Official MSI GS70 2013 Owners Lounge

Nice to know (added 17/8-2013):

• The powerbutton glows amber when using optimus. Aka. if the powerbutton is white you're on Intel graphics, if it's yellow/orange you're on Nvidia.
• DELETED 24/8, please further down for graphics driver updating.
• To force the use of the Nvidia graphics card for an application, open Nvidia Controlpanel --> Administer 3D settings --> Here you can both change global settings and settings for specific applications. Although I've set the Nvidia graphics card as the globally prefed, it's still only using it under load and not for stuff like Windows Experience Index. There is currently no known way of activating the Nvidia graphics for the Windows Experience Index test score. It uses the Intel graphics unfortunately. Use other tools to measure graphics performance.

Added 18/8-2013:

• NOT CURRENTLY RECOMMENDED! If you would like to keep your drivers and bios up to date, like most manufacturers MSI has their own utility, which they unfortunately don't have preinstalled on the system. You can download Live Update 5 from here: MSI Global – Download Center. Be sure to scroll down and uncheck some of the stuff you don't want, like Norton or Safe Sync. BEWARE! I've had some issues since installing some of these updates. You will have to completely uninstall both KLM (Keyboard LED Manager) and SCM and then reinstall them to avoid them crashing on startup.
• Looks like their utility doesn't have all the latest stuff. You can get a newer bios here: MSI Global GS70 STEALTH. Be sure to take their recommendation and use the built in bios updater. Also I just installed .706 from .705and found no change inregards to fan noise. Haven't found any changelog and haven't spotted any changes from the update. Oh and I used the Flashwin64.bat file to do the update. It starts right away and after about a minute just shuts off your computer. You then have to turn it on yourself.

Added 24/8-2013:

• You can update the graphics drivers by using the Geforce Experience Application. As standard it will say there are no new drivers for your system, but if you activate beta drivers it will download the latest (currently 326.80). You activate Beta downloads by starting the Geforce Experience Application, going under Preferences, Updates and then check "Include beta updates". This will yield significant fps increases in multiple games. In LoL I went from around 75 fps to around 150 fps.
• As you can see in the below image, courtesy of freshceezels, the fan on the right is the CPU, the GPU fan is on the left. It is the CPU fan causing all the noise when in Windows. Also thanks to Mikers for pointing out that updating with bios 706 actually increased the noise a bit from the GPU fan, although it's minuscule in comparison to the CPU fan noise. Also please note that the fan speeds seem to be locked, so programs like SpeedFan does not seem work - please correct me if I'm wrong!
  
  
• Annoyed by the trackpad performance? Download new drivers from the MSI webpage: LINK. Thanks to ccarroz
• Hardware Heaven Review of the laptop: LINK
• Picture of the laptop with the backplate off. Seems like you have good access to the harddrives. Thanks to virtualchappy for the image!
  

Added 29/8-2013:

• Just installed Bios .707. Haven't noticed anything in regards to fans.
• Also Gentech posted in this thread (page 8) with FurMark scores for an IC Diamond thermal pasted GPU. Temperature reached 90 degrees celsius. I ran it on mine with the same settings with the standard thermal paste and reached the same maximum temperature. Also because I used newer drivers, I got 1286 points. But perhaps this can point us towards a conclusion that you probably can't win much by trying to use some new and better thermal paste. Untill I get some before and after that clearly shows a positive effect I'm at least not going to be opening up my GS70.

Added 5/9-2013:

• What is Hybrid Power (the application)? It's becoming more and more of a standard to undersize the psu, because people want to carry less with them. However that means the laptop can draw more power on load, than what the psu can supply. As a result they have introduced a way for the laptop to both draw power from the psu and the battery at the same time when needed. On the GS70, the buffer is 30% power on the battery and theoretically you could reach a point where the buffer is empty and you would experience throttling as a result. However this is rare.

Added 9/9-2013:

• If you are experiencing latency spikes on occasion, try installing the Killer NetWork Suite directly from killergaming. The package is a combined driver for both the LAN and wifi: LINK

My original post:

I saw a couple of other threads with people asking questions about the device in general without owning the device. Like my previous laptops I felt the need for a dedicated thread for owners to discuss experinces and possible tweaks. Any good guides or tips in the thread I will try to add to this first post.

First of all, I think it's a very nice looking device. The pictures and youtube videos really don't do it justice. For the most part the finish is dark grey in standard lightning. In daylight it gets more of a dark brushed aluminium look, where you see more of the contours. From day 1 I've been a little annoyed with the fingerprints being so revealing. However this seems to be the case for any dark coloured laptop. It's both very evident on the aluminium and on the keyboard itself.

Speaking of the keyboard, I find it very pleasent to use in general. The keys are very responsive and slightly firm, just enough to ensure you know when you pressed it and don't just smash the keys. Only 3 things I dislike is:

1) The enter key being stuck together with the key above. It's taken me a few hours with constantly hitting the above key, before finally learning not to. I don't get why they felt this was smart.
2) The delete key being moved over on top of the numpad.
3) The backlighting isn't very good. You get more lighting from below the keys than from the actual letters. Enough that it's a wee bit annoying to my eyes at least in the dark.

On the plus side they also moved the backslash key next to alt gr and the Windows key. These both seem like great choices once you get the hang of it.

Now to my current biggest complaint. The fan noise is constant and just high enough to constantly be on my mind even when writing on this forum. The computer seems perfectly cool to the touch pretty much anywhere, so I don't get why they haven't set a lower fan speed. Hopefully a firmware will fix this.

Another thing I can't getmy mind around is why on earth you would make the most used exhaust vent the one on the right hand side and why on earth you would also place the powerplug here, so you have to have the powercable covering for the exhaust vent. Now if it was just the wire that might be okay, but they placed the electricity container (not sure what it's called) just at the fixed length where it takes up half of the exhaust vent Space. This has got to be one of the dumbest designs I've seen in a long time.

With these critique point let me just point out, that I've tried a few laptops over the past 3 months to figure out which one I wanted and this has definately entered my number one spot. Sure there are issues mentioned, but none of them are dealbreakers for me, perhaps with the exception of the fan noise, which I hope will be fixed.

I also really like being able to run both SC2, LoL and Diablo 3 at full hd res with everything on extreme/ultra with 60+ fps. I love the slim design. I love the matte screen with very high brightness, enough even for sunny days outside. I love the GeForce Experience software for updating drivers and setting game graphics to the optimal settings.

Over these next days I'll try to write more about the onboard software and which I found could be uninstalled without losing any important functionality. The first thing to go was Norton btw!

 

I just got my GS70 yesterday as well! Everything's running smoothly, with the exception of the GPU. I'm getting around 20-30 fps on Skyrim at ultra settings.

Could this be a graphics driver issue?
It's using version 311.83, but on the GeForce website, the latest driver for the GTX 765M is GeForce 326.41 Beta. I can't seem to download the latest driver because NVIDIA is telling me to get it from the official MSI website - "Your product manufacturer requires you to download a driver for your device from their website"; and the latest driver version on the MSI website is 311.83 (outdated)!

Other than that, i love this laptop overall! One of the features that i found awesome was that the LED in the power button was indicating Optimus. It turns amber when the GPU is in use and white when it's not in use. Like OP said, the keyboard is great once you get used to it and it has minimal bending. Great build quality, awesome, slick laptop

 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M - NotebookCheck.net Tech
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
med.: 85.9 85.9 88 ~ 87 fps
high: 62 63.1 63.2 ~ 63 fps
ultra: 35.4 36 37 ~ 36 fps

- 10FPS drop ? hmm... are you sure you didnt run another program?

Anyways Can you post some info about temperatures?

 

I tried skyrim again, and for some reason, The FPS for both high and Ultra are sustained at a stable 35-40! I don't know why the fps has no change, but it is definitely stable! Will post screenshots later.

For temperatures, when the notebook is on load, the laptop generally gets quite hot on the right and left side within 2 minutes, but there is no real problem because the heat is blown away from the fingers (including from the mouse because the air is blown out at a 45 degrees angle). I had played skyrim for 2 hours straight without any discomfort. The temperatures were manageable as they were away from all of your fingers!

The fan sound doesn't really bother me and is hardly noticeable. Putting on headphones will make you not notice it at all! It's relatively quiet in comparison to the MSI GE60 2oe. I can say that he fan volume is around the same as the ASUS G46VW.

 

Hello,

I am also a recent owner of this notebook. I love it and pretty much everything about it except for the FAN. I am really hoping that some kind of update fixes this or at least we get some options for control. I'm sure there is some kind of fan control software in the bios but it is probably limited and I can't switch it on the fly. I would suggest everyone here write to MSI and post on their forums for an update to this. The same with the unplugged graphics capabilities as I believe everyone should have the option to kill their battery in an hour if they want to.

Otherwise, I'm a happy camper with what I got, I've never owned anything that didn't have setbacks and these are not dealbreakers.

 

Skyrim vanilla, Default high settings. 1920x1080

Skyrim vanilla, Default ultra settings. 1920x1080


I'm really okay with the framerate because it's actually incredibly stable. There's no occasional hiccup even when it comes to the very demanding areas!

Hopefully future driver updates will fix this and give us what the 765m is capable of doing

 

Thanks for your posts guys!

I actually am sadly going to be giving up my M11x R3 to pick up a new laptop, as I need something more powerful but still portable to push the frames with my Oculus Rift I actually had a Razer Blade 14 inch on backorder, until I saw this MSI laptop. I cancelled my Razer, but I'm still extremely torn about ordering the razer vs ordering this. I don't like the idea of a 17 inch screen, nor 1080p vs 1680x1050.. less rez to push in the razer, as I greatly desire portability in my laptop. But, that said, the weight and thinness might make it feel just as portable as anything else. It weighs almost the same as my M11x!

Sounds like you owners are pretty happy with it other than the fan noise. Can any of you tell me how the battery life is on the integrated chip (assuming it has one of course)? I need a good 4-5 hours of non-gaming battery life... do you think the MSI can achieve that with power saving settings on?

For some reason, even though this is purchasable, I can't find a SINGLE review of it from any website. Very odd, actually!

Thanks guys!

 

@Repsac: +1 Rep! Thanks for your Review!

 

Hey, Just a thought but maybe the power adapter was unplugged or one of the vents was being covered. Both of those issues could have caused a frame drop. Personally I hate that the power adapter covers the fan vent on the right side. I have to prop it up a bit to stop it from covering the vent.

 

Well done on creating this owners topic

I haven't found reviews yet, maybe it hasn't been widespread adopted yet. then again the market for this particular laptop is not as big.

 

Kind of funny but I was in the same boat as you (had the 14" blade on back order and then got this). I wanted the 14" blade for all the same reasons as you, the lower rez monitor being better for longevity for games (i had a now 5 years + old gateway laptop with a 9800 GTS with a 1440 x 900 rez screen and the thing is still able to play sc2 diablo 3 and lol at high settings). In the end, the bigger screen is better for me for work and I liked the price point the extra 8 GB of RAM and extra storage and to sweeten the deal newegg had the supper raid version for 1900 with a free 24"monitor(sold). As for battery life, I haven't been able to stress test it as I mostly use my desktop at home, however I was able to use this on a plane for 2 and a half hours using the plane's wifi to do some word and excel work as well as brows the net and I closed the thing with just under half battery. I latter left the laptop on standby for two days, showed a friend the into for the new DMC game and then left the laptop on stand by for another day and the better was only starting to flash red by the time I got home (this was a huge improvement over the msi GT683). As a side note the laptop seemed to fit in the plane's seat tray without any issues (i was a little crammed if i didn't get the arm rests though). Also the the laptop is wider then I expected it to be (i wish it was a half a inch shorter ) and it doesn't fit into my backpack without bulging\stressing the zipper, however it does fit ok in a Tumi satchel that I have (with no padding in it).
Hope this helps.

 

Didnt really make a difference , but i found that tweaking the settings in the Nvidia control panel gives a 10 - 20% boost in performance!

 

Thank you ccarroz! That absolutely does help

I still haven't decided though... I just am so unsure about the 17 inch size!

 

Soon to be owner of a GS70 and was wondering if people can confirm being unable to upgrade graphics drivers directly from Nvidia...

 

Most likely at first nope. These are quite new. GT60 was unable to update until 326 betas. Worst case and you have to use a modded inf to install drivers from their page.

 

Unboxing
MSI GS70 Stealth Review - www.hardwarezone.com.sg


Also, if you guys think the fans are loud, make a thread about it at the MSI forum. If enough people complain, and if the tmperatures allow it, they might publish a new firmware that fix the fan noise. MSI is good at listening to their customers but you gotta let them know first

 

Thanks ryzeki. I guess it would be a deal breaker for this issue to be persistent to this model and being unable to use official drivers in the future, period. I had that problem with the Alienware M17x R3 with a Radeon 6990M. And no, modded drivers are not an option for me... Hope this is an infancy issue only.

 

Here's a test on battery life from someone on another forum. Pretty decent result.

MSI GS70 Stealth Review - Page 3 - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

 

I added some nice to know stuff to the first post. Most importantly a way to install the latest Nvidia beta drivers 326.58.

 

Is anyone a Linux user here?

If so, have you tried dual booting a Linux distro alongside the Windows 8 installation? I'm curious to see if you ran into any problems booting off a USB device. I know you have to disable SecureBoot and all that kind of stuff, but when I boot from the USB drive, it quits reading from it after I select the option to try the distro before installing. I know it can boot in UEFI mode, I just don't know if the USB 3.0 ports are the root of the problem.

 

Thanks A LOT! It's working great
https://developer.nvidia.com/opengl-driver

 

Glad to help, I was sure there would be some driver we could install... there always is

Adding some stuff about driver/bios updates to the first post aswell in a minute.

 

This a repost from the other MSI GS70 forum but since this is the official and people are having questions about this laptop and the blade I figured I would repost it here. A few things I learned about the GS70 Vs Razer Blade Pro since I have a Blade Pro that is getting returned since the MSI is so much cheaper and has features I was looking for.

- You CAN use the Razer Blade Pro power supply with the MSI GS70. They weigh about the same, the GS70 PS is just slightly bigger. Also the plug on the Blade PS is smaller so it wont cover up your vents as much. IDK if these things are worth $130 to you but if they are it will work.
- The Blade Pro does run about 8C cooler that the GS70(I need to re-paste my CPU with IC Diamond and see the difference once I do that),
- the Blade is quieter at idle but about the same noise under load (its not bad but the Blade is completely silent when web browsing and the GS70 has a dull fan noise)
- the battery on the Pro will last about 1 1/2 hours longer
- the GS70 Keyboard is WAY BETTER, I would get missed key strokes on the pro pretty often when just typing. That never happens on the GS70.
- and yes the Blade Pro will still give you full graphics power on battery and the GS70 will throttle, but how much gamming on battery do you really do?

 

So anyone know where exactly do you submit the concerns for the fan noise? Their website doesn't seem to have an official forum for request, just Q&A.

 

I've actually opened a technical support thread with them via my MSI account after registering the laptop. The fan is annoyingly loud when it's idle. In addition, I've noticed that the GPU fan runs all the time albeit at low speeds after the BIOS update. Why?!

 

Hello I have owned the MSI GS70 for over a week and I have made numerous videos on it and I figured I'd share them with you guys.

Here is an overview


Boot Time


I have also made a few game play videos that y'all can take a gander at.

If anyone wants to request something for me to video on the laptop, I will gladly try my best.

 

So I've made a ticket with MSI about the fan noise and high temperature and this is what I got in response:

"Dear Val, The temperatures are actually very normal, under high load you'll reach to the low 90's and under idle condition temps will be from 45-55, There should be no need to open the laptop and we do not recommend it as warranty will void, please do leave as is, Thank you."

That is just the dumbest thing I've heard. At least it seems to be dumb especially since we already have someone who was able to put new thermal paste on top and got much lower temps. Plus I bet the battery life might have improved a bit due to less heat on the battery.


Also on the overclockers forums I found a guy who re-pasted his thermals and gets high of 50C during load. Here is the link: MSI GS70 2OD-002US Fan Noise - Overclockers Forums

 

I've had a GS70 for a couple of weeks now and am loving it but I have a couple of questions:

Is the power button supposed to stay orange at all times? It's supposed to indicate optimus at work but it's only white when I turn the computer on and turns orange before logging in and at all times after, even when there are no programs actively using NVidia graphics. I can try forcing a game to run through the integrated graphics and see if that changes it but I'm pretty sure it doesn't since I had a couple of games already not "see" the nvidia graphics so I had to go into the settings and force them to use the nvidia card.

Do anyone else's hinges make a clicking noise when adjusting the screen? It seems to make a click whenever I open the laptop up or when I'm adjusting it. The screws might just be too tight and I gotta wear them in a bit, but I just wanted to see if anyone had any experience with this.

Thanks!

 

Can anyone get Ubuntu to boot from a live USB drive? Whenever I try to boot from it, it makes it to the screen with a bootloader allowing me to boot from the drive, but then it appears like all activity from the USB drive stops. Does anyone have any advice?

 

My light never turns orange... Is there any way to fix this?

 

nevermind, my light was orange because steam loads on startup and because I'm stupid for not thinking of it that first. Pyr0m0ng3r, do you have nvidia drivers installed? Try going into the Nvidia Control Panel (Right-click NVidia GeForce Experience in the taskbar or search "Nvidia Control Panel" in windows, it should be categorized under "settings"). In the NVidia Control Panel>manage 3d Settings>Program settings then select a program and choose the Nvidia card. Next restart your computer and launch that program, it should run on the dGPU.

 

Hey guys I've found out that the left fan is only used for the GPU whilst the right side is used for the CPU. That's why there's the constant noise towards the right side on idle, but none from the left side. Just in case some of you didnt know

(from the msi gs70 product page)

I hope that we find a way to get the fan noises lower, because all the noise for the CPU fan is unnecessary! Even at 3% CPU usage, it's louder than my air conditioning!

 

I have beem reading the trackpad is terrible. Are there new drivers that help out?

Also, can anyone comment on the screen? I was thinking of having gentech upgrade the screen to teh AOC 90% Gamut (glossy)

 

I personally think the screen is beautiful.

And yes, the latest nvidia drivers are installed and I have been playing games like LoL, Fallout NV and other ones and they are definitely using the 765m but there is no orange light..

 

So in regards to the screen

How is the viewing angle? Have you seen the screen on the GE70? Is it the same?

 

There are newer drivers up at this page.
MSI Global GS70 STEALTH

 

I have not seen the screen on the GE70.. But the viewing angles are pretty damn good in my opinion. I'll make a video on them.

 

Agreed with the unnecessary CPU fan usage. It could be due to poor thermal paste application. As I read in overclockers forum, one guy repasted his thermals GPU and CPU and that made cooler temps plus the fans were not spinning as much and were more quiet during regular web browsing period.
Due to lower temps the battery probably will extend life, less heat on your laps if you do use it like I do, and this will definitely extend the overall life of the notebook as again less heat.

I am personally thinking of trying this out, but first I will repaste thermals on my Alienwere M11X R2 and see if application of new thermal paste will lower it's temps. Plus I have never put thermal paste on laptop's GPU and CPU before, so will be a good test. As per warranty I'm pretty sure they will make us pay for shipping just to fix their faulty pasting.

And of course the fan is probably spinning at even low CPU usage because of the poor pasting which created higher heat from the start and the fan just thinks it's too damn hot and starts spinning.

I'm being paranoid right now about the thermal pasting. It's not a big deal, but my Alienware makes less noise and has older hardware that creates more heat, but probably due to good pasting it keeps temps low.

 

Are you guys who got the response that the warranty sticker actually voids warranty in the US? Because in the EU the sticker doesn't void anything as long as you don't visibly damage any components inside.

 

Just became order (well, shipping from newegg 2 days) - got the 256/1TB model

I will try and calibrate the screen with the AVS forum disk for those interested.

 

As far as I know in the US it actually does void warranty. Which sucks. But I could be wrong. It could be that each company does it differently,

 

Hey guys, just thought i would share my far cry 3 ultra benchmarks for the laptop. 30-40 fps w/o recording, 20-30fps w/ recording!
MSI GS70 Far Cry 3 - YouTube

 

maybe one of you guys can help me. I also posted it in the other thread but i think i was the false one. here is a repost:
can anyone of the new owners say something about the screen of this notebook? I tested a ASUS g750 before and the screen was very grainy. Is it comparable to this notebook? The ASUS g750 was very annoying when looking on white/lighter areas.
I don't feel uncomfortable if i look on asus n750 (white background) witch is also a mate 17" machine. I also don't have problems with my mate standalone screen.
Everything else seems to be quite perfect for me with this notebook

Thanks a lot for your answers :-D

 

To Docace911, I'd love to hear what the final settings in your calibration are. It's my belief that there is something off with the blues on my screen. I found the gamma a bit too high (lowered it to .9) and it seems much better to my eyes but I don't actually have any hardware or software for this, just going by simple screen tests etc. So you are telling me if I open this and apply some thermal paste that it will help? My max temps when gaming for an hour were 70 deg CPU, don't know if that's bod or ok, but I'm willing to try because otherwise this notebook is perfect for me.

 

I would agree with your assessment that the screen is a little off with the blues. How did you adjust the settings? I feel like I am missing something.

 

Hey honestly just using my eyesight, but even then I'm still not too sure, I can't make it look the way I want to haha. I just play with the graphic properties from the right click menu on the desktop - the intel ones, even though I should probably be using the nvidia ones, they at least allow gamma calibration by the centi units. I use Lagom screen test website.

As for whoever in this forum (or anywhere else for that matter) managed to fix their temps by reapplying paste, do you think it would be too much trouble for a youtube video in disassembly - or some kind of guide? I trust myself, but it would honestly make it so stressful for me to do it without some guidance. I will probably eventually do it, but if someone has experience with this then it would greatly help.

 

Has anyone dual-booted this laptop with any other OS? I have been trying with Ubuntu but it doesn't seem to want to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dual booting does not seem to work. I tried as well, just for your sake. Have you tried to contact MSI?

 

I should have mine monday. Assuming it works I will calibrate it next week and post the results.

In terms of temps, 70 sounds REALLY low compared to others!

 

Just read this review:

MSI GS70 Stealth Gaming Laptop Review - Introduction

Looks like a great laptop. My questions:

1. Is it really impossible to dual boot to Linux?
2. Are the SSDs standard mSATA format?
3. Will it void the warranty to upgrade the SSDs to larger ones?