the driver for GTX 550 Ti, and then try again? Please try to do this while your eGPU is connected, but without running Setup 1.x (this driver will detect both Nvidia cards).

As for Chainloading, it will work if Setup 1.x successfully disables dGPU and re-allocates PCI space for the eGPU. If any of those steps failed, then Windows will boot up and detect the Intel HD and both dGPU and eGPU like you see now.

[sasuke769]

I am using the PE4H, the mPCI setup is very similar to your L502x.

Yes you are right, I just simply setup the eGPU, plug in and the laptop recognized it without any errors.

At first I had problem making the eGPU detect the external monitor so I decided to take a look at Setup 1.x to see if it helps

and came across the same problem you had when trying to turn off the dGPU.

However when i try to boot to window normal (Im using win 8 pro 64 bit), I saw the eGPU fully function without any errors

and tried to update it from the device manager and got the External Monitor to appear

(instead of disable the dGPU from setup 1.x I disable it in device manager and uninstall the graphic driver and then reboot to windows).

I tested the eGPU in World of Warcraft but it doesn't seems to perform as it should be (very low fps).

In the end, I tried everything possible with the setup 1.x but the only thing that get the eGPU to output on the external monitor is plug it in, manually disable the GT 420M and uninstall Nvidia graphic driver.

[sasuke769]

I am using the PE4H, the mPCI setup is very similar to your L502x.

Yes you are right, I just simply setup the eGPU, plug in and the laptop recognized it without any errors.

At first I had problem making the eGPU detect the external monitor so I decided to take a look at Setup 1.x to see if it helps

and came across the same problem you had when trying to turn off the dGPU.

However when i try to boot to window normal (Im using win 8 pro 64 bit), I saw the eGPU fully function without any errors

and tried to update it from the device manager and got the External Monitor to appear

(instead of disable the dGPU from setup 1.x I disable it in device manager and uninstall the graphic driver and then reboot to windows).

I tested the eGPU in World of Warcraft but it doesn't seems to perform as it should be (very low fps).

In the end, I tried everything possible with the setup 1.x but the only thing that get the eGPU to output on the external monitor is plug it in, manually disable the GT 420M and uninstall Nvidia graphic driver.

It seems that the eGPU is working fine now. It is funny that the higher the setting I choose for SWTOR, the smoother the card run, i got more fps when playing high setting than medium setting with lower resolution. Now every time I want to use the eGPU, I just connect the eGPU, turn on the laptop boot to windows and the external monitor will turn on without using startup.bat or chainload (I still got 2 boot option for Win and DIY in Boot Manager).

I guess the eGPU is not working with it full potential is a normal issues as it is not supposed to be like working on a normal desktop. Since the card is a OC version, using EVGA oc tool helps a bit with the game fps. I try eGPU for the sole purpose of playing SWTOR in max setting, looking through some threats I found out that the game seems to depend more on the CPU and the GTX 550 ti I have is enough to play the game in max setting, the i5 m460 seems to be the problem for the reduction in fps.

[daver160]

Congratulations! I'm sure that though you are not getting full performance from the egpu, it is still much better than the gt420 that you have.

You'll have to let us know ow how well its working for you, such as benchmarks, if you have the time to do so. Also, it would be fantastic if you could create a thread, similar to this and the others, describing how you got your egpu to work. That way anyone else with a L501x can follow your steps to get it to work!

[Tech Inferno Fan]

It seems that the eGPU is working fine now. It is funny that the higher the setting I choose for SWTOR, the smoother the card run, i got more fps when playing high setting than medium setting with lower resolution. Now every time I want to use the eGPU, I just connect the eGPU, turn on the laptop boot to windows and the external monitor will turn on without using startup.bat or chainload (I still got 2 boot option for Win and DIY in Boot Manager).

