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eGPU experiences [version 2.0]


Tech Inferno Fan

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Hi,

I have problems to enable PCI Express 2.0 link, My setup is

Lenovo T520, 6GB ram, only iGPU, Windows 7 64bit

egpu: PE4C-EC3C V1.2

Gigabyte Geforce GTX 470, latest nvidia drivers

Everything installs correctly, and an 1.1 link is established. 3dMark06 gives me 17k, i i suppose it is OK (i have underclocked the card a bit, since my PSU is 350w, and i had some BSODs).

The problem i have is that I wanted to play "Dreamfall: Chapters". What happens is that on some places in the game i get <4FPS.

As comparison - using the iGPU - Intel HD3000, with the same settings the game achieves 8-10FPS on the same place

On other locations it is much better with the external card.

This is why I assume that the bandwidth is not enough. I set PhysX to CPU, and use an external lcd.

The T520 BIOS is the latest version, and the Express Card Speed is set to automatic.

I tried the 60cm and 30 cm cables. Both result in 1.1 link in GpuZ

From other posts in the forum i learned that the people were successful in establishing 2.0 link, but with other eGPU

Is there something i have missed ?

Thanks, Vladimir

Have had some reports that the Lenovo BIOS "automatic" setting doesn't actually set it to Gen2 speed. If it was set to Gen2 and the hardware couldn't handle it then you'd see stuttering sort of effects and "NVidia driver has stopped responding". If you find no way of forcing Gen2 then consider obtaining Setup 1.30 to do it.

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Congrats. $249 is a great price. i7-3840QM is a straight CPU swap in a 2570P. 2570P is one of few, if the only, 12" notebook with a socketted CPU to allow that.

Ho ho ho thanks for the kind information Tech Inferno Fan!

OT: Will herocloud/bplus tech sell an HDMI to express card cable as separate?

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Ho ho ho thanks for the kind information Tech Inferno Fan!

OT: Will herocloud/bplus tech sell an HDMI to express card cable as separate?

Think both would sell you a cable. Though keep in mind that you shouldn't be using the EXP GDC EC cable with a PE4x and vice versa. I haven't confirmed it but those HDMI-to-EC cables are proprietory. Cloud/BPlus decide the pin mappings for their unique hardware. Since your sig lists a EXP GDC V6 I'd suggest asking Cloud for that cable. He'll also be less pricey than BPlus. BPlus' shipping is relatively expensive.

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RE: <A HREF="http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/6851-%5Bguide%5D-12-hp-2540p-gtx750ti%402gbps-c-ec1-pe4l-2-1b-win7.html#post111907">[GUIDE] 12" HP 2540P + GTX750Ti@2Gbps+c-EC1 (PE4L 2.1b) + Win7</A>

@eddynator, great guide! I'm a semi-noob planning to build an egpu rig on my lenovo x220 i7 to bring it back to life. Do you have to run a PSU (I'm guessing an ATX) for the GTX 750 TI or can you use an external 12v AC power adapter right onto the PE4L-EC060A board? I want to build an enclosure for the gpu as small as possible

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I am looking to buy the [h=1]EXP GDC Laptop External PCI-E Graphics Card[/h]

It provides a PCIe to mPCIe and a PCIe to Expresscard version but I dont want to pry onpen my Asus ROG G750JX. I so you guys know any good mPCIe to Thunderbolt or Expresscard to Thunderbolt?


[h=1][/h]

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I am looking to buy the [h=1]EXP GDC Laptop External PCI-E Graphics Card[/h]

It provides a PCIe to mPCIe and a PCIe to Expresscard version but I dont want to pry onpen my Asus ROG G750JX. I so you guys know any good mPCIe to Thunderbolt or Expresscard to Thunderbolt?

You can attach a EXP GDC to a Thunderbolt using parts like shown at http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/8007-bizon-ru-rip-off-alert-thunderbolt-bizonbox-crippled-tb-ec-4gbps-unit.html#post105056 . This will give a 4Gbps link.

