MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro's Owner's Lounge

The other big fun thing to do, is to undervolt

Skylake is fed too much voltage by default - makes'em stable so the builder doesn't get lots of service calls.

Anywhere from -25mv to -200mV+ has been reported as stable for a Skylake undervolt.

Not sure if MSI added undervolt tuning option or not to the latest Gaming Center version, but you can install the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility front end to set the CPU undervolt and CPU Cache undervolt - start out with both the same at -25mV, and work your way up (down really) in offset (undervolt is a negative offset).

You will likely need to back off the CPU cache undervolt - keep it at that stable value - and continue adding undervolt to the CPU core.

That will bring down CPU temps as well.

You just got the thing, and have a lot to explore and learn - maybe that fan boost isn't 100%, look to the CPU / GPU fan custom settings, and at some point you can remove the training wheels (Gaming Center), and use MSI Afterburner for GPU fan and OC, and Intel XTU for CPU OC manually.

Also, and here's another big one.

Use Rivatuner to limit frame rate to your screen refresh - 60hz? And, that will go a long way to dropping CPU and GPU temps for games that are running faster than 60 fps.

Again, everything you have said tells me things are running normally, I wouldn't worry about anything.

Re-pasting may drop temps a bit, but nothing that will make a difference at stock BIOS/vbios tuning, and offer no usable improvement in game FPS.

Especially when you start limiting frame rate - it will wash away any OC /tuning gains (except for undervolt), and lower temps all at the same time by unloading work from the CPU / GPU.

BTW, when you re-paste a laptop with enthusiast paste you are married to continuing to do that for the life of the laptop, every 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months to keep the temps low. The MSI paste is tough and won't dry out, or need re-pasting - which is why MSI sacrifices a little temperature for long unattended service.

These new GPU's are so hot running and fast, I wouldnt really worry about OC'ing them, and if you have a 6700HQ undervolting is about all you can do on a stock BIOS.

Oh yeah, MSI and Asus tune their fan curves for low noise, and let the CPU / GPU stay warm. You need to make custom curves if you want to get the fans running more to drop temperatures - but there really is no need to.

 

Thank you for the detailed reply @hmscott as always!
I'm just surprised that this laptop is struggling so much, just having chrome open with 1 tab and my inbox open, doing absolutely nothing, i see the temp stabilizing around 73 degrees :| and the fan whirring, with like 10% CPU usage.
I think at this point I just need some of the other owners here re-assuring me that this is what they're observing on their machines.

(BTW setting the power mode to Eco is the only way to keep that temperature graph stable. In Sports & Comfort mode, it's more like a real time CPU usage graph with temps jumping from +- 20 degrees every second).

 

12.5% is 100% of one core out of the eight cores, so that's a single threaded full load, so to speak, and so that's gonna generate heat over the whole package and spark the fan up audibly.

It's the Windows 10 "Stealth" operations. Run with the Performance monitor open, view and sort by CPU usage and another dialog viewing Read / Write sorted by highest usage, and widen the "Folder"/"Location" tab so you can see which files are being read/written.

It takes a while with a new laptop for all the software to stake it's claim, create indexes, and "phone home"

Don't forget to disable all the crap you can... does MS still have that leaching P2P sharing of your bandwidth to distribute updates and drivers to other Windows 10 "Suckers" nearby on the internet??

Make it a game, find the complete set of information leaks and reports - collect the whole set and Win!!

Or, downgrade to Windows 8.1/7 and gain resources back.

You're not a good Windows 10 user candidate, you are noticing too much

 

Hey guys! Got this laptop approximately a week ago, but still haven't unboxed it yet!

I was thinking of clean installing Windows 10, just so I wouldn't have to deal with any bloatware, etc.

Are there any issues with not having Dragon Center, Geforce Experience, or any of the MSI applications installed? I plan on tinkering with the dGPU using afterburner, as I have experience with that on my desktop. I have heard terrible things about GFE 3.0, and I really want to stay away if possible (and install drivers manually).

Additionally, I am a bit concerned with the whole "stuttering" issue that is so widespread across all laptops equipped with Optimus. Are there any specific workarounds for the time being? I have read about keeping certain programs open in the background - what programs work?

Thanks!

