--->The Official MSI GT780/GT783 Owner's Lounge<---

Yea. My laptop is on very very often. Does that affect it? I mean, it probably should, but I'm not sure to what degree. I turn it off maybe 3-4 times a week for a few hours at a time, but rarely is it turned off a whole night.

Right now it's been on for probably 55 hours. And my idle temp is at 75C for GPU, and 60-65 for CPU. And only thing running is skype and a browser. How often should I turn off the laptop? And for how long at a time? Does it even matter? Again, thanks for all the help

And also, how can they "prove" that I opened the back? By that sticker? They already broke it, and didn't put on a new one, I got it back broken after a repair. So I could argue that it's open because of them if I, god forbid, have to used the warranty again.

 

different countries have different warranty rules, you should look up or call about the rules for your area. You need to fix your temps running your computer like that will just cause premature failure on everything. If your not comfortable doing it yourself you need to send it in again for warranty or take it to a shop to have them apply the thermal paste. If you continue to use the computer with those temps something will be damaged if it has not already.

 

Try closing Skype and your browser to see what that does to your temps. You may find one of both of those programs are causing those temps, so if you leave your computer on while you are not using it, learn to close the applications that cause the extra heat.

 

Alright everyone, I am due for a clean install of windows and now is the time to upgrade to a SSD if I want to do it. Here are my questions...

1. I am looking at spending $100-150 on a SSD for a 120gb system drive. What are the current recommended options at this price range?

2. Will I see a dramatic increase in speed vs. my current RAID 0 array with two 750gb drives? Worth the money?

Thanks in advance.

 

It's my recommendation to get an SSD of 240GB to 256GB.(save up more money if needed)

This size is the sweet spot of SSDs and offer superior write speeds.

The SSDs with MLC toggle nand memory or MLC synronous nand are much better than those with asynronous nand or TLC nand.

You'll usually pay more for recently released SSDs than older models.

The best of the newest are the OCZ Vector and Samsung 840 Pro.

The Crucial M500 is due out very soon with reported lower prices.

Before you remove the hard drives that are in the Raid array you should open the Intel Raid Utility and break the array making the disks as non member.Doing this will make them unable to boot but will allows less problems when using them later as boot drives or storage drives with the bios set to AHCI instead of raid.

Installing Windows on an SSD is basically the same as onto a hard drive.

I recommend starting with all other drives removed,the bios set to AHCI and installing Windows from a USB flash drive.

See the post linked below:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi...t780-gt783-owners-lounge-498.html#post8177509

 

1) ocz vector, samsung 840 pro, sandisk extreme, in 256gb is the sweet spot. anything below you'll just endup burning through the drive sooner rather than later. remember the more free space you have the better it will perform and the longer it will last.

2) oh yeah, ever heard of the speed of light ? lol, well ok maybe not that much but compared to HDDs it's night and day.

Sure enough you'll see dramatic speeds, this gen of SSDs goes up to 540MB/s, at best your raid array can do is 160-180MB/s but the real bench to focus on is in the 4K benches, where as HDDs can do maybe 0,05MB/s if that, SSD/s can do anywhere from 10 to 50MB/s in the 4k segment, that means its fast.

not to mention the bragging rights to your friends sitll on HDD

let us know what you choose

 

Looks like I will have to shell out a bit more cash I guess. Between the OCZ and Samsung it seems the Samsung has the upper hand?

 

The OCZ Vector has better write and that would be my choice if I were buying a new SSD today.

About 80% of daily disk access is small file reads and writes with most being 512K or smaller writes when measured with Microsoft diskmon.

The large sequential numbers you see in synthetic benchmarks is important about 1% of the time.It's the 4K write numbers that are important.

 

I ended up going with the Samsung 840 Pro, seems the OCZ disk has a less than optimal record with drive failures. It does seem to be fixed by a firmware update but I doubt I will notice the difference and the Samsung is supposed to be more efficient so seems better for notebook duty.

Now onto the technical stuff...

