\/\/\/\/\/\- The Official MSI GT60-2OD Owner's Lounge -/\/\/\/\/\/

Hello all, new GT60 user, got mine like 2 weeks ago from Amazon... since then have been testing it to set it as i like and currently almost done (i guess)... ordered some fujipoly 11w/mk thermal pads 0.5 and 1mm and a Gelid GC Extreme to change all the stock thermal pad/pastes.

My concern is about the wifi... i have much better signal strenght with an Intel one in my other laptop and my idea is to replace the killer one with the Intel one... so since i did not see one at the bottom i can assume... the wifi card is under the keyboard?

Thanks

 

^^^ The wifi card is under the 'media power bar'. It is very difficult to remove it as you may damage few clips on the side of the 'media power bar' that clips into the system. I do not advice you to do that, as you may regret it later on. Eventually you can get a wifi dongle that plugs into the usb port and disable the killer one.

Little bit of updates for windows 7 users:


title Realtek Audio

type Audio

os Win7 64

language English

update 2013-08-06

size 170.63 MB

file ad_realtek_6.0.1.6873_W8764.zip

link MSI Global – Download Center


And also a little bit of update on the firmware for the fan (information about the link provided earlier):

505 (already provided above the details by our brother Talon, which is the final release to date) - http://download1.msi.com/files/downl...F4EMS1.505.zip

My impression so far:

Pros. - Is that this EC firmware update does keep the fan a little bit at a higher speed during idle, however during taxing the GPU the fan keeps rotating at a better / higher speed and maintains the GPU cooler;

Cons. - If you are in OS and you restart, enter directly in bios, your keyboard stops responding, You will need to restart by power button and if you enter back in the bios your keyboard will work just fine. This does not happen if your system is off and you go directly in bios. Maybe its a small programing mistake or while saving the file something got messed up by MSI. I hope they read my notes and take action on this issue (not a big deal).

 

I actually had the BIOS keyboard issue upon first bootup after the flash, ie Flashed new EC, machine shutdown and I removed battery, waited a couple minutes, reinstalled battery, powered on and went into BIOS to "load defaults" as instructed by MSI... and had no keyboard! Freaked out a bit, powered down by holding down power button, powered back on and went back into BIOS and it worked fine. Was worried I had a bad flash and had toasted my machine!

 

Actually this problem will still be there, if you restart now and you go on bios, you will notice that you cannot use the keyboard (already tried all that power drain before posting those info's). There is some issue with this update compared to the old ones.

Another update I will like to bring out. I had the NSTECH fan as many of you and replaced with the T&T one. Yes, I have noticed that the new fan it is much more silent but it has also less RPM at full performance.

This was bugging me and I was thinking how can I have the NSTECH fan fixed, there is a reason why MSI went with them since it has a higher AMP and RPM. So, I opened both the fans (there is a sticker at the back and a lock made of plastic). If any of you try to do this, please take your time and do it as slow as possible. I used a prying tool (plastic tool) so that I do not damage anything; long story short, I put the fan and everything from the T&T into the motor of the NSTECH and after installing the fan, it is the same silent as the T&T one.

But, when turning the turbo on, OMG! What a difference! I left the turbo on with the T&T fan and while playing the temp was ~83. Now, with this fan turbo on the temperature dropped down to 74 degrees. And actually now the room temperature is a bit higher today (I had the A/C off), maybe 2-3 degrees difference. So, the new fan is the key to the turbo cooling. I do not think that the new thermal bridge helps by that much.

I totally advice everyone to do that (who has both fans), but please be very careful and take your time while doing it. You will not regret it!

 

OK noise discovered coming from AC unit.

I swear I'm not going crazy lol..

 

Glad to hear an updated EC firmware to address the temps! I will try them as soon as I return home from my deployment I also got a hold on a couple of HDMI, dvi and vga cables, and some monitors to test nvidia surround

I hope people don't mind I won't have 3 identical monitors for the testing haha.

 

would like to invest in an external batt...can anyone give me a good link?

