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eGPU experiences [version 2.0]


Tech Inferno Fan

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Windows 7 was going to be my next attempt. Even if that doesn't work I wanted to upgrade anyways. I ordered a copy from amazon should be here tomorrow actually. So we'll see how that goes. Again, thank you very much for your input. You ran the dsdt fix and were successful? I'll have to search that then. 2gb is lame.

Upgraded to win 7 today and still stuck with same issue. No errors with 2 gb of ram, just won't utilize the external graphics card. No signal coming from the hdmi cable. When I go into display it just shows default LCD monitor on (blank)........ Thats if the dgpu is disabled. I'm lost. Should I switch to a nvidia card? Could it be the two ati drivers not being able to coexist with each other? @Tech Inferno Fan would you be kind enough to make an exception and give me some advice other than directing me to the vidock support/return reply you normally give to ppl like me. Dealing with them has been a nightmare. They send me one liner suggestions every other day. Makes me feel like I know more about this than they do. They suggest the most obvious things that a 10 year old would have already tried. Thanks buzz for your help. I'll get it working somehow.

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How to direct NBR users here without getting into any trouble



Gents & maybe a few ladies(?), I see there is some cross correspondance between here and NBR. Anybody still on NBR can redirect traffic here easy enough without getting into any trouble. How? The last addition made by moderator "2.0" on the first post of the NBR DIY eGPU experiences thread right at the bottom says:



Quote

Alternative thread for more recent discussion can be found here: New Updated Location





Meaning you can quote that to direct users here. Here's the exact VBulletin code you can copy and paste to do that:[H]
Quote

Alternative thread for more recent discussion can be found here: New Updated Location

[10charchar][/HTML]



I'm currently endeavoring to have the first post of the DIY eGPU thread on NBR removed using a DMCA takedown. That older version has some critical mistakes particularly relating to Thunderbolt that may lead users astray. It's also a copyright infringement on NBR's part if they continue to host that information against my wishes as is the case now. Can see the link in my sig for more details if interested.



HD7xxx gamechanger? Request: PCIe Speed Test results for older Intel + AMD HD5xxx/HD6xxx cards



Performance of older Intel chipsets along with HD4xxx/HD5xxx/HD6xxx cards appeared to be crippled to half-duplex levels. A workaround for core2duo systems was the x1E tweak but none was available for Series-5 systems. Unfortunately I never ran PCIe Speed Test to confirm if indeed it was a half-duplex bandwidth result.



We are now seeing HD7xxx cards perform extremely well with latest Sandy/Ivy Bridge systems, eg here making it an alternative to x1.2Opt NVidia eGPUs. Problem is it's not clear if AMD's newer HD7xxx cards or Intel's newer Series-6/Series-7 chipset have corrected the performance issue. We can find do some probing to find out.



Best would be if someone has say a core2duo or 1st gen i-core system + HD5xxx and HD7xxx system, can run PCIe Speed Test and see if there is a discrepancy between the older and newer AMD card's results.



If the new HD7xxx cards do show full bandwidth results on these older systems then systems previously marked as poor eGPU candidates (x1-only dGPU-equipped Series-5 or older or ones incapable of x1.Opt) may have a new lease on life via a HD7xxx eGPU. Equally x2 capable systems like kizwan's i7-720QM + HD5870@x2 may see impressive performance improvements going a HD7xxx@x2 configuration.
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Hey @Tech Inferno Fan, do you mind helping me out with the power consumption questions? I've purchased a 650 Ti (94W max) and the PE4L-EC2C 2.1b, but am not sure if I can get away with getting just a 120W 12V@10A PSU. Hope you can shed some light on my previous post whenever you see this. Thanks!

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D-48.html#post35637

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Simple search on YouTube yield this JBA: ViDock 4 - Unbox, Hardware Setup, Software Setup, and Demo Videos , he had the same issue and offered a fix.

