boony1

I have refind installed. When i boot via refind and do not alter any of the settings then windows 8.1 will never recognize the eGPU. Although it is listed when i do a "pci -b". When I boot with the Mac Bootloader via pressing the alt button, then only the eGPU is recognized.

I Have to admit that i cannot find anything in the refind.conf related to scanning hardware by "just removing a # from the file".

It's been a while since I've been on this forum, not sure what else has changed, but have you considered using Windows 7 and doing bootcamp?

Since I also have the TH05 on a late 2012 13" rMBP I found that to be such a smooth and easy installation.

Thinking of sending the rMBP back. :/ Looks like the only way to get the eGPU working is with the TH05. I have posted several places offering $450 shipped even without luck. :/

It's really disappointing. I can still attempt the PL4E mod on the rMBP. Although, there's no telling if that will even work.

Still have my SVZ still and it's an option. MikjoA has proven that to work, but still I'd regather have the MBP.

Although, I have thought about getting a 15" rMBP and wait it out. However, just don't want to tote that larger footprint around. (Too large for tight working conditions)

What to do ladies and gentlemen?

I assume you are a mac user,

I primarly use mac os for work, hobbies photography, but for gaming hands down windows laptop is the way to go.

If you are to go the mac route, since TH04 will be coming out later this year, if you can wait you may as well wait for the 13" rMBP refresh with Haswell CPU and by then most likely next gen of GPU will be out.

Otherwise the only other suggestion is get a windows based laptop. I'm not sure what the best choice would be in the end it's up to you.

Black ops 2 video gameplay uploaded, max resolution the rMBP offers.

Starcraft 2 video gameplay uploaded.

RE5 benchmark results/videos up later and that's pretty much it.

Diablo 3 gameplay video added,

Will be adding Starcraft 2 and black ops 2 tonight gameplay vids tonight.

RE5 benchmark will be added soon as well, seems to be a good benchmark for comparison.

Batman should give you the same results. Did you try retina resolution?

I might need some help with mine as I had to settle with the sonnet product. Really hope you can help out.

Hope you don't mind, but I linked your youtube videos on a few other sites. Looks like you hit 1k views on your first one already

I have only tried retina on dirt 3, others seems to be too much pixels to push for the little mac. Although it's playable but for me I prefer smooth fps.

Yeah no worries, I'll try and help out. I'm sure it won't be too different to other setups. Although I'm trying to provide as much video/info as I can I am on holiday on Thursday so I doubt I'd be online if at all.

Link whatever you want, the more people get notice of this eGPU thing the better it is. I've also provided this forum link as well. Much thanks to Nando of course I don't think many would stumble across this community without him.

Try turning Physx off in the Nividia Control Panel as well.

Thanks again for entertaining my requests.

I've set it to low through bl2, makes a massive difference, everything still left on max settings other than physx, I don't think it ever really dipped below 60fps.

The reason I asked is that I have read that Borderlands and Physx do not play nice with eGPUs.

Interesting,

thanks for the heads up, I'll turn physx to low and compare the results.

I have just uploaded a quick gameplay vid on batman arkham city, will run a benchmark post a vid as well getting roughly 40s on average on arkham city.

Currently uploading crysis 2 on ultra+high res texture pack, fps is in the 30s low 40s.

Fantastic! What FPS are you getting on Borderlands? Do you have Physix on?

Everything is on max settings at 1920x1200, physx is on high as well.

I should have put fraps on when recording but the fps was capped at 60, during gameplay and battles it would drop quite a bit to 20fps in really heavy battle on average I'd say fps within 35-45.

I'll have to do more runs as that video was running very smooth while I was playing a lot smoother than a quick run with fraps on, could be just me realising the fps with fraps on though. Still the gameplay is more than playable although I prefer to lower the settings.

A quick Borderlands 2 gameplay vid is up on my post on page 1.

I will add Batman Arkham city, BF3, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and Black ops II when I get the chance.