 

If you want an original battery from a reliable source (not some third party battery), contact Ken from gentechpc.com. He will definitely help you out.

 

I will definitely try this when i receive my T&T fan.
Thanks for sharing.

 

I don't get it, if your using the NSTech internals in the T&T fan base would you not still have that annoying fan buzz electric noise since your using the same motor assembly?

I'm again a GT60 owner, not really by choice, long story...I've taken back ownership of my "Lemon GT60" as my friend called it and will be fixing it up too my standards. He has taken my G750 that i took the trouble to repaste for myself....It was originally for him but we swapped. Then he wasn't happy with that even! I ordered both systems from the US as a favor that backfired on me.

I will try this as his lithium grease job on the NSTech fan hasn't worked. Well it seemed to i recall but i can still hear that idle buzz....buzz...buzz. So the difference in RPM is that great that is makes a 10 degrees difference? But only on turbo fan mode right? I plan to use fan controller and set 80% when gaming

I've ordered a new Blu Ray burner x 6 speed with light scribe to fix the faulty Blu ray drive it shipped with. This throws fits when reading 90% of the dvd/s blu rays i tried in it.

MSI warranty will replace the blu ray, not sure if fan buzz would be covered they would "take a look at it" but I decided against loosing the system for a few weeks and postage costs instead will replace the fan and blu ray myself. (I want a burner anyway)

Anyone tried the Plextor M5M drives? Thinking I might snap up 3 x 128GB ones (They are a good price) and run them in raid 0 The sandisk X100 is pretty average.

 

^^^ You got in wrong my dear friend. I am using the NSTECH MOTOR and the CASE. All the other parts including ball barrels (which are the most important) are from the T&T fan which help a lot at that idle speed when you loose that buzz sound but you will still gain that same speed due to the NSTECH motor being more powerful...

Basically you only need the balls barrels from T&T fan system to solve your idle problem, but I didn't want to meddle with anything and since the fan looks the same on both, I thought let me change everything and just leave the MOTOR from NSTECH on it. When you will open them, you will know what I am talking about...

 

Sorry to hear your troubles with the purchase of the two machines... seems every time I try and help a buddy and money is involved I get scewed as well ha

The lower turbo fan speed of the T&T is the only reason I haven't ordered one... I usually game with either auto for most games with the latest EC update or 80% for the more GPU demanding games, but BF3 maxed out online with 64 player servers I like to run about a 100 core OC with framerate limited to 59fps, and turbo fan keeps this setup running in the low 70's. Framerate never dips and GPU usage varies between 60-95% typically. Even dropping to 90% fan speed does have a noticeable effect on temps, so I can definitely see that if the T&T runs even at 90% of the NStech for example, cooling will be warmer for sure.

This is an interesting compromise Juliant came up with, curious how long term usage and durability will play out with the Frankenstein fan. Thanks for the info Juliant, keep us posted!

As a side note, I did try lubrication on my Nstech fan, and it did help but it did not eliminate the low speed noise completely. At 10% it's essentially silent, but at 20% where the new EC's have it idle, the noise can be heard.

 

Ok got it, thanks I will try this soon. But first going to try a grease the NStech myself this time and try that. All else fails I will try your method above

You know the feeling. I'm pissed that essentially I got screwed over here. And got the system back. But moving on I'm going to fix it up so at least I can be 100% happy with it this time around. New blu rau burner drive ordered, got this one here: cheap too LG HL BP06LU11 6X Blu Ray Burner BD Writer USB External Slim Drive Lightscribe | eBay And 3 x 128GB plextor drives on the way for raid 0. Since I do some video editing it will be nice to have those speeds. I will just have to back up more often if the raid fails on me.

Your temps are good. But I find the turbo fan too much for me. I plan on using just 80% fan setting that maxes out in the early to mid 80s on the gpu.

 

I tried the grease the fan internals and it didn't help all that much. Next step is to create the frankenstein fan (nstech motor, t&t blade assembly). Anybody want to share any pics so we can see how this stuff is actually done?

