eGPU experiences [version 2.0]

[gordon1hd1]

Most accessible would be a Sonnet Echo Express SE, hacked to allow external ATX power. Here's the budget options that I've found:

BPlus TH05 (0W) (x2 2.0) for $180

OWC Helios (0W) (x4 2.0) for $380 .

Sonnet Echo Express SE (60W) (x4 2.0) for $400

But couple thing to remember, the Helio and the Echo Express SE both use a closed slot x8 pcie slot, so you will have to do some "modification" to make them open slot, and doing so will void your warranty. So be sure you know what you doing before preceding. Also both the Helio and Express SE only have single slot opening for the PCIE cards, so your choices are limited to the lower end cards, Nvidia gt640 and below.

[harissahlan]

Hi All,

I have some noobish questions:

1. How do I know I'm running on Optimus compression? I'm using Zotac GTX 560 Ti.

2. My eGPU works on G1 speed. If I want to run it on G2 speed, what should I do? My laptop is Lenovo E420, with Intel i5 2430M, HM65 chipset.

3. I'm testing with GPU-Z and the GPU load reaches 99% all the time. Is this normal?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

Haris

[Pizzazz]

Hello Nando4,

the problem is it freezes at the boot up either hit F8 then boot up or turn on eGPU at the boot up start of 4 dots (turn on eGPU at bootup only 1 sucess every like 20 tries is too much for me lol)

I have decided to start it all over again since the error 43. here what I did....

-uninstalled the setup 1.x and the drivers.

-put back the wirless card.

-reboot and put to sleep.

-removed the wireless card and plug in PN3N + turn on egpu + hotplug.

-wake up from sleep, laptop found the new video card.

-installed the DNA-AMD-GFX.

-success installed driver, error 12 shown saying to disable the other video card.

I'm bit worry about disable the Gforce GTX 560m on my laptop.... will I be able to go back and enable the GTX 560m if it doesn't work out without any problem?

Reboot without disable the GTX560m, it freezes.

going to start over again as above and install the setup 1.x and DNA-AMD-GFX. If I disable the dGPU in setup 1.x and use eGPU only and if it doesn't work out, would I be able to go back to setup 1.x to enable the dGPU without any problem to boot the win 7 normal?

Pizzazz

[azz00]

Hi everyone.

I currently have an Acer 7741G which has the following;

i3-330m CPU

8gb ram

ATI Radeon HD 5470

Windows 7

I think I have a basic udnerstanding of how all of the EGPUS work but I could do with someone just helping me what the best setup would be?

I have attached a few images. The screenshots show what happens when I move the WI-FI card between the two slots. Am I right in thinking that because the ports are not 1 & 2 I cant double up the link? Also, which would give me the best reuslts, PE4L or the PE4H? Is the only difference that I would be able to create a 2x connection with the PE4H?

And I noticed that the programs says PCI-E 2.0? I am assuming this will be faster than just 1.0?

Any help would help massively!

[Redletter]

Does this mean I've succeeded in obtaining 1.2 opt or no? I was expecting it to say PCI-E 2.0x16 @ x1.2 2.0 or something but I don't know... Let me know if this worked!

[MikjoA]

^

This means you've succeeded in obtaining 1.2 (for 1.2opt, if you can run the eGPU on the internal monitor then it works).

1.2 means PCI-E 2.0 X1.

Have you tried just using a normal PSU to see if the card work/act normally? If you 360 PSU is being difficult you might try a PSU from a MicroITX computer. They are roughly the same size.

I am actually using a MicroITX case (but a normal power supply). I dunno, just a thought, the MicroITX computer/case I am using is small enough for me. I'll get pics if you want to see. (Still have to finish up on it though, making it look pretty.)

Yeah I forgot to mention that, I've tried back both card with my desktop PSU.

Now I could test my GTX 660 Ti in my dad's computer and it's is working very well

So I guess the problem does come from the PE4L, which I either fired with my first XBOX 360 wiring which was wrong (and it was wrong for the PE4L only.) or like Nando4 suggested, which may have suffered from bending to fit in my laptop.

you are using a PE4L-PM3N 2.1b so may have endured more bending to fit it into the mPCIe slot. Worth investigating, especially if the XBOX360 PSU voltages all check out above.

Thank you both of you !

I will try it again on my PE4H, that's a bit sad to go back to X1.1Opt ^^

[angerthosenear]

Pretty sure this means I only have a x1.1 link (seeing it doesn't match Redletter's)

I took this while running some games, it did not kick up to x1.2 link.

