Help! EGPU + ASUS X54C

[CrazyCRO]

I'm trying to give my old 15" Asus X54C laptop some gaming life with a EGPU.

 

The setup i have:

• ASUS x54c Intel CPU/GPU

• [Mini PCI-E Version] V8.0 EXP GDC Beast Laptop External Independent Video Card Dock

• Radeon R7 240 2GB DDR3 ram (I will buy a better one after i get this to work with the laptop)

 

What i did until now:

 

• I connected the adapter, the power supply, the PCI-E cable to the PCI-E wifi card slot, Monitor to the R7....
• After booting up the laptop the fan of the power supply and graphics card start to spin and the adapter emits a blue light showing that it is "working"
• PROBLEM: Black screen on laptop and external monitor.
• If i power on the setup after windows boot the card is not recognised in device manager.
• I tried to hot swap the wifi card with the setup and the card showed up in the device manager but i wasn't able to make it work even after instaling drivers, rebooting and hot swapping again.

 

Please Help!

 

Edited June 20, 2016 by CrazyCRO

[Doink]

Black Screen:

There is a delay switch on the adapter to prevent bios hangs while egpu is connected (black screen or bios logo hang).

If it still hangs then try to set the delay to max and isolate pin22(PERST#) on the mpcie connector (and always do shutdown/power on instead of restart).

The port can be whitelisted but asus don't really do such things. If it has whitelist then setup1.3 can solve it or just hotswap what you already did.

 

Card showed up:

You said the device shows up on hotswap but you didn't give us any info about the error. If there is an exclamation mark next to the egpu just open it and read the description.

Error 12 means not enough free resources => PCI compaction with setup1.3 or DSDT override or dsdt+pci compaction will solve it.

Error 43 means the driver has some issues to start the egpu => DDU, reinstall drivers, check PSU, sleep/wake then search for hardware changes after the adapter delay expires, etc. (that's a tricky error)

 

 

Edited June 20, 2016 by Doink

[CrazyCRO]

Thank you for your help so far.

 

Black screen problem is solved: 

• I isolated the pin 22 and after shut down/on the system boots and the card is visible in device manager.

2 problem:

 

After trying to install drivers i get:

Quote

Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43)

I will try your tips and report soon.

 

Cleared the drivers with DDU, installed drivers and geting error without restarting:

Quote

This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12)

After restart the card is not recognised in Device manager....

 

So to solve error 12 i understand i need to do:

Quote

Error 12 means not enough free resources => PCI compaction with setup1.3 or DSDT override or dsdt+pci compaction will solve it.

A to do that i ned egpu setup 1.3

 

And i don't have egpu setup1.3 because i couldn't get in contact with Tech Inferno Fan :'(

I wrote a message to him directly and sent a email.

I hope he is still not in the hospital and better!

 

If i buy egpu setup here 

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/files/

will i get the software instantly or will i pay and wait?

Edited June 21, 2016 by CrazyCRO

[CrazyCRO]

I have searched for alternative DSDT override methods but the instructions are to convoluted... with if you are lucky it work sentences 

 

I found  a good tutorial here and did the DSDT override successfully.

And i need to do the pcie compaction.

Is there a way to do it without egpu setup 1.3/1.x?

Edited June 21, 2016 by CrazyCRO

[Doink]

I don't know, i bought it almost a year ago when this fancy order page didn't existed and he replied via email.

For the second part, you can't do it without the program, if you still get error code 12 after dsdt then windows is just stupid and you have to allocate the space before windows loads.

 

[utopian201]

On 21/06/2016 at 0:33 PM, CrazyCRO said:

I have searched for alternative DSDT override methods but the instructions are to convoluted... with if you are lucky it work sentences 

 

I found  a good tutorial here and did the DSDT override successfully.

And i need to do the pcie compaction.

Is there a way to do it without egpu setup 1.3/1.x?

 

I followed this guide

 

But also did a few extra things, I detailed it here

And got it working on the internal laptop screen without setup 1.3

Edited June 22, 2016 by utopian201

[CrazyCRO]

Hi!

 

My setup:

 

Asus x54c laptop with PCI express port.

