[sf-lug] Success on getting a GTX970 graphics card running on my old Lenovo W520

[Ken Shaffer]

John,
The guy I got the loaner GT640 graphics card from does not want it back.
Could you use it in any of the desktops you might be
building/refurbishing?
Ken

On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 1:52 PM John Strazzarino <jstrazza at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ken,
>
> Glad to hear you are doing well and keeping busy with computers.
>
> I am doing my best Bobbie S. Impression by downloading different versions
> of Linux, and then loading them on my ‘Linux Club’ machine to see how they
> work
>
> Hope all are well in this group and may we meet again in person very soon.
>
> John
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Apr 5, 2020, at 11:43 AM, Ken Shaffer <kenshaffer80 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> My old Lenovo W520, a business machine, is fine for everything except
> graphics. Most external graphics upgrades involve Thunderbolt, which of
> course the W520 lacks, but I did find a cheap expresscard/PCIe adapter
> which allowed a loaner 1G GT640 to run.
> The laptop screen was used as a primary display, and an HDMI monitor could
> optionally be plugged into the external GPU. Total setup was to disable the
> internal Nvidia Quadro 1000M.
>
> With that proof of concept on a card off the low end of the recommended
> cards for the adapter, I went all in off the high end and got a 4G GTX970
> off Ebay from a San Francisco seller.  There were all sorts of reported
> problems with 4G cards on the W520, because it was originally sold with 32
> bit Windows 7, and Lenovo's firmware revisions squeezed the PCI memory in
> the lower 4G to give the poor 32 bit users more memory -- ignoring the fact
> the W520 is a 32 bit UEFI machine, and most users probably are running a 64
> bit OS these days on it.  Anyway, as expected, Ubuntu ran just fine with
> the new card, and unexpectedly, Windows 10 1909 did too.  No tweaking for
> either OS.  I now have the CUDA compute capability to upgrade my old CUDA
> 8.0 to 10 and even run Tensorflow.
>
> Biggest problem was getting the right power supply splitter cables for the
> new card (the 6 pin plugs come in two flavors, one with a rounded plug next
> to the clip, and one with a square plug). A square plug wont fit a rounded
> socket, which the video card has.  The Newegg reviews on the cables
> indicated that picture were not to be trusted, so I bought excess cables,
> figuring I could make my own working one if necessary.  Turns out the two
> splitters and extension were just what I needed to properly power the card
> (ugly though).
>
> So, total cost to upgrade the Lenovo W520 with a GTX970 GPU:
> $20 Portable Dell Power supply
> $40 Expresscard/PCIE adapter
> $109 GTX970 GPU (Ebay, local seller)
> $20 power cable splitters
> $189 Total (incl tax and shipping)
>
> Today's meeting was canceled, but hope it wont bee too long before we meet
> again.
> Stay Safe,
> Ken
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