MSI GS60 Ghost/ Ghost Pro Thread

Very sad. Not to question you much but do you have a source on this? I planned to use the thing with IGP mostly

 

So I found a win8.1 installer maker but it rejects my GS60 key saying it can't be used for retail.
Microsoft tries really hard to make you go pirate, so be it.

 

I am just reporting as an end user of the GS60 Pro (870m)

My dGPU doesn't run with my external monitor plugged in. I am using the mDP to connect to a an external and the power button light is blue, as well as the nVidia GPU activity showing zero. Power consumption during idling is at around 10W-11W.

I have not tested with a HDMI cable yet though. I'll let this thread know when I do so.

 

there is no serial number and no mWh numbers att all, just % of capacity on some times.. I still cannot calibrate a batery, it faild and shot down comp.

 

GS60 Pro 870m

Can anyone provide the instructions for lower fan speeds when idling or normal usage?
Also has anybody had any luck with optimizing battery life really interested in what setting are most effective.

 

Gigabyte's website is showing their battery capacity at 75.81Wh.

Is this true? It might make Gigabyte's laptop more mobile if this is the case.

Also, your quoted weight @ 2.26kg, what kind of a setup does it have? As I know, you are able to have 2x mSATA, 1x 2.5" SATA as well as a modular bay that can either house a ODD or another 2.5" SATA. I am very sure different setups calls for different weights.

 

keyboard backlight
I can't understand why all manufacturers make a keyboard so that most of light goes between keys and disturb and just a little bit goes through a letters?
When I sit back or halv laying in a bed a light is almost more disturbing than helpful and light through letters on gs60pro are weak.

 

Me too, it's on his way they told me in a very nice little shop near in North of Italy.
There was a nice one to play with and I had planned to have a look at the chassis, screen, keyboard, etc. After half an hour of chitchat with the guy who own the shop I ended up paying 30% of an awkward amount of money to get my hands on one when it comes from the big ship, hopefully before the beginning of June they said. So maybe the guy knows that there's a shipping of probably a couple of hundred of them, I kept telling them that the gpu comes with a kepler but they were absolutely sure that there was the other one. I think that it is just a guessing game, the production lines for European markets may be different from the us, but we'll know for sure when we finally get our machines.
I plan to use it a bit more than my actual asus rog g53 as a very much more portable workstation to work on graphic, video and show related stuff.

I've read pretty much all this thread and I will certainly continue to do in the future, just wanna say thanks to all the guys contributing to this.

 

When I get my keyboard skin, I am going to spray paint it black (except for the top where the lettering are), so there will be no backlight bleeding from between the keys. Problem solved. LOL.

 

When you say skin, you mean like a cover? If so, where did you get it from?

 

Yeah, some kind of cover for the keyboard.

I just Google for it really. I picked mine up from here:
http://www.genuine-laptop-batteries.co.uk/keyboard-covers.php/MSI+GS60 2PC Ghost+keyboard-cover

 

I gotcha. I usually stick to Amazon and Newegg, but thanks for this!

 

Those who are about to make a move on the GS60 Pro, I would suggest you to wait for the P35W v2 (GTX 870M), just in case.

Here's what I read about the notebook :

Running Assassin Creed 4 max GPU temp on auto fan is around 88c, while on max fan is 82c.

10 minutes Furmark stress test max GPU temp on auto fan is around 84c, while on max fan is 76c.

Running Metro average around 85c on CPU and 75c on GPU, not sure on which fan settings.

You may easily reduce the temperature more by disabling the CPU turbo boost or undervolt the CPU, since the CPU and GPU shares the same heatpipe.
It may affect most of the games performance by just a bit, and some by a bigger percentage but not too high(highest should be around 10%-15% reduced).

 

How do you force Windows 8.1 to use the dedicated video card (860M) instead of the integrated one?
All the drivers are installed.

Haven't tried with games yet but the desktop does just that. To test I went to the Intel HD app and rotated the screen successfully.

When the 860m beta driver (April 7) was being installed the screen did disconnect a few times. I had hoped it was a good sign.

 

I recently got a GS60 pro. I love pretty much everything about it except the battery life (which I expected, considering the size and power) and the touchpad. Seriously, is there no way to disable angle snapping? I tried re-installing drivers, and even went as far as removing it entirely so that some default microsoft drivers takes over --- it still doesn't go away. Does anybody else feel the same? Is there a fix to this (besides getting a real mouse)?

 

anyone know a good carrying case for these laptops, cant really just use the sleeve they give you for everything...

