---> The Official MSI GT60 and GT70 870m/880m Owners Lounge <---

Hello from the U.K

MSI GT70 2PC-1864UK Dominator

Just for those that often wonder what machine they're actually going to get, due to the crazy lack of specific model detail, I purchased a 2PC-1864UK from Amazon that arrived with 1x 128GB mSata SSD and 1x1TB HD. There is, thankfully, two FREE mSata slots and the ram, being only 1x8GB stick, is under the keyboard (Easy to get to). It's the 870m version. I ordered and fitted 4x8GB vengeance PC2133 ram along with 1x1TB Evo 840 SSD and 3x Samsung Evo 250GB mSata. 2 of the mSata drives are in raid 0, the 3rd is for steam, with the 1TB SSD being for Virtual machine use.

I've owned two previous MSI models and they ran REALLY crazy hot but for some reason this model is perfectly fine. Crosses fingers. Overall it's a really nice machine, quite quiet, easy (ish) to upgrade and for once I didn't need to re-apply the thermal paste.

P.s. If you're careful you CAN install ram into the two slots just under the heat pipe! Just take it easy, line the top dimm up, then press quite hard.

 

When the stock paste job is done correctly, temps are really manageable. My barebones GT70 with 680m ran really cool compared to my GT780m. Around 5 to 8 degrees cooler with no mods whatsoever.

Glad to see a happy owner

 

Any system with one or more msata will ship with 3 slots.

 

That's fantastic but where does it state that on Amazon from where I bought the machine? It could have EASILY have been 1x 2.5" SSD and 1x 2.5" 1TB HD. There are models with that config.

 

I don't control amazon listings But unless a third party is using funky adapters then that rule holds true.

 

Amazon listings are unlikely to state something this specific. The reason Meaker mentioned what he did about the mSATAs is because the logic board most commonly used contains 3 slots for mSATA drives. If one mSATA drive is installed, it means the system had to have been equipped with said logic board/adapter.

 

Yes, I know, people are not listening... The machine COULD have arrived with 1x 2.5" SSD/1x 1TB 2.5" HD. Instead it arrived with 1x Msata/1TB HD. Nowhere in the article did it state mSata. Amazon.co.uk needs to add that little bit more information. Sucks to try and offer something helpful! Thanks anyway.

Oh look... an older GT70 with 2x mSata ports not 3
http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-shows-off-its-super-raid-in-the-gt70-gaming-notebook/15462.html

 

I have a question about an issue I'm having with my GT60 870m laptop.

I am adding a Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" SSD and the system came with a 1TB 2.5" HDD

I added the SSD to the secondary HDD bay(near battery) but when I boot to the BIOS the drive is not detected. I tried the 1TB drive in the same bay and it is not detected either.

Both drives are detected properly in the primary storage bay.

Am I missing a setting in the BIOS or is it possible the secondary storage bay port is faulty?

I would appreciate any more ideas. I have Win8 transferred to the Crucial SSD and it is working but not much good without being able to use the secondary bay for my HDD.

 

No, I think we got that. Apologies for the misunderstanding. Amazon is simply not known to give in-depth specifics on system details. As to why, I'm unsure. It certainly would help their customers. It's not only the UK site, either.

Sounds like the port is malfunctioning/not functioning.

 

Thanks. Thats what I suspected but was hoping for a hidden setting that I missed.

I also updated the BIOS and that didn't help so I guess I'll have to take it apart and inspect closer. The NB was taken apart by a tech at one point to repair the audio jack so maybe they forgot to connect something on the HDD board.

Thanks again for your input.

 

Hello all,

I bought a GT60 0ND-250US back in March 2013. The laptop has been great, until the last week. For the last week while playing games I have had a lot of lockups. Then last night it turned off and would not turn back on. Today I thought I'd open it up and take a look around (I'm an IT guy for Raytheon, hardware does not scare me). I pulled the memory (bottom 2 sticks), tried the power, no go. Next I removed the SSD (I installed it when I first got it), again no go. Pulled the hard drive, still no go. Next I pulled the videocard, and everything powered up. I replaced everything else, all is still good. Put the videocard back, no go. So I assume the videocard is bad. I had the GeForce GTX 675M. Since I have to replace it, I'd like to upgrade it at the same time.

