MSI GT725 Maximum Potential Upgrades? (MS-1722, Advent 6555, GX720.)

Hey guys,

On here less and less i suppose, but one thing i like to keep in working order, (And its a must) is my laptop. Now i have the 6555 varient, and its starting to get a bit weak (Which is a shame), not in the sense of performance, but reliability, wear and tear. Overall the kit is still fantastic, couldn't have got any better.

But i need viable options to part replacement, and i believe other people will also, so i'm starting a thread.

I want to know exactly what the machines are capable of being fully upgraded to, so i'l start.

Current Specification -
CPU - Q9000 at 2.00 Ghz
RAM - 4Gb mixed (Bad warrenty) Sticks running 4-4-4-15 and 5-5-5-18, yes in the end windows compensates by overrunning timing and under running timing to 4-5-5-18. (I think, the last one is quite unknown).
HDD - 5200 RPM Toshiba MK2555Gx
Screen - Something 1440x900 (Just the spot )
GPU - HD4850m 512mb! (Issue lies with the card, its somewhat flakey i think. Outdated vbios and everything compared to the actual MSI machines)

Unknown Specification -
CPU - QX9300, QX series, T series, P series, (Im certain this is true) can anyone confirm?
RAM - 8Gb - Unknown, i heard it happened in a gt628 once before, but never the 17 inch books. But looking for lower latency ram over capacity to be honest.
HDD - I know both SSD and HDD conventionals work (7200rpm probably best) as well as drive conversion to another HDD is working (also pretty cool)
Screen - Up to 1920x1080, samsung pannels?
GPU - Main thing i need replacing, will an alienware
GTX 260m
MSI 4850m
MSI 3870m
9800m GTS
9800m GT (GTS with bios flash, maybe GT series work fine also?)
9600m GT? Cant remember if its GT
3800m Workstation? (Dubbed GT260m aint it? or a 9800M GT/GTS

Will an Alienware Nvidia GTX 260m work in our 17 inch books, will heat sink upgrade be required? or will standard 4850 HS slot into it nicely (It looks like it would!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DELL-ALIENWAR...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL&hash=item3a66296c8b

But is Nvidia GTX260m capable of running at full power under steam. Im most interest in the 260 as its only just under the 4850 performance wise, and i'd concider it a laptop GPU thats cheap as chips at the minute :').

Oh i think our laptop is MXM 2.1 Type 3 so the alienware card is slow compatible, but is it power...i wonder.

Mind you what about GTX280m? Or Quadro FX3800m series? although the Quadro is double price, it still viable right?

Hope people have time to answer the questions, this is by no means a can't be bothered to search post, its a means to collect the information into 1 post, where i can add it to my name just like the MSI OC Thread.

Cheers
Cata.

BTW : Fan reconditioning tutorial to come for our machines!
(With lots of pictures, and some oddness about our fan design!)

 

CPU and RAM will work well. As for GPU the Quadro FX3700m and the Radeon 4850 will work as well.

 

I know the 4850 does, but they're hard to come by, and i found generally 2d performance lacking with the card, even after updates.

What about the 260M Gtx, surely someone has this one?

 

fx 3700m if you can find it. Very cheap compared to a legt 260/280m

And the fx 3800m is mxm 3.0b so it wont fit your current laptop.

 

Hmm 3700m from USA is quite cheap, but still a bit more expensive then GTX260m

DELL ALIENWARE M15X GTX 260M VIDEO CARD WDXVH | eBay UK

99 Quid

nVidia NB9E-GLM3 Quadro FX 3700M 1GB MXM Card | eBay UK

123 + 21 Quid, so i still think the AW 260m is more viable.

 

you can't fit that gtx 260m, its another type. stick to the quadro or find a gtx 260m what is mxm 2.1 HE

btw something is wrong with that. actually there is no 512mb version of the gtx 260m

 

I think the SLi card had it, hmm the 3700m is 2.1 he so thats nice to know, and the 4850 will most likely fit it right?

Sager may do a 260m?

 

the mxm 2.1 version is very rare of the 260m. if you find one, that will be pretty sweet in the msi. it's much cooler than the quadro and maybe the same percormance as the 4850.

 

Hmm the 4850 is above the 260m in performance i believe, but only by a small percent 0-4%, but driver influence can push the 260m quite nicely too, shame about the lack of the mxm 2.1 260's.

3700m is around the gtx280m? Can we back flash the 3700m to a 280? I hear the quadro drivers are derrived to deliver best performance when working with 3d intensive application and the Gforce cards 280m for instance are geared for gaming better.

 

you can flash it. look around in this topic: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/507923-msi-gt627-1651-works-fx-3700m-full-clocks.html

 

Thank you very much Kirrr, you've been a very big help!

 

I've got the smaller brother, the GT628 so your modifications should work on my machine as well. I'll buy a Quadro as soon as I've got the price in my hand...

 

I don't recommend you do this unless you have some serious cooling mods... The gts 160m overclocked can be faster/cooler...

Catacylsm:
Seriously, 4000 posts? Somehow that made me think you had more MXM and upgrade experience. No offense.
You probably could have done a little more searching though on some of the fundamentals of MXM and stuff...

NO NO NO - you will brick the card
9800m GTS and GS are based off of the g94 architecture which is NOT vBIOS compatible AT ALL with any g92 based card, even the 8800m GTS.

