*The Offical MSI GX60 Owners Lounge*

Hey ! I'm experiencing the same problem, with Windows 8. Could it be an OS problem ?

 

Yeah, A10-4800K or something similar with an overclocking bios would be nice. But then again, I think I have the worst luck in OCing the GPU on this laptop. The GPU is still not overclockable. Ok, I can only OC it for like 50Hz, but that's it. Any more and the driver crash

 

Two names of the new Richland APU"s are known namely A10-5750M and the A8-5545M. Source. It is dutch, but the A10-5700M seems sweet. Not a big revolution, but it is a start.

 

*SIGN* i have the same problem, could anyone give me a fix

 

So im returning my second GX60 so this means I am out of the GX60 game altogether as I have a 2 strikes and you are out rule regarding RMA's

Going to be trying to find something else gaming notebook wise so ill probably posting around elsewhere on these forums on that front.

 

What was wrong with it? Not to say you did anything, but a lot of time I read about problems created by the users.

 

According to AMD's Press Release, there's a logical small improvement: AMD Unveils Innovative New APUs and SoCs that Give Consumers a More Exciting and Immersive Experience

- The score for the 2012 AMD A10-4600M on 3DMark 11 was 1150 and the 2012 AMD A8-4555M was 780 while the “Richland” 2013 AMD A10-5750M was 1400 and the AMD A8-5545M was 1100.

- The score for the 2012 AMD A10-4600M on the PCMark 7 Overall benchmark was 1965 and the 2012 AMD A8-4555M was 1650, while the “Richland” 2013 AMD A10-5750M was 2175 and the 2013 AMD A8-5545M was 1850.


The biggest step forward seems to be Kaveri though. Unfortunately it will not arrive until Q3 2013.

 

If you look back in this thread you will see what happened with my GX60 adventure.

 

I think if AMD make it to around 2015 then they stand a chance, with a good road map and if they get their execution in order, I really hope they do.

 

From your previous posts it seems like you didnt want it from the get go, very critical, which is fine but you have to pay more for perfection.

 

A picture would be nice to identify if it's a major issue that needs to be return. It is really hard to find a perfect perfect workmanship. after all these are being mass produced.

I found a tiny (less than half an inch) of plastic chipped on the bottom of my laptop, I kinda disregard it, too much hassle returning and what not.

Heck, my power cable came with a twist tie, but the cable wasn't even twisted with that twist tie, it was simple loose in the box, I could of be a return and stuff....

I didn't really mind, the laptop works fine, and the laptop itself looks 99.9% brand new, so I'm happy.

 

Would not call fan speed control not working for the most part and random wake up and shut down cycles something that would be classified as anything other then important issues, The driver issues and cosmetic issues just kinda sealed its fate im afraid.

 

Any noticeable defect is unacceptable on and around the screen area for me, I get distracted very easily by such things. Had it been elsewhere It may have been acceptable however, and had it been on the base/bottom of the system I would have been ok with that probably.

 

I actually didn't really get what kind of defect you had, is there like a gap between the screen and the bracket?

 

It was a white mark, rather like a bit of rough white paint, only not removable on the inside edge of the screen bezel on the left side.

 

Ooo I can see why it's distracting now...

 

Hello S1nn3r....I don't know what problem you had with your fan, but my fan spins every 30 secs...I mean, after booting the laptop in stays quiet for a moment and then it begins to spin somewhat noisy and then turns off....and then after 30 seconds it begins to spin again, not at full speed, for around 30 seconds and then it turns off.....I don't know if this is the normal behavior of the fan, or how to I control it to wait for at least 5 minutes before spinning? Also I posted that it sounds like when a cat is purring when it's spinning those 30 seconds without doing anything!

I now that it must spin at full seed when you are playing, but why it spins every 30 seconds?? is quite annoying the purr sound...should I send it to check if the fan has something? or is a factory defect?
Thanks in advance.

