The Official MSI GT60/70 970m/980m Upgrade Thread

Man I am sorry I am totally lost. I seriously have no idea what you're rambling about there. Its like I'm responding a drunk. You need to find a better web translator or something.

 

Say if vbios download from MSi can not download the driver changes
a conventional driver download from the official site nvidea?)))
I hope you understand right now?))

 

about what skill there Vbios on the laptop MSI GT72 on GTX 970m
If you change Vbios CLevo from cool to Vbios of the MSI will it work?))
understand me?)))

 

Ok now I think I have it. I am not sure if the MSI vBios on the Clevo card will work. I was actually just working on flashing the card and decided not to risk it this minute. I am not fully sure this card will run on MSI vBios, or if the laptop will still recognize the card after. I'm not sure why it wouldn't, but still haven't flashed the card yet.

If it does work, there should be no need to use modified INF drivers. You should be able to use Nvidia drivers downloaded from the website as usual.

 

@Ken GenTech

Can you tell me where the MSI 6GB 970m vBios came from? Is it from a GS60/70? I am thinking about flashing it to my Clevo card but not sure if it will play nice since that is from a non MXM laptop. Maybe this doesn't matter?

 

It will be a gt72. Extracting it from a non mxm machine would be a lot harder.

 

Thanks Meaker!

Isn't the GT72 a non Optimus laptop? Would this matter since I have an Optimus laptop? I just don't want to flash this vBios and end up with a bricked card. Just trying to ask as many questions before I try and flash this vBios Ken dumped for me.

 

The GTX970M in the GS Serie and GT60 2QD/GT702QD has only 3GB vRAM... so i think the 6GB vBIOS is from the GT72. And it´s true, the GT72 don´t have Optimus.

 

So do you think they have disabled the Optimus in the vBios, or does the GT72 not even have Optimus available and it therefore doesn't work at all?

If the vBios has Optimus enabled I should be able to flash the vBios to the Clevo card.

 

Nice job, well done!

 

Now This is confusing for AW especially the AW18 (muxed) users as they can't run the 9xxm videocard on their nbs.. but wait Why does the 9xxm work's with GT72 without optimus?

Clevo bios can be updated to msi provided you run it on an msi nb but msi variant vbios got 3gb in it except the GT72 (muxed) vs GT60/70 (muxeless) ...
Hmm...

If msi vbios runs with that 6gb therefore even the updated official drivers can be updated without the modded inf file, right @Talon

 

ok
1st of all , really really nice effort . seriously you are an adventurer your attempt is the first one to modify/upgrade the GPU in the gt60/70 in the whole internet , and believe me i've been searching
now , i am a gt70 dominator owner .and i hope to upgrade my laptop from the current 870m to the 980m
but i am not an expert user .so i need the following
1 - detailed photos showing - in dimensions by centimeter - the amount of metal you removed from the heatsink so i'd apply it
2 - the recommended vbios and bios versions to flash to my laptop for the 980m once i installed the new card , and how to flash them since this is my 1st attempt to flash any bios ever
3 - i'd like to ask what are these rectangular pads on the card ? are those thermal pads ? how and where are they applied and what thermal paste have you used ? i'd like us to share in more details the process of installing / repasting the card
thanks alot for your effort

 

Hey Mizosafaga,

I've already uploaded fairly detailed photos of the single mod that is required for the heatsink. Seriously exact measured dimensions of the cut aren't necessary. Just eyeball that, compare the heatsink to the card and check your work. I've already got my card installed, and am not taking it out to measure something that is relatively easy to eyeball. I got it right first try just by comparing the heatsink overtop the card and eyeballing it. Then I marked on the heatsink with a sharpie where I wanted to make my cut.

In my first post I have already provided you with the system bios, ec version, and the Clevo vBios version that came on my card. Don't flash anything in my opinion. First try plug and play with the card, and then if it won't work we can go from there. It should work plug and play in my opinion though.