Suggestions?

[harissahlan]

can anyone send me DIYeGPU-Setup-110b5 because i'm in egypt and can't purchase it

I live in Indonesia and HIT doesn't ship to my country either. You may want to contact Nando for the details of how to get the software.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hi All,

I have some noobish questions:

1. How do I know I'm running on Optimus compression? I'm using Zotac GTX 560 Ti.

2. My eGPU works on G1 speed. If I want to run it on G2 speed, what should I do? My laptop is Lenovo E420, with Intel i5 2430M, HM65 chipset.

3. I'm testing with GPU-Z and the GPU load reaches 99% all the time. Is this normal?

Many thanks in advance.

To get pci-e 2.0 speed use Setup 1.1x's PCIe ports->Link speed.G2. You'll know if Optimus pci-e compression is enabled if your 3dmark06 score is > 10k. If it's < 10k then pci-e compression isn't enabled. It should be enabled as your E420 has an primary bootup iGPU as the video device.

Does this mean I've succeeded in obtaining 1.2 opt or no? I was expecting it to say PCI-E 2.0x16 @ x1.2 2.0 or something but I don't know... Let me know if this worked!

You have pci-e 2.0 working OK. Per above response, you can then confirm if Optimus pci-e compression is working by checking the 3dmark06 result. We'd expect it to be < 10k if pci-e compression is disabled or > 10k if pci-e compression works.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5029[/ATTACH]

Pretty sure this means I only have a x1.1 link (seeing it doesn't match Redletter's)

I took this while running some games, it did not kick up to x1.2 link.

Suggestions?

When you look at your port listing in Setup 1.1x, does it say for example "[email protected] [Nvidia card]@x1.1" or does it say "[email protected] [NVidia card]@x1.1". If it's the latter then your bios has downgraded the expresscard slot to Gen1 (pci-e 1.x) speed. The way to fix this is use Setup 1.1's PCIe ports->Link speed.G2 to set your expresscard slot to Gen2 (pci-e 2.0).

Hello Nando4,

the problem is it freezes at the boot up either hit F8 then boot up or turn on eGPU at the boot up start of 4 dots (turn on eGPU at bootup only 1 sucess every like 20 tries is too much for me lol)

I have decided to start it all over again since the error 43. here what I did....

-uninstalled the setup 1.x and the drivers.

-put back the wirless card.

-reboot and put to sleep.

-removed the wireless card and plug in PN3N + turn on egpu + hotplug.

-wake up from sleep, laptop found the new video card.

-installed the DNA-AMD-GFX.

-success installed driver, error 12 shown saying to disable the other video card.

I'm bit worry about disable the Gforce GTX 560m on my laptop.... will I be able to go back and enable the GTX 560m if it doesn't work out without any problem?

Reboot without disable the GTX560m, it freezes.

going to start over again as above and install the setup 1.x and DNA-AMD-GFX. If I disable the dGPU in setup 1.x and use eGPU only and if it doesn't work out, would I be able to go back to setup 1.x to enable the dGPU without any problem to boot the win 7 normal?

Pizzazz

You G74SX hasn't got an iGPU you should not be disabling the dGPU as it's the only GPU in the system so the system. Disabling it would result in you booting up VGA mode only. Please remove that step and try again.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hi everyone.

I currently have an Acer 7741G which has the following;

i3-330m CPU

8gb ram

ATI Radeon HD 5470

Windows 7

I think I have a basic udnerstanding of how all of the EGPUS work but I could do with someone just helping me what the best setup would be?

I have attached a few images. The screenshots show what happens when I move the WI-FI card between the two slots. Am I right in thinking that because the ports are not 1 & 2 I cant double up the link? Also, which would give me the best reuslts, PE4L or the PE4H? Is the only difference that I would be able to create a 2x connection with the PE4H?

And I noticed that the programs says PCI-E 2.0? I am assuming this will be faster than just 1.0?

Any help would help massively!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5024[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5025[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5026[/ATTACH]

Your mPCIe slots are port2 and 4. Meaning you can't run a x2 link, as they need [port1+2] or [port3+4]. Your port1 is the wired LAN device.

Furthermore, while the Series-5 chipset has pci-e 2.0 specced ports, the spec only extends to power management. The link speed is still pci-e 1.x's 2.5GT/s. In addition, you don't have an iGPU so couldn't run x1.Opt. Overall, a poor eGPU candidate system. You'd be better off upgrading to a Sandy/Ivy Bridge notebook with an iGPU so could get x1.2Opt performance with a NVidia Fermo/Keplar card.

