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

I think it's safe to assume it'll work with most MSI laptops with thunderbolt 3. I was able to get it to work with both the GS63vr and gs73vr as well.

 

I heard that is a common issue with the keyboard but I have one squawking key. Is there a how to fix guide? I have disassembled the key however I could not find anything wrong with it . It definitely makes different sound when pressed then the rest of the keys.

 

How did you disassemble the key?

 

Hi just got a GS60 QD. ghost yesterday ,
Skylake I7 8 gb ddr4 (2133)
256 m2 and a gtx 965? I thought they had 970 in?

 

I believe it depends what retailer you bought it from.

When i was buying mine I had the choice of 2 different version of the 970m (3gb / 6gb)

 

Anyone know about, or know of a solution to fix the black horizontal line flickering on the MSI GS60?

An example vid below:

 

Any one knows anything about screen flickering in GS60 2QE (GTX970M) ??

I have noticed that just Today, updated BIOS but didn't helped (while at first I have noticed it on dark background website, after BIOS update I am not able to replicate this issue on a website, I was able to replicate flickering screen on Dirt Rally (after 3-4 minutes of playing on ultra).

Is it the issue with a cable ? (secondary screen was free from any flickering)

I just wondering if that is simply a case of ordering a new cable and fitting it or maybe the issue is with motherboard ???


Is there any consensus to the reasons of this issue ???

 

I appreciate the write up. I was all ready to heap praise upon you for finally helping me to get Win7 installed on my Ghost Pro. However, it just gives me a BSoD with the "stornvme.sys" error message before it even starts installing. <sigh> I'm at the point where I'd pay to have this done for me.

 

The cable may simply not be well seated.
If you are familiar with taking apart laptops, you could open it up to check for that, it's not that hard if you've done it before.

I recently opened mine up completely to clean the fans and repaste the CPU (ended up repasting the GPU as well because the heatsinks are connected).
Mine is a year and a half old and had never been cleaned before that, it was hitting 95°+ in Overwatch and thermal throttling pretty hard (even when limited to 3Ghz, and CPU fan at full blast).
Now after an hour of prime95 the CPU is at 80°C (with less fan speed), at 3.2Ghz (power limited).

 

Hey, proud new owner of a GS60 6QE here, would appreciate any help. Sometimes my laptop just doesn't boot when its been off for a while and I have to wait, I seem to be having the same issue as this person http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-2942400/msi-gs60-6qe-wont-boot.html
Would love to hear any advice, for now I have disabled fast boot and I'm gonna see if the problem reoccurs. Thank you!

 

Did you have this issue right from the beginning? Or did this issue just started developing recently?
Have you tried updating the BIOS and EC firmware?

 

I bought the laptop used and the owner claims that he never had this problem, a bit scared to flash the bios as I need the laptop for uni and I'm afraid I'll mess it up lol, for now I've just been leaving the laptop in sleep. Thanks

 

Not saying it's risk free but BIOS & EC update on NB have been pretty safe and reliable while compared to desktop motherboards.
For sure that if the system is unstable with potentially a defective memory module then it's best not to do it.

 

Cool thanks for the help! I'll do the BIOS and firmware updates right after I finish my project, just one more question is 2hr 30min a normal battery runtime for browsing and word etc? Thanks

 

Hi all
Can anyone confirm the presents or lack of PWM flickering on the full hd screen ?

thank you!

 

guys please help asap !
does the full hd have pwm screen flickering ?

 

Hi everyone,
I've had the GS60 for a while now, and I'm absolutely loving it. During gaming yesterday I realized though that there are clusters of weird white dots in the top corners. Most of them on the top left side, but also some on the right side. They look like (white) stuck pixels, which I guess should be possible since it's a RBGW panel, right? None of the fixes for stuck pixels work though, and there is such a huge amount of dots, it would be weird to have so many broken pixels at once...
I took a picture of a part of it: http://imgur.com/a/zQjNZ
They look huge on the picture because I took it from close-up, in reality they are tiny, and there's dozens or even hundreds of them. Anyone have a similar problem, or any idea what it is and how to fix it?

