MSI GT660R with GTX770M

[jonc]

Hi all,

Sorry for a new thread, I've spent the last few days and evenings trawling the web to try and find some answers but haven't really got anywhere, so I was hoping someone cleverer than me could possibly help.

I have an old MSI GT660R, running windows 7 x64, which originally had the GTX285M and I was looking for a GPU upgrade, after reading on notebookreview forums someone saying the 770m worked, and that I was able to pick up a 770M for a very reasonable price compared to any other cards on ebay and so thought I'd give it a go.

So I've fitted the card, the laptop posts fine and starts booting windows, showing the logo, after about 10 seconds the screen goes white. Booting into safe mode however works absolutely fine, device manager recognises and shows the card so I think ok must be a driver issue, easy. I've since downloaded and installed the most recent whql drivers (335.x I think without checking) they install fine, reboot but same issue, blank screen - this time it was a dark green colour though...

After more searching, I found a similar issue supported on alienware machines, and the suggestion was to disable the HD auido, without any further guidence the only place I could find to disable this was in device manager, so I booted back into safe mode, into device manager and disabled nvidia HD audio, rebooted but back to the white screen after the starting windows logo.

I've also read about moddifying .inf files on the driver (again this was for alienware machines) but that potentially a modded vBios means the inf mod isn't needed?

Any ideas, I like trying to get things to work - the hardware at least appears to be working ok (as safe mode works fine) or should I just give up and resell the card?

Thanks a lot in advance,

J

[Diablopol]

Hi,

Did you install any driver, or just windows detect the card and install driver?

About modify .inf file - all depends what kind of card did you bought / what kind of vbios is there. (stock, from what laptop)

You can either mod the driver, or use different vbios (proper for laptop) so mod drivers will not be needed.

If your windows detect card without any problems, for me it looks, like vbios is correct..., changing the driver will not destroy anything...

Maybe there's a problem with resolution. Try to change it in safe mode, and than reboot windows.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my opinion.

[jonc]

Thanks for the reply,

the card was from ebay, just advertised as "for MSI Clevo Alienware" unless there is anyway of telling from the physical card where it's from I'm afraid I don't have any other information.

I've installed the 335.23 WHQL drivers from the Nvidia site, if I uninstall the driver (in safe mode) and reboot windows successfully installs and recognises it as a 770M, just with an earlier driver version.

Hmmm so I could be completely wrong in my first post, when I went in to safe mode to change the resolution it appears that the display isn't actually using the 770, just "default monitor" if I go into advanced and then adapter properties it calls it "vgasave" which I've never heard of but I'm guessing it is using onboard graphics.

Any other clues? If windows recognises the hardware any reason it can't use it?

[jonc]

Just been searching again and have seen that people recommend having a 180w psu to run a 770m, as I still have the original 150w psu does anyone know if this could this cause the blank screen effect I'm seeing?

[Diablopol]

In safe mod, main graphic driver is not working, as in normal mode.

vgasave - you can find that this is graphic card driver issue.

All this saying me - fight with the driver.

Card is from different laptop, so vbios is not for MSI, so driver might not work properly (that's why windows doesn't start to normal state with driver installed)

For me, it looks like driver doesn't work properly with this graphic.

As I see, after deleting driver in safe mode, after reboot, without driver, it goes to normal mode and detect graphic card and install driver and reboot, after that it goes again to safe mode, Am I correct?

If so, don't install any driver after reboot. Make sure, you totally deleted existing graphic driver.

download driver which you want for graphic card, and mod it. (inf file) (There's lot's of info how to mod a driver)

For now, I suggest to try with modded driver.

Modding driver will not damage your card, so it's safe.

Before you go to flash vbios, you should read/ask some other posts/people.

Good Luck

[jonc]

Tried doing the inf driver mod, interestingly the 770m wasn't in the list, added it in and then reinstalled the driver but still the same issue, although this time the screen was light blue in colour! I've ordered a 180w power supply to see if that makes any difference.

[jonc]

So I tried doing the inf mod as per this guide (Nvidia INF driver modding (Guide) - Guru3D.com Forums) and installed fine, but on reboot same issue, blank screen of one colour.

Reading that guide though it mainly seems to be useful if the driver doesn't recognise your hardware but the driver did by default before modding the inf file.

Interestingly the inf file didn't actually have the GeForce GTX 770m in the card list before I modded it...

[jonc]

I've now tried installing 320.49 drivers with a modded inf file the svl7 uploaded in a different thread and the hardware is not recognised so it won't install. Under the black plastic that surrounds the GPU chip the actual card has the MSI "MS-XX" model number so it is an actual MSI card which as far as I know means that I shouldn't need to flash the vBios. Is there anything else I can try (unlocked mainboard bios perhaps?) or am I just unlucky - most places I look say that the 770m is compatible with the 16F1 mainboard, could I possibly have a duff card?

Thanks again in advance for any hints or help!

[Klem]

Just flash this vbios and all be ok.

http://forum.techinferno.com/attachments/general-notebook-discussions/9585d1384710662-msi-770m-80.06.54.00.11-oc-edition-rev02.zip

[Inches]

I'd be careful with that vbios Klem listed. I used that on mine and it caused my card to lock up while gaming. I looked into the vbios with Svet vbios tool and found that the power target on it was practically unlimited. I had the same results on a 150, 180 and 240w power supply. The one that I have up in a thread on here is the stock MSI vbios and I had no problems with it locking up.

Not to say that the vbios @Klem listed isn't good, but that was my experience.

[Klem]

I'd be careful with that vbios Klem listed. I used that on mine and it caused my card to lock up while gaming. I looked into the vbios with Svet vbios tool and found that the power target on it was practically unlimited. I had the same results on a 150, 180 and 240w power supply. The one that I have up in a thread on here is the stock MSI vbios and I had no problems with it locking up.

Not to say that the vbios @Klem listed isn't good, but that was my experience.

Ok. Just post here the link with stock MSI vbios GTX 770M for jonc.

[Inches]

Here it is:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16122407/MSI.GTX770m.GK106.rom

[jonc]

Thanks for the help guys, I was a little wary of flashing a new vbios because I have an actual MSI card, but finally got it sorted hazzah! no idea what changed in it to make it work but I flashed the update 30L mainboard bios from the MSI site and it booted straight into windows. The sound then stopped working but a audio driver reinstall fixed that thankfully!

So now all up and running with the latest 337.something nvidia drivers, at least the 770m does actually work with the 16F1 mobo.

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions, great forum