daver160

Hello I've got a simple question what will I need to setup egpu for my notebook? I want to use graphics card like radeon hd 7750 or 7770 is it overkill? I know that 7770 would run well games on my external 1080p monitor but will be express card port be sufficient for that card?

Edit: I've got Hp elitebook 8460p

You didn't read the first page at all did you?

Go read the first page, then so a search for a thread for a successful Elite book implementation. I seem to recall someone with a 15" managed a very successful setup.

How can i be sure that the Intel was booted as primary? Where can i check?

My understanding is that if you have Intel it is the primary GPU on boot up. This is basically how Optimus works.

If there is an option to change the default GPU on boot up, it will be in your BIOS options.

Wanted to buy a Mini ITX Computer Case with a 250w power supply (its probably a cheap generic one), to hook up my ati 5770 1gb + PE4H, as far as I know it uses one of those 6 pin connectors and comes with a splitter to make it into two normal psu connectors and uses around 80w, will a cheap 250w psu support something like that and whats the worst that could happen if not?

Yes it ought to work. Check that the 12V rail outputs at least 8A, and you should be fine.

The worst that would happen I think is that your GPU wouldn't power up. If that's the case, you just need a better PSU

mmm....so i can't use the eGPU with the internal LCD?

It is pre-optimus, I know because I have the same laptop at work. It is a Core 2 Duo model, with "switchable graphics" (if you had the ATI GPU)

OK, so I've got the laptop, it's nice, silent, quite fast. I'm not used to Windows 8 but it's fine. Now, I need to know how to make a DSDT override, I'll be buying the PE4H and GPU (probably 660 or 760) in the next couple of days. However, I'll really need to do the DSDT override specially that the laptop came with a unique 4 Gb stick of RAM. Could it be possible to run the eGPU setup with this configuration or won't it run at ALL?

Ok from what I understand it won't run at all.

If you want better performance, you should look into getting the PE4L v2.1. It allows for proper PCI 2.0 connections thus giving you better performance. Unless I missed something and you are running a non Sandy Bridge or higher CPU?

Sorry for being "finical" (haven't really used that word before) but PLus seems to make their tests on desktop systems rather than notebook systems.

According to their tests made on the PCIEMM-060B (that was suppose to be GEN2) they told me that they had been done on a desktop.

Since these tests results doesn't apply to our notebooks it seems like it could make a difference.

No, that's good that you brought up that their testing is done only on desktops. I did t know that. It explains why their testing is so successful and ours never work!

Sup guys,

my old PE4H seems to be a bit defect (the power connector has gone black from heat/fire i guess and the device starts to malfunction a bit sometimes...) but I've been wanting to upgrade to a PCI 2.0 capable adapter this summer anyways.

Any recommendations what to use? My laptop is pci 2.0 + optimus capable and so far I've been using the 2 year old PE2H + pci 1.0 optimus with a Nividia 560GT.

Shall I just grab the new 3rd gen PE4L for 70 bucks?

Short answer, yes.

Long answer, yes, because it will give you full 1.2Opt compression so you'll get better performance from your GPU, and its also much cheaper than the PE4H 3.2. Also, assuming that BPlus is correct about compatibility, the PE4L v2.1 is supposed to support PCI 3.0 (Gen 3), so you could potentially use it on future laptops that support PCI 3.0 over ExpressCard or mPCI-E.

I'm sorry. I meant I ordered a external monitor, so I'm just wondering whether 1x.Opt can handle it. I don't use the internal LCD.

Shouldn't be a problem. I have a GTX 650 To on 1.1Opt and I can get over 60 fps in some games at 1920x1080. For example, I get between 30 - 80 fps in Borderlands 2 with mostly high settings (30 in open areas, 70-80 when indoors). No AO or AA though. I also get 20-60 fps in Tomb Raider with med to high settings at 1920x1080 and vsync (disabling TressFX increases to about 30-60).

Well there's definitely one benefit of the new PCIEMM cable over the older flat one: it's flexible so easier to manage.

Sadly i cant find any buyers on local craigslist who wants a PE4H+PM3N. I'd love to upgrade to a PE4L, but am a bit arsed to fund it myself. I might just bite he bullet and buy one for my own personal use and keep the PE4H at the office.

@jacobsson: Yesterday I received my PE4L replacement and the PCIE-MM060B cable. Now the new PE4L works perfectly and is stable!!!

But I can't also achieve Gen2 with the PCIE-MM060B on PE4H. The eGPU is detected in Setup 1.x and in the device manager, but the system is not able to start the latest nvidia / optimus driver. ^^ Same problem as with the first PE4L. The driver says that a nvidia gpu can't be detected. In GPU-Z there is only shown a x1 1.0 connection.