Using a http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/7205-us%24200-akitio-thunder2-pcie-box-16gbps-tb2.html#post98210 will give you a faster 10Gbps-TB1 or 16Gbps-TB2 link, depending on the spec of your THunderbolt port. This solution can work out to be cheaper, give more performance and is more futureproof than expresscard. Hence I'd recommend it over an EXP GDC.

Suggest having a browse of http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/4869-%5Bwip%5D-17-asus-g750jw-gtx680%4010gbps-tb1-sonnet-ee-se-win8-1-a.html#post96868 also.

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Have had some reports that the Lenovo BIOS "automatic" setting doesn't actually set it to Gen2 speed. If it was set to Gen2 and the hardware couldn't handle it then you'd see stuttering sort of effects and "NVidia driver has stopped responding". If you find no way of forcing Gen2 then consider obtaining Setup 1.30 to do it.

Thie BIOS only allows an automatic setting, so i tried with Setup 1.30, but maybe I miss something. since gpuz still shows @x1 1.1

When I boot into Setup 1.30, in the status i see

[email protected] 10de:[email protected] (Nvidia)

Then i select PCIe ports > Gen 2 port -> p4...

Then i select either with link retraining or w/o (i did not understand what is the difference)

Execution of the command returs - "Successfully set port4 to Gen2 speed."

Save Port -> p4 ...

Then F3,

Then either Chainloader -> Test Run

Or I reboot, and then from the DIY eGPU Setup 1.30, i select automated startup

my startup bat contains

call iport gen2 4 notrain

call iport bus

call chainload bootmgr

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Thie BIOS only allows an automatic setting, so i tried with Setup 1.30, but maybe I miss something. since gpuz still shows @x1 1.1

When I boot into Setup 1.30, in the status i see

[email protected] 10de:[email protected] (Nvidia)

Then i select PCIe ports > Gen 2 port -> p4...

Then i select either with link retraining or w/o (i did not understand what is the difference)

Execution of the command returs - "Successfully set port4 to Gen2 speed."

Save Port -> p4 ...

Then F3,

Then either Chainloader -> Test Run

Or I reboot, and then from the DIY eGPU Setup 1.30, i select automated startup

my startup bat contains

call iport gen2 4 notrain

call iport bus

call chainload bootmgr

Looks good. Now put your eGPU under load by running some app in the background. That may be as simply as using the NVidia Control Panel->Adjust image where it shows the NVidia logo spinning. That will move the GPU out of power saving mode x1 1.1 mode into higher performance x1 2.0 mode which GPUZ should then show.

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Looks good. Now put your eGPU under load by running some app in the background. That may be as simply as using the NVidia Control Panel->Adjust image where it shows the NVidia logo spinning. That will move the GPU out of power saving mode x1 1.1 mode into higher performance x1 2.0 mode which GPUZ should then show.

Aaahhh.. indeed, but the GPUZ stress test that I was running was unable to move the card out of the 1.1, so i ran a game and then it finally moved to 2.0

Maybe this was also the reason why I was initially confused... i need to check

thanks a lot for the support :)

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Hi,

I have a ThinkPad E420 with Zotac GTX 560Ti as the eGPU. I have no problem with PCI compaction using eGPU Setup. I don't see any message in the Windows Device Manager saying the device has problems. However, when I try to user the external monitor, I always get the message saying external monitor is not detected. What could be the problem?

Regards,

Haris

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Hello,

I just wanted to thanks everyone on this forum for organizing and displaying all the helpful information required to assemble an eGPU. It made the assembly very smooth. I just got the Setup 1.30 yesterday night, and after sleeping on it, it was firing up this morning.

The system is a Dell Vostro 3750 - i5 2450m w/ GT 525m. Hooked up a PE4C v2.0 + EC + GTX 650. Compaction at 36bit was required, as well as ignoring the dGPU.

Initially it was running at x1.1 Optimus and the 3d06 scores were at 11K. Finally understood how to enable Gen2 speeds a little while ago and now x1.2 Optimus is running. The scores for x1.2 Optimus are here:

post-30923-14494998686902_thumb.jpg

Again thanks everyone. It works very well with Dark Souls 1 and 2.

