~GX660(R) Owner's Lounge~

Downloads
that's the only proper tool
also you can do it from bios but ts is nicer

edit
7970m from clevo can be blind flashed to non-enduro bios - maybe even to dell bios but that's im not 100% sure

 

Thanks debianik. I found one 6990M right here http://forum.notebookreview.com/computer-components/694554-fs-amd-radeon-6990m.html What do you think about it? Price isn't bad, I think it will drop a bit more, but I'm kinda worried about no warranty.

 

vwrafi is also from Poland
price isn't really good when you compare to 120 euros from allegro but you can ask him

also ask if he sell 920xm

 

Yea I know,that allegro is cheaper, but if this guy doesn't ships it to my place, what can I do with that? Btw, allegro is the same website as ours auction website Aukro - nejv

 

Well,modífying my current heatsink isn't doable due only 2 pipes on it, which in my opinion can't keep 6990M cool enough, so I need new heatsink as well. And majster msi doesn't have any for 6990M, the only way is buy model for 5870M with 3 pipes and modify it

 

I have a 2 heatpipe heatsink with my 7970m superclocked, no issue at all, very cool temps.
The 3rd heatpipe cools down some ICs, resistors and other components so yeah it helps that's for sure, however, it's not mandatory to have it.

 

Can the 7970m be crossfired into the gx660?
I can buy two of them for $300 together, The cards come with mounting brackets and The crossfire cable.

 

^^^ No my friend, only 1 7970m if you would have opened back panel of your MSI laptop before , you would have had answer to your question instantly 300USD for two 7970m ?? thats tooo cheap, watchout if its fake or burnt/faulty cards going too cheap, or in another hand if its legit take them both and you will easily sell one of two cards for 300USD

 

Mine 940XM and 6990M are sold. Only 3 heatpipe heatsink for 5870M left. I did not know how to change the name of the thread to SOLD.

 

When I have been using gx660 with clevo 6970 I had heat sink 5870 without any modifications. Only 1 thing is important to use bigger thermal pads for resistors.

 

I'm getting a Samsung 830 ssd for my GX660R

Can someone please send me a link to the unlocked bios for the GX660R, not GX660?

All the links seem broken and I can't find a dedicated thread. Instructions would also be great.

Thanks

 

If everyone would pay little more effort to read several pages back , I have posted my unlocked GX660R and GX660 bioses numbers and numbers of times.

here is GX660R unlocked bios

http://rapidshare.com/files/2007784611/E16F1IMS.zip

 

Thanks for your super quick reply. Looking through this thread, I downloaded 4 different versions of a bios for this laptop. Just wanted to make sure. Would be great if you could sticky it.

Is there a tutorial somewhere or should I just update bios with instructions from the MSI product page?

Looking at your posts 1431 & 1433, I could not see which setting I need to alter to enable the 830 to work. Can you help? or is it the generic ide/ahci setting which now just works?

Thanks again

 

If I had the power to sticky posts and stuff like that I've would already have sticky'ed it

You need to find advanced SATA ports settings , determine which is your Samsung SSD port, and enable two options while having your SATA settings set to ACHI/RAID enable PORT MULTIPLIER and enable HOT-PLUG and it will be it, make sure you save bios before exit and have fun!

oh by the way use standard MSI instructions and utilities to flash the unlocked BIOS, and just replace my file with oe in MSI flash file utility package and rename to one that MSI flash file was named with

 

Thank you so much I'll order my SSD now. Was so undecided on which 256gb SSD, but I'll go for the Samsung 830 now, now that I have your bios.

Last question, I promise, for now!! Read somewhere that 1 of the 2 sata ports may be sata 3 (although I doubt it) Is this true, if so which one?

 

GX660R does not support SATA3, so it will run max at 250MBs even if its SATA3 capable SSD drive, but I would strongly recommend go for best you can get in SATA3 likes samsung 840 SSD or OCZ vertex4, so even running in SATA2 port that drive will outperform any strongest SATA2 version cheaper SSD, and speeds at all cases will be better, so buyong better you do yourself a favour making a futureproof purchase, years to come when you change your laptop you will keep the good SSD youve bought and will use it in another laptop most likely at its full potential

 

Wicked thanks for all your help UltraGSM

 

no probz , youre welcome

 

Can anyone please reccomend the best place to source a 6970M to upgrade from my current 5870M, and will I be able to simply switch the boards, usign the curent cooler? I'd obviouslly reapply paste!

