Big thank you to everyone for watching the video and commenting below. We have updated the description of this video to include more details on what you will need to jump an external PSU as requested.
I'd LIKE to use my laptop in a "2-Head" configuration , turning it into something ACTUALLY useful , more than just for gaming . Is there a way in the bios to set it so that it can see BOTH the internal gfx AND the external ? I l know I can plug 2 monitors into the ext card , but if I was to use the INT mon WITH the EXT , I _COULD disconnect the EXT. for portable use ... . I've seen this on other vids here on Y-T , but you were able to simplify the overall install better than most I've seen , so I thot I would ask . Thoughts ?
@@LA.20 - If you're asking to connect the HDMI to the laptop HDMI port , with the internal GFX disabled , the answer to THAT would be no . IF you're asking about connecting the HDMI cable to the EXT Vid , then I'd guess the answer to THAT would be YES , no matter which other port you'd used instead . It WOULD be interesting to see if you could connect 2 monitors to the external card , altho in it's native desktop configuration you can , so I'm guessing there wouldn't be a problem with _that_ here . I'm interested in running BOTH the internal GFX _and_ the EXTERNAL , so that I can run it as a native 2-Head unit without having to purchase a 2nd External Monitor ... .
@@chuckintexas Thank you very much for answering really appreciate it. Looks like my problem is the card itself as it won't even display anything despite being connected to the monitor, and it does not have a blue led light on, cause apparently RX580 should have a blue light present to indicate it that all connections are working. Already talked with the seller they are going to replace it.
well, he uses the cheaper version of egpu riser, it's made for mining bit coin so the manufacturer didn't tweak it for different purpos, but there's a special variant of this which is the expgdc beast, it will use your laptop's display and doesn't need external monitor.
I remember doing this forever ago, nearly a decade ago, when I didn't have a proper PC yet, but had found the GPU I wanted (Radeon HD 7770) on a really good sale and wouldn't have the money for the other parts for a few more months, so I used it on my crappy laptop to play games for the time being, good times! Remember telling people I had a desktop GPU on my laptop and they were like "how?", because it was such a new concept back then. For testing how things are detected by Windows by the way, I prefer to use good old dxdiag, since it can show you if the card specs are also recognized correctly, not just the model.
Very cool video! It actually brings back what PC gaming was (for me) always about. A bit of tinkering and achieving results with creative thinking. Nowadays it seems it's all about splurging funds for the latest and greatest - yet this shows that lots can be done with older hardware. Thanks for posting!
PC Gaming will always be about the tinkering for me. Yeah, you can splurge and that's fine for a high end stable system but I have so many systems about to tinker with too it keeps things fun.
It's stioll 100$ about tinkering. It's just that the things to tinker with have cam up in price. That and a lot more people have been buying pre builts.
Well I have 5900 x and Rx 6800 and have no plan to upgrade anytime soon. I did just upgrade from four 8 gig sticks of 3200 mhz DDR 4 to two 16 gig sticks of 4000 mhz DDR 4 and that will do it for now. Ram got cheaper. especially when you look at my video's i upload. Things a beast.
This video is perfect for me, I've been looking for a way to upgrade my laptop and the only thing I have find about external GPUs are those ones that are really expensive
But by the time you factor in a screen a psu and it not being portable anymore you could just buy a whole better used pc for the similar money and sell the laptop for a little more budget@@kwazhims3lf
You should take it to the next level and convert this into a retro game cabinet. Mount the laptop internals inside the cabinet, attach the GPU like you have shown, get an old CRT monitor and create a good old arcade cabinet. The system will be plenty powerful enough for old arcade game emulation and you'd have a nice conversation starter.
Oculink is the way to go, I recently modded my Steam Deck and added an external RX 7600 GPU, the difference is night and day. The Oculink kit only costs $36 on Amazon, it allows me to run Diablo4 at 1440p high settings and still gets 90+ fps. After seeing how good the Deck works, I'm getting another kit for an old laptop, it's just amazing.
You can use a different raiser like ADT-Link or others which you can connect to your M.2 pcie slot which has 4 lanes instead of 1 for the mini pcie making it a lot faster. You should test this and try different gpu generation for example 3000 series and overkill 4000 series to see if there are any difference going overkill. Would be a great content for you.
Yes, we have been looking into the M.2 slot versions recently as we have a system in which could utilise it. Will take a look at something higher end in terms of GPU for it.
Finally someone made this cheap riser, I think this riser is the same as EXP GDC, the logic is the same but I've been looking for a review of this riser for a long time, and it only appears in 2023. This video is very useful, this can be a cheap alternative to old laptops. Unfortunately, I'm still afraid to try because of an unexpected error 😂
This is so helpful. I don't have the money to get a PC, all I can do is this. I don't take my laptop anywhere bc the battery is basically gone. So, if it's already staying on my desk all the time, might as well make it good.
Great video. Ive known of this but its awesome to see it done step by step. Wanted to do this to my 13 year old lenovo AIO. They made great stuff back in the day. Wanted to keep it all internal and add one of those mxm cards but this looks much easier, cheaper and more effective. Thanks
Tempted to do this with my 13 year old Probook 4430s as well lol I've pretty much maxed out the internals in it, and the GPU is the main holdback right now
I did this with my Apple Macbook Pro 2015 and it worked very well with a GTX1660ti running windows 10. Only problem was that it would only start up successfully with the GPU working 1 in 5 to 10 times so it was not without hiccups .... The E-GPU was connected trough Thunderbolt port.
This is just proof that you can Jerry rig anything on a budget for PC building. This is especially true if you’re looking to get into DCS and you don’t know where to start. You can literally use your dad’s old compact desktop and turn it into a gaming PC or SIM rig for less than $500 if you know where to look.
Thank you so much! I've been looking into rebuilding an old netbook with a broken screen into a headless games console of sorts, and i've been looking into these adapters... but all the other youtube channels only use these super expensive GPU docks and i had no idea if these small adapters actually work, or if they are just useless mining hardware.
i had the same laptop for 6years and i played crazy games on it, like hitman blood money, zelda twilight princess through emulation, far cry 2, minecraft, call of duty modern warfare and a loooooooot more
@@TechLabUK U need to upgrade ur cpu... Running a 780 with a 2nd gen i3 and ddr3 ram.. Using this with a better laptop would be interesting to see how much the GPU is bottlenecked by the network card port
Thanks for making the video. It would be better if you could test the bottleneck of the riser. For the example, is 1050 ti run the same in the egpu setup and in the real pc setup (pcie 3.0x16) ?
