amarD

Yes. There's no power in on the card itself--it takes power via PCIe. I have an old laptop power brick connected to the PE4L.

I have a GTX 750 Ti working with my Sandy Bridge ThinkPad (no internal dGPU) in Windows via PE4L. Everything works flawlessly, and given the performance of the eGPU and CPU, bandwidth isn't really a problem. I can play pretty much any game I want at 1080p/60FPS, and I would say my favorite thing about it is the fact that I can connect/disconnect and switch between "laptop mode" and "desktop mode" with just a reboot. I also dual-boot Linux on my laptop, and that's actually my main OS. Windows is really only for gaming. But I want to play around with CUDA development in Python, and most of the tools available only work with Linux or OS X (out of the box, at least). Is there a way to use the eGPU in Linux and keep the "plug-and-play" functionality?

I thought you might be interested, so here are my 3DMark (demo) results using the laptop's internal display. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2620M Processor,LENOVO 4298W1C 3DMark still crashes when I try to run the test with an external display.

Thanks. I'll try it with Firefox/IE when I get home. EDIT: I wanted to run some benchmarks for you guys, so I downloaded Steam and the 3DMark demo, which doesn't seem to be cooperating. I ran through it and got this error:

There really wasn't much to it after I got a card that actually worked. One thing I might recommend is if you're using an AC/DC adapter instead of a proper PSU, get a USB A male to USB A male cable and a USB AC/DC 5V adapter to make things easier. While the power brick delivers power to the card, it doesn't actually power the PE4L, so it needs to either be connected via Express Card or USB cable to turn on. Does anyone know what's going on with the CPU load, though? Even light tasks such as watching a movie will put it under stress and raise the temperature to ~80C. This doesn't happen when I'm not driving the display through the eGPU. I've heard that this is an issue with >8 GB RAM, but I only have 8 GB.

So it works now, but it puts the CPU under full load. Is that normal?

I finally got it to work! Well, kinda ... It won't drive my external monitor. I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that I'm using a DVI to VGA adapter?

I just snuck into work to try this again ... First, I tried plugging in my GTX 750 Ti into my work computer (running a Sandy Bridge i7 and GT 620). No dice. Confirms that the card is defective. Then I replaced back the GT 620 and booted it up to make sure everything still works. Second, I took out the GT 620 from my work computer and plugged it into the PE4L. At boot up, between the POST screen and the Windows splash screen, I plugged in the PE4L via Express Card slot. The card started to spin--a good sign. But then my laptop didn't recognize the card--nothing in the device manager or BIOS, a blank external display connected to the card, and a message in the NVidia driver installer saying no devices were recognized. Could the PE4L be broken as well? Just as a reminder, what I have: ThinkPad X220 with a Sandy Bridge mobile i7 CPU and 4 GB RAM (2x2) running Windows 8.1 PE4L EC adapter EVGA GTX 750 Ti

Yup. The LEDs only turned off when the card was inserted. Except now they stay on.

They have integrated graphics. Before, it never lit up with the card attached, but now it does ... ?

It's in. I played around with the two switches, but otherwise everything is as shipped. Thanks for the help! I'm hoping the PE4L isn't broken as well.

I didn't try plugging in any other AC adapters (they didn't fit). It seems like the card was already defective in the first place, after trying it with my parents' desktop. Either way, it shot sparks when I plugged it in the first couple times and when I tried using a PCIe riser with it, it fried the riser. I'm shipping the card back this weekend to see if a new one will work.

I haven't been able to get the card to work with the PE4L at all, as in it doesn't power up while connected and any LEDs that were lit up on the PE4L turn off immediately when the card is connected to it. The card doesn't appear to be the problem, as it powered on when connected to my parents' desktop (I didn't download drivers and use it though). My guess is that it needs more than a PCIe x1 connection to power the card (as it doesn't draw power from the PSU directly), and the fact that the EXP GDC uses a x16 connector seems to confirm my suspicions. In addition, the PE4L fried my PCIe riser, which might mean there's too much power being delivered through it and it needs a full length PCIe x16 connection. EDIT: It appears that there's something wrong with the card. I tried it again at my parents' and while it does power on, the computer cannot recognize it.

Does the PCIe x1 connector have issues if you try to deliver too much power to it? The GTX 750 Ti draws power from PCIe alone, so I'm thinking maybe I need a PE4H instead of a PE4L.

Thanks for the help. I tried the card with my parents' desktop, and it seems to work (I just checked to see if it powers on, I didn't bother downloading drivers and actually using it). They have a small prebuilt desktop, so I had to purchase a PCIe x16 riser. I thought maybe that would give it some stability, so I tried connecting the card to the PE4L again via the riser, and when I turned on the power it started smoking at the PCIe x1 connection ... Maybe I have a bad PE4L? EDIT: Upon inspection, it appears that I burned out my PCIe riser (unless it came that way).