[Tutorial] VBIOS Mod for Plug and Play Drivers (GT60/70 Ivy Bridges)

DISCLAIMER: This MOD is not officially supported by MSI, and YOU assume all the risk and liability by attempting this on your laptop. This thread was created to merely show how I completed the MOD to my own laptop. This mod works with both the GTX 970M and 980M.

WARNING: IF YOU DO SOMETHING WRONG IN THE vBIOS HEADER (WHICH IS THE PART WE HAVE TO MOD) YOU CAN BRICK THE MXM BOARD, PROBABLY WITHOUT RETURN.
THIS PROCEDURE WAS ONLY TESTED IN GT60/70 Ivy Bridges. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Hello Guys!
This is my first tutorial here in the forum, I hope it can be helpful.

Since I replaced my old GTX 670M by a new GTX 980M, it was necessary to use modded drivers.
There's an incompatibility with GT60 Ivy Bridge and the MSI vBIOS.

After some research in the internet and also with the guru Svet, who is well know, there was no way to change the subvendor and subdevice ID.

This is exactly our problem, the driver installer check this values to proceed with the installation.
As our system shows a value that isn't in the INF it won't proceed.

When you got a modded INF file, this trick the installer to install a device that wasn't in the standard file.
But everytime that comes out a new driver version we need another modded INF.
This was the problem, but it isn't anymore.

I'll show you step by step what and how do it to get it working.​

When who has a GT60/70 Ivy Bridge flash a MSI vBIOS, the installer recognize the card and install the drivers, but when we do a restart usually we got stuck in a black screen when the Laptop will load login screen.
The BIOS 51X/71X allow us to install newer GPUs, but not with MSI vBIOS.

As the MSI vBIOS cannot be used we need a way to change the hardware ID, so this will trick the driver installer.
For those people that has a Haswell or newer CPUs this is not necessary unless you want to use a Prema's vBIOS and use standard drivers, but I can't confirm that the same values I found that will work to your system.

It took me sometime to find a match in the MSI INF file that worked for this mod, fortunately one Subsystem ID worked perfectly in Ivy Bridges.

The Subsystem ID it's the value that driver installer reads.

The value marked in yellow is the value that we are going to change.
In this example I've already done the mod.​

For GTX 970M Clevo with stock vBIOS has the value 110C
For GTX 980M Clevo with stock vBIOS has the value 110B

For GTX 970M MSI with stock vBIOS has the value 1128
For GTX 980M MSI with stock vBIOS has the value 1129

The tested ID that will work on Clevo and Prema's vBIOS to be recognized and installed by the standard drivers are:

For GTX 970M the value must be 112D
For GTX 980M the value must be 1131

First, If you want to check if this mod will work to you, you have to mod the MSI INF file to the values that we are using in this mod.
The file is the "nvmii.inf" located inside the folder "Display.Driver".
For GTX 970M search for the value 112D, replace it by your SUBSYSTEM ID (Clevo it's 110C).
For GTX 980M search for the value 1131, replace it by your SUBSYSTEM ID (Clevo it's 110B).
Install the card with the modded driver, if everything worked fine, you can proceed with the vBIOS mod.

So lets get started!

You can download a vBIOS file or dump yours, both will work.
To dump your vBIOS, you should use the NVFlash 5.227 Modified by Joe Dirt, I've attached it here.
The command to dump your vBIOS is:
nvflash -b <FileNameYouWant.rom>

If you have problems with detection of your card, probably the Optimus is active, try to open an app to activate the dGPU, I usually use the nVidiaInspector, it holds the dGPU activated.

To perform the modification we are going to need a HEX editor, I like a freeware called HxD, you can download it here:
https://mh-nexus.de/en/downloads.php?product=HxD

There are eight places to be modded.
The offsets are:
000x0C = 62 // 000x0D = 14 // 450x04 = 62 // 450x05 = 14
These values will indicate the SUBVENDOR as 1462 (MSI), commom for both cards
000x0E = 2D // 000x0F = 11 // 450x06 = 2D // 450x07 = 11
These values will indicate the SUBSYSTEM ID as 112D for GTX 970M
000x0E = 31 // 000x0F = 11 // 450x06 = 31 // 450x07 = 11
These values will indicate the SUBSYSTEM ID as 1131 for GTX 980M

DON'T MESS AROUND ANYTHING ELSE, JUST THE PLACES I'VE INDICATED ABOVE.

