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

Most new models are related to processor or graphics card releases, and not really on a time frame like that.

I would say if any of the new features Skylake offers (DDR4, TB3, etc...) are going to be useful to you, then it might be worth waiting, and agree that current models are still going to provide a great gaming experience.

 

I am having random "Freezing" issues with this computer. I just got it in, haven't touched a thing, yet no matter what my computer will freeze at least once maybe twice a day. For a computer that is $3500 i expected a lot more. It's very frustrating cause it happens so randomly, whether I'm in a game, or just on the desktop doing nothing. Does anyone have any ideas? Is there an issue with these laptops that I'm unaware of??? Any help is appreciated... I'm just lost at this point.

 

Intel is generally good, and Killer has been proven thanks to MSI's continuous support.

 

Have you updated any drivers yet? I have freezing issues with the latest nvidia drivers. Depending on what you are doing, it can be also the wifi drivers.

One last longshot can be the hard drive. There is an issue with a particular hard drive that goes to sleep and spins down, causing a momentary freeze/hiccup when resuming operation, a way to check this is running a software that monitors the HDD like HWmonitor.

Anyways, I think of either the video drivers, the wifi drivers or the HDD.

 

Guys, I may end up deleting this, but it's weird enough I thought I should report it, just in case it helps.

My video driver 355.82 has been working great, until I used DDU 15.4.1.1 in preparation for loading old drivers.

After I was done I used DDU again to uninstall the last, I think it was 353.06, and installed 355.82 again.

Then I started having freezes in Hulu video's, like 5x - whole screen stops responding - lasts about 20-30 seconds, then everything comes back - no driver restart message. It was repeatable in Firefox, IE, and Chrome.

Here is the good news, the fix was easy.

I re-installed 355.82 over 355.82, Custom/Clean, selected all items even the ones I don't usually install, and after the install I didn't reboot or change / apply any settings/changes, I just started a video, after 4 in a row still no freezes.

I then rebooted, and ran a couple of more videos, and no freezes.

IDK if it is something DDU is doing or what, but I just thought I would mention it.

 

Thank you for input. It will definitely help with my options.

 

How stable/reliable are the laptops. If I get the 80 I need to be sure it is reliable enough for daily use for school stuff. I cannot have it crashing on Hulu for example...

 

They are very stable and probably the most dependable gaming laptop I have owned yet. Realize I am not one to try new software until its been out for a while and proven in the field, this is key. When I want to do some gaming the last thing I want to worry about is the system being unstable.

Know fixes and tips to help stability have all been offered from key members on here that I can recall are below.
1. Be aware of windows 10 and stay away from it for now if you can.
2. Nvidia driver updates (Out of our control as new games are supported you have to update)
3. Killer software disable or uninstall as it can cause unwanted latency and network drops
4. Virus scan, do not use AVAST

 

Great reply, I will have to read this a few times more to grasp it all, but this is very helpful. I'll report back if I can figure some things out.

I have noticed that it is crashing most often while using Lightroom and Premiere, both fairly GPU intensive. Basically the screen goes black, then after about 10 seconds it just complains that the Nvidia driver recovered. Other times the screen just freezes and requires a hard reboot. There is also a random flicker 1-2 times every 10 minutes.

I am definitely taxing the graphics cards as I am using dual 4k monitors + the laptop screen while I edit photos and video.

I haven't modified any settings at all, just a fresh install of windows 8.1 pro.

I've only had the laptop about a week, so I don't have any time with a stable driver. I updated immediately.

I'm also getting terrible HDD performance. Sometimes it takes 30 seconds for the contents of a folder to load.

Anyways thanks for the reply, I'll dissect your post a bit more and do the things you mentioned and report back. Thanks!

