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

As far as disassembly goes, it's one of the easier laptops to get to the GPUs. Pop the screws from the bottom lid, then it's 7 screws per GPU.

 

It is hard to say at this point really. It might be loose connection or heat related or driver related too.

it might still be a loose connection or a heat problem or worse or a driver thing too. I would rollback if you have done any recent driver or OS upgrade.

 

I recently upgraded to the windows 10 creators update. However, I used that update for several days during vacation without any issues. The issues didn't appear until after I got home. Should I try rolling back from the creators update anyway?

 

Sure you can try that. However, the vacation still makes me think the laptop got some shock during travel and some part might have gotten loose. But trying software first is easier. By the way, you never put the laptop into the bag while the laptop was in sleep mode or fans were running, right?

 

If you can live with it, and it doesn't get progressively worse - it usually does - then you can wait till near the end of your warranty to get it repaired - I'd do that for sure before the warranty goes out of force. Maybe 3-6 months before the end to allow for a few round trips if it's not fixed the 1st or 2nd time.

 

When I put the laptop in its included backpack, I turned it off via Windows. That was the same thing I did on the way there, and I didn't have any issues. Also, the warranty has already ended on the laptop. I am thinking about trying to reseat the mxm connectors, but I haven't opened the computer up before. I wouldn't really know what I'm doing. It sucks that this will probably get worse (you are right, I know from experience that hardware-related problems tend to get worse over time). I don't want to open the computer for fear of breaking things, but I might have to. Is there some sort of a guide I can use that walks me through the process of opening the computer, getting to the mxm connectors, and reseating them?

Also, one more thing I noticed was that the screen wasn't pixelated on the MSI boot screen. It wouldn't become pixelated until I got to the login screen. Any thoughts?

UPDATE: I took the time to open up the computer. Getting the back panel off wasn't very hard, although it took longer than I thought. Once I opened up the back, I started looking around. Everything looked perfectly fine, and I tried to reseat the SLI bridge. However, I couldn't really figure out how to do it, and I decided to put the computer back together before I broke something. When I started up the computer, I didn't get the pixelation. However, that doesn't always happen at every other restart. To be honest, it's occurence is kind of random. The only pattern I can find is that it is always there the first time I start up my computer for the day. I probably didn't fix the problem as I didn't really do anything, but hopefully I can get it fixed. Any ideas?

 

There is a video showing the full disassembly of the GT80, maybe it will be helpful to decide if you would like to go further:


You can see it is a bit involved process. However you don't need all of it to remove the heatpipes and reseat the cards.
I have to say, your symptoms sadly remind me the death of my HP Laptop, where the GPU chip got heated too much and desoldered itself. It started as funny lines and colors at first and some restart fixed it. Then until some day it started only with black screen. I hope yours is not the case and it is only a loose connection or a driver problem.

 

I don't check this forum as I used to so I assume you've already resolved this issue, but in case you didn't, the legacy boot means that you basically disabled RAID. The nvme drives need a driver loaded so they can get recognized as boot drives. Legacy mode disables that. I ran into the same issue when I was setting up the RAID 0.

If you don't have RAID, the issue is (obviously) with the boot drive not being recognized. Reasons for that are many.

 

Just to correct you a little bit:
ad 2: That never solved any of my problems.
ad 3 and 4 The battery doesn't need to be disconnected. The GT80 has a reset hole in the back panel which does exactly that. It interrupts the battery power. For it to reset the CMOS the CMOS battery needs to be unplugged first. It's very easy.
Correct steps to reset CMOS (BIOS) to factory defaults are : Unplug the AC power, unplug the CMOS battery, stick a paperclip or a very thin screwdriver into the hole so you'll feel a slight click, hold it there for... say... 30 seconds while pushing the power button at the same time. Release, plug back in the CMOS battery, AC brick, mash the power button and WAIT. It'll usually take much longer than normal for anything to start happening. Some people might start to panic. Don't

Been there, done that, got a T-shirt, now I'm writing a novel about it.

 

If you want to try to reseat the graphic cards, you will need to re-paste the graphics AND the CPU. You cannot get to the graphic cards without removing ALL the heatsinks and fans. It's a PITA even for someone who isn't exactly shy to break something.
After I re-pasted the first time, the laptop refused to fully recognize one of my graphic cards. SLI wasn't an option in nVidia control panel but the graphic card was there according to BIOS and HW Monitor, albeit showing "interesting" clock speeds. Redoing all that was done TWICE resolved the problem, but I sweated quite a bit during that time.

It MIGHT as well be a software issue. Did you try to reinstall nVidia drivers?
I would try to do a clean Win install before I'd sent it for RMA.