Does anyone know what cards work with the heat pipe/sink that I have? It looks like this one.

I would like the GTX 770m or maybe the 870m. Maybe even the ATI 7970m/8970m.

Thanks in advance.

Brian

 

I don't think you can upgrade to a later generation, but I'll leave that to those who have experimented and/or know definitively. You will need to stick with another MSI card when/if you replace your existing one, as well.

 

Hello friends I am new to the forum and I buy a GT70 with msi gtx870m and wanted to know if there would be a large difference in temperature if crysis3 played with the graphics on ultra and high thanks:hi2:

 

Hey guys, just bought the MSI GT70 DOMINATOR DRAGON-1886, can anyone tell me if the screen is a TN or IPS? Thanks

 

It's a TN panel.
If it's an IPS then they will not miss the chance to advertise it as IPS-bundled system.

 

Very true. Last year I bought the regular GT70 with gtx 770m. Is the build quality better on the dragon edition? I really am hoping so. Thanks for the help

 

The build quality is the same pretty much except the color of paint, there are possibly other minor changes but nothing major.
The model with major design change is the GT72.

 

Guys, I'm having an issue with my WiFi, while playing a dota 2 match, my wifi dropped like 9 times during the 40 minute match. It was extremely annoying. Anyone know if this is a common issue?

 

Did you stick with the stock card? What driver version are you on? What band are you running at? (2.4ghz or 5ghz). How crowded is your area for wireless signals? How are other devices in the building behaving?

 

Try updating the wireless card driver first.
17.0.6 is the latest.

 

Hi Meaker, I am running the stock 7260, 2.4ghz, and the other devices are running fine with wifi.

Kevin, I have the latest wifi driver installed already but it's still doing this.

Guys, I also have one other issue now. I've googled but cannot find a solution, my scrolling on my touchpad doesn't function. In the settings, the scrolling option is grayed out.

Thanks

 

The 7260 is not the stock card, that's an intel card that must have been added in as an option. Did you get the latest drivers from intel for it?

 

Hi Meaker, yes I got the latest for it. It actually is performing well now after I disabled some power savings settings. Do you know why the touchpad wouldn't be scrolling? Thanks for the help

 

Have you updated the drivers for them too? Glad your wireless is working

 

Hi, yes I updated the drivers for it as well and still it doesn't work. It's very odd. All the options in synaptics and in Dragon Gaming Center has the scroll grayed out and unclickable. My friend also bought the same laptop, and his is exactly the same way as well.

 

Have you tried a set straight from Synaptics?

 

Try updating the BIOS and EC to the newest version since the touchpad ID is embedded in the BIOS.

 

Hi,Kevin I have a question about the VBIOS update in the MSI GT70 Dominator that is available in the Firmware section. Does updating it will bring some performance improvements or this update is to fix some bugs? Do you have to update BIOS and EC first, or VBIOS is not connected with BIOS and EC firmware update.

 

Primarily bug fixes, but not for performance increase.
For performance increase, then you will have to talk to Svet to get that done.

 

Hey guys! I recently obtained my Dominator Dragon 1886 (thanks again for your advice on that, Kevin!) and I love it - but there's a pretty significant issue. The Disk Loading percentage seems to be frequently climbing into the upper 90s when I'm hardly even doing anything (a couple of webpages and a YouTube video..). This happens every few minutes for a few seconds (mostly after startup) and then it drops again. I literally received this laptop in factory condition a few days ago and have only installed a few games and programs on it, so I don't think it has anything to do with age, too many processes or viruses - but I could be wrong. I ran CCleaner and thought it helped at first, but I guess not.

I've attached a picture of the stats in question. On a side note, it also seems to me that the CPU temperature has been reaching alarming heights... Is that normal? Again, this is in a mostly idle state.

 

Windows is likely caching data into the memory to reduce HDD access requests.

