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eGPU experiences [version 2.0]


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Did you try cold starting the machine instead? My understanding is that the Lenovo X230 should have the eGPU powered on while booting. If still error 12 then can try removing the "PCI Expess Root Port" that your eGPU is attached to (or all if not sure) as well as the eGPU itself. Then restart Windows and let it pnp the devices again. If still get an error 12 then consider using Setup 1.x. Setup 1.x can be installed as either a grub2 (Linux bootloader) or bootmgr bootitem. Linux is in fact easier as it avoid the bootmgr->Setup1.x->bootmgr loop to boot Win7/8 instead having the grub2->Setup1.x->bootmgr path.

Okay. I've got Setup 1.3 going, and I'm to the point where I can restart with the eGPU plugged in and it shows up in device manager without errors. Here's the weird part though: if I restart (or cold boot) with the monitor plugged into the eGPU DVI, it'll stay black and sit there until I open the laptop and see it's hung up on the Lenovo boot splash on the internal monitor. If I plug the monitor into the laptop's DVI port, it boots up fine and I can move the monitor to the eGPU's DVI once Im in windows and it works. Is this something that can be solved with Setup 1.x?

I took a screencap in setup (not sure where the .bmp is saved now though)... maybe someone can tell me if I'm in 1.2 or not. I'm trying to understand all this as I go along, I really appreciate the help.

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Okay. I've got Setup 1.3 going, and I'm to the point where I can restart with the eGPU plugged in and it shows up in device manager without errors. Here's the weird part though: if I restart (or cold boot) with the monitor plugged into the eGPU DVI, it'll stay black and sit there until I open the laptop and see it's hung up on the Lenovo boot splash on the internal monitor. If I plug the monitor into the laptop's DVI port, it boots up fine and I can move the monitor to the eGPU's DVI once Im in windows and it works. Is this something that can be solved with Setup 1.x?

I took a screencap in setup (not sure where the .bmp is saved now though)... maybe someone can tell me if I'm in 1.2 or not. I'm trying to understand all this as I go along, I really appreciate the help.

Mount the disk image (V: ) with c:\eGPU\eGPU-setup-mount in Windows. Screenshots are saved to v:\diag.

Sounds like the BIOS is getting stuck with the eGPU attached to the DVI port. One thing you could try is seeing if there's an expresscard slot=off option in the BIOS, then use Setup 1.x to enable the expresscard pci-e port. I have that option on my 2570P but the BIOS still doesn't disregard the eGPU on expresscard slot. It still halts bootup if the eGPU is detected on cold/warm boot. MY workaround is to set the PCI Reset Delay (SW1=3, 6.9s though is more like 15s on my PE4L 2.1b) to ensure the BIOS never sees the eGPU. In addition I have a special way of doign a reboot - I always poweroff the system and eGPU, poweron the eGPU then system and boot via Setup 1.x.

I should mention, a SWEX (the little switch that comes with a PE4L) has a cable that can be attached to auto-power off the eGPU when the system is powered off. I haven't tried it though.

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Mount the disk image (V: ) with c:\eGPU\eGPU-setup-mount in Windows. Screenshots are saved to v:\diag.

Sounds like the BIOS is getting stuck with the eGPU attached to the DVI port. One thing you could try is seeing if there's an expresscard slot=off option in the BIOS, then use Setup 1.x to enable the expresscard pci-e port. I have that option on my 2570P but the BIOS still doesn't disregard the eGPU on expresscard slot. It still halts bootup if the eGPU is detected on cold/warm boot. MY workaround is to set the PCI Reset Delay (SW1=3, 6.9s though is more like 15s on my PE4L 2.1b) to ensure the BIOS never sees the eGPU. In addition I have a special way of doign a reboot - I always poweroff the system and eGPU, poweron the eGPU then system and boot via Setup 1.x.

I should mention, a SWEX (the little switch that comes with a PE4L) has a cable that can be attached to auto-power off the eGPU when the system is powered off. I haven't tried it though.

Alright, thanks. As is I can get it working, so it's just a matter of convenience to not move the monitor cable. I will experiment a bit.

Here's a screenshot. I am not sure if I am understanding correctly, but would the eGPU=[...]@x1.1 signify only x1.1opt? If not, is there somewhere I can go that will tell that? Once again, thanks for all your help nando, you're a lifesaver!

ICKs073.jpg

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Alright, thanks. As is I can get it working, so it's just a matter of convenience to not move the monitor cable. I will experiment a bit.

Here's a screenshot. I am not sure if I am understanding correctly, but would the eGPU=[...]@x1.1 signify only x1.1opt? If not, is there somewhere I can go that will tell that? Once again, thanks for all your help nando, you're a lifesaver!