 

Does the GS63 dragon center work with the GS60 by any chance?

 

Hi! I had recently noticed that my GS60 was getting hot. CPU close to 100c under heavy load. Had it cleaned and now temperatures are back to normal.
Tested with 3DMark Firestrike test but I am now getting lower than normal scores - 6210 total, Graphics Score 7047, Physics Score 8616 ( http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10989513)

Tested last time back in May and got a much higher scores: 6730, graphics 7714 and physics 9296 ( http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8621120). This should be normal values for the test. What can be the reason for the lower scores? Is it possible that some damage has occured with the overheating?

I am running Win 10, using High Performance power plan and Sport/Ultimate performance setting with Shift mode in Dragon Gaming Center. I have previously seen lowered scores when using different combination of these settings.

I did do a clean Win 10 install at some point but cannot recall if it was before or after the previous test with 6730 score. Can it be a driver issue? Or the Shift mode not working properly? I think I might have updated EC firmware as well somewhere along the way.

I get 62-63 fps in Bioshock Infinite benchmark. Temps are all good during Heaven Extreme test - GPU 75max, CPU 70 max. Intel Diagnostic Tool gives PASS, Windows Memory Diagnostics does not find any errors.

Any advice? Just a 3DMark anomaly?

 

Thank you SGO1987!!!! It worked!

Last time I tried it, I was using a different USB boot device tool. I tried it again using the one you listed in your guide, and it worked great. My system is now set up and running Windows 7!

You are my hero!

 

I'm a moron. I finally got Windows 7 installed on my Ghost Pro, but I forgot to make a copy of the default wallpaper, and I really like it.

Would somebody please post that image someplace where I could download it (dropbox or the like)? The image I'm looking for is this one, but without the "No. 1 in Gaming" at the bottom.

 

It should be since the battery time is pretty high.

Did you also clean the vent? Have you done any repasting of thermal compound?

 

@Kevin - I took the computer to the shop where I bought it from for maintenance. They did a proper cleaning of all insides, including vents and replacing the thermal paste. The over-heating issue is now completely resolved with both GPU and CPU temperatures remaining under 80c during stress tests.

However, I am a bit concerned if there might be any damage which might have been caused before the cleaning. Although I have done very little gaming or other demanding tasks with the computer in between. All diagnostics are ok, have not noticed any other issues and although the temperature was very high before cleaning (100c during Firemark test), it should still be within the max normal range for the CPU. Can`t really explin the drop in performance with 3Dmark benchmark. Intel XTU benchmark gives CPU results which reflect the normal figures for my 4720HQ.

 

Found out what was causing the 10% drop in performance - the new Nvidia Geforce Experience software has a Share function (Press Alt+Z to share your gameplay). By turning this off (I never activated the Alt+Z combo but just turned off the feature completely from the software), the 3DMark score went back up to 6609: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10997899

Is this normal score for 4720HQ/970M system? The 8000+ scores ( http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4643860 ) are all over-clocked systems?

 

Hello !
When I wake up from sleep mode, ACPI.sys (system) process goes to 15 - 20 % CPU.
Running on Windows 10, last EC / BIOS / Drivers.

 

Anyone else experiencing Windows 10/explorer freezing randomly on a GS60 2QE, e.g. until the point where a hard reset/reboot is the only way to get anywhere? It's not like the system freezes so the mouse pointer and everything is frozen; e.g., if it occurs while I have Chrome open I can still browse the web, but I can't do **** otherwise in Windows (open folders, log off, shutdown, etc).

I've seen a lot of discussion around various boards about Windows 10 freezing, and many of those point at a situation where a random 100% disk usage occurs. Now I can't tell if that's the case for me, but to me it seems to occur mostly when I start some process that involves disk activity, e.g. running Steam to update a game, or something like that. Also, when downloading stuff and writing to the disk is another situation where the problem often occurs.

