daver160

Glad to have helped I think with Gen2 speeds and 1.2Opt you'll be able to get some really good performance out of your 660, though I don't know about getting 660 Ti speeds from overclocking. Hopefully you'll be able to get there though, just don't forget to increase the base voltage if you do overclock, lots of people forget to do that and end up with an unstable system! ===================== On an unrelated note, I am selling my PE4H! So if anybody is reading this thread and is looking for a cheap PE4H+PM3N kit (sorry, GPU and PSU are *not* included!) please send me a PM and we'll work something out! I've listd $70, b ut feel free to give me an offer if you feel that 70 shipped is too high. Don't worry, it's not damaged or otherwise non-functional in any way, shape or form, I'm just selling it as I want to upgrade to the PE4L. http://forum.techinferno.com/computer-components/3557-fs-pe4h-v2-4-egpu-kit-%2470-usd-obo-shipped.html Sorry for the blatant advertising, I just thought that this thread might get some attention as well as in the B&S section. Cheers

When do these blue screens happen? Can you reliably reproduce them? For example, do you get a blue screen every time you open up a video file in VLC or another video player? what about any games, can you play some games and not others?

Sorry, it looks like I can't disable the Intel iGPU: Setup 1.x gives me an error that says "cannot disable iGPU on Series-6+ chip sets. it's like I suspected that you cannot really disable Optimus without fully disabling the Intel iGPU. I'm sure it's possible, it's just that I'm not aware of how to do it!

Sorry, I don't think you can really disable Optimus, not without disabling the iGPU at least. I'll give it a try later on, see if I can disable Optimus and then run a '06 benchmark with just the eGPU.

That was a while ago, so I don't remember... but let's say both SP and MP? Either way, have a look at my 3DMark06 benchmarks, you'll find that I'm getting just under 20k scores. Your GTX 560 Ti should be getting much better scores than what I had. Yours: SM2.0: 2208 HDR/SM3.0: 2004 Mine: SM2.0: 8030 HDR/SM3.0: 8828 There might be something off about your eGPU setup, because 3DMark06 is detecting your dGPU ATI as your primary display device, whereas 3DMark06 detected my eGPU as my primary display device.

I'm running PCI-E 1.1 x1 with Optimus, so basically Opt1.1. Now I don't remember what framerates I got, but definitely sat at 40-60 fps at all times (V-sync enabled, so max 60; would dip to say 40 during really intense scenes with lots of smoke and objects)

odd, my GPU is definitely not as good as the gtx 560 ti, but I get good performance out of cod:mw2. have you made sure that you set the performance in the nvidia control panel from "adaptive" to "performance"? it might help a little bit

Yes, newer graphic cards will be compatible with PCI-E 1.0 slots, but you will not get much performance out of it. Basically, even if your laptop only supports PCI-E 1.0, the PE4L and the GPU will not have any problems with it. They are compatible, it's just that you won't be getting Gen 2 PCI-E 2.0 speeds, just like you said! In either case, the PE4L is cheaper anyways, so it's the better deal

Yes, the fact that the PE4H is more expensive makes it extremely misleading. Generally when it comes to purchasing components people are led to believe that the more expensive products have to offer. While this is the case (larger board, more potential connections, etc.) the PE4H v2.4 is NOT better than the PE4L 2.1. Just wanted to remind you that you should not consider the PE4H, unless you wanted the large case that it comes with. The PE4L is a much better deal, as you get more performance and also freedom to build a case for yourself.

:D:D Don't worry, I was frustrated beyond belief as well when I couldn't figure out why the "call iport dGPU off" script wasn't working. Disabling my dGPU within Setup 1.x always failed and froze my machine. After much work and patience through the guru we know as Nando, I was finally up and running. One thing to note is that you should *not* try to run any kind of PCI space compaction or any other kind of commands within Setup 1.x. I found that doing so will re-arrange the lines in the startup.bat and pci.bat scripts, and cause you to have troubles again. However, if that's the case, just copy and paste the *.bat file contents again In the meantime, if things are up and running, I would keep a backup of the working startup.bat and pci.bat files just for easy "repair" in case the scripts get modified by Setup 1.x. As well, this isn't necessary but good practice, do some heavy benchmarks to test your eGPU's stability. I had a bit of trouble with it the first time, giving me BSODs because the driver was somehow at fault. Re-installing the driver worked for me. Finally, if you could, please run some benchmarks and let us know how your L502x works! (Resident Evil 5, 3DMark 2006, 2011 and Vantage, etc.)

