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eGPU experiences [version 2.0]


Tech Inferno Fan

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I read this in Nando's testings:

Are there any exceptions where AMD may give better performance?

Yes, AMD is still relevant where:

(1) the candidate system has no iGPU so only external LCD performance is important. AMD can at least go toe-to-toe with NVidia and in some cases like DX9 beat it. REF: http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-g...060a-2-1b.html

(2) the candidate system is only raw x1 2.0 only, eg: SB/IVB expresscard systems, capability where NVidia's pci-e compression doesn't engage. AMD will outperform NVidia in DX9 apps in that situation. REF: http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-g...060a-2-1b.html

Why are SB/IVB expresscard systems only x1 2.0 capable? Shouldn't they be x1.2Opt capable?

I have a Lenovo E520, which is a SB expresscard system so I'd like to be sure I can use the internal screen with Optimus. I supposed it can use internal screen but according to that post of Nando's it seems not.

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In first , i am sorry for my bad english , i am french and i do my best to be understanable.

Hi ,

i have found this forum and i was asking me if i can do that to my old laptop. It's an acer aspire 7530 g , i have upgrade it with an ssd , an turion ultrra zm 82 an some cooling optimisation. I have an express card 54 free port , and my gpu system is a bit unuaslly. It's an hybrid sli , an old version of the optimus , my mxm 9600 m gs work in game and my 9100m g take the work when i go back to desktop / idle .

Do you think an e gpu with the video flux on the laptop screen can work on this system ? I have in stock some good psu , pci express 16x/1x riser and skill with iron gun soldering. I have found a thread where a guy make his own adaptater , i think i will do the same with some capacitor in supply on power line .

What graphic card will i need ? An nvidia well be easier i think ? If yes , what model ? An gtx 460 is very cheap , and my cpu is too low for better performence.

My laptop run on windows 8 , is it an problem ? I can go back to 7 .

Thank you for reading :02.47-tranquillity:

Hello, I also speak french so I'll do it in that way :calm:

Je pense qu'il est possible que tu fasses le montage mais pas sur l'écran de ton portable. A moins que t'aies un processeur Ivy/Sandy avec Intel HD graphics, auquel cas ce sera possible.

Translation: I think it might be possible but not on internal screen, unless you have Ivy/Sandy CPU with Intel HD Graphics, in which case it would be possible.

@phillofoc

Thanks dude for your answer, but I ordered a refunded i7 3632QM. I guess it will be a long term investment, but I'll see when it arrives if there is any effective gain.such as some specific lags which are most in Crysis 3 and BF4 (movement lags and wide areas).

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Hi coyote !

I was thinking , as my hybrid sli is an prototype of the optimus technology , is there someone who have tried it ? In a way , i think the video signal is going trough the igpu 9100m g , the 9600m gs just do the work without beeing physically connected to ths screen.

I will look for it , tha't not a big deal if i can't use the laptop screen , it's just more compfy .

Je me disais que vu que la technologie Hybrid Sli est a l'orrigine de l'Optimus , et que , je pense , le signal vidéo passe par le chipset intégré ( le 9100m g ) le principe serait le même que pour un chipset intégré intel .

J'ai un peu de matos pour tester , je vais voir, par contre la seule nvidia que j'ai de convenable est une 7500 le ... Je vais commencer avec des hd 4850 , sinon je me prend une gtx 460 d'occasion.

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Hi coyote !

I was thinking , as my hybrid sli is an prototype of the optimus technology , is there someone who have tried it ? In a way , i think the video signal is going trough the igpu 9100m g , the 9600m gs just do the work without beeing physically connected to ths screen.

I will look for it , tha't not a big deal if i can't use the laptop screen , it's just more compfy .

Je me disais que vu que la technologie Hybrid Sli est a l'orrigine de l'Optimus , et que , je pense , le signal vidéo passe par le chipset intégré ( le 9100m g ) le principe serait le même que pour un chipset intégré intel .

J'ai un peu de matos pour tester , je vais voir, par contre la seule nvidia que j'ai de convenable est une 7500 le ... Je vais commencer avec des hd 4850 , sinon je me prend une gtx 460 d'occasion.

