***The Official MSI GT80 Titan Owner's Lounge***

Which model GT80 did you get? Mine was the SLI-263.

Laptops have improved charging intelligence these days. And, MSI implements it for us, we don't need to do anything to improve battery life.

You can watch your battery charging icon say "Plugged in but not Charging" and a % below 100%, and that's the charging circuit maintaining the long term life of the battery.

Mine varied from 93% to 100%, and your's should do the same.

The battery should last well past when you sell it to get something better, and past the time the 2nd owner and 3rd owner have the laptop - that 4th owner better plan on getting a replacement battery though

Moving the keycaps doesn't move the letter that comes out of the key when pressed... you would need to re-map the keyboard as well, besides plucking keycaps and migrating them.

I haven't heard of anyone trying this on the GT80, please come back and let us know how that goes

 

Thanks hmscott for your prompt answer
My Windows is already set to azerty and as I use the gt80 as a desktop computer I plug in a separate keyboard but I was still wondering if it was possible to swap up a couple keys on the laptop.
I'll report back if I give it a try
And to answer your question my laptop is a GT80 2QE Titan SLI / 2x GTX 980M / i7 4720HQ / 16GB / 128SSD + 1T

 

GPU temps related qustion : today i had my first 10 hours intensive gaming night on the beast.

the highest temp recorded on both stock and OC at 125 / 385 ( both settings had same temp for some reason ) was 87 C , the median was 84 ~ 85 C and idle temp is 50 ~ 53 C.

I have been notified that if the temps are around 85+ C , i should re-paste , but i have no clue once so ever what dose that mean , or how to do it , and tbh i am not really into the idea of digging into a 3 days old 4K $ machine.

So can i consider these temps some kind of normal range ? or are they way too high compared to others ? Thanks !

 

Don't let people screw with you, getting you to re-paste a 980m @ 85c - running OC'd at high load.... good thing you asked

Never break the manufacturers paste job during the warranty period, it's asking for trouble. The manufacturers paste is formulated to block out air and keep the paste from drying out.

99% of the time stock paste on a laptop will last for years, providing low enough temps for highest performance, even at OC settings.

If the GPU / CPU temps were really high, which 85c isn't for an OC'd 980m, then use your warranty to get MSI to re-paste. You paid for the warranty, use it. Register your GT80 with MSI and ask them for help, and get confirmation from MSI about what constitutes reasonable CPU / GPU temps.

https://register.msi.com/home/login

Stock paste is not going to give the lowest temps compared to the first readings on a fancy paste job, but that fancy paste will dry out over time much quicker, and require constant attention over time - re-pasting every 3-6 months to keep the same lowest temp.

It's not worth the few degree's of potential improvement, and it makes zero difference in FPS in games.

You have to decide why you got the laptop. To continually pull it apart and tweak and tune it for "best" performance, or to enjoy gaming on it.

If you got it for gaming, forget about pulling your laptop apart, or flashing a custom vbios, just find a stable OC - or run it stock - and enjoy gaming.

Telling someone to re-paste a brand new laptop is the equivalent of asking them if they want to play 52 pickup...

Spoiler: What's 52 pickup?

 

You should be able to swap out the keys. Check out what MSIGeno posted a little while back.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-keycaps-for-my-gt80.788688/

 

Paste on my now dead Sager lasted 3 year and during those 3 years I was getting temperatures you'd get a stroke from (under heavy load). Think high 90s and when I was tweaking and benchmarking, it climbed over 100F.
After 3 years I started getting over 90F even when browsing Internet so I repasted with Kryonaut.
Instantly the Temps were in 40-50s light load and under 40 idle.
The original paste was totally dry like a plaster.

 

Sounds like it might have been a bad paste job from the beginning unfortunately. I've heard good things about Kryonaut, but I think part of that sounds like it there might not have been enough paste possibly.

 

Yup. That's`what I thought too. But I didn't write it as a complaint, but just to let Hassan know, that 85C is not gonna hurt his computer.
Now I realize I said all these Temps in Fahrenheit in my previous post. I meant Celsius of coursse.

 

I knew where you were coming from, and that it was meant to be informative, and guess you meant C, no F. Otherwise, those temps in Fahrenheit would be great!

 

LOL yeah. Cooled with liquid nitrogen.