 

This is driving me nuts, is there no way to force the 7970M *OFF*? Cold boot my power LED stays solid orange until about 30 seconds after login where it goes white for about 5 seconds, then back to orange and won't change. I have used task manager to systematically hunt down and kill every single app that seems like it would have anything to do with the GPU with righteous fury.

It is less that I care about it using the discrete card and more that it is infuriating that something so simple as shutting off the @#$%^&* dedicated GPU when staring at an idle desktop is IMPOSSIBLE once a random unknown event takes place causing it to be on all the time every time.

I tried not to let it bother me before, but wiping the operating system every *WEEK* to reset it is so incredibly not even close to happening.

 

Hey Sublime !

I've experienced the same issue. It occured two times after the creation of some personnal "game profiles" in the CCC. The only solution was to make a clean uninstall of the drivers ( via Ccleaner, directly followed with a deep cleaning with Driver Fusion). I'm currently using the 7970M Enduro 12.11 driver, no problem so far with everything automaticaly controlled by the drivers.
Hope it will solve your problem !

EDIT : i've also disabled the Atheros Killer Network startup lauch that seems to interfer also with the Catalyst functionning. Weird, isn't it ?

 

Are there any bios settings for the fan? Anything much in the bios at all? Maybe Enduro is disabled?

 

I'm going to try the Killer thing, if that doesn't work I'll do a clean install of CCC (this happened to me within 4 days on Windows 8 and 2 days on Windows 7 - I *REALLY* hope this get's ironed out stat). I hope AMD adds a simple "what's using my GPU" thing or even a "force off" setting. I would be completely fine with even a manual "kill my card" option or a virtual power switch (PERFECT USE for the P1 button!!!!!), but sitting here talking to you guys my battery at 97% full says 2 hours 52 minutes remaining. That should be way up over 5 hours, so idling, this 7970M is draining the battery something fierce... Because you know, Firefox with one tab and sticky-notes are pretty graphics intensive...


EDIT: No dice. Still pointlessly starting the video card, going to try a clean install. Are you using CAP2 from AMD? I have been running 12.11 beta 11 + CAP2. I've even gone in with msconfig and STRIPPED the startup, killed any MSI Afterburner settings (disabled the apply overclock at boot, etc). It should not take me 15 minutes to get my computer ready for gaming, then another 15 minutes to get it back ready for power savings plus a restart - and that's even if I could get it THAT simple... Anyway, reinstalling drivers now, hopefully this works... :/

 

AMI Bios is always a joke, but it is especially stripped and locked down even by throwaway notebook standards, let alone a performance gaming machine by an overclock friendly manufacturer.

 

I am LOCO CRAZY ESSAY!

Previous AMD Catalyst

I'm doing it, I don't care what it does. Breaks the computer? Hi MSI, here is the machine back, thank you for the full refund, enjoy. I am THAT angry with AMD right now.

EDIT: Whoops, wrong link - http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/embedded/Pages/embedded_windows_all.aspx Catalyst 12.12.

 

Maybe test the drivers from MSI as a baseline, rather than new AMD beta drivers.

MSI Global – Download Center

 

Okay so, boatloads of awesome. The Catalyst 12.12 driver gave me a pretty white light, and I would like to point out an excellent resource center for the remaining AMD software (the download link for Catalyst 12.12 I gave covers ALL AMD - APU, Southbridge, SM whatever, chipset, etc etc) companion tools (AMD RAMdisk, overdrive, system monitor, etc) is Downloads

Hopefully slowly re-enabling all my tools will work (Killer, going to try to play with AMD Overdrive instead of MSI Afterburner, etc)


EDIT: And since I feel like I am braving new waters into the 12.12 arena, feel free to grill me on Q&A - so far Windows 7 x64 Ult continues to support screen brightness adjustment in 12.12. I will be benching some games in a bit after I feel satisfied that I have gotten the system both fully functional and stable. I plan on benching Batman Arkham City first - as that is one that I covered pretty well and has a decent benchmark tool - also I posted it here which means I have the numbers "written down" to compare to

EDITEDIT: WARNING! AMD Overdrive is so super incredibly and completely incompatible, double-clicking the shortcut INSTANTLY resulted in the MSI POST screen, resulting in boot loops that required booting into safe mode, running MSConfig and disabling the Overdrive service, then booting into normal windows and uninstalling. WOW! Not upset, just slightly stunned (and relieved that nothing is borked)... wowww.