Ben le problème c'est que t'as demandé si tu pouvais utiliser l'écran du portable et pour cela tu as besoin d'un processeur avec l'iGPU INtel HD. Sinon c'est moniteur externe. C'est quoi ton CPU?

Le hybride SLI ça serait pas le 9100m g et le 9600m gs?

Well the issue is that you asked about internal screen and that's why you need a CPU with iGPU Intel HD. Otherwise you'll need external screen.

What's your CPU?

Hybrid SLI isn't it 9100m G and 9600M GS?

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Si c'est ça , l'hybrid sli c'est le duo 9100m g et 9600m gs , le 9100 est un chipset intégré , comme le 6100 a l'époque et le 9600m gs est une carte mxm , l'hybrid sli switch de l'un à l'autre suivant le besoin de puissance comme le fait l'optimus entre un igp intel et une carte nvidia en mxm . Le processeur est un AMD , un turion ultra zm 82 , c'est du vieux matos mais l'idée est plus de pouvoir jouer un peu quand je rentre chez moi et laisser ma tour, qui elle est plus taillé pour les jeu, dans mon appartement.

That's it , the 9100m eand the 9600m gs work together with the hybrid sli , when i need power , the 9600m work and when i need low energy consumption the 9100m work. I have an old turion ultra zm 82 , amd dual core . Not very powerfull but it's just to play a little when i go back to my parent's house , i don't want to move my gamer rig all the time.

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What variant of the y580 do you have? 1080p display? Give Me some of your fps scores on games running at that resolution.

yeah I have the 1080p display but currently I am using an external display because nando said AMD will deliver a better graphic on external display instead of internal display.

I will update the performance of a few games in a few days time because I'm busy working in the time being and by the way, how can I know if my graphic is running at gen1 or gen2 speed?

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Si c'est ça , l'hybrid sli c'est le duo 9100m g et 9600m gs , le 9100 est un chipset intégré , comme le 6100 a l'époque et le 9600m gs est une carte mxm , l'hybrid sli switch de l'un à l'autre suivant le besoin de puissance comme le fait l'optimus entre un igp intel et une carte nvidia en mxm . Le processeur est un AMD , un turion ultra zm 82 , c'est du vieux matos mais l'idée est plus de pouvoir jouer un peu quand je rentre chez moi et laisser ma tour, qui elle est plus taillé pour les jeu, dans mon appartement.

That's it , the 9100m eand the 9600m gs work together with the hybrid sli , when i need power , the 9600m work and when i need low energy consumption the 9100m work. I have an old turion ultra zm 82 , amd dual core . Not very powerfull but it's just to play a little when i go back to my parent's house , i don't want to move my gamer rig all the time.

Ok; alors désolé mais il est possible d'utiliser l'écran du portable même sans Intel HD. Pour cela il faut que tu te penches sur les méthodes possibles listées sur la première page

4. Can I make this work using just my notebook's LCD display?[h=2]Spoiler[/h]The desktop video card outputs to it's HDMI/VGA/DVI connector. The notebook's LCD display uses a LVDS input on your systemboard with no external jack to connect to it. Meaning then they cannot be physically connected together unless adapt a US$30 ebay kits allowing external input to the internal LCD as discussed, which only quite an advanced user would ever attempt.

Another more elegant solution would use a HDMI input expresscard as described at Play PS3/X360 on laptop screen using new HDMI Input Express Card. . Though current costs of $170 for the item makes it unattractive AND you'd need to then do a mPCIe eGPU implementation.

There are however these less drastic ways of getting your accelerated graphics card to render to the internal LCD, all of which will have lower performance than when running using an external LCD:

  • NVIDIA Optimus driver provides a transparent internal LCD cloning mode for systems with a 4500MHD/HD/HD3000/HD4000 iGPU primary video when using a NVIDIA GTS4xx/GTX4xx card.
  • Use Lucidlogix virtu drivers to provide transparent output using the internal LCD if you have a Sandy Bridge cpu. (timohour)
  • Ultramon/Chung Gun method can clone from the desktop eGPU's window to the internal LCD for windowed games/apps.
  • USB 3.0 framegrabbers have sufficient bandwidth to capture the image from the desktop eGPU and pipe it back to your notebook's display.