 

Alrighty, so turns out Prostar canceled all GS60 Ghost Pro 052 orders because they weren't receiving units. I can either wait indefinitely (estimated over a month, slight chance not coming at all) and get an extra $50 discount on top of my original $50 discount, $30 student discount, free upgrade to 16GB, and free IC Diamond Paste, or I can order from another company. My other option at the moment which I am considering is downgrading for the Ghost 003 with the 860m, which they have in stock. I won't be getting free IC Diamond Paste, and obviously no upgrade to RAM but I will still get the additional $50 discount for having to wait so long for the 052 already (they failed on a promise to ship by a specified date, so discounted me). Which course of action do you intelligent beings recommend for me? Note I haven't yet been charged a dime. I really wanted the 870m with a 2nd 128gb SSD, but having to pay so much more than I originally planned would be a huge bummer. I've never owned a true gaming rig in my life, and have been working hard on top of high school to afford this laptop. The Razer Blade 2014 still isn't out the gutter, but it will probably run an extra $500+ after I upgrade the SSD to at least 480GB. I can't wait longer than August for a laptop, and I fear Broadwell will not be released by then (meaning no new generations of laptops).

 

You can set it on a program to program basis in the nvidia control panel.

 

I agree with you as well Chris, this was designed with a goal in mind and a specific audience, those are the people it should cater for out of the box. People that don't need the performance because of non-demanding games, or are therefore undervolting it because of heat, could also have just gone for the 860m variant.

I personally don't really care about the heat that much as long as it doesn't damage the device itself, or your hands while using it. That being said, does this device absolutely (I just want to double confirm this) get too warm and throttle while using it as a gaming laptop - its purpose? Cause if it does i can just tick it off the list right now. I'm assuming the above comparison goes for the GS70 as well since they use the same cooling system.

The Gigabyte P35W v2 sounds very promising though, but I would rather have the gtx 870M 17" GS70 series or maybe the GS60 15" if at all possible...

 

There seems to be some confusion about how GPU boost (nvidia feature) works. The GPU will overlock itself until it reaches the target temperature or power set in the VBIOS. It's not the same as CPU throttling where temperature cap acts as a failsafe to downclock the processor.

What that means is that the "scary GPU temperatures" are intentional and a set "goal". They can be changed in the VBIOS itself if needed. Normally MSI Afterburner can do it too, but in notebooks user control is disabled.

 

meaning ... the temperatures might not be so problematic after all?

 

Many years ago,on HardOCP,one harddware company got caught sending people online to trash one parts/hardware maker over another. No pics,no proof of purchase,just lots of complaints. Does anyone think that happens here?

 

In what respect? An 870m running hot in a thin chassis? Or the track pad being slightly annoying.
I'd say these are legitimate complaints. I'm aware of them and I'm still going to make a purchase.

 

Frankly if undervolting the cpu made a difference in gpu temps, it was not a noticable one (obviously cpu temps dropped significantly). I have yet to repaste, people are reporting mixed results with that regarding the gpu which leads me to believe the factory paste/tim is at the very least acceptable.

I enjoyed your "shades of gray" point of view. From that perspective, I think we're heading in the right direction, and eventually the harsh compromises of today will be blurred. Again, good luck in your quest for that right (for you!) laptop

 

Try this.

I think people are having different perceptions based on coming off of different hardware. Folks, this is a gaming notebook, it's not going to have the same acoustics as a Macbook Air.

 

Is it somehow possible to get the Touchpad faster ???

I tried to edit it in the Elan Software but there is no Slider for it.
I already tried to adjust it by editing the mouse properties in windows ... but it does not work.

 

So after playing around last night, undervolting the CPU has little impact, by default my CPU will get up to 90 C in the XTU benchmark. I was able to get it down to a max of 83 C at one point but it did seem to decrease performance a little. Granted I would need to run other tests to be sure, didn't seem very consistent anyway.

So the GS60 Pro with the 870M is MUCH louder than I anticipated, it actually will spin up to be as loud as my NP8150 with the max fan override, which was never hit automatically. I need to fix this or possibly return the laptop. Playing D3 while watching TV it was so loud I had to turn up my surround sound... That is pretty rediculous. Now when it is just idling and web browsing it was pretty quiet, quieter than other laptops I've used. But under load it got to be rediculous.

Also heads up to Diablo 3 players, you may NOT want to update your GPU drivers yet, or else if you do rollback to the one on MSI's website. As it has some conflict with Optimus and forces the integrated GPU on Diablo 3.