 

I posted a while back (page 677 or something) about getting ALT codes to work. I write a lot on this laptop and you just can't use ALT codes with the dual trackpad. Has anybody found a way to get them working, do I need some sort of software, or am I out of luck?

 

Thanks @stank0 , I am sure Hassan appreciates the confirmation that his 85c 980m under OC isn't anything close to the temps you were seeing, 100C is way too hot!!

Didn't Sager / seller have a warranty that would have covered fixing the high temps you saw in your Sager laptop?

Why didn't you RMA the laptop for repair while it was still under warranty?

That's why we recommend testing a new laptop under load as soon as you get a new laptop so you can find temperature problems, or flaky GPU/CPU/RAM components early - so you can return it to the seller for another.

And, it's important to continue with such load testing every few months, and to monitor CPU/GPU temps on a daily basis so you can RMA for repair under warranty as soon as problems are first seen.

What do you think finally ended your Sager, what failed?

 

Hello, ive had my gt80 for a little over a year now so I don't think i have a warantee anymore. Im outside of the usa as well so shippjng it back would be difficult. ive recently developed an issue if the laptop get disturbed from any type of movement it will shut off. when i turn it back on it boots to the msi logo then immediately shuts off. i cant get into bios or anythibg before it shuts off. If i move it or shake it it will turn back on normally. im boping just a loose connection im going to open it up tonight. just wkndered if anyone else had had this happen.

 

Please, before you try to fix it yourself, contact MSI to see if they will fix it for you.

MSI has had a 2 year warranty for a long time, and although it may differ in other regions, it's worth checking.

You need to register your laptop with MSI, provide a proof of date of purchase - I attach a photo of the sales receipt with the serial number and date to the registration as a zipfile.

Then your product page for your account will show the laptop and how long of a warranty you still have.

MSI will service out of warranty as well, for a charge, you can ask them to debug the problem(s) and fix them for you.

Sign up here, and register your laptop, then you can file an RMA request to get it fixed:
https://register.msi.com/home/login

Please let us know how it works out, either way

 

Does it make a difference that I bought it through ibuypower.com?

 

Yeah, I see what you are saying. It doesn't look good saying that nothing will happen when the computer died. LOL I can assure you that its death had nothing to do with the temps but all to do with the environment it was running in and the poor care I took of it. See the laptop was riding with me in my truck for 3.5 years. Vibrations, dust... A couple of weeks ago I came home with, shortly before, perfectly working computer and when I plugged it in and turned on... It wouldn't boot. The farthest it got was to Windows welcome screen and froze there. I opened it loosening two last remaining screws left on the bottom cover and when I removed it, something fell out. Some kind of copper thingy which looked like it's supposed to be snapped on something. Needless to say, I've never found where it broke off from and the computer didn't even bother to attempt to do anything at all after I put it back together.

Why I didn't send it back? Well, first I didn't want to part with it for who knows for how long and second... I read many reports from owners of that very model on this very forum, that overheating is a pretty common problem with this particular model.

Thirdly, that 100C was happening when I was over clocking it in XTU an ran the benchmarks back to back.

Yep, you can say I was abusing that poor laptop pretty badly and he never complained a bit.
The only time I saw something's going on when it started to shut down quite frequently while playing Witcher 3. That was when I found the original paste dried out and I resolved that with Kryonaut.

I was due to upgrade anyway. Those GTX680s were beginning to show their age and besides... If I wanted to get Oculus or Vive, it wasn't compatibile. So I had an excuse to spend over 3k of money I don't have and not get divorced.

Jeez, was it too long? It was, wasn't it? Sorry

 

http://www.ibuypower.com/Support/Warranty

Click on the MSI tab

It looks like the 2 year warranty is run through them. Direct warranty support from resellers is common for purchase from sellers that package/re-package barebones frames from MSI, Asus, etc.

Spoiler: Text of MSI tab from ibuypower.com as of right now

iBUYPOWER-MSI Notebook 2 Year Limited Warranty Information
General Terms and Condition

Effective date starting May 1st, 2014, iBUYPOWER, offers a Twenty-Four (24) months limited warranty on select iBUYPOWER-MSI Branded Notebook Product only, hereunder Product from the manufacturing date.; the limited warranty is under no circumstances transferable to any other party that is not the original buyer of the Product. This limited warranty only covers the Product that is purchased in the United States from iBUYPOWER.

iBUYPOWER will repair or by any other efforts restore the defective Product to its working condition as originally configured by iBUYPOWER. iBUYPOWER is not responsible for any subsequent installation by any third party or by the owner.