I guess the eGPU is not working with it full potential is a normal issues as it is not supposed to be like working on a normal desktop. Since the card is a OC version, using EVGA oc tool helps a bit with the game fps. I try eGPU for the sole purpose of playing SWTOR in max setting, looking through some threats I found out that the game seems to depend more on the CPU and the GTX 550 ti I have is enough to play the game in max setting, the i5 m460 seems to be the problem for the reduction in fps.

Your L501x is a Series-5 system that has no iGPU and runs pci-e 1.1. So you are getting straight x1 1.0 performance. This is substantially lower than a L502x which has an iGPU and Series-6 chipset capable of pci-e 2.x. Using a PE4L 2.1b and NVidia card will see x1.2Opt performance.

To extract better performance from your eGPU gear consider upgrading the notebook to say a pci-e 2.0 capable system with an expresscard slot and iGPU. Budget options being 15.6" HP Probook 4530s, Lenovo E520 or Dell Vostro 3550. You'd also need to offload the PE4H 2.4 and acquire a PE4L 2.1b.

@daver160 , I did you manage to get your Gen2 PE4L 2.1b gear sorted? I was going to add you to the implementations list but am waiting to see if you'll be updating this thread to be a GTX650Ti @x1.2Opt one.

[daver160]

@daver160 , I did you manage to get your Gen2 PE4L 2.1b gear sorted? I was going to add you to the implementations list but am waiting to see if you'll be updating this thread to be a GTX650Ti @x1.2Opt one.

Not yet, but I will definitely go forward with the PE4L kit. The guys at HIT often take a while to respond to mail, so I'm still waiting to hear back from them. I will definitely post updates to my benchmarks when I have it running!

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Not yet, but I will definitely go forward with the PE4L kit. The guys at HIT often take a while to respond to mail, so I'm still waiting to hear back from them. I will definitely post updates to my benchmarks when I have it running!

Great. I too was waiting for the updated benchmarks before I added you to the implementations section. Then you'll be further up the ranks.

mrbauer has confirmed mPCIe extender adapter has been confirmed to work at Gen2 speed. You may consider purchasing and installing the adapter as a safeguard against mPCIe slot wear. REF: http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2958-pe4l-pm060a-mini-pcie-extender-2.html#post42470

[Zhengyang Liu]

Could you plz tend me your startup.bat? I am having trouble with it.

My email address: [email protected]

Thank you very much,

[cri-cri]

Hi, I'm having a problem. My L502X can not detect my egpu(gtx 560ti).

What I did is uninstall my gt525m and installing my egpu, I think I installed it in right way, both fans of egpu and psu are working and there is a green LED and a yellow LED appear on my PE4L.

Then, after I restart my laptop, it can only detect the gt525m and install its drive automatically.

Please help.

I'm having exactly the same problem here. My system cannot see the eGPU no matter what I do.

With L502x off, if I switch eGPU on (4-pin flopppy cable + 6-pin pcie cable connected): both eGPU and PSU fans are on, eGPU fan on max.

SW2 on 1-2, D1 is green and D4 is red. Switch on laptop > D4 goes off, eGPU fan stays on max.

SW2 on 1-2, D1 is green, D3 is yellow and D4 is red. Switch on laptop > D4 goes off, eGPU fan stays on max.

With eGPU off, laptop on > sleep, switch on eGPU, fan and leds same as above > resume: leds same as above but eGPU fan goes to medium.

Same behavior on Windows and Linux. In linux, lspci doesn't show anything. I've tried: susped > power on eGPU > resume; hotplug mpcie adapter etc. Nothing.

PE4L v. 2.1b from HIT, GTX 650, Seasonic G-360. Graphic card and PSU have been tested with a i7 desktop, they both work fine so it's not that. Could anyone with a working eGPU on L502x + PE4L post some details on their setup (SW* settings etc) ?

Thanks !

[hchris]

Hello,

try both PCI-e slots (one is W-Lan, the other one is TV/WWAN).

If this doesn't work, your PE4L is maybe broken.

Sorry for bad English...

Good Luck!!!