[harissahlan]

To get pci-e 2.0 speed use Setup 1.1x's PCIe ports->Link speed.G2. You'll know if Optimus pci-e compression is enabled if your 3dmark06 score is > 10k. If it's < 10k then pci-e compression isn't enabled. It should be enabled as your E420 has an primary bootup iGPU as the video device.

But you said earlier that PE4H is only stable if it runs on G1 speed.

The compaction solves the error12 issue, but you are using a PE4H 2.4 and your system's expresscard slot would default to Gen2 (pci-e 2.0) speed. The PE4H can only reliably run at Gen1 (pci-e 1.x) speed, resulting in the systems that you describe.

So you either need to set the expresscard slot to run at Gen1 speed in the bios, is such a setting exists, or use the DIY eGPU Setup 1.1x's PCIe ports->Link speed.G1 option on the expresscard slot to force Gen1 speed. The better option would be to offload the PE4H for a PE4L 2.1b that can run at Gen2 speed.

[MelWell749]

Oh god i've been at this for a long time now!

I got a GTX 460 v2 running on PE4L on a sony vaio notebook with intel i5 560M processor.

If it doesnt recognize the card i set it to sleepmode and then power it on which gives me error 12. So then i restart my computer and everything shows up fine and i can use the card BUT it's laggy as hell. It's even performing worse than my dGPU (Geforce 425M) so i figured it was a allocation problem so i installed setup 1.x which can allocate 512mb to the card but when i try to chainload it after that it just gives me a black screen and when i turn off the GPU at the black screen i get a BSOD. What can be done? Oh and my USB port stopped working and i dont get what the pci.bat explanation thing is in the troubleshooting. Any help at all would be appreciated! Thanks

[harissahlan]

Oh god i've been at this for a long time now!

I got a GTX 460 v2 running on PE4L on a sony vaio notebook with intel i5 560M processor.

If it doesnt recognize the card i set it to sleepmode and then power it on which gives me error 12. So then i restart my computer and everything shows up fine and i can use the card BUT it's laggy as hell. It's even performing worse than my dGPU (Geforce 425M) so i figured it was a allocation problem so i installed setup 1.x which can allocate 512mb to the card but when i try to chainload it after that it just gives me a black screen and when i turn off the GPU at the black screen i get a BSOD. What can be done? Oh and my USB port stopped working and i dont get what the pci.bat explanation thing is in the troubleshooting. Any help at all would be appreciated! Thanks

You may try these steps to prevent BSOD, it works for me:

I had to take the following steps to get the drivers installed and running stable. I don't know why, but the driver goes crazy (read: BSODs within minutes of booting) if you don't install it with this method.

1. Boot to windows normally with the eGPU plugged in (do NOT run compaction and chainload)

2. Let the standard VGA driver install

3. Restart the machine

4. Again, boot do windows normally. Do NOT chainload.

5. Install the 275.33 drivers

6. Restart the machine. Once again, do NOT chainload.

7. You will see an error code 12 for the GTX 460 in device manager. Now let's do the egpu setup stuff, restart the machine.

8. Break the reboot into egpu setup. Load the eGPU video card, run compaction, set the chainloader to win7. Chainload win7.

9. Everything should work now. With video directed to an external monitor you can remove the expresscard and the video signal correctly drops back to the notebook screen. You must restart the machine and chainload to re-enable the eGPU though - I found that plugging it back in, with or without the sleep trick, did not re-activate the driver.

Those are steps in Lenovo E420 & GTX460. It might work with your laptop. You may also try to set the eGPU PCIe link to G1 speed before running compaction.

[bode003]

hi Tech Inferno Fan

how can i get DIYeGPU-Setup-110b5 i'm in egypt??

[Ivar Af Øring]

hi Tech Inferno Fan

how can i get DIYeGPU-Setup-110b5 i'm in egypt??

I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, but have you even tried investigating and reading how to implement an eGPU?

Start at page 1, Nando made a superve summation of how to start.

begin with finding your specification regarding motherboard and so on.

[bode003]

I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, but have you even tried investigating and reading how to implement an eGPU?

Start at page 1, Nando made a superve summation of how to start.

begin with finding your specification regarding motherboard and so on.

i have read it and i know that not every motherboard need sutpx1. but not found my hp dv6 and i will buy new GPU and to be safe i want this program first

[jacobsson]

i have read it and i know that not every motherboard need sutpx1. but not found my hp dv6 and i will buy new GPU and to be safe i want this program first

I see, so your question is if you will need setup x1 or not?