Not true, the PE4L is "backwards compatible" with anything lower than PCI-E 2.0. Just like newer hardware is often backwards compatible with more recently outdated hardware.

OK, let's try doing this all again from scratch. 1. Boot up into Windows normally, don't run Setup 1.x at all 2. After Windows boots up, go to your Setup 1.x mounted drive, usually it's V:\ labeled DIYEGPUIMG 3. Go to the config folder, and backup your startup.bat file somewhere (or just rename its extention to .bak) 4. Open up startup.bat in a text editor, paste in the following content replacing everything and save the file: call speedup lbacache setpci -s 1:0.0 COMMAND=0:7 10.l=0,0,0,0,0,0 -s 0:1.0 b0.w=10:10 19.b=0,0 3E.w=0:8 COMMAND=0:7 20.l=0,0 call iportbus force call iport g1 1 call vidwait 60 10de:11c6 call vidinit -d 10de:11c6 call pci call chainload mbr 5. Now backup your pci.bat file, and then open the original one with a text editor. Paste the following script into it, replacing everything and save the file: :: Southbridge port1 @echo -s 0:1c.0 1c.w=3030 20.l=f101f000 24.l=d1f1c001 > setpci.arg :: The NVidia GTX650Ti @echo -s 2:0.0 24.w=3030 10.l=F000000 14.l=C00000C 1C.l=D000000C >> setpci.arg setpci @setpci.arg set pci_written=yes 6. Reboot the machine, and boot up into Setup 1.x 7. Do not try to compact the PCI space or disable the dGPU 8. From the main menu just go to Apply config > run startup.bat 9. Then back in the main menu, go to Chainloader > Chainload MBR. You should get a warning for something about booting up without completing the Setup 1.x procedure, or something like that. Just say "OK" to it and restart. 10. Boot into Windows after chainloading After doing all of this, do you still get an Error 12 in your Device Manager? These are all steps I just re-created on my own machine. This is precisely what I did to get my eGPU working. I'm not 100% certain that this will work for you, but I don't see why it wouldn't. Assuming you have a L502x just like mine (which it looks like you do), this ought to work for you. That said, The second line in my pci.bat script might not work simply because this is customized to my GTX 650 Ti, though the addresses should work fine since it's just the address space.

Oh wow I didn't see any of your updates, since the post count didn't change the forum didn't mark this as having any new posts. OK, about your PCI compaction, I had the weird issue with the startup.bat script automatically re-arranging lines regardless of what order you might manually create. This is why I said that you should edit the startup.bat script in Windows, and then leave it alone. OTherwise Setup 1.x will override the order you manually set. I'm writing to let you know that I've read all our updates, and I'm writing up a lengthy response, so it'll take a while to get this thing up. Just know that I *am* replying, it's just going to take a little moment to type it all out.

Short answer: yes. However, I don't know by how much. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I suspect that I am getting about 90-95% of my GTX 650 Ti's full performance as if I had it in a PCI-E 3.0 compatible desktop system. I got to this conclusion, subjectively, by running games that I own which were used for benchmarks when the 650 Ti came out around Oct 2012. Some games I got roughly the same framerates (i.e. 100%), other games I got slightly less (around 90%). Most games were in between. I'm able to run most games on medium to high settings at 1920x1080. I always disable anti-aliasing and DX11 features, though. I prefer a smooth experience over fancy bells and whistles.

Correct, if you have a GPU that can handily pump out little pixels at a very high rate (say something like a GTX 660 Ti or AMD 7970) then you will see a benefit to the PE4L. But if your GPU, like mine, is only mid-range, you might not see that much more of an improvement. Personally, I would still like to upgrade to a PE4L, but I want to offload my PE4H first. No point in spending an extra $90 (70+shipping) if I will just have this PE4H sitting around unused.

I made that mistake too, but I'm still hanging on to it. So far, I haven't come across a situation where I would receive a drastic performance improvement by switching to a PE4L, except with recording games while playing. I think I'm getting just about all I can get out of a GTX 650 Ti anyways. The PE4H was supposed to be Gen 2 compatible, but after further testing other users found out that it's not true. I'm not sure waht the full details behind it are, but I can tell you that a general rule so far has been that unless all the parts are soldered together, it's likely not Gen 2 compatible.

Like I mentioned in my post, PE4H v2.4 is limited to Gen 1 speeds only... so you won't get the same level of performance as compared to a PE4L

Which PE4H do you have? 3.2? If so, then yes you can use Gen2, but if you're running a PE4H 2.4 like I am, you are only capable of Gen1 speeds; it's the limitation of the v2.4.