I already have all my important stuff backed up on an external drive so I am good to go there. When I get the drive I will break raid and shut it down, pull the drives and install only the SSD (seems like this is the recommended method). Now to switch over to AHCI do I need to switch to the non raid BIOS? I have my windows installer on a flash drive ready to go so that isnt a problem, I have read some conflicting info on installing Intel RST before Windows or after...Anyone have any input on that? I also have all the driver/utility installers ready to go on my external drive.

Anything else I will need? Anything specific to the SSD (its my first one)?

 

no you don't need to flash with the non-raid bios, there's an option in the bios itself in your machine to set it to AHCI, but you should go through the proper procedure to remove HDDs from the raid system.

Bios flash can be dangerous so don't attempt it unless there's an actual problem that can be fixed in an upgrade.

its always best when you flash to check in what mode it is in afterward, but other than that there's no need to flash.

Also you don't need to install intel RST drivers either, in tests i've done on this laptop, they won't do much if you're not in Raid and may actually slow down your boot a second or 2 i've noticed.

Here's what you should do: backup your raid to an external hdd if you have the room, then break your array, and restore the image on one of your disks, or just install windows fresh on it, its faster.

This way you have a functional windows to work on your SSD and a free hdd bay. install it in the 2nd bay and go on the samsung website, register your ssd, then download the samsung magician and it will tell you of any firmware available, there's one in december. update the firmware if need be.

Also set up your windows 7 usb key before breaking your raid, in the manner whatsthepoint instructed in his tutorial, i've done it several times and it works fine and faster than cd. Doing it with the cd is fine too, if you want to do the recovery method. But you are allowed to download a real win 7 iso and use your win 7 key under the battery aswell. i find that way gives a nice lil boost in speed to the system, just imho.

 

Smart Batteries maybe ain't so smart.

Today,out of the blue,the icon in the tray displayed a red X and suggested I buy a new battery.

This was a problem error message in the original Windows 7 release but was supposed to have been fixed in Windows Update.

I run W7 x64 w/SP1 and all applicable updates.

I'm always on AC Power but run on battery once a month to discharge an charge the battery plus I run the MSI Battery Calibration Utility about every 3 months.

My battery still charges to 100%.

I ended up just clicking on the red Xed icon and disabling message.

Anyone else get this yet?

My GT780DX is almost 18 months old and is on an average of about 6+ hours a day.

EDIT:right now it shows 100% and not charging when I place the mouse curser on the icon.

 

I think my recharges to 97%, but haven't got what you are speaking of. Though I have my battery in at all times, even if I have AC power on. So I have probably "ruined" the battery some, as I have had the laptop for 14 months, and on probably 15+ hours a day on average.

Also, I opened the laptop up and it was dirty as hell. Temps are a lot better now after cleaning. I applied new thermal paste just to be sure as well. I now get about 80 C on CPU while gaming, and 65-70 C GPU while gaming. That's ok, right? Watching movies/browsing/streaming, I am at about 40-50C GPU and 50-65 CPU.

 

WTP: haven't had that battery problem yet, had it for 14 months. i do calibration when i remember, which is probably 3 times in 14months. i just set me a reminder in email calendar. the battery calibration program should popup atleast once every 3 months on its own, or windows man center should advise it. that would be a good thing to remind.

bigbadVuk: temps look good. nice work on the paste job.

 

hi guys is possible to install mainboard gt70 nin a msi gt 780?

 

Yup, this looks decent. Good job on the thermal paste.

 

Thanks guys! I might have ended up giving myself another problem though When I took out the thing ( ) that covers the cpu and gpu, one of them had a bent "isolation", and I think we (got a bit help from a friend that had the right screwdrivers) forgot to check if it was covering everything ok when we put it back in, because now the right side vibrates quite much, especially when I rest my hand on the side where the fan is. That sound is annoying as hell! So now I'll have to try to do it again when I get a hold of someone who owns the right screwdriver

edit: Can't really hear the vibration when it's just standing there, but as soon as I touch the comp I hear it very well. It's a really annoying humming noise, and I feel the vibration in my hand when I'm writing... sigh.