 

having a bit of an issue i could use some help with. i wanted a fresh install of 10, so i upgraded from 8 and used windows media tool to make an image of 10 and did a fresh install and proceeded to install all drivers. after restart, system cant boot. to os. being an idiot, i didnt bother with backup discs or a recovery point because there wasnt anything i was really concerned with saving and i knew about the f3 recovery if i needed it. well, f3 isnt working. says there was a problem with recovery and no changes were made. i can see the recovery partition in my hd, but to no avail. i called tech support and they said i will either have to send in the system for diag. or pay to have recovery discs sent to me. anyone have an alternative solution? or perhaps a file of the recovery discs?

 

mason2smart, re-read my post, it was caused and cured by Nvidia driver re-install.

Besides, you shouldn't be watching Hulu while at school anyway

 

Not watching Hulu - just saying if it not stable in Hulu how can it be stable with anything else?

 

mason2smart, again, re-read the post, it was caused by and solved by re-installing the Nvidia driver.

Before and after that the GT80 has been totally stable.

The reason I posted that was because others have had problems with 355.82, and have had to roll back to older drivers - not just on the GT80, lots of other laptops and desktops. I posted a link to Geforce 355.82 forum a number of posts back, here it is again:

Official Windows 10 355.82 Game Ready Display Driver Feedback Thread (8/31/15)
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...eady-display-driver-feedback-thread-8-31-15-/

Official Windows 8.1, Windows 7 & Windows XP 355.82 Game Ready Display Driver Feedback Thread - only 5 pages of complaints vs 50 pages for Win10
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...82-game-ready-display-driver-feedback-thread/

I haven't been having those freezing issues with 355.82, and so when I induced the problem they have been seeing, and I cured it immediately with a re-install of 355.82 over 355.82, I thought I should post it so others could try it.

How did you get a read of GT80 unstable operation from that? You have been on this GT80 forum here for weeks, and that Nvidia driver problem and fix in the same posting worried you?

What's up? Considering another laptop?

 

How a system behaves with a single software is not indicative of how it behaves with other software.

 

I will try later today, reinstalling over and over with clear installs haha. Tried it before but lets see what happens.

 

ryzeki, interestingly enough it was you I was thinking of, telling us you were unstable outside games - while watching videos, with 355.82 installed, that prompted me to post

I didn't spend any time looking at whether that driver state also caused problems in other software, like games.

I had a specific failure, that I could reproduce on demand, in all my browsers, that caused a video freeze as you reported.

And, I solved it by reinstalling the 355.82 driver in a clean install over the 355.82 driver installing causing the video freezes.

I thought you would appreciate that failure / solution

 

Oh I do, don't think I don't appreciate it, but since I had those issues with 355.60 and then also with 355.82, I was a bit annoyed.

Right now I am working so I best not disrupt my progress.

What I can say though, is that driver 355.82 did work alright for the day I installed it. I did not reboot after installing and I played all day that day without issues in general. After rebooting my laptop the next day, the issues began, which is what I found odd.

At any rate, 355.82 already behaved more promising than 355.60 which caused even hard crashes and reboots. I will definitely check it out.

 

ryzeki, that's why I didn't reboot immediately after re-installing 355.82 over itself, to see results before and after reboot.

I hope you isolate / fix the reboot issue.

 

Wish I could "fix" the TDP control of the CPU haha with my current -80mv and 30x cache, my top consumption is around 53 watts. if I can unlock TDP, I wouldn't mind 53w consumption instead of 47w haha.

Tha way I won't feel as compelled to upgrade to future laptops so soon

 

Anyone try batman arkham knight? You can get a steam key through g2a for $13 and it will actually activate in steam and let u download it. I get bad lag because my laptop is not up to spec. Was wondering what you guys get on it with Max settings?

 

A GT80 should handle that no problems. Do you have the computer plugged into power and not just battery. Also do you have it set to high performance mode? And which version Nvidia drivers are you using. The latest 355.xx can have issues.

 

Its either the Hard Drive or the newest Geforce windows 10 drivers cause I dont use wifi, i have it disabled. Any suggestions?