Anyone know of a good overclocking utility that isn't afterburner, I seem to remember that being the turning point in the Radeon-never-shutting-off saga. Also, Radeon RAMdisk - AWESOME.

 

Just a quick niblet, I was kind of bummed, I thought Arkham City was the same as 12.11 B11 + CAP2 drivers at 54FPS, then I remembered - I pulled 44FPS stock clocks, 51FPS at 920/1400 clocks... So, for me, in this initial test, stock clocks I gained 7FPS, or about 15%.

Nothing definitive yet by far, but an EXCELLENT start I would say.

And also, I just enabled RAMdisk (after the test of course) at 4090MB to use Windows ReadyBoost, so I have 11GB RAM, 1GB reserved 7660G VRAM (if that's how it works), and 4GB RAMdisk... Hopefully this will boost speed of Windows in general a bit too, finally have a use for all this RAM


EDIT: GTA IV is broken and so is Batman Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum gave me an xlive.dll error - related to windows games live or whatever it is, reinstalling now.

 

You are awesome! Thank you for testing the new drive. I'll still stick with stock 12.10 for now, till a stable one is out for win 8

 

Annnd of course - in my overzealous aggressive tuning of msconfig - I disabled the startup of the microsoft live service when I was trying to figure out why the 12.11b11 drivers wouldn't shut off the 7970M. Realized this after I remembered - both GTA and Batman Arkham Asylum require Live to run... enabled it, rebooted, works fine now. To reiterate, that issue with the games not loading had NOTHING to do with the driver and EVERYTHING to do with my own stupidity. Re-enabled everything in msconfig (including killer networking!!!) and switchable graphics is still working 100% as it should.

I hope you guys get a few laughs out of my harebrained stupidity, haha



EDIT: PSCheck locking the processor at 2.7GHz combined with the new 12.12 drivers yielded 23.96FPS in the GTA IV self benchmark!!!!! Oh, with everything (EVERYTHING) on MAX. PSCheck + 12.12 drivers (and 7970M running stock clocks) produces a playable maximum-setting GTA IV. WOW! And I'm not running any other tweaks right now - ram is stock speed, 7970M is stock, no afterburner, nothing except the new 12.12 drivers and the processor locked at 2.7GHz.

If AMD releases the new lineup of A10 procs compatible with this chipset, I am literally pre-ordering it, I don't care the cost. My old framerates were about 15-17 in GTA IV at the same exact settings (even with the GPU running 920/1400). That 20-40% bump they are talking about would round out this machine perfectly.

 

I got two questions..

1. What ver. Afterburner are you guys using... I'm using 2.3.0 when using it on default it shows core clock=850, memory=1200 which is normal. But when I unlocked unofficial overclocking, everything is set at 0, and I can't overclock anything at all...

Edit: nevermind the second question...

 

Hi, new Canadian GX60 owner here. First thing I noticed is what the heck is up with the size of the power adapter??? That things is huge compared to my other albeit much older 15.6 laptop.. Anyone know if it is possible to get a smaller one?? I wouldn't be too keen to have to carry that through an airport..

 

Only by modding a slim alienware brick which involves a soldering iron.

 

So I went ahead and installed the 12.12 driver....

First, in Far Cry 3, when I'm using the 7970 in menu, I would be 100FPS (normal), but once I start a game, My GPU utilization would be at 99% and my FPS will LOCK at 4.4 FPS..... ????

