MSI GS40 Phantom-001

Did a repaste with Noctua NT-H1. Pretty easy job comparing to my GS70

Here's the guts of the GS40


Heatsink removed, I like to use a little trick where I take a plastic bag, turn it inside out (to get to the most clean part) and spread evenly and with some force a little paste on the heatsink side. I then clean up all the excess with a towel or microfiber cloth and this, theoretically, ensures all the micro imperfections in the metal get filled.


CPU and GPU


Fun fact, even the SSD get's a big thermal pad all for itself and dissipates it's heat thru the chassis. I guess these NVME drives do heat up quite a bit

I'll test it for a day or so and come back

 

Wow, 84c is very hot, the highest mine has ever reached is like 76c even when playing games like The division or fallout

 

Hey thanks for the pictures, I was told that the clear/white spacers that are on the fans (in the first picture) have almost fallen off before and could damage the fan, are they held on pretty good? do you notice any movement with them?

 

Yeah I also read that. I checked and they all seemed to be held on pretty good.
My laptop is only 2 days old so this can change with heat cycles

 

I think it's fixed! Probably because of the entire intel and nvidia driver sweep and update.
The thermal paste didn't do much difference. In idle and light load with GS GO there's a close to 5ºC difference. Playing BF4 both the GPU and CPU eventually peak and remain at about 88ºC.
Everything feels stable and smooth now.

 

So all you did were to update the drivers then the problem is fixed?

 

Yeah, but I was using the Intel VGA Beta drivers, now I'm on version 20.19.15.4312, is there a better option?
Same question for chipset drivers, I'm on 10.1.1.9

 

Small update:
Lag and FPS drops seem to have completely disappeared from all games. Except Rust. I get constant FPS drops on that one, but I think it's due to the game having crapping optimization. My guess is it's getting VRAM leaks or something...

I have noticed another, serious, problem.
It seems my GS40 is killing my networks. Internet is much more unstable when it's being demanded, router is resetting way more often.
Just this weekend I was at a friends house doing a small lan with 4 other people and as soon as I connect my GS40 to the router and start playing the internet goes out.
Can this be something to to with the Killer adapter or it's network managing capabilities?

 

This is happening on multiple networks? Strange. Have you updated the driver per Killer's site?

 

Yeah it could be. The Killer Network Manager allows options to control flow and demand from your computer to the router, but most of the time people have low cost routers/modems. I had similar issues with my old router that came from my ISP, a D-link media router that costs about 40dlrs. I upgraded to an Asus RT high end router and I haven't had a single drop yet.

What you can try is to uninstall everything but the driver itself. No manager, no flow control, nothing except the basic driver it has. It should work better for most routers that way.

 

Yeah. On my friends house the router isn't very good but we always managed to play with no issues.
As soon as I connected my GS40 first Origin was giving all sorts of port errors to my other friends trying to connect. Then the internet went away for good...
On my house I have a 200Mb connection with a decent Huawei router. It isn't great but it's better than most ISP crap. Still I get random disconnects which didn't happen before.
I'll try that, thanks.

If the update doesn't make things better I'll do that. But can't I just disable it?

Also, on another note. I think I'll do a format and fresh Windows 10 installation. Any ideas on how to do that without using MSI's recovery system? The point is to have a clean W10 installation, not one filled with bloatware. And how do I disable Windows getting and installing drivers during the format?

 

When you update, or try to reinstall the update, I believe it allows your to select what items you want to add/remove. Choose to keep only the wireless driver and remove the filter/manager etc etc.

As for a fresh install, I believe you can simply download a bootable USB win10 installator, or an ISO, directly from microsoft. Boot to that and maybe delete everything and fresh install. I would recommend you to have another USB driver with the required/common drivers to avoid headaches. At least have the ethernet/wifi driver ready just in case haha

 

I would back up the image using the supplied Burn Recovery software first to hold onto as a fail safe. For a clean/full install, you can grab the Windows 10 tool from Microsoft, create a bootable USB flash drive (or DVD), and then boot from that to begin installation. As long as your product key is already activated, you'll be ready to go (install drivers and updates) once you reach your new desktop.

I also recommend getting whatever drivers you need backed up to something before doing a format + reload.

 

The new audio driver seems to be corrupted


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Damnit! I'm still getting random freezes and performance spikes, even in Windows.
I'll try to format today and install the newest drivers. Also I'll update the VBIOS as I think it's got something to do with Optimus.
Even youtube videos lag, also watching video files, this is getting on my nerves...
On the high-performance power option it lags much less, but on battery power and balanced or battery saving mode the stuttering is quite obvious, even with the cursor.
I'll also try memtest to ser if the RAM is 100% ok.

Any pointers on where to get the latest chipset and integrated graphics drivers?

P.S: I downgraded the Killer drivers to pure version, only the driver with nothing else. Stability has improved and stuttering in games has decreased but it's still there. I'll get back later

 

Chipset driver will have to come from MSI. iGPU driver should also, but you can then update over it by going to Intel's support/download page (it's usually best to use the stock driver and then update over it).