 

Wish I could find some comparisons of the 63VR side by side with a 43. I'm almost tempted to get the 63vr with a 4k screen but worried about battery life and heat but the thinness of it is great, wondering if I can put up with the ~inch longer laptop for it being thinner but I cannot decide what to do!

 

@stekorghif, I can tell you that my CPU temps at idle are usually between 40 - 50 C. Right now I have a single Chrome tab open, and it's 43 - 44 C. During a 5-hour playthrough of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on mostly high settings, the average CPU package temp was 65 C, and the max CPU package temp was 71 C. This is after I had undervolted the CPU by -160 mv (I've since gone further and undervolted by -170 mv), but even before I undervolted, my CPU temps weren't much higher than this. Granted, I did have the reseller apply IC Diamond Thermal Compound and I do game on a metal mesh laptop stand, the latter of which can help bring the temps down around 5 C. Still, your CPU temps seem quite hot compared to mine. I stupidly ran Prime95 for 2 hours a couple weeks ago, and the temp mostly stayed below 80 C - and I've never done anything to make the temp reach 90 C. I'm not sure why yours is running so hot

@whd5015, a number of different workarounds on the microstuttering issue have come up - some work for some owners, others don't. @hmscott compiled a list of posts of workarounds in another thread, which I've supplemented below with some additional workarounds:

--
One user came up with a workaround to keep the 1060 dGPU active all the time so as to stop the microstutters. Another user came up with a similar solution:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/msi-gs43vr-phantom-pros-owners-lounge.793376/#post-10345154

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...os-owners-lounge.793376/page-47#post-10345305


Another user mentioned doing 3 things: (1) Using the Nvidia Control Panel, setting the dGPU ("High-performance Nvidia processor") as the preferred GPU, (2) setting certain applications to preferably work with the dGPU, and (3) installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/posts/10349132/


Another user said that simply using Windows 7 instead of Windows 10 gets rid of the microstutter:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/posts/10349152/


Another user, who kept Windows 10, was helped by (1) using the Nvidia Control Panel to set the dGPU as the preferred GPU, and (2) setting it to maximum performance:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/posts/10349354


An earlier solution was to uninstall the Elan touchpad drivers and use the Microsoft generic drivers (but Windows 10 automatically reinstalls the Elan driver):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...os-owners-lounge.793376/page-47#post-10344723

To help the Elan driver from automatically reinstalling, another user posted a solution to stop Windows 10 driver updates:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...os-owners-lounge.793376/page-47#post-10344748


Another workaround uses NVI (Nvidia Inspector):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ros-owners-lounge.793376/page-3#post-10344237

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...os-owners-lounge.793376/page-46#post-10344255


And an owner that got rid of stuttering by uninstalling Nahimic:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...vr-owners-lounge.795277/page-21#post-10347286

 

Just to update you guys on the micro stutter issue, it does appear to be gone after selecting the NVidia GPU as the default card in global settings in the NVidia control panel, as well as setting it to maximum performance and not optimal performance. I also uninstalled Intel rapid storage, but not sure if that really had any effect or not, I believe the GPU settings did.

Laptop feels much better now, and I am very happy with it.

 

Yea this is consistent with the previous GS43VR that I had which had other issues.... but I remember the CPU temperature hovering around 80.
Barring any breakthroughs in the next couple of days that would fix this, I think I'm going to return it and start looking for another laptop, which is a shame because I really liked the form factor and the feel of the laptop.

@rondocap @SirGadden I'd appreciate if you could share your experience with temp readings in general, and more specifically :
- Do they fluctuate a lot (in Comfort mode and Sports mode) ?
- Do you feel like your fan is constantly running ?
- If you have Prime95, what CPU temps do you get after 5 min of running it etc

By the way, I've been noticing that Dragon Center reports 25% percent CPU usage while idle whereas task manager reports ~ 10%...

 

I'm using the latest afterburner (also tried Nvidia Inspector) and cannot get any gpu O/C settings to stick.
In game I am always at the base clock speeds...I have disabled Gaming Center.
Any ideas?

 

Nevermind...apparently it's hit or miss...
I tried a few other games and was definitely getting higher boost clocks.
3dMark Vantage however is definitely not...

 

Did you reboot after installing MSI AB/RTSS and XTU?