I'm gonna test Skyrim now, well I only have 2 games installed at the moment... but so far the GPU in skyrim only utilized at around 35%, and so far I did not notice significant improvement over the 12.10 that came with the machine.

LMK if what I'm seeing is normal..

Edit: update* The FPS only locks during loading, and cut scene, such as in the beginning of the game, which makes the cut scene completely unwatchable.. Also I notice, the GPU utilization on Far Cry 3 indeed went up, however, FPS does not show improvement... one other thing is that, on the old driver, when I look at the sky, instantly my FPS will go up all the way to 60+, since there are no graphic to be processed, but now when I look at the sky, my GPU utilization steadily goes up to 99%, but FPS is only around 19-22.... (this all Far Cry 3 that I'm talking about)

Edit #2: Alright, I got to admit there is improvement on the GPU, I ran a test on 3dmark11, and I notice some pretty nice improvement on the numbers compared to the stock driver! But I guess it's just Far Cry 3 is not agreeing with the driver lol, I'm going to get some more games on here and do some more testings. In the mean time, anyone got a driver that they would suggest other than stock?

Edit #3: Ok, now I can say 12.12 shows a very nice improvement. Beside the issue still persist during cut scene, in the actual game for Far Cry 3, GPU is constantly utilizing above 70%, and FPS is very nice, some area maxed at 40+, Lowest FPS is on top of tower looking down at certain spot which drop down to 12-15ish.
During normal game play FPS is at a steady 25-35.

Down side is still that FPS lock up issue, because FPS locks during loading, so when you exit to main menu, which mean you have to go through a loading screen, you'll end up with a lock up 4.5FPS in main menu.

Now I'll go back to test Skyrim again, I had too much video opened in firefox when I first tested it, I'm going to close them all and retest again.. haha stupid me..

Edit #4: I am very pleased with the 12.12 driver, skyrim ran almost always 60FPS =] even in big map lowest FPS was still 40+, and it is on ultra setting.

Adjust brightness still doesn't work, and also sleeping dog is unplayable.... under any setting.. >.< bad utilization?

 

Alright, so I've just ordered one of the GX60's (and I have to say, this thread was instrumental in that decision) because I've decided that paying an extra ~$400 dollars to get an i7+7970M in a Clevo chassis just wasn't worth it (such as the prices I must deal with in Australia). Anyway, couple of questions for existing GX60 owners:

1. Are there going to be any issues if I buy a SSD drive, like the Intel 520, and whack that in the spare HDD bay? My understanding is that there's 2 HDD bays, and only one is taken up with 750GB HDD already, and the other is free and comes with a SATA3 connection, and not mSATA? Any particular cable gremlins I need to worry about?

2. Following on from that, any issues with wiping the default hard drive, and installing Windows 7 on the SSD and using the mechanical disk for files/games etc? There's no particular voodoo involved like "Disconnect the old hard drive, do a rain dance, connect SSD, install Windows, reconnect old HDD then sacrifice a goat and hope for the best"?

3. In the event that a better, compatible processor is released later this year, how easy/hard is it to swap processors? I've been building desktops for years, but I've never really messed around with a laptops internals before.

Thanks for any info guys!

 

1. No special cable needed, they even come with a bracket and screws for you.

2. You do have to take out hdd to install on sad, after installation then put hdd back. One thing I'm not sure is that if you need a different BIOS for win 7.

3. I don't know... I'm on the same boat as you on this one

 

1: seconded, comes with the bracket in the box

2: No, simply remove the 750GB, install windows on the SSD, re-insert the 750GB. You can then format it. As for BIOS - you need to change it from UEFI to Legacy which is a simple setting change by pressing delete when you power on. I am running Windows 7 and it is *FANTASTIC*. As for drivers, I'm sure you now the drill, but the 12.12 driver I found contains almost all the drivers for the system short of the networking and a few minor ones. In windows 7 there will be one device with no driver, it is the touch-sensor-switch-thing for the wireless. Obviously, my wireless works and can be turned on and off, just not through that touch switch (the satellite circle/line thing next to the power button). That is the only incompatibility.