 

I tried all the tests possible be77solo with this fan and it is exactly as the T&T used to be except the advantage of a better higher speed at full turbo, which really helps a lot! People that already have the NSTECH in their system will not know what I am talking about, because they are already into the advantage of a better cooling system, but they are facing that annoying sound at idle. I guess if $50-$60 more does not hurt you by that much, you could get the T&T fan and have those things replaced.

It has been more than 24hours since I had them replaced and I do not notice any change in performance nor noise (it is extremely quite at idle as the T&T used to be). However, whoever does the same as I did, has to be very careful not to damage something during the process as you may end up with more noise and performance speed reduced by much more then what you are gaining now.

 

Well guys, I thought yesterday the source of a "popping" noise was my AC unit. I continued to hear it again last night, and have actually been hearing this noise for some time now, but thought it must be something else as my system is otherwise silent other then the random popping. It isn't very loud, and I can't determine where exactly it is coming from. It sounds like a static discharge. I do think it is coming from the speakers, but it makes this sound even when speakers are muted.

Last night I decided it must be a driver issue. After different driver reinstalls and updates that I found on MSI website, it still made the noise. I decided a factory restore was in order because it didn't make this noise when I first got the laptop to my knowledge. I swear it didn't make the noise during the entire installation of windows, but after I installed a few programs and got everything up and running the sound was back!

I just want to know if this is a hardware issue, or actually a driver issue I can fix on my own. I really don't want to send my laptop back, but something even this small sort of annoys me. Anyone have any experience with something like this? I might go to realteks website and install their drivers over the MSI ones and see if it fixes this issue. I also rolled back to the original EC firmware, but that didn't fix anything either.

On a side note, the noise only seems to occur when the laptop is first brought out of sleep, or a cold boot. Once the system has been up and running for about 5-10 minutes there isn't any static noises. It also does not come through my speakers when listening to music or through my headphones.

Should I bother RMA for such a small issue? I really have a feeling MSI won't even notice it at the factory because the room has to be very quiet to hear it, and you have to be paying attention. My fiance sitting right next to me at the table said she can't hear anything. Thoughts?

 

Unfortunately for me it is too late to help on that; I do not want to damage something, though it a is very easy process:

1. Remove the stickers carefully not to damage them;

2. There is a plastic washer on each fan, remove it slowly with a plastic prying tool and do not apply pressure as the barrel is right below that and you do not want to damage it;

3. Keep all the parts from the NSTECH separate and the T&T one in the other side;

4. Once you removed everything from eachone (remember the order how they were placed), put everything as it was in the T&T fan into the NSTECH motor.

That's about it... Screw it back in, put the battery, boot and see how is the noise and if everything works okay, shut it off; remove the fan, put the sticker back, screw it back in and then put the back cover on, screw it in and enjoy your new NS&T fan


BTW: Have you guys seen the new bios? For who doesn't know how to update it, unzip it in a directory and update it via bios window.

http://www.msi.com/service/download/bios-20945.html

type BIOS
os Win8 64
language English
update 2013-08-07

description

1.Modify string length
2.Modify brightness

note Win8 AHCI Mode
version 50C
size 3.28 MB

 

Haven't tried it yet, thanks for the heads up! Who goes first? What do they mean with those modifications? If it means a brighter screen I am all for it haha.

Also called MSI about my issue, and they took note of all it and placed notes in my account. They also pointed out signal interference which I thought of and have moved my cell phone. I think they might be on to something with that theory though. I will change rooms or different power outlets eventually. My place is an older home, and causes signal interference to my tv sometimes, and also causes my cell phone to lose signal or broken phone calls on the regular. I guess if it ever leads to any further issues down the road at least I've documented it on my account.

 

Actually I already updated and yes, it kind of feels a little bit brighter... Maybe it's the thought or I do not know, but if feels much better... Other than that, I do not know, I have to figure it out in time.

 

Updated the bios as well. Whew! I got nervous when I first rebooted and the power button lit up and it didn't display anything for a good 15 seconds lol. It also just shut itself down without me having to type the "reset" command as the instructions said.

Screen brightness seems about the same? Maybe a tad brighter but that might be placebo.