[Muswolf]

Hello, I would like to setup an eGPU with my l502x.

i7, GT540M, 6GB RAM, Windows 8 64 bit.

I know I need a PSU, GPU, an adapter to connect the laptop to the GPU and the 1.x software from HIT.

In terms of GPU's I'm considering the GTX 650Ti, same as OP but EVGA branded:

http://imperialprice.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=549160

In terms of PSU would this do? : http://imperialprice.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=553997 Here is the info page for it, it says it has dual +12V outputs. http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6615

Thanks for your time and setting up this thread!

EDIT: I have a spare laptop charger, rated at 65W, 19.5V and 3.34A, could I use this instead of a PSU?

EDIT 2: I like the look of this setup:

PE4L-L06A-PM3N so I can get the GPU on and connect it to my laptop! I think this is second gen too as PE4L. Anything wrong/better with/than this? Thanks!

[daver160]

In terms of GPU's I'm considering the GTX 650Ti, same as OP but EVGA branded:

EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti ( Retail , Mini - HDMI, 2x DVI )

In terms of PSU would this do? : Cooler Master Elite 460W Here is the info page for it, it says it has dual +12V outputs. Elite Power 460W - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case, Cooler, Power Supply, Laptop Cooling, Gaming Peripherals

Yup, that PSU should do fine. On the Coolermaster website, you'll see that the output on the 12V1/12V2 rails is set to 18amps (~200W), so that should be plenty of power for the GPU. Even an Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 requires 195W (12V @ 16.25A).

EDIT: I have a spare laptop charger, rated at 65W, 19.5V and 3.34A, could I use this instead of a PSU?

You could use this to power the PE4L board, but it does not provide enough output to power a GPU, unless you are using a very old GPU that doesn't require much power. You could get by with a mid range GPU like the ATI 7750 (~50W) or Nvidia GT 630 (~50W). The problem is that these cards may require a 6-pin PCI cable to provide power to the GPU, and your spare laptop charger may not be able to provide enough stable throughput to both the PE4L and the GPU together.

EDIT 2: I like the look of this setup: [ATTACH=CONFIG]6945[/ATTACH]

PE4L-L06A-PM3N so I can get the GPU on and connect it to my laptop! I think this is second gen too as PE4L. Anything wrong/better with/than this? Thanks!

I can't confirm 100%, but that looks liek the PE4L v1.5, which is not guaranteed to be PCI-E 2.0 compatible. People are reporting that non-soldered PE4L/PE4H packages do not provide guaranteed PCI-E 2.0 compatibility.

You should look at teh PE4L v2.1, which is PCI-E 2.0 compatible. This will increase the overall performance of the GPU, and give you the best bang for buck. The PE4L v2.1 is a single piece of hardware, all 3 parts are soldered together. It's inconvenient in this regard, but again, it's the best bang for buck package.

[Muswolf]

Okay I'll buy the PSU and GPU.

Yeah after some reading I found that it isn't.

The PE4L v2.1 - I can't find anything with a mPCIe adapter included?

EDIT: On their page it says this "PE4L-PMxxxA allows user to test PCI Express Add-in-Card on the PCI Express mini card (mPCIe) slot."

ie the PE4L-PM060A has the mPCIe on the end? So I should buy that?

Thanks for replying!

[daver160]

Okay I'll buy the PSU and GPU.

Yeah after some reading I found that it isn't.

The PE4L v2.1 - I can't find anything with a mPCIe adapter included?

EDIT: On their page it says this "PE4L-PMxxxA allows user to test PCI Express Add-in-Card on the PCI Express mini card (mPCIe) slot."

ie the PE4L-PM060A has the mPCIe on the end? So I should buy that?

Thanks for replying!

Yes! The PMxxxA is basically the mPCIe adapter soldered directly to the cable (and the cable is soldered to the PE4L board).

[Muswolf]

Okay thanks! As this is PCI 2.0 compatible what will the speeds be like? Comparable to desktop performance or not?