I'm running a GTX 650 Ti on my PE4H v2.4, and I seem to be OK in all my games. I compare my performance to the reviews out there for the GTX 650 Ti, and seem to get anywhere from 5-10% lower performance than what the reviewers got in the games. However, without a SSD and desktop performance processor (i7 3700K vs i7 2760QM is a pretty big difference!) I consider that I'm getting about what I should expect from my GTX 650 Ti in a desktop system. I can at least say that with my Optimus compression I'm getting what I should probably expect from my GPU. Your slow downs might just be "normal" given the GPU and the game you're playing.

I think you won't get much more out of the Arrandale line of processors. You might want to look at a i7 640M, which clocks in at 2.8GHz, but honestly that extra 200 MHz will be negligible in most cases. On top of that, I don't know if your motherboard would support the i7 640M anyways (it's possible, but I just don't know if it is or not). Again, the only major benefit of having a "faster" processor in games is mostly for stuff like RTS or games that use a lot of CPU time to work out things like physics (e.g. telling Nvidia to use CPU for PhysX processing, instead of GPU) and objects. For all intents and purposes, the i3 390M you have now is the i5 580M you considered earlier. The i7 640M will give you a clock speed boost, but nothing more, IMO. If you want a faster machine, consider picking up a used Sandy Bridge quad core, for cheap. Even a i7-2630QM would be more than enough power for workaday tasks and all the games you could throw at it. Again, if gaming performance is what you're after, it's the GPU you should be looking to upgrade, not the CPU. In any case, you should probably present this question to the guys in the Lenovo subsection - they'll be able to help you determine whether or not you can drop an i7 640M into your motherboard or not. If not, and you still really want to get a better processor, I suggest looking at a new laptop altogether. I think your current processor is actually about as good as it gets.

Definitely not "significant differences". Both processors (i3 390, i5 580) have a 2.66 GHz clock speed with 3M L3 cache. Performance-wise, they are probably neck and neck. In same edge cases, the i5 will show a reasonable improvement over your i3, but not in day to day usage. If you ask me, that upgrade is not worth it. While you'll see a boost in certain games that require lots of CPU power, you're still going to be bottlenecked in most games through your eGPU (if one currently exists with your eGPU configuration).

Glad to have helped Are you able to boot into Windows normally now? Does your eGPU work now?

Try moving the "setpci -s..." to the very top of your startup.bat file. Basically, this is what your startup.bat file is doing: call speedup lbacache- cache the file so that you don't have to read it each time. completely harmless call iportbus force- force detection of the eGPU port (I think, I can't remember 100%) call iport g2 1- read the device as a PCI-E 2.0 device. this won't work very well since the PE4H 2.4 doesn't do PCI-E 2.0. The "g2 1" stands for "generation 2 on port 1". call vidwait 60 10de:11c0- wait for up to 60 seconds to detect the eGPU at the specified address call vidinit -d 10de:11c0 - start up the eGPU call pci- run everything in teh pci.bat script setpci -s 2:0.0 COMMAND=0:7 10.l=0,0,0,0,0,0 -s 0:1c.0 b0.w=20:20 19.b=0,0 3E.w=0:8 COMMAND=0:7 20.l=0,0 - a very detailed way of saying "call iport dGPU off" call grub4dos mbr- chainloading instructions Your script above is disabling the dGPU last, so that's why the PCI compaction is failing - you're trying to compact the PCI space while both eGPU and dGPU are "on". By moving the "setpci -s" line to the top, you're disabling your dGPU before PCI compaction runs. This *should* help, I've got my fingers crossed for you! Also, if your PM3N card is plugged into the TV/WWAN slot, then port 1 should be fine (at least that's what I'm doing). For quick rundown on what the commands in the Setup 1.x interface are, checking out Nando's site here DIY eGPU Setup 1.x Help

That crash dump isn't 100% accurate, it's merely trying to say "this is what we think". In this case, if you have the same message for the past few crashes, that might mean there's something wrong with your core Windows installation. It might be ccaused by malware, it might not be. It only suspects malware because it's usually the first suspect in problems with Windows itself. Have you got an antivirus on your machine? If you do, give your system a scan, just to make sure it's not a virus or some such.

Try running a crashdump analysis software, like WhoCrashed, to read out what the BSOD was caused by. It will help yo udetermine what caused the crash, and point you in the right direction. Almost all BSODs are caused by a Fatal Error of sorts, that's why Windows threw the BSOD screen at you, to prevent any damage to the OS (or even hardware).