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

Hello DaddyJ!

You should get at least 5.5k at 3DMark Firestrike, but you will probably feel some fluctuation in the FPS.
I got this issue when I upgraded to my GTX 980M.
The BF4 was fluctuating between 30 and 60FPS, but the GPU utilization was going up and down.

It took me some time to realize that the problem was the i7 increasing and decreasing the speed, while in full speed the game was smooth (60FPS) right after some seconds the lags almost kill the gameplay (30 or less FPS).

The solution was pretty simple, I locked the CPU at a desired speed, my problems were solved.
Before locking my CPU speed my Firestrike score was 6.5k, after locking it at maximum speed I got more than 7.5k.

The program that I use to control the CPU speed is ThrottleStop.
Give it a try, I believe that you won’t regret doing it.

 

Hi guys. I introduce myself. I own an MSI GT60 2OC-419XES (Spanish version). Right now my pc has:
Win 10
BIOS E16F4IMS.51A
EC 16F4EMS1
I7 4800MQ
GTX 770m
32 GB DDR3L
1x 750 GB HDD
3x 128GB SSD (Super raid) added later

The first say that I have trouble with English, I'm Spanish. I followed the forum very closely. I want to upgrade my 770m to 980m. but I have some doubts. In my case, I have everything updated(bios and EC), only Plug and Play?

 

Thanks for replying DMTwo - And thank you for awesome guide that I used to get those Nvidia drivers installing!!

Quick question - 5.5k in firestrike is what I should look for? My 3dmark score is over that already so I'm getting decent performance? Will look into getting that CPU speed locked.

Thanks!

 

Hey guys. You could try doing something else: either set the power profile in windows to "high performance" or with the latest dragon gaming center a shift mode should appear in the options. If that's the case you just set it to "turbo" and that forces both the cpu and gpu at full speed. I play games this way and don't notice any out of ordinary performance fluctuations.
I'll post the latest dragon gaming center once I'm in front of the pc (replying from mobile right now)

 

Oooo okay - That would be great felix.... I can try and get that setup tonight.

 

Also Introducing myself
MSI GT 70
Mine is a gtx 670M 3GB GDDR5 and I don't know my Vbios version, Help! I want to install a 980x
i7 3610qm, DDRIII 12GB, SSD 120GB and 1TB 5400 rpm
SSd raid is worth?
Other question If my GPU is 3GB can I upgrade to a 6gb or 8gb GPU?

http://postimg.org/image/3o7dxuzi3/
I'm using windows 7 but my sister own a windows 8 and upgrade to 10. Sincerely It just worth it(my opnion) if you have touch screen? Can I get it from an Ipad? How we change the monitor to Touch in Gt 70?
Mine is also a i7 3610qm and I'm happy to find a lot of people doing easy upgrade.

DaddyJ Nice to know about your situation

felix3650

DMTwo When I used to play NFS The Run I do not ThrottleStop I just restart with 1 core at msconfig So I could get maximum performance from 1 core. What else we can do?

 

Eh bud,

Would you mind showing the throttlestop settings to lock the cpu speed to avoid the speed fluctuation? Thanks

 

This is what you get with the latest Dragon Gaming Center:


On gaming sessions I do enable the "Sport" mode. When you extract the zip file and install the software it installs Intel XTU too with the profile already created. So no need to mess with XTU settings

As for the software itself you can get it from here:
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GT80-2QE-Titan-SLI-5.html#down-utility&Win10 64

The GT80 one works perfectly. It's the same software

 

Hi Guys - This issue is now resolved for me so thought I would post the solution in case it helps anyone else.

I tried to use dragon gaming center and it didn't work unfortunately.

In the end Throttlestop was the solution. I simply set it to run at the clock speed my CPU is rated at. My Intel Core i7-3610QM is rated at 2.3 mhz. I set the multiplier to 24t to keep it at just over this number. FPS within my games stays nice and stable.

My CPU runs at a constant 60deg when gaming, which is 100% fine but I suspect throttling was kicking in as it reached that temp causing my original issue?

Anyway happy gamer here with a steady frame rate. Thanks you everyone for your help!

As a side note, looks like 3dmark wasn't a great bench for this type of tuning as running it with the my new throttlestop configuration made no difference to the result. In hindsight that makes sense as the issue is more with a fluctuating CPU clockspeed not necessarily the GPU

 

Glad you had the issue solved

 

Can you upload the New Doom, gta 5 or some fps game to see if it's worth gtx 9xx?

 

first thanks for all the information. the latter, this upgrade is compatible with htc lives?

thank you all for the forum, it is very useful

 

Hi Omega!
Well I don't have a perfect configuration, I got my new CPU, a i7 3840QM, which let me to have higher clocks with lower temps, but I realized something very sad in my case...
Do you remember that I told you sometime ago that my room for overclocking was limited? and I was suspicious about the power brick?