[daver160]

Okay thanks! As this is PCI 2.0 compatible what will the speeds be like? Comparable to desktop performance or not?

That's hard to completely objectively quantify since even identical systems will see slightly different levels of performance. Right now I am able to get a steady 40+fps in all games running 1920x1080 with High settings. Sometimes it dips a little bit to 30fps, but it will pop right back up again.

You definitely won't get 100% desktop performance, but you'll get close to it. I am assuming that I'm getting about 80-90% of my card's full performance, due to the loss of throughput from the compression and PCI-e compatibility.

Take my PE4H eGPU right now. Even though I am running 1.1Opt, I'm still getting great framerates in most games, even at 1920x1080 resolution. There are some limitations I am finding, such as streaming/capturing in-game video, but this is likely due to the difference in PCI compression through Optimus. In terms of in-game performance, however, I can only estimate that PCI-E 2.0 (or 1.2Opt) would give me about 15-20% performance boost (based on Nando's [email protected] vs [email protected]? Keep in mind that the GTX 660 is more powerful than the GTX 650 Ti, so I would expect at the very maximum a 20% boost in gaming performance if I upgraded to 1.2Opt (which I am planning to do soon, still waiting to hear back from HIT).

[Muswolf]

That's hard to completely objectively quantify since even identical systems will see slightly different levels of performance. Right now I am able to get a steady 40+fps in all games running 1920x1080 with High settings. Sometimes it dips a little bit to 30fps, but it will pop right back up again.

You definitely won't get 100% desktop performance, but you'll get close to it. I am assuming that I'm getting about 80-90% of my card's full performance, due to the loss of throughput from the compression and PCI-e compatibility.

Take my PE4H eGPU right now. Even though I am running 1.1Opt, I'm still getting great framerates in most games, even at 1920x1080 resolution. There are some limitations I am finding, such as streaming/capturing in-game video, but this is likely due to the difference in PCI compression through Optimus. In terms of in-game performance, however, I can only estimate that PCI-E 2.0 (or 1.2Opt) would give me about 15-20% performance boost (based on Nando's [email protected] vs [email protected]? Keep in mind that the GTX 660 is more powerful than the GTX 650 Ti, so I would expect at the very maximum a 20% boost in gaming performance if I upgraded to 1.2Opt (which I am planning to do soon, still waiting to hear back from HIT).

Okay. And I'll still lose some performance when running on the internal screen? I take it HIT will release an update for your PE4H to do 1.2Opt or will you buy a new one?

Thanks for your help. I've ordered the PE4L-PM06A it's just got a 60cm cable. I'll order the PSU and GPU tonight. Will I need setup 1.x or such a program?

EDIT: Decided to go for a GTX 650 Ti Boost as it has performance comparable to the GTX 660.

EDIT 2: GPU: http://www.waeplus.co.uk/item/281658/Pali2GB-D5-X-GTX660--------------------R?ref=gooshop#back

PSU: http://www.waeplus.co.uk/item/206153/Elite-Power-RS-400-PSAR-J3---Power-suppl#back

Looks good? The GTX 660 > GTX 650 Ti Boost so I picked that, and it's £1 cheaper.

[daver160]

There's no real updates to a eGPU kit, it's all on the hardware level so I need to buy a new eGPU kit. I currently have the PE4H v2.4, and I am planning to upgrade to the PE4L v2.1

The GPU looks good. I only have the GTX 650 Ti because it was on sale and has great mid-to-high end performance. It doesn't perform nearly as well as the higher GTX tiered GPUs, but I'm not one of those who nitpick on the framerates in every game - I don't expect min. 60fps @ 1080p in a CryEngine based game, I'm perfectly happy with 40fps @ 720p.

And yes, you will need to use Setup 1.x software, to get around the dGPU issue. Our laptops have a dGPU GT525M/540M, which you need to disable in order to make room for the eGPU. This process must be run every time you boot the machine. Hopefully you won't run into the same problems I had with allocating PCI space!