 

I dare to say you will need to modify your heatsink from 5870 to 6970, if Im wrong, buy the card and let us know how did you got on just slapping the heatsink together.

Modifications are minor but necessary. I believe it all depends on card version that you get, but I truly doubt.

buying 6970 over 5870 will give you extra ~5-10fps max in no matter which point of view, and I would call it to be a waste of money, rather buy 6990 or go real awesome route 7970m

 

Cheers mate. Any recommended suppliers for me to look into it?

Another quickie, will my board (i5 version of the laptop), support anything more than 1333mhz? Came to the realisation after looking into it my current ram is 6gb of 1066mhz, so I feel this would be a worthy upgrade, nice and cheap too!

 

its not your board, its your CPU model is i5, Im unsure if i5 can handle anything more than 1066Mhz, but you can upgrade to best you can get like 920XM or 940XM, and if you want non overclockable CPU just go i7-840qm which is cheap fast and powerful enough.

I would advice you to contact Pau1ow or Table21 on this forum you may see them selling alot of stuff on NBR For Sale section, so just pm them regarding the GPU.

Yea best bang for buck you can get for your laptop is kingston 12GB DDR3 1333MHz CL9 RAM and i7 cpu which are comparably cheap, and also 7970m GPU , and with this combo you make yourself an upgrade that will last you possibly another 2-3 years untill you feel you really need new laptop again.

 

Thanks Ultra, your advise is invaluable to me and very much appreciated. I've decided to go for the RAM/CPU upgrades, and hold off on the GPU upgrade until a later date whn the laptop is a little more aged and it'll less of a disaster if I were to break it somehow whilst attempting a GPU change ^^

 

no harm

CPU / RAM / SSD upgrade combo ir good choice especially if you can play on lower res and lower gfx details, but when you need all that extra GPU juice you know what to do next. To break something is easy enough if you dont pay attention and are not carefull and cautious, most wise if youre able to replace SSD RAM and CPU you can replace GPU just a matter of some easy DIY with heatsink and youre good to go

 

GX660 Sata 2 or Sata 3????

I asked this previously and was certain is was Sata 2. But.....

I also asked MSI Technical Support and after 1 week this is their response -

"Dear customer, GX660 can support SATA3. Best regards, msi Notebook Technical Application Department"

So anyone confirm?

 

CAN SUPPORT, thats very correct, but its not SATA3 its SATA2 port but ALL SATA3 SSDs are backward compatible with SATA2 ports, thats what makes SATA2 port to work with SATA3 drives, I think its simple

@chripper, read previous posts and please use search features

 

"can suppport" dam MSI technical support

 

Help with Flashing BIOS

I couldn't find much help here. I have searched...

I found a guide and created a bootable flash drive.

I put AFUDOS.exe and Flash.BAT taken from the MSI Bios zip into the Flash drive. I also put ULTAGSM's E16F1IMS.30L into the drive.

I reboot and when I type "flash" in DOS. I get -

C:\>FLASH
C:\>E16F1IMS.30D
Error: Problem opening file for reading

So I assume I need to change the extension of ULTRAGSMs 30L to 30D

Is this correct? I don't want to mess things up.

Thanks

 

Interesting you say that. I was thinking of upgrading my GX600R this year and that was the card I was looking at(6970). You're right it doesn't seem worth it. I had a look at the 7970 and that does seem worth the effort. My question is can I buy any old 7970m? or does it have to be some kind of Type B ATI HD7970? Or from a certain Laptop? I dont really get all of that. I've only ever changed a GPU on a laptop once before and this seems like more effort. I only have a normal drill, what other tools would I need to make mod's to my heatsink? I'm guessing I would need a new PSU as well? if so what should I be looking at? Everything else is still as I bought it, so it's a i5 460M in there with 6gb of RAM. Would I need to change anything else? like the fan? or can I use the one already in there?

