Official MSI GE60 & GE70 2012 Owners' Lounge

For context, Ken is a sales rep for GenTechPC, and he's stacked with awesome. Even when I wasn't a customer of his company he went out of his way to figure out why my laptop, a Best Buy Asus G51vx-RX05 wasn't able to accept the then-most powerful CPU, the Core 2 Quad QX9300. I've been a customer of his ever since.

I'm sure there is a limit to what Ken can do as a sales rep, but I know he'll take care of me if some mysterious fault blows up my computer.

(To be fair, I'm not saying the reps of other companies like Xotic or Malibal or Power Notebooks or LPCD are bad; I actually hear they're all awesome. I just think Ken is awesomer.)

Yes, essentially, and as an extension better resell value. "This computer's GPU ran at 90C for three years" versus "This computer's GPU ran at 75C for three years".

Also, if you notice, my computer overclocked runs cooler than most others run at stock, so you can squeeze extra performance out of it.

 

All very true. Not sure if I should risk it in Korea though. It was hard enough placing the order for the thing. Koreans also LOVE rules (massive understatement) and the rules say "warranty void if sticker removed/damaged". I would like to get those temps down though so I'll have a look at what you say about undervolting the GPU.

Thanks again!

 

Well, the undervolting requires a BIOS flash, so that could void your warranty too.

You could always inquire about ordering a spare back pannel or something. Where is this warranty sticker anyway?

 

The warranty sticker covers one of the screws that you have to remove to take off the back panel. In the EU there is a law that a sticker can't void warranty, but I still called MSI and they told me I had to write them an email in which I specify what I would like to do 'inside' and they'd give me a one time permission to open it up for that one thing.
However considering how meaningless and long this procedure was I think they'd instantly void my warranty if I modded the backplate. Fortunately I'm going to the UK in 2 weeks to university and the MSI guys there are much more helpful so far, so I might be able to get a spare one from them .

 

Mine is just over one of the corners. I can and have opened it half-way to get at the RAM and HDD. I guess it doesn't really matter as I am moving to Thailand soon and could never organise to send it back to Korea if something goes wrong. Hope the warranty is international!

 

Well, I got 24 month worldwide MSI warranty with my GE60 so I guess it is the same everywhere.

 

Hi .. There is something that i worried about Ge 70 so if you say something it would be really nice . On normal using i guess sound of fan is nothing .. But when you use turbo fan how does sound change exactly ? I really need to learn that .. Annoying ? Or good enough ? or something like that ? Anything you can say would be nice .. Thanks ..

 

If you add moar holes, would you be so kind as to scribble down your before/after temps? I'm curious which has more influence: The additional ventilation or adding more sinks to draw heat off pipe system before it reaches the GPU.

 

When you use the "turbo fan" the laptop becomes very noisy. This is normal, and it happens because the fan is spinning very fast. Use the turbo button when playing games. It will keep your laptop much cooler.

 

Either would help.

The heatsinks provide more mass and surface area for heat dissipation. Holes provide more passive cooling. It's almost like having the bottom panel removed.

Note that you have to have to have lots of drilling. If you only drill here and there, it'll mess up the engineered cooling vents.

 

The link that Forge gave us showed about a 10-15c drop in temps between what I get under load and what he gets... Pretty decent drop I buuuuuuut I'm not sure I'll bust out the drill just yet.

 

It's the combination of several tweaks and mods:

Moar Holez™, Moar Coppah™, an undervolted vBIOS, and repaste.

Whenever I'm home and not tempmarking, I also have it docked to a Zalman NC2000, so my usual temperatures are noticeably cooler than my posted results.

 

I've got the Coolermaster Notepal Ergo stand ( NotePal ErgoStand [4-port USB HUB] - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply ) but I'm not sure how effective it actually is without "Moar Holez™" under the laptop. The underside of the laptop stays very cool to the touch but the air coming out of the exhaust during gaming is super hot. Would it be fair to say that putting "Moar Holez™" in the underside is probably the easiest and most cost effective way to cool it down? Combined with a cooling pad, of course...

