The Official MSI GE40-2OC Owner's Lounge

I'm going to directly counter the claims of overheating when gaming.

With stock MSI applied cooling paste I've been battering Skyrim at high settings for hours on end this week, using a Coolermaster U2 cooling pad with the fans under the air intakes for the GPU.

I've hit a stable peak of 80C on the GPU, and 90C on the CPU - and thats after hours of solid playtime.

 

OK but your using a cooler so that's not a stock experience. Place the notebook flat on a desk/tablet and then play skyrim for hours and tell us the temps then please.

 

Thanks for that.

Do you know what kind of Hard Drive caddy replaces the Optical Bay? I have not been able to find any photos online as all the reviews which shows the insides so far are reviewing the variant with the Optical Bay.

I am just curious if that Hard Drive caddy takes standard 2.5" SATA drives, or it is specifically for mSATA only.

 

It'll be a 2.5" caddy in the ODD slot, as it holds the stock 750gb on the model that comes with the 128gb mSATA internally.

The daughterboard that fits inside the internal 2.5" bay holds 2 x mSATA drives, but can be removed to install a regular 2.5" drive as well.

So your options are:-

Cheaper model -
ODD bay - ODD drive
Internal - 2.5" slot with 750gb drive

Expensive model -
ODD bay - 2.5" drive caddy (with 750gb)
Internal - 2.5" slot with double mSATA daughterboard (with 1 x 128gb prepopulated).

If you want to put an mSATA drive (or two) in your GE40, your best buying the more expensive model as it comes bundled with the proprietary daughter board, which I'm not sure will be available separately from MSI.

 

Perfect.

That is exactly the answer I was looking for.

Thank you very much Wonderdog! I really appreciate your answer.

Up till now there has not be any photos of the ODD bay caddy or information regarding that. For a moment there I thought the 750GB fits in the internal bay while the mSATA was in the ODD bay.

Again, thank you very much!

 

If I buy the optical disk model

can I upgrade to two mSata ssd withiut buying any parts

 

No, as you would need to get the caddy that will fit in the place where the 750GB currently sits.

I am not sure if you can buy the Optical Bay caddy or not.

 

No - you will need the 2.5" -> double mSATA daughterboard.

I am unsure whether this is a generic thing you could buy third party, or a proprietary MSI part.

Basically - if you want an ODD + SSD then I'd get the ODD model and put a 2.5" SSD in place of the bundled hard disk. If you dont need an ODD, then the mSATA model is the better bet, and its a pretty cheap upgrade anyway - I'm sure you could sell the 128GB sandisk to make back the difference in price.

 

Are there any other differences between the ssd and non ssd models that might affect their battery life?

 

I did ask MSI about the daughter board but most of them are clueless about it and they told me to choose either with mSATA slots instead

 

I'm close to buying a GE40, but I'm concerned about the overheating issue

 

I understand that Xoticpc offer to add copper shims as part of their cooling upgrade. See this link for a pic of an example of their work - https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAAAAGcg/j8m6ft7XObM/s512/CopperCooling.jpg

The theory is that the added copper increases the surface area that can be cooled, so helps to draw heat away from the CPU and GPU.

 

Yeah, me too. I really like this laptop but the heat is making me not pull the trigger and order it. I'm not sure those copper shims will do anything. I have a cooling pad, but still, the left part of the keyboard is reported to be really hot, and that's not good.

 

Notebook shouldn't overheat like that to start with, so if its brand new and you need to repaste it, copper shims and run it on a laptop cooler. That's not really a laptop to get. If it overheats during gaming not cool

 

Does anybody know if what resolutions the hdmi interface supports? Is 1920 x 1200 supported?

Thanks

 

This is why I'm going to hold off.

 

Yes it will support that res and 1.4a res as long as your monitor can run it. (I was asking the same but for 2560 x 1440p)

Same here, I was after this but now how its running too hot it seems. I'm now between the GT60 (But its a bulky beast) and maybe the Gigabyte P34. I want quad core power and something smallish which is pretty much impossible to get (well without heat issues). I thought this GE40 would be it...

 

How about the Gigabyte P35K? 2.2kg 15.6 inch, Quad haswell, GTX 765m, 1080p IPS panel and looks good. It even has 3 storage bays, you can keep the optical drive and have an msata and an standard HDD. But we don't know the battery life, heat or price.

 

Yeah looked at the one. But like the P34, no info yet and knowing gigabyte it won't be released till late 2013.

GE40-2OC Owners, so you think with the heat and all. Its not advisable to game for 1-2 hours without using a cooler? Personally I hate notebook coolers....

 

It's definitely on top of my list.
But if it end up costing $2k+ like the Razer Blade I'll Give it a pass.

 

Lots of unknowns and Gigabyte is definitely not a t1 notebook integrator...

