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

Haven't even received the parts for my gpu upgrade yet and now you have peaked my interest in a new proc upgrade also. Which is supported for our nb. I've been trying to find info on the mb and didn't get anywhere. Would also like to know about ram upgrade as well but don't know which is supported.

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Exact options depend on the generation of machine you have, it's almost always the highest CPU in the series your system shipped with.

 

I didn't hit the 970m lottery like you Omega. +175mhz on stock voltage is awesome. I can't go beyond +145mhz core it seems on stock voltage.

With the unlocked vBios I was at 1253Mhz on core in BF4, but required an overvolt of course. Was at .987v. Not sure what a safe limit to set for myself would be. I don't really feel comfortable going beyond .990 at this point. Temps were good around 73C max on GPU and 72C on CPU.

 

I don't want to play voltage anymore.. probably for benchmarking only. I've learned my lesson cos my 680m got fried because of vbios mod with volt mod as well.. But can you give an idea for afterburner when it comes to sliding the voltage?

Yeah my gpu passed the +175mhz (stock voltage) and 600mhz mem speed in 3dmark firestrike..... Is that good? I think my 240 watts ac adapter helped a lot..... Now to save some $$ for the mobile xtreme proc

 

1v is stock for the 980m so ip to that is likely "safe" for the chip.

 

Hey GBS6686, Sorry for the late reply but MSI installed this bios for me when the installed a 870M in my laptop...

 

Heey DGS6686, sorry for the late reply but MSI installd this for me when they replaced the dead 675m with a 870m

 

Off topic, but that is a limitation of the Windows format tool. Use Google to find a third party FAT32 format utility.

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Can you do me a favor and check your default stock max voltage on your 970m. With the MSI vBios my max voltage is 0.887v. With the "stock" unlocked my default max is 0.950. So either Clevo is using a higher default voltage, or MSI choose to undervolt the card. Eitherway I am able to get +135 on stock 0.887 24/7 rock stable.

 

I would not be surprised as there is a lot of headroom to optimise the chips and MSI know how to tune gpus.

 

Now this really changed my mind to upgrade to a mobile xtreme processor compared to my stock ivy bridge which can only do 73xx on firestrike score.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

Time to save some $$$ then

 

Is 180 watt(power adapter) enough to run 980m?

Also, Can someone has 980m post his GPU-z ?

Can someone upload his Vbios? not the 84.04.22.00.0A

Thanks

 

While I'm sure upgrading the CPU would help, that result is also pretty OC'd. Core Clock is 1338 MHz, and Memory Bus is up to 1553 MHz. Still, shows there is plenty of headroom on the 970M's.

 

180watts I think is enough to run the 980m and cpu on stock only. Other than that you need to get a 240watts

 

180W is enough even with a modest 980m OC for as long as you don't increase the power % slider (which makes the core draw more power than at stock during peak loads, temps permitting ofcourse).
The 240W adapter may or may not be fully utilised, depending on his GT model.

@Talon & others
MSI mxm cards have their voltage reduced to compensate for the single fan performance. That was true since the 580m and previous GT models. Seems like they haven't bothered changing the habit . Clevo on the other hand uses a bit higher voltage as their cooling is slightly better albeit slightly more louder.
Nvidia has some stringent limits on TDP headroom so 125% seems to be the max recomended value. Also Maxwell seems to have a 1.25v maximum voltage, imposed for safety reasons, which once crossed long term damage/degradation to the card is to be expected.
970m has a base clock of 924Mhz, 980m starts from 1038Mhz. I'd say a max +250Mhz on the core would be sufficient to not push the cards to their limits (and not cause excesive load on the power regulators).
Also OCing the core yelds more results than OCing the memory. Max OC would depend on the TDP. +25% TDP pushes the cards to 100W 970m and 130W 980m from 80W and 105W respectively.
You need to tinker and find a good balance for your card
Once I get my card I plan on doing so and saving that OCed profile only for the most demanding games which would go below the 30fps on stock settings.

 

Or get Svet involved and he will be able to unlock the entire system fully, including the BIOS, and VBIOS.

 

Yes Svet can do that. He however needs to "learn" how to remove the EC power limit imposed on us Haswell SKU users
Enabling hidden BIOS options and changing stock values is something. Rewritting firmware code parts is an entirely different matter.
I hope he "learns" fast before I get a new notebook

 

That's a limitation he has not yet breakthrough.
The power part of things in the EC firmware is too raw.
Perhaps one day....