First thing I tried. Followed his instructions. Display only drivers, disabled on board graphics. My computer just doesn't boot using the external card. It's so frustrating. Villagetronic can't figure it out. If the vidock doesn't work with my setup. The DIY eGPU wouldn't either. So I'm screwed either way. Anyone? @Tech Inferno Fan?

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Just wanted to write that my eGPU setup was a success! It was so easy to setup, basically plug and play.

My setup:

HP 2560P (i7-2620M, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD)

Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP 2560x1600 30" Monitor

EVGA GTX680 SC

Corsair CX500

PE4L 2.1B

Results: A quick 3DMark11 benchmark test with stock drivers, stock clocks, and Nvidia sliders to Maximum QUALITY (not Performance) yieled a very nice score that, according to 3DMark's Results search, is just as strong as SLI 580M's, wow! The performance has exceeded my expectations!

Here are some pictures:

img20121228115856.jpg

img20121228115834.jpg

weis.png

3dmark11stocksettingsan.png

Thank you so much to Nando and Unreal for answering all of my questions, you guys rock!

Will update with gaming or other benchmarks if requested, just let me know!

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Hello,

Newbie here, I'm trying my hand at building an eGPU HD6870 setup for my Dell Vostro 3560 (i7-3632 + 7670m, H77, pcie x1 2.0 expresscard).

Currently using PE4L 2.1b and 450w PSU; the 6870 takes 2x 6-pin.

I've run into something peculiar: simply powering the PE4L + 6870 via floppy & 6-pins I can only get the fans to spin up maybe 1/10 attempts. Connecting to laptop before starting the card also does not improve this. Could this is insufficient power? how would I be able to check? I was reading the faqs which suggested adding the 5v USB input, but would this risk frying the PE4L or the HD6870 by doubling the input with 3.3v? (note: HD6870 and PSU pulled from working desktop so I am not suspecting these to be the cause)

On the rare occasion that I manage to get the card fans to spin up, the PE4L and card are recognized in Windows (have tried Win7 and Win8) automagically. However I quickly get BSOD error (atikmdag.sys/atikmpag.sys errors) once the card is recognized, but I suspect this is driver issue more than anything else.

Would be great to hear if anyone else experienced similar issues and if you managed to solve it!

eGPU power issue resolved: my psu needed time to warm up before being able to power the 6870, I was able to consistently get it to 'boot' (eg. full fan speed) by setting the PE4L switch SW1 to 2 (delay 500ms).

My Dell Vostro 3560 has TOLUD of 9FA00000 (2.5GB) and Win8 detects my eGPU (it gets 256mb + 128mb allocated), however I cannot get it to work with my existing dGPU (radeon 7670M) - always get "error 43" and BSOD from atikmdag.sys conflict. Looks like I'll have to buy setup 1.x and try disable the dGPU.

Q: does setup 1.x support disabling dGPU on newest H77 (Ivy bridge series-7?) chipsets?

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First, Thank you very much Nando4 for all your work. I've been reading a lot on eGPU since i bought my X220 in january and never thanked you for your time and work.

Been messing with my GTX 660 ti recently. I was planning to go on holiday with my setup as usual (Seasonic 520 M12II, PE4L 2.1b and good old GTX 660ti), but i encountered a problem with my PSU, it was making scratch noise and the laptop would crash on gaming, meaning the PSU was dead.

So I decided to try and make something out my old Xbox 360 203w PSU. After some quick soldering, i'm pretty satisfied with the result :

img1264g.th.jpg

Test went smoothly and everything is working fine so far. I did a quick benchmark with my Lenovo X220, on 3D Mark 11 :

benchf.th.png

specs :

Core i7 2640m

Memory : 8gb Corsair Vengeance PC15000 CAS 10

SSD OCZ Nocti mSata 120gb

Gainward Geforce GTX 660 ti (base model)

Now, i want to make an enclosure with easy mounting for the graphic card, because i swap it between my main computer and my laptop, don't have enough money to buy another one.