Newest BIOS Update Allows Intel XTU Vesion 4.1 to accept overclocks! :hi2:

 

Ohh nice what stable overclocks can you get now on your 4900MQ? Please do test and post. What about idle fan speed is it lower now or still 20%?

So do you recommend people update? I'm still on 501...

 

I am still testing the newest bios version. I haven't tested max stable OC yet, but reinstalled the latest version of XTU to test and found it to work finally! I will keep testing today and see what I can come up with or notice any differences and test for stability.

I have original EC firmware flashed to the system, and my fan speeds are silent at idle. If you update the EC firmware to the latest, the fan speeds at idle go from 10% (stock) to 20% and are slightly audible. In addition the fan also slightly spins up at boot. With the original firmware the fans do not spin up at boot. I prefer the original EC firmware because of this.

N

 

That's good news, though overclocking through the bios is always the best way if you can.

 

Just got home! I am downloading EC firmware and BIOS update! Let's see how it goes with my 100F temps..

 

Amazon.com: MSI G Series GT60 2OD-026US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black): Computers & Accessories

$1885 Shipped! Best price I have come across for this laptop. I'm sure the sale won't last long, so anyone thats been waiting to pull the trigger this wouldn't be a bad time to pick one up.

 

I have been lurking around here for the past month and I think I have decided I am going to order the MSI GT60 2OD-026US next paycheck.

The thing is going to be packing a 780m and I am concerned about temps when gaming with one fan especially after reading through some of the comments here and on other threads. I was wondering how hard it is to re-paste the system. I have never done so on a laptop before and have no experience with IC Diamond. I have though pasted several desktops before so I am down with the basics but I was wondering if it is a good idea to spread manually or let the pressure spread the compound.

The laptop comes with a SSD and a HDD and I am under the impression it is a mSATA SSD in a drive day correct? Does that mean there is room for another two mSATA's if I wanted more space later on?

Is the memory that is pre-installed on the slots under the keyboard or in the access panel?

Is there stickers that plague the palm rest like the majority of laptops and if so are they easy to remove?

Even if it goes back up their normal price is like 1945$... It will probably be like that for a week or so.

 

For those who miss Juliant's post, I quoted it on purpose Thx again bro for giving us each time all the information needed

So I've been testing the 505 for several days, and it's obvious that I don't like it. The reasons :

- it's not as silent as the "stock" one (which I guess is the 501 here provided by Juliant) : I'm going to update my firmware back to 501.
- 505 is totally, from my point of view, useless if you use the Fan Tools by Pherein.

Moreover, I haven't seen any significant differences in terms of temperatures, using the 505, so if you want a quiet machine, install back your 501 firmware and simply use the fan tools, which gives a better job than the newest msi firmware.

For me, these are the most efficient way to cool down your laptop and to keep a silent laptop idle.

 

1. Here, kind of you will be aware how to repaste your CPU / GPU MSI GT60-2OD Repasting of GPU and CPU with IC DIamond - YouTube Heat will not be an issue while Gaming or doing any 3D stuff if you do not mind the turbo fan or the tool control for the fan that everyone is talking about;

2. There are 3 mSATA slots and 1 2.5" slot, so yes you can install another 2 more msata ssd's;

3. The memory is installed under the keyboard (2 slots) and you have 2 more near the CPU / GPU heatsink. However you can only install additional memory if you remove the heatsink;

4. What else was there, ah stickers, yes all of them have those stickers on them. But you can pry them easily and probably you will be able to use a little water on a cloth and wipe the marks away (keep the machine off while doing this) if it bothers you that much!

Other then all those, I hope you will not get the annoying fan issue everyone is complaining about, but there are solutions for that as well. I answered this question myself few times already: whould I buy this machine all over again? And the answer is Yes; even doing all those things to make it function the way it does now, it will still not cost me as much as I paid for it + I like the build quality, the size of it and yes the weight is not that bad at all compared to other machines. There are other people going with gaming machines that are mostly 2 pounds less (not even a kg) and they are facing so many problems, compromising themselves with lesser GPU power, without a GPU 3.0b slot and temperatures like 90-100 degrees on the CPU, just because they are thinner and lighter. This is not the case with this machine and I do not have anything to complain so far. I wanted something smaller, I got all the power I need in this machine!