** Open box item warranty will be 90 days after the purchase day with proof of purchase.

Limited Warranty

Within the valid limited warranty period applied to the Product, Customer may contact iBUYPOWER for warranty service only when the Product purchased becomes defective under proper usage, the limited warranty is under no circumstances transferable to any other party that is not the original buyer of the Product. The limited warranty DOES NOT cover Cosmetic damages, damage or loss to any software programs, data, or removable storage media, or damage due to the following;
(1) Accident, misuse, abuse, negligence, commercial use or modifications of the Product;
(2) Improper operation or maintenance of the Product;
(3) Connection to improper voltage supply;
(4) Attempted or unauthorized repair by any party other than iBUYPOWER.
(5) The warranty seals have been broken or altered.

The limited warranty DOES NOT apply when the malfunction results from the use of the Product in conjunction with accessories, products or ancillary or peripheral equipment, or where it is determined by MSI that there is no fault with the Product itself.

iBUYPOWER is ONLY responsible for the iBUYPOWER-MSI branded product purchased in the United States. The limited warranty service is not, in any way, applicable for any OS or software configured in the Product. Customer's dated sales receipt, showing the original date of purchase of the product is customer's proof of purchase. Customer may, in any way requested by iBUYPOWER, need to provide the proof of purchase of the Product when attempting to make use of the limited warranty service.

The following items (inclusive but not limited to) are covered under this warranty.

CPU, HDD, MEMORY, MOTHERBOARD, MXM GPU (if any), KEYBOARD, TOUCHPAD, AUDIO DEVICES, OPTICAL DRIVES (BD Combo, DVD/CD-RW Combo, DVD Dual Layer Burner…), LCD*, Wireless Module, Bluetooth Module (if any), built-in buttons, built-in webcam.

* LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is covered for one (1) year only. Limited one (1) LCD claim per year Note: Primary battery is covered for 1 year only. AC Adapter is covered for 6 months. Accessories (inclusive but not limited to) such as mouse, carrying bag… do not cover by warranty except DOA.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) Screen Bad Pixel Policy:
All notebook displays use TFT* technology, manufactured according to high industry standards, to guarantee trouble-free personal computing. Nevertheless, your display may have cosmetic imperfection that appears as small bright or dark spots. This is common to all LCD displays and cannot be avoided by any of our models. These imperfections are caused by one or more defective pixels or sub-pixels. iBUYPOWER and MSI follow the common bad pixel policy from the industry.

Following the industry standard, iBUYPOWER and MSI warrant a defective LCD display as having 5 or more bad pixels*. It's required that users to contact iBUYPOWER within 30 days from the invoice date for a replacement.

* 5 abnormal pixels for 14" or smaller LCD display and 7 abnormal pixels for 15" or larger LCD display.
* TFT LCD is a variant of LCD uses Thin Film Transistor Technology to improve image quality.

Labor

Within the limited warranty period applied to the Product, iBUYPOWER will repair defects in the Product at no charge. After the limited warranty period applied to the Product, Customer can choose to have the Product repaired on a fee basis.

Parts

Within the limited warranty period applied to the Product, iBUYPOWER will repair or replace the defective parts of the Product. After the limited warranty period applied to the Product, Customer can choose to have the parts of the Product to be repaired or replaced on a fee basis.

Protection/Back- Up of Stored Data

With respect to all service provided, it is Customer's responsibility to backup the contents of your hard drive, including any data you have stored or software you have installed on the hard drive. It is likely that the contents of your hard drive will be lost or reformatted in the course of service and neither iBUYPOWER nor MSI will be responsible for any damage to or loss of any programs, data or other information stored on any media or any part of any Product serviced. IF DURING THE REPAIR OF THE PRODUCT THE CONTENTS OF THE HARD DRIVE ARE ALTERED, DELETED, OR IN ANYWAY MODIFIED, IBUYPOER AND MSI ARE NOT REPONSIBLE WHATSOEVER. CUSTOMER'S PRODUCT WILL BE RETUNRED AS ORIGINALLY CONFIGURED WHEN MANUFACT URED/PURCHASED.