Post your laptop model here and so that I can check your specifications.

[MelWell749]

You may try these steps to prevent BSOD, it works for me:

Those are steps in Lenovo E420 & GTX460. It might work with your laptop. You may also try to set the eGPU PCIe link to G1 speed before running compaction.

Ok ill go ahead and do that. WIll post back with results. Thanks!

[bode003]

I see, so your question is if you will need setup x1 or not?

Post your laptop model here and so that I can check your specifications.

Satellite L850-B139 - Product Specifications - Toshiba

HP Pavilion dv6-2134ee Entertainment Notebook PC Product Specifications HP Pavilion dv6-2134ee Entertainment Notebook PC - HP technical support (Middle East - English)

[bode003]

I see, so your question is if you will need setup x1 or not?

Post your laptop model here and so that I can check your specifications.

HP Pavilion dv6-2134ee & Toshiba SATELLITE L850-B139

[angerthosenear]

When you look at your port listing in Setup 1.1x, does it say for example "[email protected] [Nvidia card]@x1.1" or does it say "[email protected] [NVidia card]@x1.1". If it's the latter then your bios has downgraded the expresscard slot to Gen1 (pci-e 1.x) speed. The way to fix this is use Setup 1.1's PCIe ports->Link speed.G2 to set your expresscard slot to Gen2 (pci-e 2.0).

Is this something that has to be set every boot?

Also, I added everything via F3 to the startup.bat however when I use this, it goes to the GRUB4DOS and not the the MBR or Win7. I see chainload at the end of the startup.bat list but I'm guessing it's the wrong one. What is the correct command to use? I have access to the .bat file within Windows (mount the eGPU related stuffs).

[harissahlan]

Hi,

Sometimes my PE4H stops working all in a sudden and I get a message something like "Display driver stopped responding but has been recovered". Is this a symptom of bad mini HDMI cable?

If so, will replacing my cable with 2 mini HDMI to HDMI converters and a HDMI cable (not mini HDMI) work?

[Tech Inferno Fan]

hi Tech Inferno Fan

how can i get DIYeGPU-Setup-110b5 i'm in egypt??

I have sent you an email about this. If you get one more post up then I can PM you too.

Is this something that has to be set every boot?

Also, I added everything via F3 to the startup.bat however when I use this, it goes to the GRUB4DOS and not the the MBR or Win7. I see chainload at the end of the startup.bat list but I'm guessing it's the wrong one. What is the correct command to use? I have access to the .bat file within Windows (mount the eGPU related stuffs).

If you hit F3 after setting Gen2 link speed on your port it then it will be added to your startup.bat as 'call iport g2 [port number]'. The chainloading line will be the last item in your startup.bat and will appear either as 'call grub4dos mbr' (MBR) or 'call grub4dos win7' (bootmgr). Yes, you can manually edit your startup.bat within Win7. Just open v:\config\startup.bat. There is a bunch of comments there to help you along. When all finished you can boot via Setup 1.x and just select the "automated startup via startup.bat" to do everything for you. If there's a 'call speedup lbacache' at the very start of your startup.bat then it then it will add ~3secs to your normal Win7 bootup process to configure your ports/pcie configuration/etc. Easy.

[MelWell749]

When I try to chainload win7 it starts up my Sony Vaio Rescue kit and wants to recover windows 7. Any thoughts on that?

My Computer :

Sony vaio VPCF13M1E

Intel i5 560M

dGPU : Nvidia Geforce 425m

eGPU : Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2

4gb RAM

[Tech Inferno Fan]

When I try to chainload win7 it starts up my Sony Vaio Rescue kit and wants to recover windows 7. Any thoughts on that?

My Computer :

Sony vaio VPCF13M1E

Intel i5 560M

dGPU : Nvidia Geforce 425m

eGPU : Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2

4gb RAM

What happens is 'chainload Win7' searches for the first instance of /bootmgr on your partitions. In your case, it finds it on your Recovery partition first before your Win7 installation. So easiest solution is to use 'chainload MBR' instead which is how the system boots. Or, if you want to go the more painful route use Chainloader->grub4dos.Prompt to query your partitions to find where your Win7 resides on then use Chainloader->!Edit config to manually set the partition for 'chainload Win7' to use.

NOTE: since your system lacks a iGPU, it's not going to get x1.Opt pci-e compression nor internal LCD mode. Not a good DIY eGPU candidate system.