MSI GS40 Phantom-001

I would imagine increases of 10fps or more in general so a pretty noticeable gain. That's like what, 200mhz more to core over stock boosted clocks? That score approaches 980m territory so its a pretty good jump.

Not sure though about recommending it. The stock setup still works really good (getting to play The Witcher 3 on a laptop with a mix of high and max settings at 1080p while still maintining 40+ fps still blows my mind)

 

Yeah to be honest I've been more than happy with the performance so far. I was so close to giving up and getting the GS60 or possibly spending ridiculous amounts of money on an X3+ v5 when it was delayed, but right now I'm glad I waited. Think I'll pass on overclocking though, I'm not technical enough to apply thermal paste and don't really want the warranty voided for it if I balls it up

 

There is not a massive need to just now, but the option is there in the future

 

Anyone happen to know if the Razer Blade slim ac adapter fits the GS40? They're same wattage / voltage rating so here's hopin'

 

Haven't followed this thread or machine, but I do use the Razer Slim AC adapter daily on my GS60, works great, love it and is much easier to pack and travel with... this is one area MSI should look to upgrading, as Razer does it right and is much more user friendly. I'd be shocked if it wouldn't work on the GS40, as I've had three MSI's with all the same plug tip... but, I haven't researched this, but if the GS60 charger is compatible with the GS40 you are good to go, and will love it.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the info. I'm not 100% sure it the GS60/GS40 are compatible but this bodes very well. I'd also surprised if they weren't.

I'm thinking I may just order it and send it back if it doesn't fit, but now I'm pretty confident it won't be a wasted effort.

 

I'd be shocked if it wouldn't work, as it's the preferred slim choice in the GS60 thread, and I've owned MSI's for years with the same tip.

Enjoy and good luck! For on the go use, there is absolutely no comparison, the Razer adapter even makes cord management easy as well as being smaller and lighter.

 

So long as the tip is the right size and the electrical specs match the there is no smart connection rubbish to get in the way.

 

Important thing for notice: BIOS really have a problem with some NMVe drives.

My laptop can't recognize Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB in BIOS. Slot is "empty". I used AOMEI Partition Assistant Technician Edition 5.8 for 950 pro in windows. After that Samsung data migration from official samsung site detected SSD correctly and copied OS_install local disk from HDD without any trouble. But it still didn't recognize in BIOS and I was forced to pull out HDD from laptop. Looks like no other way to use Samsung SSD 950 PRO as a system boot disk for now.

Official MSI support says:
"For BIOS update we need SSD data or algorithms to ensure compatibility. Because we didn't cooperate with Samsung it can be a long time while MSI BIOS engineers will answer. You can replace SSD by Kingston or Toshiba for the quick fix".

Really? Didn't cooperate with Samsung with PCIe SSD Samsung SM951 installed as the factory drive? It's really dissappointed to hear that after massive marketing campaign of NVME from MSI

BTW, speed of 950 pro is awesome (2,5 GB/S!), but looks like this SSD is throttling because in crystal mark it became slower after few minutes of laptop working.

 

Has anyone updated their EC firmware to the latest? 14A1EMS1.102?

I'm now getting errors when waking up from sleep...

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
and
KERNEL SECURITY CHECK ERROR

May just have to try a clean install of Windows 10

 

Just got this laptop, figured I'd leave some thoughts on the physical/external features of the laptop for people who are looking to buy it. I haven't had time to actually play any games on it yet, but judging by everyone else's posts, I'm guessing it performs as advertised.
EDIT: Yep, laptop is a beast as far as performance - unsurprisingly, it outperforms my 4-year-old desktop running a first-gen i5 750 and a GTX 590.

Background:
I've been using a 13.3" Thinkpad x220 for the last 4 years or so and still plan to keep on using it for all non-gaming purposes, as well as a gaming desktop of approximately the same age.

Build quality:
The laptop is fairly average in terms of build quality - it's significantly better than your cheapo Dell/HP laptops, but also noticeably worse than a mid/high-end Thinkpad (and isn't particularly close to a MBP). There's some minor flex to the keyboard and to the bottom of the laptop, but in general it's fairly solid: it's good enough that any rumors about poor build quality seem unfounded.

Speakers:
As mentioned before, the speakers are pretty quiet. The maximum volume of the speakers is about the same as the Thinkpad x220, which means that they're only reasonable to use in a quiet room.

Keyboard:
To provide a comparison, I use a mechanical keyboard on my desktop and the x220's keyboard is generally well-received. If I consider the mechanical keyboard to be "fantastic" and the x220 keyboard to be "great", I'd say that the GS40's keyboard is "pretty good" - it feels nice and responsive, but if you're really picky about your keyboards, hooking up an external mechanical keyboard doesn't seem unreasonable.