 

Not a huge issue. You might have missed out on a screw or two, it should hold tightly otherwise.

 

Might be a false alarm. I wonder if it's not actually just my table. Because it stopped once I put it on another table. PHEW.

 

never before seen in gaming notebooks.

 

it may have stopped on a more level table but you still may want to go in and make sure everything is tight, do you really wanna risk something breaking because of a loose screw? :thumbsup:

 

You'll get some vibration at times if there's a disk in the optical drive,the screws holding down the fan are not tight or a hard disk drive is spinning up or spinning down.
________________

The battery red X icon issue is gone by unchecking the reporting box in the popup window.

I just surfed the web for 4 hours and 2 minutes before the 100% charged battery was exhauted and shut down the notebook

I have my power options set to to warn at 10% remaining and 5% to shut down.

This is the popup screen.

 

good to know WTP , plz keep an eye on things, maybe it just means your battery is starting to fail and might have a few months left in her.

i'd be curious to see how long it lasts from this point on.

 

that is weird WTP, usually if the battery is failing there is usually charging issues at the very least....is it or did it charge ok after the use?

 

It charges and discharges just fine,

This may be just a Windows 7 issue because it doesn't happen on my Windows 8 Pro x64 or my Windows Blue x86 build 9364 installations

It started after my latest clean installation of W7.

I reinstall about every 3 months or less,

I'm on Windows Blue right now and it's OK.

 

windows blue? is it avail to anyone? i'd like to try it

 

It's a leaked 32 bit build.

The Official Windows Blue Preview will be released to the public in June at the Microsoft Conference with the final version in the fall.

It uses the 6.3 kernel compared to 6.2 of Windows 8 so a lot of software doesn't work correctly.

IE11 is included in the build but no option for a start button,in fact the 3rd party apps like Classic Shell and Start8 that bring back the start button don't work.

The Windows store is also not working.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/713281-windows-blue-build-9364-leaks.html

(Virtual) Hands-On with Windows 8

 

thanks man, i've been looking fwd to this.

reading the hands-on blog, ok so our dear desktop has taken a turn for the worst huh?

How does that work out in real world?

i have legacy apps from xp i need to keep working, for real. this is how i make my living, will they work on blue or not ?

i'm a couple days away from getting a windows 8 tablet from asus, is this my last best bet at a working environment? i'm not getting a thumbs up from the company that makes my work (independant) software that they'll be handling win 8 or above with this, i need to know if blue handles old apps. i know i can always find a cheap win 7 tablet but i'd rather have the latest and greatest if you know what i mean.

IE10 messed up some of my work in the few days i had it installed on win 7 coupla weeks ago, but i nuked that right away since it didn't play nice with some sites i partner with.

Looks like i'll have some vm testing in the next few weeks to make sure everything works.

The more they change things, the more they mess things up for the rest of us. thanks M$.

anyway thanks guy, i'll be checkin this blue out in the next few days, i always like to play with new toys. Here's hopin they play nice with me Well considering its just a minor bump up from kernel 6.2 to 6.3 i won't get my hopes up too much, wish they'd just give us what we want yunno ?

they'll be prying win 7 from my cold dead hands or (god help us) windows 8 since its still got the desktop, sort of

lol

 

just reading more on blue, Why Windows Blue heralds the death of the desktop | PCWorld

it just sickens me to think what mess M$ is making for us.

i'll be keeping win 7 if you don't mind, and TG real version can be still bought at various tech stores like ncix and newegg. just fyi.

 

Used my GT783 for a year and a month now still rocks hard

I usually clean my whole computer by opening the back panel and use a dust blower ( a Camera lens blower using pump ) every few months or the temperature go above what my seller says

Last week i encounter playing games 95c degrees so i clear out the dust and the temperature went 15c lesser

 

WTP: is there a procedure for thorough cleaning of the laptop ?

i always do around the heatsink and the grills but just wondering if we need to do more

 

I only did the heatsink fins , the fan , and the back cover

IT really helped lowering the temperature

There are more dust in the fans but it is risky to dismantle something you do not have experience with.