 

Hey guys,

I just bought the SLI-263, should get it in a few days. Does anybody know if it work on just the Intel on-board video? And if so, anybody want to buy my GTX video cards (GTX 980m, 8GB each)?

I know this probably sounds insane to most of you... but I do zero gaming, and I'd rather not have them in there sucking power and generating heat. If it won't work on just the Intel video, I'd consider trading for a low-end GTX + cash.

 

chlimouj, did you get the GT80 because of the 18" screen?

The GT80 comes/came in a single GPU model as well, if you want to save some $, return yours for one of those - MSI doesn't list it on their site, maybe someone that knows can give you the model number to look up.

It would be a waste to sell those GPU's and neuter a top model SLI-263, you can just push the GPU button, left of the Power button, and it will ask to reboot and when it does it will be running on only the Intel iGPU. Press that button and reboot again to get back to discrete GPU.

IDK if the GT80 will run right if you remove the Nvidia GPU's, and somehow get reset from iGPU to discrete Nvidia GPU mode, you might get stuck. I would leave the 980m's in there, powered off in iGPU mode, but there just in case you need them to switch back to iGPU mode.

What prompted you to get the SLI-263 with 2 Nvidia 980m's that you don't actually want? It would be better to return unopened for a complete refund, and then order something more fitting to your needs.

But, now that you have it, you might as well take up PC gaming and have some fun

 

Ved4TheWin, Windows 10 is going to continue to be problematic for quite a while, I would drop back to Windows 8.1 where the OS and drivers are stable.

Wait 6-8 months for Windows 10 to settle down, and save yourself some frustration.

 

mason2smart, you get bad lag because Batman Arkham night still isn't fixed. It's going to be problematic on any powerful computer. It might suck less, but not enough to waste time on it yet.

But, for $18, it might be worth getting, for use after a few more "performance" updates.

 

Sounds like a fishy situation mate. I mean, there is a GT80 titan version with single GPU, or even cheaper yet, lower end GPUs like 965m.

But alas, suspision and assumption does nothing good for anyone! To answer your question, the Titan has a dedicated button to switch for intel graphics only, technically disabling the dedicated GPUs. If you operate under such conditions, you won't generate extra heat.

I would still advise you to use the dedicated GPUs though. On their own, they generate very little heat unless you game, and they are required for the external video ports if you want external monitors etc. Additionally, using the dedicated GPUs, frees up extra CPU performance, because your CPU and integrated GPU share their TDP power, and your CPU has a limit of 47 watts. You get extra CPU performance by NOT using your integrated GPU.

 

For the hard drive, you can test it by using monitoring software like HWmonitor. It keeps the HDD awake so freezes don't happen.

As for the wifi, your system still uses the killer network manager, I would still try installing the latest drivers but uninstalling the application and only keeping the drivers. You can select what you want to remove when you install the latest drivers and then choose what to keep.

For the nvidia drivers you might be out of luck, it seems some users have issues with them. The only current procedure here is to do as hmscott did and try doing a clean install. You can do this by reinstalling the nvidia drivers package and choosing clean install.

And if possible, avoid windows 10 for now. They will surely work out the bugs and all, but for now it is not 100% stable, at least for me.

 

Yeah, batman is supposed to be near completion by now and they are testing the latest patch inhouse. It still does not support SLI properly and unless you are running the latest drivers, there are graphic issues and glitches with older drivers.

 

What really sold me is the mechanical keyboard. I hate lugging around a real keyboard everywhere almost as much as I hate using the crappy keyboards most laptops come with. I went with the top-end model for the i7-5950... if it had a CPU socket like some Alienware laptops, I would have gone low-end on everything else and swapped it out myself, added ram/ssd, etc. But the 263 is the only model that supports that CPU. Plus I figured this model will have better resale value down the line, with or without the cards in there, especially since MSI will have upgrade kits available by then.

 

chlimouj, those are all legit reasons, nice choice

ryzeki was correct, the 980m's will power down if you aren't using 3d, like in gaming or rendering, so you could just run in that mode.

