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

My thought was to do 4 x 256GB M2's-RAID0 and then have a 1TB spinny for an onboard backup. That way, no dealing with moving the Users folder and just have one partition. That way, since you have 4x risk of a drive failure taking the RAID down, you have the backup right there.

Homer

 

That's the device ID.

 

I don't believe in that "4x risk of a drive failure".
Do you have proof?

 

What kind of stand or cooler would you recommend?
Does it even need one or could i get away with a book at the back?

 

The probability of drawing the ace of Spades is 1/52. The probability of drawing an ace is 1/52 + 1/52 + 1/52 + 1/52 = 4/52 or 1/13. The probablility of a single drive failure is 1/x. The probability of any of four drives falling is 4/x or 4 x the original probability. Here is a sample reference. http://faculty.chas.uni.edu/~campbell/mdm/prob.html Ever take any statistics or watch poker on TV?

Homer

 

Sorry, thought that's what you were looking for. The rest of the string in the HW IDs usually is the make (MSI - 1462) and the MoBo (in this case it should be MS-1812). So something like "PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_18121462". But yeah, better to get an owner to do this. Sadly when asking for vBIOS or some "expert" information, most owners are hesitant. Good luck, I hope someone helpful would come around.

If there was a RAID 5 option, those numbers would be greatly reduced. It would actually be safer than having single drive.

 

Doesn't the Intel Rapid Storage support raid5 and 1+0 both?

 

Yes - but RAID5 does not "improve" performance as RAID0 does...so you're back to square one. Hence my point - better to run one fast SSD versus RAID if you're a gamer.

 

Yet raid 10 will so there is that option if someone wishes to get this radical I guess lol

 

Agreed. Just trades capacity for redundancy, right? That is why I'm thinking to go 1TB total SSD, RAID 0 for the speed boost but keep a backup handy to rebuild if needed.

Homer

 

MSI Global - Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Motherboard, Graphics and more

New Vbios, says 4gb, is that to add support for 4gb versions of the 980m?

anyone have any insight on what these new vbios are

 

I think RAID 5 is the best of both worlds it gives comparable performance*, yet you have a safety net in case of a drive failure. An external backup is always welcome, but you'll still have down time in case of a drive failure. Of course you are not data center, you can afford this, but why wasting your time? I mean this is plenty of space and not a small portion of which would go unused anyway (so you'll have space for the parity), yet the performance wont hurt so bad*. I'm just saying that it would've been great if there was such option for those that would trade a little performance hit* for a lot more safety and having your back-up with you (it's a laptop after all).

*Given that the RAID is controlled by the HUB/South-bridge/RAID controller, not the CPU. It would take more performance hit if it is operated by the CPU.

 

That would apply to SSD failures, specially in a RAID, if they were independent events. Since it isn't a Poisson process[1] that's a lie.
If you consider the actual AFR[2] and not the published figures by manufacturers you have a jump from ~0.9% to ~9% over a 3-year period -- it's 10 times higher!

[1] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bianca/fast07.pdf
[2] http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf

 

RAID 5 is terrible for write operations. It's only recommended for databases which are mainly used for read operations.
Also, it's not recommended anymore for business critical operations, due to it's very slow rebuilding procedure -- you could have a second failure while the first failure recovery isn't finished.
Better go with RAID 10 (1+0).

 

Bam! We have both made our points... RAID without redundancy and/or a ready backup is bad. Much worse than a single disk.

Homer

 

Is this what you are looking for, svl7 are you working on a modified vbios?

 

The best of both world would be RAID10 and RAID10 only. RAID5 is another compromise.

Bottom line: RAID does not belong in a conversation about a gaming laptop.

If you plan on using your system for other things - sure, let's talk RAID...however, in this case: Intel RST is not a dedicated RAID card in the sense that you should utilize a dedicated card for a workstation environment. It's not a fully fledged RAID solution (with battery backup, RAM, a CPU dedicated to RAID, etc.).

 

I would argue this is perfect for a gaming laptop discussion, as long as it is with purpose. Gamers want raw speed, backup is for... well, non-gamers. My save games are in the cloud via Steam or Origin. I want to go level to level so fast my eyes bleed! MSI gives this laptop 4 slots that can support RAID 0. From a quick search of the INTEL RST controller, it looks like 1-2 drives scale linearly, with modest increase in both read and write continuing to 4 drives, resulting in about 3x of a single drive. Drives 5&6 exceed the throughput of the drive and no longer scale. It looks like 4 is the fastest with 2 being best bang for the buck.

Homer

 

So, I'm going to ask again. XD Should I RAID 0 on 4 ssds or no?

 

I would read the past two pages - and make the decision that best suits your needs and budget. A.K.A. copout answer, lol.

For me - I would go with a GT80 Titan SLI -001 or -009 and utilize it in stock form. I would not upgrade it in one bit, at least initially. I feel that the upgrades are where these so-called "custom laptop" companies make their profit (good for them, of course) - so if you truly require it...then go for it. But this laptop (almost more than any other) is factory ready to rock.

 

I know I would. But I would do 512GB drives. I feel 256GBx4 while fast, is kinda a waste of potential.

 

Under Firmware, what is 84.04.3D.00.03? Do I need that?

And how do I turn off the backlighting on the keyboard?