Now I kind of make sure about it, I can run only 1 core at max speed, with 2 cores I get near maximum...
Let's exemplify it, testing only CPU, with one core (2 threads) running at 100% I can get the 3.8GHz, but when I start to increase the power consumption of CPU it's very difficult to keep the multipliers high.
At a full load test, all cores with all threads running at 100% I can't go further than 2.8GHz.
When I start to test the GPU together the clock speed also fluctuate by power consumption.

I tried to flash the EC-FW without throttling recuced, my laptop shut down twice, right on my face!
I reverted to my T18 modded by Svet which I have never get this issue.

Probably I don't have enough juice to feed the beast.
Unfortunately in Brazil is not very easy or common high performance laptops, in this way is very difficult to get a 230W power brick, to test if it can help me with this problem.

I run some tests and my score with 3DMark now is 8k without any overclocking, and just pushing a little bit the CPU+GPU I got 8.5k, but with lower temps that I used to have.
Your combination let you push much higher overclocks due to less power required by 970M and also because you are feeding properly your beast.

Some ThrottleStop tips:
NEVER activate BD PROCHOT, it screw your performance when CPU and GPU loads rise, it will make any game unplayable;
Flag EIST, without it there's no control over the multiplier control;
Set multiplier as you want, I use 4 preset configs, High performance (everything possible), high performance (3.0GHz), Standard performance (2.8GHz) and low performance (1.5GHz) to web surfing and torrent seeding.
In options there's a value that can make some diference, it is the PowerSaver C0 level, I set it to 10% in my system.
Everything else I left as default.

Sorry for the delay to answer you, I was moving from an apartment to a house, but know I'm fine, the hard work is done...

You can push this i7 a little further...
The 2.3GHz it's the stock clock, the Turbo boost can go up to 3.3GHz (1 core) 3.2GHz (2 cores) and 3.1GHz (3-4 cores).
In my case I got better results with 3.1GHz in benchmarks, but my CPU got really hot, usually hotter than my GPU, My system never shut down by temps, however I got a CPU 95ºC, after that I only set full speed with really cold days.
I strong recommend testing your system to know it's limits, each CPU/GPU hardware is unique, so the results are also unique, of course we have a average, but there's only one way to know it.

Now that I have a new CPU I can get higher clocks while the temps are lower, in my new tests my CPU never got over 88ºC, even overclocked to 4GHz.

 

Okay guys so I been watching this thread for awhile now. Finally took the plunge and bought myself a GTX 980M from ebay. Guy said he got it for his Alienware. Looks like a Clevo to me. It has blue color PCB board not green. Looks like there might already be a MSI vBIOS on it according to GPUz. Says BIOS version 84.04.35.00.05.

It is installed and working right now. Drivers install fine. Problem I am faced with is my fan is running 100% speed all the time when using external monitor. Is there an updated version of the vBIOS I can use. What software will let me flash to it? NVFlash keeps giving me errors about PCI ID when I try to flash with it.

Code:

WARNING: None of the firmware image compatible PCI Device ID's
match the PCI Device ID of the adapter.
Adapter PCI Device ID:        13D7
Firmware image PCI Device ID: 1617
WARNING: Firmware image PCI Subsystem ID (1462.1140)
  does not match adapter PCI Subsystem ID (1462.1131).

ERROR: GPU mismatch

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks guys

 

The answer is very easy...
You have a 980M-G Sync, the vBIOS that you are trying to flash is from the regular 980M.
Try other vBIOS of 980M-G Sync, the PCI ID is 1617 for G Sync and 13D7 for regular version.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Looks like it says the Adapter (card) is 13D7 and I am attempting to flash 1617? So the opposite of what you said. The vBIOS I downloaded was from MSI site for a different model. It's gSync. I dunno where to find the non gSync vBIOS for the 8gb GTX 980m. I been searching for weeks. Any Idea where a copy of it might be?

 

Sorry I quick look at your post and didn't paid attention your hardware ID...
You can search at TechPowerUp BIOS Collection: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...TX+980M&interface=&memType=GDDR5&memSize=8192
I'm sure you will find a version that can help you.

 

I have a Clevo 980m non-gSync version. If you want I can make a dump for you and upload it

 

That would be perfect! Thank you. Did you flash it with MSI vBIOS or is it the stock Clevo? I really need the MSI but could use Clevo as well if you have it for backup.

I just keep finding the gsync version of the MSI vBIOS for the gtx 980m 8gb model. I am guessing yours is 8gb?

Thanks!

