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

samXLR

Thanks for confirming that upon using MSI vbios even an ivy bridge GT70 can use standard drivers . Great work !
Hopefully i will be able to post my experience soon . Just a little more money and i can buy the 970m
Anyway ...this whole thread has been of great help and nice of MSI to make such great laptops

 

You can get an entire full generation of extra life in high performance gaming for a $450-500 investment which really makes sense

 

Yeah, I don't think that I would have done it without this thread, but fishing the information was not the easiest of tasks, I did at one point stopped to re-read everything from page 30 to 180... took a while =p

But questions answered are well worth the effort that was put for them.

And I take my hat off to the first individuals that did the upgrade, like... while being the first.. how could they have known that it will work? return policy on mxm gpus is a joke, they could have been somewhat stuck in a bad situation if it didn't.

And my heart goes out to all the people that ended up bricking their laptops, I was so sure its going to happen to me too, just because of the need to cross flash a bios from a different laptop (apply a retail bios (.71x or .51x) on a barebone .. but hey, with a little encouragement and after reading all the steps about ten times and also doing md5 checks to all the downloaded files and running memtest86 for about 20 loops.... and even checking the weather forecast (no thunder storms or w\e) ... =p yeahhhh I might be a scarcity cat about bios updates but it all worked out =)

The way I see it, my 2 year old laptop just became new again =) 680m to 980m is such a huge improvement in quality of life (in FHD+), from BF4 to even HOTS .. its all good now.

If I didn't like my 24" 1920*1200 dell IPS screen so much and had either a 144hz screen or a 4K one... I would have probably would have gone in another direction (probably a DIY SFF SLI gaming rig, maybe with a grab bar on top haha )

or err.... 4k @ 144hz? 8K @ 240hz ? :X and with g-sync...

But seeing as (for now) I am fine with 60Hz and FHD+ .. I figured that this would be the best move, seeing as the 980M basically demolish everything =)


P.s.
At some point I was even talking about making a DIY heatsink instead of MSI's... one made from a single peace or just welded together from only high quality cooper.
But after testing things some more I came to realize that at best such a solution would achieve at best 3-6c degrees improvement, which is not enough to justify the time it will take to create and its price.
However while installing the GPU I took a look at the laptop's fan (I have two flavors of it actually, one from T&T and another from some other nameless generic brand) and it seems as if the blades could be taller, there is a solid 8 mm gap (counting both under and on top) of the fan, and from what I remember back from my desktop days... taller fans, with same radios, at same RPM, with same blade profile and count.... push more air, boat loads more.

Which got me thinking: perhaps one efficient cooling mod that could be done is fitting a better fan to our laptops.

Does anyone here have any sort of idea about the existence of flat bladed fan of same radios, yet higher height?
This is our fan:

T&T B9733L12B-028 Cooling Fan
http://www.pchub.com/uph/laptop/88-135170-35816/T-T-B9733L12B-028-Cooling-Fan-.html

I can't find a picture of it but looking from the profile\side\via the opening ports, you can see that there's room for a bigger one in there, we already know that it requires 12VDC and 0.36A and that it uses 1)ground 2)+ 3)rpm cables .. surly there can be a taller one that can fit

 

Took a screenshot of HWMonitor & MSI AfterBurner /w BF:HL's settings to show what real life is like with the 980M and a 3rd gen i7...

GT70-980M-BFHL 1HR Run by samXLR posted May 25, 2015 at 9:43 PM

Coming from the 680M, with the 680M I had settings on high-medium mix, and it wouldn't carry 1920*1200 properly, so I had to play on 720P otherwise FPS would just take a dive every once in a while and if theres something I cant put up with is sudden freezes during FPS play... and the card would actually hit low 70's with the Turbo Fan....

Fast forward to 980M .. settings as show (ultra), res is FullHD+ (1920*1200)... I wouldn't say that its perfect \ exact 60.0FPS all the time but it sure feels worlds better than before... (and its definitely not dipping under 40 at any point... no freezing, no shatters no nothing bad =) running great.

Another game I gave a spin was Heroes of the storm, don't roll your eyes... that silly game wasn't 100% smooth on FHD+ with the 680M with everything maxed out, had to lower res...
However with the 980M ... everything maxed out and FHD+ ... perfect. feels like rock solid 60.0 fps even in a late game 10v10 brawl :>

Worth every penny for FHD\FHD+ experience, can it be better? Definitely, I suspect that 980M SLI configuration probably is able to get that 60.0 feeling even in BF:HL when used on FHD with everything maxed, but if you are cool with 100% smooth, and settings pushing towards max... and are content with FHD ... single 980M is the perfect choice.