 

Another review about this thing:
MSI GE40-2OC Dragon Eyes Laptop Review (i7-4702MQ/GTX760M) « KitGuru

 

Thanks, not a bad review. USB3 speeds were good as well as the CPU. But again, heat was the issue and comments on extended gaming = really hot and loud fan noise

 

I got my GE40 today and played a little bit with it. Yes, it does get quite hot and the fan gets noisy. I didn't push it enough to tell if there is any throtteling going on. The buildquality is allright, but neither outstanding nor bombproof. Not much to say about all the glossy plastic, everyone hates it for a reason. To tell the truth, I am not sure if I'd have payed the full price over here (1200€ , but at the 800€ I payed for it I am very happy so far. The other competitors in that form factor (W230ST, Gigabyte P34G, Razor Blade) are all going to cost more and nobody knows so far if those won't have the same heat/noise issues. Another thing that pushed me towards the MSI is the battery life and even though I haven't tested it myself so far, I doubt that the other notebooks are going to beat it in this regard.

 

I take it you imported it from the US? I'm going to have to do the same myself. But here in Spain there is a 21% sales tax on all non EU items over 150 I think it is. I can't get one local anyway and if it was stocked here it would have the Spanish keyboard which I don't want. Why did they go with glossy around the screen.. The other MSI gaming laptops don't have it. Don't understand MSI's design direction.

Any chance you can test the battery out and how is the sound? Does it get worryingly hot or just hot?

If yours just has 8GB of ram you should get another stick as MSI shipped them out with only 1 stick so its running in single mode and not dual channel. Which hurts your memory read/write speeds.

 

No, the website of a shop simply displayed the wrong price. I took a shot and ordered it anyway and my order came through. Will see if I can test the battery. but that would mean that I`d have to restrain myself from gaming for 7~ hours ... . I don' feel like I can comment properly on the sound. I can't really compare it to another notebook and don't know enough about sound in general to tell you of the bat whats wrong with it.
And yeah, I know about the single channel ram. Unfortunately the machine got one of those waranty stickers and I don't want to void my 2 years waranty. Might have it installed by a professional if the price is right.
But speaking of this warranty sticker, how does it even work? I read that it disentegrates if you try to peel it off. I don't even see how I would have to peel it off to open my notebook. They simply slapped it onto the backplate, it doesn't overlap with the case.
I still have to test how hot it gets. The left side of the keyboard (w-a-s-d etc.) does get toasty, but not uncomfortable imo. Left side if the palmrest stays a bit cooler than the keyboard. The case to the left side of the keyboard indeed does get too warm. That is my only gripe so far. Even though I don't touch that area while gaming, I am a bit worried about the internals of the notebook. I don't have any experience with gaming notebooks, but I monitored the GPU temp with MSI afterburner and if i remeber correctly it went over 80°C. Whats the max temperatur this thing is supposed to sit safely at?

 

You could try getting it at deviltech.de. It's called the Fire DT14, but it's the same base as the MSI, you can configure it, and it's like 200€ cheaper.

 

Great find, yes I would save 21% and have an English keyboard Still not 100% sure due to heat issues however...

 

How long do you all think the GE40 will last, considering the relatively high temperatures inside? A year? Less? More? If I am to buy this thing I'd need it to last at least 3 years.

 

Anyone's guess how that heat will effect its life, but it can't be good in the long run. Heat on the capacitors and motherboard etc. All depends on the PCB and components MSI used if it will be effected by high temps or not. 3 years is a long time too.

Might be one of those ones that when you remove it leaves that silver VOID printing. 80c is hot. I remember when my Acer 3820TG's 580 cpu got around 76 degrees it was pretty damn hot but I was overclocking the FSB. I think the CPU can do 105 before it shuts down. But thats not safe or something you want to be doing. 80c is for me too hot....

 

No clue, no oracles here. It is simply a risk you must consider when buying a laptop. MSI warranties it for two years, so their risk assessment team considers that to be a reasonable expectation.

 

That or improve its intake, drill a few more holes in the chassis for more airflow. lol

Sounds crazy but has been done before. Of course no warranty then!

 

There are capacitors and other components rated for high temp. If MSI used such components, heat (105c or less) won't have much impact on its lifespan.

Both CPU and GPU will function normal under T-juction and their lifespan affected by high temp is very minimal. An awkward OC has a much more impact than high temp of both CPU and GPU.
T junction for Intel CPU is usually 105c. Sometimes it's higher for xeon chips due to it being server chips. T junction for GPU should be at least 100c.

As long as the heat does not get to you through palm or any other skin contact, you shouldn't worry about it too much.