My friend did dismantle it and went overheat because he did not place the heatsink tight

 

yep you gotta put things back as they were.

last month i cleaned the fan thoroughly with Qtips, got rid of all the dust on it, its a pretty clean system anyway but that needed to be done.

i was wondering more about the fins themselves , maybe pipe cleaners could get in the tiny space between the heatpipe's fins.

idk what else to clean, under the mobo and keyb. that's been done too last month.

 

I'm into the bottom of the notebook so often that I don't secure it with the 7 screws.I only snap it in place.

Besides blowing out the vents from the inside using a can of air I also remove the little screws holding the metal plate on the fan and clean the fan blades with a small brush.

the other part that gets cleaned often is the keyboard.Every time I turn the notebook over to get into the bottom it leaves a lot of dust and crumbs so I regularly blow out the keyboard with a hand squeeze lens blower.

I clean the screen with an eye glass cleaning cloth that has a bit of distilled water on it.

I use a larger cleaning cloth with the distilled water on it to clean the keyboard keys and surrounding area plus the top lid.

My notebook looks the same as the day I received it since it has only been out of the apartment twice.

 

no screws on bottom, yep
blowing out vents from inside, i do that too
clean the fan, yep i just use Qtips and rubbing alc.
keyboard, it gets dusty once in a while, i do that too, with out the lil pump for the keyboard tho, i just use a cloth. i never eat over it, this thing is clean as a whistle.
same for the screen, or a swiffer on a stick. its just dust.

i can't imagine a laptop with a touch screen, that things gotta need cleaning everyday lol

good stuff, ty

 

I usually use an air compressor with a spray nozzle I made for cleaning dirt out of the intercooler and radiator on my suburban. I just remove the bottom and hold the fan still and BAM everything shoots out from where it came with the $3-$5 cost of those cans which in my opinion don't work well enough

 

3-5$ ? they're up to 11$ now,

 

well thats just insane......you can buy a decent small compressor w/spray nozzle for the cost of ten cans then lol

 

A fine long brush

 

I usually buy them when a shop in one the the electronics market buildings has a special 3 for $5.00 special on a generic brand.

Each building is about 4 floors with a hundred 10'x15' shops on each level.

The electronics/computer area is about a 10 minute drive from my apartment complex or 3 stops on the subway.

The MSI notebook service center is on the second floor of a 2 story build in the heart of the electronics center.

 

Well, update on my GT783. RMA called and said that everything's fine with it. The GPU is not faulty, it must be windows that's doing it. I said bull, since I did a fresh reinstall of Windows 8 and it did the same bloody thing when playing games.
They explained that they ran their own OS and an Nvidia tool to test the card for 30 minutes and everything was fine... I can't even get my money back for my laptop! I have a piece of tech that can't do what it is meant to do, it has turned into a 4 Kg netbook...

 

remind us in a nutshell what the problem was?

 

The laptop would restart when playing games. First it was 30 minutes into the game or a bit more, if not an hour. Later it turned into almost straight away where I start a game. A minute in and it goes down.
I checked the RAM, all seems to be fine. The temps were fine too.
Later it started happening off games too. While watching youtube videos. Of course not as often, but once every few hours for sure.
I then, as advised by a board member here, disabled the GPU through the device manager and then no restarts, of course I could not run any games, just watch vids.

When it first happened the night before there was no update or no install, nothing. It all ran fine, I was playing BF3 and before that a few hours of GTA 4, been doing a 5 year group anniversary meet, was also streaming it. But once I put the laptop to sleep mode. Next morning it started doing that straight off the bat. First game of DOTA 2 I played it just died on me.

From then on it just got worse. I was running Windows 8, latest updates. I even reinstalled Windows 8 by formatting, but nothing changed. Did malware and virus scans, but not a single problem was found.
It seemed that it was the GPU alone that was acting up, and they denied it by just running an Nvidia tool on their portable outside OS for 30 minutes.

Also through event viewer it seemed like a BSOD, though I would no get a BSOD, just a restart. All it said was it recovered from an unexpected shut down.