Edit:
I was playing in fullscreen, changed to windowed for the sake of taking a screenshot.

 

@samXLR

Added your system config. Excellent information and feedback on your progress. Thanks! Enjoy your new beast.

 

Sure thing =)

... yet I have no Rep or even like on my posts =p ahh oh well, it doesn't matter xD

 

Simple answer yes, you can upgrade. Follow the thread for guidance and feedback from other upgraders.

You will need the 970m, select any version as you are simply selecting a Clevo heatsink which you won't be using anyways. I did the P150SM-A.

You will need a 700m 800m heatsink for modding, or if you can find one a 900m series heatsink which is plug and play. Alternatively you can mod the heck out of your 600m series heatsink, but I don't know the process, I believe others have posted here how they did that. It will be more complicated.

You will need quality thermal pads, and thermal paste. I recommend PK-3 thermal paste.

A dremel/rotary tool for heatsink mod.

You need to upgrade your SYSTEM BIOS yes.

No idea why the 680m is more expensive. Regardless the much cheaper 970m is night and day difference in performance and stomps a 680m. The 970m will seriously give you system new life and will literally give you a new laptop as far as performance is concerned. You will be able to game for a few more years to come provided everything keeps working.

 

Does anyone know about an unlocked 51x system bios for the MSI 16f3? I was thinking about overclocking my 3840qm CPU, but I need an unlocked bios to do so. I am currently running the normal 51x system bios.

 

And do you have the turbo fan on during that benchmark?

I had a GTX 780M, and anything approaching 80% GPU usage, meant the turbo fan was essential.

Now that I have the GTX 980M, it is perhaps slightly cooler, but the same general rule applies. I sit and play Witcher 3 on High (Hairworks OFF), and that consumes generally 90%-100% of GPU resources (I still get a solid 60 fps most of the time though), and for that, the turbo fan must be on to keep temps below 80C°.

I bought the GT70 on the back of reading lots of glowing reviews, all of which stated really low temps. Not my experience at all. And then the GTX 980M hits the market, which is renown for low temps, but again, not when it is installed in the GT70. I know that 'they' say that mobile GPUs are 'designed to run at much hotter temps than their desktop counterparts', but I quite frankly think that is bullcrap. High temps are high temps and will do a mobile Maxwell GPU core just the same damage over time as they would a desktop Maxwell GPU core. With that said, I think that the GT70 cooling is a bit rubbish, and the reviewers either lied to thier readers in line with the party line issued to them from MSI, or were given ultra cherry picked specimens to review.

I really hate that hair dryer of a single cooling fan on Boost mode. Mind you, it makes the GT70 not much louder than a PS4, whilst being smaller, more compact, and delivering 3-4 times the performance (albeit at 5-6 times the cost).

...and while I am at it.....

Anyone with a GT70 get their USB 3.0 working properly? If I use a pen drive, whether it be 64GB or 256GB, the USB 3.0 ports recognise the device and function. I however I use a larger Samsung/WD/Hitachi portable USB 3.0 drive, then those will not be recognsied by the GT70's USB 3.0 ports, although they do work in USB 2.0 ports......so I am guessing it is not an issue with the laptop getting enough power to these devices.

 

Does anyone know about an unlocked 51x system bios for the MSI 16f3? I was thinking about overclocking my 3840qm CPU, but I need an unlocked bios to do so. I am currently running the normal 51x system bios.

 

Hi
Contact Svet about it Here
I'm sure he will help you.

 

I have a 670mx which is the same card as the 770m ! My heatsink is bridged so i think it's the right heatsink ?

 

I have the GT70 OND-202US with the GTX675m. . I already upgraded the cpu to a i7-3740qm, 16GB memory, Samsung 840pro ssd and killer wifi 1202. I also already have an unlocked Svet BIOS.

I would like to upgrade to the gpu to the gtx970. Does anyone think this would work? If so which model of 970 and would I need to do anything other than swapout the cards?

 

You need to contact "Svet" on the offical forums of MSI for unlocking the BIOS, its done after some donation/tip is placed via paypal (like 10 usd or so)

1. all my ports work fine with all devices, soundblaster X7, mouse, keyboard, thumbdrive, external 2TB HD (WD Ultra Passport).
But when I plug drives that are bigger than 1TB I am required to go to disk manager and assign a letter to it otherwise it wont show on my computer (you can easily access that via pressing down and holding "winkey(windows button)" + "X" on your keyboard, it will show up in the area of the startmenu.