All this started after the anniversary update in August; prior to that Windows 10 was running like a charm. Same for Windows 7 before I upgraded, and when running Ubuntu live from a USB stick. It has to be related to Windows 10 in some way. But for the sake of testing I'v run various tools to test for HW failure, but nothing so far. Memtest86, checkdisc, and other tools all report that everything is OK. In some other forums I've seen people claiming updating the firmware for the SSD did the trick, but I can't find anything at all for the SSD in my laptop (Toshiba THNSNJ128G8NU).

Any suggestions? Or anyone else experienced anything similar and managed to fix it?

Also, I'm considering changing the SSD to one that's slightly larger; anyone have experience with the process? And any specific SSD that can be recommended?

 

Does anyone know what charger the GS60 2PE ship with? (got the 970M+4710HQ model)
Is it 120W or 150W or 180W?

Also is it normal for third party chargers to make noise?

Thanks,

 

It ships with a 150W (at least my 4720HQ 970M model does). I believe it won't use any more than 150W from the PSU even if it is rated higher, it's limited in the laptop, which is why the battery slowly goes down when you're playing very heavy games (CPU and GPU intensive games).

The noise you're hearing could be coil whine which is quite common in power supplies. Or a sign that the PSU is about to fail.

 

I had the same issues (GS60 6QE) but before the anniversary update. Even with a clean install of Windows the freezing was still there. The solution for me was to uninstall SCM, Dragon Gaming Center and all other MSI software. After that make sure to update any other drivers/windows updates. If you wan't to reinstall it make sure that SCM is not booted at start. I dont know why but that did the trick for me.

 

Try reinstalling scm... Sometimes it takes several attempts....

 

Hi guys,

owners of this laptop - do you still recommend it?

I'm in the UK and have about £1k to £1500 to spend on a new laptop. My choices:

1. GS60 with 6gb GTX 970m - I can get for £1100, but concerned i may have some of the issues mentioned in this forum
2. GS40 with 3GB GTX 970m - about same price but concerned about fan noise + overheating
3. GS43VR with 6GB 1060 - the 7th gen Intel comes out in a few days but concenred that as its so new, not sure what issues it may have (i.e its not tried and tested) and i hear still has fan and heating issues
4. GS63VR with 6gb 1060 - i think this is going to be out of my price range but wondering if anyone had thoughts about it?

thanks

 

Well an update on mine GS60 2QE, bought in march 2015.
15 days ago the SSD failed out of the blue, it's some kind of Kingston 128GB m.2 SSD.
No sign of anything gone wrong on the SSD (no burnt compenements), and it isn't detected in either m.2 slot.
So now it has a Samsung 850 evo m.2 500Gb SSD and 16Gb RAM, and is working fine with W10 pro.

Other than that, and needing to clean it every once in a while, it's been rock solid.
It's a bit noisy, but that's to be expected with such a slim profile and reasonable temps (around 80°C on CPU and GPU when gaming heavily if there's no dust).
The noise is very clean though, no annoying sound, just the woosh of air.
It's just a bit noisy at idle, the minimum fan speed is a bit high for my liking, and it can't run passive if you're browsing the web or waching youtube.

Well it depends on what you want to do with this laptop, the 970M is kinda outdated at this point with the GTX 1060 in the newer ones.
I wouldn't buy a 970M laptop now, but the GTX 1060 version should be very nice.
I'm guessing you want this for gaming, otherwise I'd recommend something else with a quadcore i5 or i7 and lesser graphics (probably a XPS15).
Have you looked at other options than MSI ?
The GS60/63 is a pretty solid laptop, the only things I'd like to be better would be not having that big red badge on the lid, and better battery life.
The battery life is really quite sad, 3h30 tops with pretty much everything turned off, not sure if there's much better in this form factor and performance in the competition though.
It's also quite large for a 15", so won't fit (or barely) in most 15" laptop bags (edit: it looks like they've made the GS63VR a bit smaller from the online pics I've seen, so that shouldn't be an issue anymore).

 

My GS60 speakers are crackling, do you guys have any fix ?

 

Hi everyone, I am a new owner of a GS60 ghost, so I thought I would post here and ask a question or two.