I highlighted the places in the pictures below:
GTX 970M


GTX 980M
​

The values will be like this in the highlighted areas:
For GTX 970M - 62 14 2D 11
For GTX 980M - 62 14 31 11

After changing the values we need to recalculate the checksum from the modded vBIOS.
For this we will use the software Maxwell II BIOS Tweaker v1.36 BETA by Naennon. I've also attached it here.

Just open the file you modded and save it.
For Prema's vBIOS it will occur an error when you load the file, click to continue and save it.
After the checksum recalculated you just need to flash the vBIOS.

For this procedure you should use the NVFlash 5.227 Modified by Joe Dirt again.
The commands are:
nvflash --protectoff
nvflash -6 YourModdedBIOS.rom

Well done!
The new vBIOS was loaded and now it request you to reboot.
Before proceeding I strongly recomend you to use DDU to uninstall the old drivers.
Reboot the computer, install the standard drivers and enjoy it!

I'd like to thank @omega939 by testing this mod into his system, without him I would not be able to confirm that it work for GTX 970M and 980M.

Note: I take no credit by all programs and files attached.
I just want to share the mod I made in my system and I know that this can fix a problem to a lot of users.
All files were taken on the internet, I just attached they here to make the procedure easier.

Systems that were successfully modded:

My system:
MSI GT60-0NC-004US (16F3)
BIOS Version: E16F3IMS.51X (Unlocked by Svet)
EC Version: 16F3EMS1.T19 (Modded by Svet, based in T18)
Clevo GTX 980M 8GB

@omega939
MSI GT60-16F3
BIOS Version: E16F3IMS.51X (Unlock)
EC Version: E16F3EMS1 VerT.19
Clevo GTX 970M 6GB

@samXLR
Barebone GT70 937-176262-033
BIOS Version: E1762IMS.71X (Crossflash)
EC Version: 1762EG62.401
Clevo GTX 980M 8GB

@ryzeki helped his friend to do it
Barebone GT70 937-176262-033
BIOS Version: E1762IMS.71X (Crossflash)
EC version: Not Available
Clevo GTX 970M 6GB

 

The Clevo original vBIOS taken from Techpowerup GPU BIOS Database are already modified and attached here, Thanks to @Mr. Fox.
Just follow the steps I described above and everything will work perfectly.

For those that want to use a @Prema vBIOS he has made a special version to our system!
You can find it Here.

 

This one really works!!! I've got an MSI GT60 ivy bridge and got it working. Auto detect and can install Nvidia drivers without modding the inf drivers.

It is also detected in NVidia website too when you click auto detect to look for the latest drivers.

great work to you bud!!!!

 

Excellent work. I have a friend with an ivy bridge machine that might find this helpful.

 

@reyzki

It works great!!! Plug and play for NVidia drivers ( with no modified inf) plus my Maxwell got optimus again!! hehe

 

@DMTwo DUDE! Good Job!!!
This works FLAWLESSLY !
I was able to go to nvidia's website just download the latest driver (362.00 as of 27Mar 2016) install it without any issues and it works, tested FireStrike, scored ~9,300 graphic score, not too shabby at all.

Workflow was:
1. download the nvflash attached to your post
2. download the clevo already fixed vbios attached to your post
3. turn of AV because ...
4. flash the new vbios
5. restart
6. install latest nv drivers
7. restart
8. everything works

Finally no more need for "test mode" \ "disable driver signature" no more operating in a bad security state, no more second class citizen treatment, oh this is glorious

@Talon This Thread needs to be mentioned in the first page of
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-official-msi-gt60-70-970m-980m-upgrade-thread.765058/

It is a life saver

I was so fed up with the need to INF mode that I almost considering reinstalling my GTX 680M back and ebaying this Clevo GTX 980M and then both selling my laptop and buying something else ... it just sucked paying ~2k usd to just remove INF modding needs...


Edit:
I added a link to this post to my signature, this post needs to be sticky
.

 

I pulled those files as request by @Prema . Please start with a clean MSI vBIOS and mod that instead of plagiarizing Prema mods.

Please make note of the caution added. It is strongly advised that no MSI users with newer machines attempt to use them, as the risk of a brick is great without the header information that was removed.

 

Dear Mr. Fox.
These files are original Clevo vBIOS, I got them in the database of Techpowerup, which I believe it's free.
The Prema's were removed by myself, All files I got from internet, from his web site.

