***The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 970M Owner's Lounge***

Ok I updated to windows 10 now my keyboard keys don't act like they used to. I used to control volume, brightness without having to hit the fn key now I have to. Also I can seem to disable the mousepad via fn f3. Any ideas?

 

It's normal to have to hit the FN key to use the function otherwise the functions would happen when trying to use the keys normally. Also yes FN + F3 should disable the mouse pad.

 

Ok so if it doesn't also the arrow keys raised volume and brightness with no fun by default on a fresh windows 8.1 install any idea how to get that back?

 

The arrow keys are not supposed to do that by default, you can look to see if in your version of SCM there is a toggle for the functions but I doubt it.

 

But that's the thing I never get to 2.5 hours I'm mostly on the 2 hour mark and my screen is the FHD. After seeing reviews claiming almost 3 hours playing video (I'm surfing the web only) for the versions that have 3K and 4K screens, I was expecting more or at least the same. See this for example:

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/7942-msi-gs60-ghost-pro-4k-review/#a6

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/5337-msi-gs60-ghost-pro-3k-review/#a6

 

Are you using Chrome, or Firefox? Chrome is a battery stuck. I get 5 hours on my Surface with Chrome, 8 on Firefox.

 

I'm indeed using Chrome. I'll try with Firefox and see if that helps.

 

Chrome treats each tab as its own instance, while Firefox does not, so it's possible that multiple tabs would use more resources and therefore drain the battery faster, especially depending on the content in each tab.

 

Should I wait for the Skylake version? Or just get the broadwell?
Is it that much of a difference?

 

From a cpu power point of view skylake is a few percent ahead of Broadwell.

 

I wonder when XOTIC PC will have the new Stealth Pro. Silver Edition w/ 5700HQ...

 

Chrome eats RAM on each active tabs, there will be a new version of Chrome that put active tabs on sleep mode that can free up RAMs.

 

But is it enough to make a huge difference? They have a broadwell GS60 by the Mirco Center 3 blocks away from me. Very tempted to get it, but if the skywell version is much better I rather wait.

To be specific by difference, I'm really only interested in battery life for casual use, or
Gaming preformance in general.

 

I don't think I've ever been bottlenecked by the CPU with any game, so don't expect much of an improvement there. And this is on Haswell. As for battery life, we'll only know when someone benchmarks it. I didn't see any improvement in Broadwell over Haswell but there were different screens so it's apples and oranges. Don't ever buy this machine for the battery life.

 

Thanks for the reply, I may just get the broadwell one then.

Lmao, I have a 3 year old Dell XPS 15 that lasts about 50 minutes without the charger, just browsing. If I can causally browse the web for like 2-3 hours I'm really really set. When I animate, video edit play games etc, I don't expect anything though Lol

 

Then it's easy to move around, well built and powerful.

 

The battery could have already been worn which doesn't hold as much charge as before anymore. So it is possible.

 

Yeah, but even when the battery was brand new it didn't last long. I only charged it when it died.

Either way, I guess I'll jump into the broadwell one. Hopefully I don't regret it lol

 

Looking to pick up a GS60 soon but should I wait if there's a refresh on the horizon?

EDIT: Nevermind I'm reading its possibly September or so. Meaning October for regular folks, so I'll have to bite now.

 

Anyone have an idea on what sort of solvent could be used to remove the tacky 'Steelseries' and 'Dynaudio' logos without damaging the metal?

 

Try Acetone or Goof off.

 

Thanks for the idea! I had some acetone kicking about so I gave it a shot...

So we have two GS60s in the house, one Ghost Pro 3k, and the other a non-3k.

With my 3k I was able to use acetone and a q-tip to get the 'steelseries' and the 'dynaudio' logo off completely, EXCEPT for the red line under the 'dynaudio'.

With the non-3k model, with a q-tip we got the 'dynaudio' and the red line under it off, but for the life of us the 'steelseries' logo could not be removed.

