eGPU experiences [version 2.0]

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hey,

I've been having some issues with Setup 1.30. I have a Mac Mini running Win 8 (BIOS install). I've successfully run compaction but I'm still receiving Error 12. I've tried all the troubleshooting tips in the FAQ and a few other successful implementations and was wondering if you could take a look at my diag:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByErVmBELmu8YUhqWURFd0VKMEU/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Matty

Pls email me to discuss: Tech Inferno [email protected] . Thanks.

[minh6a]

Can I do the eGPU on Vaio VPCCW21FX to play CS:GO in 100fps+ with medium settings?

I'm wondering if these Vaio CW series has extra expresscard, mPCIe or thunderbolt to do eGPU?

More specification about my Vaio VPCCW21FX:

Dedicated Video Card: GT330M - 256mb

No intel graphic integrated

Core i3 arrandele 330M

I'm new to this so please help !!! :3

[dan]

it is posible to do a egpu on this laptop.as far as i can see on this spec.:http://www.pcworld.com/product/1323217/sony-vaio-cw21fx-w-notebook.HTML it has an expresscard slot for keeping things more clean without the need the pull out the cover. if you want the maximmum performance you will need the x1 setup to bypass the gt330m and actívate Intel hd for optimus solution.but a really don,t khnow how many frames you will get in each game.it is up to you to try it or not.good luck!

[coyote]

Hey, do you think you could help me with an issue I'm having? I just bought a GTX 660 & PE4L-PM60xxA. I disabled my 660m discrete gpu through bios, and was able to have the gtx 660 detected. My problem now is, every time I go to run any 3D application, I'll either get a BSOD, or it will reboot automatically.

Also, whether or not relevant, I should add that the LCD monitor on my laptop looks like it is on, but it's black. As in, only the screen's backlight is on, but no image is displayed. I'm currently using an external display via HDMI, which is working. I have all switches on 1_2. Another point which might be worth mentioning is: after trying to run 3dmark11, it returned an error stating out-of-memory exception has occurred. I have been unable to reproduce this error, since it just BSODs or auto reboots. I am running Windows 8.1.

I probably am wrong, but I would speculate that either the cable of the PE4L is maybe faulty (I had the same problem with a defective cable from an EXP GDC) or maybe something else.

But if my understanding is correct, the internal screen doesn't work, whereas the external work but whenever you run an intense GPU program, it crashes?

[blowntaha]

I probably am wrong, but I would speculate that either the cable of the PE4L is maybe faulty (I had the same problem with a defective cable from an EXP GDC) or maybe something else.

But if my understanding is correct, the internal screen doesn't work, whereas the external work but whenever you run an intense GPU program, it crashes?

Yeah, it crashes. And by crashes I mean it become unresponsive to the point where a hard reboot is required.

[SpaceOne]

I've just made successful egpu with fujitsu esprimo D9510 (T9900, 4gb ram, intel gma4500) and exp gdc (nvidia quadro 600).

I bought it on aliexpress for 65$ and got it in around 10 days.

I've used an old atx psu without 6pin pcie connector, therefore I had to use 4pin CPU connector and connected it with 4pin connector on atx adapter cable that came with exp gdc (without it, exp gdc didn't want to turn on).

If I have exp gdc plugged in during boot, then laptop never actually boots (black screen), so I have to plug in express card adapter when I'm already in win7, then card is recognized and added to device manager. TD switch on exp gdc doesn't seem to do anything.

I'm using driver 306.79 (this one is supposed to be the last one which supports gma4500 with optimus).

Overall I'm very satisfied. I can finally play gothic 3 (full settings, except AA) after so many years

I would like to thank you to all of you for your great tips and advices regarding egpu.

[Kevmanw430]

Hey guys, I'm trying to set up my new eGPU with my HP 2570P and I'm having some issues. The HP is running Windows 8.1. I'm using an EXP GDC with the 220W Dell PSU and an EVGA Signature 2 GTX 680.

