Sompom

So I still apparently don't have email notifications of posts to this thread, even though I am supposed to and I get notifications for PMs. Sorry that the Dropbox files went away. Dropbox just recently changed their service to not have a public folder, retroactively killing all my links... Here are some re-uploads. Maybe me clicking the share button will revive the old links too? Parts List: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dz68vmna4t85rpy/Parts List.doc?dl=0 MXM Gerber: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ciyrvnvyhhxsl7m/MXM.zip?dl=0 PCI-e Gerber: https://www.dropbox.com/s/59f2k632g6jpc16/PCI.zip?dl=0 Here are the FreePCB Sources -- However, I strongly recommend that nobody use these other than for reference. I only chose FreePCB because it was the only thing available at the time. If someone were to take these and do them again, I would suggest using something newer like KiCAD MXM: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mspkgm9h97wdjlj/MXM_PCI-e.fpc?dl=0 MXM Parts Library: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b801rfwghjt3ku1/MXM.fpl?dl=0 PCI-e: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4f4x8ntiamdoyjk/PCIe_Base.fpc?dl=0 PCI-e Parts Library: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2srqpcrkp8hgu6r/PCI-e.fpl?dl=0 As said in a previous post, these designs as they stand partially work, but do not work when the NVidia driver is installed (AMD Untested. I have a test card, but I traded my power supply for it!). My current best guess is that there is interference at the higher frequencies which the default Microsoft / Nouveau drivers do not exercise. If all you want to do is buy an assembled device, I would suggest following @Shadowsnight1000's progress. He is actively working on a new version. If you want to hack and play around, go look at KiCAD and go look through the Notebook review post. All the information I have is there.

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 :/ )

Ah. I don't know if HP sells these motheboards any more; the computer I have is 5 years old and is the second or third refresh in the series... The place to get cheap motherboards to mess around with is, of course, eBay

Like I said, the BGA rework machine may be a ghost story; I've not tracked it down yet! The laptop I have is the HP TM2-2151nr -- That's the one with the i5 470um and ATI 5450m dGPU. The replacement motherboard at that spec is >$50. The cheap-o motherboard is HP Part Number 611488-001. I don't know the model name of the laptop that shipped with it. TM2-something If you're looking for an affordable, convertible laptop with a Wacom touchscreen for handwriting lecture notes, I think this is the best on the market even considering newer ones.

That was more or less my exact thought. For $15, what's the worst that can happen? My other goal with this motherboard is to see if I can drop off the BGA CPU and upgrade the same with a i7 in the same package/footprint. Then I'll have an i7 + the best eGPU . Rumour has it that there's a nice BGA rework machine at my university, but I'm damned if I can find it. Either way, dropping the CPU off the motherboard may be necessary to trace the PCI lanes if I can't find a schematic. After which I can try my upgrade, and buy another cheapo motherboard if it doesn't work, but this time I know the GPU pinout.

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

It's funny that I stumbled into this thread today.... I've been playing with the same idea for awhile, and I literally just bought a replacement motherboard with no dGPU to try ;P But I can top all of you. My replacement motherboard was $15 with free shipping. (Crappy, i3 version vs. my nice i5, which costs $50...) I'll watch this thread, and post any results I get. But I probably won't have significant time to work on this for awhile

Hello all, I would like to submit information for a new hardware configuration! After months sitting on the shelf, I have just connected my nVidia 560TI to my i5-470UM HP TM2-2151nr laptop First results seem promising. I pushed Skyrim up to Ultra (no mods yet) and the 560TI hardly broke a sweat. However, DOTA2 presumptuously sat at 20FPS no matter what I set the graphics to... I'm downloading the benchmarkers, so I'll edit this post with the results ASAP. For those wanting to setup this laptop themselves, all I had to do was go into Setup 1.x, save the settings for slot 2 with my WiFi card inserted, then reboot with the eGPU (PE4H) set to 7s delay, enable slot 2 and restore the saved settings. I also disabled the ATI 5450m dGPU. I was able to boot with it enabled, but I have always had raging driver problems where the backlight wouldn't come on, and it is selected by default when the system boots while plugged in. So I just disabled it to avoid trouble I am also able to boot with 4GB of RAM, even without doing PCI compaction. The one time I tried PCI compaction, it crashed Windows 8. My computer takes a long time to boot with the eGPU, so I decided not to try again. Would PCI compaction give me a performance boost? Edit: The answer to my question seems to be yes. I did a before/after on the Resident Evil Benchmark and I got a few FPS performance boost with the PCI compaction Thanks, Sompom My setup: Windows 8 HP tm2-2151nr* Intel i5-470UM 1.33-1.6 GHZ** nVidia 560TI 4GB RAM 3Dm6: 8781 RESvar: Default settings, DX10 - 23 FPS Fixed test, 35 FPS Variable *I believe this laptop is basically the same as the tm2-1xxx and the tm2-2xxx. But no promises! **I haven't really looked yet, but I expect that I'll find this processor a little weak. This could be why DOTA was lagging.

