Gt72

[Trisha Quercioli]

OKfirst off, I am not sure on what sub-forum to post this, so please forgive me if this is the wrong place, and for the admins, if you have to move this to another (correct) place, sorry for the extra work.

Let me start with the preliminaries:

In December of 2015 I bought a MSI GT72 Dominator, which came with an Intel Core i7-4720hq CPU, and a NVidia MXM GTX 970m (with 3GB vRAM) GPU. At the MSI Global English forums, I requested an unlocked BIOS and a modified vBIOS from Svet, which worked very nicely. I ran the 970m overclocked and modest overvolt using NVidia Inspector using different profiles for different applications, and with XTU I ran de CPU with the +2 extra it allowed me on the multipliers for the CPU.

The computer was awesome. But I wanted more graphical power. So, from the old NBR forums, in December of 2016 I bought a GTX 980m (with 8GB vRAM) from Woodzstack. I also got a modified vBIOS for this card from Svet at the MSI forums. This one I ran overclocked too, with varying amounts of frequency and overvoltage depending on what game I was playing (like the 970m).

I kept the computer clean from dust (it's extremely dusty over here), and changed pads and thermal paste twice (at the beginning of 2022 the last time) just to make sure everything stayed clean under the heatsink -- and it was absolutely needed considering the amount of particles in the desert air over here. I also added some extra storage with a couple of SSD's and eventually a 2TB HDD to replace the original 1TB one. I had done a mod to have two HDDs, but I was never happy with it, so I went back to a single HDD but with double the capacity that I mention.

The thing is, the computer was running very well. Until it didn't one night near the end of May of this year (2022 for posterity's sake). I was playing Elden Ring, which ran reasonably well on my laptop, and I only had a moderate overclock and overvolt on the GPU. But in the middle of playing, the system suddenly stopped. The power supply brick was hot, but not hotter than what it gets during a couple of hours of playtime considering how warm the night was. I let it cool down, and as it was about to start, again it stopped.

Several hours after, whenever I plugged in the power brick, the LED indicator on it turned off whenever I plugged it into the laptop. I realized it was overcurrent protection. The system wouldn't boot on battery either, of course. It didn't take me too long after opening up the notebook that the GPU was the culprit. The brick's LED would not go off when I removed it. I still had the original GTX 970m, and when I inserted it in the MXM slot, the computer would boot -- that's the card it has right now.

OK, the 980m was dead. It served me well for more than five years. I could live with that. (A couple of days ago I was looking at it more carefully, and I believe I found the culprit of its demise: a short circuited capacitor in one of the VRMs -- if the core was not exposed to a high voltage, who knows, maybe the chip itself is still in working order. I'll do some tinkering with a hot air station once I get one.)

But, again, and as I don't have enough money to get myself a new notebook, but I had enough money for a new MXM card (they have gotten cheaper, finally), and I still want a bit more graphical power, I decided I should FINALLY go for a MXM GTX 1070 -- even if it is a "Chinese Frankenstein", as someone from NBR once called it, if I don't abuse it it should still be a nice upgrade (so I thought). I found them on Amazon -- of all places. So I ordered

(As a side note: please, don't advise me to instead cobble together a desktop: it won't really be that much cheaper, and I want to extend the life of my notebook: it can still provide me with a decent amount of service and fun.)

I got the MXM GTX 1070 card after waiting for about a month (I ordered it mid June, I got it around the 18th of July). It looked in good condition. But once in the laptop, these were the "symptoms"

1. With the 1070 in place, the notebook doesn't want to turn with AC/DC power brick. The LED on the brick DOES NOT go off as with the defunct 980m by simply plugging it in before start-up, rather it goes off a second or a little less after I press the power key, so at least there isn't an obvious short circuit somewhere.

2. The notebook DOES TURN ON on battery alone with the 1070 set up -- the battery is NOT the original battery, but a substitute I got about a year and a half or two years ago, and it appears to have quite a bit of capacity left. And yes, the charger does charge the battery even today.

3. When turning on with the battery with the 1070 installed, the screen stays black, and it doesn't really go anywhere after turning on -- the notebook stays on, but it doesn't seem to reach or go past POST. And yes, I've tried changing the BIOS startup to UEFI+CSM, Legacy, and UEFI alone.

