Guide to getting a Radeon 5770 working with an Advanced Dock

DISCLAIMER: Follow this guide at your own risk! When dealing with stuff like this you can damage your electronics, damage yourself, start a fire, etc.

So I figured I’d share my experience with getting a Radeon 5770 hooked up to my Thinkpad T400 via the advanced dock. As a little motivation for this project here’s a video and some pictures I took of the project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VODw8ROJ6bg
http://picasaweb.google.com/dornif/LaptopGraphicsCard

In games I get fairly good performance. Left 4 Dead 2 I usually get 60fps and Dragon Age: Origins I get 60 as well (no AA in either, but many other effects still turned on). Every so often my frame rate will drop to ~10fps in both games and my guess is that this is an effect of using a PCIe 1x bus.
The project itself is pretty simple. The hardest part is just soldering a few wires together. I used Lenovo’s Advanced Dock since it has a PCIe slot. I also used a PCIe flexible riser card so I can put the video card outside the dock (the dock is only large enough to fit a single slot low profile card otherwise), and an external power supply cobbled together to give the video card enough juice.

I tried several video cards and my conclusion is that ATI cards will work for this and nvidia ones will not. I’m guessing that ATI has better PCIe 1x support, though this could be specific to my laptop. I tried a GeForce 5700 (system wouldn’t boot), a GeForce 9800 GT (again wouldn’t boot), and a Radeon 5770 (worked great but a few driver issues due to an onboard Radeon 3450). I previously had a Radeon 4550 in the dock which require no modification since it fit and did not require an extra power input.
So if you’re interested in doing this here are the parts you’ll need:

• Lenovo laptop (obviously)
• External monitor (the new video card won’t display on the built in LCD)
• Lenovo Advanced Dock (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-61232.html)
• A flexible PCIe Riser Card (http://www.logicsupply.com/products/pelx16_c11 this is not the exact one I used, you can find the one I used on ebay for cheap though, just search for 350204890281)
• A 12 Volt power supply with sufficient power (150 watts is ideal and since watts = volts * amps, I would suggest a 12.5A supply. I used http://www.powerstream.com/ac-12125.htm which can be found cheap used on ebay)
• A switch for turning on/off the external power supply (this will of course depend on which supply you use)
• A PCIe power connector for splicing to the power supply (http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#pciexpress)
• A few standard supplies and tools: soldering iron, multimeter, wire stripper, solder, a bit of wire, and electrical tape

Start by finding a good place for your finished setup. You’ll need room for your monitor, docking station, and video card which will sit next to the docking station. Also keep in mind that you want the video card in a safe place since it will be exposed (somewhere away from of spills, accidental jolts, and debris).

Once you have a place for your setup you can remove the cover for the PCIe slot on the advanced dock and insert your PCIe flexible riser. Lay the free end of your riser card next to the dock and insert your video card ( http://picasaweb.google.com/dornif/LaptopGraphicsCard#5418163741781346050). You now have your video card hooked up the dock, but you’ll need to get more power to it.

To assemble your power supply you’ll need to first cut the output cable on the power supply between the connector (the one that goes to whatever device it was originally intended for) and the inline fuse ( http://picasaweb.google.com/dornif/LaptopGraphicsCard#5418533425248539794). Be sure to leave plenty of cable in front of the fuse since you’ll be soldering to it. You also want a bit of cable on the side of the connector so you can strip the wires and figure out which wires go to which pins.

Time to figure out what pin goes to what wire. I’ve listed what I found on mine below, but you should check yours with a multimeter even if you’re using the same model I used. Start by cutting the sheath of the cable on the now severed plug. Once this is done strip each wire inside a little bit so that it can be probed (be sure to pull the wires apart so as to not have shorts and cause mislabeling). Using the multimeter set to measure resistance probe each pin/wire combination. When the resistance drops to almost 0, you have a connection. Each pin should have exactly one connection, if this is not the case for you then you should double check that you have no shorts. Be sure to write down which pin goes to each color wire. Below is what I found on mine:

+12 V – Brown
+12 V – Red
Ground – Black
Ground – White
Remote – Green
Unused – Yellow

Plug: http://picasaweb.google.com/dornif/LaptopGraphicsCard#5418547494734261746

Now do the same thing for the PCIe power connector: http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#pciexpress. This should be easy since you’ll likely have yellow wires which are all +12V and black wires which are all Ground. Once you have this figured out it’s time to splice together the PCIe power connector and your power supply.

Now back to power supply cable (the one still attached with the fuse on it). Cut the sheath like before and strip the wires inside. Now pair up each +12 V on the power supply with a +12 V wire on the PCIe connector and pair up each Ground in the same way. Unless your PCIe connector bridges pins on the connector you’ll like have some extra wires on the PCIe side (e.g. too many Grounds or +12 Vs). Just attach these to any corresponding wire on the power supply that’s already paired. For Remote on the model I used it needs to be shorted to Ground to turn on the power supply. If you’re using a different model then figure out how your power supply turns on and connect accordingly (shorting the wrong wire to Ground could have catastrophic results). If you’re using the same model as me then simply connect a bit of wire between Remote and one end of your switch, then connect another bit of wire between the other end of the switch and Ground. Now it’s time to solder.