I could find tutorials on putting in a 6970 and 6990, but can't seem to find the same for 7970m, sorry I have so many questions.

 

@rizer
it should be pretty much the same with 6970 and 6990, the only differences is the heatsink modification (dremell, etc), i dont think you be needing a drill tho. As for the 7970m card itself, you need to find 7970m with endure disabled, thats a must, and if you gonna use your hdmi out, you should get dell alienware's card instead of clevo's.

you wont need to change the fan, even when you do cooling mod, you wont need to change the fan, you only need to modify it.

as for the psu, your best bet is to change it to 180w, just in case you gonna upgrade your cpu in the future or OC your gpu/cpu. you need to find one with the right plug, so it would be compatible with gx660/r. lotta people bought targus, you can search in this thread for the model/type. Im looking for alienware slim adapter. last time pau1ow seems to have one and be able to mod it to 240w, but havent heard any news from him.

thats as far as i know, if im mistaken, please correct me.

edit: i just realized i bookmarked pau1ow instruction for 7970m heatsink mod, its been a while, but it shouldnt have change, go check it out.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/659226-7970m-heatsink-modification-5.html

 

Thanks for the info.

I'm not even sure what endure is or does, but a quick search shows problems related to it, so thanks for pointing that out. Yeah I would still like to use the hdmi so alienware it is then. When you say dremell. Do you mean an entire kit or do I just need an engraver? Because a whole kit is quite expensive, especially for one job. The less I have to spend the better.

I may or may not upgrade the CPU so I will look into that PSU. In 2-3 years I might just buy a new laptop anyway.

Oh thanks for that link. A visual always makes things much more clear. Again many thanks.

Hmm a 2nd look shows that dremell is not as expensive as I first thought, I must have come across some kind of elite kit before or something.

 

Im a bit confused here.
Suddenly I can't use my turbo boost and eco buttons. The rest work. I never use them, but I'm still worried.
Its on the high perfomance mode and plugged in.
Also my CPU temp is at 80 C while browsing and and 90 while gaming, is this normal for the GX660 with the i7 740QM?
Haven't looked in a while, so it might be normal.

 

@rizer
lol, i just realized that i mistyped ENDURO, lol, sorry bout that, its the function to switch back and forth between discreet and integrated card, since the gx660 doesnt support this, it gonna cause some problems.

 

Ah. I see what you mean now. Yes that would be a problem. I've made a note of this, to make sure when I buy a card it is disabled.

 

enduro capable cards dont post any screen output so you would need to perform blind-flash to your MSI/EUROCOM/CLEVO/SAGER 7970m card. It will work after that blind flash to DELL 7970m BIOS. Best way is just get DELL version 7970m, these cards have ENDURO locked down disabled and it will simply post on your GX660 laptop no problemo

@Koen, your CPU needs repasting and probably dusting out from the heatsink. My old GX660R with i7-740qm iddled ~40c, heavy net browsing used to be 50-75max on a very heavy multitabbed browsing and downloading and etc etc etc, heavy internet and internal multitasking, gaming it never hit more than 82c without turbo button.

What did you do so your turbo fan button wont work anymore?

 

So I got my hands on a GX660-266NE model (i5-460M, 5870). A dead one. I promised a friend I'd take a look.

The computer is totally dead, no life whatsoever. I tested the power brick and at least it provides 19V or what ever it was supposed to be doing (and it powered an AIO desktop nicely). My friend said it wouldn't charge but that could be anything in real life. Unfortunately this is the only GX660 I've had my hands on, so I don't have anything like spare battery to test with.

I'm wondering if there has been any common issues like this, so I could spare some time and just tell my friend what part is most probably broken and what he needs to buy I'm guessing if I'm lucky the power jack could be broken but typically the mainboard is busted altogether.