Warranty on Batteries and Accessories

Primary battery that originally comes with iBUYPOWER-MSI Branded Notebook is covered under warranty for one (1) year only. Within the limited warranty period one (1) year applied to the Battery, iBUYPOWER will repair or by any other efforts to restore the batteries that originally come with the product to their working condition as originally configured by iBUYPOWER.

Accessories (inclusive but not limited to) such as mouse, carrying bag…do not cover by warranty except DOA.

Technical Support for iBUYPOWER-MSI Notebook Product

iBUYPOWER technical support will provide technical assistance only on hardware components or the product itself as a whole. If the Product is determined defective and repair service is necessary, iBUYPOWER technical support will assist customer to obtain a RMA number for returning the defective product to iBUYPOWER for repair.

RMA Services for iBUYPOWER-MSI Notebook Product

Customer must contact iBUYPOWER technical support and obtain a RMA number from iBUYPOWER RMA department prior to returning the defective Product to iBUYPOWER. Customer needs to return the defect Product to iBUYPOWER within 30 days from the RMA issuance date. Failing to do so may prevent customer from being eligible for the issued RMA number and thus Customer may need to request another RMA number.

In the case of specific part which is no longer manufactured, the then current closest functionally equivalent Replacement Equipment will be ready to deliver to the Customer within fourteen (14) working days after iBUYPOWER Technician has determined that Replacement Equipment is necessary.

Shipping

iBUYPOWER will only cover the cost of shipping (within contiguous 48 US states) Notebook back to customer; customer is responsible for shipping the Notebook to iBUYPOWER. We strongly suggest customer also insure the package; iBUYPOWER is not responsible for lost or damage of Notebook during the shipping if customer did not insured or pack the Notebook properly.

Be sure to remove all third party hardware, software, features, parts, options, alterations, and attachments not warranted by iBUYPOWER prior to sending the Product to iBUYPOWER for service. iBUYPOWER is not liable for any loss or damage to these items.

Prices, specifications, availability and terms of offers may change without notice. Despite our best efforts, a small number of items may contain pricing, typography, or photography errors. Correct prices and promotions are validated at the time your order is placed.

Contact info for ibuypower.com is here:
http://www.ibuypower.com/Support/Support

They also have "Chat" for Customer Service and one for Technical Support, so you can get interactive support.

 

Very nicely put, and not too long. Clear conversation and written exchange of detailed information takes time. My posts are often long, so that clearly stated detailed information can be given.

Spoiler: Clearly stated detailed information

Long written discourse can be frustrating for those that aren't comfortable with reading, but at the same time that is good therapy for them.

Of course, if a truck were bearing down on you, I would push you out of the way to safety, and save the "Watch Out!" for when we had time to have a drink and laugh about it. Action speaks volumes of words.

Constant dust and air movement through the laptop, coupled with the vibrations of being on the road open up gaps in the thermal compound seal between the CPU and heat spreader - allowing air to get in and dry out the paste - will kill a laptop quicker than it's designed life span.

That's why I suggest not doing a re-paste on your own. At the service center they have the knowledge and the tools to disassemble and reassemble the cooling components to more accurate tolerances than most people are used to being aware of.

The most common complaint I get from people that re-paste on their own the first time, is that their temps are low at first, but quickly rise over time, until they are way above even the worst temps they saw before re-pasting.

It's because they didn't tighten things up correctly, left gaps between the cooling components allowing the paste to dry out, or didn't align components correctly when re-assembling, or left out critical spacing components, or mixed up the sized screws used in particular places when putting it all back together.

Or they put on too much paste and the seal wasn't made, exposing the edges of paste to air, allowing the free exchange of air oxidizing the paste.

Or they put on too little paste and the gap wasn't sealed, letting air in under the edges, and the paste dries out.

Or they removed those "sticky pads", and didn't replace them, instead making up the gap with "thick paste", not realizing those pads were there for a reason - the open edges of paste dry out - and the drying out goes through the volume of paste quickly - shrinking and pulling the paste away from the connected surfaces.

Or they use "shims" to replace the pads, not quite getting the right size, and the cooling components are misaligned, or worse put under forceful stress. Some report hearing a "popping" sound some time after starting up the laptop the first time - as the heat expands the metal and increases the force to the metal failure point.

