Thanks for taking the time to respond with an in-depth explanation. I ran 3dmark06 and got 22947... results are here: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3520M,LENOVO 2306CTO I think this would suggest some compression is happening. Here is an issue that I just ran across that might be telling. When I first plugged in the expresscard I got the GTX770 in device manager with a yellow marker, installed the nVidia drivers, reboot (with the laptop lid closed, expresscard plugged in, and laptop powering external monitor directly)... the laptop reboots fine with the expresscard pushed in, and once in windows the GTX770 had no yellow marker so I swapped the monitor cable to the 770 and it came up just fine (I have been running benchmarks this way since then). However, just now I had to restart and the system hung at the Lenovo boot screen. I had to remove the expresscard and hard cycle it to get it to boot. Now I am getting error 12 on the GTX770, but when I close the lid, reinstall the drivers via external monitor and reboot, it works like it did the first time again (no yellow marker) and I am able to switch the monitor back to the GTX770. Put more simply... after a fresh driver install+restart w/ laptop closed and directly attached ext. monitor it will boot with the expresscard plugged in and allows me to switch the monitor to the 770 once I'm in Windows with no issues. If I reboot while already on the 770, the system hangs at boot screen, and if I hotplug it in Windows I get error 12. Any idea what this implies? Thanks again for the help... Edit:Sent you a payment for Setup 1.x, but I'm running a dual-boot Win8.1/Ubuntu 13.10 and I'm wondering how that'll effect the installation. Any thoughts?