Solder all connections that you’ve made together. Check for shorts between Ground and +12V on the PCIe connector using your multimeter. If you have any, then go back and fix them. Verify that your switch opens and closes the connection between Remote and Ground, again using your multimeter. If everything looks good then cover all bare wires and solder joints with a good amount of electrical tape so that no two wires can be accidentally shorted. Check once more for shorts on the PCIe connector, if there are none then you’re done with the assembly! Now wrap all wires together with electrical tape and tape the switch to the cable.

You should test the power supply before plugging it in to a video card. Do this by plugging it in to the wall and verifying that your power switch turns the supply on and off. For the model I have a green light indicates if it’s on or not.

Time to put it all together. Go back to your docking station and connect the power supply to your video card while everything is turned off. Now before placing your laptop on the docking station there are a two things you should do. First, go into the BIOS and set the default graphics device to be PCIe. Second, go into Windows and install the driver for your video card (this part is especially important if you have an ATI card already in your laptop as skipping it can cause a BSOD). Once this done, turn off your laptop, place it on the docking station, turn on your newly made power supply, and finally hit the power button on your docking station. You should see the boot screen pop up on your external monitor. Congratulations, you’re done!

A few side notes:

• Drivers for discreet ATI graphics cards and PCIe ATI ones cannot coexist. If you attempt to use either card with the wrong drivers you’ll likely get a BSOD. I’ve been attempting to make this work, but no luck so far.
• You will not be able to hot dock/undock. Whenever I try this the screen goes black and my system is unable to recover without a hard reboot.
• The fan on your docking station power supply will become louder and the fan for your PCIe slot (inside the docking station) will turn on. Neither of these are that loud, but I removed the PCIe fan and replaced the power supply fan since I’m picky about this sort of thing. You can find information about that here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=355770. Thanks to Adrian for this. Just a warning, replacing the fan is much more time consuming and difficult than connecting a video card.
• I’m running Vista Business 64-bit.

If there’s anything I’ve missed or is unclear then please let me know. I’ll also be happy to answer any questions.
If you do embark on this project then post a reply and let me know how it goes.

 

this is a nice little project, but basically this can be also achieved without using the Advanced dock, just an expresscard solution (Nando4 has all the details), which is much cheaper. But all the efforts you went in to do this, does further expanded the knowledge base of advanced dock specification, so it is time well spent for the Thinkpad community.

You may want to post this in the forum.thinkpads.com for people whom has the advanced dock and wants to use more graphic power than an ati x1300.

 

It's definitely not the right system for everyone. It seems to be working well for me though. Like you pointed out if you have an Advanced Dock already it's good solution (~$25 in parts if you shop around). I had decided to get a dock before embarking on this project and just sprung for the Advanced Dock instead of a cheaper one to keep things a bit cleaner.

For Nando4's system (one of many the threads for it here for anyone else reading this), it works good for most people. You can use the power supply I've described here with it, which is a good solution in my opinion due to it being 150 watts, silent, and cheap to make.

I'll probably make a post on the Thinkpad forums too. Thanks for the pointer.

 

Very interesting and well-written post. If I had gone with an X200 or something, I might be trying this, but I'm satisfied with my T500's graphics performance at the moment

 

Really interesting post! Would have loved to do this with my X200, too bad the dock doesn't have a PCI-E slot..

 

Thanks for the cool guide
1 thing before I go ahead and mod my dock, how much more performance did you manage to get from you new setup compared to running the 4550 "natively"? The 4550 is so cheap now that I might just get one of those if the higher-end cards are too limited by the Pci bandwidth?

Thanks
Rune

 

bump...
is this topic being discussed further somewhere else?
I just started looking into this mod again and I could use a few tips.
From this and other threads, it would seem that it is possible to use:
(i) Certain Radeon Cards (like 4350 & 4550) that have a low enough Power consumption (<50W?) to be used "natively" in the dock, or with a Pci riser card in case the card physically to to big for the dock.
(ii) Certain Radeons cards (like 5770) with a bigger power consumption, using an external PSU (and the riser card solution)
It seems then, that the cards that will NOT work, includes:
(a) Most or all Nvdia Cards (like 7800GT) due to a Pci x16-> x1 scaling issue.
(b) Any card using more power than the dock can supply while lacking the option to connect an external PSU
I need help devicing a theoretical list based on the assumptions above.
At the moment, I am looking at a few cards that sell for next to nothing, in order to try the mod and get a bit more performance than offered by the intel Gfx in my T61
I am looking at HD4550, HD5450, HD 5550, HD4650, HD4670 and HD5670
as they all sell for less than 100$ in DK
I am looking at Sapphire, XFX and Asus, and most of these cards (exept 5670) are passively cooled.
The question now, is, to figure out which cards will work natively as (i), which ones will work with a PSU (ii), and finally, which ones that will not work at all (b).
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Note: the primary purpose is not gaming but rather Photoshop, Premiere, Blue-ray and such, whereas I do a bit of occasional EvEonline/wow gaming (and yes, these games DO require much more than an onboard gpu

 

According to This list
The TDP of the of the buspowered cards I am looking at are as follows:
Below 50W:
5450=19W
4550=25W
5550=40W
5570=43W
Above 50W (and thus presumably not compatible with the dock at anything close to full load):
4650=55W
4670=70W
5670=61W
Is going for the 5550 or the 5570 gonna be cutting it too close?
Furthermore: Should I expect any significant changes in power draw between the different version utilizing different size/speed RAM and passive/active cooling solutions?