I was banned from T|I forum and I even didn't have permission to donwload any file, I didn't have the minimum reputation points, all times that I wanted to download a file as was requested to buy a premium account.
It seems that forum don't have skilled people in moderator positions, I believe we have because I wasn't banned here, first you talked to me and I respect this.

Everything that I attached here was taken on the internet, I don't want credit for anything.
I just learned a way to do the mod the vBIOS files to work in the MSI Ivy Bridges.
I cannot mod a MSI file, I just modded a Clevo file, with MSI vBIOS the Ivy Bridges just got stuck in a black screen, with this mod everything works perfectly.

Thanks for your time.
Please, forgive me if I did anything wrong in this Forum, which I really respect.

 

UEFI has sooo much better security and performance over old "obsolete" BIOS that it can become bricked even if you put "unsupported" hardware?

Spoiler

It's like all condoms get UEFI lubricate to become "more secure" so that if you try to wear the wrong size they will make you impotent for 12 hours so you could "save yourself" and go buy proper sized one. Manufacturers are "thinking about your security"... more like overthinking.

 

Now worries. I did not know you changed them. I apologize for removing the wrong files. There was a delay before I saw his request. I appreciate your candor about this. That is admirable. Please feel free to re-post stock vBIOS files that you have tweaked. Thank you, and have a good week.

 

@DMTwo Excellent work sir, I will update the first post for the upgrade mod and mention your thread/link if you want. You just made the upgrade a lot easier and basically plug and play for any GT60/70 from Ivy Bridge forward.

 

This has nothing to do with crediting other peoples work or not!
I requested the removal of my files because every download on my blog clearly states not to host them anywhere else. In general this is not to keep people from enjoying them but to be able to keep files up to date so that they contain all bug fixes that happen down-stream.
Further if you read the NBR rules, they clearly state that they claim the copyright on any content posted/hosted here. That's what we respect and why we simply don't do that.

Apart from that you never contacted me for permission to modify and/or post them, that's why you got banned. If you would have done that I could have made you aware that your method (all of the files, not only mine) is not used correctly and as such will not boot on any current systems (MSI or not) that care for header info. I simply don't have the time to deal with the outfall once people start flashing another model and bricking their stuff with files that carry my name...
In the end that's all the factory will see and put the blame on me once people start returning their bricked cards for warranty. I am in a working relationship with OEMs/ODMs and can not have such misunderstandings.

If people sell their cards (flashed with the above) to a user with an other model which cares for header data (every no-optimus system does) that person will return the card as broken as it will no longer boot. That's not because of the ID change itself but because you didn't fully understand the different sections of the vBIOS.

 

Thanks Talon!
It would be awesome!
I really hope this help others Ivy Bridge users like me.
Today I got the driver update from GeForce Experience!
I'm really happy!

 

You didn't have to do what you have done, if you asked me, I would remove them right after.
But what is done is done.

This is not true in our systems.
It boots perfectly, works perfectly and we also have the optimus compatibility back to the GT60 Ivy Bridges that install a Clevo GTX 980M/970M.

If you read the title of this tutorial, you saw that this mod is exclusive for some models.
This procedure is perfectly safe to THESE systems.

You really know how a BIOS work, I'm not questioning it.
However you know that this modification in the BIOS doesn't kill the board, it just give it a new ID.
Maybe in other systems that don't need the modded INF files, this can make the driver stop working in the exactly way we have when we mod the INF file incorrectly, it didn't kill it, it just don't work.

I got this information on the web with a guy trying to mod a GTX to a Quadro.
It didn't worked as he expected, the Quadro functions wasn't fully activated, but the card was correctly recognized and also installed, without killing it.
So I got this idea to our problem... And I could solve a old problem to all of us, GT60/70 owners.

Manufactures don't want that this procedure works.
The reason is really simple because you can upgrade a old system, which is not profitable in their minds, they want to sell a new laptop not a card.

I can guarantee to you that this procedure is a lot safer than flashing a MSI BIOS onto a Clevo Card to us.
Thanks for your reply.

 

I didn't put in a formal complain or reported your post. It was simply a mail to my friend Fox to prevent my stuff being used to brick peoples boards.

As I said the ID change isn't a problem at all (also only works on BIOS that don't generate their own). The problem is that the tutorial explains how to brick your vBIOS header...
After being made aware of the consequences, it may not be a good idea to ignore this fact...

