How to make a Dummy VGA Dongle

[Solaris17]

I figured id make this guide to help people running more than 1 card. or dual GPU's. As without these niffty devices tri quad or even 6-8 GPU's will not run on the same machine. here is how it is done.


First get yourself a DVI to VGA adapter. Any will do.

Adapter

Next you will need resistors. The other guides on the net say to use between 68-70 ohm ones but any i find will do. The point of the resistor is to well...privide resistence so that Vista is fooled into thinking their is another monitor. Why do this? We are doing this because monitors are detected through current. when you plug a monitor in their is resistence on the line. if we mimic resistence we in essence mimic a monitor.

you can get resistors at your local radioshack or micro center. we will need 3 per dongle so if you plan to make more than one buy accordingly.

Resistor

Now that we have our parts we need a diagram. you in essance will be putting the resistors in the last 3 holes of the first and second line on the right side of the vga (blue) end. Sound difficult? Its not but here is a pic.



ok so now we start. Now some guides will make you take apart the connector etc. However this is unnessisary it fits fine you simply need to wiggle it if it gets caught. let us begin.

First you have a standard VGA adapter.



now on the VGA side pictured below start putting your resistors into place.



Now keep in mind when you put them in keep the resistor itself (not the legs) center. this will avoid snapping or breaking and makes them easier to handle and insert. Also make sure that you bend the resistors so that they do not touch each other. I myself bend them to the right. the next onw slightely to the right. and finally the last one all the way to the left straight up. this will prevent them from touching. Example below



Now that you get the idea. Continue with all 3 of the resistors when your done make sure the legs are relatively snug or at the very least dont fall out when upside down. your finished Dongle will look something like the one in the pic below. Now that your done disable SLI, plug it into your DVI port, extend the desktop and fold away good luck!

[Vagike]

This makes zero sense.

By doing this, you telling the drivers to render images to a monitor that DOESN'T EXIST. Sure, you are now using the unused GPU cycles, or GPU cores, but I cannot see how this is a performance enhancement to a multi-gpu system, when it could potentially rob performance from the monitor that is actually rendering images.

give your head a shake, or prove performance gains.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by Vagike

This makes zero sense.

By doing this, you telling the drivers to render images to a monitor that DOESN'T EXIST. Sure, you are now using the unused GPU cycles, or GPU cores, but I cannot see how this is a performance enhancement to a multi-gpu system, when it could potentially rob performance from the monitor that is actually rendering images.

give your head a shake, or prove performance gains.

what forum is this in? i think you dont know what folding at home is. or you wouldnt think this is some kind of preformance booster. this is so you can run folding at home on more than 2 GPU cores on a machine. if you knew anything about folding at home or bothered to see what forum this is in you would be able to put together the fact that you need dongles or more than 2 monitors to run F@H on more than 1 card. thanks for reading or not.

[El Fiendo]

This isn't meant to up game performance. It is to fool the computer into thinking the second card is actually active. Its because the Folding @ Home GPU client requires the card to be active (with its own desktop) to then be able to iniate folding on the graphics core. Why? I don't know. But it does exactly what its meant to do. Extend the desktop to the false monitor, and start folding on your second, third, fourth (or more) graphics core.

[Vagike]

my apologies for not reading the forum header.

[wolf]

excellent work solaris!

i wonder if i can get 3 different GPU's folding on my old 680i....

well with your help i know its possible thats for sure

[El Fiendo]

As a note for Solaris and for anyone making these. I used 100 ohm, 1/4 watt resistors and they work perfectly fine. Generally anything between 50-150 ohms (make sure only ohms and not k ohms) and either a 1/8 watt to max 1/2 watt resistors (I believe 1 watt would be too much). Anything in those ranges should be fine.

[PVTCaboose1337]

Just an FYI, I was able to complete this project with higher resistance resistors, I did it with 230 ohm ones.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by wolf

excellent work solaris!

i wonder if i can get 3 different GPU's folding on my old 680i....

well with your help i know its possible thats for sure

id deff help man i absolutely dont see why you should be able to. just to let everyone know getting the parts is the hardest part this job took less than 5min and putting the resistors in is simple unless god forbid you have parkinsons

[Fitseries3]

this way looks nicer and prevents any snags...

Originally Posted by CyberDruid

Here is how to make up a dummy plug for your card in about 30 seconds.

All you need are three 68 ohm resistors from RadioShack. They come in packs of 5 for a buck.


You will need the DVI-VGA adapter that ships with every GFX card, the resistors and a clipper. You could use scissors or a nail clipper, the wire is soft.


Bend one leg of the resistor around till it is parallel to the other then clip off the long leg so it is the same length as the bent leg.


