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

Thanks mate. I'll be getting the right one then

I was able to fit it with a small case mod. On the lower part I had to cut some plastic though as the HDD thickness wouldn't permit the cover closing completely. I'd suggest however to get a Samsung M9T. Its 2.5" 9.5mm and 2TB in capacity. No mods needed. Fits like a glove. At the time I did fit my WD the M9T was not available (only just announced). You could even add an additional one with a HDD caddy replacing the DVDRW (as I'm planning on doing).

No it's not dangerous as that paste is mostly based on silica and a (very) small percentage of diamond dust, both electrically non-conductive. Keep in mind however that those diamond particles do leave light "scratches" on the core surface of the GPU/CPU. It doesn't compromise the chip in any way, but it just won't give that shiny "new" look when you clean it up the next time you repaste. Jeck this links out for a more indepth info:

Thermal grease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thermal Paste Comparison, Part One: Applying Grease And More - Everything You Wanted To Know About Cooling A CPU

Liquid metal on the other hand is just as its name implies, metal mixed with other substances to keep it in a liquid state (often derived from Mercury). It cools better than the rest (as it's more thermally conductive) but you risk on shorting the capacitors/resistors/ copperlanes around the core if you're not careful on applying it. It's not worth the risk IMHO (for the small 5-6 degree celcius difference)

 

Isn't the M9T from Seagate, not Samsung?

Anyway, I was looking at both options last month and ended up going with the M9T not just because it is smaller, but it is also noticeably cheaper than the WD Green (it is slower though). When I looked a couple weeks ago, the WD was at best about $140 USD. The Seagate is only sold in an external USB housing currently (Seagate Backup Plus Slim I think), but you can find it for less than $100. Just pop the case open, take the drive out, replace your internal one, and you can even drop your old drive right into the housing for a ready to go portable hard drive).


Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

Hi felix.

About the HDD caddy, please make sure you properly montage your HDD in it. Because if you want to remontage or replace it with another HDD or SSD later, it will be very difficult to remove. You will need to dissamble whole case until you reach the motherboard because it doesn't come off otherwise, it will be stuck in there. I myself use GT70 barebone, which I think very similar to GT60, and can't remove the HDD caddy because there isn't enough room to grap it and force it to come off. Insert something like a needle to little hole on DVD bezel for pop it up also won't work. As for myself, I am certainly not going to dissamble whole case. I don't think I can handle that. Don't know what to do.

 

This is my old (670m) and new (780/880m) heatsink-modded.



and this is how it looks like on the motherboard

before (670m heatsink)


and after (880m heatsink)


And this is my Fire strike result. first run


... Is this frequency good on afterburner? Or can I increase more? Or is the cpu the bottleneck? dunno ... hehe



My nb hardware info

 

I have the same setup in a GT60 (GT60 0ND-250US). I was looking at getting a new laptop, but reading this has been fascinating as well. The graphics card is the main reason I want to upgrade, though the thin and light GS60s are quite attractive too! I'm thinking this is attractive as the Ivy seems more than adequate still, I've added an SSD and a wireless AC card. The main advantage I'd get is weight on a new laptop, but if I can get a 980M in my current laptop for the fraction of the price of a new laptop, well ...

Would I need to do the heatsink mod as well for this?

Given that the 675M was a 100W part, I'm guessing that the cooling should be adequate for a 980M if I went that way.

Thoughts?

Super

 

Hey Omega, I noticed that you did the mod with the 670m heatsink (which I believe is the same as the 675m?) -- did you notice anything that seemed like it would be a problem for the GTX 970m? I have no problem buying a new heatsink if needed, but would prefer not to spend $85 or more on one if it is not totally necessary =) I haven't had time to pop open my laptop and take a look at the heatsink yet to get an idea for myself.

And thanks Talon for looking btw! I'll just keep checking every day and see if I can find one for below $50 range!

 

It's easy to mod the heatsink.. At first i thought it was hard though but Talon gave me a link and idea on how to cut that in half that middle part of the heatsink.. Look at my gpu heatsink pics 880m vs 670m heatsink. both can house a 9xx,8xx,7xx, and 6xx cards. . If i where you, Open your notebooke and check your heatsink because if you have an upgrade itch then you will be bothered everyday.. Just check it out one by one.. Oh and buy a dremel and ask the salesperson to demo it for you so you can have an idea on how to dremel things.