3: notebooks in general - for all intents and purposes, impossible. This notebook and a few others that have a processor tray, it is the same as a desktop if anything a little bit more cramped. Most other laptops are soldered on. The jury is still out as to whether AMD will release the next generation processor in a compatible socket - it's going to be a wait-and-see thing. As for now, buy it planned for the worst and hope for the best.

I highly recommend it. The only performance issues in the past were driver related (and are mostly fixed now). It is a phenomenal laptop in it's own right, let alone at this price point. I easily would have spent $100-$200 more on it if MSI asked me to (I prefer AMD to intel as a principle, and this was a no brainer for me when it was announced, I dropped any other prospects and immediately started learning everything I could).

 

Others in the Ultimate Trinity Notebook thread have swapped APUs, so its certainly doable, as long as it doesnt have the Low Voltage parts which are soldered on. The GX60 does not have a low voltage part. The Richland APU update should be socket compatable, no way AMD would release a new 32nm APU with a new architecture, everything new is on 28nm, including the GCN stuff at TSMC, so they wouldnt port it up to 32nm at Global Foundries.

I guess I am not seeing the 12.12 drivers, except for Linux and IGPs and APUs, not discrete GPUs?

 

Just want to clarify something - do you mean the Catalyst 12.12 drivers, or is there a general set of drivers available from MSI that covers everything on the machine? I'm assuming I can download the software/drivers for the THX speakers, Killer LAN, etc from MSI after wiping the machine and starting fresh again?

I have no doubt I can get everything in the machine working at some point, I just want that point to be reached with as few hassles as possible And if the processor isn't soldered on, well, I reckon I have enough ability to swap it out in future but I bought this accepting I shouldn't expect to be able to do so.

 

I posted it a few posts pack: AMD Embedded GPU and APU Driver for Windows Vista/7/Win 8

The one I installed is:

AMD Embedded GPU and APU Vista/Win7 Driver | 381 MB | 9.01 | 12/11/2012 | Download
Description: Catalyst 12.12

When I installed that after practically using the laws-of-life to pull out anything AMD/Catalyst related, it put drivers for the 7970M on there as well. AMD does a REALLY good job of hiding this, I literally searched for 12.12 on a whim on google - there was nothing that showed me it even existed before I googled - more than anything I was curious about a release date


And if you are running Windows 8, I would assume the next one down would apply to you:

AMD Embedded GPU and APU Win8 Driver | 375 MB | 9.01 | 12/11/2012 | Download
Description: Catalyst 12.12


And as an aside, my free SIX DVD RECOVERY arrived today from MSI if you want a factory set I recommend calling their tech support and telling them your machine borked and you cannot get into the recovery via F3 at boot. They offered me a free RMA to send it back and offered to pay shipping, I asked specifically if they could just send me the discs.



EDIT: This would apply to both TommyB0y and monolm - the 12.12 driver set includes everything related to AMD in your machine. The only thing you need from MSI is the networking drivers (I would download those from Killer directly, though I had Gentech put in the Killer 1202 wifi card as well - HIGHLY recommended I might add - so I was not in need of the whatever-brand wifi card drivers myself) and the sound drivers. After that, just the THX and other MSI specific things are all you need if you want them.

 

That's great, thanks for clarifying man

 

would you consider that 12.12 as a beta drive?

I actually think it's a official drive, BUT apparently it is for 6970m and others, I guess it is not really meant for 7970m? does it explain the issue that i've been having?

BTW sublime, do you have the brightness issue as well?

 

That is a real stretch of the Unified Driver Architecture. I wonder if it found a driver somewhere left on your system. Can you go in the decive manager and confirm the driver number on the 7970M matches that 12.12 release from a month ago, 9.01 I guess.