You probably need to uninstall the MSI Gaming Center completely - to stop/uninstall the background services, then reboot, then install XTU/AB - try uninstalling them all one at a time, rebooting in between, then install XTU - reboot - then AB/RTSS.

IDK which version of MSI AfterBurner/RTSS supports Pascal OC, you might need to find a beta - poke around the MSI site - support pages for new Pascal GPU's - desktop and laptop - to find the latest one.

Someone said they used EVGA Precision X beta, but that was early on. I'm pretty sure someone mentioned OC'ing Pascal with MSI AB/RTSS.

Anyone wanna post what they are using for GPU OC with Pascal laptop 1060 / 1070 / 1080's ?

 

@hmscott So I downloaded hwinfo and I'm seeing that my cpu is throttling within a fraction of a second of starting the test. Temp stabilizing at 88C as mentioned before and clock at 2.4 Ghz due to throttling...
Is this normal ?

Edit: Actually scratch that, even playing dota 2 for 3 minutes is causing CPU throttling ! I'm pretty sure I have bad hardware

 

Or a really bad paste job or something. I tend to agree, that doesn't look right at all.

 

Can't see the image, NBR!!, maybe later.

Remember you need to give time for the fans to ramp up speed - instantaneous load is more likely to thermal throttle until the CPU fan has time to ramp up and cool the package down.

Run full / Max / 100% CPU / GPU fan when doing heavy duty testing like this, or wait 4-5 minutes for the heat to build, the fans to speed up, and the CPU package to cool down to stable temp.

I can make any CPU thermal throttle when working against it's best features - like silent operation - fans that are programmed for quiet vs cooling are the norm, so don't use this "feature" to justify pulling it apart to re-paste, really - don't fool yourself - that kind of thermal throttling isn't "real"

If the long term temperature is 88c, that's not bad. And, it's not dropping to 2.4ghz because it's "throttling" it's dropping because you don't have 100%/100% CPU set for Power Plan - if you are using Gaming Center it's like trying to tune with a wet noodle, no solid control. The CPU when set at 0%/100% will drop the CPU mhz when the load doesn't demand it.

You might also be "power throttling" as the laptop CPU's after 8-28 seconds of 100% CPU load will drop down to the 45w power limit, and at that limit with the right tuning you should be able to sustain 3.5ghz. More on that later if you want to learn how (start CPU cores tuned to 3.5ghz instead of stock or OC settings, that will allow you to massively undervolt).

Improve cooling by lifting the rear, getting a cooling pad and replace the fans with high volume ones, cool off your room - open the window and let some fresh air in at night to cool the house - and close it up during the day during the highest heat times - learn not to burn

If you have a bunch of hardware building heat in your room, consider venting hot exhaust outside, and get a portable airconditioner to get the room down to 68F - it's sooo nice.

Work at getting the temps down with undervolting, run balanced instead of High Performance, run a frame limiter to keep the FPS to the Refresh hz matching usable CPU/GPU usage against maximum possible wastage.

The worlds a system, tune it

 

@PMF yea I agree. Sending back the laptop tomorrow.
@hmscott thanks for your detailed reply as always.
The fact that dota 2 is causing cpu throttling is ridiculous and I noticed a large difference in CPU temps between this one and the other defective one I had.
I'm really disappointed with this laptop and I'm not sure I'm ready for a third try

 

You never answered if you have the fans on auto or max, or tuned to some custom setting?

What do you mean you noticed a large difference in CPU temps between this one another other one? You had one with another defect other than CPU temps?

Sorry hear you got bad ones, rolling the dice again, or what? Chances are you'll get a good one *this* time

Good to hear you had acceptable temps in the previous unit, so you can do better than this one with the next sample.

Still haven't seen the image...

 

Had it on max (Cooler boost). Nothing too informative in the picture, it basically shows that there's thermal throttling happening on 3 cores.
Yep, the first one I got had issues with the graphics card, the driver kept crashing randomly while playing games or running 3dmark benchmakrs...
I think I'll start looking for other laptops but it's not easy finding one as light and portable as this one with these specs and price range...

 

My CPU temp fluctuates between 35-45 C when doing office work/watching Youtube etc. and fans are completely silent. If I set preferred graphic to Nvidia the GPU fan occasionally kicks in for a few seconds but that never happens with it set to automatic or Intel.