 

3 x mSata plextor M5M 128GB's arrived today. Will install these over the weekend. Raid 0 (MSI brands it super raid v2....)



@cloudpm I'll stay put on 501 then, thanks for the info.

 

I wanna see some benchmarks AAAAND some info on how the triple RAID "feels" while doing everyday tasks
Pleeeeeeeaase

 

Sure will do, just might be a few days as I have a lot on this weekend. Need to update the firmware first too. Mine are on 1.02 and I see 1.03 is the latest. But I will get some benchmarks up of 3 in raid 0.

I was going to go with 2 x 256GB M5M's but though what the hell the 128GB version preforms great only lacks 110Mb/s sequential writes over the 256GB version. IOPS 4KB is basically the same, 80k read and 76k write. And 3 of them worked out a cheaper than two x 256GB's and gives me over 340GB to play with for OS and apps which is plenty.

MTBF of 2.4 million hours is not bad at all too. But will still backup often since its raid0 with 3 drives.

 

Thanks for the advice. Are you talking about the cricket noise some people are experiencing when you mentioned the fan? How bad is it because I will be using this in class and I am sure my professors would enjoy an enraged cricket in their lecture halls.

 

Yeah, something like that. But it is not that bad and it may not be noticed in a classroom. You can only make out if you are by yourself in a quite room, doing some work or learning something etc.

 

I'm having issues upgrading the drivers.

I downloaded the updated 311.83 from MSI website, yet when I go to install it after it is all done rebooting the computer simply doesn't recognize the adapter. I get no Nvidia settings when right clicking the desktop yet GeForce experience does say that I have the 311.83 driver, but no GPU. I did do a driver sweep before installing it. I simply don't know what the problem is.

I have tried installing with and without driver sweeps and also the 311.70 driver does the exact same thing for me. The only driver that installs and then gets the 780m recognized is the 311.48, funny enough it installs fine with or without a driver sweep using driver sweeper 2.1.0

I tried searching the forum but I couln't find a post regarding this issue. Can anybody shine a light on what I am doing wrong? Or how to get the 311.83 properly installed and to recognize my GPU?

Everytime I install a driver that is not the 311.48 I am getting the Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43) error on the device manager.

 

Those drivers don't work without a modded INF. get the latest beta driver posted in the gaming section. 326? I can't remember the exact number. It takes awhile after new product releases for full support of drivers. All releases from Nvidia from those forward should install with no issues.

 

So the drivers that I downloaded directly from the MSI GT60 2OD product support downloads section need to be modded to work with the laptop? I would like to think this is not the case. Why would MSI put that there if it needed further modification to work with the laptop. And if the .INF file was the problem, it would likely not even allow me to go through the installation. Not tell me everything its OK, but Windows disabling my 780m because of an error 43 with the new driver (official and directly from MSI) in place.

 

I think it varies to be honest from notebook to notebook. Mine is more of a buzz, buzz. It sounds exactly like a ceiling fan on low speed idle. On off motor noise. That was and still is driving me crazy. But I'll have it fixed in a week or so so I can quit focusing on it. I can't seem to ignore it as its too loud when the rooms dead quite.

 

They don't necessarily make the drivers, so they might have just put those there because they "officially" support 780m. It's weird, I will try installing them again and let you know. I have those drivers right now working. I previously installed them via modded inf and disabling signed drivers, but that was because I had flashed my GPU with unlocked vbios which changes the device id. I flashed back and reinstalled them but I don't remember having any particular problems....

Wait.. I think I had to install twice because once I rebooted, windows did not recognize the GPU. So I installed, rebooted twice and reinstalled and now I have them working. Freaking nVidia hahaha.

The "proper" way to upgrade your drivers is via "check update" on your task bar nvidia icon. Otherwise you might run into those issues. I think there hasn't been any new driver release that works fine so far, has there?

