Obviously.

and try to stop looking at it.

I'm hearing reports of windows running with up to 13 GPU's. I have also heard that linux (which version or distro?) has a hard limit of 8 GPU's.

Subject to support in the bios or by the motherboard, I suppose.

Not a lot of people know about it, and there's next to no official documentation that makes this clear.

If you're going to mine on a laptop you pretty much agree you won't be using it.

And pay $100-300 more?

Not sure about the prices of the other ones, but this is 35.

3 PCI-E slots.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-775XFIRE-ESATA2-Core2-Duo-Motherboard-CrossFire-/220723848773?pt=Motherboards&hash=item33642aa645

I really want to buy it for myself as I also have a core 2 duo lying around.

Most mining grade cards won't even run without an external power supply hooked up to the PCI-E power connectors. Just connect any regular old PSU. no big deal.

It's listed as passive. Perhaps the microcontroller isn't important. Anyways, someone else here showed another one that is fully passive.

Just get one of these.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HWTOOLS-PM2-V2-1-PCI-E-Mini-PCI-E-adapter-Extend-you-Laptop-to-Anywhere-/170990045076?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27cfcd0794

Put it in the mini-PCI slot of your laptop, and connect a riser to your full-size pci-e card.



No problemo.

Step 1: Take down that wall!

Seriously. I did this, expecting i'd have to jump a pin on my GPU to make it detect. But nope. It works just fine! The GPU autodetects the bandwidth of the slot and runs at 1x speeds.



Works just fine.



No need for these risers anymore!

By the way, if anyone wants to know. The method I used to take it out is by putting a cut-out piece of a PCI connector in the slot to protect the pins, and then using a hot soldering iron to melt off the wall. Took about 5 minutes.

Now, I have two 7870's running on a $30 Pentium 4 board. Light mining rig base. 380 kh/s stable with mining scrypt.

I have no idea. But maybe. Too expensive to be worth it, though.


It doesn't have to be passive. It's just that if it is possible for it to be passive, it will allow for simple wiring of riser cables to work.


I see. What is it for, anyways? Keeping timing in sync? and if so, Is it not possible to share the "control signals"?

Yeah. If this could be maass-manufactured. It could cost pennies per unit and be sold at reasonable prices for quite big profit.

YEAH! *gets enthused*

Except I don't have the money to buy a bunch of risers.

Hey guys.

I've been looking around places, and I've found these adapters that seem to split a single PCI-E 16x slot into two PCI-E 8x slots.

They look like this.


As you can see, on the bottom is a standard PCI-E 16x slot, and on the top is two PCI-E 16x slots that are running at 8X speed.

They're fairly expensive. (80 bucks on ebay) But I noticed one VERY IMPORTANT thing that they say about it.



The adapter is PASSIVE! If you look at the photo, there doesn't seem to be much circuitry on the board!

This leads me to believe that the PCI-E spec allows for passive splitting of lanes into at least two slower-speed lanes. The only problem is that normally, this is mechanically impossible. But what if you were to buy a couple of these...


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Powered-PCI-E-16x-16x-Riser-Cable-with-Molex-/111078375273?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19dcc97f69

And then cut up the cable, and re-wire it to split one slot into two or more lower speed slots?

Once power draw problems are resolved. I think it would be EPIC for running a crapton of mining cards on a single system at very low cost. But only if the PCI-E spec actually allows it.

What do you think? Does anyone know? I haven't seen anything like this done before, so I don't know how well it would work.

~Re

you're welcome!

Really? Cool! xD


Just admit it. You think it's cute.

I know there's SOME furries here. What do you think of my avatar? Yes it's my persona/fursona. Custom drawn just for me. X3

I see it on ebay for $111.95, free shipping, charger and accessories. Try getting competitive to that price, maybe that's why there's low interest?

Good luck.

Nice service. I'll look forward to using it in the future.

Doubt it. because electronics costs more than design.