I set my PCI lanes to Gen2 in the BIOS and then plugged everything in while sitting at the desktop. Last time I made an eGPU, the GPU was detected immediately, and the drivers installed for Generic VGA and the audio. When I plugged it into the HP, the fans spun up properly, but the only thing that popped up was the audio driver installation. I then downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers and installed them. I tried rebooting with it off and plugging in again with the drivers installed, and I still got no display on my external monitor. I rebooted again and plugged in during POST, and this time, my display was detected and I was able to use the GPU. However, performance on the external screen was severely limited, as if Opt compression was not working. To top it off, when I removed the ExpressCard from the laptop, it blue screened. Other than that, I have received no error codes.

Is there anything specific I forgot to do? Do I need Setup 1.x? Do I maybe need to downgrade to Windows 7? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hey guys, I'm trying to set up my new eGPU with my HP 2570P and I'm having some issues. The HP is running Windows 8.1. I'm using an EXP GDC with the 220W Dell PSU and an EVGA Signature 2 GTX 680.

I set my PCI lanes to Gen2 in the BIOS and then plugged everything in while sitting at the desktop. Last time I made an eGPU, the GPU was detected immediately, and the drivers installed for Generic VGA and the audio. When I plugged it into the HP, the fans spun up properly, but the only thing that popped up was the audio driver installation. I then downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers and installed them. I tried rebooting with it off and plugging in again with the drivers installed, and I still got no display on my external monitor. I rebooted again and plugged in during POST, and this time, my display was detected and I was able to use the GPU. However, performance on the external screen was severely limited, as if Opt compression was not working. To top it off, when I removed the ExpressCard from the laptop, it blue screened. Other than that, I have received no error codes.

Is there anything specific I forgot to do? Do I need Setup 1.x? Do I maybe need to downgrade to Windows 7? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your 'slowness' needs a reference point. Can you run 3dmark06/11, GPU-Z benchmarks on the GTX680? Poor cabling can hinder performance. Try setting Gen1 speed in the bios to see if that does better. The lower speed can prevent data send hiccups limiting performance. Really poor cabling such that there is signal interference between the pairs will see slow bursts of traffic giving bursty results, regardless of if it's a Gen1 or Gen2 link.

The 2570P is a bit spartan on eGPU user niceties. Eg: <strike>there's no VGA eject system tray icon,</strike> resume-from-sleep will BSOD the system, hot unplugging the expresscard slot BSODs the system, and bios will not boot with the eGPU powered and connected - needs a PCI Reset Delay or a hotplug after BIOS post.

[Jorj]

Hi Nando4,

I am new to this forum so i won't be able to PM you. Anyways i have sent you an email . Please check. Thanks.

[jacobsson]

Your 'slowness' needs a reference point. Can you run 3dmark06/11, GPU-Z benchmarks on the GTX680? Poor cabling can hinder performance. Try setting Gen1 speed in the bios to see if that does better. The lower speed can prevent data send hiccups limiting performance. Really poor cabling such that there is signal interference between the pairs will see slow bursts of traffic giving bursty results, regardless of if it's a Gen1 or Gen2 link.

The 2570P is a bit spartan on eGPU user niceties. Eg: there's no VGA eject system tray icon, resume-from-sleep will BSOD the system, hot unplugging the expresscard slot BSODs the system, and bios will not boot with the eGPU powered and connected - needs a PCI Reset Delay or a hotplug after BIOS post.

I always get the "eject VGA icon" for my 2570p. I might have to do with that I only install graphics + physx drivers, leaving out sound/geforce exp/etc (?)

[LightySnake]

Hi,

i'm planning to add eGPU (nVidia GTX 570) to my x201 tablet (i7 620m, 8GB ram)

I've read some post of other user that have successful added an eGPU to this notebook also i've found a user that use it with a nVidia GTX 570 (like i will do).

My question is wich adapter i need to buy?

I've see a lot of people that use the PE4H v2.4 and a few that have used the new PE4C v2.0.

What are the difference?

Thank you for the replies

[Kevmanw430]

All right, with some driver finagling and a bunch of frustration, I've got it working correctly. I don't even really know what I did any differently, but it seems to be good now. I can hotplug the eGPU any time after POST and it immediately turns off my laptop display and switched to my external. I actually can eject the eGPU without BSODing, it is listed as an audio device under the eject list, but it works nonetheless. I ran some benches with a slight overclock and here are my results.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 17DF

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 17DF

Seems a bit low maybe, at least on 11, but I've only got single channel 4GB right now and a 5400RPM HDD. I'll have an SSD and 8GB RAM pretty soon though, so I'll update the benches soon. Thanks for the help guys.