Touchpad:
It's not particularly good and you'll probably just want to hook up a mouse. However, that seems about par for any laptops that aren't MacBooks. On the upper left/right parts of the clickpad, it's not really possible to push the pad down enough to register a click, and using it isn't a great experience, but it's passable.

Fans:
As mentioned in this thread, the lowest setting that isn't 'off' does seem to be much faster than necessary - during the initial Windows setup, the fan cycled between being on/off every 10 seconds or so. Not a huge problem but might be slightly annoying when you're not using it for gaming.

Portability:
No issues with the portability of the laptop: it's light enough that you can easily carry it with one hand (though probably not recommended), but not small/light enough that you feel like you could throw it a significant distance with one hand (definitely not recommended). The power brick is large, but not really enough to hinder your ability to carry it around with the laptop in a backpack.

Other notes:
- The hinge on the laptop screen only lets you bend it to a bit further than 135 degrees - this doesn't matter you're using it on a desk, but if you're on a bed or are otherwise sitting in a weird position, it might be an issue.
- The MSI logo on the back is definitely a negative for the appearance of the laptop and you won't want to bring it into a business meeting, but overall the laptop still looks nice.

 

Now I'm wondering if someone makes a sticker to cover up the msi logo. Maybe a matching brushed aluminum black look. Or carbon.

 

I was thinking of getting a small square of black sticker and stenciling out the badge edges on it. As much as it really doesn't bother me, it doesn't do me any favors in meetings or work where it's screaming gamer either.

 

Okay, thanks, that's useful to know.

Will be interested to see how this compares to the new Clevo P640RE, both looking promising, though suspect the trackpad on the Clevo will be better, if my XMG is anything to go by (which has a decent trackpad, though the one on my Macbook Air still blows it out the water), and the cooling probably more efficient

 

I think some places do this as an option when you purchase. GenTech PC seems to be one

 

Hi guys,

Really liking the laptop, just wondering if there is any way I can make the gaming performance be the same whilst on battery as it is with charger?

At the moment I get 60fps+ all time in Rocket League with highest graphics + AA, but if I unplug charger this drops to 20-30fps with juddering.

I've tried my best to view power settings, but I just cant seem to find an option to not limit power whilst on battery (I am aware the battery will only last 1-1.5hours whilst gaming, but thats just how long my longest commute is!).

Many thanks for any replies,

Nubb

 

It will have Thunderbolt 3

 

Haven't tested this but I think you can set power options to run at high performance to prevent the cpu from downclocking, and then go to the nvidia control panel and set the GPU to always run in high/max performance. If that still doesn't help, then maybe its something controlled by the gpu bios that hard prevents things from running at max when using just battery power. Looking at the accepted answer here, forcing the gpu to run at full clocks could or could not be a bad thing, depending on if you believe the answer or not:

http://superuser.com/questions/8553...-power-even-with-the-power-plan-set-to-high-p

 

Unfortunately, it cannot be done with existing setup, unless you spend a lot of money buying a lot of batteries and custom-make it which needs to be enough in order to provide that amount of wattage for every minute of enjoyment.
Reason being, the AC adapter provides 150W, while the battery provides about 50W, therefore the battery does not have sufficient juice to power the entire machine.

 

This is important because if you eventually use software that bypasses power restrictions and use it on battery it might result in sudden shutdown due to lack of power. Gaming on battery was never the intention, and Maxwell GPUs try their best to at least target reasonable frames per second under battery but never 100% performance.

 

Please note that the EC firmware is in charge of how the power is being distributed.
Therefore, the CPU receives higher priority over GPU in terms of power allocation.
So even if you can boost power via the battery circuit to 150W without any fire hazard, but the system will still drain 50W.

 

So I have the GS40 laptop. Love it. Everything runs very smoothly. Power lasts a long time when in laptop mode. Only a few things that are bugging me:

I have the thunderbolt 3 port, but I can't for the life of me find any sort of cable to use for it. I'd love to do 4k @ 60hz into a HDMI 2.0 port on my TV (yes the TV port is capable of 4k @ 60hz)... any idea on how I could pull it off? The miniDP and the TB3 are the only options I see, but I can't find a miniDP to 4k@60hz cable anywhere. TB3 cables seem to be non-existent.

Second thing that's been bugging me is that I can't seem to play large flash videos at a high resolution on an external monitor without a ton of juddering. Specifically, I'm trying to watch HBO Now @ 1920x1080 @ 60hz on a 55" TV. I'm getting the impression that my Chrome and other browsers are all being run inside the intel graphics card, not the GTX 970m. I've ruled out any possibility of it being an internet connection issue. Any idea on how I can fix this?