 

@felix3650 and omega939 ... Thank you very much

 

Ok guys, I've been reading this thread and have been quite overwhelmed with the info here. After reading about Skylake coming out later this year, I determined that buying a current gen laptop isn't really worth it to me - especially when I have a GT60 I'm pretty happy with aside from the dated 675M graphics card. Otherwise, I had upgraded the laptop to 16GB, put an Intel 7260 AC wireless card in, and a 120GB Kingston HyperX SSD that I took from my now defunct desktop.

The current gen laptops don't seem to offer much benefit over the Ivy Bridges, with the exception of the 970s that are out. Skylake is supposed to be worth the wait. My main objective is to be able to play Dragon Age: Inquisition with most, if not all, the eye candy turned on. So I'm thinking I'm going to throw a 970M in my current GT60. If I can accomplish that, I'll be happy.

At least in my reading, it seems that a lot of you have newer GT60s. Mine's a little older - GT60 OND-250US. It came back recently from servicing and is nearly 2 years old. It's a 16F3.

So here's where I'm at:

GT60 OND-250US
i7 3630QM
16GB RAM
Nvidia 675M 2GB
120 GB SSD
750 GB HD
Intel 7260 AC WiFi

MSI recently replaced the mobo, proc, and redid the cabling. It runs like a champ. It was also updated to the latest official bios as part of the servicing.

So I'm trying to figure out what exactly I need. I think maybe Omega did his upgrade with the same laptop I have?

The only 970M I can find is the Clevo 6GB 970M at rjtech. Are there MSI versions available yet?
What bios revisions and firmware revisions do I need?
Can I use the existing 675M heatsink and do the mod with a dremel tool? Or do I need to buy a different heatsink?
Where can I get the MSI 970M bios? And how do I flash it?

Any help with my situation would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

I have not seen MSI cards around yet.
You need the last release I believe for the 16F3 series.
You will need significant modding of that heatsink, but it is technically possible.
Check tech inferno.

 

Your existing setup is good enough for day-to-day usage unless you wanted to mod the VBIOS.
It's best to have Svet to mod your VBIOS for you in order to maximize your investment.

 

Yes, Finally got mij 970M...trying to mod the cooler in the next couple of hours and then start it up..

@Superguy25, I have a GT70-0ND too and keep you posted how it works...

 

So i just modded the cooler and installed the card....run the laptop and even with bios E1762IMS.71X (date 03/28/2014). S the next thing wil be changing the VBIOS.

 

Hey guys, This will be my first VBIOS mod. Can you help me?

I have NVflash and a good MSI bios. I deleted the nvidia drivers and tried to flash but it says wrong subsystem ID...Now what??

 

update 2!!
Guys, why are you all still asleep?? i got my toys!! (lol)

So i tried to run 3dmark with the altered drivers but it stopped halfway trough (black image but could shut down the app)
now i updated the vbios and this was pretty easy. the normal driver works and its runnning the bench again. next post will be the different scores with the 870m 3gb and the 970m 6gb.

 

low scores after 2 runs, and i set the graphics adapter to nvidia adapter... how is this possible?

 

Thank you much! It'll probably be a couple weeks until I get the graphics card. I look forward to seeing your results and wish you good luck!

If you have any pics of your process (especially the heatsink mod), I'd appreciate those.

 

Can you post your scores/links to your scores?

 

Hey guys, back with a problem. I tried to install a clean windows 8.1 twice and after a boot i get a black screen with only a mouse cursor. Talon discribed the problem and a bios update helped, but i have the latest bios.. E1762IMS.71X (date 03/28/2014) now wat????

 

this is my bios..

 

My suggestion would be to possibly try reflashing the latest MSI BIOS to the board again. Otherwise I think I remember Omega having issues with windows 8/8.1. Maybe try windows 7.

 

Thans talon, you mean try the 70x bios instead of the 71x?

 

If the old BIOS allowed you to boot I to widows then yes flash back to that version.