You could use a power meter between the laptop and the wall, and see what the power draw is doing normal work in iGPU and dGPU modes, just to be sure.

There is a lot of mechanical disassembly to remove the GPU's, I don't know if the cooling hardware would be stable with the supporting GPU's removed.

The laptop may also use the Nvidia GPU temperature probes to set fan levels, you may only be able to run with the Max Fan switch enabled - which would be really noisy.

And, you most likely wouldn't get future warranty service from MSI, gutting the GT80 would void your warranty.

Everything points to leaving in the GPU's. Getting that single GPU GT80 or the 965m SLI would be cheaper, but then you wouldn't get the awesome 5950HQ...

Please come back and let us know how it works out

 

Glad you are on board, and I could understand going for the top end model but.... what if I told you, your top end model is limited by TDP to the same number as the 5700HQ?!??!?!

It's alright, it will have higher resell value in the end. I suspect we will continue to have high resell value because there is no other laptop with mechanical keyboard too!

But anyways, if you need CPU performance I would suggest the Sager with desktop CPU. Other than that, I love my titan and the mechanical keyboard as well.

Hope you enjoy it! and my advise is to indeed keep the GPUs.

 

Good point about the external displays, I hadn't considered that. I wasn't too worried about CPU usage... it wouldn't take much, my video demands are extremely minimal. But external displays matter... so now my options are stick with what I have, or trade for the low end GTX 965m, if someone is up for it.

If there was a single-gpu version with the i7-5950, I couldn't find it... totally would have gone that route. But I got a pretty decent deal on it anyway (it's a returned unit). There was one on Ebay a few days ago without the GPUs, I guess the seller had sold it before and the buyer took the GPUs out (presumably to upgrade his GT80) and returned it saying it came that way. So there are people out there who want to upgrade to the GPUs I have... just hopefully someone who wants to do it honestly and not rip off ebay sellers.

 

The 5950 is reserved for the top models so no single gpu models have that

 

http://www.itnews.com/laptops/96044...kylake-upgrades-new-haswell-broadwell-laptops

 

Seeing as the CPU is the only non-upgradeable aspect of the GT80 Titan, will newer models continually be released with the best Intel mobile CPUs? If so, do you know when and what generation will the next iteration of the laptop feature? Also, will the Titan be one of the first to house the supposed new 990m GPU? I'm looking to buy one, but want the absolute best 2015 can offer by the end of the year. A machine at this price point needs to be future proof for at least half a decade.

 

Wait a couple of months. By then they should announce hopefully the new titan.

Since the gt72 offers the 6820hk, i suppose we will see this cpu as an option. You should get the HK cpu definitely.

As for 990m i dont think we have seen any info or at least i havent seen anything like that. Hopefully a new gpu will come out but seeing the 980m performance and power requirements... i dont know.

980mSLI is still amazing

Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk

 

Chao Hong Li, a lot of thought can be put into the optimal time to purchase, but somehow the OEM's keep coming up with upgrades and new models every 6 months, making the right time to purchase as always, now

Whatever you get, it will be the old model in 6 months. It will still work just the same as the day you bought it, and the new model may only show improvement in benchmarks, not actual game play, but the OEMS find differentiation to encourage people to upgrade.

All the 980m SLI GT80's perform at the same level in games. The Haswell, Broadwell, and Skylake CPU upgrades all show slight performance improvements, but only in benchmarks will you see it. They all run the games at the same FPS.

Unless the GT80 gets a big cooling upgrade - another heat exchanger/intake + fan directly to the CPU, there isn't a lot of TDP headroom left for a *hot* CPU.

And, even if there was a 91w CPU, except in benchmarks the faster CPU's with more than 4 cores and / or higher clock rate, don't push games that much faster in FPS, except for a few CPU bound games.

You could get the first SLI 980m GT80, or the newest Skylake GT80 (unannounced/not released), and both systems will perform close enough in games so as to not be noticeably different.