Just curious, is your PE4L v1.5? Just so we have some context. Because the PE4L v2.1 doesn't have a detachable cable

If it weren't for being restricted to company funding (of which there is next to none left for this side project) I would totally order a PCIE-MM060B cable to test out with my PM3N configuration. I was already able to get this eGPU to pull double duty for me (gaming at home leisure time, CUDA crunching during work-at-hone time), but the powers that be prefer to on spend funding on a guaranteed solution. If anybody can find the same cable on Amazon, however, I'd gladly pick one up to test out and see if we can get Gen2 going!

That's too bad that it didn't work for you. I wonder if anyone else has had similar results? I know that @jacobsson is waiting for theirs to arrive so I'm interested to see if he gets similar results as yours.

I wouldn't mind paying $20 for a flexible cable at least, but the shipping cost is just insane when you consider that it's the same as the product itself. I'm also considering picking up the mPCIe extension board, maybe I can bundle them together.

I don't have much time, for short I have the same issues like when I soldered my own HDMI Hot Plug cable.

The Device Manager recognizes the GTX 560, but the NV Control Panel and CudaZ do not.

All Graphics run from the iGPU ( HD4K ).

When I set it to Gen1 Speed everything works.

OK, well if you get more time, please run some more tests to see if it's something that can be fixed with a bit of tweaking, or not at all.

I just tested the new PCIE-MM-060B cable with a PE4H 2.4a ( PM3N 1.1 ) and it's NOT Gen2 compatible.

Since they advertised so on their site, can I claim a refund?

What steps did you use to test this? Did you conifugre Setup 1.x or your BIOS to use Gen2? Also, did you do any benchmarks, or did you only check GPU-Z while the GPU was idle?

It's not that I don't believe you, it's that you've provided no proof whatsoever that the cable fails Gen2 compatibility.

You should shrink those images a little bit, and place them in spoiler tags. Or make them attachments to your post. They're huge!

I'm fully aware of what Haswell brings to the table performance wise, what I meant was what it brings to the table for us on eGPU assemblies. For example will we see better compression with the Intel 4600? What about those who will have the Iris 5200? Or maybe a revision will see PCI 3.0 on some of the motherboards?

I'm just speculating here, but Haswell's architecture and I/O compatibility could bring forth a slew of features that would make eGPU no more difficult to use than just plugging in a legacy USB device and configuring it in ”BIOS" (Setup 1.x). Of course, that all assumes that Intel and the manufacturers are willing to leave all this open and accessible to the end users like us...

I'm curious to see how Haswell machines will work with eGPU. For work I am planning to pick up a X230T, but am holding off for the Haswell update/release. I wonder if we'll see any improvements due to a more powerful iGPU?

Also, I really hope that the PCIEMM-B cables are Gen2 compliant like BPlus says they are, because then I could timeshare my PE4H 2.4 between my computers!

My interpretation of this is that they succeeded to establish a stable GEN2 link over the PCIEMM-060B via express card, is that what you think also?

Ps. Since I have the PCIEMM-060B cable but no PM3N (I got 2xEC instead of one each) I need to find someone that could sell me one for cheap.

PM me if you have one.

I think it should work with the PM3N. They claimed to get it working on a desktop with the HP1A PCIe adapter, and since the PM3N is a mini-PCIe adapter, I think there won't be much difference between them. In both cases, they are adapters designed to convert the physical connection. I don't think they are doing anything to the actual signal itself (doing any extra signal translation).

Hey guys, new user to these forums but an advanced user overall Was sent here to ask you experts a more complex question.....Basically, find my setup below.

-2012 13" MBP (Core i5, 8GB DDR3, Crucial M4 128GB SSD)

-triple booted with reFIT (OS X via EFI, Windows 7 x64 via MBR, and linux x64 via MBR)

+will be purchasing a EVGA GTX460 + a dedicated power supply for it soon

Mainly I am here because I was told I could not use an eGPU if I installed Windows via MBR boot mode instead of EFI, is that correct?? That would mean I would have to reinstall both my Windows and linux and I wan't to avoid that if at all possible because of the setup and time involved....At the time, I did not find any reason (pro's vs cons) of installing Windows via MBR or EFI so I just picked MBR because it is what I am familiar with but now I cannot use an eGPU? Secondly, I see most of you guys are running newer cards....Any complaints against me purchasing a GTX460 instead of a GTX560 for example? I'd be doing so mostly for the cost savings and for the fact that I am mainly playing older games (WoW, CoD2/4, etc) so don't see the need for a GTX560, unless it is easier/less problematic to get working with an eGPU setup?

Thanks in advance and let me know guys!

There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't get the GTX460. It's still a great GPU! The only downside I can see is that its not as power efficient as the newer gen GPUs, so it will draw more power under full load.

Sorry, I can't speak to the EFI issue, since I don't use Macs often, even at work here.

Hello Nando4,

I plan to build a @x4.1 eGPU configuration on Dell Studio XPS 1645 (PM55 + first gen i7), will it be impacted by half-duplex issue if I choose an AMD card like 7870 or 7950 ?