[jacobsson]

@Kevmanw430

I think your 3dMark11 score is pretty good actually, 9K+ in GPU.

Your CPU won't give any significant physics calculations , a 3740QM/3840QM would help a lot.

Nice work!

[LightySnake]

There's a lot of differences between this models? PE4H v2.4, EXP GDC, PE4C v2.0

[Brom]

Hi,

My EXP GDC v6 arrived from China arrived yesterday. Because I got everything working, right out of the box, I want to show you, what I did.

First my system:

Dell Vostro 3450

4+1GB DDR3 RAM

i5-2410M

AMD Radeon HD6650 + Intel HD3000

Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit

Samsung 830 128GB (100GB Windows | 28GB Ubuntu)

Toshiba HDD 500GB in the optical drive bay

For the graphics driver (if I remember correctly) I installed first the AMD driver distributed by Dell (that must have been Video_AMD_W8_A00_Setup-6HYYP_ZPE.exe). Later I installed this 13.4 Mobile Catalyst directly from AMD's website. I had this running for around a year before I started with the egpu stuff. During this time I could switch between the Intel HD and the AMD GPU for gaming. Then some weeks ago I updated the Intel HD driver with intelhd_win64_152822.exe to Version 9.17.10.3517 from 2014/03/20. The catalyst control center was still installed, but I couldn't switch between the GPUs any more and I got a yellow exclamation mark in the device manager. Now to the eGPU stuff itself:

EXP GDC v6

MSI GTX 670 Poweredition OC 2GB

Dell D220P-01 12V 18A power adapter

To install the NVIDIA driver before connecting the egpu was not possible. That's why I connected everything and inserted the expresscard adapter while the computer was running. I got no signal on the HDMI display connected to the eGPU but I expected that before. Now I was able to install the NVIDIA driver (exactly: 340.43-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-international-beta.exe) although the device manager didn't show the GTX 670 but only a strange Microsoft VGA device or somewhat. All the time the GTX 670 fans were running very noisily and at full speed. After a reboot, the GTX 670 was shown in the device manager but with error code 43. But then I powered the notebook off and started again. During the windows logo the egpu fans stopped for one second and started again then. First, I thought something was wrong with the power adapter, but that seems to be a special function of the EXP GDC because then I could use the second screen connected to the eGPU.

The thing is: I didn't need Setup 1.x to disable the dGPU. I was surprised myself, but that's it. On a desktop computer (with the same GPU) I got 3Dmark 11 score of 9699, now as eGPU I have 7399 which is ok. Interesting is that 3Dmark thinks to have benched to AMD 6650 card, but for that the result is way to high.

No some screenshots (I use a German system, but you should recognize what is meant):

First the tolud before adding the eGPU:

device manager at the end:

GPU-Z of the GTX 670:

I was very happy to be able to skip all the Setup 1.x stuff because I save 25$ and have less problems with Grub2 what is used to switch between Windows and Ubuntu.

Edit: I see, I only have PCIe 1.1 although 2.0 should be possible. Is there a way to fix that and get a bit more speed?

[gothic860]

Edit: I see, I only have PCIe 1.1 although 2.0 should be possible. Is there a way to fix that and get a bit more speed?

Try to stress the GPU (click on the "?" in GPU-z) and see if its changing to "2.0".

[Brom]

Unfortunately nothing changes.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Unfortunately nothing changes.

Setup 1.30 can help in your HD6630M equipped Vostro 3450 to achieve two important benefits : (1) Run your link at Gen2 speed, doubling bandwidth from the current Gen1 you are seeing and (2) disable the dGPU so that NVidia Optimus activates. With the latter you'll gain x1 pci-e compression accelerating (mostly) DX9 up to 300% and provide an accelerated internal LCD mode.