You can see the eGPU is attached on port3 which is set to run at x1 2.0. It just happens that the NVidia eGPU is running at x1 1.0 while not being in use as a power saving measure. If you put the eGPU under load by opening up the NVidia Control Panel and select "Adjust Image settings with Preview" it will show a spinning NVidia logo. If you simultaneously observe the eGPU with GPU-Z, you'll see it change from x1 1.0 to x1 2.0 as it's under load. The "Opt" is the optimus functionality that we've already established is engaged because of your 3dmark06 score is 22k. As it so happens your 3dmark06 score is one of the highest scores I've seen for a dual-core CPU. GTX770 FTW!!

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You can see the eGPU is attached on port3 which is set to run at x1 2.0. It just happens that the NVidia eGPU is running at x1 1.0 while not being in use as a power saving measure. If you put the eGPU under load by opening up the NVidia Control Panel and select "Adjust Image settings with Preview" it will show a spinning NVidia logo. If you simultaneously observe the eGPU with GPU-Z, you'll see it change from x1 1.0 to x1 2.0 as it's under load. The "Opt" is the optimus functionality that we've already established is engaged because of your 3dmark06 score is 22k. As it so happens your 3dmark06 score is one of the highest scores I've seen for a dual-core CPU. GTX770 FTW!!

Cool! I feel a little stupid I just realized all the 3dmark scores are listing the GPU score... 6.9k on 2011 isn't bad for a dual-core and everything runs on max so far, can't complain and it was much easier than I anticipated. Gonna mess around with setup 1.x to fix the boot from eGPU DVI issue and this will be good to go.

Cant thank you enough for your help. Have a good one.

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HI guys,

Please help me. I want to make a 7970 run with my HP 2560p. First I get error 12, then with 32bit compaction I get error 43.

I am on that DSDT override now, but it simply doesn't want to work. I have downloaded many rar's and read through almost every related link here, but yet do not get the hang of it.

I have reached to make a dsdt.dsl file, copied the QWORD phase but cant compile it to the needed .asl file. frown.png.pagespeed.ce.k7JIVwiiFa.png

Here is what I get:

9940d1386691847-dsdt_error.jpg

How could I solve that error?

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This FPS plot above is incorrrect! it's impossible to achieve such a difference because of CPU. I did comparison for 32 vs 64 players. Here You have correct plot for 32 players for both.

[ATTACH]9942[/ATTACH]

So are these 32 player Battlefield 4 comparisons, green being the dual core i5 and red being the quad i7? That's actually pretty close. When I upgraded from an i5 2415m to an i7 3615qm I saw a bigger increase.

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So are these 32 player Battlefield 4 comparisons, green being the dual core i5 and red being the quad i7? That's actually pretty close. When I upgraded from an i5 2415m to an i7 3615qm I saw a bigger increase.

Yes, You can distinguish them by CPU usage as You can see, QM is almost sleeping. BF4 doesn't use additional cores. Maybe more visible differences would be with higher setting and more players but even if, only minimum and average fps would be little bit higher, in my opinion this difference is not worth of buying QM instead of dual core.

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HI guys,

Please help me. I want to make a 7970 run with my HP 2560p. First I get error 12, then with 32bit compaction I get error 43.

I am on that DSDT override now, but it simply doesn't want to work. I have downloaded many rar's and read through almost every related link here, but yet do not get the hang of it.

I have reached to make a dsdt.dsl file, copied the QWORD phase but cant compile it to the needed .asl file.

@sskillz got a 2560P + HD7970 working via a DSDT substitution here. This resolves his error 12 + 43. Perhaps he can help out?

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Yes, You can distinguish them by CPU usage as You can see, QM is almost sleeping. BF4 doesn't use additional cores. Maybe more visible differences would be with higher setting and more players but even if, only minimum and average fps would be little bit higher, in my opinion this difference is not worth of buying QM instead of dual core.

I would try upgrading to Windows 8 (if possible). The DX11.1 and 11.2 CPU optimizations have reportedly given significant fps increases in battlefield 4. It uses the CPU more effectively so you'd probably see more usage with the i7 while playing.

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I need help

when I want to boot setup 1,30 menu based it finds the egpu and says iport error press any key. I press a key and I don't see the menu instead mostly black screen with f1 and f5 options available. I press f1 and get the codes for 32 bit, 36 bit and so on but when I write the codes nothing happens. Any ideas?

Also would gtx 660 good for using the internal screen of late 3013 rBMP 13", does it matter from asus or gigabyte?

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I need help

when I want to boot setup 1,30 menu based it finds the egpu and says iport error press any key. I press a key and I don't see the menu instead mostly black screen with f1 and f5 options available. I press f1 and get the codes for 32 bit, 36 bit and so on but when I write the codes nothing happens. Any ideas?