 

kindly anyone here in this thread post their wei scores? I saw on other forums that the video graphics is only 6.7

 

You mean vents formed by the internal components and the back plate? So if I only drill below the fan that will just make it worse?

I just got a reply from MSI that they can sell me a backplate, but it's complicated becasue they can only sell to companies, so it'll take some time to get one, but at least it's possible.

 

What I mean is that the vents are designed by engineers who should know what they're doing. Drillin holes randomly will affect that cooling.

Drilling it out entirely, however, emulates removing the backplate.

 

Ah, I missed the undervolted vBIOS part.

I'd like to look into disabling HyperThreading. On my i7 930, simply turning it off dropped the core temp about 5C. In addition, it allowed me to drop the voltage significantly while retaining stability. The GE60 BIOS doesn't appear to provide that option, though.

 

I've searched around this thread and the net, but I can't find the answer to this question: what is the right size of screw for the GE70 mSATA? I see a bunch of people asking but I haven't seen the answer come up yet.

 

Just take a screw from near the mSATA slot, save yourself the trouble of looking for the right screw. That's what I did and it work fine.

 

Someone posted that you can take one of the screws off the cd-rom drive bracket. That's what I did.

 

Thank you both for your replies. I haven't popped my case open yet but won't re-using a screw leave something else loose?

 

Hi, i'm planning to buy GE60 from a German dealer and I want to change the keyboard to U.S international (by default they sell it with german keyboard). Does anybody know where can I buy it?

 

I haven't noticed any looseness in my cd-rom drive minus the screw. there were two and the one sees to hold it fine.

 

I'm in the same situation except that I want a UK keyboard. I've contacted MSI UK and they told me that they can't sell the part because supplies are low and they need them for repairs.

I guess you can try writing MSI US an email and you might get lucky.

 

Getting my MSI GE60 0ND-042US tomorrow! Super excited! Already have my 240gb m-sata mushkin atlas deluxe ready for deployment, win7 on dvd... Fun times ahead!

 

Is there any difference between UK and US keyboards? As long as it is qwerty it's ok for me. Did you ask if they can change it themselves, i mean if you pay some money and they change it for you?

 

Both US and UK keyboards are qwerty, but I think the placement of symbols differs.
I first asked if they can change it for me to which they replied that they no longer have the part (!!). Then - knowing that that's not really possible - I asked them if they can sell it to me even if I lose my warranty if I put it in to which they said that their supplies are low and they need them for warranty repairs. I believe this is the truth as paralelly I asked them about a spare back plate and they can sell me that.

 

Hey guys, I have a question!

How can I configure the Turbo button to open something else other than the internet explorer page?

Thanks in advance!

 

It should be configurable in the S-Bar.

 

I can only seem to find the place in the s-bar to configure the P1 hotkey, but not the Turbo.

Perhaps I'm just having trouble finding it, could you guide me a little further? Thanks

 

There is something wrong there. The turbo is supposed to speed up the fan, not open IE. Have you installed all the software from the website? Try un-installing the s-bar and re-installing. Do you have v2.0?

I don't think the s-bar is the greatest software ever. I had to place a shortcut in the "startup" folder to get it to appear after a restart.

 

The P1 key is the Turbo button. For example, I set up my Turbo button to open up MSI Afterburner.

You're confusing the max-fan button and the turbo button.

Max fan (the button between the wireless and Turbo key) does indeed set fan speed to max. The Turbo he's talking about is the button right next to the power button. It serves the dual purposes of indicating IGP or GPU activity and also as a quick launch button.



On an unrelated note, anyone having overscan problems with HDMI? I'm outputting to a 1080p TV and about 30 pixels are cropped off from all sides.

 

So there is no way to change the quick launch of the turbo button?

Also one more question, when I run MSI afterburner the Turbo light turns on and I proceed to play games (sort of my manual GPU switch to Nvidia) but on Afterburner it shows a constant 0% GPU usage on the Nvidia card. What does this mean? Is my Nvidia GPU actually not being used?