It is not feasible to use USB 2.0 framegrabbers. The desktop video card outputs HDMI/S-Video. To try to clone the output from the desktop video card via a USB frame grabber can be done, but consider say 1280x800x32-bit = 4MB per image. If gaming at 30FPS that's 120MB/s bandwidth required. USB 2.0 is 480Mbps (60MB/s in *best case* scenario.. more like 30MB/s in real-life).

Je ne connais pas trop les méthodes, désolé encore. Mais tu voudrais pas acheter un nouveau portable peut-être; avec un meilleur processeur avec Ivy, comme ça tu auras aussi la possibilité d'utiliser 1.2Opt, pour les meilleures perf en jeu. A moins d'acheter un ecran et de le laisser chez tes parents, comme ça t'auras pas à t'occuper d'utiliser l'écran interne.

Ok, sorry but you can use internal screen without Intel HD (see up, first page of this DIY eGPU thread)

I don't know well the methods but you could still buy a new laptop with Ivy bridge to benefit from a more powerful CPU and the ability to use 1.2Opt link.

Otherwise you can simply buy an external monitor and leave it at your parent's place.

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Hi all and Nando.

I'm a nube here and I can't believe I found this fab forum about eGPU's. It's ironic, I drew a picture of what I wanted to do to make a laptop DIY eGPU and took it to a major computer warehouse here, showed it to a tech/salesman and he said can't be done. Twice, 2 different guys. Buy a better lappy both said. Well here I am and I'm gonna pull the trigger on the eGPU as per Nando's forum. Here I discovered the vidock and a couple of others but I'm doing a DIY. You may not believe it but I read over 200 pages here so I'm confident to go.

Here is my proposal: Any flaws - please point them out to me. Thanks in advance - soon as I get the OK here, it's $$$ away. I shall report my experience here.

Machine name: Toshiba Satellite L300 PSLB8A - OFM004

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130708-1532)

System Model: Satellite L300

BIOS: InsydeH2O Version 1.70

Processor: Genuine Intel® CPU 585 @ 2.16GHz, ~2.2GHz

Memory: 2048MB RAM

Available OS Memory: 1916MB RAM

Page File: 1461MB used, 2370MB available

Windows Dir: C:\Windows

DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Card name: Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family

Manufacturer: Intel Corporation

Chip type: Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family

DAC type: Internal

Display Memory: 830 MB

Dedicated Memory: 128 MB

Shared Memory: 702 MB

Express slot1x

PROPOSED SET UP DIY

PE4H 3.2 in thealuminium case + express card <o:p></o

Nvidia GTX460

15-19V DC jack input

(Have: 27" VGA/ DVI/ HDMI monitor for the diy)

Notes: I am hoping to be able to use the laptop screen as well as a dedicated monitor.

Am I good to go - will this work??<o:p>

<o:p> Cheers and thanks.<o:p></o</o</o

It would work sure. However, your performance will be rather weak out of this. You have a series 4 chipset and a lower end / slow CPU. There are reports of other people getting the L300 working with a x2 and x4 link. This would certainly help performance over the single ExpressCard connection.

Would advise offloading your L300 and getting something like the HP 2570P. You would use the PE4L adapter then. With series 6 chipsets and newer you can get a Gen2 link. This is very helpful for eGPU purposes.

See:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/4109-egpu-candidate-system-list-%5Bthin-light%5D.html

Also, you are missing a PSU from your build. You will need power going to your card as well.

I read this in Nando's testings:

Why are SB/IVB expresscard systems only x1 2.0 capable? Shouldn't they be x1.2Opt capable?

I have a Lenovo E520, which is a SB expresscard system so I'd like to be sure I can use the internal screen with Optimus. I supposed it can use internal screen but according to that post of Nando's it seems not.

x1 2.0 = x1.2

the Opt part is optimus compressing when using a Nvidia card + primary Intel iGPU present and active + no dGPU active.

Sooo for example, my GTX 660 Ti connected over ExpressCard at Gen2 speeds would give you the x1.2Opt link.