Also would gtx 660 good for using the internal screen of late 3013 rBMP 13", does it matter from asus or gigabyte?

A new Setup 1.30 build corrects the iport error with 2013 rMBP. Please send me an email to discuss: Tech Inferno [email protected] .

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HI guys,

Please help me. I want to make a 7970 run with my HP 2560p. First I get error 12, then with 32bit compaction I get error 43.

I am on that DSDT override now, but it simply doesn't want to work. I have downloaded many rar's and read through almost every related link here, but yet do not get the hang of it.

I have reached to make a dsdt.dsl file, copied the QWORD phase but cant compile it to the needed .asl file. frown.png.pagespeed.ce.k7JIVwiiFa.png

Here is what I get:

9940d1386691847-dsdt_error.jpg

How could I solve that error?

Hey, your image isn't working for me so I can't see which errors you get. This is what I followed to fix the errors you probably are getting:

DIY eGPU experiences - Page 1003

Do you have the address from the dsdt substitution guide?

You can post me the dsdt file you created and I can modify it the proper way then send it to you to compile.

I'm not sure if you can use mine and if its at the same address, but I don't think it will cause harm as its only temporary till the next restart,

So here is mine(I don't have the source with me). to try with my address, if you have a different address change it I'm not sure mine will work on yours:

Zippyshare.com - dsdt.zip

Now lets say you have the dsdt.aml file (yours or mine) do the following:

Put the file at <diyegpuimg_drive>\config\dsdt.aml

And modify the <diyegpuimg_drive>\config\startup.bat file to the following:


call vidwait 30
call pt MEM writefromfile 1 0xBCFD1000 dsdt
call chainload mbr

Start the pc and egpu at about the same time, go to menu based setup 1.x and choose startup.bat -> test.

This will cause it to run the 1st and 2nd command (because its just a test it won't chainload), so now the override is in place.

Now you test the different compactions that you couldn't before, for example mine works with 56BIT only on eGPU while choosing to ignore iGPU and force

none to 32bit. If the compaction worked, you will get all_alloc = yes and you proceed to chainload -> test (Change from mbr first if necessary).

Now setup 1.x managed to compact the ram it will add the command: call pci

to the startup.bat file, so if you still get errors in windows after chainloading (43,12), or can't boot and want to

try a different compaction, you will need to edit the startup file again, or else it will compact twice (when you run startup.bat to write dsdt again).

You can edit it in setup 1.x you don't have to do it in windows...

</diyegpuimg_drive></diyegpuimg_drive>

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Yes, You can distinguish them by CPU usage as You can see, QM is almost sleeping. BF4 doesn't use additional cores. Maybe more visible differences would be with higher setting and more players but even if, only minimum and average fps would be little bit higher, in my opinion this difference is not worth of buying QM instead of dual core.

Hi buddy!

Would you mind disabling core parking and redo the tests for your QM?

It's a known issue in win7 especially for BF4 atm. This hopefully means that win8 still can go screw itself =)

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Hi buddy!

Would you mind disabling core parking and redo the tests for your QM?

It's a known issue in win7 especially for BF4 atm. This hopefully means that win8 still can go screw itself =)

Ok, I will try but when I got new CPU, this 35W TDP is already sold ;) Im looking for something around 3630QM (because its cheaper than 3632QM and difference in price I will spend on better GPU).

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Ok, I will try but when I got new CPU, this 35W TDP is already sold ;) Im looking for something around 3630QM (because its cheaper than 3632QM and difference in price I will spend on better GPU).

I see, so you're joining the 45W league now =)

It seem like the 3740QM @ eBay is around the same price range as the 3630QM?

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Yess! Just when I felt running out of ideas I managed to get it work somehow.

So my rig is a 2560p@i7-2760qm and 8GB rams - I am not sure its important or not...

I use an oem Sapphire 7970 with pe4l 2.1b.

I hade to make dsdt override. Got the table loaded like kizwan showed, so no need to bothering with that more.

Needed to have an egpu clean W7 64bit (I just deleted my previous driver tries, so no reinstall needed).

Adapter in x2/x4... and in 6,9sec delay switch. (I am not sure I need to plug and power it first, may be a hot plug in setup1x takes it too. I will edit it, if can make more simple.)

So let past bios and arrive into setup1x. I tried several forms, but it seems the 32-bitA compression on egpu worked me.

When W7 stands up it says no more error on my 7970, and AB says it has a 13.9 catalyst. Its almost the latest. So I don't do anything with that.

Run a couple tests, later will add some more:

13.9 Catalyst, 925/1375 : AMD Radeon HD 7970 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 162B

13.9 Catalyst, 1100/1450 : AMD Radeon HD 7970 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 162B

Sadly AB lets me only push it until 1125 MHz core. It is also voltlocked. But it takes it too.