One time I tried to take my wifi card out of my elitebook 8440p to try and put it in a disassembled motherboard then I accidentally cut the wifi wires so because my elitebook 8440p is my main laptop with Linux on it I need to put the router behind the lid of the laptop to work (edit:also why i wanna buy a lan cable and a egpu dock)
Nice external GPU mod. Is it using just x1 lanes as I think you said previous device did? Seems even more impressive if so. Wonder if there's a way you can use more lanes somehow
the 20% performance loss is not worth it, tried it before not practical anymore to use higher gpu than gtx 1050 ti. maybe m.2 laptops can have better performance like 15% performance loss compared to 16x pcie slot?
Greetings from México! Hey guy, i will take your tutorial as a guide in order to upgrade a friend's Acer Aspire Laptop. You've got a like, good man, you deserve it.
Cool video! I wanted to do the same to my laptop! Can you please test how the performances change when using engineering software? For example: cad; matlab/octave; Nastram; Pastran/Femap etc... Thank you very much :)
Thanks for the informative video. Btw can you use the power supply to power a laptop? because mine doesnt have battery and i dont want a lot of plugs in the socket. If its possible please tell me how to do it of you're ok with it.
They would run a lot better even through the MiniPCIe slot. It will hit a limitation eventually but the GTX 750 is just a real slow card. Will trying something much bigger soon and see how far it will go, might hit CPU limit before the slot though on that old laptop lol
Great video for people who enjoy tinkering. Does it always work this easily? Get external PSU, PCI riser card, GPU, plug it all together and plug into laptop's PCI slot then power on. Logically the laptop will simple see a eGPU connected to the MOBO. Will all laptop WiFi PCI connectors work like this? The next point is laptop makers can make 'Gamer Ready' versions of laptops with a custom designed PCI port on the side so there's no need to open up the laptop. I'd be interested because with the GPU being external there's no possibility of higher GPU thermals giving the laptop a premature death. The laptop will run cooler because it won't need to cool an internal GPU.
Each laptop is different tbh. Some old fella won’t even work as they lock the port down. Other need you to go in the bios and switch the port to a PCIe device etc. Just a bit of fun and helps a lot of people out there who may want to just boost a game they enjoy.
I recently purchased the ASUS Rog Zephyrus M16 laptop with the following specifications: • Core i9-13900H (13th Generation) • 32GB RAM • 1TB SSD • 8GB Dedicated NVIDIA RTX 4070 Laptop GPU • 16” QHD 240Hz Display I am looking to purchase an external graphics card to meet the requirements of a specific program. I am considering the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX™️ 4070 Ti Super OG OC Edition (PCIe 4.0, 16GB GDDR6X, DLSS 3, HDMI 2.1a, DisplayPort 1.4a). Before making the purchase, I would like to confirm if this external graphics card will be compatible with my laptop and if there are any additional components or setups (e.g., external GPU enclosures) that I would need to ensure proper functioning. I appreciate y’all guidance and help in confirming this. Thank you!
Terrific. I'm believing. I think I may even have a better solution using the dvd/cd port and power from it's sata power. I'm not sure if this will make D2r playable on my satellite L875 but I'm willing to try. However, I'm worried about not having internet in case my system needs to search for drivers. I was reticent because I have a 3rd gen i3 but, I'm upgrading to a 3rd gen i7 which is a 1ghz jump with the same power load.
I have a very oddball set up for a particular blizzard game I have played since 2005. I paid a premium in 2008 for a sony Vaio and to this day have it set up using an external rx 580 8gb and still play it. My mods have been the external rx 580 8gb (upgraded from an rx 290) and 16gb LT mem. I was going to break the entire laptop and use it in parts on a bench but the 15.6 monitor has been solid and aside from gen x losers and tryhards, the game I play runs amazing like this. My personal desktop build is miles beyond this and I use it for current titles but its fun to use a LT that would have otherwise become ewaste. edit: forgot to mention my external psu is a super old 2015 evga 500w psu that is 2 times more than I need to power a crappy old rx 580 8gb. By crappy, i mean amazing for what it is used for
Hey bro great video! I have a question. I have an old pci non pcie sound card, I really like it. I've already discovered that there are adapters on the market similar to the one you showed in the video, but they turn a pcie 1x input into old pci. Do you think I will be able to connect my pci card to the laptop? Note: It needs drivers to work but I have them. 😸
I'd LIKE to use my laptop in a "2-Head" configuration , turning it into something ACTUALLY useful , more than just for gaming . Is there a way in the bios to set it so that it can see BOTH the internal gfx AND the external ? I l know I can plug 2 monitors into the ext card , but if I was to use the INT mon WITH the EXT , I _COULD disconnect the EXT. for portable use ... . I've seen this on other vids here on Y-T , but you were able to simplify the overall install better than most I've seen , so I thot I would ask . Thoughts ?
Great video, I have an HP Elitebook 8560p with 3rd gen Core i5, 8GB ram, 256 GB SSD, and an external AMD Radeon 7750 GPU, can I plug in a normal new GPU like say 4060/RX 6700, will it work (PCI-Gen is older since the laptop is a 3rd gen Intel era from 2011/2012? Will it work properly despite the possible CPU bottleneck, and PCI-E gen is older in the mobo?, will it horrible, I can upgrade the ram to 16 GB very easily and cheaply, also, regarding the PSU for this setup in mind, will it work without plugging the 24 pins to any mobo, I mean I would only need the GPU power through 6/8 pin connector from the PSU, will the PSU work without plugging the 24 pin plug to any mobo as it is not needed for my case/a laptop, I really appreciate your answer in advance.... Thanks 👍
If you already have it working then sure. The PCIe Gen will mean the card will limited but you should also check to see what GPU is more aligned to your CPU anyway otherwise you will be losing a lot of performance.
We do it for fun more than anything. We see something that peaks our interest or someone askes us about it and we have to try it out and share what we find.