I haven't yet taken this totally apart, I did remove the bottom cover but I didn't find any useful code that could be used as mainboard model number. Where is it? I think I need to look at replacement/upgrade options also. Ideas welcome

 

Well until you dont take apart the whole thing you cant say motherboard is busted, it well may be just DC jack is broken/loose, may be BIOS has been corrupted that would lead to complete no-sign-of-life symptoms. If its motherboard Id suggest you go for GT780 motherboard, and get yourself newer sandybridge cpu, and backlit keyboard that you can just plug and play butb it well may be just bios. If you see no physical or liquid damage anywhere, order BIOS chip replacement from ebay with approprieate BIOS programmed on to it and replace that se if it helps, fraction of 30-40eur incl worldwide postage, in case it doesnt help then new mobo I suppose (OR COULD ALSO BE OVERHEATED CPU, but it should still post something , at least beeps)

 

No visible liquid damage on the outside at least. But you'll never know what happens in Finnish lanparties, they aren't dry... This one died during one.

I'm taking this apart probably during the weekend, if I have time. I get paid for repairing lenovo and fujitsu laptops, this is just extra work with no pay...

 

@ultra
The fan works, just not the turbo boost.

I still have Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste from 2 years ago.
Any cleaning products you would recommend?
Do you have any good guides on doing this?

Edit:
I found enough dissasembly guides, and I got the official Artic Silver 5 guide for this type of mobile cpu.

 

My temperatures are back to 'normal'.
My vents were full of dust. CPU temp back to 55, same for GPU. So temps reduced by 25-40c.
So no repaste for the moment, although I do have the materials.
Having the right screwdrivers to open it was all I needed.
Plus I doubled my ram based on advice from this forum.

I also fixed my turbo and eco button by re-installing the MSI program for controlling buttons and showing volume/light intensity etc.

 

@Koen

Thats very good, if your temps are satisfactory there is no need fixing something that aint "broken"

doubled means by? so youve either got 12GB or 8GB RAM now?

 

Yeah, and SWTOR is now working great again.

8GB, I got 2x Corsair SODIMM DDR3,1333-4GB.
I still have 2x the original 2GB.

Shall I leave it out or put it in?

The second slot is under the keyboard right?
Or was there even more?

 

GX660R has the first slot under the keyboard and the other slots under the laptop, on the bottom panel area.

Use only the Corsair 4GB modules.

 

@Chriper
Zippyshare.com - RAID.rar

 

thanx a lot majster msi. much appreciated..

 

Hi guys, long time no see! Hope you all had a nice xmas.
Anyway thought i would ask here 1st as i wanted to give you guys 1st option.
I am selling my gx660r !!! Shock i know but my wife and i have bought a big house where i have my own office so will not be needing this super specced laptop any longer. I will miss the sexy beast but i will be building a desktop instead.
I dont know how much its worth but specs are below and i will be keeping the ssd drives and putting the stock hdds in to sell.
Pm me if any interest.

 

Hi savier, I believe you will regret selling your laptop later on, because it basically outperforms many powerful desktops these days anyway I would in your place use external keyboard with mouse and HDMI to your massive desktop flat screen LCD panel, there you go nothing to build and it is still portable while being very powerful and serves as perfect desktop (PLUS ITS LESS POWER CONSUMPTION AND COMPARABLY QUIETER VS. DESKTOP)

Other than that it is definitely worth 1200-1300EUR without SSDs IMO!

 

Thanks Ultra, i know i know, but i like silent pcs and full size towers to tinker in . I am very fond of the 660R but it served a purpose for me as i didn't have the space.
Thank you for the valuation. Is it best to sell in the market place on here?

 

There is a problem that may give you a feel not selling your laptop quick but thats not always the case. If someone took and bought bare GX660 and try build it to your specs they would however run in to costs over what youd be asking plus its rare hard to get laptop with one of a kind audio system, so mostly real enthusiast gamers and users will appreciate such machine. I'd recommend make as many high-res photos as you can , make walkaround video of it in 1080p, take your time doing it, make very detailed description of it and try list it here in NBR but try not to sell it cheap for some low-ballers , machine like this is worth 1200e for what it is IMHO.

best of luck with a new house man.
(Ive got desktop E-ATX tower cases, 950-1000w PSUs for sale,mobos and such if youre in a market for something cheap. PM me)