MSI entire lineup from 2013 with Haswell and 700M series

Something was odd as he the listed temps with cooler boost on were not in the cpu throttle region so unless he lied about the results being the same with it, something was wrong with the system.

 

Hi Wonderdog, any photos you could take of the insides will be gratefully received. If you could also photograph the msata layout that would be great!
I have a mushkin atlas that I will be installing in mine

 

I find Anandtech reviewers to be alienware fans. I don't know if this is true but this is what I feel after reading many notebook reviews. I visit Anandtech evey day. So, nothing against them.

If Anandtech look under the heatsinks, they might find a solution...... LOL

 

Seems you haven't read these reviews:

AnandTech | Alienware M17x R4 Notebook Review: Ivy Bridge and the GeForce GTX 680M
AnandTech | iBuyPower Valkyrie CZ-17 Notebook Review: MSI and iBuyPower Tangle With Alienware

According to your logic (viz. you can tell from a small sample size of reviews whether or not they are AW fanboys), these reviews show that they are not Alienware fanboys.

The review could still be inaccurate, but dismissing it because of a preconception like that is strange. Why read Anandtech at all in that case?

 

I hate to repeat myself but 180w psu?? It still msi fault though.

 

MSI GE40


i want to buy the one able to install two mSATA

But i heard rumor saying that if you buy a ODD model , it will be a pain to upgrade to two mSATA

 

No problem - going to whip it open tonight and see if I can work out how to safely access the mSATA caddy.

 

It's hard to fault MSI over the PSU when it works as it should on stock. Hell I have even overclocked my GPU a bit without exceeding the PSU, without activating NOS.

 

Well this is interesting!

Got it open (7 screws). My first guess that the mSATA drives were in the DVD caddy was wrong. It turns out the 2.5" drive lives in the ODD slot (which I still can't get open - I suspect it might just pop out with some encouragement), and there is a daughter board which holds 2 mSATA drives where the 2.5" drive would be on the ODD model!

The daughter board comes with the 128gb sandisk installed as earlier identified, and I had no problem adding my 256gb drive as well - which showed up in the BIOS straight away.

I haven't done any thermal paste changes yet, just added the extra drive. Its also definately 1 x 8gb dimm with space for another. I'm going to do a clean windows 7 install, so I can run some proper systhetic performance benchmarks and measure the before/after temps and scores after doing the repaste.

Pics below - S/N's blacked out by me.

 

Thanks Wonderdog. I think I can handle that.

 

Yes, as Wonderdog has found out. In the model that comes with the Msats drive the hdd is mounted on a daughter board in thr ODD slot.

 

Windows 7 installed without any major incidents - remember to remove all other partitions on all other disks otherwise the windows 7 installer throughs "cannot install" errors (even to new disks) due to the precence of other bootable partitions on the machine.

FYI all Win7 x64 drivers are available on the MSI GE40 product page on the downloads tab.

All Fn+quick keys work fine all drivers installed fine, and gaming is cracking - Skyrim at Ultra high with 16xAF and 8xAA running great at 70C.

Looking forward to seeing how a nice 14" fan cooling stand + better paste + maybe leaving the base off to improve airflow does - though at present I dont really see any reason to try and overclock - its running everything really well at stock...

I'm also warming to the display!

 

Well, reading around, it seems like the razer blade also comes with a similarly subpar screen. Really msi/razer, it would've been fine to charge $100 more for a passable quality screen.

 

The screen is far from terrible - but its certainly middle of the road. Its better than the horrific 1600x900 panel in my (much more expensive and lower specced) work Dell Lattitude for instance.

 

They advertise on their website this 1gb/s speeds if you have 2 SSD as raid. Is this going to make a difference in normal use (opening apps and such) or is it just theoretical advantage?

 

The resolution and flat colors would've been ok on their own, but I can see a big color shift in the top left of the screen even when I'm viewing the "sweet spot". Its really bothersome as I got this laptop for general use as well as gaming, and its really distracting though not as big an issue with a moving image such as a game/movie. Its so damn frustrating because MSI got the rest of this laptop right. The keyboard and trackpad are great, the build quality is decent and the battery life is fine. A better screen and speakers, along with a backlight would've been a $200 increase in price, and would've put this laptop clearly out in front of the blade.

 

Nope. Its a meaningless benefit really (and its nothing specialreally) - any decent modern ~500mb/s read+write SSD is already faster than your ever gonna need for anything on a gaming notebook

 

Does anyone here have the GE40 2OC-009US variant here?

The one which comes default with a 128GB mSATA as well as a 750GB SATA.

I want to know if the mSATA slot in that variant is the same type which allows the installation of two mSATAs.

If yes, does this need to be in a RAID configuration or can they be used as two separate drives?

 

Yes you can install 2 mSATA's for super raid or you can have them as totally seperate drives.

 

You are just talking about stock screens, though, right? Isn't the upgraded screen the same as the Clevos' upgraded screen?

 

Do you know if this is for the model with the ODD or without?


Edit:
Many thanks to Wonderdog who has answered this perfectly.

 

MSI GE40 review @Anandtech.

" What it really boils down to is this: are you willing to turn down detail levels a bit in order to get acceptable gaming performance, are temperatures in the 80s and 90s “safe”, and can you live with the mediocre LCD? It’s a shame you’re forced to make that kind of decision, but at least the price is more palatable than the Razer Blade 14. Hopefully MSI can release a revised model that fixes some of the oversights: give us better cooling, keyboard backlighting, a silver chassis (or at least something less prone to collecting smudges and fingerprints), and a good LCD and this would be a winner. The truth is, we’re probably still a couple years away from seeing this level of performance in a laptop this size that runs cool and quiet; physics can be such a drag, but fixing the LCD would go a long way towards addressing our complaints. As it stands, we can only sigh and think about what might have been."

 

Man, those Anandtech reviews seem rather unprofesional.

I can't comment on the GE40 though. I haven't had the chance to use it.

 

Actually, their review notwithstanding, the LCD ruled this laptop out for me, as I want FullHD, even on my (future) 13" or 14".
Or maybe a very good quality 1600x900 ?
I don't even know yet...

 

I would opt for a very good quality 1600x900 myself. But I know there are some terrible LCDs in existance and sometimes they get on these awesome machines But luckily, most of the time, we can change them easily for better panels!