So much experience to gain, so many failures to resolve, it's a long journey and when you don't know about the potential pitfalls you learn them as they step onto the stage of your experiences, it can be pretty exciting.

Vibration and rough handling - daily carry or constant movement - can exacerbate the fitment between cooling components in a laptop, causing early failure.

Most successful re-pasting is done by people who have failed in all these technical area's at one time or another before. or they get lucky and have a single successful mating between cooling components the first time, or they actually did enough reading to make themselves aware of the potential pitfalls - watching video's critically on how to do the work - and were able to assimilate the techniques by watching others do them correctly.

Gaining expertise is a long arduous journey, and you don't want to take your first step with a high $ laptop, which can turn out to be a very expensive - very short - first journey

For your next laptop, please watch the rise in temps a little closer, and schedule a warranty service call to replace the drying paste before it fails to cool adequately. That's why we seek out and pay extra for a laptop that has warranty coverage.

It helps to have a backup computer, usually I suggest keeping the previous laptop around as backup, but in your case, maybe find a cheap used or on closeout sale laptop along the way to keep as backup for any future planned or unplanned laptop outages

 

Backup computer would be nice, but after my experience with the brand new $1000 Best Buy "powerhouse", I'll rather stick with my Android tabled even though oftentime it's so frustrating experience, that I have to fight the urge to find out whether it'll blend.

I hope guys at XOTIC PC will put it together right the first time. The overheating with this new one isn't too bad as I read so I won't have any excuses not to RMA it back.

 

@hmscott BTW, rest assured that I made majority of those re-pasting mistakes you so elonquently mentioned.
The temps did indeed climbed back up after a while, so I just re-pasted again. To my credit, I've never let it run out of control.

 

Thanks for that, it's not often that people disclose the truth about re-pasting. It's the beginning of a long journey of self improvement and gaining of expertise, that takes a lot of time, effort, and persistence to be successful.

As an Electronics Engineer, and a Computer Scientist, I believe in hands on involvement if you are in those fields. I have even scheduled "computer racking assembly time" to give hands on time for software engineers when rolling out new datacenter services.

It's a real gestalt for them to do hands on unboxing, lifting, racking, wiring, and labeling of the server, storage, and network hardware that is going to be running their software for many years to come. Over the years I am certain they think back on those times when supporting their services, using the insights gained through that physical connection to their work.

For most people re-pasting and all that involves is not something they would engage in if they knew from the beginning the time commitment, and the ongoing attention it was going to involve them in long term.

That's why I said earlier that someone suggesting a newbie do a re-pasting on their brand new $4k laptop was akin to asking if they wanted to play a game of 52 pickup, it's trolling of the most basic and ill-spirited nature.

And, besides that, misery loves company

 

Ain't hat the truth

I've got no need to make silly excuses and pretend I'm some kind of expert. That is someting I've got reserved for my wife. (and sometimes for my boss).
I do (did) better with desktops, but laptops... I'm scared of. The idea of pulling it apart completely gives me a panic attack.
I still have an old MSI with charging port wiggled out. Can't fix it because it woud mean to take out the mobo. Nope. Dust it will collect forever.

But since you clearly have the knowledge superior to most here, I've got a question I asked before but never got an answer. Did I waste $200 on the RAM upgrade to that G.Skill 2800Mhz? Will I ever see any benefits worth $200? Wouldn't I have been just fine with stock 2133Mhz?
The advantage of shelling over $300 for the Samsung 950 M.2 is clear, but that RAM still buggers me.

 

Those are great benchmarks. You should make sure ur CPU is stable at 4.0 ghz. I was not stable above that. One way I could tell was the glitchy get and crashing in battlefront above 4.0 ghz. You can if you want, try a custom vbios and oc a little more...

 

Funny, it's actually the other way around

Memory speed will have a much greater potential performance impact on in game FPS than a faster SSD can provide: Zero.

The PCIE SSD will benchmark faster than the SATA SSD, and for some uses the extra speed will provide improvements worth spending the extra $'s on, but for single user interactive use under Windows, you will hardly notice the difference between a PCIE and SATA SSD.

It's actually common sense when you break down the time a computer operation takes, and account for the IO transfer time portion of the overall transaction time.