Those rectangular pads are thermal pads. Place the padding on your heatsink exactly how I placed mine and you should be good. I used the thermal pads that came with the Clevo 970m that I ordered. The card I ordered also came with a Clevo P150SM-A heatsink (with thermal pads applied). I removed the thermal pads from the Clevo heatsink, applied them to my slightly modded MSI heatsink, and was good to go.

I used Antec IC Diamond thermal paste. Really any decent paste should do the job fine. I think I bought this paste at Best Buy for $10. I also have some MX4, PK, and Shin Etsu pastes on hand but have been seeing good results and longevity out of the IC Diamond paste.


Please see first post in this thread. I have updated that and reorganized the guide for less experienced and informed users. Hopefully the update is a tad bit more informative and clearer in the instructions. I will continue to update the original post as I see necessary or as more people have questions.

 

@Talon

Nice update guide on your first post. This is the 2nd revision and more detailed when updating the drivers especially those "Inf" file. Don't forget to post the tools you used aside from the dremel tool. I mean the cutting tools you used. I know already those things when you told me but to some people who doesn't know yet on what to put on the dremel, just to let them have an idea. Or you make a video on modding the heatsink for noob people?

 

thank you for your quick reply
i don't mean to make you any more trouble ofcourse i don't want you to reopen your laptop and take out the heatsink .excuse me for being thorough , it's because i live in egypt . and to get the card here will cost me A LOT OF MONEY . a price of a lenovo laptop with double 750m's actually
so i just being careful . sorry for any inconvenience .
regarding the thermal pads , you installed the ones that came with the clevo's heatsink on your old heatsink .. am i getting this right ?
you are putting them once on the card it self and another time on the heatsink .any other place ?
also you would notice that my card is 870m . not 780m. is my heatsink different than yours ? i - myself - don't think so , but i just need to be sure .
one last thing
you tell me to plug and play the card and see where it goes . so i don't need to flash anything ? the bios and the system will recognize the card automatically and then all i need is to download the driver from nvidia ? or should i use the INF files ? if so .. where can i get the 980m's inf files ?
thanks again for your help .

 

I understand being careful and not wanting to mess things up, but you'll see what I'm talking about when I say you can eye ball the cut to the heatsink when you get the card.

I did reuse the thermal pads that came with the Clevo card, but I also had some decent pads on stock which I used to stack to a height of roughly 2mm over the voltage regulators where I made the cut. You can see the area of the stacked thermal pads.

Also the point you made about pads being on the heatsink and another picture some on the card itself makes no difference. I simply laid the thermal pads on the card, and some on the heatsink itself. realistically it does not matter which way you decide to go with the pads, just make sure they are all applied to the proper places. Sometimes it is easier to apply them to the card because they don't stick well or aren't as adhesive. That is why I gave the warning to avoid pads above 11mK because I found they don't stay in place nearly as well, and required me to put them on the card first, then put the heatsink on top of the card.

I do believe the 770m 780m 870m and 880m heatsinks are all identical. You should be good.

I don't know what you current system bios and ec version are, so I am not really sure if it will work plug and play like my system. I would assume it should play nice, and for not at least I would try you current config before flashing anything different.

You will most likely need to use the modded INF driver. If you decide to go with a 980m, you will need to get the hardware ID, found under the card in device manager once its installed. Then go to the website that I listed in the first post and search for the ID, it will give you a driver and modded file to install. Same procedure for installation I described in first post applies.

 

Does ShadowPlay through the GeForce Experience application still work after this mod?

 

It does work, but I have found some weird issues with it. I've noticed some frame rate performance issues/drops. Also after I close a game, my voltages don't come down unless I go into GFE and turn shadow play off. I've now been tempted to flash the card with MSI vBios so that I can use regular drivers. I am positive its the modded inf drivers causing that issue.

Weird that you asked, I was about to report on that. I want to make some videos and upload them to youtube, but with the frame rate drops I don't feel like it gives the 970m proper showing. I am seeing around 15-20fps less while using ShadowPlay, and also it seems to cause some weird gfx/texture issues at times.

This could be entirely related to the specific driver I am using, but I am guessing not. I will try the 344.75s in a few days when they are released on laptop2go and test for different results and report back.