Everything else is great. Star Wars Battlefront runs amazingly well. I highly recommend the purchase to test out the graphics card. (Also the rainbow six game's graphics are horrible...)

 

You'll have to wait for a displayport to HDMI 2.0 option, I know the AMD Fury-X owners want this too. They are keeping an eye out so if you follow them then you should get the latest info.

You can try assigning programs to the nvidia GPU in the nvidia control panel.

 

Another problem...

Got those sleep issues figured out by doing a repair. Now my airplane mode turns on and off automatically at random moments. Super frustrating.

Recorded it to show how crazy it is.

 

Try BIOS & EC update but if these don't resolve the issue then it's best to run factory reset.

 

Anyone have the ec file prior to the 12/3 version?

Still having this issue with update to BIOS and EC.

 

I have two issues with this laptop now:

1. No sound from the speakers (but sound from headphones). Have tried reinstalling audio drivers and checked all the settings, but no luck.

2. The annoying fan continually comes on at high rpm even when the pc is completely idle (sometimes every 30 seconds), and I am using a good quality laptop cooler. It seems that if I were to use Svet's tool, which I presume raises the temperature point at which the fans comes on, that this will reduce the life of the pc and still not stop the fan from being so loud when it does happen to come on. To me, this is a major design flaw and reason enough not to buy the GS40.

 

TB3? Really? Will it come with the next revision of the Gs40 or via bios update? Never found a reference in the existing specs...

 

I'm confused...because right now I have an unopened Alienware 15 R2 with Thunderbolt 3 that I'm about ready to return if you tell me it "There's a bios/software update coming for thunderbolt 3"

 

i dont care too much about thunderbolt 3 but the input on the laptop does look like it has a "thunderbolt" on it. there is software saying it 'might' later support tb3. dont know either

 

thankfully it isn't haha, but yeah everyone has their own limits and of course this machine is entirely not for you. The problem seems to be that the fan can't run at lower than a set highish % of rpms, so it can go like, from 30% to 100% but 30% is the minimum. Can you imagine if it had GT80's fans, at high rpms, all the time? That would be a vacuum cleaner.

it's weird they went that way, or maybe it is a limitation of the actual fan. I think my GT60 is similar, that if you use any settings lower in fan speed it just shuts off. But my GT80 does spin a higher range.

You shouldn't use something that annoys you though, you should definitely consider an alternative if the sound is unbearable. Can you return it?

 

Uhhh, your own specs have 10 Gbps on your superport, Thunderbolt 3 is 40Gbps....

 

Their specs are poorly worded but make it clear that it's 40gbps. It says that the port can function as a USB 3.1 (10gbps) a minidisplay port or a thunderbolt 3 at 40 gbps.

 

The assigning thing worked. thank you for the heads up.

As far as the HDMI 2.0... has anyone found any other way to do it? Is there a cable yet from the thunderbolt 3.0? or USB 3.1c?

 

They would need active converters too since the signal is different.

Basically HDMI really needs to die a death and let displayport take over.

 

used my wifes cricket machine to cut the dragon shield out of some 'carbon' vinyl. the dragon glows through now! it was a perfect cut too on the first try woop woop

it glows more depending on brightness. this at 50%. its also clearer from straight ahead. the vinyl texture gives this effect.

 

Guys,

This morning at work I was using the machine with no issues, shut the lid to go into a meeting and now I can't get it out of two different BSOD's. One says KERNAL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE and the other is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. I can boot it into safe mode but we only have WiFi so I can't download the windows debugging tool to look into the multiple dump files that are accumulating. Tried a couple of CMD commands but no luck, unsure what to do as I'm no where near home to get the recovery files.

 

Sounds similar to what happened to me when I first set up the machine and after a major Windows 10 update. Had to do a Windows recovery and everything has been fine since.

 

Cool ok, by Windows recovery what do you mean exactly? The terms become convoluted over the years and I'm only used to OSX >_<

 

For me, after about the 4th or 5th time trying to reboot, Windows kicked me directly to the recovery option page. It basically gives you the option to rebuild Windows and keep your files or do a factory reset. You might also try booting from your recovery media you hopefully made when you first started up the machine. I'm certainly no expert on this stuff, but this is what worked for me.

I had a similar issue with my Alienware when I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10, so I'm not linking the problem directly to MSI in this case.

 

Any owners have any issues with their keyboard keys? For me, the tab key sticks or clicks like crazy... Definitely a deal breaker if it's a wide spread issue. Other than that, so far I like the laptop. I can't say for sure if I prefer it over the GS60 though. Besides the sticky key, the keyboard on my Haswell GS60 seems superior to this one. Maybe I just need more time to get used to it.