Assuming the PCIE SSD transfer speed is 3x faster than the SATA SSD transfer speed:

If the overall time to complete a transaction is 10 units of time, and the time for the disk IO portion of the transaction is 0.1 units of time, then the improvement from reducing that .1 unit of time to a .033 unit of time won't have a noticeable effect on the overall time of 9.966 units of time it takes to complete an operation.

Of course if you are transferring lots of files, or a few very large files, from a PCIE SSD to another PCIE SSD, you will notice the shorter time it takes as the IO is 99% of the time to complete the transaction.

Most Windows and application operations only use fleeting amounts of IO, so it's not noticeable in day to day use. Although the placebo effect is strong, increasing relative to the amount spent on the PCIE SSD

As for the memory, that has a big effect in some games, especially with the new 1080's, as memory speed becomes a performance bottleneck, even above CPU performance. I don't have the gaming tests video handy at the moment, but I will edit this and add it later; I already posted it here in a forum. It showed FPS improvements that you would benefit from in day to day use - at least for those games.

I have updated memory from 1600mhz to 2133mhz in a few laptops, and I definitely noticed a pronounced placebo effect, over and above the amount spent, well worth the effort

Seriously though, it was a big improvement in memory throughput, but again the same rules of performance apply, how much is that resource a percentage of the overall time it takes to complete a transaction, and will it make a measurable or noticeable difference in performance, and is that a large percentage of my daily usage?

For me a memory speed upgrade, especially almost 700mhz, and supported by the seller, would be worth it.

3000mhz/3200mhz is also now available and working in laptops. Ask. The price premium to buy it yourself isn't large from 2800mhz to 3000mhz to 3200mhz, and it shouldn't be for them either.

$200 more for faster memory, for how much memory? At 64GB a $200 increase isn't too much, but for 16GB/32GB, it seems a bit pricey, but if the seller is sticking their necks out supporting it for you long term, it's likely worth it.

One of the advantages of getting faster memory installed from your dealer is that they will support it. Some people had problems early on with DDR4 compatibility with faster memory, but that should have all been worked out.

Overall, for most people, sticking with 2133mhz memory and SATA SSD's saves more $ than the performance benefits they provide.

Unless you are providing an income with the laptop, and the faster components speed up the operations you perform, decreasing the time it takes, improving your workflow output, it's best to just save the $.

Of course, over-building, and blowing excessive amounts of money for no real benefit other than bragging rights, is a traditional - but expensive - part of the hobby.

 

HA! Why I didn't ask you BEFORE I placed the order? I've ordered the PCIE Samsung 950 Pro because everybody was raving about how is everything "just instant".
The RAM... well, I thought faster must be better and I like fast things. (that's why I drive M3 )
Yeah, it was (i think) $209 for 32GB.

So you're saying that even if I put two of those 950s (512GB) in RAID, I wouldn't ree a real difference during normal use? Over, say, stock option?
If so, I'm cancelling the second one I've just ordered from Amazon.

 

The upgrades do provide measurable performance improvements, benchmarks and some real world tests will show that.

How that affects your actual usage, and if it is worth the extra cost, is up to you to decide.

The PCIE chipset throughput limit is theoretically 3.2GB total after subtracting overhead, in/out of the CPU for the CM236 and this generation Skylake CPU. The previous generation chipset, for the Haswell / Broadwell CPU it was 1.8GB/sec.

So if 2x your Read/Write speed of the single PCIE SSD exceeds the chipset / CPU throughput capacity your RAID0 will have an upper limit to the actual performance.

You also need to subtract from that 3.2GB/sec other traffic in/out of the CM236 / CPU.

SSD's are all "instant" - it's a big performance jump from spinning rocks (hard drives) to solid state stationary rocks (silicon). 80MB/sec to 550MB/sec (7x) is much more noticeable than 550MB/sec to 1600MB/sec (3x), and most of the noticeable improvement is from the huge reduction in transaction latency - the instantaneous response of SSD's.

But, all in all, if you have the $, and it's a long term investment, it's not that much of a price differential to skip the potential performance you will live with for years to come. (if you are looking for an excuse to spend the $, )

 

I wouldn't upset the order now, but doing it from the start I would have invested the $ in larger cheaper M.2 SATA SSD's, there are 1TB M.2 SSD's now for $260, and you can run them in all the M.2 slots, whereas you can only have a max of 2 PCIE M.2 SSDs with the current chipsets.