 

I'm on chipset and beta vga drivers from MSI. After a format and new Windows installation I still get small freezes....
Wtf is going on?! Could this be a hardware issue? Haven't gotten around to running memtest yet

 

A clean/vanilla install of Windows is a good way to narrow it down. Considering you've done that, it's sounding like a hardware issue is a very possibility at this point.

Did you install those beta drivers over the stock driver versions? Or did you start with them?

 

I installed them on their own. Now I have updated them to the latest version I got from Intel's site.

I think I might have found the problem!!!
I started unninstalling software that I had suspicions about, Killer Suite, Nahimic, everything MSI and the freezes continue.
I noticed the computed froze a whole lot more on battery but it's not because it's not connected to power, it's because when I'm using it off the mains i'm always using the touchpad!
It's the damn Elan driver! I think...

I'll unninstall it and run some tests

 

Hmm... Let us know what you find out about that. If it's the culprit on a clean install, this could mean problems for others users, too.

 

Hmm, yeah that's very weird I've never had problems with stuttering at all, I have had problems with the keyboard stuttering and pressing random keys, but reinstalling the keyboard driver fixed all of that.

 

Bad RAM cause system freezes and it's quite common.

GS40 is pretty easy to access components so maybe you can try open the bottom cover and remove one stick of RAM to test to isolate the issues.

 

Faulty RAM tends to produce BSODs or unusual POST behavior more often than causing the system to lock up. If you have more than one module, you can try running off of one at a time to possibly isolate which stick is faulty (if any), or replace all of it and test from there.

 

Ok it does look like the Elantech driver was the culprit. Everything is rock solid now. No more crashes or freezes. Sound and video run smooth, games too.
I'll run memtest later tonight just to also rule out RAM issues, how long should I run it for?

But it sucks that I lost a lot of touchpad functionality. I got this little beast because I always carry it with me for work and gaming and I use the touchpad a lot.

 

The Elantech driver shouldn't cause freeze issues unless there is something going on. The laptop should be full functional out of the box with or without Elentech driver.

For memtest, you just need to run for 2 hours and if there is no errors you should be fine.

The problems you are having could be a faulty touchpad.

 

Hi, Ive been having exactly the same problem as you, did a clean install and at first it was fine but after installing all the drivers the system stuttering/freeze came back.
After reading this thread I realized as well that the stuttering/freezing is occuring during the usage of the touchpad. Ive uninstalled the elan drivers and now its butter smooth as it should be. I created this account just to confirm that you are not the only one having this issue. Many thanks for the find and ye I agree it sucks to loose touchpad functionality.

 

I just uninstalled the Elantech driver. Testing Mad Max now...

 

Tell us how it goes.

My system is rock stable now. I was even having some weird artefacts while maximizing video windows and stuff like that and even that stopped happening.

Weird sh*t.

P.S:
After uninstalling the elantech driver and restarting I noticed that Windows 10 automatically downloaded and installed a different Elantech driver. Version 11.15.0.18_X64. I regained two finger scrolling and clicking. Am now able to disable the touchpad via software no problems (although the Fn+F3 shortcut still doesn't work) and the system is still stable. I would recommend trying this for anyone with similar issues. MSI has the 15.13.2.2 version available for download. That's the one giving me issues.

 

The elan drivers from windows update seems to be working fine for me aswell for the small period of time ive tested it now, thanks.

 

Hi everybody,

I am looking for a new laptop and when I found the MSI GS40 I was extremely surprised. 14", good weight, 16GB of RAM, a good i7 and an excellent graphic card. Although the 970M is too much for my purposes (learning CUDA and moderate gaming) I think this model fits really good what I am looking for.

My biggest concern was the temperatures; at the end is a small and lightweight laptop with a very powerful content. I have been looking on internet and I have found some complains about the temperatures that the laptop reaches (even don't doing anything heavy) and the poor build quality. And then in newer comments I didn't find these complains anymore. So I started to think that maybe MSI fixed these issues in the newer manufactured products or the people just assumed that and never talk again about it.

What do you think about it?

I am a Spanish guy living in Switzerland so as far as I found my only options are MSI G40, XMG P406 and MacBook Pro 13" (and forget about gaming and CUDA). And the first time I heard about XMG was one month ago so I don't feel comfortable at all expending 1500€ in an unknown brand for me.

Thanks in advance.

 

In terms of temps, I don't really have any problems with it, and of course if you play for hours on demanding games, it'll be hot. But for me even after 2 hours of Blade and soul, my laptop felt warm but not extremely hot. Also, if I remember correctly, MSI put out an update that updated the fan table. As for build quality, yeah it's not MacBook or Razer blade (2 of my previous laptops), but it's not bad at all even having used those two.

I do have a couple of dents from me dropping stuff onto the laptop from being careless that would only have made nicks in other two laptops, but then again, nicks bother me just as much as the small dents, and dropping something like scissors onto a laptop is not really the usual case most notebook manufacturers take into account will happen often.