Edit: Actually, you won't have to repaste the CPU as you don't have to remove the heatsink from it to get to graphics. (as far as I remember) But that makes only a little difference. Removing the CPU heatsink and repasting it (while you're already there anyway) is the easiest part.

 

Sorry I haven't replied in awhile.Yesterday afternoon when I turned on my computer for the day, I got the pixelation issue. No surprise there. However, I turned on my computer today and left it for a few minutes while I went to go do something. I didn't watch it go to the login screen, but when I got back, the screen wasn't pixelated. It's probably a coincidence, but it's nice to see regardless. Anyway, i'll think about maybe reinstalling windows or possibly opening up the computer again.

 

When I had this, as you are describing you are experiencing, it was eventually solved with replacing 1 of the 2 4870's in Crossfire in my W90vp.

It took a few weeks of watching these random events, for me to send it in as RMA to Asus, the turnaround time was 2 weeks back then, and no problems afterwards.

It might be a loose cable, line drivers going bad on the display board, the display itself, the video card, etc.

The only way to find out is to take it in for repair to an Asus certified technical repair facility. I had one nearby I could drive to back then, but you may need to send it in. Check when you call to see if there is a depot near you, and ask if you can drop it off and pick it up there.

It's a toss up whether to do it now or later, but when you reach the point of it happening too often, it's a good sign it's time

 

Have a MSI GT80S with the SLI 980.

Was resetting Windows in order to let a friend use it for a bit and the reset kept getting hung up at 5%. Eventually Windows gave up and had me decide to either repair windows, or continue on to Windows 10. As of now it's been looping the MSI logo while trying to restart. Can't get into BIOS or anything. Laptop was working flawlessly beforehand, no issues whatsoever.

Any suggestions on how to get past the MSI logo loop?

 

You can try resetting CMOS (BIOS).
You can find how to do it a few posts back.

BTW, I've had something similar happening with my old Sager. Turns out, it was most likely caused by a faulty HDD which was throwing S.M.A.R.T errors.

 

Thanks! I'll try this now.

 

I'm officially confused. I sent MSI the trade-in form just to find out if it'll work and it DID. However... I've got some upgrades installed by XoticPC and a couple by myself. Now... MSI wants a vanilla laptop to be shipped back to them. OR and here is a quote from their email:
"If your laptop was originally purchased with component upgrades from a build-to-order reseller, you do not need to remove the upgrades. We will accept your laptop with the upgrades and try to match those specifications in your new laptop."
Why they mean by "try to match"??? Those upgrades were quite expensive and "try to match" just doesn't exactly cut it.

Anyone has any experience with this MSI trade-in program?

 

Well, I am out of the main stream on this a few months, but last I helped people with the upgrade, MSI would offer a couple of options in this case.

Ask if they will offer you a bare bones trade-in. That means they swap your memory and storage into a bare bones model (no memory / storage), and you get a discount. Unfortunately they want to do the swap, so you still need to send in your laptop, and of course they can't offer a "cross-ship" new laptop in that case.

As far as offering to upgrade your new laptop components to match, I would assume they will match RAM / storage "size/capacity" but not "quality/speed", as in if you got high speed memory / storage you'll get lower speed (stock) memory of the same capacity.

IDK why MSI didn't just offer to swap your RAM / Storage right off, that was what they were doing before. If you have DDR4 it'll swap, if you have DDR3 then that makes sense as MSI will need to provide DDR4 of the same capacity.

Ask MSI about the swap of RAM / storage and that should be the easiest / cheapest (you get a credit for the RAM/storage).

Good luck

 

Do you know why they don't offer it right away? Because that would make too much sense.

I've got 32GB of G.Skill Ripyaws there and I'd hate to trade them for some stock crap.
Same goes with all my storage.

This will be interesting.
Thanks.

 

DDR3 or DDR4? If you have DDR4 it will swap in to the new laptop just fine.

 

Oh I know my stuff will snap there just fine. I was concerned about them swapping it for their stock sticks. I know their stock DDR4 sticks would work just fine but I paid pretty penny for this upgrades and I'd feel cheated if they kept them and gave me some of their cheapo no namo RAM.
Same goes for my 2 Samsung 850 PRO nvme 512GB drives. But at least they don't have that many choices there. I'm not aware of any nonbrand making these yet besides Sammy and Intel. But I was wrong before.
I sent them an email yesterday. It'll take them at least a couple of days to respond.