RAID0 of M.2 SATA SSD's, 3x = ~1500MB/sec, 4x = ~2000MB/sec, almost as fast as the PCIE RAID0, but with 3TB or 4TB of storage as well

And, to add the 2nd PCIE M.2 SSD after the build would be a pain. You would need to rebuild the OS install, or try a full image backup of the single SSD install and restore it to the RAID install; then install the IRST software.

I would want to do the native install on the RAID0 myself to get the best configuration performance.

At this late date, if the build is underway, you could leave things as they are and add M.2 SATA 1TB SSD's as you need more space, or have them build it to start with the 2x PCIE M.2 RAID SSD configuration.

 

Thanks for thoroghly explaining it. I reallyappreciate that.
No, I didn't want to mess with my order with XOTIC. That's done. I just wanted to know if I should feel some degree of regret. Considering pros and cons, the only con I can see is with the moey. But I'm lways looking for ways how to spend money anyway, so I think I'll be pretty happy with what I've ordered.

What I still have time to do something about is the second 950 PCIE I've ordered on Amazon just today. The plan was I'll put it in RAID (yes, restoring the OS from flash drive) and have 2x the speed (so to say).
But... since that isn't exactly the case, I'm thinking about canceling that one.

I was mainly looking for speed because I got plenty of HDDs from my dead laptop(s) for data and backups which I would use as external drives.

 

If you are getting it from Amazon Prime, you have a generous return window. Give it a try, and live with it for a few weeks, and see if you think it is worth it.

 

That's a great idea! I'll do just that. Thanks.

 

File transfers between interior hdd's are much faster and I max out the transfer speeds to my usb's (250mb/s) on my pcie ssd's. Comparatively my old laptop on a sata 3 ssd could only hit about 100 mb/s transfer speeds to my USB and was slow with small files.

Raid is a bonus as it combines both speed and storage.
When I back up my laptop to my external 7200 rpm hdd, it backs up at 2 gb/s

 

Well, I can't wait to test it myself . It's in stage 5 - testing and burning in.

 

Have fun! Be sure to post your benchmark results after u get it!

 

It's not so much the benchmark, it's the actual day to day interactive use that matters most. If you can't tell the difference when under normal use, the extra performance capacity is going to waste - since it's not getting noticed / used by the user.

 

@stank0 I meant overall benchmarks like firestrike

but pcie benchmarks might be interesting too. You should hit around 3,000 mb/s. If u post yours I'll have something to compare mine too

 

I like tweaking and benchmarks but I must agree with @hmscott.
I don't think this laptop will need any overclocking for normal use anyways and even for gaming. i mean... if my 3.5 years old, prematurely departed Sager with all the "old" technology (2x GTX 680m, SATA SSD, 16GB of RAM...), could cold start the Windows before I managed to take off my clothes... and I'm from Florida, so I wear T-shirt and shorts all year round, then this system should start before I even touch the power button.
Also with gaming. I'm not sure if one can tell the difference between 65 and 70 fps. Especially if he was used to play Witcher 3 at roughly 20-25, sometimes less.

 

Lol I'm in Houston

 

Phase 6 - shiped. You know what I'm going through right now, don't you? LOL

 

More propaganda on their part i'm afraid....

 

Should be changed to "Phase 6 - Feels like forever, hurry up fedex."

Let me know if you need anything else once it arrives, and I hope you enjoy your new computer.

 

Hey guys,

Just got my GT80 in today and had a quick question on temps (sorry, sure it's been done 100x).

So playing BF4, w/ stock clocks & fans @ max, I'm seeing 85-92C on the GPU | ~70C on GPU1 | ~85C on GPU2 (using afterburner).

Getting great performance (maxed out @ 1440p w/ external gsync lcd)...the GPU temps are about what I'd expect but I'm little surprised the CPU is getting so hot on this big of a rig.

Should I be bouncing off the 90C mark or do I need to do a repaste?
Wouldn't be the first time...but I'm a little more reluctant on this beast...