 

Noticed a big improvement using Lightroom 5 in my conversion of 1000 photos from raw to jpeg by adding that extra stick of 8gb ram running in dual channel. The sound sucks on this thing I wish they would have done something better. other than that waiting for the other Sandisk 128gb msata so I can run the drives in raid 0

 

Good to hear that my GPU won't simply melt away. Had to reset my notebook because of some issues with windows 8. Tomorrow I might find the time to really push the GPU and CPU while gaming over several hours. Maybe I'll get around to do a battery test the day after that.

 

Damn it, as soon as I get Windows 8.1 preview, Nvidia decides to get off its and release a beta driver with 760m support. 8.1 has its own driver, but just like the shipping one, its based on a 3 month old build...

 

I don't think it's THAT hot. In that last review, the CPU got to 82ºC and the GPU 78ºC, but it was under furmark, which stresses the components to the limit, and generates much more heat than any real world game. I just tried furmark on my VAIO VPCCB with radeon 6630m, that had never gone about 70ºC playing, and it got to 78ºC in two minutes) ambient at 23ºC, and the i5 got to 81ºC, while it rarely hits 70ºC, and I have never seen more than 72ºC. So it has similar temps than my VAIO and it has worked perfectly for the past two years.

 

Furmark doesn't stress the CPU, only the GPU. I stressed mine using Furmark (to get the GPU going) and Prime95 in burn stress mode (max Power and heat generation).

Under this stress the CPU would throttle a bit (down to 2ghz) but the GPU was rock solid - due to it peaking at 82C while the CPU hit 95 (where throttling kicks in).

Bear in mind - the GPU has two heatpipes, the CPU has one. Under normal conditions the GPU will always be cooler than the CPU, as its getting a bigger share of the cooling capabilities of the shared heatsink and fan.

Either way, I've been playing games for many hours on end this week (Skyrim, Company of Heroes 2 etc) - and while I've been using a basic cooling stand and a Razor Orbweaver (I dont like heat on my hand while playing) its been 100% solid, no "overheating" as it where - it gets warm yes, but the cooling solution can cope with that stress or extended period - no problem at all.

 

Exactly, laptops, especially gaming ones, aren't really designed to run cool & quiet when stressed. The laws of physics guarantee that. I mean, you can have what Alienware does, but that hardly qualifies as a laptop anymore...

 

Sounds promising, thanks for the info. Maybe I'm too use to ULV cpus that are way cooler but under powered. I remember that some reviews that the TDP 47W 4700MQ CPU not the 37W one that shipped so the review units had an extra 10W to deal with. What kind of FPS are you getting in Skyrim and Company of Heroes 2? Is it playable on high settings at 900p?

Any lags?

 

Not sure about Company of Heroes 2, but in Skyrim I was playing with all view distances set to max, most other settings on high or ultra, 4x antialiasing and 16x anisotrophic filtering, on native resolution with no lag. I don't have fraps, but it did not seem choppy at all at any point in time.

 

Not too bad then, thats good to hear.

 

I have been playing some Planetside 2 because I didn't have anything else and it works surprisingly well. It also tends to stay cooler than before. CPU maxed at 90°C and GPU at 80°C, which I guess is acceptable. I feel like the side of the notebook also stays cooler, but that simply might be my imagination because I've gotten used to the temperatures. I am tempted to open it up and try to repaste it. Still haven't figured out how that warranty sticker is supposed to keep me from opening it.

 

I reverted back to w8 from 8.1, too much issues (av and trackpad don't work properly), but I was still not able to install 320.49 beta. When I looked at the listdevices.txt, I didn't see the 760m, only the 765m. Apparently, Nvidia forgot the 760m exists

 

Why would you install the 320.49 beta when 326.01 WHQL for 8.1 launched yesterday?

At any rate, I bet lots of laptops still suffer with 8.1 (it's a preview after all, for programmers and managers), so you're probably better off with 8 at least until the RC.

 

Why would I install a w8.1 driver for w8 is a better question. 326.01 is for 8.1, and is based on an old build.

Apparently MSI is using some custom device id, because I was able to find a 760m driver in the 320.49 package, but windows still rejected it. Another obnoxious MSI choice, I hate waiting for manufacturers to get off their and update a driver. My ge620 took stock nvidia drivers just fine.

 

This looks like an equivalent of what the daughter board is on the SSD version: SSDMR (Dual mini-SATA to SATA RAID Adapter - SATAIII) - M-FACTORS Storage

haven't purchased one yet, considering buying one from deviltech.de. Has anyone bought from them?

I was thinking I might go bare bones, and upgrade the SSD(s) and RAM as I get some cash. Do any of the people who've bought a GE40 think that's easy enough to do?

 

Have you tried laptopvideo2go.com?

 

No go, though I found a tiny bit newer 311.48 driver from MSI, which is still based on a driver released in February.