ShadowPlay disabled = no issues, and perfect performance.

 

Lol, guess it was just good timing .

Was thinking about pursuing this with my GT70 2oc-059us at some point in the future. It has the 770m in it - this procedure should work the same as with your GT60 I assume?

Most likely going to hold off until next year possibly though to save up a bit - depends on how demanding GTAV is, I guess. Though I may hold off anyway since I use ShadowPlay for recording/Twitch streaming games, so that's a big feature for me. Would love it if flashing the vBIOS to an MSI version would smooth out ShadowPlay. Keep us posted if you do in fact flash it!

 

The procedure should work the same as our notebook are from the same generation and use the same heatsink. I don't think you'll have any issues if you decide to upgrade a 970 or 980m, possibly even upgrade to the 10xx series when those release.

As for flashing the MSI vBios, I do plan to try it eventually. Almost did it again tonight, but decided not yet. I would hate to take an awesome performing laptop and perfectly good card and turn it into an expensive brick. If I could get some sort of confirmation the laptop will post and work on the iGPU and allow me to flash back to the Clevo vBios, I would have no hesitation in trying the MSI vBios. I have a feeling they will work fine, but still not knowing and the risk doesn't seem worth it.

 

While the chances are good there can be the odd vbios issue (not all 680M systems work with the 780M). Hopefully not though

 

This may or may not give you some guidance on whether to flash the MSI vbios or not. MSI posted a new EC as well as a new BIOS for the GT60. At least they did for the one in my signature anyway. Anywho, the description for the EC specifically mentions the 970m/980m. I'm having trouble posting a picture of the page, so here is the link:

MSI Global - Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Motherboard, Graphics and more

Here is the link for the BIOS too, in case you are interested:

MSI Global - Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Motherboard, Graphics and more

 

Thanks for the response Meaker. Do you know if a GT60/70 would boot on iGPU if the system had a less than favorable response to the MSI vBios? If that were the case, I would hopefully flash the card back to the stock Clevo vBios.

Actually I did see that a few days before I got my 970m. I opted to not flash the BIOS or EC with those updates as I wanted to see if the system would work as is. Not to sound all conspiracy theorist or something, but after reading about Alienware issues using the new cards, I thought about what if a manufacturer released bios updates to somehow block upgrading to newer tech. I would hope MSI wouldn't do that but who knows these days.

 

i'd like to see some gaming performance . try to run crysis 3 and far cry 3 or 4 or other-like demanding games on maxed out everything .and post pictures - if possible - with the results or just tell us the average FPS

 

Just installed and ran Far Cry 3 maxed out (including 8x AA) at 1080p for about 5 minutes. Avg about 35fps. Stock clocks on GPU. Maxed out settings except at 2x AA showed around 55 Avg.

I had an OSD as well to show clocks and temps.













I wish these photos didn't look so bad haha. The in game video quality is obviously very different.

 

Got your specs now. hehe thanks

 

Fantastic - that's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure. Yeah, I'll see how I feel a little later when I have the spare cash to drop on a GPU if I'll go for the 10xxx series or not.

Don't blame you at all - that's pretty much the reason I wanted to confirm it would work with mine if I did it as well, because I'd rather not have a large paperweight .

Thanks again for the info!

 

It would likely not boot in anything but igp only mode and the card would not be reachable.

 

really nice !
can't wait for seeing crysis 3 on this
god if only i had like 900 USD right now i'd give me a great christmas gift by purchasing the 980m

 

what is your asic card 970m gtx? boost max?

 

The Asic is 74.4%. Do people still actually look at this/consider that? I thought it was more of a gimic?

The boost max on the core is displayed in the photos, it is always pegged at full boost 1038MHz and higher if you OC with the +135MHz on the core.

 

Question.. If the gpu (mxm) is dead therefore in Windows under system settings, the card is undetected? only the igpu (ex hd 4000) shows up right?

 

I think that is usually a large indicator the card is dead. You could try the bake method to bring it back to life. Although I've never tried this I've always found it hilarious and wanted to give it a go. I actually thought about buying a dead card just to try it out.