I have CPU set to 5%-100% in Windows power options, haven't installed Dragon Center since wiping the computer.

15 minutes of Prime95 gave me something like 84-85 C (same on the GPU when running furmark).

 

My CPU temp fluctuates between 35-45 C when doing office work/watching Youtube etc. and fans are completely silent. If I set preferred graphic to Nvidia the GPU fan occasionally kicks in for a few seconds but that never happens with it set to automatic or Intel.

I have CPU set to 5%-100% in Windows power options, haven't installed Dragon Center since wiping the computer.


15 minutes of Prime95 gave me something like 84-85 C (same on the GPU when running furmark).[/QUOTE]
Thanks !
Do you have hwinfo? I'm interested in seeing if you also get throttling as soon as you start prime95 benchmark

 

Crud, yeah, if you have max fans and 3 cores thermal throttling it needs to go back. Darn.

You might want to pull from another pool of laptops, a different batch / shipment.

Try another vendor...they may suggest the same...

Edit: The image finally showed up, and now I am confused, as none of the cores maxxed out at a 92c++ reading, which is where thermal throttling starts normally.

Your highest reading is like 88c/89c (can't see it again), with nothing over even 90c... usually it's 92c/93c that trips it... so this isn't a paste job problem, it's something else gone wrong

 

Mine stays around 50 when idle, using sport mode and auto fans (I use it next to a window). What is driving me crazy is that the fans kick in at 50 so the pulsate a lot. I tried changing the fans speed at Advanced so the behavior is a bit more stable, but that doesn't do anything, they still pulsate.

Another thing that is annoying me is that the fan exhaust pipe in the right side where I use the mouse, so its pumping hot air to my hand. This design is ridiculous.

@stekorghif Maybe you can try limiting the fps in dota 2 to see if it doesn't throttle? On my end I am not pleased with this laptop, so many things you have to fix before it works properly, cracking sounds, microstutters, lot of bloatware, fans pulsating, sticky keys, super noisy HDD.

Anyway, too late for me to return, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I prefer a laptop that I open, and it works. Don't have to spend days looking around for solutions for the numerous problems this laptop has.

For me gaming max C is in the 80s, hope this doesn't affect the laptop in the long run.

 

Interesting that your CPU fans kick on at 50 C on auto. Mine kick on at 60 C, and turn off again at 50 C. It seems that there's some discrepancy among owners about the CPU fans - I've heard others have similar complaints about pulsating CPU fans, while others' experience is more like mine and the CPU fans usually stay silent unless under heavy load. I haven't the slightest clue what makes the difference. You might want to check out the official MSI forums though; an admin over there, Svett, has a tool that allows MSI owners to set custom fan profiles beyond what MSI allows by default. I'm not sure if he's updated the tool with a version for the GS43VR yet, though.

 

Well, I'm returning mine after 2 weeks. This is an easy decision.

While I'm not sure if MSI is to blame, the problems with this laptop were annoying and are now significant. A Windows 10 update caused the audio to fail and blow out one of my speakers. My Killer Network Card is causing a blue screen every 5 boot-ups. The battery is getting maybe 2-3 hours. The screen presses down against the keys, leaving a visible mark on the screen. The fan is almost always blowing quite loudly, and even when it's tempered down, you can still feel the vibration across the keys. The trackpad is mediocre at best.

And the damn "Failed to load True Color" thing at every boot up is a quality issue that shouldn't have been missed.

For a laptop over $1500, MSI should have invested heavily in making an experience that always "just works."

Right now, the experience is often frustrating and subpar at this price point.

 

@Prototime thanks for your tip, will try to contact that MSI forum member ... but at this time I am kind of tired of finding solutions for yet another people with the laptop.

@MattEnth I hear you Matt, too many problems for the price point. If it was a 300 used Dell, yeah you would expect problems. But a brand new laptop of 1500 nope. Probably this is my first and last MSI laptop, it seems there are many people with problems. Some win the lottery ... not me.

 

I'm starting to think maybe I got lucky since I have nothing to complain about with my laptop and seeing people have so many problems with theirs. Well, I never did have to deal with the stock Windows 10 experience since I did a clean install of Windows 7 as soon as I got it.

The fans are dead silent for me outside of heavy load. After undervolting, my temps haven't really gone higher than 72 and they weren't too high even before that. Never had any micro stutters or anything of the sort. I will admit that the trackpad is mediocre, though I mostly use a mouse anyways.