ExpressCard itself with series 6 chipsets and newer gives the x1.2 (when running at Gen2 speeds)

Hello guys

I already have "large memory" entry in my device manager.

Will I still need DSDT override?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9718[/ATTACH]

My machine config is

Dell vostro 1015

Processor: intel c2d T9600 (I have upgraded from the original t6600)

chipset: intel GM45

RAM: 6GB @800mhz

I have already soldered my EGPU by using @sonny_mv's pin diagram,

but its not detecting the card so far.

If you have the large memory block you probably don't need to perform a DSDT override. I know Dell's can act wonky with a eGPU so either look for another user with a 1015 or maybe @Tech Inferno Fan can chime in on this.

Ben le problème c'est que t'as demandé si tu pouvais utiliser l'écran du portable et pour cela tu as besoin d'un processeur avec l'iGPU INtel HD. Sinon c'est moniteur externe. C'est quoi ton CPU?

Le hybride SLI ça serait pas le 9100m g et le 9600m gs?

Well the issue is that you asked about internal screen and that's why you need a CPU with iGPU Intel HD. Otherwise you'll need external screen.

What's your CPU?

Hybrid SLI isn't it 9100m G and 9600M GS?

Si c'est ça , l'hybrid sli c'est le duo 9100m g et 9600m gs , le 9100 est un chipset intégré , comme le 6100 a l'époque et le 9600m gs est une carte mxm , l'hybrid sli switch de l'un à l'autre suivant le besoin de puissance comme le fait l'optimus entre un igp intel et une carte nvidia en mxm . Le processeur est un AMD , un turion ultra zm 82 , c'est du vieux matos mais l'idée est plus de pouvoir jouer un peu quand je rentre chez moi et laisser ma tour, qui elle est plus taillé pour les jeu, dans mon appartement.

That's it , the 9100m eand the 9600m gs work together with the hybrid sli , when i need power , the 9600m work and when i need low energy consumption the 9100m work. I have an old turion ultra zm 82 , amd dual core . Not very powerfull but it's just to play a little when i go back to my parent's house , i don't want to move my gamer rig all the time.

I'm guessing here, but I'm pretty sure you won't be able to run an eGPU on the internal display with your setup. I know I get errors with the eGPU not wanting to work with my internal displays if my dGPU is on. Since you have two you would have to disable them both for a chance to get it working. Just a guess though.

---

Weee dis wall of text.

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Ok; alors désolé mais il est possible d'utiliser l'écran du portable même sans Intel HD. Pour cela il faut que tu te penches sur les méthodes possibles listées sur la première page

4. Can I make this work using just my notebook's LCD display?Spoiler

The desktop video card outputs to it's HDMI/VGA/DVI connector. The notebook's LCD display uses a LVDS input on your systemboard with no external jack to connect to it. Meaning then they cannot be physically connected together unless adapt a US$30 ebay kits allowing external input to the internal LCD as discussed, which only quite an advanced user would ever attempt.

Another more elegant solution would use a HDMI input expresscard as described at Play PS3/X360 on laptop screen using new HDMI Input Express Card. . Though current costs of $170 for the item makes it unattractive AND you'd need to then do a mPCIe eGPU implementation.

There are however these less drastic ways of getting your accelerated graphics card to render to the internal LCD, all of which will have lower performance than when running using an external LCD:

  • NVIDIA Optimus driver provides a transparent internal LCD cloning mode for systems with a 4500MHD/HD/HD3000/HD4000 iGPU primary video when using a NVIDIA GTS4xx/GTX4xx card.
  • Use Lucidlogix virtu drivers to provide transparent output using the internal LCD if you have a Sandy Bridge cpu. (timohour)
  • Ultramon/Chung Gun method can clone from the desktop eGPU's window to the internal LCD for windowed games/apps.
  • USB 3.0 framegrabbers have sufficient bandwidth to capture the image from the desktop eGPU and pipe it back to your notebook's display.