 

Looks good Omega! Your score on FireStrike looks good to me. I think I had 6515 first run? The CPU is making the difference. As as far as overcloc king I would probably just try out +135cofe and +100mem for now to test stability. I usually don't OC the core much as it doesn't yield large gains. Guess I could try that theory out further though.

 

Do i have to go and get the driver from that site every time i want to upgrade, or will geforce experience work after the first time?

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll make sure to remember it
AFAIK you have to push the caddy from behind, near the fixing hole. I'll investigate once I install mine and let you know in case.

Originally made from Samsung and then relabeled as Seagate after Samsung sold it's HDD department to Seagate. The boxed drive is cheaper I know (101 euros on amazon.it). The M9T runs for about 130$ sold as an OEM bare drive. I bought my WD for 120 euros shipped at the time of it's release. It never got a boxed version because of its thickness. So far its been reliable (silent and cool) and fast too (90-110 MB/s for large sequential files).

Unfortunately my friend heatsinks do differ a bit between both models. If you can grab a 770m/780m heatsink it would be best. If not then you can try working on the 670m one (a bit more work to be done).
The cheapest I could find is this:
Aliexpress.com : Buy 100% Original laptop CPU cooling heatsink&pad fit for MSI GT60 GT70 16F2 16F4 16F3 GTX770M GTX780M Graphics CPU Thermal Module from Reliable module dvb suppliers on Powerups | Alibaba Group

 

It's not dangerous, and IC diamond is widely preferred by gamers.

 

I have never opened laptop by myself before, today I bought my first screwdrivers and took out the heatsing using youtube tutorial. It looks the same as on the Talon photo:

Actually I'm placing order for 980 and have to learn using dremel. I hope everything will work out, thank you all

 

As long as you don't miss out any details, be careful with every step, and check with us from the forum if you have any doubts, you will be just fine. :thumbsup:

 

my laptop works gtx 970m ?
Will I be very slow with the core i7 720QM?

Powernote gx640 core i7 720qm@3,0hz mobility HD 6990m 8gb DDR3

i use hd 6990m

 

My 2nd run on firestrike

 

Omega939, why your BIOS version in HWInfo is from 12.31.2020? Are you using custom BIOS?

 

yep . Im using custom bios unlock

 

I would try the heatsinik without any modification, because I think that it will work since you have Nvidia GTX 870M, not 780M. Also, the new EC Firmware version for MSI GT70 2PC does support new CPU FAN control table which is for GTX 970M and 980M.

 

Sc00rpY you´ll have to do the modification because without it it would interfere with coil on the picture below. I used one of Talons photo - hope you don´t mind ;-) and your heatsink one. You have to dremel out the red outlined part of heatsink othervise it will not fit on the coil.. See pictures below.

So modification is required! I used the same heatsink with GTX980M and this is the only mod you have to do
;-)

 

Troy-C, I guess you didn't update the BIOS and EC Firmware before upgrading to GTX980M. On the pictures above I saw the different coil location on GTX 980M, so indeed that modification is needed, unless you don't have the original heatsink for GTX980M, but I don't think that is available from MSI. They don't have MSI GT70 Dominator with GTX 980M.
The new model GT72 Dominator is the successor of GT70. On the upgrade video Jonas did upgrade from GTX 870M to GTX 980M on GT72 Dominator, but he uses different heatsink for GTX 980M. Here it is the video:
▶ MSI GT72 Dominator (Pro) GTX 900M series MXM graphics upgrade - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZZ5hGDZpI8

 

I did update on both.. Bios and EC before upgrade (like a week ago) and everything runs smooth. But I was not talking about BIOS and fan table. Everything runs fine and temps are even lower thanks to Maxwell core.

If it comes to heatsinks the modification is needed guys having GT60´s and 70´s. Was not talking about GT72 which comes with GTX970M or GTX980M .. in that case it may not be necessary due to different heatsink used from stock. But the whole thread is about GT60&70 or adequate barbones so there are some differences..

 

I know that this thread is about GT60&70. I wanted to point out that if you don't modify the heatsink you can use original one from GT70 2QD which is with 970M, so this will work on any GT70 Dominator with 870M and 880M.
Is your BIOS version 111 or 311 from 10/08/2014? I'm asking you this because on the MSI web site this BIOS update is for Increase AMD R9-M290X SKU. So, I'm confused if those BIOS is for AMD R9-M290X how it is possible to support Nvidia GTX 970M and 980M. Is your original GPU-780M?