This is my first experience with MSI and it has been a pleasant one. It's a shame so many people here are having issues. Is MSI known for poor quality control?

 

Happy for you, yes unfortunately this was my first (and last) MSI laptop. Not at all impressed with their quality. Maybe they rushed these laptops with Pascal or something...
The first GS43VR I ordered had the graphics driver randomly crashing at all times. I sent it back for a replacement (waited ~3 weeks) and got another one, which had the stuttering and temp issues (throttling and temps jumping around like crazy), so I packed it and I'm sending it back first thing tomorrow...

 

You know the first laptop might have been a Windows 10 / Nvidia driver issue, there was a rash of people that were reporting new laptops with Nvidia driver crashes, and after checking their GPU temps it was either a bunch of hardware failures or Windows / Driver issues.

Many reported back changing drivers fixed it - but Windows 10 came in and overwrote the driver with the bad one again, so then walked them through the disabling of forced drivers.

The second one with the thermal throttling was weird too, that's pretty unusual given the temps weren't even high enough for thermal throttling.

Maybe try Windows 7/8.1 on your next laptop, and take away Windows 10's problems from the mix, it might work out much better

 

Is there a way to change WiFi card (i both intel 8620) without dismantle whole cooling setup?

 

I haven't tried (I had my reseller put in an Intel 8260 for me), but it doesn't look like it.

 

I liked your Amazon review as well lol.
Sorry to hear things haven't worked out. My GS73VR has been great except for one aspect you pointed out: software. It is impossible for me to live with Dragon Center (CPU usage from ActiveX, lowered FPS), Nahimic (CPU usage when gaming), MSI's Realtek drivers (freezes, bugs), etc. One version of the Killer drviers also caused 20-30% CPU usage but I got that sorted. I'm lucky to have been able to solve my software issues, and the hardware is exactly what I wanted. MSI's physical engineering team has done a great job on the GS73, but did MSI outsource software to Cambodia or something?

I would have returned the laptop in your situation too.

 

you can use a micro small wifi usb adapter. might be an easy way. to remove the wifi no way you can swap it without removing the cooler because the wifi card sits righ underneath it. it's a really great design. a wifi ship under heatpipes. no wonder they fail so much. it's crazy. don't forget to cover it with mylar or you will toast the chips.

 

where can you buy MSI notebooks replacement parts, specially GS40 GS43 keyboards?

 

I both http://www.ebay.com/itm/172302374088?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT but it's not arrived yet. When it's here and i put it in i'l wright.

 

it only has english. I want other languages.

 

Look in https://www.aliexpress.com/ then
or if You want German i'll have one soon

 

Fellow GS43VR owners (and other MSI notebook owners): to avoid unnecessarily high CPU usage, such as 100% CPU usage for no apparent reason, go into the MSI Dragon Center, click "System Tuner", and then under "X Boost", uncheck both "USB Boost" and "Storage Boost". As Linus discovered and reported on in the below video (see from 4:00 to 4:55), these features trick the computer into increasing the CPU load, and the costs outweigh the benefit. Thanks to @hmscott for pointing this out in the main Pascal thread!

Other news - I swapped out the MSI stock 128GB M.2 SSD today with a 500GB 850 Evo M.2 SSD. I used this drive enclosure and the Macrium Reflect free version to clone the stock SSD to the Evo before swapping. So far, so good! It was pretty easy and didn't take very long to do, and I'm happy to have a decently-sized SSD now (128GB is just way too small). I haven't really noticed any load time differences (i.e., Windows startup times and game load times) between the stock SSD and the Evo, but the extra storage space is reason enough for the upgrade - after downloading Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and a couple of tiny programs, I had barely 4GB of storage left on the stock 128GB SSD. So if you can swing an upgrade to a higher capacity SSD, I'd definitely recommend it.

 

@Prototime Awesome, congrats on the SSD swap.
I really wanted the 43vr to work for me but I can't get myself to order another replacement (I asked for a refund).
I've been looking for another light laptop with a 1060 that fits my budget, but can't seem to find any... The razer is too expensive.
@Prototime I am considering ordering from your seller since you had a good experience with them, granted their return policy is decent. Would you mind sharing your seller and if you know anything about their customer service and how easy or hard they make it to return a product ?