And a really daft question - I am trying to flash BIOS and EC, but I have no idea where the battery is on this machine! (and also don't know how to set it to only char to a certain level rather than 100%)

 

i'm just gonna repost this hoping someone reads it this time

http://www.msi.com/support/nb/GT80-2QE-Titan-SLI.html#down-firmware

New Vbios, says 4gb, is that to add support for 4gb versions of the 980m?

anyone have any insight on what these new vbios are

 

Turn off Backlight on keyboard by pressing FN+ PGDN bottom nearest the trackpad, to increase the light level FN+PGUP

 

New video from MSI........



Enjoy!

 

Nice, I like it

 

Thanks
Any ideas on the other questions?

 

Man those videos are so dramatic and impactful.

I dig it!

Now where is my GT80?!

 

N16E-GS_4GB_84.04.3D.00.03 is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M (N16E-GS) - 4GB GDDR5 Video RAM

• NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 980M ( N16E-GX)
• NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 970M ( N16E-GT)
• NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 965M ( N16E-GS)

 

Someone was discussing the choice of brown switches. Is something like this video applicable to the keyboard on the Titan?

Homer

 

Since genuine cherry switches are used then yes it would be the same.

 

I feel the same, and I pulled the trigger doing just that with four 512GB m550s. I am aware of the risks of going RAID0, but hedged my bet by:

1. Choosing drives by Crucial, who have a better (granted, anecdotal) reputation for reliability and

2. Using a 2TB spinner as on-machine backup.

I agree that for "plain old" gaming, quad-RAID0 is overkill, but even that is subjective if money isn't an issue. The machine provided the capability to do so, and I planned on taking full advantage. Working with SAS arrays as I do at work tends to spoil one a little bit when it comes to storage speed, so I thought, why not?

I guess my answer would be that, assuming one is aware of the risks, have a plan to mitigate/recover, and is willing/able to assume the costs - why not get all the speed you can?

 

Anyone have a problem where your GT80 Hangs after startup? after you enter your password, you see windows desktop, icons and all, still can move mouse cursor around but nothing is clickable and its basically frozen and requires a restart.

 

Hey guys, just gonna link this once here (and once over in the GT72 thead as well).

If you have a GT80 and an i7-4980HQ and are willing to run a test or two for me, please reply in this thead: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/770065-any-gt80-titan-gt72-owners-i7-4980hq-help-me-out.html

If you're on windows 8, try disabling hybrid boot (or deleting your hibernation file outright) and see if that helps.

 

where can i find hibernation file to delete?

 

Please refer to this page for instructions.
How to disable and re-enable hibernation on a computer that is running Windows

In short: powercfg.exe /hibernate off

 

^ basically what he said. You need to run command prompt as an administator to do this, however, and restarting the PC afterward will be recommended.

 

D2 Ultima, thanks for posting this. I think the 4980hq with msi cooling is the last hope for the hq cpus to see if they are just gimped compared to the mq cpus or not. Very interested in the results.

 

Ahh, I see. So if I have a 980 I don't need that?

Anyone know where the battery is on this machine and how to remove it? (and also don't know how to set it to only char to a certain level rather than 100%) I am trying to flash BIOS and EC

 

bottom panel, removing it to get to battery, which means voiding warranty. yep, one of the sticker covers the bottom plate screw hole, welcome to MSI gaming.

 

Really? Need to void warranty to flash bios?
Never had to on gt70 :/

 

There is a sticker but my understanding is that it would still be under warranty unless you damaged something or changed parts then that specific part would not be covered. Can msi owners clarify? I can't image being denied warranty if we cleaned fans and repaste if done correctly but I could be wrong.

When I updated the ec firmware I didn't have to unplug the battery for it to show the correct version in the bios fyi.

 

You can check out MSIGeno's post #77 here http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/761676-official-questions-msi-rep-8.html

I can also say, I have never heard of MSI denying a warranty claim being just because the sticker was removed.

 

Review of GT80 @ Hardwareheaven

 

Wow. What a barebones review. Almost a waste of time.

 

Hi all,

My GT80 is on the way. I was wondering if Cooler Boost is meant to be used sparingly, or if it can turned on for long sessions/indefinitely (I'm scared that if I constantly keep it on, it'll draw more power and damage the power jack or something).

 

If you're talking about fast spinning fans, you don't need to worry about that.

 

Really? I found a few take homes.

1) CPU performance is nearly identical to the GT70.
2) USB 3.0 performance is nearly identical to the GT70.
3) Drive performance of the four SSDs in RAID 0 is about 1.5x the GT70 (while it doesn't specify, I suspect this is 2 SSDs in RAID 0).
4) 2x980Ms are nearly double the performance of a single 980M (duh)

Shows that in current technology, the 980M SLI is the real selling point here.

Homer

 

This is true, however they didn't actually test a whole lot that enthusiasts really care about. They just basically said "well hey, here's these benches against other machines without telling you their configs" and "yeah well this thing is a trooper, awesome". If you check HTWingNut's review of some of the Clevo notebooks you'll find a whole lot more information than what they put out.

 

Has anyone done the Copper upgrade for the GT80 from any of the sites that offer it? like Xotic and Hidevolution? curious if there is a benefit, i plan on repasting with Cool Lab Liquid Ultra next week.