 

By fans at max do you mean that you are using the hardware max fan button? If so, then 85c+ on GPU2 is rather high. Its normal that one GPU runs hotter than the other (due to fan placement), but with max fans I would not expect the hotter GPU to go above approx 85 maximum. I'm running a custom fan profile, with the max GPU fan speed set to 80%, and I'm not seeing temps that high under full load. Then again I've not played BF4 for a long time, so I can't remember how hard it hits the GPUs. My reference at the moment is Witcher 3, which hits both my GPUs for approx 97% load, and my temps are not as high as yours (stock speeds and stock paste)

As for the CPU hitting 92c (I assume its a typo in your post and you meant CPU not GPU), that also should not be so high on max fan. For me on max fan with the CPU running 100% I'm not usually going above 80c - 85c when gaming.

 

Yes, I was referring to the max fan button being pushed and sorry about the typo, yes I meant the CPU was hitting 92C.
Always briefly but it was spiking into that area.

I'll try a few other games, BF4 seems to max out both the cpu and gpu, so it may be a bit of an anomaly.
Otherwise, sounds like a repaste might be in order after all...

**Edit**
So played about 30 mins of Doom 2016 and left the fans on auto (thou they ramped up pretty good). Temps on the GPUs were ~70 on #1 and 80-82 on #2. CPU temps in the 78-82c range.
So that's a bit more in line. I think BF4 seems to just stress both the cpu and gpu's out more at the same time.

 

Try downloading the MSI silent fan app, and then using the following custom profile settings for GPU & CPU:

Fan power: 26, 31, 36, 55, 65, 80

These settings will cause the fan to start ramping up a bit earlier, helping to stop the temps creeping up, and at the same time using 80 as a max instead of 100 so things don't get too loud.

This settings work very well for me.

 

Hi guys, i'm using MSI GT80 2QE 263 with factory stock BIOS Version: 1812IMS.10F

Recently I want to update my BIOS to the newest version E1812IMS.11C. I followed the BIOS update instruction, but the MSI GT80 always failed to enter the BIOS flash utility.
My problem is exactly like this guy:



Is there any solution beside sending it back to manufacturer?

 

LOL. Waiting for my GT80, delivery by 7/13, seems like forever. Replacing an old Clevo D901C, a "state of the art" laptop at the time. Has a Core 2 Q6700 with Nvidia 8700GT's in SLI, and a whopping 4 Gig of memory. It has served me well.

 

You should always file a ticket with MSI for such problems. You shouldn't need to physically RMA the laptop, as the more detailed flash procedure is a user capable procedure.

Put the same info you posted here in the ticket - minus the video - explain that the BIOS flash isn't working from "version" to "version", it passes through to Windows instead of doing the flash update.

MSI will take a couple of back and forth responses before they determine that what you need.

In my case my GT80 had been updated to the latest BIOS, but my ME device was failing to start, my BIOS ME wasn't updating - somehow I got an early BIOS version that didn't have the right ME / BIOS paired and I needed to unlock the ME / BIOS to update it.

MSI sent me a step by step procedure with links for downloading what was needed to update my GT80 SLI-263 - Broadwell BIOS / ME.

Register your GT80 here and open a ticket:
https://register.msi.com/home/login

My problem was the same as the guy in the video, he should have opened a ticket with MSI. I don't know why everyone is so reticent to work with MSI on these things, and comes to forums for help.

I always open a problem ticket with MSI first to solve problems, that's why I paid so much for a laptop => technical support.

I can't give you what MSI support gave me, it might be the wrong procedure / files for your model, and it might mess up your laptop, requiring a physical RMA.

Also, someone else might see the info posted here and try to use it instead of getting the right stuff for their laptop from MSI technical support.

Please come back and let us know how it works out. And, don't give up with MSI Technical support, be patient and work back and forth until they send you what you need.

 

I posted this on the GT80S thread as well, but could someone post a picture of their capacitor underneath the hinge cover?

I want to compare mine to a working one, because I **think** mine might've blown, or something horrible went wrong with it. I'm referring to that solid, red looking substance underneath it. Thanks.

 

Temps are high, but BF4 is among the most demanding games out there, specially at 64 players, online. We are talking about full 100% CPU utilization, and same for GPUs at times. How are your ambient temps when playing?

Even if you did a perfect repaste, I would also suggest undervolt the CPU. Just to keep a more stable performance.

 

im getting high temps on core zero again and only that core is throttling. does this mean i need to repaste the cpu?

Also I have noticed the laptop discharges when running shadow of mordor... and only so far on shadow of mordor does this happen.