I had a sager/clevo W350ST for a short while over the summer, but ended up disappointed in its performance with a 4800mq and 765M because when loading both up for video rendering/exporting, the machine would get so hot and throttle. I ended up getting a desktop and cheap (non gaming) laptop.

Well, fast forward to now, I really miss having a powerful portable machine, and have been looking at various used models. I've seen MSI units and always considered them good value machines, tending to pack a punch without breaking the bank.

With that being said, I just ordered a used GS60 with a 4710hq, gtx970, and the 4K screen. The 4K screen was not on my list of requirements. In fact, I was looking for 1080p models. Am I going to be able to set the screen to 1920x1080 in windows? How about 2560x1440?

I already have a cooling pad I plan to use (was necessary with the Sager), but it sounds like these machines will run a bit cooler (at least I hope it doesnt throttle!). Do we also have any option for undervolting the CPU or GPU to reduce temps/power further?

 

Has anyone overclocked the 970m? How far did you successfully get? Or anyone got a thread with people experimenting with this? I've googled but found nothing so far

 

You can undervolt (and overclock up to 3.6Ghz, though the 47W TDP will limit that) the CPU easily using intel XTU, however be warned when the computer shutdowns brutally due to an error it will reset de default settings, in case you messed up the settings (you can save them though, so it's easy to set it back to what you want it at).
For the GPU I believe you have to flash a custom bios to be able to undervolt it.

For the 4K screen, you can set 1080p in windows no problem, and it'll be nice and crisp (4 pixels for 1), not so much with 2560x1440.

If the temps you get are high, I'd recommend taking it apart and cleaning it and reapplying thermal paste to CPU and GPU, it really works for a laptop that's been running for a while.

As for power, something like GTA 5 that's pretty heavy overall and uses alot of CPU you end up at about 80° on CPU and GPU. But no throttling on either side. On prime 95, the CPU gets to 90°, but no thermal throttling, it throttles to the 47W TDP (3.2Ghz).
Considering the GS60 has its intake vents on the top, a cooling pad probably won't do it much good, I don't use any personally. It may help a bit to cool the underside which does get quite hot.

Honestly you won't get much out of overclocking it. The cooling system doesn't really have enough headroom for that. You're better off getting a laptop with a GTX 1060 if you want more performance.

 

I have a GS60 Skylake with the 256GB NVME drive, no HDD. Is it normal that the HDD Led on the front doesn't work in this configuration?

Edit: returned for rma. Store told me it's a defect.

Edit2: not a defect, the led is only responding to sata drives. My model does not have a secondary drive, so the light doesn't work. After adding a hard drive, the light works but only for that drive. Not an issue at all, but I needed to be sure it wasn't defective.

 

Hello !
I would like to know what is max fan speed on this laptop ?
Does 7700 RPM sounds ok ?

 

The fan doesn't max out at 7700RPM but somewhere at around 3000rpm.

 

This is not true. My GS60 2QE 4K idles at around 3000rpm when the fan is on, it reaches speeds of just over 7000 rpm when under heavy load.

 

Does anyone know where I can buy a replacement badge for the back cover? Mine's scratched very badly, and as they're only held in with glue, I'd like to replace it. If available even, I'd like to replace it with a WS60 workstation badge, because arriving at meetings with a monster gaming laptop doesn't really seem professional.

 

Haha I just saw your message! Glad to hear that it helped someone else

 

Bought the MSI GS60 6QE last October 2016 and after struggling to install Windows 7 (shared a guide: #2348), I've been enjoying it during these months.