Tip: You don't even have to mod the header at all to get an MSI to read the device ID info...my 2Cs

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong but as long MSI Ivy-based laptops don't check header information then it is possible to make just one hex-edit without touching header itself so that non-MSI laptops would see that GPU as it originally is while MSI Ivy-based laptops see it as what you put in vBIOS. Win-Win.
And the target direction to modify would be [ 450x04 ; 450x07].

Yet again, I am not doing vBIOS mods so all these is just speculation/guess.

 

My first try was exactly this, I only changed 450x06 and 450x07, but the ID is also in the 0x0E and 0x0F.
When I tried to install it the ID in the hardware tab was the same, untouched.
Only when I changed both values I could get it working.
I also changed the 10DE(NVIDIA) value to 1462(MSI) just to make sure no compatibility issue would happen.

 

Worked for me!

 

If your Optimus was active you need an app that request it's activation.
After that the GPU will be recognized by NVFlash...
Send me your system specs, I'll add it to 1st post...

 

I'm here and ready to go from the start!! I'm sure I haven't bricked anything yet. I have the 980M

 

Do you have a Clevo card?

 

yes i have a clevo card. Am I supposed to change the two blue highlighted areas in the picture labeled DE 10 0B 11 to 31 11 31 11?

 

No, you need to replace DE 10 by 62 14 and the 0B 11 by 31 11.
I've highlighted it to show where they were.
The offsets are the listed for each board.

If your GTX 980M is a 8GB Clevo board, you can use the vBIOS file attached in the second post...
If you don't feel safe to mod it, send me your vBIOS, I'll mod it to you...

 

OK I'm gonna try that. I'll be back in 10 to 15 mins. Hope you will still be online

 

Ok, Let me know if this worked to you...Send me your Specs...

 

It seems to be working now. I'm about to install the driver. It looks like I was changing the wrong value. I have two things to say; the 980M vbios file you got didn't work for me. I used prema mod stock vbios. The joe dirt nvflash didn't work for me either. I used a different nvflash. It worked. I'm about to restart and run fire strike. I tell you how it goes in a while. Just installed driver 364.72

 

I'm only getting 6614 in fire strike. graphic score is 9298, physics score is 8256. The optimus light goes from is not functioning like it should. It use to go from white to bright orange. Now it goes from off to dim orange

 

Did you have problems to install the driver?
Probably your CPU is throttling.
I got 6.5k when my I wasn't using ThrottleStop...

 

I had no problem when installing the driver. Tell me exactly what you did with throttlestop? And can I try this with the original MSI 980M vbios?

 

I need you A.S.A.P. I think I bricked my GPU

 

MSI vBIOS doesn't work for our Ivy bridges.
I don't know, but it doesn't

How did you brick it?

 

We have problems with MSI vBIOS.
It usually freeze our system after installing driver and the requested reboot.
This tutorial was made to work around this issue.

 

I also tried Prema's vBIOS, It didn't helped me.
The overclocking in my system is almost nothing, we doesn't have enough power in stock system.
We need a EC unlocked and also a new power brick, with at least 240W, these can boost up the things...

I really recommend to you to keep your original vBIOS only modifying the device ID.
It will be better.

 

I thought I bricked the GPU because I flashed the overclocked version of prema mod vbios. It flashed successfully but the system wouldn’t boot. So I went and switch the primary display option from SG to IGFX and it booted but the GPU wasn’t showing up. Switched it back to IGFX and it still wasn’t showing up. I thought the GPU was dead so I did a hard reset where I took off the power cable and the battery and held down the power button for about 35 seconds then stated the laptop and all was well. I have a 330watt power brick. My laptop is drawing up to 215 watts from it. Prema mod stock vbios is working perfect for me. What’s your fire strike score after you solved the CPU throttling issue?

 

My score is 8k with stock clocks on GPU and maximum clock on CPU.
My highest score is 8531 with Clevo vBIOS and maximum allowed overclock which was 1250MHz on core and 2748MHz on memory.

 

Can you share you throttlestop trick? I've locked the multiplayer to 4.1 (which is the highest i can get on all 4 cores) and it still sits at 1.9 GHZ. Locked it to 3.5 GHZ and it still sits at 1.9 GHZ. I don't know what to do.

 

I've attached some screenshots of my ThrottleStop contiguration.

 

Thanks

 

Holy ****, I'm floored.

So, here is the deal, before reading this post I totally ignored the existence of ThrottleStop.