The MSIs use standard MXM cards. So yes the 9800m GT will work.

3800m is not compatible
If it were it would run TOO HOT. Its a 100w TDP card.
Its actually pretty much the same as a gtx 285m.

No, none of these new Alienware cards are compatible.

Your 4850 is really the most powerful thing you can get. You are lucky to have this card and system, because its not even compatible with the gt628, gt627 and gx620!

You can't upgrade to an LED screen, or a 16:9 screen. Other than that, everything 17" should work perfectly for you, other than old 4:3 lcds.
1080p is a 16:9 resolution, the 16:10 equivalent is 1920x1200, 1680x1050. (not 1600x900). Avoid strange brands like Hitachi. Samsung, LG, and AUO will almost definitely work.

There is not much reason to create a thread like this. There are already extensive threads on msi gt627 upgrades, all of which apply to the gx720 gt725.

In fact, there are 2 things that make the gt725 an even more compatible, the 4850 of course and the fact that ALL of them support the quad cores.

Anyway thats not the point. The point is that it would be much more useful to post some general info like LCDs and MXM and socket P stuff in the hardware section if it was a pretty good write up.

There is still a small chance that the MXM 2.1 barrier will be broken past the ati 4850 and gtx 280m, but basically everything you can use is 65nm or an extremely rare 55nm MXM 2.1 ONLY card.

The only 55nm MXM 2.1 cards are the gtx 280m released with the Clevo m570tu, gtx 260m released with the Clevo m860tu, and ati 4850 released with the MSI gt725 and the Alienware m17/ocz whitebook/arima w840di... Also a few 9800m GTS, and the gts 160m, these are budget cards and will run a lot cooler but won't perform better than most of the 65nm cards like the 3700m unless you overclock them.

The only option I am seeing for a 40nm is a rare Asus gt 240m. The only way this would be a logical upgrade is because of the PCB supporting the gt215 architecture....

This means you could get a BGA company to make it into a gts 360m by changing the core BGA to the 96 shader version. There MAY even be a desktop gt215 or something else that would be compatible with this board with more than 96 shaders. And you could also get them to change it to high quality gddr5 vRAM.

But by that time, you might as well get a gx740 motherboard.

 

Whats the stable and not too extreme overclock on the gts? I saw various numbers by Darth Bane and Mitsuhide. I've got some copper "hedgehogs" on the vga's copper plate and on the heatsink around the cpu. And I also take the backplate off when I OC the cpu. With backplate off I've got much better heat management with my PacificBreeze cooler. System maxed out: cpu 75*C, vga 65*C in GTA4.

 

Haha cheers i'm 2 years outdated now, haven't been on in a while, its the fundementals that are easy, but i do know that there are voltage restrictions, which is why i'm looking really at cards over the reccomended TDP (In cases of both power and heat).

This is probably what i mean't to say haha, back when the machines come out, there was quite alot of vbios alteration! which is quite smart really.

Shame really! dam laptop upgrades eh, the one thing i'd say thats powerfuller then the 4850 in the msi was the 4850 crossfire released in the old m17's, that was pushing 1gb of vram which would have helped a fair bit at the higher resolution, especially with the still decently sized 256mb memory bus bandwidth.

You need someone with bios modification skills to attempt to add it! i'm sure theres a chance it can be done Although quite frankly, i can't tell if the 4850 is even stable these days, i've seen quite a few 3870m's and 4850m's pack up in the MSI books and it aint pretty , i'm hoping the errors i get are caused due to ram issues though, my replacement ram was a complete slouch!(And the timings didn't even match...)

Would you say its worth updating the vbios on the MSI 4850 however? i run an earlier vbios version to people with the GT725 on here, which is dam strange if you ask me, although it could be due to the fact i run the rebranded 4850 the 6555.

Yep, without the correct inverter were stuck with LCD, which is fine to be honest, i'm happy with the quality of the advent screen (and at 1440x900, all games are still playable on Pretty high settings without any issues).

You sure about Hitachi? they're quire a big make around the uk??

See this i disagree with , while alot of people know the extent of the current machines, you've basically compiled a load of fantastic information in 1 useful post, instead of sifting through alot of other useful posts, this makes life much easier haha!

I dont believe much that the barrier needs to be broken as such, but viable replacement solutions at this age are a must considering the introduction of new technology (Has quite sped up since i last was on i must admit). Bearing in mind the cooling limits of the machines although (Although a good understanding of how the MSI engineered the cooling is admirable!) i don't believe that drilling the hell out of the underside faceplate brings much improvement (Although the copper additional sinks definately does!)

Thermal paste on the memory chips has been known to be done also (Instead of stock pads) however the last guy i knew that did that ended up with fried memory (Sucks really) for reasons unknown, its still debatable this.

Bga company may not be an idea, but then again i don't think its worth the hassle, i doubt them cards are going to be boasting much more power then the 4850 anyway, if only there was a GDDR5 varient released hey?

Thank you very much for this post niff, alof of the information here is gold.

Cata.

 

Guess the fastest card possible would be a voltmodded 280m with high spec memory (1000+ stock) and a fx 3800m core (higher binned). It might even catch the 5870m if you can run it at 1.2v and get desktop 9800gtx+ style clocks.

1000$ and lots of cooling mods?

 

So did you make any upgrades catacylsm? Ive also got the 6555 and would be interested to know. Thanks.