I do. I have a child that would like to play some games on a laptop but I'm not spending a ton of money to get him one. What I do have though are 2 older HPs that never get used and my old desktop that blew out the CPU but still has a functional PS and Asus GT640 in it. A riser cable for under $10 bucks and the boy has a PC he can play some games on. I like that
I do. I have an old laptop I need to use for video editing. The GPU and CPU are fine for playback, editing etc.. but rendering is very slow. Rendering is GPU accelerated, but because the GPU is older it doesn't perform really well. I'm looking into either using an external GPU or using a cloud rendering service. The reason why I don't just buy a better computer is because I already have a better computer (desktop), but I can't bring it with me for a 5-month trip that I'm doing. And I wouldn't want to buy a new laptop only for that short period of time.
I'm wondering if this also works if the graphics card in my laptop does not work? I have a Asus TUF F15 laptop and last year, it stopped working. A friend who knows a little more about computers than I do, told me that I'd have to replace the motherboard as well as the CPU and GPU. He also told me I wouldn't be able to do it myself, and that he wouldn't even touch it. From what I know, it can become quite costly to get this done by a professional (although the laptop was quite expensive and so I think it'd still be worth it). But after watching this video, I'm wondering if this set up is possible for my laptop. I really don't want to give up on it just yet...
Modern laptop that comes with nvme slot can use these kind of docks with nvme adapter,which uses 2 pci e lanes and basically faster than thunderbolt 3. This method of upgrade should be viable option for laptops shipped after 2016 without any discrete graphics Processing unit. Do this kind of experiment for better laptop with better gpu like an i5 5/6th gen laptop with gtx 1650.
The main issue with this setup is that riser is for mining and is PCIe 1x as well as the port on the laptop your plugging to is also 1x. Your bottlenecking the video card like crazy. There is better m.2 pcie x4 versions of that riser that make more sense but wont work on a laptop like that as you need an open m.2 port that is wired at x4
Hmm should i do this i got a compaq cq58 (which literally has the same layout as this laptop on vid) that has 8gb ram, 240gb ssd (i can upgrade later) and currently a celeron b830 which i will upgrade to a core i5 3230m So should i get a gtx 750 a psu (also the switch) and the pcie adapter? Edit 10 months later: my laptop has hm70 chip set which i didnt know for the past 10 months until recently so if i used a core series cpu it will shutdown after 30 mins, this laptop only supports pentium and celerons, i am currently waiting for a pwntou 2020m to arrive and hope it works good
I have a Dell 11th gen i7 with GeForce rtx 3050 ti notebook edition. With 16 GB ram on the PC. I like to video edit, however the program I use, davinchi resolve, is quite taxing, and I am looking to make it a bit more smooth.
Very nicely explained, I just had an doubt. I have an dell inspiron 3585 and I regularly carry it around for college ,etc. Is it possible that I can use two usb connections instead of one? ie one usb from the wifi card slot and other from the gpu. there will be a connection using the existing usb port (it will be removed as it is a independent board and will install the usb from the wifi card). please let me know. thankyou!
Could I use an external Power supply for the external GPU on my desk top without frying my PC? I'm just wondering the compatibility with an external ATX GPU for my GPU while also having the rest of the PC running off of my much weaker HP Proprietary power supply.
@@TechLabUK Online it seemed to be the same one you had, however when I took out the wifi card, the card in the adaptor was quite a bit thicker and didn't fit, so instead, i removed the card from the adaptor (it was connected via a USB 3.0 cable) and connected that to my laptop.
@@andrewmarin3941 I very much doubt that would work. There are a few different types of adaptors on the end, some for Wifi Slots, some for M.2 slots. There's a card adaptor for pretty much every port that uses PCIe as a standard.
@@TechLabUK This is what I got......description seemed the same not sure how i ended up with the wrong one..... Here are a couple of photos (green is my wifi card, as you can see the adapter is thicker) drive.google.com/file/d/1YhwNajX2nEoxCoHkN0MXZDanSRDtW7nm/view?usp=sharing drive.google.com/file/d/1jO8XhosbZxEr_NxCvGYMuRFNKg-GzjOV/view?usp=sharing
@@TechLabUK All right, thanks. For the record, here are pics of the adaptor that I got. Green is my wifi card, as you can see, the adaptor is thicker and doesn't fit into the slot. drive.google.com/file/d/1YhwNajX2nEoxCoHkN0MXZDanSRDtW7nm/view?usp=sharing drive.google.com/file/d/1jO8XhosbZxEr_NxCvGYMuRFNKg-GzjOV/view?usp=sharing
Nope, there are a number of videos on TH-cam though showing you potential ways of hacking it to get it on the laptop screen but this was more for an experiment of an old laptop being docked.
i have an acer nitro 5 2022 3050 laptop, and it as a thunderbolt usb c port, idk abt a pci slot which it might. i also got a spare 1660 super i want to try and get it working with
Hi! Good content! May i ask if what maximun gpu (latest that i can use as external gpu too) can i put on my laptop. On pcie slot too (removing wifi card). My laptop model is MSI GS702QC (dgpu 960m) core i7-4720HQ.
Not 100% sure, using this method will make the card run on a PCIe x1 slot so anything super fast will be restricted a lot. I think you could get away with a GTX 1650 level card maybe even slightly faster but I am kind of guessing.
Hey, I bought the mini PCIe adaptor, but I believe I have an M.2 wifi card, not mini PCIe. I can’t find anything online, do you know where I can find what I need for this? I already have the part that connects to the graphics card and the USB cable, I just need the part that connects to the M.2 slot. Thanks a lot, sorry about this, I’m just really determined to make this work.
We did this conversion in a much newer video here: th-cam.com/video/mG_JQQFww6Q/w-d-xo.html not sure if you can just buy the M.2 end piece but you should be able to buy an adaptor that works from either Ebay or Amazon. Just search for M.2 to PCIe adaptor.
@@TechLabUK Ok, thanks! Just to make sure I don't buy the wrong thing again, does it matter what type of M.2? The wifi card that's in the slot in my computer appears to be M.2 key E, but pretty much everything I can find online is M.2 key M. Or from PCIe to M.2 instead of the other way around.