 

Hey!
Been following this thread for a while now, well since I bought the laptop.
Anyhow, I've been trying some overclocking and temp tests and so and it seems like it performing as it should, now here is the kicker. I want Dark Souls 3 to run at 60fps, so far I've understood that its not a very good port but even at low (which is not much of a difference) I can't achieve my goals, temps are fine after some fine-tuning with the fan settings (auto did not do the job very well). Anyone else who runs this game on the GS43VR and have gotten it to run well? Of course I can live with stuttering but dropping to under 50fps in some areas is just not what I expected out of this laptop.

 

Sure, I bought from Prostar, www.pro-star.com. Their return period for MSI laptops is 15 days, which I believe is the same period for all MSI laptops. I haven't had to return anything so I don't have any personal experience with their return policy, but their customer service was great - they quickly and pretty thoroughly answered my many questions about the laptop before I ordered, offered me a discount because they were out of stock when I ordered, and followed up afterward to see how I liked the laptop. I was most impressed by their QA process, which they told me includes the following:

1. CPU & RAM test
2. Multiple 3D/GPU stress tests
3. LCD test (check for excessive backlight bleeding, dead pixels, flickering, etc.)
4. Keyboard testing (lights and input) and touchpad + buttons testing
5. WiFi signal strength and stability test
6. Physical stress test (shaking system in various directions and in various orientations + light dropping on a padded surface to ensure nothing is loose/faulty)
7. Audio testing (speakers and audio out ports)
8. Video out ports testing
9. Data ports testing

The QA bit was real important to me because I really, really didn't want to get a dud, and their process is more thorough than any other reseller I contacted (at least from what they all told me their QA processes were). So you might want to check them out. I private messaged their company rep here on the forums, and he was quite helpful throughout the buying process; you might want to do the same to ask him any questions you might have, and tell him your story about your previous bad luck with your GS43VR purchases, before you pull the trigger.

I sincerely hope things turn out better for you this time. I might be wrong, but didn't you buy from newegg the first two times? I don't believe they have any QA process whatsoever, so going through a boutique/novelty reseller like Prostar or GenTechPC, etc. will definitely decrease the odds that you'll get a dud. (Not that there's really an excuse for MSI putting out so many duds in the first place...)

 

@empill

Ive been palying dark souls3 while the laptop is plugged, sport mode, auto fan and from the SSD (HDD was giving me issues) and it gives steady 60 fps everthyng maxed out. Hope this helps!

 

Oh really?
Hmm, I just reset the laptop because that was a tip from the support of MSI. How are your temps when playing? Do you get solid 60 in the chaos lake, level when snow is falling and farron swamp as well?

Also switched to SSD before, helped a lot but not to solid 60. Also on sport mode with laptop plugged. Do you use a second screen?

Also! Which version of Nvidia drivers are you on? Also are you using some kind of special settings in the Nvidia control panel?

 

Well, I contacted support because I'm guessing then that something is not perfectly correct with my laptop...

 

I'm not sure why, but Sport mode doesn't seem to be auto-overclocking the GPU anymore for me, even on the external display. In fact, the GPU core and clock are now each being automatically underclocked by -1 mhz. This happened a few times before occasionally, but now it's always happening. Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

Any luck with MSI support?

 

Hope it works out with the overclocking, will be great if I can do that later as well! Maybe you installed a update to Dragon Center or so?

No not yet, I'm supposed to contact the closest support station since I've tried everything from remote support already, they haven't replied yet so I'm waiting for that!

 

I would start looking for throttling, I think Afterburner has a throttling measurement

 

I experience the same behavior. Not sure if it is related to the latest Windows 10 Anniversary update but I think the auto-overclocking stopped working after that for me. I tried re-installing the Dragon center but no luck still. So I ended up removing it altogether after as it has no more value to me besides the CPU+GPU fan control, which I am comfortable leaving their settings at default without tweaking.

Have you found any other software which can control the CPU+GPU fans? Seems like the Dragon center is the only software that can do that for now.