 

Well, it turned out the boot drive went kaput (the directories still exist if plugged via USB into another laptop, but crashes before can access anything, and windows sees it as 128kb in partition manager), i replaced the boot drive and got windows reinstalled, but now the wireless card occasionally disconnects and wont see any networks until i disable it and re-enable it in device manager. Would replacing the card (intel 7260, the devil's card basically =S) with a new one or a different card likely fix it?

 

I had nothing but problems with that card in my old laptop. It would occasionally drop connection on 2.4ghz band and there was a massive thread of complaints about it on the net. Then I got myself an AzureWave AW-CE123H and it was all fine.

 

I had issues with the one in my razer blade that i got used a while back also, but the replacement card only connects to one network and not the main one. I'll take a look at the one you mentioned.

 

The newer Intel Wifi cards are much better, and the current Killer aren't as stable, the tables have turned

The 8260 has been out for a couple of years, and the latest version the 8265 has been shipping for a few months, either one is a great choice as a replacement.

@Phoenix has a great thread here on NBR covering the 8265:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/just-upgraded-to-an-intel-dual-band-wireless-ac-8265.797899/

Edit: It looks like Intel hasn't made an 8260 or 8265 PCIE format half card, and only has an M.2 model, along with a USB model. You could upgrade using the 1525 PCIE half card, it was more stable than the 7260 during that era.

 

Can the 8260 be used in the GT80? it looks like an m.2 mount..

 

No, it looks like the spec only calls out the M.2 format card, and USB - so you could get a USB device - pull out the 7260 if it's causing problems.

Or, you could get a Killer 1525, which was far more stable than the 7260 during that time. The 1535 + Windows 10 has been having problems, but if you are on Windows 8.1/7 you should be better off.

 

Ah, so the GT80 uses that and not the mini pcie half-card that most laptops do, right?

 

Sorry, it looks like the 8260 is only on M.2 and USB

 

If you didn't have problems with the card before you reinstalled windows, it's most likely a driver what's causing your problems.
If that's the case, it's not guaranteed that it'll get solved by replacing the card. (albeit likely it will)
I've had hard time in the past with my Killer card. The killer driver would BSOD my laptop everytime I clicked on the wi-fi icon in the tray. Uninstalling Killer driver completely and using Windows driver instead worked as a workaround.
A couple of weeks ago I felt adventurous and installed new Killer software suite and so far so good.

 

@Rothcall

I did a search for an adapter card, and was surprised to find one

M.2 (NGFF) to Mini PCI-E Express Adapter Converter
Support Full Size /Half Size MPCIe Slot
https://www.amazon.com/Express-Adapter-Converter-Support-MPCIe/dp/B00N2PRRA6

• USB M.2 Card to mPCIe adapter
• M.2 Specification Revision 0.9
• Universal Serial Bus Specification Revision 2.0
• Support 2230/2242 M.2 Card dimension.
• Support M.2 Socket SSIC-based WWAN Module.

It almost looks like it could fit in the old PCIE half card foot-print, including mounting holes - with serrations to snap off piece's that don't fit, and cheap enough to make it worth a try - the 8265 / 8260 cards are pretty cheap too:

 

Hello All,

Thanks to all the OG's who have been there done that with the GT80's!

Have recently picked a 970m sli version up as another plaything, even tho its BGA trash im super impressed with the quality - this thing feels like it was built to a specification rather than price point, which in the 2015 era was fairly unique in notebook land.

CPU wise running the 4720HQ @ 38,37,36,36 with a -45 offset (core/cache/iGpu) and it will hold 3.5xmhz at the TDP limit. System is unstable with less voltage.
For benching the 970m's are on modded vibos at 1400/3000 @ 1.1v (could reduce the voltage with more messing around just wanted the 1400/3000 for a single firestirke run which basically matched 980m's at stock clocks)

Is there an unlocked bios available for the GT80 QD? the lack of even basic options is driving nuts and more stuff to play with is always good! The ability to up turbo limit time would also be great.

 

Look here: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=148273.msg1102318#msg1102318

 

This might be a bad place to ask, but i can't find another place to ask, what do you guys think my 009 is worth with upgraded M.2's in my signature. i'm looking to sell and need a baseline and cant find anyone else selling one its in mint condition also

 

Can you go with the Pascal upgrade program through MSI still? Or you just want to get rid of the system?

 

I don't know actually how would I check, and honestly just wanna get rid of it unless the upgrade will yield a net profit gain

 

Trading it won't yield a profit, but you can trade it for as little as possible and then sell the brand new laptop. It is bound to be more valuable as a new machine rather than a used GT80. Pascal also dropped the value of our machines, considerably so.

I traded my 001 for a GT73VR with GTX1070 for almost nothing. You have a higher end version, so you might have better luck. Contact MSI for the trade in details.

