Laptop selectively using upgraded GPU

[Darth Hotpants]

Searched far and wide with no solution found yet. Laptop is an MSI GT60 Dominator Pro 3k running Windows 10. It had an 880m, which died, so I purchased a 970m. After a couple heatsink mods, I fired things up and windows recognized the new card with no issues. Once I started trying to test and game on the card, one main issue popped up. The laptop isn't switching to the 970, but seemingly only with Steam games. It also wouldn't switch to the 970 when attempting to run Furmark. The laptop DOES use the 970 with the Epic Launcher, and those games run very smooth. Here's a list of what the internet has suggested and I've tried.

 

-Attempted to make changes in the BIOS, but it's a bare-bones American Megatrends version from 2012, (MSI stopped support for my laptop pretty soon after release), and doesn't list any chipsets.

-Used DDU in safe mode with both NVIDIA and Intel gpus, uninstalled and reinstalled both drivers, but Steam games still only use the igpu.

-changed multiple settings within NVIDIA Control Panel to use the 970m as the global card. Also assigned specific .exe's to use the 970m.

-tried right-clicking game .exe's and selecting "launch with NVIDIA Gpu" option from the contextual menus. Still uses igpu.

-even tried disabling the igpu in device manager, (which I know is not recommended), to see if I could force the system to use the 970m for these games. This enabled Furmark to use the 970m for benchmarking, but Steam games either failed to launch OR in one case still used the igpu, (witcher 2 launched on igpu even with it disabled).

-changed settings in the igpu control panel, no change in behavior.

 

It should also be noted that the Epic launcher and games running through it DO show up in the NVIDIA activity monitor. Nothing from STEAM, or Steam itself, have ever showed up in the monitor.

 

Any help or advice? All I can think to try at this point is a windows reinstall and hope that somehow corrects the issue. Thanks to all who made it through this post!

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Darth Hotpants said:

Searched far and wide with no solution found yet. Laptop is an MSI GT60 Dominator Pro 3k running Windows 10. It had an 880m, which died, so I purchased a 970m. After a couple heatsink mods, I fired things up and windows recognized the new card with no issues. Once I started trying to test and game on the card, one main issue popped up. The laptop isn't switching to the 970, but seemingly only with Steam games. It also wouldn't switch to the 970 when attempting to run Furmark. The laptop DOES use the 970 with the Epic Launcher, and those games run very smooth. Here's a list of what the internet has suggested and I've tried.

 

-Attempted to make changes in the BIOS, but it's a bare-bones American Megatrends version from 2012, (MSI stopped support for my laptop pretty soon after release), and doesn't list any chipsets.

-Used DDU in safe mode with both NVIDIA and Intel gpus, uninstalled and reinstalled both drivers, but Steam games still only use the igpu.

-changed multiple settings within NVIDIA Control Panel to use the 970m as the global card. Also assigned specific .exe's to use the 970m.

-tried right-clicking game .exe's and selecting "launch with NVIDIA Gpu" option from the contextual menus. Still uses igpu.

-even tried disabling the igpu in device manager, (which I know is not recommended), to see if I could force the system to use the 970m for these games. This enabled Furmark to use the 970m for benchmarking, but Steam games either failed to launch OR in one case still used the igpu, (witcher 2 launched on igpu even with it disabled).

-changed settings in the igpu control panel, no change in behavior.

 

It should also be noted that the Epic launcher and games running through it DO show up in the NVIDIA activity monitor. Nothing from STEAM, or Steam itself, have ever showed up in the monitor.

 

Any help or advice? All I can think to try at this point is a windows reinstall and hope that somehow corrects the issue. Thanks to all who made it through this post!

Can you try updating the BIOS? 

 

Supposedly newer BIOS doesn't need any driver "hacks" anymore. 

 

Just asking because you said it's from 2012..so there might be a chance!? 

 

 

[Darth Hotpants]

Oh for sure! Though I'm not quite sure where I should get the update from, since MSI apparently decided they didn't need to provide any BIOS updates.

 

Also the "2012" could just be my ignorance talking, especially since the laptop itself was built 2-3 years later. I got the "2012" number from the bottom of the BIOS where is says "American Megatrends 2012." I doubt that means the BIOS itself is from 2012, but maybe just that BIOS design originated then. It's the old-school type of BIOS that looks like its from an old semi-monochrome CRT or something. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Whiro]

1 hour ago, Darth Hotpants said:

Oh for sure! Though I'm not quite sure where I should get the update from, since MSI apparently decided they didn't need to provide any BIOS updates.

 

Also the "2012" could just be my ignorance talking, especially since the laptop itself was built 2-3 years later. I got the "2012" number from the bottom of the BIOS where is says "American Megatrends 2012." I doubt that means the BIOS itself is from 2012, but maybe just that BIOS design originated then. It's the old-school type of BIOS that looks like its from an old semi-monochrome CRT or something. Thanks for the suggestion!

Try disabling igpu in bios , system not gonna have other option than to use dedicated gpu.

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, Darth Hotpants said:

Oh for sure! Though I'm not quite sure where I should get the update from, since MSI apparently decided they didn't need to provide any BIOS updates.