[Brom]

Setup 1.30 can help in your HD6630M equipped Vostro 3450 to achieve two important benefits : (1) Run your link at Gen2 speed, doubling bandwidth from the current Gen1 you are seeing and (2) disable the dGPU so that NVidia Optimus activates. With the latter you'll gain x1 pci-e compression accelerating (mostly) DX9 up to 300% and provide an accelerated internal LCD mode.

That's nice to hear. I'll buy Setup 1.30 maybe later. For now I'm happy to have increased performance compared to the dGPU.

[Kommodant]

So I'm starting to run out of ideas. I have used Setup 1.3 to get a successful compaction and I can see that it initialized the video card but I still get an Error 43. I tried a DSDT override but I'm not sure it worked. Attached is a photo of device manager after the DSDT override.

Any suggestions would be great.

ps: I also took screenshots in Setup but I have no idea where they are saved

[Tech Inferno Fan]

So I'm starting to run out of ideas. I have used Setup 1.3 to get a successful compaction and I can see that it initialized the video card but I still get an Error 43. I tried a DSDT override but I'm not sure it worked. Attached is a photo of device manager after the DSDT override.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]12215[/ATTACH]

Any suggestions would be great.

ps: I also took screenshots in Setup but I have no idea where they are saved

The DSDT override shows the large memory area so has been successful. What's missing here is the eGPU to be allocated into that space. Please use Setup 1.30 to do a eGPU-only PCI compaction, setting the endpoint=56.25GB (36-bit). If you still see an error 12 then please set the PCI Reset Delay on your eGPU adapter, power on the eGPU the power on the notebook slightly after and perform your usual steps via Setup 1.30. The PCI Reset Delay will often initialize the card in a manner to overcome error 43.

[Kommodant]

The DSDT override shows the large memory area so has been successful. What's missing here is the eGPU to be allocated into that space. Please use Setup 1.30 to do a eGPU-only PCI compaction, setting the endpoint=56.25GB (36-bit). If you still see an error 12 then please set the PCI Reset Delay on your eGPU adapter, power on the eGPU the power on the notebook slightly after and perform your usual steps via Setup 1.30. The PCI Reset Delay will often initialize the card in a manner to overcome error 43.

I tried as you suggested and I still get an error 43 in the device manager

EDIT: I tried doing a 36bit compaction on only the egpu, 36 compaction on both igpu and egpu, and 32bit on igpu and 36bit on egpu. The only change I'm finding is the memory allocation goes up to 526mb sometimes.

[Kommodant]

Realized that I had installed Setup with only 2gb installed so I reinstalled it with all 4gb ram sticks in. Now when ever I run 36bit compaction on just egpu or igpu/egpu, I get a black screen with a blinking dash in the corner. I'll keep at it though

[LightySnake]

Hi,

i'm planning to buy a PE4C V2.0 adapter for my x201t (it-620m, 8gb ram).

How can i check if the PE4C is ok for my laptop?

I've searched on the forum but i can't figure out if somebody could help me, i will appreciate it very much

Thank you

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Realized that I had installed Setup with only 2gb installed so I reinstalled it with all 4gb ram sticks in. Now when ever I run 36bit compaction on just egpu or igpu/egpu, I get a black screen with a blinking dash in the corner. I'll keep at it though

If you increased your RAM then please run c:\eGPU\eGPU-setup-mount, followed by v:\devcon\mkdevcon.bat to create a new devcon.txt file with boundary info. If you've tried the PCI Reset Delay and still are getting error 43/12 then please contact me Tech Inferno [email protected] to discuss further.

Hi,

i'm planning to buy a PE4C V2.0 adapter for my x201t (it-620m, 8gb ram).

How can i check if the PE4C is ok for my laptop?

I've searched on the forum but i can't figure out if somebody could help me, i will appreciate it very much

Thank you

It's was listed, then pulled and looks like is now available for purchase again. Since nobody got their hands on one there's no feedback. It's the first BPlus adapter to introduce a CLKRUN delay hardware jumper, a socketted Gen2-capable cable (on the eGPU adapter end), and includes a Dell DA-2 AC adapter that can drive up to a GTX760/GTX680/GTX560Ti. Based on the specs it looks good.