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Hey @Tech Inferno Fan, do you mind helping me out with the power consumption questions? I've purchased a 650 Ti (94W max) and the PE4L-EC2C 2.1b, but am not sure if I can get away with getting just a 120W 12V@10A PSU. Hope you can shed some light on my previous post whenever you see this. Thanks!

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D-48.html#post35637

Usually power supplies are rated in peak power output, not sustainable. The 94W needs to be sustainable, and preferably you should have some breathing room. The 120W is cutting it close. Even if it does work, the voltage will be dropping below 12V, putting more strain on the graphics card's voltage regulators.

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So minimum 12V @ 8A = 96W sustainable. If 10A is not sufficient, how much headroom should I aim for? Is there any portable external power adapter that can supply that much current?

Do I need a PSU with 5V line as well (how would I know if the expresscard would provide enough power for whatever it supplies)?

Is there any pictorial guides of how the modded Xbox PSU looks like? I've seen the schematic but I'm curious to see if people have stripped the Xbox connector and just electrical taped the wires together or what?

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So I got my issue fixed by simply switching to an nvidia card. As soon as I disabled thr dgpu in device manager it immdiately displayed on my external screen. It had to be a driver issue with the two ati cards (built in) and eGPU not being able to coexist in the same system. It was like they were fighting each other.

So I'm all set with the display but I had to reduce to 2gb of RAM. I do have DIY eGPU setup 1.x. I have learned the jist of it but I can't get the compaction to work. Can anyone help me with my RAM issue? I'm currently getting code 12 when trying to boot up using 3gb. Reduce to 2gb and it runs fine.

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So I got my issue fixed by simply switching to an nvidia card. As soon as I disabled thr dgpu in device manager it immdiately displayed on my external screen. It had to be a driver issue with the two ati cards (built in) and eGPU not being able to coexist in the same system. It was like they were fighting each other.

So I'm all set with the display but I had to reduce to 2gb of RAM. I do have DIY eGPU setup 1.x. I have learned the jist of it but I can't get the compaction to work. Can anyone help me with my RAM issue? I'm currently getting code 12 when trying to boot up using 3gb. Reduce to 2gb and it runs fine.

Use the DSDT override, it is easier to implement and the instructions are laid out very well. http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D.html#post27379 I got the compaction on setup 1.x to work with my dgpu (nvidia gt 230m) and my egpu (radeon HD 6950), but it always failed to start up. Try DSDT override and if it doesn't work, you can always remove it. It is just a simple registry override.

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Did a 3D Mark 11 test with laptop screen and scored 6791

Score on external screen was 6956.

Is it possible to lose so few performance ? :/

Frame rates in 3dm11 are pretty low, so there is not much extra traffic over the PCI-E link. Internal screen performance becomes worse compared to external monitor performance as the fps increase.

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Hi everybody!

Does anybody know what to do about an

dsdt_TP_eGPU-8D.dsl 7109: Name (_IRC, 0x00)

Error 4103 - Reserved name must be a control method ^ (with zero arguments)

If I change _IRC to some other sequence of letters the error disappears but is this ok?

Because when i try to run the asl thing i get

C:\Users\WAXXEZ\DSDI>%asl%\asl /loadtable dsdt_TP_eGPU-8D.aml

Microsoft ACPI Source Language Assembler Version 4.0.0NT [Aug 28 2009, 18:36:36]

Copyright © 1996,2009 Microsoft Corporation

Compliant with the ACPI 4.0 Specification

Image signature (/*

) not recognized in update image (dsdt_TP_eGPU-8D.aml)

anyone knows what i do wrong?

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Hi. It's good to post my first posting :)

Perhaps some of you(maybe most) may know of this already. I am a newbie when it comes to eGPU, and everything related to this is quite new to me, and I want to know if anyone in this forum shares this experience with me.

