Leaderboard

Hello all! I posted my progress on this project awhile ago, but I can't seem to find my post... This was some 6+ months ago, so in all likelihood it expired due to inactivity. Anyway... I have been working with WhackingCheese on the notebookreview fourms to make an MXM 3 to PCI-e x16 expansion card. Here is the link to where the relevant parts of the thread start: Let's figure out how to convert internal MXM connector an external PCI-E x16 box | Page 20 | NotebookReview I laid the boards out using FreePCB. My schematics are in my dropbox, for the perusal of anyone interested: MXM Board: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/MXM_PCI-e.fpc MXM Library: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/MXM.fpl MXM Gerber Files: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/MXM.zip PCI-e Board: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/PCIe_Base.fpc PCI-e Library: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/PCI-e.fpl PCI-e Gerber Files: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/PCI.zip And here is a simple spreadsheet of all the pin connections I made: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27091889/MXM/MXM-PCIe%20Pins.ods Note that there are several kinks with these designs in their current form; while I have had some success, I don' t recommend they be printed as-is. Kinks: ATX Power Supply header interfears with the PCI card "latch" - the bit at the back which holds the board to the motherboard. I had to chop mine off... Header pin-holes are too small for standard 2x20 pin headers Some other things that I am forgetting... Of course, I promised results! And I have them! Here are the pictures! Here are the boards before I built them up; the MXM card is slotted into the test motherboard Here is a picture, wired up and ready to go And here it is running!! See where I've highlighted "Link Width x16"? My server really seems to be grinding right now, and I'm too lazy to properly scale the photos down so they're ridiculously huge. Sorry! If someone scales them to a reasonable size (one which the forum will accept) I'll edit the post to use those. The #1 interesting problem right now is I can't benchmark this setup. Windows works until I install the NVidia drivers, then the screen gos black shortly after boot. The system is still running; I can log in blind and it makes the little jingle. Linux has the same problem. Works find with the Nouveau driver, but as soon as I install the NVidia driver it blacks out shortly after boot. My theories are: The NVidia driver pokes some PCI connections that are actually miswired but not used by the other drivers. This causes the card to crash. The laptop actually has an integrated Intel GPU; it's just normally disabled and it's not connected to anything. Possibly NVidia is trying to do Optimus, there is an error with the disabled/disconnected iGPU, and the card crashes. Maybe something in the laptop reports the (disconnected in more ways than one) internal display, the NVidia driver tries to initialize it, can't because it's not there, and crashes. In summary, I don't really know what's going on at this point. All I can really say is it's not working as I hoped it would

Holy cow. I thought this thread had died! For some reason I wasn't getting any email notifications... So, at risk of sounding like: https://xkcd.com/1783/ , let me try to answer this pile of questions. I answered this one in PM at the time. I have seen this kind of adapter for sale. The real issue is attaching a heatsink to the laptop GPU in the desktop chassis. MXM 2 and MXM 3 are, unfortunately, totally different, so this tool won't help you. I have heard rumours that an MXM 2 -> PCI adapter exists, but I don't have any solid information. I think I used desktop drivers in Windows (The laptop originally had a 560m, and I explcitally remember having to re-download and reinstall the drivers) In Linux there is only one driver package which works for everything. Since the problem was the same in both cases, it's likely not the driver installation itself that is the problem Pretty much exactly this. I have also used the mPCIe adapter and it works fine (~80%), but this would be an even better solution. M.2 could offer up to an x4 connection, so is worth watching. I don't remember where I saw it, but there was some graphic which said GPUs would see ~100% performance on an x4 link. This was awhile ago, so possibly modern GPUs need more bandwidth. I don't have any built-up boards other than my one test board, and I think it should be reworked before more get printed. If you're interested in doing that, I have a mental to-do list. Basically, the answer is "I suppose you could have it but I wouldn't recommend it" The laptop is a MSI GT-683r. Due to a long and mostly unfortunate series of events I ended up with several of these in various states of broken-ness, so this laptop will be my tester for the immediate future. I don't know whether or not it has an actually-conforming MXM port (In that lots of companies change it around as they need to to simplify their design) so that is another possible cause of the error I'm seeing... My gut says I looked into this at some point and it wasn't an issue. My brain has no memory of this. This laptop does have MXM 3 - Physically MXM 3 and MXM 2 cards are incompatible, so once you learn to recognize them they're easy to tell apart It's very possible the laptop needs some software override to make the GPU work. The only reason I think it wouldn't is because the original 560m sat on an x16 link and because it worked until I installed the official drivers. From what I have seen of it, the Sour Ninja Dual Wield is the same technology as I've got, but theirs appears to work. I would be plenty happy to pay for theirs when it comes out, but I may also redo and finish this one just for my own satisfaction. (I have been saying that for two years, though, so nobody hold your breath :/ )