 

So the 8260 seemed to work, but then ive noticed it does a Bane-style 'break the Bat' move on itself whenever the GT80 is put in sleep mode, and i have to restart the PC to have internet.. is there a known fix? This is on a clean windows 10 install with up to date PROset drivers.

 

Hey guys, is the GT80 Titan battery the EXACT SAME battery that is used in the GT73VR 7RE/6RE? Does anyone know?

Referring to this one for example:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-MSI-GT8...129158?hash=item33bd789806:g:X60AAOSwHoFXtDba

 

Hey guys. I have a GT80 2QE Single GPU. Some odd issue I'm having with the mechanical keyboard. A couple hours ago I was unable to use my enter key unless holding in another key while hitting enter. Or if I hit enter within a second of hitting another key. After that I lost the up arrow. About an hour later the ability to use 2,4, 6,8,0. And now the tab key as well. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? I've never used a mechanical keyboard prior to this, but the issue still seems a tad strange.

I've tried to uninstall and reinstall the keyboard drivers. The steel series program.. and made sure that all Ease of Access windows settings were turned off. I've also system restored to a previous day/week. All to no avail. I'm able to use a separate USB keyboard with no issues with is why I'm ruling out a windows issue.

 

Can you check if your keyboard works correctly in BIOS?

 

Ok so right before I went into BIOS I checked and nothing worked. Went into BIOS and enter + up arrow did work! .. But when I got back into Windows.. keyboard still worked? Very odd. I did try restarting a few times before that and nothing. So I'm very confused, but thank you for making my keyboard magically work through entering/leaving BIOS

 

What program do you use to play Bluray movies? Nothing standard works like VLC player.

 

MSI used to provide a version of Cyberlink PowerDVD for Windows 8 with the GT80 that plays Blu-ray videos, which you get with the MSI OS image - restore it if you blew it away.

If you didn't make a backup of the MSI OS, you can't download the Cyberlink Blu-ray player from MSI... so here's a free one I recommend:
http://www.leawo.com/blu-ray-player/

Paid programs exist, I use Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 15, the newest is 17, and you can get a trial version for free use for a short while:
http://www.cyberlink.com/stat/oem/cyberlink/powerdvd/17/A/launch/enu/index_ult.jsp

Every year Cyberlink rev's the product, 2017 => Version 17...

They also have a subscription pay as you go service:
https://www.cyberlink.com/store/powerdvd-live/buy_en_US.html?&r=1

 

Does anyone know a wireless card that works for the GT80? My 7260 exploded and the 8260 i bought to replace it keeps shooting itself in the head when the computer wakes from sleep. I literally cant use wifi on the laptop anymore

 

Actually issue is back. Same keys having issue. I'll try to re-enter bios and check, but does anyone have any idea whats causing this randomly?

Update: I guess going into BIOS never fixed it the first time. Tried to get in and the keys don't work. Which basically means its not a windows issues, right? I know regular keyboards have strips under them which knocks out a set of keys, but mechanical wouldn't have that issue right?

 

What wireless cards did your all's GT80s come with? Have you had any issues with it?

 

There is a pin hole under the laptop, could you insert a paper pin there when the laptop is off.You should hear it click. It disconnects the battery and resets the EC. It solves some hardware glitches sometimes.

 

I am getting this:

The files native.bin and backup.bin do not exist" showing up in the system?

The web site says:
https://www.msi.com/pic/faq/10016291@2015-0721-0212-079627@faq_0000000001741_en.pdf

Please install the latest MSI True Color from MSI official website.

How do you do that, pray tell? I went to the web site and there is just direct information.

What a poorly written manual, of no help whatsoever. They need to add a direct link to where this "software" is.


Maybe this link?


http://download.msi.com/uti_exe/nb/Install TrueColor20160912.zip

 

Cyberlink DVD does not start even after this:

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/51997.page

 

Wow, that's sad, did you try the Leawo Blu-ray player software? You could use it until the Cyberlink bug gets fixed.

Cyberlink is pretty good about getting Windows bugs fixed - look to their update area for a new patch, and if you bought it you can file a bug yourself - don't assume someone else has

Again, Windows 10 has been an ongoing nightmare since release - actually since before release, nothing has changed it's been a constant disaster, a continual irritation for those having these problems after every little forced update.

Why not consider dropping back to Windows 7 / 8.1? I haven't had a single Microsoft induced disaster (I keep Windows Updates disabled), in so long.

I think it's been years since Windows 8.1 and certainly 7 / Vista haven't caused an outage for me for over 5 years.

Which means I can focus on using the computer instead of constantly fixing it and worrying about it getting broken on a daily basis by a new MS induced Windows bug.