It is not feasible to use USB 2.0 framegrabbers. The desktop video card outputs HDMI/S-Video. To try to clone the output from the desktop video card via a USB frame grabber can be done, but consider say 1280x800x32-bit = 4MB per image. If gaming at 30FPS that's 120MB/s bandwidth required. USB 2.0 is 480Mbps (60MB/s in *best case* scenario.. more like 30MB/s in real-life).

Je ne connais pas trop les méthodes, désolé encore. Mais tu voudrais pas acheter un nouveau portable peut-être; avec un meilleur processeur avec Ivy, comme ça tu auras aussi la possibilité d'utiliser 1.2Opt, pour les meilleures perf en jeu. A moins d'acheter un ecran et de le laisser chez tes parents, comme ça t'auras pas à t'occuper d'utiliser l'écran interne.

Ok, sorry but you can use internal screen without Intel HD (see up, first page of this DIY eGPU thread)

I don't know well the methods but you could still buy a new laptop with Ivy bridge to benefit from a more powerful CPU and the ability to use 1.2Opt link.

Otherwise you can simply buy an external monitor and leave it at your parent's place.

Je n'ai pas besoin d'acheter un autre portable , ma tour est largement asse puissante pour jouer au jeux récent , la c'était plus pour des petit jeu occasionnel comme CS GO , j'ai un écran en 1600*1050 qui traine donc je vais essayer pour voir ce que ça donne. Tan pis ça restera à demeure la bas .

I don't need to buy an other laptop , my desktop rig is far enought powerfull to play game , the idea was just for some little game like counter strike global offensive , i hav got an spare screen so i will try to see if it work .

I'm guessing here, but I'm pretty sure you won't be able to run an eGPU on the internal display with your setup. I know I get errors with the eGPU not wanting to work with my internal displays if my dGPU is on. Since you have two you would have to disable them both for a chance to get it working. Just a guess though.

Ok , i can disable the mxm gpu in bios so i wil try with an external screen. At least that will save some Mb/s and maybe increase fps .

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@angerthosenear thank you.

Btw, my system is now detecting my egpu. I had to disable the inbuilt SDHC Cardreader from BIOS for that(that freed up some PCIE space i guess).

@Tech Inferno Fan

Now when I attach egpu(self soldered ), my screen goes blank and after few seconds only the mouse cursor appears on screen.

I can see right click menu but when I select something from it, its not displayed.

Is such kind of problem encountered before?

I was just trying to do DSDT Override(assuming low memory space cause of the blank screen problem), but the generated .dsl does not have any DwordMemory entry

Also, the Nvidia control panel does not open up as I am running from my igpu.(it says nvidia control panel can not be opened because the system is not using nvidia gpu)

How can I rectify above?

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Hello all,

Thank you for this wonderful horde of information! I can see why that other site - we shall not speak its name - would want to hold onto it, even illegally.

I'm fairly sure I have encountered a bad HDMI cord, but I want to see what you guys think.

I have read the FAQ/troubleshooting and tried everything I could under "Why is my eGPU is not detected?" as well as sleeping the laptop, turning the eGPU on, and waking the laptop back up.

I have two laptops, one which should be compatible according to the introduction page and one that should not be, but I have tested in both anyway (But a lack of PCI bus memory would just cause an Error 12, right?).

My eGPU is an NVidia 560Ti with the PE4H-PM3N ver 2.4a and ver 1.2 (that is, the v2.4a PE4H with the v1.2 mini-PCIe adapter)

My PSU has 38A on the +12V (= ~450W -- the GPU should require less than 300W according to the NVidia website)

First laptop: Suspected compatible:

HP tm2-2151nr

Windows 8.1 and Kubuntu 13.10

4GB RAM

TOLUD = 2.5GB

MUX-based switchable Intel HD with AMD 5450

Second laptop: Probably incompatible:

MSI GT683-R

Windows 7 and Kubuntu 12.04

12GB RAM

TOLUD = 3.5GB

NVidia 560m dGPU

Problem: The eGPU never shows itself to the OS. Not in the Device Manager, not after a "Scan for hardware changes", and not in lspci. I suspect that this means the HDMI cable is bad, but I would like your opinions.