Intel Celeron B815 1,6 GHz (with IGPU) 64bit

500W power supply

[Mini PCI-E Version] V8.0 EXP GDC Beast Laptop External Independent Video Card Dock

http://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html

eGPU setup 1.3

 

 

After connecting everything and booting with the EGPU turned ON i get a black screen.

Tried setting the delay switch on the PCI-E adapter but it didn't help.

Tried isolating pin 22 on the PCI-express adapter (in the video i say port 22 i mean pin 22) and experimenting with the delay switch but the card was completely unrecognisable (even after using the hot swap whitelist method in setup 1.3 that got the card recognised)

 

1.Method:

I got the card recognised in setup 1.3 with the whitelisting method (note the black screen issue is still there and i have to do this every time i want to get the card recognised)

Switched the PCI port to gen 2 (tested both gen1 and gen2)

Did the PCI Compaction 56.2-36 bit (geting a black screen at chainload and i did a successful DSDT override before in windows 10 by using this tutorial: https://cgc.com.kw/tag/dsdt-override/ )

So this method was unusable because of the black screen...

 

2.Method:

I got the card recognised in setup 1.3 with the whitelisting method (note the black screen issue is still there and i have to do this every time i want to get the card recognised)

Switched the PCI port to gen 2 (tested both gen1 and gen2)

Did the PCI Compaction 3.87GB-32bit

Chainloader to windows 10 successfully

The card was recognised in device menager

Installed the latest 64bit RADEON drivers for the R7 240

And got error 43

Restarted the system, enabled the card in setup 1.3, chainloaded to windows and the error 43 is still there

 

Any tips of geting rid of the black boot screen if the EGPU is already on at the boot.

Any tips in getting rid of the error 43?

 

Big thank you to @Brian for helping me get the egpu setup 1.3 by @Tech Inferno Fan

and big thank you to @Doink for helping me in the first steps of this adventure

 

[CrazyCRO]

Update!

 

Method 1 is working now but i still get a error 43

 

1.Method:

Uninstalled the Intel igpu and egpu drivers with DDU

Hard wired the green wire from the power supply to a black wire (enabling me to keep the egpu constantly on and not to rely on the power up signal)

I got the card recognised in setup 1.3 with the whitelisting method (note the black screen issue is still there and i have to do this every time i want to get the card recognised)

Switched the PCI port to gen 2 (tested both gen1 and gen2)

Did the PCI Compaction 56.2-36 bit (did a successful DSDT override before in windows 10 by using this tutorial: https://cgc.com.kw/tag/dsdt-override/ )

Got this Compaction to work by forcing it on the igpu and egpu

Chainloaded to windows 10 successfully

The card was recognised in device manager

Installed the latest 64bit RADEON drivers for the R7 240

And got error 43 

Restarted the system, enabled the card in setup 1.3, chainloaded to windows and the error 43 is still there 

 

[Doink]

You don't need to disable the intel igp, install it's drivers to.

Try to sleep (not hibernate) / wake the computer with the delay switch turned on and search for hardware changes in the device manager when it comes back plus ~10sec (delay expires, fans starts to spin).

Keep try it until the card shows up without error (not forever but at least 10-15 times). If it is still err43 after so many tries then i have no other idea.

 

1. sleep
2. wake
3. wait until the egpu fan starts or the LED on the adapter turns off (~10sec)
4. search for hardware changes
5. if still error, back to step1 and repeat

 

Magic tip, try to put the components far away from each other psu-egpu-notebook.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Doink

[CrazyCRO]

Swapped the graphics card with Radeon HD4500 and it worked like a charm.

Everything showed instantly on the external monitor.

Booted into egpu setup.

Did the PCI compaction

Chainload

In windows i installed the drivers.

Restarted and set up the auto.bat

Played Hearthstone, Heroes of the storm worked perfectly! 

 

And than i disconnected everything to clean up the working table.

Cut a hole in the laptop case for the cable.

Zip tide the PSU cables and arranged everything compact in a "case".

Reconnected everything.

And then i started the setup and the card was not recognised no mather what i do or change in the settings 

 

And now i need a brake from this project and a lot of beer!