 

Do you have a link on how to bake a dead card? So I may put some cherry and cream as toppings if i do that LOL.. Or you want me to sell a dead card for you?

 

you basically get the card , clean it out , put some protective foil in it's connector ends , put in an oven on 390 F ( around 200 c ) for 8-10 minutes
and that's it
check this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li2YTxcGI9Q

 

Thanks man... Now where'd i put those pies to bake it with? hehehe

 

it is confirmed, the GTX970M 6GB Clevo runs in the old MS-1761 Barebone. Someone in our German MSI forum has successfully completed this project and uses the heat sink of the GTX460M / GTX560M / GT550M. GTX 970M läuft im MS-1761 - Notebooks und Barebone Systeme - MSI Forum

The card will also run in an MS-16F2 / MS-16F1, because I'm pretty sure. further tests following weekend.

 

Great news for people with older GT60/70 setups!

 

NICE!!!

And i ordered one 970m today on RJtech!!!.. I hope the 980m works as well... Btw @iTzZent ... Are they using the modded bios 51x? And can you do a modded vbios for msi with 970m 6gb?

And... Do I need to change my 3610 to extreme 3920xm ? Oh man....

 

Nah man you are good with a 3610. I doubt it will hurt your performance that much.

@iTzZent ask that guy if he is brave enough to flash the MSI vBIos 6GB card to that Clevo card and see if it works haha.

 

And this is where MSI Afterburner kicks in lol

I think updating the vbios won't brick the vcard because when i got the 680m at that time. the color was blue(clevo) with x bracket . The seller from e-bay said it was an upgrade kit for msi but it's PNP and i updated the vbios with one of svl7' modded one = success!!! ... Just what you did with your NB. now it's a matter of time when somebody do a vbios mod with a 6gb variant and not the 3gb.

 

people keep talking about flashing bios's and it's making me uncomfortable
i am trying to get the 980m now , on the basis that i won't need to do anything but modding the heatsink and plug-and-play then use a modified INF for the drivers
is there anything else i should be aware of ?

 

Yeah. Updating your bios to the latest version.. Ask Itzzent about it LOL

 

but @talon said that it's not needed . and @itzzent didn't mention the necessity to change it.he only addresed the types of working bios's

 

mine is 51x updated

 

ok there's the bios . and there's something called EC
what is the difference ? and what is the difference between MSI'S firmware and bios on it's download page ?
and how can i know my current version of bios - EC - vBios ?

 

it's on the mainpaige of your bios. Check it out.. But according to Itzzent. this is the latest bios made by MSI Europe . They distributed it internally and Itzzent re-distributed it internationally. What's in it he said that this bios is a combination of win7 and win 8. so you don't have to worry now if you going to migrate from win7 to win8. updated orom's version making the raid 0 speed of up to 800mbps. Plus updated videocards in the future that can be handled by the gt60/70 series.. Why don't you ask him since he's the one who redistributed the bios?

 

ok so this bios isn't OFFICIALLY out ?
but msi released a new bios a few days ago .on 19/11/2014 to be accurate
what's the difference between that and the one itzzent distributed ?

 

What is the spec's of your notebook?

 

so...

1. 51x the Bios is not official, but it comes from the MSI server and is used by technicians when it comes to problems with newer graphics cards. It was designed specifically for the support of GTX7 ** M series in MS-16F3 / MS-1762 barebones.
2. the 51x is NOT suitable for other barebones. Optimally, it works with pure GT60 / GT70 units. With Barebones from Medion will it also work, but if no backlight keyboard is present, the EC firmware does not work.
3. Does the EC firmware is an adaptable around the Bios. Fan controller, HDD compatibility etc. It is not absolutely necessary, but they should hold up2date.

In the near future we test the Clevo GTX970M 6GB in a MS-16F2 (Medion X6819 Erazer / MSI GT683DXR) and in a Medion X7825 (MS-1763 Barebone). But since it runs in a MS-1761 (MSI GT780) on Sandy Bridge base, it will work perfectly well in a MS-16F2.