 

Congrats on your purchase!

The UMA shouldn't display any temperature because it's part of the processor. I would say it was designated for the discrete GPU.
Can you also try the options below?
1. Update the BIOS & EC firmware.
BIOS
Firmware
2. Update the utility Dragon Gaming Center
Download v1.0.1405.0801

 

Everything is up to date and the problem persists. Is there something else I should try? This doesn't seem like something that should naturally be happening.

 

Did you have this issue before "everything's up-to-date", or after?

 

The issues may have started after a large patch of windows updates I went through. But I'm not absolutely sure of that.

 

So, is anyone else with the 870m having issues with static during gaming? I've noticed that while playing games with the laptop plugged in, I get this static noise that changes pitch with the fps I'm getting.

 

I'm looking forward to buy the new GT 60 Dominator-1065 with the 970m.

Should I worried about anything? I've seen some postings here about heat issues on the 870m one...

Is it true that I cannot open the notebook to clean the fans without voiding the warranty?

Is it true that I cannot remove all the stickers on the keyboard without voiding the warranty?

Does it have that much bloatware as people say? Is it easy to delete them ?

 

Just picked up a GT70 895(2PC) with the 870m. I know the 9xx series came out but my budget only allowed me to the 870m. I am happy with the laptop and have installed an SSD. I have the system just the way I want it so I wanted to create a restore point. Now, I have the SSD and want to install the OS on it and not the hdd. I was not given restore discs from MSI and only the utilities. If I install on the SSD, do I need to have a new copy of windows or can I use my key?

 

1. Recovery discs are not provided by msi, but you can create a set for yourself using MSI BurnRecovery utility on the desktop.
2. If you want to install the OS onto the SSD, you will need to use recovery discs to put OS on the SSD.
3. No, you don't need your own key. If you load the OS via clean installation method, then you must use retail version of Win 8/Win 8.1 in order for the key embedded in the BIOS to accept it.

 

You could migrate the OS to the SSD with suitable software - I did it twice with Easeus tools.

 

This is more or less the easiest way to go. Clone the entire drive, copy the image to the new drive, and test.

 

How does one clone the drive?

This is how my drives are set up at the moment. I will probably be getting a bigger SSD in the mean time.

 

There are a variety of programs out there that can do that, free and paid for with different features.

 

You could use both Paragon or Acronis to move that 1TB HDD to a SSD. Both do work pretty well and their interface is straightforward. They also do align the partitions too so you would get optimal performance from your new drive. Do have a look at their user guides. Writing all the step by step instructions here would make for a very long post
Remember this: connect the destination drive with an external enclosure and copy directly to it. This gets you up and running in the shortest amount of time

 

does anyone know if i send my gt60 with the 870m, if i can pay extra and msi upgrade it to the 970m if the mobo is compatible?

 

Talk to your original reseller. If testing shows it's possible then they could do the work for you perhaps. Be aware spare cards will not be around for a bit.

 

Ok since there's an actual gt60 running with the new 970m , that opens the door to an important question.Will the current gt60/70 dominator owners with 870m/880m equipped in their laptops be able to upgrade too using the new shiny upgrade kit ?1st thing I know is that the new heatsink coming with this kit won't probably work on the gt60/70 since it is designed to work with the new gt72 models only, , which has a very different cooling system.So the old heatsink should do the job.So what about the power/wat difference between ths two cards ? Ths 870 and ths 980 for example since that is the upgrade I want to make ? Would I need to upgrade my heatsink? And why should I do it when msi is shipping the old gt60 with 970m without any change in design ? And would I need to upgrade bios ?Please help us - the owners of the gt70/60 dominator to figure it out. I am sure every owner of this laptop is asking the same question

 

Keep your questions to a single thread to avoid confusion and clutter. See my answer in the other thread.

 

A short clip of FFXIII Steam.

I'm also thinking if I could send my laptop back to the vendor that I bought my laptop at and have it upgraded for a 970m. If it's possible, I hope it won't be expensive (yeah right lol)

 

Which thread?