GUIDE - Install Dell/Alienware 780m in MS1762 GT70 0ND

Like the title says, I replaced stock 675m with a Dell/Alienware 780m in my MS-1762 GT70 OND and wanted to make a guide of what I did since I know a lot of you are looking to do a similar upgrade.

Backstory, skip if you don’t care, my 675m died without warning about 3 weeks ago, one day it was working fine, next time I turned on my laptop Windows didn’t even detect it anymore in Device Manager, and after about 60 seconds the fan in the laptop shot up to 100% and stayed that way, nothing I could do about it. I looked around and there are lots of used Dell/Alienware 780m’s online for $500 to $600 but no MSI ones to be found. I ended up getting a brand new Dell/Alienware 780m from a Notebook Review user named Sangemaru in Romania for $470 shipped, he helped me out a lot along the way too, can’t say enough good things about him.

I assume no liability for your install, I’m just telling you guys what worked for me.

Hardware Install:

1. I chose to stick with the 675m MSI heatsink, it fits great except the copper part that makes direct contact with the GPU is rectangular (to fit the 675m) and not a square, so the copper does not fully contact the 780m GPU; however, the darker part of the heatsink still contacts it. My idle temp is around 29 degrees Celsius and under load for a long period of time the highest I’ve seen is 90 degrees Celsius, that is at stock clocks though, haven’t tried any OC yet.
2. I took the thermal pads off of my 675m and applied them to the 780m per this image: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img822/4905/m0d5.png
3. My 780m came with 2 Thermal Pads for the bottom and a picture from Dell on how to apply them, not sure if a used one would or not, but these both just cover the VRAM chips on the bottom of the card.
4. In order to use the Dell/Alienware card with the MSI heatsink I had to take the x-bracket off of the 780m; otherwise the screws for the heatsink will not go in. This was done easily by pressing on the 4 prongs that protrude from the bottom of the card to the top, the X-bracket just pops off.
5. Next I seated the GPU and applied a thin line of Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Paste. I did this from my laptop’s back to front (not the cards) to make sure it would hit the longest part of the rectangular copper section of the MSI heatsink.
6. I installed the single screw that goes into the video card, then installed the heatsink and screwed the laptop bottom back on.

Software Install:

1. Everything I read suggested I needed the MS1762 51/71x (51X=AHCI/71X=RAID) BIOS for my PC. I had 2 weeks to kill (the package was coming from Romania) so I went ahead and installed the 51X Bios, it can be found here: Zippyshare.com - 1762 51x.rar. The directions I used are found on this page: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/760347-ms-1762-trouble-upgrading-780m-6.html. So it may be possible that you can install the card without updating your notebook’s BIOS but I went ahead and did it. Also, just a note that my GT70 came from MSI with Windows 8 installed, if yours came with Windows 7 you may have to do some more digging to make sure that this is the correct BIOS for you.
2. At this point the card should show up in Device Manager as a Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, or something similar.
3. You will need modified Nvidia drivers to install the card. You can get them here: LaptopVideo2Go: Drivers To find the correct drivers for your card you’ll need to go to Device Manager, click properties for the card (should just say Microsoft Basic Display Adapter now) Click the Details tab and under the property dropdown, choose Hardware Ids. Mine looked like this:
You’ll need the second ID to enter in the laptopvideo2go driver search.
4. Enter your Hardware ID at the top and select the appropriate driver for your system, I just went with the top one for Windows 8.
5. Click the link to download the modified driver and wait for it to finish, you’ll also need to save the modified INF file. Here is a guide on how to install modified video drivers, scroll towards the bottom for the actual install directions ForceWare Updater's Quickstart Guide - Frequently Asked Questions - LaptopVideo2Go Forums.
6. At this point, I still couldn’t get the card to install, the install would say it found the correct hardware, begin installing and then fail… so I determined I needed to flash the MSI vbios on the Dell/Alienware card.
7. I downloaded the MSI vbios from here: VGA Bios Collection: MSI GTX 780M 4096 MB | techPowerUp.
8. Next I downloaded NVflash version 5.163.0.1 from here: NVFlash download version 5.163.0.1.
9. Here is a guide on how to use NVflash: [GUIDE] NVIDIA VBIOS flashing it says to create a USB flashdrive, I ended up not doing that and just doing what was suggested in Post #6. Ignoring the USB flashdrive part, just follow the rest of the directions in the first post and you should be good, mine flashed without issue the first time.
10. Finally, I tried installing using the modified Nvidia drivers a second time and voila, it installed perfectly and I now have a fully functioning 780m.

I haven’t tried Overclocking yet but my 3Dmark 11 basic score was P6570

The highest my temp got during the 3Dmark tests was 65 degrees Celsius, not bad.

P6570 is a little low for the 780m but it is much better than the P3600ish I got with the 675m. I can run BF4 on all Ultra settings now and never dip below 30FPS whereas before I could only run settings around medium.

Now it is time to OC!
I hope this guide was helpful.

 

You are missing almost 1000 points in 3DMark 11 - check if your clocks stay stable with some logging software (Afterburner etc.) - my 680M does 6200+ with 771/900(1800).

 

Just a guess, but the score might be lower because of the CPU that is in his system.

 

My graphics score was 7595, does that sound right?

 

Yep, that graphics score is fine.

 

Haven't seen the graphics scores - you could look at 3DMark.com/results. The processor could maximally explain about 3% lower scores ( 5-6% less CPU power - the most competitors on notebookcheck.net do use 4700MQ/HQ). But the most 780s seem to run there at 823 MHz, just MSI at 771! It could make another 3% difference. Maybe it's the combination of a little slower CPU and lower clocked GPU.
I do have a 3630, too; my 680M is running @771 MHz, but you should beat me by a clear margin. But my graphics score is just 6171, there's a distinct difference. Maybe you have all kinds of stuff running on the background, my system is streamlined when benchmarking.

 

I just did a small OC to 831/1300 and got a graphics score of 8010. I believe it is indeed my CPU holding me back. Still never broke 65 degrees Celsius

 

Thanks! That makes me feel better!

 

You can check with Svet to see how much more juice you can squeeze out of this setup.

 

And look at https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=148273.0

 

I saw that vbios editor of Svets, I'm interested in it but I dont really know what I'm doing so I was kind of scared to use it. The vbios I used has relativity low clocks and voltage is locked. I tried flashing an unlocked one from tech inferno, it flashed fine but then it kept failing the nvidia driver install so I went back to the locked one

 

No worries, just ask him nicely and he will be more than happy to help you, even remotely using remote control.

 

I guess I'll have to give that a try, I feel like I'm getting throttling. Thanks

 

For 16F3 generations the .10p and .30p bios files make the machine not even need modified drivers, they will install stock.

The 780M does need power limit tweaks as well as clock limit tweaks to get the most out of it.

 

Do you know of a vbios with the appropriate tweaks or a guide on how to do it myself? The only other vbios I found was from tech inferno and I can't get any nvidia drivers to install with it.

 

It requires unlocked VGA BIOS because it's locked within itself, otherwise it will not happen.

 

/
Gotcha, know where I can find an unlocked MSI 780m vbios?

 

Use Svet's tool, which is a donate-ware, see below link.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=148273.0

 

Just wanted to share that I got the tech inferno drivers to work by disabling driver signature enforcement and then installing.

 

Yes all modified drivers will need driver signing disabled as you install them (it can be enabled again afterwords).