 

I have both the Clevo and MSI non-Gsync 8GB versions



Clevo vBIOS:
https://mega.nz/#!nBEGQJDA!wP3Uq39AXdLvMFRlAlBRC4aRcOM6cLk2MAtr3ptIDY0

MSI vBIOS:
https://mega.nz/#!bR1ilbYb!tTfQ-eBEH-EceQhd1ikzsFS65-zqrjem6KQZ3EW-ACQ

The card is running with the original Clevo vBIOS. I had no need to flash it to the MSI one as it was plug-n-play (after updating to the latest BIOS & EC)

 

Oh that's great! Thank you very much. I think I have the latest EC and BIOS but I don't really know. I have GT70 though which uses different EC and Bios than your GT60?

 

GT70 technically speaking uses the same BIOS and EC but there are differences in checksums and naming IDs. You could cross flash but the checksum would fail..just check on the GT70 support page. If you have the latest it should be plug-n-play. What generation cpu do you have? I'm assuming a 4th gen Haswell

 

I have 4th Gen yes. I've installed the latest EC and BIOS from the support page. Reguardless of my vBIOS card seems to be working fine plug and play. The issue I am faced with right now is my fan is running at full speed whenever using external monitor.

From what I understand the EC controls the fan speed based on GPU temp. The dragon software also reports the temp the EC sees. After 5 or so min the temp jumps to some crazy high false amount in Dragon software then reports NA. While its reporting true temps it works fine with the fans. After burner and games report true temps reguardless not sure how they get the temp info I just know dragon gets it from EC.

MSI after burner reports true temps for GPU so do games I run that have gpu specs to display. But EC for some reason quits reporting the temp all together so fans just max out until I unplug HDMI.

Trying to figure out whats the deal grrr. Just reinstalled windows didnt install dragon same issue at hand. Then later intalled to confirm the patteren and it continues.

I have latest BIOS, EC, and vBIOS (thanks to you). I'm wondering if there is a particular EC version or BIOS version (modded or otherwise) that can help resolve this probelm. I seen forum posts with others having same issue (I never used external monitor before gpu upgrade so not sure if issue existed with my old 770m gpu but I assume it did) with total stock hardware some new out of the box.

It's fine while gaming to run full speed but I am not comfortable with it during non gaming use and leaving computer running and having fan possibly fail sooner than it should due to consistent 4500-5000rpm.

I have MSI GT70-2OC but now with 980m GPU, 32gig ram, 2 2.5" 1TB ssd and stock i7 4700mq CPU. Latest drivers installed for all hardware on fresh clean install of Windows 10 with no extra software besides the ones from MSI support utility page and Overwatch game.

 

You can try to reflash and clear the EC. You remove the battery and disconnect the power cord and leave it for about 5-10min like that. Sometimes the EC in-memory mapping gets stuck to certain values and need a clearing. If that doesn't work you can try if it behaves normally with this software I'm putting:

https://mega.nz/#!3ZkX1SqI!yC8AxkmwTBwEQzuPAAZ4Ds7hQqgGVcp-6tpxg-YNjD0

 

Hey guys / Omega,

You've helped some months ago to get my new GTX970m to work for Windows 7.
Since the end of the free upgrade is coming I was thinking of going for the Win10.

If I would download the latest Nvidia driver for Win10 could you modify it the same way you did in december?
(or does this work in Win10 properly?)

 

Free upgrade is too expensive for that POS OS. Why did you need help getting it to work on WIndows 7? It must not have the MSI bios? Mine was plug and play.

 

My laptop is is an MS 1761 so pretty much an MSI GT780DXR (with a GTX570M) just with a custom BIOS. The BIOS upgrade for that was pretty old. (or I've been told)

What do you mean by too expensive?

 

I was being sarcastic, since I hate windows 10, hence the POS reference. Sorry, I was referring to the bios on the card. I also forgot to mention, that I have a system Bios customized and unlocked by Svet from the MSI forums. Bought my 970m from Woodzstack on ebay. So he flashed an msi bios to the card before he shipped it to me.

What problems are you having with your card?
I see that you need a modified .inf file for your driver to work and install correctly? I

 

Yeah I've talked to Svet also and he unlocked the latest BIOS for my barebone.

Currently I have no problem with the card. It's working well with the INF file that was modified by Omega here.
However I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to Win10 while it's still free. That's about it. So I wondered if I can get the latest Win10 nvidia driver INF modified the same way so the video card would run smoothly under that new operating system also. (if it would even work properly under a different OS)

 

I have heard that Windows 10 updates drivers automatically with or without your consent. Whether that is true or not, I do not know.
Have you opened the inf file with notepad, and looked at what it says?

 

On occasion yes, especially after a new install, it starts downloading and installing up to a certain point, you have to do and defer updates and play with it a bit to get it to stop. It will download drivers too, up to a certain point, and that point keeps changing.
For my upgraders using MSI that is usually fine, Clevo's too. Alienware's not so easy...

 

LOL, why ? You were curious or have two different laptops ?

 

Ill piggy back on this.