In order to get either of my laptops to turn on with the eGPU already turned on, I have to set the switches to CLKRUN# 2 - enable for 6.9sec. What does this actually do? :) If I'm switching the eGPU on after the laptop is on, I want to set this to #1 - disable, right? (Otherwise my eGPU's fans set to 100% on switching on...)

I have a de-whitelisted BIOS on the HP laptop, for an upgraded WiFi card, but I can no longer get into the BIOS settings screen :). My recollection is that there was nothing terribly interesting in there anyway.

Thanks for any thoughts or feedback!

-Sompom

As a point of interest, the links in the first post to the deal extreme page for the replacement HDMI cable are broken. Searching by SKU, this one seems to be the same: Gold Plated 1080P HDMI Mini V1.3 M-M Connection Cable - Black (1.5M-Length) - Free Shipping - DealExtreme

(Although that link is also sold out. Has anyone found a different source? What are the criteria for a replacement?)

Any opinions about this cable: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812270178 ?

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@angerthosenear thank you.

Btw, my system is now detecting my egpu. I had to disable the inbuilt SDHC Cardreader from BIOS for that(that freed up some PCIE space i guess).

@Tech Inferno Fan

Now when I attach egpu(self soldered ), my screen goes blank and after few seconds only the mouse cursor appears on screen.

I can see right click menu but when I select something from it, its not displayed.

Is such kind of problem encountered before?

I was just trying to do DSDT Override(assuming low memory space cause of the blank screen problem), but the generated .dsl does not have any DwordMemory entry

Also, the Nvidia control panel does not open up as I am running from my igpu.(it says nvidia control panel can not be opened because the system is not using nvidia gpu)

How can I rectify above?

Since disabling the inbuilt SDHC gave you some PCIe space to allow it to be detected, a DSDT override would be useful in this case. What OS are you running?

Are you connecting the eGPU while the computer is off? I know there are some things when you put the computer to sleep and then connect to sometimes to get it working.

If you get your .dsl file, I can edit it for you (just upload it somewhere).

That black screen problem seems really odd.

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x1 2.0 = x1.2

the Opt part is optimus compressing when using a Nvidia card + primary Intel iGPU present and active + no dGPU active.

Sooo for example, my GTX 660 Ti connected over ExpressCard at Gen2 speeds would give you the x1.2Opt link.

ExpressCard itself with series 6 chipsets and newer gives the x1.2 (when running at Gen2 speeds)

So with a series 6 chipset and an express card slot I would also be able to use Optimus to drive the internal screen, wouldn't I?

Thanks.

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How can I test if my eGPU is fully working?

Do you have a monitor hooked up to it? Is video output working (aka do you see stuff on that screen)? That would indicate it is working. If you have a Intel 6-series or later and want to see if it is running at Gen2 speed. Open up GPU-Z and see if it says 'x1 2.0' This would indicate x1.2 link. Can get Optimus compression this way. Not sure on AMD systems.

Not sure exactly how you have it hooked up though.

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Has anyone figured out a way to get Lenovo Thinkpads to work with 16GB and eGPU? Or if I've missed a post, please refer me to where to look. Thus far eGPU only working with 8GB or less.

Have you remade your devcon file after changing your RAM? V:\devcon\mkdevcon.bat (pretty sure it's this file to remake it).

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Well, thank you for the response.

Now my enthusiasm has declined, perhaps I was over-enthusiastic to begin with. For me, I needed to achieve 5 things:

(1) improve my graphics for MS Train Simulator, (2) use my current L300 laptop, (3) be able to use the eGPU for both external monitor and improve the laptop screen, (4) deprive the computer manufacturers of planned obsolescence. (5) the enjoyment of making or buying a eGPU as per this site instead of a new lappy.

Already it looks like I cannot achieve this. I am very sad. Looks like I have to (a) endure crappy graphics or (B) buy a new lappy. After 1 week of research here and on the old Ver 1, I think I am toast. I do not want to give them new money when my lappy just needs a eGPU.

So, I assume it is not practical to proceed?

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Well, thank you for the response.