I have ThinkPad X201 Tablet(i7 620LM, Intel 320 SSD 120GB, 8GB 10600 RAM). Recently I bought PE4H 2.4a, and ASUS GTX650 ECO(With no 6-pin power, so you can run it without ATX PSU)

I had some very hard time trying to get it work, but none of the methods discussed here seemed to work properly to me :( don't really know why...maybe I just wasn't reading real carefully.

I tried various attempts to make my machine allocate the memory properly but wasn't really getting there until I tried to boot the computer with eGPU plugged in...(I already tried this and already knew my machine fails to boot with eGPU plugged in...you know, the blank screen and "system configuration changed issue" so it was kind of my last resort) right after pressing the power button, I decided it was not a good idea after all, and pulled the card out...then the thing worked!!! WTF!!!?? I don't even need Setup 1.x, I can even hotplug it on Windows without making it sleep, work perfectly fine on Windows 7 and 8. You can even do that Optimus thing... I tested with hours of videogames already and there was no problem...system is perfectly stable.

So, this is what I figured out. You power it up with the card plugged in, and pull it out right before the display comes up. Hotplug it at Windows environment... thats it

My speculation:

So the computer initializes the devices and allocates memory at powerup. When external graphics card is detected, it routes disp. sig. to the card, which results in various problems because laptop is not made to do such thing.

If you unplug the card after the devices are initialized and memory is allocated properly, but still before display sig. is sent out, the sig. goed out to internal graphics card, and system boots up normally. But at the background, the memory for eGPU is allocated and is ready for hotplug.

I think if I could save this initial memory status and dump it at startup, I could replicate the status without this unplugging thing. Maybe this could be an universial solution because every computer does has Dev. Init. sequence at powerup.

Can you try this out and tell me if you can replicate this on your settings? If connection is this easy, maybe I could convince my boss to develop a new preconfigured eGPU product.

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Hey everyone, need a little help booting into Setup 1.x. I've got a Dell Studio 1458 running Win7 x64, and my PE4H and GTX650 Ti are hooked up and functioning properly (at x1) after booting into Windows. I ran "setup-disk-image.bat" as an administrator, and that seems to have worked as one would expect. I could see C:\eGPU and grub.mbr/menu.1st in the root of C:\ after that. I'm not getting an error 12 or anything like that, but I am experiencing a grub loader error when I try to boot into Setup 1.x (picture attached). It stalls at (hd0, 2) and will not proceed any further. Can anyone tell me why I'm experiencing this, or how I might fix it? Where is it looking for "grub.exe"?

I thought it might have something to do with the BCD entry attempting to load grub.mbr from a NTFS partition, so I created a 50MB FAT16 volume (Y:\) on my hard drive, copied the C:\eGPU folder into the root of Y:\ (so that Y:\eGPU exists in the root), and changed the BCD entry to point to Y:\ instead of C:\. All the same files and directories exist in Y:\ as they do in C:\ (Y:\eGPU\grub.mbr, etc.), but I'm still running into this this same problem ( no grub.exe ).

Somebody please help! I need to squeeze all the juice out of this video card..

Thanks in advance..

post-8670-14494994098603_thumb.jpg

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Hey folks,

I apologize in advance for the inexperience that should be evident in this post. I've been trying to follow the various eGPU threads in this forum and NBR, and information is just so spread out and there's a lot of questions that aren't answered in FAQs, so I wanted to just make a brief post before I put down a bunch of money to make sure that my understanding of everything is correct. I posted these questions in a separate thread but I think that may have been the wrong place for them.

My overall goal is to get rid of my desktop computer (Shuttle XPC w/ Core i7 880) and my laptop (13" MBA 2011) and have a single system that I can use for work (I'm in IT technical sales) and play (I do a lot of PC gaming at home). After lots of research, I think I've figured out that unless I wait for Haswell the best machine I can get is the Lenovo Thinkpad T430s. It's less than 4 pounds, has an optical drive, has good docking station options, and has both ExpressCard and Thunderbolt for eGPU capability. It's also "business appropriate" so I can bring it to customer presentations and such without raising suspicion.