If anyone has any issues with their keyboards, please let me know.

 

I couldn't actually do the Windows restore as it kept getting stuck at 12% and never showed any signs of doing anything. In the end I used the MSI restore tool which was an option in the recovery section, which ultimately meant I needed to wipe the OS SSD. I'm back up and running bar being able to download any big software due to having terrible WiFi. My concern now is how do I know that this won't happen again? I'm lucky the laptop was new, so I didn't have much installed and what work I was doing was all in my Drive folder so it's backed up.

What drivers SHOULD be updated on this thing? Obviously I'm updating my GPU ones when I get to the hotel and have fast internet but besides that I didn't bother with anything else because the dates on the MSI website for GS40 drivers mostly are older than the laptop itself. And should I just avoid doing any Windows updates at all?

 

No issues for me. Keyboard is smooth as butter and quiet. I really liked my Alienware keyboard, but I think this one is better. I do wish there were other lighting color options, but overall I think it is excellent.

 

I updated the EC firmware. I think the date is 12-3-2015. I can't say for sure whether it improved the stability of my system, but it didn't harm anything. Was a little tricky getting the battery plug to the motherboard to release, but overall not a difficult process. Other than the first massive Windows update and subsequent BSOD's, I haven't had any other problems with Windows updates.

 

Yeah, I have the same issue with my tab key. It is the right side of the key that gets stuck, probably on top of the chassis. Approx. two presses out of ten get stuck.

Edit: To be honest, it seems that after using the laptop for a week, pressing the tab key quite a lot (have to change between apps quite often), it seems that it's starting to get stuck less than it used to. So, fingers crossed, it will not keep doing that for long.

 

Anyone else have light leakage in their display? Mine has in every corner and some in the top middle section. Quite annoying..since the display is very nice otherwise. I'm thinking contacting MSI and asking what their policy is on cases like this. Watching movies, playing games, photo editing..everything that has black, is spoiled by this somewhat.

 

If it entails opening up the laptop, I personally can not see myself bothering to do it in all honesty. I ended up debugging the dumps during the crashes, one was identified to be caused by ndis.sys and the other was ntkrnlmp.exe. I googled both to see what others have experienced, I believe ndis.sys is related to network drivers, I've updated drivers to Killers latest ones. As for ntkrnlmp.exe, I did a full mtest86+ for 8 cycles over night last night and my RAM appears to be working as intended, so again not sure but it seemed to be a domino affect as a result of ndis.sys dumping.

Definitely try and get it replaced, I've got no bleeding what so ever so it's not something you should be experiencing.

 

Ok, thanks, good to hear, since it's really bad. I just found out that we have a official MSI warranty service here, quite close to my place, so I'll be taking it there. Just bums me out a bit, since I got an otherwise good sample, excluding the tab key and display. No other issues whatsoever and working like a charm. Have to say still, that this laptop seems to be exactly what I've been waiting for.

 

Let us know what you think!

P.S - Is your avatar the symbol from Red Faction? That was a cool game.

 

This thread has been very informative, thanks to everyone for posting their thoughts. I don't have a GS40 yet, but based on this thread, I probably will be getting one. I'm surprised how few websites have reviewed the laptop so far, but KitGuru just posted a review, in case anyone is interested: http://www.kitguru.net/laptops/james-morris/msi-gs40-6qe-phantom-review/

Also, on the issue of whether the "Super Port" includes (or will include after a BIOS/software update) Thunderbolt 3 capabilities, it seems like most of the evidence is pointing to "yes." I'm no expert, but it appears people are understandably getting caught up on MSI's poorly worded advertising about data transfers speeds--yes, it says 10Gbps even though Thunderbolt 3 can generally handle 40Gbps, but 10Gbps is exactly the speed Thunderbolt 3 is capable of when it is used to emulate an Ethernet connection and transfer data between computers. I suspect this is what MSI is referring to when it says "10Gbps," especially considering that the advertising also highlights the Super Port's ability to daisy chain and connect to dual 4K screens, which are regularly-touted benefits of Thunderbolt 3. Moreover, as this thread indicates, some MSI representatives have explicitly indicated that the Super Port can handle Thunderbolt 3. Finally, some resellers, including PowerNotebooks and Amazon UK, explicitly say that the Super Port includes Thunderbolt 3. All in all, it seems like a safe bet that the Super Port includes Thunderbolt 3, though we may not have absolute certainty until Thunderbolt 3 wires become widely available in 2016 and people test out the port.