Now my enthusiasm has declined, perhaps I was over-enthusiastic to begin with. For me, I needed to achieve 5 things:

(1) improve my graphics for MS Train Simulator, (2) use my current L300 laptop, (3) be able to use the eGPU for both external monitor and improve the laptop screen, (4) deprive the computer manufacturers of planned obsolescence. (5) the enjoyment of making or buying a eGPU as per this site instead of a new lappy.

Already it looks like I cannot achieve this. I am very sad. Looks like I have to (a) endure crappy graphics or (B) buy a new lappy. After 1 week of research here and on the old Ver 1, I think I am toast. I do not want to give them new money when my lappy just needs a eGPU.

So, I assume it is not practical to proceed?

Pretty much. The money that you would spend toward an eGPU for your current laptop would not be well spent. Your current laptop is kinda old in computer years. The performance you would get out of a x1 Gen1 link from it would not be ideal for an eGPU solution. If you can manage a x2 or x4 link (depending on free mPCIe slots internally) then it would be much more suitable for a eGPU solution.

Could put that money toward something like the HP 2570P that you can sometimes get for under 400$ on eBay (like the one I saw yesterday). Even with integrated (iGPU) graphics, it should adequately run MS Train Simulator.

You could get the 2570P + eGPU setup for ~600$ total. Would be very nice.

Sorry to drop your enthusiasm, you are kinda stuck with your current hardware.

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Pretty much. The money that you would spend toward an eGPU for your current laptop would not be well spent. Your current laptop is kinda old in computer years. The performance you would get out of a x1 Gen1 link from it would not be ideal for an eGPU solution. If you can manage a x2 or x4 link (depending on free mPCIe slots internally) then it would be much more suitable for a eGPU solution.

Could put that money toward something like the HP 2570P that you can sometimes get for under 400$ on eBay (like the one I saw yesterday). Even with integrated (iGPU) graphics, it should adequately run MS Train Simulator.

You could get the 2570P + eGPU setup for ~600$ total. Would be very nice.

Sorry to drop your enthusiasm, you are kinda stuck with your current hardware.

Thank you, I understand your points about my limiting base hardware and I'm sure your opinion is sound. This is a great forum and the fun of making a DIY eDPU appealed to me. Well, perhaps it may be an HP2570P and an eGPU instead of a new laptop. That appeals to me. And the $ are in it. I'm looking into it.

Thanks for your reply.

Cheers

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Thank you, I understand your points about my limiting base hardware and I'm sure your opinion is sound. This is a great forum and the fun of making a DIY eDPU appealed to me. Well, perhaps it may be an HP2570P and an eGPU instead of a new laptop. That appeals to me. And the $ are in it. I'm looking into it.

Thanks for your reply.

Cheers

Np, just wanted to make sure you didn't spend 200$+ and end up disappointed in the performance.

I suggested the 2570P since it is a very solid laptop and versatile, but of course there are other options. See the never complete list of suggested laptops here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/4109-egpu-candidate-system-list-%5Bthin-light%5D.html

Not sure exactly what your budget is, but I assume ~200$ for a lower end eGPU system and 400$+ on the higher end. Adapter ~80$ + GPU of choice 120+$ for GPU. Will probably also need the software from our glorious eGPU lord Tech Inferno Fan (hehe):

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2123-diy-egpu-setup-1-x.html

^ great to have

Lemme know if you need anything else.

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Hey Nando,

Sonnet Express EchoPro is a PCIe Gen2 expresscard to thunderbolt (which gives 5 Gbit/s | 500 MB/s), whereas PE4L supports Gen3 (which is 8 Gbit/s | 984.6 MB/s)

So, if sonnet (or any other vendor) releases PCIe Gen3 expresscard to thunderbolt adapter, can we use entire setup with current PE4L to achieve increased bandwidth? In-fact, are there any such adapter currently available?

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Not really following what this does, how to find this file, or how to remake it lol...

I'm not sure what it is either, but I recall seeing a message during the install of Setup 1.x that you need to remake the file if you change the amount of RAM.

C:\eGPU

run the eGPU-Setup-mount

this will open the DIYEGPUIMG (V: )

then go to V:\devcon

you will see the mkdevcon.bat inside that folder

Hopefully that will do something and allow you to have more RAM

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