 

The GT-16F3 doesnt like the msi Vbios. Revert to clevo bios or the modded vbios in tech inferno. Your .71x is the latest one and should be running fine. All you need to run your 970m is a modded .inf file. Check the first page on this thread and you'll see my post in tech inferno. from there get the .inf file then install the driver. All will be fine after that..

Oh where you got that .71x bios from? care to link where you got it? You using "Raid 0" right?

 

Does the modded vbios let you install drivers without modded INF, or is it just unlocking overclocking features?

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That's a system bios issue really rather than vbios so it's just for overclocking.

 

Hi omega, i got the bios from msi myself. A week before the end of my 2year warrenty, the 675m went dead and they fixt and updated the system with a 870m.

Does the modded vbios help enough for running normal nvidia drivers or do i really need the clevo vbios? And do you have that modded vbios?

 

This is very likely to be a VBIOS compatibility issue with main BIOS.
Sometimes, Clevo VBIOS may have lesser restrictions than MSI's own VBIOS.

 

Goodmorning...
I changed my VBIOS to the Original CLEVO VBIOS en tried to install the altered drivers but now i get an error during the installation of these drivers. I says failedto install graphic drivers but the rest, physics and stuff did install right..even if i try to install the drivers manually i get an install eror.

@omega (can you post the right clevo vbios? Mine is : 84.04.22.00.11

Is this a windows 8.1 error?

 

Did you disable digital driver signatures before trying to install the driver? That is required if you are installing drivers with a modded INF.

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We almost do have the exact clevo vbios. mine is on my signature... Anyways if you want to successfully install nvidia drivers, first copy this modded .inf driver found here

MS-16F3 GTX970m need nvcvn.inf for 344.80

then unzip/extract your nvidia driver in a folder ex:

d:\344.80 unzipped\Display.Driver

after you done extracting, copy paste the modded "nv_dispi.inf" or "NVMIi.inf" file under the "Display.Driver" directory.


Or if you want to do the mod .inf file by yourself, these are the lines you only need to copy paste from the "nv_dispi.inf" or "NVMIi.inf" file.

Note: you only need to modify only one .inf file and copy paste it in the "Display.Driver" directory.

============================================================
Code:

[Manufacturer]
%NVIDIA_A% = NVIDIA_SetA_Devices,NTamd64.6.0,NTamd64.6.1,NTamd64.6.2,NTamd64.6.3

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0]
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.0551.1028% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05511028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.110C.1462% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_110C1462


[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1]
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.0551.1028% = Section152, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05511028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.110C.1462% = Section152, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_110C1462


[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.2]
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.0551.1028% = Section153, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05511028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.110C.1462% = Section153, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_110C1462


[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.3]
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.0551.1028% = Section154, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_05511028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.110C.1462% = Section154, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_110C1462


[Strings]
DiskID1 = "NVIDIA Windows (64 bit) Driver Library Installation Disk 1"
NVIDIA = "NVIDIA"
NVIDIA_A = "NVIDIA"
NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.0551.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M "
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.110C.1462 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M"

==========================================================================


To disable driver signing under Windows 8 the easier way, do the following :

Command Prompt (Admin) Win key + X Type:

Code:

c:/bcdedit /set {current} testsigning yes

-> "The operation completed successfully" -> reboot -> Install drivers.

Exit test mode.

Code:

c:/bcdedit /set {current} testsigning no

 

Thanks guys,
I didn't disable driver signature, but i didn't need to in windows7 when i ran the first time i tested it (with modded drivers). Then i installed a MSI bios and thought i needed to install a fresh win8.1. then i got the problems and set back the clevo bios. Now i can't install in win 8.1 (this could be because of the driver signature) and not even in win 7 anymore. The it keeps giving erors if i try to install the card (manually or with tne modded driver)

-edit-
Did i update the vbios right?? i used: nvflash.exe -6 biosname.rom

 

update!! Omega is Always right..haha, it was the driver signature...Now it works and i'n installing farcry 4 again for testing....

 

Btw... Can you put the specs of your Notebook? And what vbios you using with your 970m?

 

how? i'm a forum nood...haha

 

ok, not so noob anymore...

 

1st benchmark result 3dmark skydiver:

870M 3GB =13585
970M 6GB=12531

strange......any idea?

 

Should have run the 675m test beforehand for comparison.

 

run throttle stop and uncheck "BD PROCHOT". Benchmark it again... Post the results here afterwards