 

I hope that does not happen to me, because that is exactly what mine was doing and I told you about disabling the GPU. My event logs which will be there if they did not just format upon arrival show all my reboots since the fresh windows install, just no BSOD. this worries me severely right now......WTP go get a status for me! lol I really hope I don't get screwed here, I had to sell some of my belongings just to send the thing in. ugh....

 

lt_yao : ok now i remember.

And they ran some tiny windows on a stick and say its fine ? have they tried with your windows ? They should run your windows and find if anything is wrong.

if it was your power brick the battery wouldn't charge. its disappointing that they can't see the problem, let them play the video game , if it crashes they'll see it.

can ask to get a new gpu maybe or mobo since its supporting the gpu?

 

These issues sound like power problems to me but I'm only guessing since I'm not sitting in front of your notebooks.

The only things I can think of quickly is to make sure your power option is set to High Performance and set to "never" turn off everything while on AC power in the options.

Also in the bios disable speed stepping.

Disable hibernation and don't let the notebook sleep if you have a SSD.

 

Yeah for my particular issue I did all that before I sent it in. I think that mine and lt_yao's went to different repair facilities, so honestly all I can hope for is someone looks at my event log to see there IS an issue before just chalking it off.

 

i'm thinking maybe its some component on the motherboard, a capacitor or something like that on the mobo that's starting to fail. intermittent is very hard to find. i'd just as soon replace the whole mobo and gpu. why take a chance to get the problem back at home.

lt_yao: well they have a week to test it, tell them to keep it powered on the whole week and check the logs for reboots every few hours.

could there be some kind of power line fault or spike in the house where you live?

brownouts when the fridge turns on ? stuff like that. my printer does that so i had my wiring redone in the house and plugged the printer in another room on another circuit. some old houses just don't have the juice for heavy duty electric demands.

 

Yeah,the motherboard would be my main hardware suspect.

Testing the wall outlets for power fluctuations may be something to look into.

I've been to the MSI notebook service center here twice with my notebook.

Nice courteous people.

Walk in and walk out with your notebook repaired or parts in hand.

It was only to buy parts that they won't sell unless they can scan your bar code and the parts are for that model.

I bought a hard drive bracket kit for $10US and a spare AC Adapter for $75US.

I tried to buy a Super Raid adapter but they wouldn't sell it to me because it wasn't an option for a GT78x

I think it would work with a single mSATA SSD in it?

 

They seemed to have done a very lazy job. Yeah, they ran Windows off a stick with some Nvidia software to stress the card. I also suspected it to be either the power problem or a problem with the mobo. They did not seem to try my windows, they did nothing.
So a family member picked my laptop up and did a few tests with it with games, none of them crashed in 30 minutes of gameplay. I'd reckon maybe the thermal paste went onto the transistors on the GPU or the CPU, or whatever they might be called. If they changed it then maybe that got cleaned up and working fine. Though when I talked to the guy who was doing the fixing, he said he cannot remember whether he changed it...
They were very quick to dismiss any faulty hardware without actually checking for it other than running the Nvidia tool and windows off a stick...

 

I have had the same issue as ShadowGearX with my MSI GT783. As a result I have sent in my laptop for repairs in the UK. My issue was that the laptop would randomly restart while playing a game (few seconds or up to an hour in the game), browsing the internet using Firefox, reinstalling Windows with the F3 feature, or doing absolutely nothing. The temperatures had little effect as the restarts could occur at about 60 degrees on GPU/CPU/Thermal. The most frustrating aspect is there is no way to diagnose this issue due to the randomness and no memory dumps made, unless of course you have spare hardware to use process of elimination. Before I sent the laptop in for repairs I replaced the AC adapter at my own expense but still had the same issue.

My laptop was sent in for repairs on 20 March, a technician tested my unit and requested a part on March 26 (I do not know what part as yet), and was advised yesterday that the part was received yesterday (2 April) to be installed and tested extensively. I will update you with whatever details they can provide concerning the cause of the problem if and when I get them.