HP Pavilion dm4-2191us + GTX560Ti + mPCIe2 (EXP GDC V8) + Win10

[bleeper4]

HP Pavilion dm4-2191us, 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD, Windows 10

EVGA GTX 560 Ti (1GB VRAM?)

Blue Star 650W PSU

EXP GDC Beast V8.3 (from GearBest)

 

Hey guys, just got my GDC Beast V8 in yesterday and put my eGPU setup all together. I know my PSU works and I know my GPU works (tested in another machine). My HP laptop has whitelist, so I tried booting with my wifi card, putting computer to sleep, hotplugging mPCIe adapter in, and turning the computer back on - but windows doesn't detect the GPU. I've also bought DIY eGPU Setup and hotplugged whilst in that, and even then the GPU doesn't register. I tried doing the same on another (Dell Inspiron 1420) laptop, with the same results. I can't figure out what is wrong, short of the HDMI to mPCIe cable being bad. But it doesn't seem bad since the GPU/PSU turn on/off when I turn my laptop on/off.

 

Further, I've tried taping over pin 22, as well as hotwiring the PSU to be always on before hotplugging the adapter into my mPCIe port. Still no luck.

 

Are there more settings I need to be changing in DIY eGPU Setup, such as link speed or width? I really thought hot plugging was the defacto tell on whether or not your setup works or not. Thanks for your help!

[bleeper4]

Update, I finally got the card working (needed 2 PCIe 6-pin power plugs!), but now I have driver issues. I can boot with my internal laptop screen and see my card (with no PCI compaction or anything), but once I install Nvidia drivers and reboot, I get a BSOD with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION. I assume it's because my drivers are incorrect. I've tried standard drivers straight from nvidia, as well as drivers with modded .inf for my specific card.

From there I've also tried PCI compaction. I can only compact iGPU + eGPU successfully; anything else messes up my SATA and DIY Setup can no longer read from the hard drive. But PCI compaction doesn't fix anything.

 

I've also come across a case where if I warm reboot (instead of cold shutdown and reboot), my BIOS sees the eGPU as primary and disables my iGPU (Intel 3000). I've tried toying around with drivers in that configuration as well, with no luck.

 

Any help appreciated, thanks!

[bleeper4]

Update, finally got everything working. The conclusion I've come to is that PCIe gen1 with Optimus is too slow for me. Cross-posting some thoughts I posted on the EXP GDC thread:

• I couldn't get gen2 speeds to work on it at all. I told the guys I bought it from, and they were kind enough to send me another Beast, so I actually took it, removed the HDMI socket connection, and soldered the cable directly to the Beast's PCB. It still did not work in gen2 but it did work on gen1 still.
• At PCIe gen1 speed, the GPU bus is almost always saturated (e.g. at 100% usage). This will be your bottleneck 90% of the time, unless you are only running a GPU stress test. You can download EVGA Precision x16 and see for yourself; put the bus usage on the overlay while you play a game and watch it. By comparison, I have another laptop with an nVidia dGPU, and I can watch its bus usage stay below 10% all the time, just because it is tied via x8 or x16 connection (and probably PCIe gen3).
• I play CS:GO a lot and wanted an eGPU to up my frames; sadly I don't think this is a good solution for me. I have not tried a gen2 speed adapter, but I don't think it would work even then. With gen1 speeds I get micro-lags every time I see an enemy, likely because at that exact moment the processor and GPU are communicating vigorously, and my GPU bus doesn't allow the information to travel that fast. I wonder if the same will happen on gen2 speeds, but to a lesser extent.
• The particular Beasts I received from GearBest had a few missing things about it. It was missing an on switch even when there was space for it. The delay switch (0sec - 7sec - 15sec) was there but if you look at the PCB, the components around it are completely missing, so the switch does nothing. And, the Beast has a USB port, but as I was soldering the cable I discovered that the USB port did not connect to the HDMI cable at all, so USB doesn't work (though I haven't tested it in reality). I think these are ways to cut costs on manufacturing...though admittedly these are tiny cost cuts.

Hope that helps!

[tmash]

You should avoid Optimus as it adds noticeable latency. Use kyran 30awg wire or PATA/SCSI (preferred) solder the wires, then tape the entire wire (shield) with copper tape, and connect ground to the copper tape. Don't do twists, single flat 90 degrees is ok, helix like twists are bad. Keep no-dry flux over the soldered pins/contact with wire. Then cover the copper tape with kapton tape to avoid shorts. I was able to do pcie 3.0 gen x8 with my mxm laptop, should be easier with mpcie @gen2.0

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