 

Most users here are very aware that the official MSI 970m heatsink will work in all GT60,GT70 and GX660/60/70 laptops. It doesn't have to be from any specific generation as the chassis hasn't changed. It's not an issue or not knowing that. It's the issue of their availability at the moment. In the future they should be easier to find and users will be able to buy them and have them fit the 970/980m and possibly the 10xxM GPUs.

For the time being the best alternative is to modify the 780/770/870/880m heatsink. These are all the same heatsink.

The BIOS update your are referring to simply also adds support for M290X GPU to GT60/70 laptops. It doesn't remove support for nVidia cards. Also I'm using a fairly old bios and EC and the 970m was recognized and installed with no issues.

 

Now I get what you meant Zar. Yup that would be without any needs of modification but as Talon said there aren't many of those :-/ MSI just don't want GT60/70 owners to upgrade. Cause they just woke up with their GT72 "upgradable laptop".. I even spoke to their official service centre in Poland and that was quite horrible experience. It was like "you got GT70? You should consider selling it cause we will not sell you a single spare part". So that's my sad experience with MSI support on a 2500$ laptop..

And as for the BIOS it really adds support for R290 but it works with any Geforce GTX9xx without problems so far ;-)

 

I don't know if you have a compatible heatsink. The radeon one is different. Plus there's the BIOS to factor in. MSI hasn't updated that notebook in ages. The only way to know is by trial
That CPU might bottleneck a bit the 970m.

 

Majster is out of reach. The only source we got for now is hope and patience
Eventually we will find a place to source heatsinks and MSI mxm cards. Than upgrading will be hassle-free.

 

R290 is amd right? So does this apply to GT60 16F3 with 51x Bios?

 

Be aware the 16F3 is a 3rd gen i7 machine, if the bios you are referencing is from a 4th gen machine you can't use it.

 

51x bios is for 16f3 nb which i updated to my nb sucessfully. What I was asking is that r290 is amd? So it means that gt72 is muxed not muxeless. Whcih the GT 60/70 is muxeless compared to gt72 muxed. am I right?

 

Yes R9-M290X is an AMD card (the latest released).
And yes GT72 is using hardware muxers rather than on-demand programmable ones like previous GT60/GT70 models with Optimus.

 

GT72 is a first after Optimus had been introduced to the GT several years ago.
Optimus isn't bad since it works out pretty well most of the time, giving users more battery time.

 

Prompt whether to take i7 3610qm(120$) Change on i5 processor just very cheap offer
going to take just i7 3740qm ?

 

Bad google translate? Anyway between the two I would get the 3740qm unless it's a lot more expensive than the 3610qm. Both will make a difference versus an i5 (gaming and multitasking).

 

just harder to find than the i7 3610qm ($ 120), and i7 3740qm ($ 450)
just think it will be enough in the future if you change the GPU GTx 670mx
on 9xx)
MSI gt 70 ONC i5 3230m

 

I have am msi gt60 2oc 770M and I cant run far cry 4 on the lowest settings. Benchmarks say i should be able to play it fine but Im getting 15 fps on the lowest settings. So my laptop is broken in some way right?

 

I have an msi gt 60 2OC 770M and im getting 15fps on lowest settings in farcry 4. Whats going on? My laptop is broken in some way right?
Im also using the latest version of windows techincal preview

 

Have you updated the graphics driver to the latest version?
According to this page, you should be able to play Far Cry 4 with reasonable fps.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

Troy-C, this is completely ridiculous. How is that possible? They should have spare parts for all models for at least 10 years. MSI support in Europe is very bad. Also, I asked them one question 2 months ago about the battery of MSI GT70 Dominator, and I 'm still waiting for the response from MSI Europe.

 

Troy-C, this is completely ridiculous. How is that possible? They should have spare parts for all models for at least 10 years. MSI support in Europe is very bad. Also, I asked them one question 2 months ago about the battery of MSI GT70 Dominator, and I 'm still waiting for the response from MSI Europe.