I have issues. I have a Hp probook 4530S and ive used 3 different risers and multiple gpus and i cant get any of them to work. (Risers used, EXP-GDC beast 8.4 with mini pcie, mini pcie to pcie 16x riser amd the mining riser shown in the video. Gpus i used, AMD HD5450 1gb, GTX 970, GTX 1070, GTX 1080, GTX Titan X (maxwell). Soon il try a GTX 750ti 4gb maybe it will work or not. Was told by the riser sellers i need a modded bios which doesmt exist
Would this work on my laptop as It already has a 930mx. But it’s not that powerful, but can I still use an external GPU. So my question is would it work.
I don't understand why the laptop was sending signals to the gpu while the vice versa was supposed to happen. Also what actually happened with the igpu of the laptop after connecting the external gpu?
What is the bandwidth that this passthrough cable can transmit? Is it any better than Thunderbolt 3 & 4 speeds? USB 3.0 is nowhere near enough bandwidth. Using a Thunderbolt port will out perform USB 3.0. This is a where external graphics will really be a game changer in due course, when Thunderbolt speed reaches pcie 4.0 x16 speed. 4.0 x16 speed is 32GB/s or 256Gb/s. Thunderbolt 3 and 4 are 40Gb/s, 1/6.4 of the bandwidth. Sorry to be a party pooper. But on the brighter side, this will probably be not that far away. SSDs over thunderbolt 3 and 4 are already mind blowing compared to old MFM hard drives, they were on a par with 3.5" floppy drives. GPU over Thunderbolt is a still a significant improvement over onboard video, but it nevertheless a big performance bottleneck. The bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 & 4 going from video card to monitor is adequate for driving 4K @120Hz, but not for getting the raw data from the CPU to the video card. I have used a USB C 10Gb/s to install linux on an external SSD, and the performance was excellent. Given that the actual performance of a laptop with external graphics only about 50% slower than the same card inside the case, would suggest to me that Thunderbolt 5 external enclusres when they hit the market should make this absolutelt worthwhile. www.techadvisor.com/article/1516892/thunderbolt-5-release-date-speed-features-compatibility.html
Big thank you to everyone for watching the video and commenting below. We have updated the description of this video to include more details on what you will need to jump an external PSU as requested.
Dumb question, Is it required to connect the HDMI in order for it to work, or is that optional?
I'd LIKE to use my laptop in a "2-Head" configuration , turning it into something ACTUALLY useful , more than just for gaming . Is there a way in the bios to set it so that it can see BOTH the internal gfx AND the external ? I l know I can plug 2 monitors into the ext card , but if I was to use the INT mon WITH the EXT , I _COULD disconnect the EXT. for portable use ... . I've seen this on other vids here on Y-T , but you were able to simplify the overall install better than most I've seen , so I thot I would ask . Thoughts ?
@@LA.20 - If you're asking to connect the HDMI to the laptop HDMI port , with the internal GFX disabled , the answer to THAT would be no . IF you're asking about connecting the HDMI cable to the EXT Vid , then I'd guess the answer to THAT would be YES , no matter which other port you'd used instead . It WOULD be interesting to see if you could connect 2 monitors to the external card , altho in it's native desktop configuration you can , so I'm guessing there wouldn't be a problem with _that_ here . I'm interested in running BOTH the internal GFX _and_ the EXTERNAL , so that I can run it as a native 2-Head unit without having to purchase a 2nd External Monitor ... .
@@chuckintexas Thank you very much for answering really appreciate it. Looks like my problem is the card itself as it won't even display anything despite being connected to the monitor, and it does not have a blue led light on, cause apparently RX580 should have a blue light present to indicate it that all connections are working. Already talked with the seller they are going to replace it.
well, he uses the cheaper version of egpu riser, it's made for mining bit coin so the manufacturer didn't tweak it for different purpos, but there's a special variant of this which is the expgdc beast, it will use your laptop's display and doesn't need external monitor.
I remember doing this forever ago, nearly a decade ago, when I didn't have a proper PC yet, but had found the GPU I wanted (Radeon HD 7770) on a really good sale and wouldn't have the money for the other parts for a few more months, so I used it on my crappy laptop to play games for the time being, good times! Remember telling people I had a desktop GPU on my laptop and they were like "how?", because it was such a new concept back then.
For testing how things are detected by Windows by the way, I prefer to use good old dxdiag, since it can show you if the card specs are also recognized correctly, not just the model.
Very cool video!
It actually brings back what PC gaming was (for me) always about. A bit of tinkering and achieving results with creative thinking.
Nowadays it seems it's all about splurging funds for the latest and greatest - yet this shows that lots can be done with older hardware.
Thanks for posting!
PC Gaming will always be about the tinkering for me. Yeah, you can splurge and that's fine for a high end stable system but I have so many systems about to tinker with too it keeps things fun.
It's stioll 100$ about tinkering. It's just that the things to tinker with have cam up in price. That and a lot more people have been buying pre builts.
Older hardware= no support
Nowadays everyone wants to run at 4k @ 200fps, meanwhile games are incomplete, full of bugs and boring as hell
Well I have 5900 x and Rx 6800 and have no plan to upgrade anytime soon. I did just upgrade from four 8 gig sticks of 3200 mhz DDR 4 to two 16 gig sticks of 4000 mhz DDR 4 and that will do it for now. Ram got cheaper. especially when you look at my video's i upload. Things a beast.
If your laptop doesnt have a ethernet cable, don't get your hopes down, you can buy a wifi usb adapter.
Read my mind, was wondering if someone would notice ngl. They're quite cheap to buy, even the better ones.
This video is perfect for me, I've been looking for a way to upgrade my laptop and the only thing I have find about external GPUs are those ones that are really expensive
? wat?
... just found a rog strix 1070 ti for just over $200CAD ebay..
... that will rape the ever living crap out of that POS galax 750 he was using
But by the time you factor in a screen a psu and it not being portable anymore you could just buy a whole better used pc for the similar money and sell the laptop for a little more budget@@kwazhims3lf
easier just buying a gaming laptop from SCAN.
did you upgrade it?
You should take it to the next level and convert this into a retro game cabinet. Mount the laptop internals inside the cabinet, attach the GPU like you have shown, get an old CRT monitor and create a good old arcade cabinet. The system will be plenty powerful enough for old arcade game emulation and you'd have a nice conversation starter.