It took me about a half day to make it work, but I was curious about this override stuff. I try to help a lot of people with this egpu stuff in my home country, but could not really say anything personally when it came to this point.

Round2: The sapphire vga was bought used, freezed 2 times within a day during normal web surfing, so I decided to give it back.

The new candidate - an asus DCII 280X (very serious one, I had same DCII 660Ti, but that looks only a toy compared to this) - has already bought too.

First kind surprise, that I did not have to do anything special. Just plug-n-play, the same startup method worked it too.

It's core can be clocked up to 1,5GHz in AB, so I might try to sneak to the top of the list. :D

Quick run at 1200/1600: 9909 GPU Score

More benches coming soon!

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Hello. Sorry if I get you guys messed up.This is a very serious issue to me. I'm interested to make an external GPU for my laptop...But the problem is, I even don't know whether it has a PCI-E slot or not. Here are my laptop specs so far:Laptop Brand : ASUS K43SJOS : Windows 7 Ultimate 64xRAM : 6 GBCPU : Intel Pentium B940 2.00 GhzGPU : Nvidia GeForce GT 520M 1GB HDD : Seagate 500GB

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Yess! Just when I felt running out of ideas I managed to get it work somehow.

So my rig is a 2560p@i7-2760qm and 8GB rams - I am not sure its important or not...

I use an oem Sapphire 7970 with pe4l 2.1b.

I hade to make dsdt override. Got the table loaded like kizwan showed, so no need to bothering with that more.

Needed to have an egpu clean W7 64bit (I just deleted my previous driver tries, so no reinstall needed).

Adapter in x2/x4... and in 6,9sec delay switch. (I am not sure I need to plug and power it first, may be a hot plug in setup1x takes it too. I will edit it, if can make more simple.)

So let past bios and arrive into setup1x. I tried several forms, but it seems the 32-bitA compression on egpu worked me.

When W7 stands up it says no more error on my 7970, and AB says it has a 13.9 catalyst. Its almost the latest. So I don't do anything with that.

Run a couple tests, later will add some more:

13.9 Catalyst, 925/1375 : AMD Radeon HD 7970 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 162B

13.9 Catalyst, 1100/1450 : AMD Radeon HD 7970 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 162B

Sadly AB lets me only push it until 1125 MHz core. It is also voltlocked. But it takes it too.

It took me about a half day to make it work, but I was curious about this override stuff. I try to help a lot of people with this egpu stuff in my home country, but could not really say anything personally when it came to this point.

Round2: The sapphire vga was bought used, freezed 2 times within a day during normal web surfing, so I decided to give it back.

The new candidate - an asus DCII 280X (very serious one, I had same DCII 660Ti, but that looks only a toy compared to this) - has already bought too.

First kind surprise, that I did not have to do anything special. Just plug-n-play, the same startup method worked it too.

It's core can be clocked up to 1,5GHz in AB, so I might try to sneak to the top of the list. :D

Quick run at 1200/1600: 9909 GPU Score

More benches coming soon!

Nice !

I've also since then got a 2630QM, and here is its result at 1100/1500: AMD Radeon HD 7970 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 162B .

I sold my i5 2520m at 70$ so the upgrade was just ~60$ shipped, now I wished I had gone higher to 2740QM / 2820QM like yours (look at the physics score

compared to mine) with a another 30$.

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For AMD graphic card users. Could you guys try to play first mission in Crysis 3? I mean "Welcome to the jungle" - specially moments full of grass everywhere. With NV cards we can see huge FPS drops because of bus load. Maybe with Radeons will be better.

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So I have a Sony Vaio VPCS129GC with a nVidia 310m. I've been trying to get a GTX 660 eGPU to work with it, but it only uses the dGPU. I've read the section in the FAQ about getting two nVidia cards to work together, and am a bit confused. Could someone explain it to me in more detail please?

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So I have a Sony Vaio VPCS129GC with a nVidia 310m. I've been trying to get a GTX 660 eGPU to work with it, but it only uses the dGPU. I've read the section in the FAQ about getting two nVidia cards to work together, and am a bit confused. Could someone explain it to me in more detail please?

I used to run iGPU+dGPU+eGPU with my NVS4200M and GTX 660 Ti.

You need to uninstally your dGPU driver, install your eGPU one and hope it covers both your dGPU and eGPU.

Honestly, you get much better performance if you just leave your dGPU disabled. Even though I spent a lot of time getting my dGPU to work alongside my eGPU, there really is no reason to do so other than say "Look I did it"

So I'd suggest sparing your time and just disable the dGPU so you have iGPU+eGPU instead.

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