EDIT: Everyone is using internal display, by the way.

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I'm having a strange issue. I'm trying Wolfenstein TNO, I can't run it with my GTX 770, but it runs smooth on the HD4000. Which is a shame since I need to turn down the settings and that the 770 should be able to run it flawless. Any thoughts?

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Hello,

I just wanted to thanks everyone on this forum for organizing and displaying all the helpful information required to assemble an eGPU. It made the assembly very smooth. I just got the Setup 1.30 yesterday night, and after sleeping on it, it was firing up this morning.

The system is a Dell Vostro 3750 - i5 2450m w/ GT 525m. Hooked up a PE4C v2.0 + EC + GTX 650. Compaction at 36bit was required, as well as ignoring the dGPU.

Initially it was running at x1.1 Optimus and the 3d06 scores were at 11K. Finally understood how to enable Gen2 speeds a little while ago and now x1.2 Optimus is running. The scores for x1.2 Optimus are here:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13075[/ATTACH]

Again thanks everyone. It works very well with Dark Souls 1 and 2.

EDIT: Everyone is using internal display, by the way.

I can see you have an appreciation of the eGPU info here. When we review http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/6578-implementations-hub-tb-ec-mpcie.html we find there are no guides for a Dell Vostro 3750 eGPU implementation. Would you mind creating one? A Vostro 3750 eGPU implementation guide would help other users with the same system to leverage off your pioneering work.

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Hello,

I got my eGPU a while ago and everything still works great except my computer crashes or just goes blank sometimes after I disconnect my eGPU.

I currently have the express card adapter setup with a 650ti graphics card and 500w power supply.

I could not find any posts regarding how to properly disconnect so I have just gotten used to this but I wanted to see if there was a different way.

I have always just took out the express card and my computer would go black and I would have to force shutdown and then start it up again.

My laptop is a lenovo t430 with intel i7. I have Windows 7 as well if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

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Is this the best future-proof e-GPU system that we can have?

I7-4790K 4.0 GHz - it seems more than enough;

Thunderbolt - not present; what a shame;

Optimus - I'am not sure, but it seems not;

SSD M.2 PCIe x4 - present, what can we expect in terms of performance?

post-4339-14494998691689_thumb.jpg

Cheers

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Hello, I have an ASUS X53SV (Intel HD 3000 + GT 520M) running Windows 8.1 and I've recently bought PE4C-PM3E adapter to try using GeForce 8800GT (with plans to upgrade). At first everything seemed to be ok, GPU was detected correctly and driver installed successfully but after a while I noticed that every few minutes the driver crashes and instantly recovers to function. Apart from that every time I try to run a game (Skyrim, DayZ, Garry's Mod) my computer hangs and i have to hard reset it. I've also tried Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 and it crashes after 1 to 10mins when using dx9, almost instantly with dx11. Troubleshooting tells me that it's power supply's fault but i'm using 650W PSU that was powering this very GPU in a desktop PC so I don't really think it's power related problem. So what do you guys think is causing this instability? Also, I haven't bought Setup 1.x, do you think it would help? Thanks in advance.

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Hello,

I've got my eGPU installed & drivers installed (device manager says the device is working properly), but I can't output anything to my external monitor. (Turns out I didn't need to whitelist anything).

In Setup 1.30, I run set eGPU port width to Gen2, PCI compaction on iGPU + eGPU, then Hot Reset my eGPU port, then Chainload Mbr.

In Windows 7, in the screen resolution window, what I see is "Available display output on: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti", and my only options are "No display detected" and "Try to connect anyway on VGA".

Any ideas @Tech Inferno Fan?

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Hello,

I got my eGPU a while ago and everything still works great except my computer crashes or just goes blank sometimes after I disconnect my eGPU.

I currently have the express card adapter setup with a 650ti graphics card and 500w power supply.

I could not find any posts regarding how to properly disconnect so I have just gotten used to this but I wanted to see if there was a different way.

I have always just took out the express card and my computer would go black and I would have to force shutdown and then start it up again.