The wire is just the right gauge to slide into the VGA plus securely.


Push it home. Note you want to bridge the top three pins on the right with the pins directly below one-to-one.. Hold the plug so the wide part is up top.


Alternate the resistors so the leg of one is against the body of another to avoid shorting out the jumpers.

And that is all there is to it. Start Folding on your second GPU

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

id deff help man i absolutely dont see why you should be able to. just to let everyone know getting the parts is the hardest part this job took less than 5min and putting the resistors in is simple unless god forbid you have parkinsons

cheers man, i know your always here for me *awwwwwwwww*

yeah ive done a handful of vGpu hard mods before, so just jamming some resistors into pin holes should be within my scope

@fits, ty, that's a very clean way to do it. with either working just the same it seems.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by Fitseries3

this way looks nicer and prevents any snags...

i think the general idea was to make a guide in this section you can tie a pink bow on the resistors for all i care.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by wolf

cheers man, i know your always here for me *awwwwwwwww*

yeah ive done a handful of vGpu hard mods before, so just jamming some resistors into pin holes should be within my scope

lol

[PVTCaboose1337]

Also:

Protip:

Make one of the resistors an LED, that way you can tell if the thing is working or not!

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by PVTCaboose1337

Also:

Protip:

Make one of the resistors an LED, that way you can tell if the thing is working or not!

that is an incredably good idea! infact dont led's provide some kind of resistence? for example the higher voltage they can take the more resistence? if that was really the case you migh even be able to get away with using an led instead of a resistor!

[Beertintedgoggles]

Originally Posted by El Fiendo

As a note for Solaris and for anyone making these. I used 100 ohm, 1/4 watt resistors and they work perfectly fine. Generally anything between 50-150 ohms (make sure only ohms and not k ohms) and either a 1/8 watt to max 1/2 watt resistors (I believe 1 watt would be too much). Anything in those ranges should be fine.

The wattage of the resistors won't effect how much current goes through them. In fact, the higher wattage means they can take higher current and still not degrade. Going with the higher watt resistors could be overkill but would not cause any issues in any way (well they would be bigger so you might have crowding).

[El Fiendo]

And you get to pimp out your folding rig with all the fanciest of lights, which dazzle all the basement ladies. You know... the ladies that frequent my basement where my folding rig is... and um, they like LEDs.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by El Fiendo

And you get to pimp out your folding rig with all the fanciest of lights, which dazzle all the basement ladies. You know... the ladies that frequent my basement where my folding rig is... and um, they like LEDs.

i havent met a lady yet that doesnt like shiny objects.

[PVTCaboose1337]

Example:

My current one is plugged in but I used a spare VGA card so you can see what to do!

EDIT: O BTW, don't follow my example of my resistors used, those are like 2000 ohms I think!

[Random Murderer]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

that is an incredably good idea! infact dont led's provide some kind of resistence? for example the higher voltage they can take the more resistence? if that was really the case you migh even be able to get away with using an led instead of a resistor!

you would need to measure the voltage and current(amperage) of the two pins in question. it's likely that you would not get enough of either.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by Random Murderer

you would need to measure the voltage and current(amperage) of the two pins in question. it's likely that you would not get enough of either.

this is true in which case just buddy up the vga pins plug an led and a resistor into the same pin holes. the added resistence would be miniscule and due to the fact that you can use relatively large resistors this wouldnt cause any damage.

[Random Murderer]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

this is true in which case just buddy up the vga pins plug an led and a resistor into the same pin holes. the added resistence would be miniscule and due to the fact that you can use relatively large resistors this wouldnt cause any damage.

the problem would not be too much current, as an led only uses what it needs and passes the rest, and if the voltage is too high you could put a resistor in series with the led. my concern is that there is not enough current, not enough voltage, or not enough of both to drive an led.

[PVTCaboose1337]

Originally Posted by Random Murderer

you would need to measure the voltage and current(amperage) of the two pins in question. it's likely that you would not get enough of either.

The two pins I plugged my LED into give off about 5 volts, more than enough to run the LED.

EDIT: DON'T make me break out my multimeter again!!!

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by Random Murderer

not necessarily. if you short two pins this may cause damage.

well buddying up a resistor and an led wouldnt cause damage the pins of a diffirent set of holes would. which is why i strongly suggest bending them and making absolute sure they do not touch.

[El Fiendo]

As far as I remember, the amount of resistance needed was almost nil. Basically the pins connected are R G B (1,2,3) to monitor with R G B from monitor (6,7,8) and its only supplying a bridge for the power. Wouldn't hurt to test the LED method anyways. Don't think it would cause the computer to melt through the floor. It'd either recognize it as a false monitor or not.