 

Hello, I am owner of GS43VR for about 2,5 weeks. I have problem with audio from jack 3.5 output. I am using Beats Pro professional headphones and this headset works brilliants with my mobile and my old laptop and with other laptops. But sound from Jack output from this laptop is unbeliveable poor, flat and without any low frequencies and after I cross 70% of audio power it's sounds totally ****ty and it's screeching. I try other speakers and headphones bluetooth and usb and it works totally better when I am using bluetooth audio transition or USB port, so there is something with this jack port or this 'brilliant' sabre dac thing. I have Realtek audio driver from 4th october of this year and uninstalled Nahimic software. Does any of you has the same problem with thiers laptop? It is because their is undeveloped adequate drivers for sounds in this laptop yet? Or maybe my device has technical deffect and need to be return to technical service?

Thanks in advance for answers.

 

Good idea. My temps have been staying well below their throttle points though, and this auto-underclocking happens when the computer boots up, so I don't think it has to do with throttling.

Yeah, the Dragon Center was recently updated, and I also did just get the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and those are really the only things that have changed recently. I suspect the issue is probably with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, unless MSI screwed up their own tool. Maybe I'll open a support ticket with MSI to alert them to this issue, if they aren't already aware. I doubt they're okay with Windows 10 updates breaking their software.

Fan control is the biggest reason I've had for keeping the Dragon Center. I know of one other tool that allows control over the CPU+GPU fans, and that's a tool developed by Svett, an administrator on the MSI forums. It's called "MSI EC-FW Editor," and it was just updated a couple weeks ago with support for the GS43VR. I haven't used this tool myself (though I might in the future, if the Dragon Center gives me issues), but I've heard great things about it from others, including resellers. I believe Svett asks for a donation before he'll distribute it. Here are the details: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=148273.0 (you'll have to scroll past info on the Vbios Tuner, just Ctrl+F "MSI EC-FW Editor")

Let us know how it works out for you!

Strange; I haven't had this issue with my audio jack. How is the sound when it comes out of the laptop's internal speakers? Does it sound distorted or like it's crackling? I had some issues with this after receiving the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (though in my case, updating the Realtek audio drivers and uninstalling Nahimic fixed this for me, and I was then able to re-install Nahimic without issue).

 

Hey Everyone!

Hope you are all enjoying your laptops! I have had nothing but bad luck since I got mine but am finally settling down and just enjoying the laptop for what it is...dents and all.

Originally, out of the box I had a dead headphone jack, sent it in for RMA (instead of just returning it like a dummy) and got it back with working jack but a nice little dent on the palm rest (they screwed the hard drive screw WAY too tight) and a small crack on the rear corner (hard to see unless you analyze you new $1500 laptop for any imperfections because you expect it to be spotless just as it was out of the box). After all of this, I just decided to keep it as is instead of wasting another month with the RMA process - I opened up the laptop, replaced the stock 16GB RAM with 32GB of Crucial 2400MHz, replaced the 128GB SATA M.2 with a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro. After I cloned the old drive to the new drive I was off to the races. Had to uninstall the Nahimic software to fix the TERRIBLE sounding speakers and (now working) headphone jack, also disabled a bunch of the MSI stuff except for dragon center, ran all the windows updates and made sure all my drivers were up to date....

Now here's my question: Even before these modifications and even before i removed all the MSI software - I feel like my CPU is ALWAYS at 100% whether i am in the balanced or high performance windows power plan. While windows 10 was installing the anniversary update my laptop sounded like a jet engine. A simple disk cleanup and a game install (at the same time) keep my CPU at 100% which drives the fans crazy as well. I have tried variations of the dragon center set to eco or sport (along with different fan options) and the CPU always gets pinned doing basic stuff. I am coming from an XPS 15 which had the same exact Intel 6700HQ and this was NOT the case. I also have an HP ZBook 15 G3 with the same CPU at work and again, the CPU does not behave like this. I checked if there was a newer version of the BIOS and there is not - I even went as far as removing the CPU and GPU heatsinks, removing the stock thermal paste and applying arctic silver 5. This process has not really changed the performance of the CPU. However, I can say changing the thermal paste made the fans run a bit slower and quieter because the CPU is slightly cooler but the CPU is still getting pinned all the time. I tried to search this thread but didnt find anything exactly like this. Am I the only one experiencing this? Do any of you guys have any tips?

Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

 

Did you check task manager to verify if the CPU is running at 100%?
What if you unload MSI Dragon Center?