My plan is to take my AMD Radeon 6850 out of my desktop, connect it to a TH05 (still not sure what to do around enclosure/PSU stuff but I'll hopefully get that all figured out), and use that for my eGPU with the Thunderbolt port. Then I can come home, plop the laptop in the dock, connect the Thunderbolt cable, and be off to the races.

I just have a couple questions regarding the TH05 that I'm not sure have been answered. I've read the threads about doing this on a Mac, and I've also read threads about using ExpressCard in older Thinkpads, but here's what I'm wondering:

  1. Will the solution be plug-and-play? Can I bring the laptop home, put it in the dock, bring it out of Standby, and suddenly the eGPU works? Or will I need to reboot? There was some mention of it being like this on Macs with EFI Windows 8, but what about BIOS Windows7 or 8?
  2. Since it's Thunderbolt, will I encounter any TOLUD/DSDT issues? I've seen some other folks mention that the T430s has a lower TOLUD, and I'd like to avoid the reboots and such associated with Setup 1.1x as much as possible.
  3. Has anyone had any success with the T430s? There was one gentlemen on here who said he got it working but I haven't seen any benchmarks or details.

Appreciate the clarifications on any of this. I'm hoping that if everything looks good I'll move forward with getting the various parts in January and I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

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Hey - I've been everywhere trying to solve my error 12 issue. Anyone had any luck with a MacBook Air, TH05, GTX6XX setup?

I've got to the point where the Thunderbolt port and the GPU is recognized in Device Manager, but I still get this error 12 for insufficient resources. I haven't the faintest idea on how to perform a DSDT override or even if this is the right thing to do. How do I check this? I can't seem to find PNP0A08 or PNP0A03 devices in Device Manager.

[MacBook Air, TH05, GTX670, Antek VP450w] I'm soo close!!! Please help!

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Hey everyone, need a little help booting into Setup 1.x. I've got a Dell Studio 1458 running Win7 x64, and my PE4H and GTX650 Ti are hooked up and functioning properly (at x1) after booting into Windows. I ran "setup-disk-image.bat" as an administrator, and that seems to have worked as one would expect. I could see C:\eGPU and grub.mbr/menu.1st in the root of C:\ after that. I'm not getting an error 12 or anything like that, but I am experiencing a grub loader error when I try to boot into Setup 1.x (picture attached). It stalls at (hd0, 2) and will not proceed any further. Can anyone tell me why I'm experiencing this, or how I might fix it? Where is it looking for "grub.exe"?

I thought it might have something to do with the BCD entry attempting to load grub.mbr from a NTFS partition, so I created a 50MB FAT16 volume (Y:\) on my hard drive, copied the C:\eGPU folder into the root of Y:\ (so that Y:\eGPU exists in the root), and changed the BCD entry to point to Y:\ instead of C:\. All the same files and directories exist in Y:\ as they do in C:\ (Y:\eGPU\grub.mbr, etc.), but I'm still running into this this same problem ( no grub.exe ).

Somebody please help! I need to squeeze all the juice out of this video card..

Thanks in advance..

In case setup-disk-image hasn't done it, copy grub.exe from c:\eGPU to c:\

Hey folks,

I apologize in advance for the inexperience that should be evident in this post. I've been trying to follow the various eGPU threads in this forum and NBR, and information is just so spread out and there's a lot of questions that aren't answered in FAQs, so I wanted to just make a brief post before I put down a bunch of money to make sure that my understanding of everything is correct. I posted these questions in a separate thread but I think that may have been the wrong place for them.

My overall goal is to get rid of my desktop computer (Shuttle XPC w/ Core i7 880) and my laptop (13" MBA 2011) and have a single system that I can use for work (I'm in IT technical sales) and play (I do a lot of PC gaming at home). After lots of research, I think I've figured out that unless I wait for Haswell the best machine I can get is the Lenovo Thinkpad T430s. It's less than 4 pounds, has an optical drive, has good docking station options, and has both ExpressCard and Thunderbolt for eGPU capability. It's also "business appropriate" so I can bring it to customer presentations and such without raising suspicion.