That’s a great idea, just replaced this laptop as well so it’s spare 😀
Oculink is the way to go, I recently modded my Steam Deck and added an external RX 7600 GPU, the difference is night and day. The Oculink kit only costs $36 on Amazon, it allows me to run Diablo4 at 1440p high settings and still gets 90+ fps. After seeing how good the Deck works, I'm getting another kit for an old laptop, it's just amazing.
does it support rtx 4070
im thinking of buying one, for cad modeling on laptop, while i save up for a pc build, where it will be used afterwards
@@darthtrump4428 Deck only works with AMD gpus.
You can use a different raiser like ADT-Link or others which you can connect to your M.2 pcie slot which has 4 lanes instead of 1 for the mini pcie making it a lot faster.
You should test this and try different gpu generation for example 3000 series and overkill 4000 series to see if there are any difference going overkill. Would be a great content for you.
Yes, we have been looking into the M.2 slot versions recently as we have a system in which could utilise it. Will take a look at something higher end in terms of GPU for it.
@@TechLabUK Please do! Would be interesting to see how a 4070 for example would perform.
Finally someone made this cheap riser, I think this riser is the same as EXP GDC, the logic is the same but I've been looking for a review of this riser for a long time, and it only appears in 2023. This video is very useful, this can be a cheap alternative to old laptops. Unfortunately, I'm still afraid to try because of an unexpected error 😂
This is so helpful. I don't have the money to get a PC, all I can do is this. I don't take my laptop anywhere bc the battery is basically gone. So, if it's already staying on my desk all the time, might as well make it good.
Great video. Ive known of this but its awesome to see it done step by step. Wanted to do this to my 13 year old lenovo AIO. They made great stuff back in the day. Wanted to keep it all internal and add one of those mxm cards but this looks much easier, cheaper and more effective. Thanks
Tempted to do this with my 13 year old Probook 4430s as well lol
I've pretty much maxed out the internals in it, and the GPU is the main holdback right now
@@Sterling_Silver04 yep I'm going for it soon. My old trusty AIO runs great and is still real snappy. Will comment with my results.
Great idea endless GPU possibilities now!
Tis an awesome mod tbh. Can bring a whole new life to an old Laptop or MiniPC.
I did this with my Apple Macbook Pro 2015 and it worked very well with a GTX1660ti running windows 10. Only problem was that it would only start up successfully with the GPU working 1 in 5 to 10 times so it was not without hiccups .... The E-GPU was connected trough Thunderbolt port.
I Livestream A LOT and have a 4k camera. My Livestream video quality it garbage so this is inspiring to make my streams exponentially better.
This is just proof that you can Jerry rig anything on a budget for PC building. This is especially true if you’re looking to get into DCS and you don’t know where to start. You can literally use your dad’s old compact desktop and turn it into a gaming PC or SIM rig for less than $500 if you know where to look.
Interesting
Thank you so much! I've been looking into rebuilding an old netbook with a broken screen into a headless games console of sorts, and i've been looking into these adapters... but all the other youtube channels only use these super expensive GPU docks and i had no idea if these small adapters actually work, or if they are just useless mining hardware.
i had the same laptop for 6years and i played crazy games on it, like hitman blood money, zelda twilight princess through emulation, far cry 2, minecraft, call of duty modern warfare and a loooooooot more
Wonderful, could this be used to fine tune a neural network?
Thank you so much for this video, I'm just looking for about using regular gpu with laptop around 5 years ago and never find out.. thank you so much.
I'd be curious to see the results with something like a rtx 3060.
Would be an interesting experiment.
do u heard about bottlenecking ??
@@TechLabUK U need to upgrade ur cpu... Running a 780 with a 2nd gen i3 and ddr3 ram.. Using this with a better laptop would be interesting to see how much the GPU is bottlenecked by the network card port
@@joemogley we used a GTX 750 in the video and you are right. Our laptop cpu sucks but it keeps running so we keep using it lol
@@TechLabUK "Our laptop CPU sucks" laughs in AMD E-300😂
I just realized that in my computer from 2009 i used the gtx750. I didnt knew you could still use it today. Haha :) great video
They are as good as they were back then. Modern games no chance but there are 1000s of older games that will work just fine.
Thanks for making the video. It would be better if you could test the bottleneck of the riser. For the example, is 1050 ti run the same in the egpu setup and in the real pc setup (pcie 3.0x16) ?
maybe the performance is comparable to laptop built 1050ti which is less powerful to it's counterpart desktop 1050ti.
@@LeoNux-um7tg No it will be bottlenecked like hell, maybe a 3 fps "improvement" to the 750
Coudn't you just connect it to the USB/USB-C port insteead?
@@andrewmarin3941 No, the usb cable is only extending the PCIe port.
One time I tried to take my wifi card out of my elitebook 8440p to try and put it in a disassembled motherboard then I accidentally cut the wifi wires so because my elitebook 8440p is my main laptop with Linux on it I need to put the router behind the lid of the laptop to work (edit:also why i wanna buy a lan cable and a egpu dock)
Nice external GPU mod. Is it using just x1 lanes as I think you said previous device did? Seems even more impressive if so. Wonder if there's a way you can use more lanes somehow
Believe they are 1x but on lower end / older GPUs we have never noticed enough of a difference especially with what you are playing on them.
@@TechLabUK Ah cool, seems to work pretty well yeah. Nice.
@@rugby187gaming Worked straight away and we also realised how well the GTX 750 still performed which was nice lol
just found this channel and i love it, very informative and professional, good work🎉💪🏾❤️
Would have been interesting to see what a modern graphics card would be like on an old laptop
This laptop is no longer in use but I do still have it so might drag it back out again and drop something bigger on it for fun.
the 20% performance loss is not worth it, tried it before not practical anymore to use higher gpu than gtx 1050 ti. maybe m.2 laptops can have better performance like 15% performance loss compared to 16x pcie slot?
Greetings from México! Hey guy, i will take your tutorial as a guide in order to upgrade a friend's Acer Aspire Laptop. You've got a like, good man, you deserve it.
Cool video! I wanted to do the same to my laptop! Can you please test how the performances change when using engineering software? For example: cad; matlab/octave; Nastram; Pastran/Femap etc...
Thank you very much :)
If they do GPU-assisted calculations the improvement is noteworthy.
you look like Wolfenstein XD amazing video
Interesting to see this with a low power low profile card that without a psu
Thanks for the informative video. Btw can you use the power supply to power a laptop? because mine doesnt have battery and i dont want a lot of plugs in the socket. If its possible please tell me how to do it of you're ok with it.