 

is good???? not overvolt

 

How did your clocks stay throughout? If stable it's very nice

 

Hey Zar I think that this is simply possible because of they just do not want their spare parts to go loose. They're willing to repair your laptop out of warranty but they'll use parts tgat suppose to be in that config. So couldn't pursue them to change my GTX780 for GTX980.. simply no way. I understand from one point of view.. But I think they might consider at least selling a spare part to owner of MSI product (laptop). Hope you'll receive your answer from MSI support ;-)

 

I hope that they will improve their support in the near future.

 

just harder to find than the i7 3610qm ($ 120), and i7 3740qm ($ 450)
just think it will be enough in the future if you change the GPU GTx 670mx
on 9xx)???

MSI gt 70 ONC i5 3230m

 

I saw that this R9-m290X is not even on the same league as with the 9xx cards hehe


But time for me to upgrade next year my 3610qm to 39xx xm proc. What do you think guys?

 

MY bios not suport hd 6990m and works my laptop, CPU no problems in games Battlefield 4, Call of duty advance , Far Cry 4, Shadow of modor , etc.... I problems in Dead Rising 3 and Assassins creed unity,

I from Brazil, notebook games in Brazil very value $5000 all! my sister will travel to the US and is easier to buy a GTX 970m

more and more games will use the GPU, DX12 will use the GPU, I'll buy the GTX 970m and risk, anything I saw it in Brazil for $ 800


HD 6990m power 100w!!! GTX 970M power 81 W !!

hd 6990m

 

Wel the DX12 implemented on Windows 10 is not final (you can cal it in a draft state). 3D incompatibilities are shure to arise with current drivers. Try updating to the latest 9888 build or your next best solution is to reinstall Windows 7/8.1 plus latest drivers. Windows 10 just isn't ready for a production machine.

Well the 3610qm at that price would be the better choise (330$ difference is too much IMHO). And yes you can upgrade to a 970m. Just make shure to mod properly your heatsink (check the parts that need dremeling by comparing pics posted here earlier).

They don't want you to buy spare parts because they would need to support for those parts and that would increase costs and maintenance times. Let's hope that future products are made with upgradeability in mind just like the current GT72.
Best way to go is first update BIOS than EC and finally VBIOS to finish it all with a nice system reset (both BIOS and EC), so as to clear any residual CMOS previous settings that could conflict.

Yup AMD is behind the 9x0m cards right now. I'd say that card is mostly between the 870m and 780m in regard to 3D performance. OpenCL and GPGPU is another story though
Be shure to check thermal with that CPU. Unlocked XM chips tend to run hot if you're not careful. If you keep that in mind you'll get yourself one heck of a notebook

It's not only dependent on power alone. The BIOS must be able to read the boot code registers from the GPU VBIOS in order to boot it otherwise you'll only get a powered up card but with no display at all.
Make shure the seller lets you return the card in case it doesn't work. Shelling 500$ on a card not guaranteed to work is one heck of a risk. Also prepare to mod the heatsink with dremel and a lot of patience.
Not an easy task I'd say

 

Can you give me a guide or link on how to tame the heat of an unlock cpu while on OC mode? thanks

 

I use mod, hd 6990m is very very hot to gtx 970m!! .....

I to with little money, what do you think of this notebook


CyberPowerPC Fangbook EVO HFX6-105 Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i7 4710MQ 2.5GHz Quad-Core, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M, 15.6 HD Display, Windows 8.1 64-bit - HX6-110 at TigerDirect.com


my process = amd a10 http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-MSI-GX60-Notebook.86283.0.html


kkk

 

Well I decided to flash my vBios with the MSI 6GB vBios that I got. It flashed fine, and I rebooted and everything seemed fine. I installed the 344.75 drivers WITHOUT AN INF! and everything went smoothly. I then plugged in my external monitor and everything also seemed fine as well. So I rebooted and this is where things went to poo.

Upon rebooting I was unable to get anything on my screen past the MSI logo beyond a mouse cursor. It did one time display the Windows advanced start up menu but I disregarded and attempted to login in normally. I was never able to get back to that so I could start in safe mode and attempt to reflash back. I of course didn't have the original vBios on a usb stick or anyway to get to it. And NvFlash wouldn't detect my card in DOS anyways.

Decided to flash my BIOS as a last resort to MSI latest on website, flashed fine, and reboot and VIOLA. Everything is working fine. So far so good. External and regular display working fine. 970m installs without any modded drivers, and apparently my laptop now thinks its a MSI GT60 2QD model? Whatever I'll take it haha.