eGPU through msata

[TheBean]

i have an old dell inspiron 3421 and i noticed that my laptop has a msata slot (i think thats what is is) where the wifi card is inserted. can i plug in a egpu through that slot? i have seen adapters like this one: 

https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html?rmmds=detail-top-buytogether

 

but will that actually work?

[dany_boy]

There is no such thing as "Mini sata" for data transfer. The port for the network card in your laptop is most likely a mini PCIE, which normally has a 1x lane. I cannot tell you whether it will work or not, but most likely yes.

EDIT: scrap that mini sata part, I was thinking about the smaller power connector for things like optical drives on laptops

Edited June 13, 2017 by dany_boy
I was thinnking of something else

[vanished]

I don't think it would be SATA if the wifi card is connected through there. Most likely a PCIe-based connector of some shape or another, which means it could theoretically be adapted to normal PCIe.  @TheRandomness has some experience with ridiculous adapter chaining to get GPUs connected to things they shouldn't  

[GirlFromYonder]

18 minutes ago, saksham said:

i have an old dell inspiron 3421 and i noticed that my laptop has a msata slot (i think thats what is is) where the wifi card is inserted. can i plug in a egpu through that slot? i have seen adapters like this one: 

https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html?rmmds=detail-top-buytogether

 

but will that actually work?

Spoiler

Cant provide enough power and more importantly, does not have enough bandwidth (6 GB/s is NOTHING. You need at 32-40 GB/s for most GPUS (PCIE 3.0 4x)). And lets not forgot the massive latency issues and the fact that eSATA is going though the chipset, which will tank the performance. And that you will have to trick ur OEM bios into letting video communction through a port which it thinks is for a external harddrive.

 

TLDR and I DID NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND UR GIBBERISH VERSION:

Your eSATA was not meant for external videos cards. Is too slow anyway and the trickery required is not worth the trouble AT ALL. Better of buying a gpu. Stop trying transport a full size container with ur civic mate. Get a truck.

Oh wait, the wifi card. I thought u meant a werid OEM wifi external card which connects via usb or something. Yeah it can be done and it fun but you will need a external monitor. I think it was @iamdarkyoshi who did that.

[Droidbot]

9 minutes ago, DeezNoNos said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Cant provide enough power and more importantly, does not have enough bandwidth (6 GB/s is NOTHING. You need at 32-40 GB/s for most GPUS (PCIE 3.0 4x)). And lets not forgot the massive latency issues and the fact that eSATA is going though the chipset, which will tank the performance. And that you will have to trick ur OEM bios into letting video communction through a port which it thinks is for a external harddrive.

 

TLDR and I DID NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND UR GIBBERISH VERSION:

Your eSATA was not meant for external videos cards. Is too slow anyway and the trickery required is not worth the trouble AT ALL. Better of buying a gpu. Stop trying transport a full size container with ur civic mate. Get a truck.

Oh wait, the wifi card. I thought u meant a werid OEM wifi external card which connects via usb or something. Yeah it can be done and it fun but you will need a external monitor. I think it was @iamdarkyoshi who did that.

You don't need an external monitor for Nvidia cards, but you do for AMD cards. 

 

OP - it will work, but you may have to attempt a DSDT override (either through test-signing and registry or Clover bootloader) to get rid of Error 12, which is where the GPU doesn't have enough resources to initialize. 

What card will you use with it, if I may ask?

[GirlFromYonder]

3 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

You don't need an external monitor for Nvidia cards, but you do for AMD cards. 

 

OP - it will work, but you may have to attempt a DSDT override (either through test-signing and registry or Clover bootloader) to get rid of Error 12, which is where the GPU doesn't have enough resources to initialize. 

What card will you use with it, if I may ask?

No but if you do it via the wifi card thing, the card will be mounted to the bottom of the pc. In any scenerio that would be uncomfortable and not recmmended,

[Droidbot]

2 minutes ago, DeezNoNos said:

No but if you do it via the wifi card thing, the card will be mounted to the bottom of the pc. In any scenerio that would be uncomfortable and not recmmended,

for big desktop replacement machines it's perfectly fine

[GirlFromYonder]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

for big desktop replacement machines it's perfectly fine

yeah so monitor still need right?

[Droidbot]

Just now, DeezNoNos said:

yeah so monitor still need right?

maybe, idk

[System Error Message]

to do egpu you must have PCIe, so msata does not work and some NICs are done through USB rather than PCIe. So you must first check the specs of what is supported through that slot. Usually it could say usb based NIC or something like that. 

 

If using mini PCIe you will need a monitor, this is because you cannot game more than 60 fps using the old 4:3 1024x768 resolution on the internal monitor. This from my experience of using an eGPU before via expresscard. If you have intel/nvidia as your laptop's GPU you can definitely use the laptop screen but the render bottleneck will be big.