That said, I do like how thin and "light" this laptop is. There are quite a few design decisions that could have been better. The keyboard is interesting and I'm trying to figure out how much I like it. Honestly I loved almost everything about my NP8150 just wanted it to be thinner and lighter. The new iterations use a keyboard that just doesn't look as good.

Also the GS60 Monitor is AMAZING atleast colorwise, I think the blacks could be lower as there seems to be backlight bleed but it is beautiful, one of the best displays I've seen and almost reason enough to try to find a fix for the issues.

 

I´m in a bit of a pickle here, and i´d love anyones help.

After considering the games that i play i have found that they´re not that demanding (CS:GO, indie games, and bf4 where i don´t care too much about high settings). This previously got me to order the 860m model, but there was a problem with my order, so i need to REorder.

the 860m model could also come with an i5 (4200H) does that impact fps too much?

said in a different way, how much does the cpu matter in say: bf4 on medium/high?

Regards
Chaca32

 

I think there is some conjecture as to what causes issue with this laptop. The laptop is one of the thinnest, lightest, most portable gaming laptops on the market.
- Speed of the laptop is phenomenal
- Screen, the screen is also amazing deep colors and the darks are very good
- Heat- It does get warmer than larger laptops but all accounts on this laptop and the comparable Razer 14, they are designed to function at a higher temp range than what we are accustomed to using. These laptops are are designed to run warm.
- Fan noise- I don't find the fan noise to be an issue whatsoever. I wear earphones when gaming, so fan noise at high levels don't come into play at all. I have played with the volume up on the speakers and I couldn't hear the fans over the BF4 action. At idle they can be a little louder, it's not a MB Air. But I find with much ambient noise, a TV, airplane jet engine, etc. the idle fan noise is not really noticeable. If you are in a quiet room with no noise then sure you will notice.

I have found the GS60 Ghost Pro to be a great laptop and have no reservations in recommending it.

 

I did try that and I'm having mixed results. I'm also coming from a gaming laptop not an ultra book. My previous gaming laptop was silent when idle and doing basic browsing with the fans kicking in for more intensive things like gaming. I expect the fans to be fairly quiet when it's not doing anything and fans in full force when gaming. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation.

Also, why does plugging it in spike up the temperature reading and unplugging it lowers it?

 

-edit- to delete

 

I tried doing that. I changed it both globally and individually for each game. No effect.
Although it does seem to work for just one game.

I know that it doesn't work because games that should run 100+ fps on 860M run <15 fps. Games don't even have the choice of GPUs.


Edit:

I found a fix but surely there is a better one.
First thing I noticed was that when I ran nvidia control panel the normal way nothing I did made any difference. Dedicated GPU choices got reset back to default.
When I ran nvidia control panel as Administrator the changes stuck.

However to finally get a game to use dedicated GPU I had to run the game itself as Administrator...


The problem appears to be that nvidia panel ran as a user is very buggy. Every change hangs the application for several seconds and no changes appear to stick at all.
While when ran as administrator everything works fine but affects only games also ran as administrator.


Final edit:

Problem caused because nvidia daemon failed to be run or installed properly.
Fixed by a windows 8.1 reinstall - suggestion: turn UAC slider all the way down.

 

UPDATE - nm I see you already know about it

You can force the Nvidia card to be used via nvidia control panel when it detects the diablo3 exe. I had to do this with a few of my games on my old laptop.

Also thanks for the impressions!

 

Windows 8.1 causes numerous problems and is frankly the worst OS I've ever had to deal with.

Does anyone know if Windows 7 works properly on this laptop? I read some posts from 2013 about GS70 and problems with Windows 7.

 

Of course i can only talk for myself, but i assure you that i am NOT from a company or whatsoever.
To be honest i feel a bit offended by such a comment, as i only was talking about MY PERSONAL opinion, but BASED them on facts and arguments.

I DID NOT talk about assumptions, rumors or anything else, but FACTS.
The temperatures on cpu and gpu on the GS60/70 are very high. That is a fact. They are so high, that the gpu has to throttle down it's performance to not overheat. That is what several users already reported here, not me.

At last to clear things up: This doesn't only apply on the MSI GS60/70, but (almost) in the same way on the Razer Blade 14, which doesn't produce so much less heat, as i read on the Razer forum here. I really hope, that the Gigabyte P35W v2 is going to handle the temps better, but as i wrote before, i'm not very confident on this, because the P35W v2 uses the same cpu and gpu in almost the same thin chassis as the MSI GS 60.
So it's not a problem of MSI alone, it's a problem of the concept "super slim chassis + 870m"
That is to me no well thought out product design in general, NO MATTER which manufacturer.