Also, do you have the CAP loaded, and that may help layjohn?

One reason I think they would not be compatable is that embedded/APU are all VLIW4. 7700 series and below are VLIW5, and 7800 and 7900 are only GCN architectures. Maybe all DX11 devices have the same driver set though.

 

I went to device manager and checked the 7970m driver.

It shows that the Driver Date is 11/6/2012.... O.O

Driver Version is 9.10.0.0

Then again, it did show significant improvement, ALSO the when I open a game it automatically switches the graphic for me (apparently it is based on power source), so I assume when I'm plugged in to a power source it will always run on dGPU for most programs.

To note here, it still runs on iGPU when I close my games, hence the white light.

 

It wasn't labeled as beta and I haven't found any issues so far. I have not had the brightness issue since I switched to Windows 7 - stock, 12.11 beta 11 + CAP2, or 12.12. I think the brightness issue is specific to Windows 8.

Forums are broken for me, can't attach since every time I "go advanced" it asks me to log in, and locks the text window blank. See link: imgur: the simple image sharer

Make of it what you will, they may ship 12.12 with an older driver, but I completely wiped the driver out with CCleaner and Driver Fusion, there was absolutely no old driver on my machine post-wipe



EDIT: As an aside, that unknown device is the touch-switch for the wireless "button" next to the power button, no windows 7 driver exists for it.

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, but searching the thread has not been to successful. What is the fastest memory supported? I was looking at some 1866 or higher if supported. Unless I missed it, not much in the bios for tweaking memory settings??

 

1600MHz is the maximum for a10-4600. There aren't any options for changing timings in the BIOS. :/

The Richland refresh of Trinity will keep the same cpu so likely stay at 1600MHz RAM, though Kaveri in the 2nd half of this year if compatible may well bring faster memory support.

 

The unlocked bios has an option for 1866mhz but it just makes the memory clock start bouncing all over the place.

 

Ahh, sh**.

My AC/DC Adapter for my GX60 got fried out of no particular reason.

All of a sudden I heard faint *pop* sounds and ignored it thinking it was a random sound.
But then I noticed my battery started dropping. I checked the adapter and cables ect. all intact, but the powerbrick was almost ice cold.

No I have to entire notebook with the adapter to the MSi for warranty... damn, I could just buy a new powerbrick, but those 180W are quite costly and hard to find.

Damn it, guess I have to say goodbye to my machine for few weeks, despite this being just a small problem fixable easily attaching a new powerbrick.

*out of curiosity I want to ask however, could this powerbrick failure have anything to do with me forcing turbo on all 4 cores of the A-10 CPU? (2.7 Ghz).
I set turbo like only 3 days prior to the powerbrick failure, I didn't however mess with the voltage values ect.

Durning first 2 days I didn't do anything but ran few benchmarks like Cinebench and 3Dmark11, on the 3rd day I just played some StarCraft II and all of a sudden - *pop* - powerbrick failure. There was no OC on the GPU, no OC on the CPU (since we know that can't we done on A-10) I just forced turbo on it within factory predefined values, so it wasn't even a real OC.

Is this the culprit? or it is just a coincidence that my powerbrick failed shortly after introducing turbo on CPU?

 

Absolute coincidence. There's no way forcing the processor to run at a rated stock would draw any significant amount of power, let alone enough to pop a power supply. I don't know about the GX60's but if it's like all other power supplies, it won't supply more than it is rated for - in that, you could try to draw 200 watts, but you would be using 20 watts of battery power and 180 watts of good ole wall juice.

 

Thanks for the info guys. Unlocked Bios?? There a post on this somewhere? Have you tried higher memory settings in it?

 

I just found this page, suggesting support is up to 1866mhz for the A10-4600M, unless I am miss reading?
AMD Accelerated Processors for Notebook PCs