2. yes, turbo fan is on, without it I'm reaching 80 - depending on the the game I am playing: Battle Field is actually less demanding than FutureMark (~high 60s vs 80c without turbo).

Back at the 680M days (last week) I never in my life used the turbo fan, sure... temps reached high 70's and even mid 80's easily but it never went above that and that's how my computer worked for 2 years (almost 3 I think)... now that I have the 980M I am keeping the turbo fan on whenever I do something demanding, so no fan during Hearthstone / browsing / watching but turbo fan = on when ever playing something heavy like BF4 ... after this much money it better not burn if i can help it.

I also used the "top of the line" (almost) thermal grease (TPK-3) and thermal pads ... but this two are very hard to work with and I suspect that they either did almost nothing or actually nothing compering to stock - its not like I'm only reaching ~70c without turbo... I don't - I reach more than 80c without the turbo - same as in performance, I believe that the bottleneck here is not the thermal pads or heatsink, but the fan, a better fan could achieve better temps.

I can tell you this, if you work with your laptop's case open the temps will be higher due to worse air flow, and if you touch your gpu's heatsink after you turn off your laptop (after an hour worth of session of gaming.... you will burn your finger tips... that thing is nasty hot, even the aluminium surface above the gpu, not just the copper areas.....
Also, you want cold? try not to operate the laptop in room temperature of 116f\47c which is what I had to put up with yesterday, now its a cool 80f\~33c ... much better for cooling.

Also we are better of with single fan design than two identical fans, that would double the sound.

I just wish that the spacing between the blades of our fan weren't symmetrical so that the fan could be quieter at no expense of performance, and that the fan was taller, would allow it to push more air at same noise levels.... oh well, one day.... ill mod another there... in the mean while, this fan kickas ass. (we are, after all, "complaining" that when we set the fan to 100% speed there's more noise, no one here complains that with fan set to 100% the system is still too hot, I dare you to stress your system so much that even with turbo fan on 100% you will reach 90c... impossible, that's what it is, not without abstracting the airflow).


I hope that this helps.

 

Unlocking the bios is not required in order to upgrade the GPU.

Upgrading the bios to a version that supports Nvidia's Geforce 965M, 970M & 980M is required.
On my computer it meant going from .30U to either .51X or .71X - that part was free.
After doing that part, I upgraded to 980M without any issues, it required some modification to the heatsink as a small section on it was colliding with the card, preventing perfect alignment \ contact with the rest of the gpu, once I shaved that part (with a metal grinder) the problem was resolved.

If you do the above, remember to clean the heatsink after the modification, any aluminum shred might fall from the heatsink to the gpu and short-circuit it and ruin it.

After everything is done you can always contact Svet for an unlocked bios version of the bios that you had to upgrade to in order to gain support for this cards, he will be happy to assist you with that (usually he is also happy to get you the normal, free, locked, version and even explain how to apply it, he is that great =).

 

Thanks for the help! I have a custom BIOS from him already E1762IMS.10U, I guess I will have to get a new one, hopefully there is one for the GT70 OND-202US. Which GPU heatsink did you have to mod? I have the GTX675m so I am not sure if I have to purchase another version to mod or if the stock 675 one can be modded. Also, do you think that getting the 780m is worth it over the 770m, and my power supply for the laptop is 180W do you think it will be enough for a either?

 

Does anyone know if 180W PS that comes with the GT70 is enough to power the GTX970m and GTX980m? I am hope so because I want to upgrade to the 980m.

 

Yes at stock it should be fine.

 

1. Your power supply is the same as all of us have, and it is fine, its sufficient for any single gpu solution, meaning it can be used with geforce 480m\580m\680m\780m\880m\980m without any issue, beyond that I can tell you that there's a mode to convert a 230W dell PSU for our laptops but an electrical engineer from MSI spoke very boldly against doing such a mode due to risk of damaging the laptop.
2. geforce 965M, 970M and 980M use the new Maxwell architecture, which is worlds better than Kepler.
Kepler was used for series 600-800 as well as 960M and lower models of series 900.
It effectively mean that 780M is rebranded, overclocked, version of 680M, same goes for 880M.
In my opinion, considering the prices of all of this cards theres simply no point to upgrade to anything lower than 965M, with 970M being the king of performance rice retio and 980M simply being the king of performance.
And to your question: NO, it is not worth upgrading 770M to 780M, only scenario in which it could make sense is if you were giving a free 780M.
3. heatsink modding is required on all cases that you don't obtain an original heatsink from msi for the 970m\980m, if you get a heatsink of the 880m\780m there will be less places where some metal will need to be shaved off than if you get the heatsink of series 600.
I recommend getting a different heatsink than the one that came with your computer and modding that one, but if money is tight ... you can always just mode the one that you have.
As for what to mod, once you get the new card, just place it on the heatsink and see what interferes... theres some sticky parts (few millimeter height) that prevent perfect alignment... once you shave them off... its perfect fit.
As for how to do it: use some sort of a tool... it can be a metal shaving head for a drill or w\e else you have...