Too bad. Your brain is mine now I have an HP-TM2 2151nr. As far as I can find, nobody has done an HP-TM2. Quite likely there are people who have done similar laptops, but I don't know what a "similar" laptop to this one would be

Can I pick your brain for a second? I don't know much about whitelists, but I know that the HP I have wouldn't accept a new Intel WiFi card, so I installed a non-whitelist BIOS, and now the WiFi card works. My laptop doesn't boot with the eGPU in either. Would you think that this is a problem with the whitelist still? My computer does boot with the SW1 switch set to anything other than 1. Is that equivalent to having it plugged in before switching the laptop on? (Needless to say, I have never yet seen my eGPU in the OS) From my readings on PCI, this whole system should be hot-pluggable. Just flip the laptop over while running, yank out the WiFi card and stick in the eGPU. Does that work for anybody? (Hotplugging my wifi card alone works)

No... It doesn't show up anywhere. Is there a trial version of the Setup 1.x I could test with? I was hoping not to put any more money into this project, at least not until it worked

Hello again, I posted with this problem back on page 217 but I didn't get a response (which is understandable, because my question was somewhat jumbled) I bought a new HDMI cable, which was what I suspected to be the problem, and the eGPU is still stubbornly undetected. This time, I tried plugging a USB thumb drive into the PE4H, which was detected and showed up on the OS as would be expected. Has anyone heard of the PE4H itself being bad? I could probably return and replace it if it's likely to be the problem. I think I'll conclude my post here in an effort to not confuse my question. I'm happy to try anything you guys have to suggest (including but not limited to standing on my head and singing the alphabet backwards. But you'll have to convince me it will help ) Thanks, Sompom

Hello all, Thank you for this wonderful horde of information! I can see why that other site - we shall not speak its name - would want to hold onto it, even illegally. I'm fairly sure I have encountered a bad HDMI cord, but I want to see what you guys think. I have read the FAQ/troubleshooting and tried everything I could under "Why is my eGPU is not detected?" as well as sleeping the laptop, turning the eGPU on, and waking the laptop back up. I have two laptops, one which should be compatible according to the introduction page and one that should not be, but I have tested in both anyway (But a lack of PCI bus memory would just cause an Error 12, right?). My eGPU is an NVidia 560Ti with the PE4H-PM3N ver 2.4a and ver 1.2 (that is, the v2.4a PE4H with the v1.2 mini-PCIe adapter) My PSU has 38A on the +12V (= ~450W -- the GPU should require less than 300W according to the NVidia website) First laptop: Suspected compatible: HP tm2-2151nr Windows 8.1 and Kubuntu 13.10 4GB RAM TOLUD = 2.5GB MUX-based switchable Intel HD with AMD 5450 Second laptop: Probably incompatible: MSI GT683-R Windows 7 and Kubuntu 12.04 12GB RAM TOLUD = 3.5GB NVidia 560m dGPU Problem: The eGPU never shows itself to the OS. Not in the Device Manager, not after a "Scan for hardware changes", and not in lspci. I suspect that this means the HDMI cable is bad, but I would like your opinions. In order to get either of my laptops to turn on with the eGPU already turned on, I have to set the switches to CLKRUN# 2 - enable for 6.9sec. What does this actually do? If I'm switching the eGPU on after the laptop is on, I want to set this to #1 - disable, right? (Otherwise my eGPU's fans set to 100% on switching on...) I have a de-whitelisted BIOS on the HP laptop, for an upgraded WiFi card, but I can no longer get into the BIOS settings screen . My recollection is that there was nothing terribly interesting in there anyway. Thanks for any thoughts or feedback! -Sompom As a point of interest, the links in the first post to the deal extreme page for the replacement HDMI cable are broken. Searching by SKU, this one seems to be the same: Gold Plated 1080P HDMI Mini V1.3 M-M Connection Cable - Black (1.5M-Length) - Free Shipping - DealExtreme (Although that link is also sold out. Has anyone found a different source? What are the criteria for a replacement?) Any opinions about this cable: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812270178 ?