Nice improvement on Tomb Raider, would Stray and other newer games run better with a better gpu or would it be limited on the speed of the pcie slot?
They would run a lot better even through the MiniPCIe slot. It will hit a limitation eventually but the GTX 750 is just a real slow card. Will trying something much bigger soon and see how far it will go, might hit CPU limit before the slot though on that old laptop lol
Great video for people who enjoy tinkering. Does it always work this easily?
Get external PSU, PCI riser card, GPU, plug it all together and plug into laptop's PCI slot then power on. Logically the laptop will simple see a eGPU connected to the MOBO.
Will all laptop WiFi PCI connectors work like this?
The next point is laptop makers can make 'Gamer Ready' versions of laptops with a custom designed PCI port on the side so there's no need to open up the laptop. I'd be interested because with the GPU being external there's no possibility of higher GPU thermals giving the laptop a premature death. The laptop will run cooler because it won't need to cool an internal GPU.
Each laptop is different tbh. Some old fella won’t even work as they lock the port down. Other need you to go in the bios and switch the port to a PCIe device etc. Just a bit of fun and helps a lot of people out there who may want to just boost a game they enjoy.
@@TechLabUK , Thanks for the info.
Hi, amazing video! I'd like to ask, do you get the gpu's full performance or is it somehow bottlenecked?
The GPU would be limited due to the 1x PCIe but the effect all depend son the GPU really.
I recently purchased the ASUS Rog Zephyrus M16 laptop with the following specifications:
• Core i9-13900H (13th Generation)
• 32GB RAM
• 1TB SSD
• 8GB Dedicated NVIDIA RTX 4070 Laptop GPU
• 16” QHD 240Hz Display
I am looking to purchase an external graphics card to meet the requirements of a specific program. I am considering the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX™️ 4070 Ti Super OG OC Edition (PCIe 4.0, 16GB GDDR6X, DLSS 3, HDMI 2.1a, DisplayPort 1.4a). Before making the purchase, I would like to confirm if this external graphics card will be compatible with my laptop and if there are any additional components or setups (e.g., external GPU enclosures) that I would need to ensure proper functioning.
I appreciate y’all guidance and help in confirming this.
Thank you!
Terrific. I'm believing. I think I may even have a better solution using the dvd/cd port and power from it's sata power. I'm not sure if this will make D2r playable on my satellite L875 but I'm willing to try. However, I'm worried about not having internet in case my system needs to search for drivers. I was reticent because I have a 3rd gen i3 but, I'm upgrading to a 3rd gen i7 which is a 1ghz jump with the same power load.
Experimentation... love it!
Its to bad laptops dont have expansion ports like they did in the day of old.
Having to use an external display kinda defeated the idea of this set-up for me.
You can use the internal screen but loss fps
I have a very oddball set up for a particular blizzard game I have played since 2005. I paid a premium in 2008 for a sony Vaio and to this day have it set up using an external rx 580 8gb and still play it. My mods have been the external rx 580 8gb (upgraded from an rx 290) and 16gb LT mem. I was going to break the entire laptop and use it in parts on a bench but the 15.6 monitor has been solid and aside from gen x losers and tryhards, the game I play runs amazing like this. My personal desktop build is miles beyond this and I use it for current titles but its fun to use a LT that would have otherwise become ewaste.
edit: forgot to mention my external psu is a super old 2015 evga 500w psu that is 2 times more than I need to power a crappy old rx 580 8gb. By crappy, i mean amazing for what it is used for
Hey bro, i have hp probook 450 G4. Will this work on it?
can you please do another video with external GPU for running local LLMs?
Cool! I wait for the external enclosure!
Hey bro great video! I have a question.
I have an old pci non pcie sound card, I really like it. I've already discovered that there are adapters on the market similar to the one you showed in the video, but they turn a pcie 1x input into old pci.
Do you think I will be able to connect my pci card to the laptop? Note: It needs drivers to work but I have them. 😸
I have no idea about those adaptors but if they do work in converting a PCIe stot to a PCI slot I can't see why it wouldn't.
I'd LIKE to use my laptop in a "2-Head" configuration , turning it into something ACTUALLY useful , more than just for gaming . Is there a way in the bios to set it so that it can see BOTH the internal gfx AND the external ? I l know I can plug 2 monitors into the ext card , but if I was to use the INT mon WITH the EXT , I _COULD disconnect the EXT. for portable use ... . I've seen this on other vids here on Y-T , but you were able to simplify the overall install better than most I've seen , so I thot I would ask . Thoughts ?
this will work way better when usb4 is around for old parts. personally i don't like having to disassemble the laptop to plug the gpu
Do I need to put the cable on Wi-Fi card ? I have same port as wifi card port near it?
Great video, I have an HP Elitebook 8560p with 3rd gen Core i5, 8GB ram, 256 GB SSD, and an external AMD Radeon 7750 GPU, can I plug in a normal new GPU like say 4060/RX 6700, will it work (PCI-Gen is older since the laptop is a 3rd gen Intel era from 2011/2012? Will it work properly despite the possible CPU bottleneck, and PCI-E gen is older in the mobo?, will it horrible, I can upgrade the ram to 16 GB very easily and cheaply, also, regarding the PSU for this setup in mind, will it work without plugging the 24 pins to any mobo, I mean I would only need the GPU power through 6/8 pin connector from the PSU, will the PSU work without plugging the 24 pin plug to any mobo as it is not needed for my case/a laptop, I really appreciate your answer in advance.... Thanks 👍
If you already have it working then sure. The PCIe Gen will mean the card will limited but you should also check to see what GPU is more aligned to your CPU anyway otherwise you will be losing a lot of performance.
Very cool. Thank you!
The cables can easily be removed right? So the laptop remains portable?
ADT-Link TB is best for Macbooks over USB-C
I can't wait to make mine
Great idea for gaming with low energy consumption, I have a 4th gen laptop laying around maybe I could undervolt it to use even more less energy😉👌
beautifully explained.!!
na isip kona ito last since 2009 pa thank you....
What is the specs for the cord, I mean voltage, function, amperage, frequency, scientific princibles?