I recommend going back like good 50 or 100 pages and just read everything, will take you a while but will teach you everything you need to know as all of what you asked already been answered.

@Talon
Maybe add bunch of the info to Q&A section at front page?

 

Just saw that geforce 965m\970m\980m are going to gain support for mobile g-sync via driver updated.

But that there's a requirement to have an edp display in order to enjoy it on the laptop's screen.

Any idea if our 40 pin connector can be somehow converted to edp? :x

 

I have updated my BIOS to the lastes version 51B and also my EC version to Ver 5.17 . So all I need now is my 970m Card, and obviously mod the heat sink

 

You can buy the compatible heat sink from MSI GT 60 or GT70 2QD Dominator instead of modifying it.

 

where can i buy one? show me the link pls

 

guys, where can i get the 51x or 71x bios? thanks!

 

feelgeorge13 here it is the link: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-MSI-H...750?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f4c26dfe6

It says MSI heatsink for MSI Nvidia GTX 780,770,680,675,670, but if you see the images that show the heat sink from MSI GT70 2QD Dominator which is the only one that supports GTX 970M, and it's compatible with GTX 980M.

 

Svet on the MSI forums here: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?board=51.0

He does good work and will help via donation so give him a nice one. =D

 

I ordered one of these and it's going to be delevered today and it looks like there is only one left so you better jump on it! =)

 

Finally I made it!

Bought my 980m on Sunday (ebay, the clevo one) and I got it to work on my GT60

1) First of all, I upgraded the laptop to the latest BIOS and FIRMWARE, which I got from MSI page. Then I uninstalled all Nvidia Drivers using DDU.

2) Then I ordered all the tools I would use (Alcohol to clean previous paste, screwdrivers to open the laptop, 0.5mm thermal pads, some scissors/cutter to cut thermal pads, rotary tool).

2) Removed the 780m GPU from my laptop. The following pics show both cards (the 980m had an "X thing" downside, where some screws should be attached but I could remove them just by pushing gently. No heat gun or hair dryer used).


3) I used the rotary tool to dremel my heatsink. I'm not used to the rotary tool, so it took me about 10 minutes.


4) Tried to fit the card into heatsink and it did without any problem after dremel, so I proceed to install 980m just as I took the 780m.

5) Cut and applied all thermal pads and thermal paste.

6) Put everything into place again and close the laptop. Then pray (just a little )

7) Turn on the laptop and install Nvidia Drivers and wait GPU to be recognized. Mine worked with 352.86 drivers.

8) Finally I ran a firestrike test, Why not? with a little OC (applying +85 clock, +200 memory) and got these results: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5004812

Graphics: 10436
Physics: 8664
Combined: 3985
SCORE: 8750

Temps were as follows:
CPU MAX 77°
GPU MAX 65°

Theres's the comparison of some results with similar OC between both GPUs:



So now I'm very happy and I'll continue to do some testing with my new monster

Edit: Yes, now SteelSeries Engine works and my lappy is detected as a GT60 2QE. I didn't like it at all, so I'll stick with KLM.

 

Can you comfirm and let me know if this heat sinks work with your laptop? is this the right one?

 

I'll let you know when I can put it together. I didn't get the heatsink yet, it is sitting at the post office waiting for me to pick it up. I guess it needed a signature. I also don't get the 980m for a week or two as RJTech has them backordered until 6/11 or something. As soon as I get it together I'll let you know. FYI - I have a GT70 OND-202US.

 

what processor does your laptop have? because i am still on the fence about getting 980m as i have a 4700mq . I dont know if that will bottle neck it a bit.

 

It's in my signature the i7-3740qm. I never thought about anything bottlenecking and am not really worried about it. Here is a comparison of your and my cpu's:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-4700MQ-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3740QM

 

I almost did that too but it was just my 40th bday on the 3rd and said screw it happy birthday to me. In the long run a couple years from now I wont even miss that extra $370 bucks. The 970m is a good choice also though.