Very strange, but either way it improves the overall look of this beautiful machine.

Huzzah!

 

Awesome! I was just thinking earlier today if anyone was going to try this.

 

Need some advice from someone who has repasted this machine before. Is it just me or is this a super sloppy paste job by the factory? GPU looks like it has WAY too much and the CPU has a piece of kapton tape with some leaking underneath? Should I be removing that and cleaning underneath? And then replace with new kapton tape? I've never seen these taped before so it really threw me off...

 

Factory paste is a single piece of standard square sized paste that melts and integrates upon usage, it is not manually applied. The quality is better than average but it is definitely not premium. You can use a paper towel or cloth, spray a bit of WD40 on it and you can wipe it off with ease. It is recommend to clean those paste thoroughly before applying a new one and proceed with caution as those capacitors can break off if slight more of force is applied.

 

Yeah it's quite strange it worked part of the two. Maybe you want to try Goof Off or Sugar Cube see how it works.

 

Thanks Kevin, your suggestion worked pretty well. At first I was using isopropyl alcohol but it wasn't really removing it too well. I ended up getting it all off and the new paste appears to have worked as it should. Those pads were pretty thick! I guess they do it that way to make it idiot proof for assembly/repair?

Max temps appear to be about 3-5C lower but by idle CPU temp appears to be a little higher. I'm only going by how often the fan ramps up, but there could also be some stuff going on in the background. I'm sure things will settle out over the next couple days though. Glad I did it but what a pain.

 

Expecting my GS60 to arrive this week. What are some things I should do first to check and make sure everything is ok?

 

I had a unit with some pretty bad keyboard flex before. Other than that, there's really nothing wrong with these machines except for the occasional hardware defect. Most will have some backlight bleed, so expect that.

 

My GS60 seems to stop switching to headphone, and if I switch to headphone manually in "manage audio devices" (which unchecks the first set of speakers), headphone will work but Nahimic will say "the current audio device is not supported".

I tried restarting the computer and checking for drivers update on audio related devices in device manager (which I found none), but I still can't get it to work like before. Does anyone know if there's anything I could do to make Nahimic work correctly?

http://i.imgur.com/yNUkmN6.png

 

Thanks for the advice. Anything software related I need to do? Remove/install certain MSI apps? This will be my first MSI computer so I don't know what to expect in terms of bloatware and/or fiddling with settings.

 

MSI's bloatware really isn't that bad. Make sure to download the fan tool, which will allow you to control the fan speeds. Also, sounds blaster cinema doesn't work with Windows 10 but they replaced it with other software. If you got Haswell, you can download Windows 10 drivers from the Broadwell list for the most part.

 

If you register your notebook on MSI site and fill out their questionnaire (actually useful, about what things you care about when getting notebook, so chance to be heard about things people keep complaining here ) you will probably get some bonus (varies by regions).

For me it was extra 3 months of warranty, in other regions it was extra accidental warranty coverage.

Things that you can expect to be not perfect in many/most GS60 units:

- backlight bleed
- thin gaps in display lid
- RGB keyboard lights not being uniformly colored (e.g. when setting white color other colors will bleed in places)
- noise when idle

These are slightly annoying, but generally not that big deal.

If you are not lucky, you may get some dead pixels (much more likely with 3K/4K screens). In this case you may return and get new unit.

Also I remember some people had unplugged fans / extra rattling noises and display issues in brand new units (very rare), so that's probably something to check for. Much easier to just get new unit immediately after purchase than sending notebook to MSI for repair.

In general, it's a pretty good machine, just MSI quality control is not perfect, so if you get a lemon, just get a new unit.

 

Another problem I have is my gs60 doesn't wakeup from sleep. The power is on with dGPU running and with fans running, but the screen remains black.

Is there any way I can check if I have the latest drivers of everything?

 

OS seems messed up.
Are you still running Realtek HD Audio driver? Did you change the operating system to Windows 10?