If yes, is there a way to fix this half-duplex issue ? Or should I really choose nVIDIA cards (660 or 660Ti with same price tags as 7870 and 7950) to get better performance ?

I saw AMD cards are more suitable for eGPU purposes as they are less sensitive to lower PCIE bandwidth here and in another post comparing 7970 and GTX680 (Ivy Bridge PCI-Express Scaling with HD 7970 and GTX 680 Review | techPowerUp).

Thanks in advance

Personally, I'd go with an AMD card.

The reason why many people get nVidia is because of the extra compression performance boost that the integrated Intel HD iGPU provides to the Optimus. However, the 1645 doesn't have an iGPU (I really miss my 1645), so you would not benefit from Optimus at all. As well, since you already have an AMD 4670/5730, you'll have compatible drivers: if you install the desktop drivers, you can use them on the mobile dGPU. That means that if you need to unplug the eGPU for travel, you won't have to deal with conflicting AMD and Nvidia drivers on the same machine.

Hi!

I tried everything to do my system works. It's a core2duo T5550, 1.83ghz with 4gb of ram, video card HD5450, TOLUD 3.0gb.

With pci compactation in Setup 1.x I can only release 256mb of pci space, so I removed 2gb of ram memory and now I get 1024mb of pci space with pci compactation. Now my eGPU is working! But my question is, how can I use my eGPU with 4gb of ram memory? Is it possible?

Thank you.

You shouldn't need to remove RAM to get compaction to give you that much PCI space. When you're in Setup 1.x, are you disabling your HD 5450 dGPU? That should free up a lot of space right away

The far-zoomed pic makes it somewhat difficult to tell if it's a completely round cable or somewhat flat. I am eagerly awaiting jacobsson's testing.

This PCIEMM-060B cable, if indeed Gen2 compliant, when combined with a PE4H 2.4 would give us a x4 2.0 capable platform. Good news for anybody wanting to mess with altering a Dell E6x30 flash descriptor to get x4 on port1 and having 4 cables running out of it (EC + 3xmPCIe) could get 20Gbps performance today. My favorite eGPU adapter was the PE4H 2.4.

Check out this PDF from Bplus' own website:

http://www.bplus.com.tw/PDF/PCIEMM_060.pdf

It depicts the "B" model as being completely round, while the "A" model is flat.

As well, if you check out BPlus' page for the PE4H adapter, you'll see that they are indeed touting that it is Gen2 capable with the new PCIEMM-xxxB cables.

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4H.html

An interesting turn of events!

I eagerly await to hear your results! I've been mulling over moving up to a PE4L, and if it's possible to get Gen2 speeds with the PM3N I already have from the PE4H I have.

Does anyone know if BPlus/HWTools allows you to purchase individual parts, rather than bundles?

What laptop do you have? As far as I know, you cannot turn off the iGPU; it's always on. And if you can, why not just disable the dGPU directly from BIOS?

When booting up after running Setup 1.x, my internal display shows the Windows boot sequence, then immediately switches over to the eGPU when I reach the login screen.

If you want your eGPU to work immediately after completing the Setup 1.x sequence, I don't think this is possible. This is the purpose of chainloading within Setup 1.x: it tells Windows (or your OS) to use the eGPU. But this chainloading actually happens when Windows is booting up, it doesn't happen before than.

If a company which is selling products isn't responding, I presume that they are or criminal or without any form of decency..

Or they actually don't read their mail, which is amateurish.

I stand by them to say that they are neither of those, but as of late (since March) they haven't responded to any of my forms of communication to them. I am not sure what's going on with them, so I just gave up.

It could just be that there's something going on within the company that they are focusing on first.

Hi all.

I've run into a few problems, and I hope you can help me out.

I've bought this laptop:

Fujitsu Lifebook AH532 Intel i7-3632QM 6GB 500GB 15.6 W8 - Hjemme-elektronik - CDON.COM

some extra info on the laptop:

http://globalsp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/ds-LIFEBOOK-AH532.pdf

I've bough the PE4L-EC060A V2.1b

I use a 750W power supply (The one i used in my old computer)

and the gfx I use is a gtx 670..

I was able to install the nvidia driver after disabling the 620M card, but It seems slower than expected.

Under GPU-Z it says the connection is "PCI-E 1.1 x16 @x1 1.1".

Im not sure where to go from here. I should be able to run 1.2Opt or something right ?

I run Win 8 atm, but I can install Win 7 if it will make a difference. I haven't run into any errors or anything, so I'm not sure what to search for to fix it myself.

I hope you can help me out. Its quite hard to fix when I'm not sure what I'm looking for, and a lot of the info is outdated. Ty for your time

cheers

- Laukess

Have you tried setting "call iport g2 1" (or whatever port number your eGPU is plugged into) in Setup 1.x? It might be that you're sitting on a Gen1 connection even though you're capable of a Gen2.