 

I will get 970m and pray to baby Jesus the next series is compatible with my laptop

 

Happy Birthday tooo you! Happy Birthday toooooo you, Mr president, Happy birth day to you!

 

I got the 780m heatsink now. Is the lower heatpipe supposed to be slightly bent?

 

I dont think so. The bent part attaches to your other cpu heat sink. See if they match up when you try to screw it in place

 

If not I guess I can just bend it... The box was pretty beat up. Darn it German-Post or USPS!!!!! Arghhh!!!!

 

Its just copper it will bend into place. Thank God its not your 980m card. what thermal paste are you planning of using?

 

Yeah I'll just be careful if I have to. I usually use Arctic Silver 5 on everything but for some reason this time (after reading on the best tested pastes of 2015 on the interwebs) I got Gelid GC-Extreme. I figured I'd try one that isn't conductive seeing as the 980m is so frickin $$$$! Alot will argue that AC5 is nonconductive too but since it has silver in it I don't see how it can't be. I've used AC5 forever and never had a problem and I probably won't see any temp difference between the two but I figured I'd try the GC this time. What are you gonna use?

 

Hello, sorry but is it alright if I seek for some consultants in upgrading?
I own a MSI GT60 2pc-831au with an GTX880M and I7-4910MQ
I have been wanting to upgrade to a GTX980M for a long while; and from my understanding, I need to follow all the basic instruction from the OP and I can do most of the steps instructed... but modding heatsink is beyond my capabilitities
But from the recent posts, I would like to confirm something again
If I was to obtain this heatsink, then I won't need to do any modification aside from standard swap/assembling hardwares right? Or do I still need to do some extra modification on some other hardware parts?
www.ebay.com/itm/271860555750?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
*Also just to be sure, my model can handle the GTX980m right?*

 

I am going to try
Prolimatech PK-3 - thermal paste

 

You have an MSI 880m which msi officially sells upgrade kits for. expensive tho..
The procedure is simple.. dont be scared
update your Bios to the lasted version, PLEASE READ msi website its very easy to update msi BIOS
Update your firmware -- also very easy
remove your heat sink and buy the drilling tool and remove the small metal obstruction from your heatsink
use thermal paste and install your card. hope this helps

 

FYI that thing is not use-friendly martial, ill explain:

I used the PK-3 for the first time for installing my 980M, before that I always used AS3 (yes... 3, not 5, get off your horse) anyways, AS3 is super easy to use, you just put it where you want it and bam.
However when using the PK-3 I found to my horror that it prefers to stick to w\e it is that you are trying to spread it with than to the heatsink or gpu's core.
That meant that whenever you had a surface covered by lets say.. 90% of it with the PK-3, any attempt to spread it a little further to get that last 10% of surface area would cause the entire PK-3 martial to fold on itself and onto your spreading tool.
That probably has to do with why its so thermally good, it just spreads really really thin (double really there), so thin that it just jumps to anything that touches it...

I actually had to go about it twice to get it done right (remove original paste > apply PK-3 > see not amazing temps > add more pk-3 > glorious temps ...)

So ehh... just keep it in mind and don't lose your sanity when it acts out on you.

I loved using arctic silver and I am simply not looking forward to using PK-3 in the future.

Like seriously, A friend of mine just bought a brand new high-end Dell workstation desktop computer, back in arctic silver days I would just pop that thing open and re-paste the cpu+gpu for improved thermal life, now? pff no chance, only as a last resort haha

 

I could not solve my problem already. My computer isnt working with both card. If i disable intel hd 4000 vga, nvidia is working. When i open intel vga, immediately going to black screen. What can be problem ?

LG-D802 cihazımdan Tapatalk kullanılarak gönderildi

 

I read about the PK-3 issues with applying it. At the end of the day if it does the Job then thats great. My 970m will come with an IC diamond but reading about how its scratches IC diamond causes with CPU,GPU.

 

I read somewhere that with those really viscous pastes if you warm them up a bit they are easier to work with. When I put my 980m in I was going to put the GC-Extreme in a zip lock baggie and warm it up in some warm/hot water before applying it.

 

Thanks I will keep that in mind.

 

Thank you for your response
Are you referring to this upgrade kit? I was under the impression from their tutorial video that this product is only limited to the GT72 model
www.hidevolution.com/parts/nvidia-gtx-980m-8gb-upgrade-kit-for-msi-gt72.html
I can't find any MSI released kit that state it is compatible with the GT60 line