 

Depends on the game. Some games will default to the HD4000 IGP. You have to set the specific game to use the nVidia chip in nVidia settings.

 

I had to change my Tvs HDMI settings to "full screen" to solve that problem.

 

Indeed I am. My turbo button does nothing. Just comes on when the 650m is being use.

Has anyone else noticed that the official graphics drivers are FINALLY out? Took you a while NVIDIA...

 

Woho! And they doesn't even report unsupported hardware!

 

Hi guys! New Member here and I'm really into buying GE60/GE70 series. and just read the whole thread. seems the laptop is awesome the only drawback i think are the keyboard and some trackpad, not really a big problem if you are using a mouse.

just a little question before i start ordering from gen-tech(really a big fan of gentech). is it true that GTX 660M is really hotter than the GT 650M? i saw some post from ken that the 650 was cooler than 660 not sure tho, correct me if i'm wrong. (I'm aiming either for the GE70 17" + GTX660M or the GE60 15" + GT650M)

what is the best option if you are just going for the basic option (no ocs and stuff) and you're going to use it in an everyday basis like for work and some gaming like guild wars 2.
and is there a big difference between the GTX660M and the GT650M?

here are some spec of the both laptop that i'm really interested in buying.

MSI GE60-0N-006US
15.6" 1920X1080 Full HD LED Antie-Glare
3rd Gen Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7-3610QM
nVidia GeForce GT650M 2GB GDDR5 VRAM
6GB DDR3 1333MHz PC10600
750GB 7200rpm SATA II 16MB
8X DVDRW Super Multi combo drive
Built-in 802.11 Wireless N, USB 3.0
Built-in Bluetooth
USB 3.0 x2
720P HD webcam
mSATA Slot
5.28 lbs (6 cell)a 15.09” (L) x 9.83” (W) x 1.27” ~ 1.46”(H)

================================================

MSI GE70-0ND-033US
17.3" 1920X1080 Full HD LED Matte-Type
3rd Gen Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7-3610QM
nVidia GeForce GTX660M 2GB GDDR5 VRAM
8GB DDR3 1600MHz PC10600
750GB 7200rpm SATA II 16MB
8X DVDRW Super Multi combo drive
Built-in 802.11 Wireless N, USB 3.0
Built-in Bluetooth
USB 3.0 x2
720P HD webcam
mSATA Slot
7.0 lbs (6 cell) 14.97 (L) x 10.24” (W) x 1.77 (H)

hope to get some quick tips from you guys! Thanks in advance! awesome forum btw. :thumbsup:

 

Ken is actually a god. After receiving your laptop erect a shrine to him and your computer will be blessed with good luck.

As far as I can tell, this might be the case. The 660M and 650M are essentially the same chip. The 660m draws more voltage, which allows it to have higher clocks but also makes it run hotter.

Like I mentioned, they're essentially the same chips except for voltages and clocks.

However, if you don't mind some minor tweaking--it's not for the faint of heart, but it's very fun to do--you can undervolt the 660M quite heavily. My particular card was able to undervolt from 1.1V to 1.05V, yet still manages a stable 20% overclock.

The inverse would hold true for the 650m, I'm guessing. You might be able to get to 660m levels with the 650m at stock voltages. Or you can slightly overvolt it and get a nice beefy overclock out of it.

Anyway, yes, the 660m is stronger than the 650m, but only slightly. Had I known the what was up with the two cards, I probably would have ordered the 650m GE60, not the 660M (especially since GenTech seems to have a $100 MIR on the 650m GE60) and just tweaked the hell out of it.

In a nutshell: The 660m is slightly more powerful than the 650m, but draws more power and runs hotter. The 650m, with a little tweaking, can be brought to 660m levels.

 

Sorry if this was already posted.

How long can the GE60 run on battery with just doing Internet browsing, emails, and spreadsheets?

Thanks.