My laptop is a lenovo t430 with intel i7. I have Windows 7 as well if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

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Can you relocate your WIFI card into the WWAN slot and get it detected in Device Manager? That would confirm that you have PCIe signals going to it. Otherwise do note that a WWAN slot only needs the USB signals going to it.

If that does the trick,t hen boot with WIFI and halt OS bootup with F8/F12. Power your eGPU, remove the WIFI card and *carefully* hotplug the mPCIe card end into the WWAN slot. Continue OS load. Is the eGPU detected OK? That process overcoming any whitelisting and CLKRUN signalling issues that may be associated with a mPCIe slot.

I am finally able to continue after a week of being away. I have made some considerable progress, but am stuck once again:

Some things I've learned about my Lenovo T420 (4178-AFU):

1. I transferred the WLAN cad to the so-called mPCI-e.... and it does not start up. The WWAN slot does **NOT** seem to be a live mPCI-e slot. The only cards supported on this white-listed slot are some mSATA hard-drives and some WWAN cards. My guess is that none of the whitelisted cards for this slot are mPCI-e.

This is rather annoying, because the "other" mPCI-e slot (in fact, the only one) is underneath the keyboard, and in addition it holds the Wifi card. If you're curious as to why I don't just use the Express Card slot, it's because I have a USB 3.0 card there already. Before I spend more money on a different set-up, I would like to try to make what I have work. To start, I have flashed a copy of the latest BIOS (1.46) modded to have no whitelist. , and I would like to use the mPCI-e slot underneath the keyboard. I have 16GB of RAM in the machine, so TOLUD will be a problem.

1. If I insert the mPCI-e card of the ada[pter into the WLAN slot, turn on the card, and then after a few moments, turn on the PC, the machine beeps a fair amount, goes thorough TWO reboot cycles, but in the end the machine appears to boot, and the GTX is seen, and the driver appears to be correctly installed & configured. -- The driver looks like it's happy. No exclamation points. Only trouble is: There is nothing seen on any video monitor attached to the card, and I can't even bone singring up the NVIdia console, -- when I try to bring it up, I get a message like "You are not using any thing from the NVivida hardware:" But it looks like it SHOULD work -- for example, there is PCI bus memory allocated to the card.

2. On the other hand, if I do as I was told, and start the machine with the WLAN card in the slot, pause the boot-sequence, then switch WLAN card for the MPCIe of the adapter, then without fail, the card is recognized, but the driver has an exclamation point because of Error 12. I have tried to do the DSDT override, but I am finding myself unable to get past one last error in the DSDT dsl file. The error that is left is "Error 6126 - syntax error, unexpected PARSEOP_DEVICE, expecting $end and premature End-of-file." Until I can avoid getting any errors, I can not complete the next step of the DSDT procedure. Has anyone got a dsdt.dsl file for a Thinkpad T 420 tht is known to be error-free, that they could share?

Is it possible that when it "looks" like the card is properly resourced and the drivers are happy -- that actually the card IS happy? What would I do to get video to flow to my external monitors?

If I can fix that one syntax error, I should be able to do the dsdt override I need to get access to 36-bits of space on the bus, Thanks for any help with that error.

One final question: where do I go to retrieve my copy of setup 1.3, now that I've made a donation? I'm not positive that it will help, but I'd like to try the compaction that seems to offer. I've paid as I should, but have no idea where to go next. Thanks!

scott

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One final question: where do I go to retrieve my copy of setup 1.3, now that I've made a donation? I'm not positive that it will help, but I'd like to try the compaction that seems to offer. I've paid as I should, but have no idea where to go next. Thanks!

scott

Check the INBOX and SPAM folder of the email address provided along with the donation. If you can't find it then PM/email me. Thanks.

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So Im on a BTO (for other dutch people) or Clevo 17cl58. I7 4800, 765m and 16gb of ram. Will this eGpu (EXP GDC) make sense for me to buy? Will there be enough performance increase?

And I've seen people run it with 970's, but how much does it really throttle? And other than a 970 what card do you guys recommend? (best performance without being throttled!)

And is 970 low enough TDP for the 220w psu to work?

post-31032-14494998705247_thumb.png

Why was my post moved here?

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