My plan is to take my AMD Radeon 6850 out of my desktop, connect it to a TH05 (still not sure what to do around enclosure/PSU stuff but I'll hopefully get that all figured out), and use that for my eGPU with the Thunderbolt port. Then I can come home, plop the laptop in the dock, connect the Thunderbolt cable, and be off to the races.

I just have a couple questions regarding the TH05 that I'm not sure have been answered. I've read the threads about doing this on a Mac, and I've also read threads about using ExpressCard in older Thinkpads, but here's what I'm wondering:

  1. Will the solution be plug-and-play? Can I bring the laptop home, put it in the dock, bring it out of Standby, and suddenly the eGPU works? Or will I need to reboot? There was some mention of it being like this on Macs with EFI Windows 8, but what about BIOS Windows7 or 8?
  2. Since it's Thunderbolt, will I encounter any TOLUD/DSDT issues? I've seen some other folks mention that the T430s has a lower TOLUD, and I'd like to avoid the reboots and such associated with Setup 1.1x as much as possible.
  3. Has anyone had any success with the T430s? There was one gentlemen on here who said he got it working but I haven't seen any benchmarks or details.

Appreciate the clarifications on any of this. I'm hoping that if everything looks good I'll move forward with getting the various parts in January and I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

I note implementations that come with benchmarks. There have been sprinklings of discussion about Lenovo S430 and T430s having successful DIY eGPU implementations but details have been scarce. Perhaps you can fill in the blanks for others to duplicate your findings? AFAIK, TOLUD issues have been resolved with the latest Lenovo bios which incorporates a dynamic TOLUD. Upon detecting a eGPU on bootup the bios will decrease TOLUD to accomodate it.

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Hi,

I extracted the .dsl file with iasl-20120913, edited it and then compiled and loaded it with ASL 4.0.0NT. The output was "Table overloading succeeded."

The registry entry does appear in System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ACPI\Parameters\DSDT\FUJ___\FJNBB13_\01060000.

But it is being ignored. No Large Memory entry appears in the device manager. I know that it's being ignored because normally when you install a DSDT override and then change the memory layout, for example by removing a memory stick, Windows will bluescreen on reboot. It does not.

Maybe the registry location for DSDT overrides changed?

Some observations I had on Windows 8:

Windows 8 reacts differently to the TOLUD issue. When a device gets connected for which Windows 8 can't allocate enough memory, it does not show Error Code 12. Instead there is an error message saying - I'm translating now, so it might not be correct - 'No drivers are installed for this device' in the Device Status field in Device Manager, even though there are drivers installed (I previously verified that the eGPU was working by removing memory to circumvent the TOLUD issue and the device manager even shows the correct driver version). Screenshot.

I can verify that I'm hitting the exact same DSDT override issue as psychotoxic on windows 8 with a Dell Latitude e6500. After asl /loadtable, the operating system does not acknowledge that anything has changed.

It would appear a DSDT override on Windows 8 may require new instructions (once we figure it out).

Styx

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I can verify that I'm hitting the exact same DSDT override issue as psychotoxic on windows 8 with a Dell Latitude e6500. After asl /loadtable, the operating system does not acknowledge that anything has changed.

It would appear a DSDT override on Windows 8 may require new instructions (once we figure it out).

Styx

Win8 enumerates the DSDT table from the in-memory version on every boot. It no longer allows a DSDT override. Need to do a in-memory DSDT substitution instead as covered in the DSDT override docs here confirmed by psychotoxic here.

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Win8 enumerates the DSDT table from the in-memory version on every boot. It no longer allows a DSDT override. Need to do a in-memory DSDT substitution instead as covered in the DSDT override docs here confirmed by psychotoxic here.

Thanks Tech Inferno Fan. I'm in the process of acquiring Setup 1.x, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Styx

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