Quote

Kloper,

Could you please run Heaven Benchmark v3.0 Basic again at native/max internal Retina resolution?

Curious how that would turn up score wise.

Thanks!

Just took delivery of a maxed out 13" Retina (Yep 768 SSD Baby) to mod it with an eGPU. This method looks awesome, but it seems I'm too late to pick up a TH05. Does anyone else know where I might be able to purchase this? Somebody has to have some dead stock.

if your reading this and your sitting on one, PM me with a price.

I have been brainstorming another idea. MikjoA (Check YouTube) modded his Vaio Z2 with a PE4L 2.1 and had good success. I have found a good mini wifi dongle that I could leave in one of the USB slots making the missing wifi card a non issue. I understand that I would have to purchase a second bottom plate and mod it, but the way the Wifi card sits inside the rMBP, it would be a breeze to complete.

I would instal the card and fabricate a thin protective cover when not needing access to the port. To make this even better, Spec and others make hard shells that would really protect it when our in the field.

I want to use the internal monitor and am not looking to line Sonnets pockets with $800 for their enclosure.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

768GB huge !!!

Sadly I don't think there would be any place selling TH05.

They will be releasing a TH04 which I think is similar to the PE4L with a TB port not ETA though.

Since I've been able to get mine working through external and internal now, I won't be sending mine back since they have sent out a recall notice.

All I can say is, gaming on this eGPU setup is quite amazing, I will post my benchmarks later tonight and some pics and hopefully later some gameplay videos.

So far I've tested Crysis 2 and Borderlands 2. I have noticed an issue with the menu in Crysis 2 the cursor does not seem to match the actual screen, I'll need to follow up on that but playing full HD Crysis 2 is more than playable at max default settings. Borderlands 2 is no different max setting on max retina resolution is more than playable too although slow downs are noticeable when it happens although that was from a quick test. I'll do further testing tonight for updates.

A quick 3d mark 11 benchmark gave me around 4.4k on the internal display.

When I had mine set up with refit windows 8 external display I was getting low 6k.

I too have tried, with the same setup as Kloper 8GB ram.

No idea if that could be causing it.

• [FONT=Verdana]2.9 GHz Intel Core i7-3520M[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana]8GB 1600 MHz DDR3[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana]Intel HD Graphics 4000 768 MB[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana]Windows 7 Professional 64-bit[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana]512GB Apple SSD[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana]Palet Jetstream nVidia GTX 670 2GB[/FONT]
• [FONT=Verdana]PSU - Silverstone ST45SF 450w[/FONT]

6477

18699

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Kloper great work mate!!

much appreciate. I'll have to set mine up after work.

I'll do some benchmarks and some videos. Once I get it running.

Internal screen is the main feature for me for egpu set up on the go.

I too received this email.

I replied asking why I need to return it.

Still waiting on a reply, would I need to return it if they ask?

Yes I did buy from them.

Have done light gaming on it with Crysis 2, Borderlands 2 and I'm still surprised at how well it runs. Pretty much perfect, I'll be doing further tests when I get the chance.

Hi Guys,

Just want to give my details on my eGPU experience,

Firstly I have to thank Nando who's actually provided a lot of help and without him this community wouldn't be where it is today.

Another huge thanks to Shelltoe who gave his eGPU experience and helped me a whole lot in getting my set up working.

I should also mention Oripash on another forum who actually provided a guide.

I essentially used Shelltoes setup on my 13" Retina Macbookpro.

Installed windows using REFIT. I won't go into a whole lot of detail as it's already provided.

Setup:

- Retina 13" Macbook Pro i7 8GB 512GB

- Bplus Th05

- GPU Palit GTX 670

- Display External (unable to use internal for now)

Installing windows 8 via USB using REFIT was a breeze very simple and easy.

The issue I came across after installation which I'd assume most would come across is no display or weird graphical glitch which are probably due drivers.

Below is a picture of what I came across. The way around is to delete the igdkmxd64.sys file. The easiest way I found was to boot via the windows 8 USB that I created and going into command prompt and deleting the file from there.

