How-To Installation on MSI GT72 6QE Dominator Pro G

nhasian · 2016-02-01 22:03:39

I had to jump through some hoops to get Arch Linux installed on the MSI GT72 6QE Dominator Pro G and wanted to share my experience to help anyone else that has a similar gaming notebook.

Please ensure that you have the latest bios and EC firmware from MSI's website here: https://www.msi.com/product/notebook/su … e=download

The latest bios will expose some new switches in the bios. Disable the switch labelled C-States. (Also disable secureboot while you are in the BIOS) Once you've disabled the C-States you will be able to boot normally.

This notebook has a physical hardware button to switch between the Intel and discrete (Nvidia 980m) GPU. While in windows, press this button to switch it from the default Nvidia to the Intel display adaptor. Now you will be able to boot from the Arch USB media. While the open source nouveau may be able to handle the 980m in the future, at this time you will need to use the proprietary nvidia drivers. Follow the absolute beginner's guide wiki to finish the base arch install and remember to install the nvidia package as well. Now you will need to boot back into windows and use the button to switch the display adapter in use back to the nvidia gpu. (Please let me know if there is a way to accomplish this from the terminal). Once you've rebooted again into Linux you can complete your install.

This notebook also comes with "Killer" Ethernet and Wireless PCI adapters. Neither are working out of the box with Linux at this time. I had to use a usb wifi dongle to get up and running and then got the internal wifi working afterwards.
The wireless NIC in my notebook is the Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32) Subsystem: Bigfoot Networks, Inc. Device 1535. It uses the Ath10k driver library which is included in linux-firmware. For some reason, the drivers in linux-firmware at the time of this writing did not work. As a work around I had to install two files into /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/ from FireWalkerX's github page here

sudo wget https://github.com/FireWalkerX/ath10k-firmware/blob/7e56cbb94182a2fdab110cf5bfeded8fd1d44d30/QCA6174/hw3.0/board-2.bin?raw=true /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/board.bin

sudo wget https://github.com/FireWalkerX/ath10k-firmware/blob/7e56cbb94182a2fdab110cf5bfeded8fd1d44d30/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin_WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1?raw=true /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin

The files you need to overwrite are /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/board.bin and /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin
Don't forget to make these files executable with sudo chmod +x /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/*

After you reboot then the wireless NIC will be working and you will be on your way to enjoying Arch Linux with your MSI GT72 6QE

Last edited by nhasian (2016-02-01 22:04:30)

graysky · 2016-02-01 22:05:10

You probably want to find a wiki page for this info rather than a forum post.

nhasian · 2016-02-01 22:15:50

Thank you, I have created the page here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/La … I/GT72-6QE

I will have to figure out how to make it prettier with the wiki markup later when I have more time.

windozupdate · 2016-02-08 11:07:24

Don't work for me

Arch Linux

#1 2016-02-01 22:03:39

How-To Installation on MSI GT72 6QE Dominator Pro G

#2 2016-02-01 22:05:10

Re: How-To Installation on MSI GT72 6QE Dominator Pro G

#3 2016-02-01 22:15:50

Re: How-To Installation on MSI GT72 6QE Dominator Pro G

#4 2016-02-08 11:07:24

Re: How-To Installation on MSI GT72 6QE Dominator Pro G

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