I still cant see a real world scenario where i want to use that, but its fun and educative and interesting to see its working actually😉 good one👍👏
We do it for fun more than anything. We see something that peaks our interest or someone askes us about it and we have to try it out and share what we find.
yeah the cash and expertise needed for this should really go into building a barebones desktop but its a step into the direction of laptop modularity.
I do. I have a child that would like to play some games on a laptop but I'm not spending a ton of money to get him one. What I do have though are 2 older HPs that never get used and my old desktop that blew out the CPU but still has a functional PS and Asus GT640 in it. A riser cable for under $10 bucks and the boy has a PC he can play some games on. I like that
I’m currently in a real world situation where I need to use this lol. Long story but I can explain if you’re interested.
I do. I have an old laptop I need to use for video editing. The GPU and CPU are fine for playback, editing etc.. but rendering is very slow. Rendering is GPU accelerated, but because the GPU is older it doesn't perform really well. I'm looking into either using an external GPU or using a cloud rendering service. The reason why I don't just buy a better computer is because I already have a better computer (desktop), but I can't bring it with me for a 5-month trip that I'm doing. And I wouldn't want to buy a new laptop only for that short period of time.
I'm wondering if this also works if the graphics card in my laptop does not work? I have a Asus TUF F15 laptop and last year, it stopped working. A friend who knows a little more about computers than I do, told me that I'd have to replace the motherboard as well as the CPU and GPU. He also told me I wouldn't be able to do it myself, and that he wouldn't even touch it. From what I know, it can become quite costly to get this done by a professional (although the laptop was quite expensive and so I think it'd still be worth it). But after watching this video, I'm wondering if this set up is possible for my laptop. I really don't want to give up on it just yet...
For more modern laptops, would it work with a Thunderbolt cable attaching to it to the USB-C port?
Yeah.
Modern laptop that comes with nvme slot can use these kind of docks with nvme adapter,which uses 2 pci e lanes and basically faster than thunderbolt 3.
This method of upgrade should be viable option for laptops shipped after 2016 without any discrete graphics Processing unit.
Do this kind of experiment for better laptop with better gpu like an i5 5/6th gen laptop with gtx 1650.
We have something in the works now for this as we have been digging into it all since prepping this video. So much fun to play with.
Will it still work if the laptop already has a graphic card??
Can't see why it wouldn't, you can use multiple GPUs in desktops.
The main issue with this setup is that riser is for mining and is PCIe 1x as well as the port on the laptop your plugging to is also 1x. Your bottlenecking the video card like crazy. There is better m.2 pcie x4 versions of that riser that make more sense but wont work on a laptop like that as you need an open m.2 port that is wired at x4
I was gonna buy one with an Rtx 3060 ti
What PSU do you recommend
Hmm should i do this i got a compaq cq58 (which literally has the same layout as this laptop on vid) that has 8gb ram, 240gb ssd (i can upgrade later) and currently a celeron b830 which i will upgrade to a core i5 3230m
So should i get a gtx 750 a psu (also the switch) and the pcie adapter?
Edit 10 months later: my laptop has hm70 chip set which i didnt know for the past 10 months until recently so if i used a core series cpu it will shutdown after 30 mins, this laptop only supports pentium and celerons, i am currently waiting for a pwntou 2020m to arrive and hope it works good
Can I add an eGPU with RX 7600XT on my nvidia 4060 laptop ?
I can't see why not, as long as you can get an external riser to work any GPU should run from it.
Is there a way for me to use the laptop screen instead of a separate one?(please I don't think I want to buy a monitor 😭😭)
is it possible to connect back to the screen on the laptop?
Seems like if that can be done then it would make this creation even greater.
I believe their are some ways of doing it but I have never really tried tbh
Ive got a question.....can the display be shown on the laptop itself
Let's push the limits on the power of the gaming card.
I want to know if this works with the laptop's screen, I wanna try this but I don't have a spare monitor.
I have a Dell 11th gen i7 with GeForce rtx 3050 ti notebook edition. With 16 GB ram on the PC. I like to video edit, however the program I use, davinchi resolve, is quite taxing, and I am looking to make it a bit more smooth.
So, I'll just buy an external graphics when I'm too broke to buy a better laptop?
It's worth the deal I guess.
If U have a i7 in your laptop yes, if U have i3 or i5 no
@@bestcreate1417i5 7200u could do this surely?
Hello . Why u didn't check GPU-z first ,and turned off power savings . Anyway ,nice setup . Cheers .
I have an HP ryzen 5 pro 2500 cpu. Will i get better performance if i add something like gtx 1070 or 1080?
Why not use a more powerful GPU? What are the theoretical limits for thunderbolt 3 anyway?
Very nicely explained, I just had an doubt.
I have an dell inspiron 3585 and I regularly carry it around for college ,etc.
Is it possible that I can use two usb connections instead of one? ie one usb from the wifi card slot and other from the gpu. there will be a connection using the existing usb port (it will be removed as it is a independent board and will install the usb from the wifi card). please let me know.
thankyou!
It should work, this was an idea of ours to install a mounted usb for such :)
@@TechLabUK Thankyou, will surely try
will there be any performance drops?
Could I use an external Power supply for the external GPU on my desk top without frying my PC? I'm just wondering the compatibility with an external ATX GPU for my GPU while also having the rest of the PC running off of my much weaker HP Proprietary power supply.
Sir is there any way that we can use graphic card without any external monitor
Not that I am aware of unless you get one of those expensive thunderbolt enclosures.
Thanks sir
Can we use a laptop screen together?
I bought the wrong apdapter by accident, so instead of the wifi card port, it's connected to the USB 3.0 port. Should it still work?
Well I don't know what adaptor you have but if it's like the one in the video then I doubt it as USB is a different standard to PCIe.
@@TechLabUK Online it seemed to be the same one you had, however when I took out the wifi card, the card in the adaptor was quite a bit thicker and didn't fit, so instead, i removed the card from the adaptor (it was connected via a USB 3.0 cable) and connected that to my laptop.
@@andrewmarin3941 I very much doubt that would work. There are a few different types of adaptors on the end, some for Wifi Slots, some for M.2 slots. There's a card adaptor for pretty much every port that uses PCIe as a standard.
@@TechLabUK This is what I got......description seemed the same not sure how i ended up with the wrong one.....