Once that file is deleted you will see Windows 8 how it should be displayed.

From there, followed what Shelltoe provided in his Macbook Pro Retina 15" thread.

I followed it to the tee but would come across no display, then realised I had to try it in an external monitor as the internal would not work which I was always trying it on.

Hopefully I can get the internal display working. Here are my results on Vantage and 3dmark 11 and a pic of the setup. The physics are quite low, can go from high 3k to low 4k in 3dmark 11.

[h=1]3dmark11 P6098[/h] [h=1]3d mark vantage P19501[/h]

I don't know how I did it exactly but I'm currently running GTX660Ti.

I'd love to run benchmarks but 3DMark shows 3.7 fps during physics test. Seems like it only uses 1 core.

Already noticed this yesterday so its not because of the GTX660ti.

Anyone got a hint to fix this? Maybe i should restore my windows install as it worked some days ago.

EDIT:

Restoring a clean install solved all problems. GTX660Ti works with OPs startup.nsh

3D Mark 2011: 7056p

3D Mark Vantage: 23810p

3D Mark 2006: 17923p

Wow nice Shelltoe,

I pickup my retina 13" macbook pro tonight. I know it's overpriced but I've already sold my old macbook pro and decided to go the 13" route since I prefer the size of it. I may take it back and change to the 15 but having already used the 13" I'm fine with what I can do.

I will have to try set it up with an egpu this weekend.

That means the HD4000 iGPU isn't on the pci-e bus. Explains why Optimus isn't possible in Win7.

Please remove the \config\pci.bat or the pci.bat line in startup.bat. Doesn't appear to like the result of pci compaction. The Macbooks have a low TOLUD so Win7 may be able to sort things out.

This is the #1 issue. If can't get chainloading out of Setup 1.1x to work then can't use it to do pci fixups on a Macbook. Good news is I am in the process of organising a 13" Macbook Pro now for delivery in approx 2 weeks. Will help tremendously to work out these issues. That's all except the 15" Macbook Pro iGPU activation which would require Apple's involvement.

The vidinit eradicates error43 by setting register 0x114 to 0x1 on the NVidia video card. Maybe you can use mm to do that? Do note that a lot of utilities won't allow pci-e registers beyond 0xFF to be modified. If mm is affected, but can work on a memory address then it's possible to calculate the mem offset where 0x114 of the NVidia video card is. MCFG + bus + slot + reg (google).

Great news,

Did you get your hands on a retina 13"??

I recently got windows 8 so I might try this out when I get time.

Thanks Shelltoe for the info, really great work.

Hi all, I read about eGPUs a week ago, and decided to give it a shot for my relatively old laptop. Since I'm not all that tech savvy, I'm sure I'll have many questions before I'm through.

First, I wanted to see what you guys think of my plan.

My laptop is an HP HDX16t the following specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor:Intel Core2 Duo P8700 @2.53GHz

RAM: 6 GB

iGPU: GeForce 9600M GT

Now my plan is to install the following:

eGPU: GeForce GTX 660 MSI OC

PSU: 900W ATX

along with the HDMI to expresscard adapter

My reasoning was that the GTX 660 OC needed a minimum of 450W, and serialk11r recommended getting an ATX that would be running close to 50% of max load...

Now I'm beginning to wonder if I went a bit overboard in terms of the ATX, though. On the other hand, the fact that it's overclocked by MSI means it should need more Watts than the average GPU. Maybe someone can help me out here...?

I didn't want to have to buy a separate display, so I opted to get the HDMI to expresscard adapter, even though that might cost me some efficiency out of the eGPU.

From what I can tell from my PC, I will be able to utilize a 2x link via ports[1+2] or ports[5+6] (port 3 is my wireless card, so no 4x for me |sigh| )

I know I'm going to need the DSDT override, since I have 6 GB of RAM.

Now, I should probably mention that I don't have any of this stuff on hand, but they should be at my front door by about next Wednesday. I can also return anything if I happen to have made poor choices. Any suggestions? Anything I've missed?