 

Thanks for the reply and also for the tips Forge. :thumbsup:

if you say that both chips are the same, just a slight difference. then maybe i'll go for the GT650M, cheaper, cooler and awesomer. and also i'm not really into heavy gaming so i think GT650M can handle some mid-high range of games nowadays. and you also mentioned that you can tweak it to GTC660M if you just know what you're doing.

anyway might get one this coming week. i'll try and post some update on the GT650M or did someone in the forums make a full review on this one already?

btw. i saw/heard that this laptop has 4 speaker? 2 at the top of the keyboard and 2 at the bottom? or is it a different version. and also does the sound really sux? is it really THX? how about bass thing?

btw i'm using ASUS N53SV right now. (all i can say about this laptop is that it can handle some good games with low-mid settings and a tolerable fraps if i must say. ahahaha) and the speakers are really loud because of the sonic master band & olufsen icepower. not sure on the bass 'cause some sounds are broken. probably the output of the music or anything. and this is my first time i'm going to check out a high powered laptop (not really sure if GE60 GT650M is counted for that) and i'm hoping it would be more powerful than what i'm using right now.

 

I was wondering what cooling pad would be great for the GE60 or GE70, preferably under $35.

 

you have to be careful though overclocking the 650m is a pain because you have to relaunch the overclock application when you run a game and make sure to quit it when you exit a game.

otherwise you will be in permanent "turbo mode" even when not in a game.

i was overclocking my 650m at first but was getting annoyed that my fan was still running half to full speed while just browsing the internet.

 

oh? looks like the same problem i was having here on my asus, thats why i stop oc-ing. really risky too. (and the reason why i'm not into oc's to laptops, probably if it is a desktop i can tweak if possible. hahaha) anyway thanks for the tip link1313. i will remember that. :thumbsup:

 

Just a BIOS flash, really.

Yes, looks like a total of four. I'm not a sound expert myself, but the sound seems good enough.

Let me clarify what he's saying:

The laptop has Optimus. I think your Asus has it, so I don't think I need to explain what it is.

Anyway, any kind of monitoring software (HWMonitor, GPU-Z, etc) or overclocking software (Rivatuner, MSI Afterburner, etc) will "activate" the discrete GPU and thus turn it on. You just need to remember to turn it off after you're done gaming and it'll revert back to your IGP. Otherwise it's fine; our GPU will be activated, but it'll clock down.

 

Hi Gents, great thread but unfortunately way too long to dig thru for a single answer: would it be possible to replace the keyboard of the GE60 with one that has the Windows key in the _normal_ position (i.e. left side of the space key)? The reason is Win8: it is a *MUST* for me to have that key in the original place - switching between Metro and Desktop is the easiest with the Win key.
Thanks for the answers in advance .

 

I am into gaming and I am very happy with my 650m. Still, wish I had the guts/knowledge that Forge has, so that I could do some undervolting/overclocking! The machine can run pretty hot when running the likes of Crysis 2/BF3. Cooling pad doesn't help that much either...

 

How about using the turbo fan?

 

Thanks again for the knowledge forge. and btw is your GTX660 has optimus built in? is it true that built-in optimus videocards has really a huge drawback into games or heavy graphic uses?

and for the speakers, nice if its a 4 speaker laptop. not a typical laptop i should say. and if you say that sound seems good. then i'll take it as a plus also. hahaha

 

cool pad + turbo fan doesn't help? hmmm.. will that be a big problem to the GT650M on the long run?

haven't played Crysis 2 though, I'm guessing it's a heavy game. but i know BF3 eats or uses too much GPU (i guess. and i played that also here on my asus with 1360x768 reso only with low-mid setting. if i try the native 1920x1080 my laptop would bleed already. hahaha). what's your settings on those game anyway?

My target game is just GW2 and I'm not planning to have any games other than that. and i'm really psyched to play guild wars 2 with a decent videocard, 'cause right now i'm using my asus and the setting is low-mid only. running a 20-30fps dpending what resolution i'm using. hahaha