Here are a couple of photos (green is my wifi card, as you can see the adapter is thicker)
drive.google.com/file/d/1YhwNajX2nEoxCoHkN0MXZDanSRDtW7nm/view?usp=sharing
drive.google.com/file/d/1jO8XhosbZxEr_NxCvGYMuRFNKg-GzjOV/view?usp=sharing
@@TechLabUK All right, thanks. For the record, here are pics of the adaptor that I got. Green is my wifi card, as you can see, the adaptor is thicker and doesn't fit into the slot.
drive.google.com/file/d/1YhwNajX2nEoxCoHkN0MXZDanSRDtW7nm/view?usp=sharing
drive.google.com/file/d/1jO8XhosbZxEr_NxCvGYMuRFNKg-GzjOV/view?usp=sharing
gtx 1050ti is it good to use too? i got hp elitebooi g1 have core i5 4th gen w/ 16gb ram
Wonder if there's anything out there that could work with a docking station. I have a thinkpad x250
What laptop were you using there cuz it looks like my hp probook 6470b
Is gtx 1050 or 1050ti good for i7 7th gen laptop with integrated intel hd?
At that point the laptop is only there for the cpu and games lol
Wait so It doesn't play on the laptop?
Nope, there are a number of videos on TH-cam though showing you potential ways of hacking it to get it on the laptop screen but this was more for an experiment of an old laptop being docked.
Bro maxed out the starting weapon 💀💀
🤣
How would you do this if the graphcis card also needed external power?
@@andrewmarin3941 Plug it into the PSU.
i have an acer nitro 5 2022 3050 laptop, and it as a thunderbolt usb c port, idk abt a pci slot which it might. i also got a spare 1660 super i want to try and get it working with
If 2 years is old for you then mine is a dinosuar
Nice video br, please provide link to purchase the riser
Thanks. Links are provided in the video description.
hey its a really good video but i have a question what if we use an older gpu that dosent need a 6 pin connector
The PCIe Card will still need powering.
@@TechLabUK thx for the answer man
Would an RTX 4000 SFF need an external gpu
very good idea to upgrade old notebook, but one question - can i use both monitors - integrated and external or only external monitor will be working?
Using this method you have to use an external monitor but there are guides (more like hacks) out there that show how the internal monitor can be used.
@@TechLabUK ok thanks and when i remove that wifi thing and use wifi adapter will wifi work? I cant use ethernet so...
@@FILTA Yes, the wifi adapter will pick up your wifi hotspot.
Thats not very cheap cause u need a seperate display and power supply. But its cheaper than building a tower from scratch
Also a lot cheaper than a £500 eGPU enclosure.
Separate display?
Hi! Good content! May i ask if what maximun gpu (latest that i can use as external gpu too) can i put on my laptop. On pcie slot too (removing wifi card). My laptop model is MSI GS702QC (dgpu 960m) core i7-4720HQ.
Not 100% sure, using this method will make the card run on a PCIe x1 slot so anything super fast will be restricted a lot. I think you could get away with a GTX 1650 level card maybe even slightly faster but I am kind of guessing.
@@TechLabUK thank you!
Hey, I bought the mini PCIe adaptor, but I believe I have an M.2 wifi card, not mini PCIe. I can’t find anything online, do you know where I can find what I need for this? I already have the part that connects to the graphics card and the USB cable, I just need the part that connects to the M.2 slot. Thanks a lot, sorry about this, I’m just really determined to make this work.
We did this conversion in a much newer video here: th-cam.com/video/mG_JQQFww6Q/w-d-xo.html not sure if you can just buy the M.2 end piece but you should be able to buy an adaptor that works from either Ebay or Amazon. Just search for M.2 to PCIe adaptor.
@@TechLabUK Ok, thanks! Just to make sure I don't buy the wrong thing again, does it matter what type of M.2? The wifi card that's in the slot in my computer appears to be M.2 key E, but pretty much everything I can find online is M.2 key M. Or from PCIe to M.2 instead of the other way around.
@@andrewmarin3941 I don't fully know tbh without seeing the actual port you are trying to use tbh
@@TechLabUK I'm going to send a picture, just a moment.
@@TechLabUK I'm not sure why, every comment I try to post gets removed a few seconds later.
I have issues.
I have a Hp probook 4530S and ive used 3 different risers and multiple gpus and i cant get any of them to work.
(Risers used, EXP-GDC beast 8.4 with mini pcie, mini pcie to pcie 16x riser amd the mining riser shown in the video.
Gpus i used, AMD HD5450 1gb, GTX 970, GTX 1070, GTX 1080, GTX Titan X (maxwell). Soon il try a GTX 750ti 4gb maybe it will work or not.
Was told by the riser sellers i need a modded bios which doesmt exist
Would this work on my laptop as It already has a 930mx. But it’s not that powerful, but can I still use an external GPU. So my question is would it work.
I don't understand why the laptop was sending signals to the gpu while the vice versa was supposed to happen. Also what actually happened with the igpu of the laptop after connecting the external gpu?
What is the bandwidth that this passthrough cable can transmit? Is it any better than Thunderbolt 3 & 4 speeds? USB 3.0 is nowhere near enough bandwidth. Using a Thunderbolt port will out perform USB 3.0. This is a where external graphics will really be a game changer in due course, when Thunderbolt speed reaches pcie 4.0 x16 speed. 4.0 x16 speed is 32GB/s or 256Gb/s. Thunderbolt 3 and 4 are 40Gb/s, 1/6.4 of the bandwidth. Sorry to be a party pooper. But on the brighter side, this will probably be not that far away. SSDs over thunderbolt 3 and 4 are already mind blowing compared to old MFM hard drives, they were on a par with 3.5" floppy drives. GPU over Thunderbolt is a still a significant improvement over onboard video, but it nevertheless a big performance bottleneck. The bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 & 4 going from video card to monitor is adequate for driving 4K @120Hz, but not for getting the raw data from the CPU to the video card. I have used a USB C 10Gb/s to install linux on an external SSD, and the performance was excellent. Given that the actual performance of a laptop with external graphics only about 50% slower than the same card inside the case, would suggest to me that Thunderbolt 5 external enclusres when they hit the market should make this absolutelt worthwhile.
www.techadvisor.com/article/1516892/thunderbolt-5-release-date-speed-features-compatibility.html