I have a GT70 with the 970m with SVL7's Clevo based bios(worked perfectly in Windows 7) and I have tried every single driver section where 13D8.xxxx.1462 is found in the latest Nvidia driver and not one will allow the installer to install successfully on Windows 10.

 

I'm hoping to upgrade my Clevo P150em from 7970m to 970/980m. @woodzstack can you PM me re: getting hold of a card?

I am also unsure if I can use the heatsink that came with the laptop (which cools the 7970m)?

 

Yes, sure. Check Inbox.

P150EM is fine. The heatsink you have is the same as the new ones, there is very small differences but none you need.

 

So I was able to get the driver from here:
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/31491-geforce-36825/

Installed successfully but in order to not have it fail every time I had to disable driver signing in Windows 10 and to also disable the automatic driver update.

I ran DDU to strip out all the drivers. Then installed the intel first, followed by the Nvidia. Everything completed successfully. But optimus does not work.

I am about to go back to Windows 7 unless someone can tell me they have been able to successfully run the 970M on Windows 10 in this laptop.

 

Seems like you did the hard work for me. Sounds sad.
Not that I have anything against Win7, it works well, but would had been good if we can use a newer system.
I also await anyone who can tell how to make 970m work on Win10.

 

First one
I have a GT60 and upgraded to a 980m. Its a Clevo card (which I backed up the first vBIOS from) and prepared the MSI vBIOS in case it would give me trouble with modded drivers and POST issues.
Instead it worked perfectly and the only mod I did was with the heatsink.

 

mine Is PnP now .. ask @DM two. he can mod your vbios for your vcard to be PnP in any OS. No modded inf needed. Pm him or if you're so eager. go to prema's website. he also got pnp vbios for msi gt (ivy bridge and older proc's) older laptops.

 

Hi Subil!
What version of Intel i Core do you have?
If you have 3rd generation or below, I have a procedure that can help you with standard drivers from nVidia web site and also automatically downloaded and installed by GeForce Experience.

Take a look at this tutorial I made with Omega's help.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-and-play-drivers-gt60-70-ivy-bridges.789799/

If you have any doubt or support please let me know, I'll answer as soon as possible.

 

Very cool. You figured out how to modify the vendor ID in the bios directly so it appears to the driver as one of its compatible cards. I was thinking about t this when I first upgraded my laptop in December and was surprised no one figured it out then. So good on you. I saw prema built upon your idea and issued a modded bios.

Ill leave this here for anyone that wants one of his. I installed it just now, works flawlessly. Including optimus in windows 10.
https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/9723-vbios-mods-msi-prema-mod™/

 

Hi there, Not sure if this is the right thread so if its not please forgive me. I have a MSI Force 16f3 with a GTX 780m in it, This was upgraded from a 670m a while back and i am looking at yet another upgrade since this machine has treated me well over the years. Is it possible to upgrade the 780m to a 980m? I believe that both cards have the same power requirements, but im not entirely sure if the 980 runs hotter and if there are bios updates that would enable me to use this card.

 

@madiqhertz - The 980M does not run hotter; the Maxwell architecture does better on heat than the Keplar (7xxM series) did. Firmware is the issue here, though; you may need to hunt down a modded BIOS and/or vBIOS to make the 980M work, if it will work.

 

980M probably works only with 51X/71X BIOS. http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-official-msi-gt60-70-970m-980m-upgrade-thread.765058/

 

Hello, this is my first post here and I wonder if you can help me:

I have two MSI GT70: 3Gen and 4Gen, each on win10. I would like to upgrade one of these with GTX970m (6GB, Clevo, VBIOS: 84.04.22.00.13). Is it possible to use card with modded drivers as it is, or should I first flash vbios?

 

Hey guys look what I found https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...exp-gdc-beast-win81-bungermin/#comment-140754

 

Omega939 - Your's vbios version is the same as my, so I guess there shouldn't be any other problem. Have You tried install it with win10?

 

If Nvidia's official driver has added the support for Clevo ven id then it will work, otherwise you will have to mod it to allow plug and play driver to detect the graphics card.

 

Hey guys,

I tried to get DMTwo or anyone in that other thread but so far I got no response.
I'll try to look at that Prema's mod, I am hoping it does work for Sandy bridges as well.

edit: ok so as far as I understand I need to flash the GTX970M_6GB_MXM_OC_PM_v2 Bios for my 970M 6GB Clevo card from here: https://biosmods.wordpress.com/gtx9/
After that I suppose I need to reinstall the stock nvidia driver. Or actually since I am upgrading to Win10 I just do that and then install the driver. Is it this simple?? Or am I missing something?

 

once you've downloaded prema's vbios for GT60/70 either of the two vcar (980m/970m) and if you've successfully updated the vbios, everything is plug and play for the NVidia driver. You don't need the mod .inf just to install the latest drivers.