Let me know what you all think!

900w PSU is overkill, unless it's something you just have lying around.

I'm running a mini ITX machine with SSD+HDD/ GTX 680 using a 450w silverstone PSU.

Not sure where you got 450w minimum, I'd think the 660 wouldn't require such power but I could be mistaken.

Wow,

Very nice Nando,

Looks very good.

Keep us posted.

You are correct. HP Elitebooks with dGPUs have no switchable graphics, so no iGPU, so no Optimus pci-e compression. Expresscard 2.0 will still give decent performance, certainly better than the HD6470M, but you won't get Optimus extra 20-300% performance improvement as the NVidia driver won't engage pci-e compression (x1 link and a 4500MHD or Intel HD iGPU is required).

You may consider asking if any 8460P owner wants to do a systemboard swap? Or check if there is any provision to do that with HP? A GTX660 is a great card but will be quite bandwidth handicapped. I'd suggest pick up a s/h GTX460 on ebay instead. There are no caveats to using an AMD dGPU + NVidia eGPU.

Post a reply to this and you'll have 6 posts on TI. Then we can PM each othe rto sort this out.

Thanks for the reply, appreciate it. I have receive an email from them and its's all sorted.

Hopefully I get it working I will post results as soon as I am able to set it up.

Hi Nando,

I'm not sure if you may know,

I've purchased they DIY egpu setup, but my download ID says it's invalid.

I've received an email confirmation that my file is ready for download, clicking the link provided gives me the invalid download ID.

I have emailed them but still no reply, not how long they take to reply but it has been a couple days.

I'm endeavoring to organise a Thunderbolt system (eg: Lenovo T430s or Macbook Pro) + TH05 so can get Setup 1.1x certified working on those systems atm.

You have a Lenovo T420 which has been shown to not require any pci compaction nor Gen1/Gen2 auxilery switching using Setup 1.x. So the answer is no, you do not need Setup 1.1x to if using a NVidia Fermi card or Keplar card to run a x1.2Opt link. The lowest spec NVidia card I'd recommend is being a GTX460 or GTX560 Fermi.

Nice, I'm hoping you go for the Macbook pro route, the new rumoured 13" Retina should be announced next month.

I was planning to pm me you for some info, but I do not think I have enough posts.

I have pm'ed Kizwan on the other forums.

Just not sure if the TH05 would be the same workaround for the other PCIexpress egpu setups for the error 12.

Spent all day reading, so much info to take in and various notebook setups.

Hi All,

I posted on NBR just as everything collapsed, so I'm glad to see the DIY eGPU community has found a new home. Now that things are up and running again, I figured I'd re-post my case and questions here. Apologies to those of you reading this post for the second time.

After getting sick of having wires all over my desk, I designed and built a case for my GTX560/PE4H eGPU out of laser-cut acrylic. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!

Other images:

eGPU_0.jpg

eGPU_1.jpg

eGPU_2.jpg

eGPU_3.jpg

eGPU_4.jpg

However it's not completely finished yet - I still have some operational issues. The eGPU (GTX560/PE4H running on an HP Elitebook 2540p with the latest Nvidia desktop drivers) works beautifully on an external monitor, however the performance is so bad when running on the internal LCD that it makes no discernible difference when running games. I realise there's a performance drop running internally vs externally, but is it really this bad?

Mass Effect, for example, runs at 1fps using the onboard Intel GMA HD, 3fps using the eGPU on the internal LCD, but a solid 60fps (vsynched) at 1920x1200 with full settings on my external monitor. As far as I can see, the eGPU is detected correctly and is being used in some capacity. Every game & performance test I've tried has the same problem. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions as to why this is?

And again a huge thanks to everyone for posting their results and builds, I'd never have got this working without such a wealth of information. .

Wow very nice !!!

Seems like a lot are getting really nice result, I'm stuck on error 12 with a TH05.

I've been reading everywhere, really getting confused, I''ll eventually get there.