Before your modded vBios, I was using Perma 1.1.1 bios, my score was: Score: 6,750 | Graphics Score: 9,811 | Physics Score 8,317 | combined Score 1,864 | link: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8873565?
My record (lost the link) was total score of 7,100 with some heavy gpu overclocking.

After using your modded vBios (not based on Perma) my score got lower, I lost the link but it was around 6,300.

I then found out about Throttle Stop and simply copied your settings (I have no idea what most of this settings do), here are the settings:



And my new score: 8,051 | Graphics Score: 9,564 | Physics Score: 8,346 | combined Score: 3,595 | link: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11504542?
Thats a new record, and I haven't even OC'ed the GPU O_O

 

So much difference between Ivy Bridge and Haswell? here is my result, with my GT70 i7-4700MQ & Clevo GTX980M 8GB with MSI vBIOS OC http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11483109

 

Are you happy?

 

Your CPU is faster compared to the same clock of Ivy Brigde, but in the end is pretty much the same.
I have 2 results where the graphics were almost the same you got, the difference was in Physics performance, which depends on CPU...
8530 - http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7983824
8531 - http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7982268

When I got a new 3840QM I'll redo the tests...

 

@samXLR set your maximum clock to 34, your processor is 100MHz faster than mine.
Probably you will have a better benchmark...

 

Super Happy!

Done:
Clock to 33: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11504542?
Clock to 34: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11511248?
With GPU OC http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11511583?

Quick question:
How come http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11483109 shows gpu Memory bus clock 2,830 MHz? that's twice as much as it should be?

Also, intel gen 4 > gen 3 = +5% performance? seems pretty mediocre

 

Yes. Also Haswell has AVX2 instruction set which can help in narrow circle of operations... like converting video to HEVC by x265.

 

The wrong values of clock speed are related to the vBIOS.
4th gen can use MSI vBIOS, which show the values exactly as expected.
In our case some programs just read the wrong clock values, like GPU-Z, it reads only 540MHz in my core clock, even it get 1136MHz...

About the generations gain, I think it's related to optimization of the system, the diferences between generations are not as huge as it was in the past.
In my opinion as the companies (Intel and nVidia) are the leader position on their market they just keep updating the products, it´s cheaper and also it's possible to do better products with less costs and power consumption.
I hope AMD changes the market this year, because the way the thing are going is not good to us customers.

 

@DMTwo & @James D Thanks for the clarifications =)

And re:AMD
Welp, would be nice if they did lunch their Fury X2 .. even nicer if they did so the day 980Ti hit the shelves.
Looking forward, maybe during next gen (series 400, as in 495 or Fury 2 X) they could release a Fury 2 X 2... on time, with good competitive price (smaller than GTX690 back in the day but higher than 980Ti would be just about right) and maybe
just maybe
someone will actually find a way to release an equivalent card in mobile MXM format?
I mean
okay, it technically wont fit inside normal MXM car size limitation, but that is not a problem.
name one gpu upgradeable laptop (alienware\clevo\msi) that supports the 980M and that doesn't have an optical bay/dvd.... so yeah
what if they release a card that is made out of two unites, both connected only to the PCIe 3.0 X16 that is used now days for our 980M and a second part of the same "unite" that replaces our dvd and connects to the 12w power of that slot.
Can even have a mini blower to blow hot air from what used to be the CD tray area.

And maybe another flavor of the same thing where its 2*mxm slot cards + dvd tray thing, for big laptops that now days run with SLI (like GT80) so they can get 3 way sli while we "settle" for normal SLI
Maybe NVlink could be used to do this? this way you could get communication between gpus without cpu involvement (or need for PCIe) no?

if next gen gpus have the same performance gap that the 980m had over the 680m\780m\880m... and we can get a proper desktop flavor equivalent to the new 980 desktop mobile version... and it comes with a cd-tray thing thanks to NVlink.... I would be happy to put down the cash to upgrade :X

 

Hey @DMTwo!

I need some help. I have a Clevo P670RG(Sager np8678-s) with the 980m G sync card. Is there anyway you can help me unlock my vbios? Please let me know what I need to do if you can help me. Thanks for reading!

 

I have a question for you @baynut - if your laptop is clevo, and your card is clevo, what issues do you currently expriance? the point of this thread was to eliminate the need to do inf modding to drivers for people with ivy bridge based msi laptops that uses clevo cards, how does this can help a clevo computer?

 

@samXLR The core cannot be OC'd past +135mhz. With a unlocked bios I can go beyond that.