The 990m is pretty power hungry, and in SLI will likely run past the outside edge of the 330w power available. IDK if MSI will release a larger power brick and upgraded internal power parts, but likely as not they have Pascal parts specs already in mind and don't need the beefed up power for that, so why would they do it for a short run speed bump 980m=>990m?

Who knows? You might be best served to buy a GT80 today, with Windows 8.1 (stable), and game for the month or two extra, before the Skylake model comes out with Windows 10 (unstable), and wait for the Pascal GPU upgrades to bump up performance.

Waiting is waiting, it's not gaming

 

Maybe It will be tri sli!

 

Holy $### that would be nice!

 

it would be able to compete with the 990m that way. They could possibly add a 3rd fan and move the cpu more towards the middle of the laptop and share heat with all three fans? another fan would improve memory and ssd cooling as well

 

Hahaha, two GPUs in SLI is more than enough. Adding a third one will cause the titan to have a PSU the size of the laptop hahaha

Anyways, I really do hope they add a third fan. I bough a fan to mod my titan with a smaller third fan for the CPU only, but I got one that is too small xD so I will try now with a 12mm x 12mm x 1mm fan, that will directly cool down the CPU.

 

Please keep us updated on your cooling efforts. Sounds interesting.

 

mason2smart, MSI would likely make it a 4x SLI, and simply stack another 2x intake/exhaust over the existing fan heat exchangers, kind of a double decker upper deck, er, well it could happen

 

ryzeki, the CPU heat plate connects to 2 large heat pipes, one to each side heat exchanger, which the exhaust fans blow through.

How would the 3rd fan exchange/transfer heat from the CPU, and where will you exhaust it?

Maybe cut a hole in the bottom, and get an "upwards" blower, and somehow tap in to the heat plate to exchange heat?

You would need to elevate the laptop, and make sure the exhaust heat from the CPU didn't bleed back into the intake... maybe duct it away from the laptop?

There is a Clevo owner that welded water-cooling heat exchangers to his CPU/GPU heat plates, and ran the 4 water tubes out the bottom. He gets really low temps. I guess he got tired of the loud Clevo cooling fans

 

Quad sli all the way!

 

Ohh don't worry, there is space for both intake and exhaust easily. You do not need a large fan like the two cooling fans that exist in the laptop. You can bridge the two copper heat pipes and add a copper block that will be cooled off with this way smaller additional fan. The bottom of the laptop is the only intake of the machine so you will need to keep it unblocked.

I don't plan on removing what currently exist, just add additional cooling. There are several option for fans that are less than one 1cm in thickness, which is enough space to fit between the heatpipes and the bottom cover.

I think watercooling is a bit too much to what I can to achieve. My goal is to reduce max CPU temps to 80~ C under max stress on a hot day. Right now it is around 92C at such conditions. Part of the reason is that each heatpipe travels a long way before it gets cooled down, so it does not get the necessary cooling under a hot ambient temp as it should. If I add a third fan that cools down both heat pipes before each GT80 fan, we will have enough cooling for it.

Btw I got my measurements way wrong, I meant getting something like 50mm x 50mm x 6mm fan or something akin to that. Otherwise there won't be much space.

After testing I will let you guys know how it goes I already got one testing fan, even if small, maybe it will do something haha

 

sent an email to MSI Sales asking if there will be a skylake variant of the GT80.

http://event.msi.com/nb/2015/skl/global/

 

forgive me for not reading all 310 pages of comments, but I have an issue with my GT80. I got this as a birthday present last week and apparently I have two "c" keys on my keyboard and I am missing the "x" key. I really don't want to have to send this back to them since I just got it all set up. Does anyone know of a place online where I can just buy an "x" key? I found a couple of places that sell replacement keys but not for the GT80 - or, if you are the lucky person that has two "x" keys would you like to make a trade????

 

I would recommend reaching out to either the place it was purchased, or to MSI's customer service and see if they can get that set straight. I'm not sure if I have seen just a place to purchase individual keys though.