 

I tried it on my laptop, closed every door and every window, turned off everything except the laptop, but my fan is extremely silent. I guess I am glad I either don't have the buzz sound or my ear is too damaged to notice it haha.

 

Since you guys are talking about the noise level, i was wondering if it's quit enough that I can use it in my lecture hall?
Don't really want it to make a lot of noise when I'm in class :/

 

If you have the NSTECH and you are not facing any noise issue, then you are really lucky. Mine is like that after doing that mod, updating the bios and being on ec 501 firmware. Sometimes I go closer to the machine to make sure that the fan is still on

As per the driver issue Ocelotian is having, it should not be there. I have used most of drivers out there and specifically the ones that are on MSI website are made for this GPU unless you have unlocked with a modded vbios your GPU.

Make sure you uninstall everything, restart, do a ccleaner and registry cleaner, driver sweeper though it is a bit too old and better to use driver fusion (that is what I have), restart and make sure when you check in the device manager you have 2 GPU adapters. Now try the driver from MSI which I think it is 311.83 and it should work without any issues. Ofcourse it will ask you to restart once.

I am basically using the latest beta 326.41 from NVidia website since the day was available and I have no issues whatsoever.

 

I haven't had the need for driver sweeping for years now, but it is important as you mentioned to restart. Windows 8 is very... well it lies to you when it says restart.

so the latest beta also support the GPU natively? Nice nice. Are they worth it?

 

^^^ I had no problem with it since the day one when I had it installed. Maybe you will notice performance increase in some games, but if your machine works just fine and you have no issues better to stick to what you have and enjoy it

 

3. I've installed two 8 GB RAM chips into the open slots without removing heat sink. It's tricky work but doable.

4 I contacted MSI Support prior to upgrading RAM and mSATA and asked for their blessing on record to access the slots. They assured me in writing that doing so does not void warranty. Might be a good idea for everyone to do the same just to have it on record, making any warranty claims straightforward with no hassles or stumbling blocks.

 

I never modified my inf and yet I could neither get beta drivers or MSI's official update (311.83) to work. When I attempted beta was told not supported by install, when I attempted 311.83 it loaded but then GPU was not recognized so I uninstalled which got stock drivers loaded automatically after reboot.

I would like to try beta but didn't want to mod inf. I read somewhere that it was not necessary to mod for betas... any thoughts why i'm getting denied? Do I still need to disable signed driver requirements? Where exactly do I do that?

 

i finally got my replacement GT60 back. this one is a bit quieter than my previous one.

 

Ok so got the 3 x Plextor M5M 128GB drives installed. Raid0. Had some issues again with a clean install and loading all MSI support page drivers. Stupid BSOD coming out of sleep mode using USB drives on clean install again.

Anyway finally got it installed using recovery disks. Here are my results. I'm new to raid 0 and not sure if I need to tweak it more. Win8 has detected the drives as SSD's and I can trim it.

Speed results below for those interested.

System seems to have low 4K? Not sure. Maybe a setting I need to tweak or something in iRST?. Anyway it feels so much faster than my single 840 Pro. That was fast, now it seems to fly. Installing apps, loading PS CS6 is so quick. Over all just seems so snappy. Futher tweaking to be had.

Topping at 1440Mb/s reads and 970 writes is nice. And good for video work.



Will run some more benches soon.

WEI is now 8.6 on hard drive.

 

They have it posted on their website that you can access the panels to upgrade components and besides I believe legally they cannot void a warranty because of simply upgrading components, only if the upgrading process leads to damage of the machine since it wasn't parts failure but human error.

I e-mailed them this actually before posting here and I received this link: MSI USA

 

Impressive speeds! I am jealous haha

 

Yes, with the fans at 10% (either with out of box 501 EC or manually with fan tool if using a newer EC file) the machine is silent. The hard disk drive is the loudest part of my machine when idle or basic offi e use, and that's only when it's being accessed... its a really quiet machine in basic usage. It will be just fine and quieter than a lot of other machines in class.