Bottom line is, it's fine, but realize that it does have high power components and is not MacBook or Razer Blade in build quality AND price, so not too fair to compare to those.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

yeah I would definitely recommend this laptop, I too was worried about the build quality, but it's actually very good, the lid and the keyboard have little to no bend. As far as heat goes, it's by far the best in its "14 inch gaming class", on moderate games it usually doesn't pass 74-75 Celsius which is very good. Even on some of my racing games it stays at 69 Celsius most of the time. The fans can be an issue at times coming on and off but your not getting heating problems like you would with Razer laptops. Not to mention it will perform better than the other ones on your list at a lower price.(I believe the Razer Blade has a 970, but only 8 gigs of RAM).

If you have any other questions about the laptop I'll be glad to share my opinions, good luck.

 

Does anyone know what type of screws that are used to fasten the removable plastic bottom cover on the laptop? A couple of them broke when I was putting it back in and I would like to replace it.

 

Hi guys, I am new to these forums.

So I recently bought this laptop from best buy after reading many reviews including the ones here. So far I am really liking it.
My only concern now is I am getting really high temps, especially when I am gaming. And yesterday while playing Blade and Soul for a few hours, my CPU temp reached 91c. I cant replicate it right now due to the server maintenance. But here are my temps while playing Dota 2 for 30 minutes. After idling for a while my CPU temps average at around 50c
Are these temps normal for this laptop?

edit: I couldnt get a thumbnail to appear for the image, so just right click - open image in new tab

 

My CPU tops at around 88ºC after a few hours of gaming. 91ºC doesn't seem extreme but it's probably throttling.
I would suggest replacing the thermal compound for a good one and getting a nice comfortable cooling base. That should help your issues.
And even if the temps don't drop dramatically the cooling base will ensure the metal chassis stays cool and comfortable for long gaming periods.

 

Its sounds about right but with using intel xtu and lowering voltage with -160 mV im lowering my temp with about 10 degree celcius. (Aboout 80 with -160mV)

I also use the new speed fan thingy from MSI forums (cant remember the name but can check it out later tonight) to keep my cpu fan up while idling and having an idling temp to around 35 degree celcius.

 

Hi! Thanks for replying so fast, I really appreciate it.
Unfortunately they put a warranty seal on one of the screws, so I probably won't try repasting it myself yet. I will try the cooling base and observe the temps more, and if it still gets too hot, ill try taking it back to best buy since im still within the 15 days return period.
What cooling pad would you suggest for this laptop?

Ok I will try that. Thanks for the tip!

 

Its called "silent option" and can be found in MSI forum.

Link: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=255972.0

 

Running at much lower temps now, thank you

 

Which temperatures are you having now under moderate load and high load?

Thanks.

 

Here are my temps now after using the advanced settings on msi silent option. Without it, idle temps were around 40-50. Now it just idles at 30-40. Before, max temp after playing Blade and soul was 91c. now it's just 82c and averages around 70c. Although last night after playing Overwatch for the first time, cpu temp reached 91c again. but max load was 100%.

 

Ok! Overwatch would be the ideal game to buy with the laptop . I am still thinking between the MSI GS40 and the MacBook Pro retina because the MSI is powerful as crazy but the temperatures...

 

just got my cooling pad today. Tried playing overwatch again. max temp now was only 81c cpu and 67c gpu. No more throttling!

 

Which cooling pad did you buy? I'm looking for one for my similarly sized Clevo P641RE.

 

I bought the CM NotePal X-Slim.

 

Hi guys.
At first sorry for my english - it's not so good.

I've got MSI GS40 from 5 months. In May i've updated bios from E14A1IMS.101 to E14A1IMS.10A everything go Ok. Yesterday i want update bios to E14A1IMS.10C from MSI Global:
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GS40-6QE-Phantom.html#down-bios

I've got fallowed instruction to update bios by UEFI, everything wend OK. There was information that updating is succes and pres any key, I've got pressed space, then laptop restart and ...nothing happen, screen is black keyboard is lighting but hdd led is not working.

I've tried use ctrl+home with pendrive formatted intro fat32 with E14A1IMS.10C named AMIBOOT.ROM but nothing.. no sound signal, screen is black.

I'm thinking everything more what i can do is give laptop to msi service using warranty

I also try disconnect battery, ram, ac adapter and press small button on left side above sdd nvg flash disk (I'm thinking it's to clear CMOS) but not help.

 

Can anyone tell me if the gs40 now can support the gaming dock?
I am sort of confused here because they both have the same model number at the moment.

If it isn't released, is there an estimate date?

 

No I don't believe that it does, you have to have the gs30 for that, but maybe in the future they can make a dock for the usb c that's on the gs40. I'm not sure what they have planned though, so if anybody's knows more I would chime in

 

I wouldn't be counting on the gaming dock. Since we have the Thunderbolt 3 plug, any external videocard enclosure should be compatible.

 

Yeah I was thinking the same, if the razer core works with the GS40 that might be something I would be interested in.