However, I decided yesterday to update MSI True Color, Battery Calibration and SCM. I'm not aware if it's because of these updates, but I'm suddenly suffering a painful issue and odd behaviour. The CPU fan is turning off randomly at 40, 42 and 43ºC (checking through Dragon Gaming Center), and suddenly getting on at fast or maximum speed (from 4200 to 5300 RPM) for no reason, while iddle. As soon as it reaches again the previously specified temperatures, it starts again this off/on behaviour, which is very annoying and hadn't happened before. This behaviour usually starts when launching a game for a few minutes (no high temperatures despite playing for hours, normal behaviour), exiting and waiting in the desktop in iddle (when lowering temperatures to 40, 42 and 43ºC), but it is also happening despite not playing any game in the same day. If I restart the laptop it still happens, but the next day or after a few hours, I switch it on again and everything seems back to normal (well, CPU fan is always between 3137 and 3200 RPM even when correctly started; when I first have this laptop, it was reaching 2800-2900 RPM while iddle with the default EC Firmware)... until it starts again.

Obviously, I can't stand this behaviour (still on guarantee). I uninstalled SCM and Battery Calibration and install the previous version of SCM that was working correctly, but nothing changed. My EC firmware is up to date: 16H7EMS1.107. The funny thing is that the issue which is apparently solving this version ("Workaround for thermal fan goes into a stall randomly") is currently happening to me with this version since yesterday...

Is anyone suffering or had suffered the same? If so, how did you fix it? I thought about reinstalling the EC firmware 16H7EMS1.107.

Thank you very much in advance!

P.S: I've never used the MSI Silent software for editing the EC firmware.

 

Hi!

I have installed the Win 10 Creators Update about a month ago. No issues so far until yesterday - bluetooth shows that it is not turned on in Win settings. I can not revert back to old Win10 version as I no longer have the recovery option. I have been using my bluetooth mouse on and off again without issues. It was still working yesterday. It stopped working suddenly yesterday after a restart. In Win 10 settings it shows that bluetooth is not turned on without any toggle visible to turn it on. Win troubleshooter says that there is no bluetooth hardware available on the computer. MSI SCM tool shows that bluetooth is enabled. Have tried downloading and installing all latest drivers from http://www.killernetworking.com/driver-downloads (including the Bluetooth Suite). I had issues with Bluetooth also when migrating from Win 8 to Win 10 but installing new Killer drivers resolved it then. Have tried to go through some of the suggested steps in forums but nothing seems to help.

Any ideas?

 

You must install SCM to have a fully functionnal Bluetooth

 

I have a MSI Ghost Pro 002 and after 20 minutes of gameplay my CPU thermal throttles 20% and reaches 83 Degrees Celcius causing shuttering. Anyone else have this issue?

Specs:

6700hq

970m 3GB

16GB of Memory

 

Hey all! I accidentally turned off my keyboard backlight while working in photoshop and I cant seem to turn it back on via Fn and the +/- keys on the side. I have no idea what I hit, all I know is that I was reaching for Alt+U , so some combination in that key range. May have something to do with Photoshop or Steam, GeForce Experience (given their annoying overlay features) as well? Was hoping to see if anyone knew anything. Thanks for the help and time!!

EDIT: Wasble to get them back on by restarting the comp (they popped back on a little after desktop loaded, but I would like to know what I hit to avoid future issues!)

 

Hello all,

I wasn't sure where else to post this information, but many owners (including myself) of GS60s have experienced an odd sound after opening the laptop and installing an M.2 drive in the empty slot. It has been described as a ticking, double-clicking, heartbeat, metronome, popping, etc. The sound comes from a rear speaker near the power button. The sound also alarmingly sounds like a hard drive dying / sticking, but that was not the case. There are a couple of YouTube videos of this sound - here's one of them:



I commented on the video as well. I couldn't find a solution to this problem online other than unplugging the speaker or disabling sound. Neither are real solutions.

I opened up the latptop and found that upon replacing the upper-right fan into the chassis (if you're looking at the open laptop, lid-down, power button near the top) I pinched an audio wire that goes to that rear speaker. This was causing the speaker to ground out and resulted in the heartbeat-like popping sound.

It's been about a month since I fixed the issue. The sound has not returned and my rear speakers are still functioning perfectly. This is not an issue with the M.2 drive slot receiving undervoltage as some have suggested. The M.2 drive I installed is also functioning perfectly. So, as with the other 98% of computer problems, this issue turned out to be another case of user error.

Hope this helps.