 

Still using windows 8. (I should've mentioned that..)

I should've also mentioned I have uninstalled Realtek driver a few days ago to fix a "youtube video robotic sound" problem and supposedly let windows reinstall it automatically like an article said. Now I think of it, this is probably what caused my "nahimic switch to headphone window" to stop popping up. Could you tell me where's the best place to download the latest Realtek driver?

 

No, you should not be using generic driver from Microsoft, because it's problematic.
Please reinstall the audio driver from either MSI's website, or station-driver.com.
So if you want to enable Nahimic, be sure to have BIOS/EC updated, as well as the latest driver from MSI in order to fully activate Nahimic.

 

Thanks, downloading the latest audio driver and nahimic utility from MSI website solved my headphone problem.

One more question though: What should I download if I want to fix "doesn't wake up from sleep" problem? I tried installing the Intel Management Engine driver but it says my current driver is the newer version.

I haven't updated the BIOS because I'm wary it could cause problems. But I can if it's necessary.

 

That's graphics driver issue.
But best to update BIOS/EC/Intel/Nvidia drivers altogether to eliminate all possibilities.

 

I also had some troubles with "doesn't properly wake up from sleep" with my GS60 when it was new. I simply disabled going into sleep with inactivity (Windows power management).

Anyways that was too aggressive power saving mode. Instead I just let it turn off the screen, it's silly to have whole notebook going to sleep after you don't press any key for X minutes (which for some reason on GS60 is the default setting, I never had any other notebook doing that).

I have no troubles when going into sleep by closing the lid, it was always just from going to sleep from inactivity.

 

Thanks for all replies. I updated intel graphic card driver and nvida vga driver and my computer seemly wake up from sleep now. (I'm not entirely sure because I have also turned off some power saving modes. Will enable them to test which one is the real cause.)

 

Do you guys know if there's an app out there to control which GPU is being used?

 

The nvidia control panels dictates that.

 

Right-click on desktop, select Nvidia Control Panel, it's under 3D settings.

 

Got it, thanks guys! I appreciate the help. One last question, after doing a clean Windows 10 install, seems like I'm still missing drivers for an SM Bus Controller and a Bluetooth Peripheral Device. Any idea on what the missing drivers could be?

On a side note, loving the machine btw, great form factor, the keyboard is great and my unit has no flex. 970M runs like a champ and I haven't tested battery life yet but I'll be happy with 3 hours of productivity/browsing/Netflix.

 

Bluetooth is built into the wireless card, which one do you have? You do need to install the drivers for those as well.

Have you installed the intel chipset drivers?

 

SMBus = AMT/HECI driver
http://download.msi.com/nb_drivers/me/ME_SW_MSI_11.0.0.1153_11.0.0.1146.zip

Bluebooth = Killer package.
Killer LAN/WLAN + BT:
http://www.killernetworking.com/support/driver-downloads/item/killer-suite
http://www.killernetworking.com/support/driver-downloads/category/bluetooth-drivers

 

@Kevin:

Heya, I just bought myself an 079 without realizing the panel was locked at 48hz. I don't really want to return the laptop as I got it super discounted (and I like having the 6gb 970m), but I wanted to know if I could source an alternative panel to install. Do you happen to know if there is a compatible 4k panel that runs at 60hz, or somewhere I can source just the 3K panel?

 

Are you able to identify the panel model in HWinfo? I was unable to do so when I had it. Odds are the connector is 4 lane EDP but it still might have a different connector that won't fit. It could also be on the wrong side. If you have a model number, you can look at specs and pictures online to match it up with something to replace it with. I'm positive there's a 3k screen that will fit - it's just a matter of if the connector in your laptop lid fits. I haven't seen a place that sources the cables but the screens are for sale in many places.

 

Current option is to get 3K screen which is compatible.
But if you got it in the first place, why regret your choice and then spend the extra to downgrade the panel?