If users can get around these issues with undervolting or taking the 860m version, then the GS60/70 is definitely a very attractive laptop for sure.

 

and others have reported not having that issue. I don't think its a good idea to add your own comments when you haven't tested it yourself. I'm withholding an opinion until mine arrives. If it's fundamentally broken, it can go back.

 

Windows 8.1 is in many ways better optimized than 7 ... and it causes problems just in people heads because they can't accept that it is something new ... you man just try it for longer than a week and you'll get used to it

PS: Sentence above can't be repeated for Windows 8 ... it was still better optimized but with some small disadvantages for desktop users ...

 

I don't disagree with you on your thought process, but I disagree on the idea of high temps in a laptop. From what many are saying on this forum and others about the new thin chassis designs, in the Ghost and Razer 14, the manufacturers intended them to run at a high heat level. I can honestly say it is a concern, but it does look like the Ghost was designed to run safely at higher heat levels than most laptop owners are used to seeing. If you were a basic laptop user and had a Razer or Ghost you would never even look at the temp levels nor would you know what are considered normal temp levels. As long as the computer functions properly and doesn't crap out in 2 years, most laptop users are content. As these products are brand new in the market, we will all have to wait and see. Early adopter worries.

 

Can you link me to comments where users reported having no heat issues with a GS60 870m out of the box?
We aren't talking about individual cases, where some users had bad luck with their maschines. We are talkin about measures and physical facts.

No offence, but i am free to comment on a topic which i am interested in like everybody else is to post his thoughts, questions and experiences.
I didn't offend anybody or exaggerate things. I just summarized and wrote my personal thoughts on these issues. Not more, not less

 

I accept your opinion.
But throttling in games (and therefore the reason for the undervolt mods at all) is obviously a sign for not sufficient cooling for the hardware and temps up to low 90s is quite borderline (which can be seen, as nvidia is throttling the gpu at these temps).

You are right, the manufacturers intend them to run this hot and they don't design something that will break in short time, but i personally think a bit critical about it, as i assume it shortens the hardware's lifespan in the long run.
I don't have a problem with high temps on laptops at all, but for me high 80s to low 90s just seem to be a bit too much.

 

anyone know how to install the SSD

It only supports m.2 SSD and it is located at the back of the motherboard

is there a guide to do this

 

Decreasing temps by 8% is not significant? Also, undervolting shouldn't affect performance whatsoever. What are your XTU settings exactly?

 

Performance impact with the i5 will be significant in BF4, but that's an exception rather than the rule. Most of today's games suffer little if any performance loss with a with a 2 core rather than a 4 core cpu. BF4 just happens to take advantage of 4 cores better than most games.

On the overall it doesn't sound like the games you play are very demanding though, i5/860m are more than adequate and up to the task.

 

Something is very wrong here, the nvidia gpu should kick in automatically in games with no work on your part. More than likely restoring the machine would fix this, unless the gpu is disabled in the bios?

 

It is pretty significant, but then I started seeing inconsistencies and like I said, their built in bench tool seemed to indicated decreased performance. I can perhaps run some better benchs later. I am really loving this laptop for its performance and what it is. I do believe I will be keeping it, just has some tough trade offs.

Here are a couple findings:
Stock: 666 Marks 1.085V VID @ 0mV Dynamic CPU Voltage Offset, 56.06W Package, 50.01W IA Cores, 90 Degrees Max CPU
634 Marks .983V @ -100mV, 49.13W, 42.97W @ 83 Degrees

 

I shared some pics previously; you have to fully disassemble and remove motherboard, then the SSD's are accessible to swap/install... then reassemble.

Definitely not for those uncomfortable inside a notebook with a pile of tiny connectors, but straight forward for those that are.

Wasn't anything unexpected other than the audio cable I mentioned in my previous post with disassembly pics that is mounted out of sight on the motherboard. There are also a few other pics/guides buried in this thread.

 

It would be fantastic if you or someone else made a tutorial video. I'd pay a little.

 

I'm hearing quite a lot of talk about the upgraded CPU and GPU memory. Do we know if this is for the 3k version only? I'm about to order mine with 1080p and 870m but if there's a new version immanent I'll wait.

 

Both CPU and GPU are soldered therefore non-upgradeable.

 

Yes I know this. The new model has a the updated 4710 CPU soldered in and a new product number.

If I'm spending a lot on a laptop I'd rather get the latest one even if it is only a small bump in performance.