4. The system turns on using he iGPU regardless of which MXM card is in the slot.

5. I have done some tests with a DOS boot USB stick, with the 1070, the 970m, and the CPU integrated graphics, with it booting only with the latter two -- I put some tasks like renaming a file on the AUTOEXEC.BAT to see if it gets that far with the black screen, and no, it doesn't reach that point with the 1070, but it does occur with the 970m and the iGPU.

6. I got myself a CH314a chip programmer with a 1.8V adapter, and some clips to re-flash the vBIOS chip of the card without removing it, which I did last night by putting in an official GT72vr vBIOS from the MSI site. (I figured the board is close enough to the board of the GT72, so it might work.) The vBIOS on the chip was different from what the MSI one. With HxD stating at offset AE0 I can see that:

So, I don't know if there are any suggestions. I am worried something may be wrong with the motherboard of the PC, but it seems to be working fine with either the iGPU, or the 970m. I've done some preliminary testing on the board of the 1070 itself, and there don't appear to be any shorts in it. I don't know if the problem may be the exact vBIOS of the card, or some setting I should change on the motherboard BIOS to at least get it to boot. I realize I may have to use a modded driver to actually take advantage of the card, but if I can get it to load with the Windows 10 default driver it would be a start.

(Yes, I can still return the card, but having to wait for a few more months for a replacement will be extra annoying, and not a guarantee that it actually would work: getting something from China to Mexico -- where I am at -- is a pain in the behind -- a dull, slow pain, and not the kind of pain someone with a few kinks might enjoy.)

By now, I have tried flashing several different vBIOS with a programmer (the CH341a with a 1.8V adapter), and some clips (I'm not going to be de-soldering and soldering back the IC chip). I have to use a programmer, as I DON'T have access to another computer with a MXM PCI-e slot. That has been slow, as I have to remove the card every time to reprogram it -- I don't have another computer at home, and I can't do this at work, as that would require carrying quite a few electronic things and tools back and forth, and that would be an enormous hassle.

Well, first I tried the vBIOS from the MSI webpage for the GT72vr; however, that one is a GSYNC vBIOS, so another member of the forum (thanks @solidus1983) was kind enough to provide me with another that wasn't GSYNC. But unfortunately the symptoms described above did NOT change. Well, almost -- I'll get back to that in a bit.

Then I went I tried other MSI mobile vBIOSes found at Techpowerup's VGA Bios Collection -- I did have to check some of the "unverified uploads", I will admit that. Again everything was almost the same.

Here's what was different:

The LED indicators on the notebook did flash, (but the computer still would only work when on battery alone, just as before), but also as if the computer was reading from the drive as it went from POST into Windows -- I tried blindly writing down a password (my system doesn't go into Windows with a default user: I'm moderately paranoid -- sue me if you think it's wrong ? ?) But I don't think I made it into Windows, though. I don't know if it was going past POST and failing, or I just simply mistyped something, as I couldn't see the screen: it was still black from the get-go.

Then, just a few hours ago, and as half-hearted attempt at a Hail Mary, I decided to try a Dell vBIOS, seeing as the PCB was what Dell used -- I tried a vBIOS for an Alienware 17 R5 (I should've tried something a little older, but I was just fiddling around). And a couple of more things were much different.

For starters, the power brick did not turn off: the system booted with the brick, not just with the battery. That was certainly very different -- the system was powering the way it should. However, the fans were behaving oddly: they spun up to the max after a couple of minutes or so (that was also happening before, so that didn't really surprise me).

But this time I knew for a fact the PC went into Windows -- before doing this, I had verified exactly what to press, and when, so I could enter my password even with a black screen -- and when the Steel Series keyboard lit up, I knew I was there (the keyboard only lights up after I log in). It even had sound -- fiddling again with keys, I knew I was trying to access something and (not seeing the mouse to click on an unseen option) I could hear the Windows chime of pressing something incorrectly. To quote an unsure Homer Simpson "Woo... hoo?"

Well, not being able to do more, I knew the system was "aware" of the GTX 1070 card, but did not "know" what to do with it, so I had to do some more digging, and for that I needed my computer -- again, more "surgery" on the machine to change back its graphical "brain" to something that was working.

So here comes the bit that has me perplexed somewhat:

I changed back to the GTX 970m that had/has been working fine -- but something weird happened. The MSI splash screen at POST was there, I could even check the system's BIOS -- my mind was going "it's ALIVE!", together with scary movie monster music in my head -- but when it tried to go into Windows the screen went black immediately. "Uh-oh," I thought to myself, "something's not right here."

3a8082e126