Me neither, but I found this - it's possible you already saw it but either way it seems they have the BIOS you probably need and the thread is still active so you could just ask. 

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-official-msi-gt60-70-970m-980m-upgrade-thread.765058/

 

 

4 hours ago, Darth Hotpants said:

Thanks for the suggestion!

Np!

 

2 hours ago, Whiro said:

Try disabling igpu in bios , system not gonna have other option than to use dedicated gpu.

Seems like a good idea too,  perhaps! 

 

[Whiro]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

Seems like a good idea too,  perhaps! 

I always have good ideas  

But to be honest I just thinking what I would try to do in that kind of scenario 

[Darth Hotpants]

I FOUND THE FIX!!!

 

Have to give LTT props, (and the suggestions from you guys, I really appreciate them!), because I happened to find the solution in the video where Linus uses the dedicated crypto mining card to game, (wasn't even looking for the solution there, just watched the video for fun). In the video, Linus went into display settings -> graphics settings (red text 3/4 of the way down the page). Afterwards he, (and then I), browsed for the .exe's of the games, (I added steam.exe as well), and selected the option to use the high performance graphics for each game .exe. For some reason, windows and steam listen to this particular option and none of the others. All my Steam games, (that I added the .exe's for), now use my new 970m!

 

Anyway, hopefully this helps some other people! I've sifted through a lot of random forums here and there looking for a answer and have come across several other people with this issue. Thanks for the help again guys! I know I just recently posted this issue here but I've been looking for this fix for a while now.

 

Woohoo!

[Whiro]

7 minutes ago, Darth Hotpants said:

I FOUND THE FIX!!!

 

Have to give LTT props, (and the suggestions from you guys, I really appreciate them!), because I happened to find the solution in the video where Linus uses the dedicated crypto mining card to game, (wasn't even looking for the solution there, just watched the video for fun). In the video, Linus went into display settings -> graphics settings (red text 3/4 of the way down the page). Afterwards he, (and then I), browsed for the .exe's of the games, (I added steam.exe as well), and selected the option to use the high performance graphics for each game .exe. For some reason, windows and steam listen to this particular option and none of the others. All my Steam games, (that I added the .exe's for), now use my new 970m!

 

Anyway, hopefully this helps some other people! I've sifted through a lot of random forums here and there looking for a answer and have come across several other people with this issue. Thanks for the help again guys! I know I just recently posted this issue here but I've been looking for this fix for a while now.

 

Woohoo!

I’m glad you managed to fix it

[Darth Hotpants]

16 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Me neither, but I found this - it's possible you already saw it but either way it seems they have the BIOS you probably need and the thread is still active so you could just ask. 

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-official-msi-gt60-70-970m-980m-upgrade-thread.765058/

 

 

Np!

 

Seems like a good idea too,  perhaps! 

 

Oh and Mark it was actually this post that let me know I would most-likely need to modify my heatsink with the upgrade. Thanks for finding it though!

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Darth Hotpants said:

Oh and Mark it was actually this post that let me know I would most-likely need to modify my heatsink with the upgrade. Thanks for finding it though!

Yeah I figured,  but since they were talking about BIOS updates I thought maybe u didn't see it... 

 

Anyway yeah that's a curious fix,  glad you found it! 

 

I've also seen that or a similar video from LTT but I didn't really make the connection there could be a fix for you,  but it makes sense I guess

[Darth Hotpants]

Hehe, yea, it makes as much sense as a fix as I suppose it can... which isn't much. And yea, I didn't notice that part about the BIOS on that page.

[Mark Kaine]

7 minutes ago, Darth Hotpants said:

Hehe, yea, it makes as much sense as a fix as I suppose it can... which isn't much. And yea, I didn't notice that part about the BIOS on that page.

So you *didn't* see it! Lol  

 

Well anyways I wouldn't recommend to update the BIOS in this case at all since you got it working and who knows what a new BIOS would mess up again

 

also where did u get that GPU from? I clicked on the link there it said "404 error not found"  haha.

 

Not that I'd wanted to upgrade my laptop right now but it'd be good to know just in case lmao. 

 

I don't even know if it would work with my laptop (probably not)  

 

[Darth Hotpants]

For sure, now that I got things figured out I leave everything as it is! It's definitely weird that this extra step is now required to get things working properly, but it's pretty minor all things considered!

 

I ended picking up the card on ebay here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-970M-Graphics-GPU-Card-6GB-N16E-GT-A1/143444381304?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

Seller is great and offers quick communication, (I contacted him prior to purchase because I wanted the card to arrive by a certain time). Oddly enough most of the 880m cards I found were between $200-300, so the upgrade only made sense so long as I could get it working.

 

I wasn't sure if the new card would work, but figured there was a good chance considering the form factor and that other people have had sucess. On other note is that many people who have upgraded say they needed to edit their driver's .ini files. I didn't have to do this, not sure why. I also had to modify the heatsink with a dremel tool for one of the power rails, (or whatever chip it is), to fit. For whatever reason NVIDIA decided to subtly move a couple things. NVIDIA also moved another small chip just outside of where it would have been covered by a part of the heatsink, so I used my dremel to file down a small aluminum heatsink to bridge the gap. I used thermal paste to act as a "glue" to hold the piece in place. Here are some pics I took: