*** The Official MSI GS65 Stealth Owners and Discussions Lounge ***

No picture is doing to explain it. Warping can be very slight and make a huge difference. That is why they use those reducliously thick pads to compensate.

 

Believe me I know all about warping.
The 3 pipe heatsink base MSI has used ever since the GT72S is convex to all hell (and they're STILL using that exact same base on the 6 core GT75).

Do you know how many times I had to sand my GT73VR heatsink to get the core temps to 0-2C difference?
I even bought a second heatsink in case i destroyed the first one.

 

Hey guys, I have a question that may sound absolutely bizarre, but please bear with me.

1. Is the palm rest flex worse than the flex of a plastic Clevo W355SS like the one I have in my sig? Mine is a mid-range Clevo from 2014 as a reference point.

2. How is the trackpad?

3. What is the battery life like? Are you able to get 6hrs+ web browsing?

These are the three primary questions I have about the laptop. They may sound weird to most people but they are the concerns I have.

I feel that any thermal problems can be fixed by ordering it with a Conductonaut repaste from HIDevolution, whose QC will catch any flaws/high core temp differentials. @Donald@HIDevolution


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How goes the testing? Have you undervolted? Results?

These are new CPU's with 6 cores and the same TDP limits as the 4 core units, and we don't know what the parameters are yet for undervolting and tuning - there might be multiplier changes and cache multiplier tuning available too.

If you have done your MSI BurnRecovery backup, then you can safely uninstall the MSI DGC and TS and load XTU to see what's changable in these CPU's - please post screen shots.

I hope your silence means you are having a good time... and if not how can we help?

 

I'm afraid the only testing I've done past cinebench and 3DMark is just using it normally (games/productivity), but so far I have to say I'm quite impressed! As a matter of fact, it feels like it beats my desktop with a Ryzen 7 1700 in certain applications even when I have to use a slow external harddrive to load data to the laptop, though I wonder if the slower sata SSD in the desktop could be the bottleneck as the software benefits from faster drive speeds.

I have to admit I am a newbie when it comes to modifying and testing hardware so your mention of a "safe uninstall" of DGC after making a BurnRecovery backup worries me slightly. I am certainly willing to test undervolting tomorrow and I've been wanting to try this, but I'd rather not having to recover and potentioally lose my files? Any insight of this (either being what the recovery process would be like or what could go wrong by uninstalling DGC and messing with XTU without a backup) would be greatly appreciated! I just made some ISO backups.

I am definitely having a great time with this laptop, it's an awesome machine despite the few issues as mentioned before! My search for a thin and light gaming laptop with a big battery started a while back but as the Aero 15x doesn't ship to the country I live in, I got really excited when MSI also sacrificed the big 2.5" bay for a bigger battery.

1. There is flex when you push down but I don't think that's something you're going to notice in everyday use. I am not familiar with those Clevo machines so I can't give further comments on that.

2. The trackpad is great in my opinon! Tracking feels comfortable and gestures are smooth and natural. Of course I don't have access to many different laptops as tech reviewers do to make a good comparison, but I have nothing negative to say about it (at least as of yet).

3. Since my use benefits from being plugged in, I havn't gotten to do a proper battery test but with screen brightness fairly high and keyboard lighting on, windows reported 6 hours remaining with battery at 80+ % while doing some websurfing. I can give a better report in the future if nobody has made one yet by that time.

I'd also like to update my answer to your question about the high pitch noise on the fans. While I was running the fire strike benchmark, the fans were for some reason quiter than a normal gaming session or really intensive cpu work. The high pitch motor sound is more apparent then, but again nothing bad.. not to me at least.

 

Thanks a lot for the great help. I think this looks like a really nice ultraportable gaming laptop that does not have the quirks of the Gigabyte, and is worthy of serious consideration,especially if one can get it repasted with LM by a reseller or themselves.


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MSI's BurnRecovery program is just a backup tool for creating a bootable 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive or set of DVD's so you can restore the original out of the box OS image to your laptop - the same drives or new drives, should you need to.

The MSI Dragon Gaming Center (DGC) program you are probably familiar with - it shows temperatures, lets you set performance profiles, fan profiles, etc, and uses Intel XTU for some settings on some CPU's.

To undervolt you'll want to install the full Intel XTU software to use their interface to change CPU settings, like the CPU voltage offset - to undervolt - that reduces voltage and reduces heat, dropping CPU load temperatures by 10c if you are stable around -100mV undervolt.

Each CPU is unique, so you'll need to test the undervolt setting, and adjust it higher or lower depending on if it's stable. If you are stable at -100mV, you could stop there and enjoy about 10c lower load temps on the CPU cores, or continue increasing the undervolt for less voltage and heat.

When undervolt testing you don't want to be doing anything you'd miss if the OS crashes - which is the sign that the undervolt is too much. Basically you increase the undervolt until the OS hangs or crashes, then reboot, and reduce the undervolt by +5mV and test again.

The range of stable undervolt is from about -25mV to -220mV, with -120mV to -150mV typical.

It's safer than pulling apart your laptop to repaste it, and once you do the undervolt you know what the setting is and you don't need to go through the process again. Unlike re-pasting which needs to be done whenever the temperatures rise again over time.

If you have any more questions, please let me know.

Here's a sample XTU view with a -100mV Core Voltage Offset - also on this CPU the core multipliers are reduced and set for use during long batch job runs - you can ignore those. The settings in Yellow are ready to Apply, and when you find a stable setting for all of your tuning changes, Save them to a named Profile that gets loaded at each boot, or you can do it manually at each boot as needed.

 

what about the position of the power cable connector ?
I have the feeling that is bad positioned and we will fall in one of this 2 cases:

• The part of cable near the connector will overlap the heat exhaustion opening and then it will continuosly cooked.
• The part of cable neat the connector will overlap all the port on that side.

 

Cable itself is probably fine, but I have worry about that the exhausted air overheates the hand on mouse.

 

When I run high demand games, the air coming out of the exhaust port feels as warm as my heater vent on a little over halfway from my car. Not bad at all.

 

I'm interested in the undervolted temps as well. Currently thinking about selling my alienware r4 17 and getting this one instead. Don't really care about the chassis flex actually, my old Clevo P150EM used to flex like hell when you carry it around opened or type hardly on the keyboard and haven't cared one bit (Not that we are going to put it into our back pockets anyways)

The difficulty of upgrading this thing is a huge let down for sure but again, how often you upgrade the thing anyways?

But thermals are another thing entirely. If the undervolted temps stay around 80-85 then I'm sold.

 

I havn't done any extreme tuning tests but I did undervolt the CPU by 100mV.



I played Watch Dogs 2 before and after the undervolt:

Pre-tuning:

• Temps at high 80s (85C - 89C)
• 60FPS @ High settings

Pro-tuning:

• Temps at Mid 70s to low 80s (74C - 83C)
• Mostly 55FPS, could hit 60 @ High settings

Few things to note:

• The game would periodically stutter after a few seconds passing, but it did even out after a bit (instability issue?)
• For some reason the GPU temps would hit 91C before the dragon center app on my phone would stop updating the numbers, but it stayed at a cool 74C after the undervolt... no idea what happened here.
• I am using a Cooler Master Notepal X3 to help the underside not getting hot.

If there's anything else I should try, I'd be happy to test. Hopefully my testing was accurate enough to be considered valid!

 

I would ask to repeat the test but without the Notepal in order to check the "pure" behaviour for heating dissipation (feel free to send me to the hell )

 

Your GPU temps went down after undervolting the CPU or did you do both?

 

I only made changes to the CPU but I'll do more runs to verify the results I got were correct and not misreadings

I'll also drop the notepal

 

The cooler probably doesn't do anything anyways. It draws air in from the top more than the bottom. Use HWinfo for your temps. Very reliable.

 

That's great, so now your temps are low enough to not need re-pasting

When you have time, or are bored, you can open up XTU and try further undervolting to see if there is more cooling on the table. I'd try -10mV at a time until BSOD, and at BSOD you could add +10 and call it a day or +5 and see if you can get a little more.

Then test for load stability, and finally idle time stability.

Idle stability means that when you are doing nothing on the laptop, no apps loaded, no keyboard / mouse interaction, and as the CPU drops clock down and down, eventually it will also drop the voltage a bit more, and it may crash if the undervolt is too much. If you get an idle time crash, then add +5mV to the undervolt and test again - probably ok at this point, Save it as a named Profile and XTU will load it at boot time.

If XTU notices a crash - or a interrupted shutdown - it will not apply the Profile at the next boot, as XTU doesn't know why it crashed or had an incomplete shutdown so it cautiously doesn't Apply the profile at boot time.

Windows 10 has been a basket case when it comes to updates causing driver and compatibility issues over time, and XTU isn't left out, the startup profile Apply may not happen because Windows 10 soft shutdown doesn't get seen as a real shutdown.

If that happens, you could just apply the profile manually at boot. To potentially help the XTU auto setting at start up I also suggest disabling Hibernate (cmd started as Admin: powercfg /h off) to stop soft shutdowns and fake startups. If you have enough memory (8GB+) disable virtual memory / pagefile, disabling both saves storage of 2x size of memory on C drive (hidden files pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys are removed).

Consult this thread for how to create a startup script to make XTU settings - not just undervolt:

How to automatically under-volt in XTU without opening it
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-under-volt-in-xtu-without-opening-it.802143/

Have fun

 

Hey Everyone! I just got my GS65 thanks to the awesome company HIDevolution. I'm sure many of you know Donald there but man, he was so much help with keeping my build within my budget.

thanks @Donald@HIDevolution

 

TPM- Trusted Platform Module anywhere in Bios Settings for this laptop!!?

I read on the first page Intel PTT, but I was unable to locate such in the processor specs off Intel. Then again I could have missed something!

I use this for work and would want to encrypt my drive using bitlocker along with password protecting the physical SSD as well.

Anyone that have a laptop see this in Bios Settings for TPM and password protecting the physical drive!?

Any info on the security options in this laptop would be great.

Thank you in advance, Much appreciated!

 

No TPM is available with this product. If you need encryption, then you must enable BitLocker without TPM using Local Group Policy. The downside is you will need to enter PIN code upon boot up.

Here's how:
https://windowsreport.com/enable-bitlocker-windows-10-without-tpm/

 

This is SUPER DISAPPOINTING! -- Thank you for your quick response Kevin.

From what I heard last stealth gen had this, and this years model being marketed more towards the "professional working gamer," it is a shame MSI missed this aspect.

And thank you for the link, that is a good tutorial. I followed such on an old desktop computer I had. It really is a pain to type in the passphrase on every damn boot. And the worst part is the keys are stored on the drive itself so it's not too secure. This being a laptop and thus portable and an easier target for theft etc... without a TPM module, for security reasons, unfortunately it may be deal killer for anyone carrying important files on the go for business.

Do you think there is a way to add a TPM module to this, any such port open on the board? Or is anyone needing one SOL (**** outta luck )?

I'm really surprised and bummed out about this.

 

My apology, GS65 does have a TPM-like technology, which is called Intel PTT (Platform Trust Technology).
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000007452/mini-pcs.html
https://www.logicsupply.com/explore/io-hub/intel-platform-trust-technology-ptt-tpm-for-the-masses/

 

Most of the MSI models, including the GS65, have the Intel PTT.

"This model for system security got a face-lift when Intel introduced the Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) architecture, which implements TPM in system firmware. To your operating system and applications, PTT looks and acts like TPM. The difference is, PTT doesn’t’ require a dedicated processor or memory. Instead it relies on secure access to the system’s host processor and memory to perform low-level system authentication and verification.

The result: TPM is being deployed on low-power PCs, tablets and other devices that in the past could not bear the additional cost, complexity, power consumption or required physical space that comes with hardware-based TPM." See - https://www.logicsupply.com/explore/io-hub/intel-platform-trust-technology-ptt-tpm-for-the-masses/

If you need help setting it up, I recommend your call either your vendor's tech support, or MSI's.

 

Donald,

I sent Ted an email but I think he may be on vacation or my email didn't go through.
The slim chargers are freakin huge. Are there any options that are smaller than this for carrying around in my backpack? I also need an additional charger, and I should have checked that option at checkout, but I didn't. I can't find a charger for this on the web. Can you send me a link to the charger that I'll need and a link to one that is smaller? (assuming its out there.)

Oh, and can this laptop be charged though the usb c port for easy docking?

 

Could you guys post the picture of adapter's connector please? I also am going to need an extra adapter, and had an older 180W adapter left from my previous clevo notebook, i'm gonna adapt it to this one. The photo of the sticker on the adapter itself would also be great. Guess it's a 19 V 9,5 Amps brick right?

 

That's a 180W so it's still not going to be much smaller than before. However, you may be able to get by using a 120W except you can't be doing gaming while charging otherwise abrupt shut down can happen.
Power delivery did not come with this system therefore you can't charge it via USB Type C. Also, power delivery via USB can supply up to 100W max so it has its limitation.
https://www.renesas.com/en-us/suppo...-school/usb-power-delivery-01-usb-type-c.html

 

this cord is super long on this adapter.

 

Here it is.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_od...nkw=Toshiba+ac+adapter+connector+tip&_sacat=0

 

Yess their connectors are an exact match, thanks Kevin. i don't need to do anything at all.

 

Thank you @Kevin@GenTechPC @Donald@HIDevolution for your response regarding TPM and Intel PTT on the GS65 Stealth!! Appreciate all your help.

Glad Intel decided to INCLUDE PTT in the newer edition processors as well.

Any idea on when these are going to ship in the US? I've pre-ordered the Stealth THIN-053. The release date has changed like 3 times lol!

What the heck is going on with MSI and the shipment of these models to the states!?

Anyone know?

 

Probably the usual. Over promise and under deliver. They all do it. Afaik, Gigabyte is the only one that released right away.

 

An update on the battery life:

While I didn't do a perfect test, I did decide to see how long the laptop would last going from 100% to hibernation.

The setup:

• Keyboard lighting on (disco)
• Altering between 1/4 and 1/2 of maximum brightness
• High-performance powerplan
• Casual websurfing / watching YouTube videos and Twitch streams
• Bluetooth headset connected for the last 2 hours and 30 minutes

The laptop went to sleep after 4 hours and 30 minutes and I would assume you could squeeze in a few more hours by going with the powersaving mode (or ECO in dragon center to underclock for around 0.8GHz on all cores) and turning off keyboard lighting. I'm happy with the results as I tried to see what it could do with a "more intense" test

 

I got mine through HID evolution. I got the 068 version. I made my pre-order, requested next day rush delivery and got it two days later. You might not have a similar experience, but the customer service is quite exceptional.

 

Customs is what is holding up some models, and there is no way MSI can know exactly how long it will take to get a new model released. This happens every time new technology is released.

We will receive our first shipment of the MSI GS65 8RF Stealth-053 tomorrow.

 

Awesome! Can't wait to see how it does in terms of temps and performance!

 

Likewise. It will be very interesting to see what it can do and if it can be a solid and viable alternative to the Aero 15/15X, especially after repasting. And HIDevolution are among the best in the business.


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I think they just start with the best possible scenario first and then plan from there. "If the weather is perfect and no shipments are stopped or delayed, and the planets are in perfect alignment, the laptops will arrive on X date" doesn't sound as good as just "ETA". Also, everyone seems to forget that the E stands for Estimated, not Exact.

 

How is the brightness in this unit? Any user feedback? I've checked reviews and they say they can measure 250 nits max. MacBook pro 15 does 550, seems a bit low. Checked in video reviews also and it looks a bit dim but hard to tell. For those who already got it any thoughts?

Also how is the fan noise? I had the gs43vr and it was quite loud you could head over the game.

 

I showed your post to Ted and asked him to reach out to you. You should hear from him shortly.

 

I never use it at max brightness as it does get bright. Not overwhelming or anything but I don't think there will be any worries, at least not for indoor use.

Fan noise is quiter than other laptops this thin but it can get a bit hot. Also silent at idle / light use even though the fan is running. There is louder fan noise during gaming sessions / hard work but that is to be expected

 

Hi, I'm new to the forum, I got my GS65 for one day and have some issues. I've searching on the net but thing like this has been shared. I'm hoping people can share their experience with me and help me fix the issues.

I have a problem when gaming on this laptop, in particular, Overwatch. I experience pretty bad FPS drop and stuttering. I tried changing profile to performance in the MSI game centre software and crank up the fan but still experience the same FPS drop and stutter. The game setting is on low for everything, as I play competitively so I don't care much about graphics for a fast moving game like overwatch. I played on a 240hz Benq monitor connected via HDMI but I can hardly get FPS over 140. When the FPS drop happens it goes down to around 100 and the game stutters. My previous laptop, an Asus GL502 with GTX 1060, easily runs at 160+FPS albeit I get the occasional thermal throttle due to poor heating design.

I have another issue where the Nivida control panel will only detect the Benq monitor but not the laptop display. Whereas the Intel graphics setting would only detect the laptop display and not the monitor. On the windows display setting, I can see both displays and set to extend to these displays.

Do you have the same issues and suggestions on how to fix it?

Appreciate if anyone can help, I spend a lot of money on this laptop and it's disappointing that it's not even close to the performance of my last gen Asus ROG GL502. I know the hardware is more than capable as my friend got the Gigabyte Aero 15x v8 which pretty much have the same hardware but he has only tested on the 144hz laptop display. However compared to the Asus GTX1060 the performance gain isn't that much, maybe 10%.

For those looking to get this laptop, I agree with a lot of what Dave 2D has said, the build quality is good, very thin, light, portable (relative to my Asus GL502 obviously), and looks great. Screen colour is good, the keyboard feels good although I feel it's a bit shallow, but that's just me. However, compared to the Aero 15 the keyboard feels slightly better, the aero 15 feels slightly mushy. It runs at a much cooler temperature compare to my Asus and similar to Aero 15. The fan can get loud though. The CPU is much faster than the 7th Gen for sure.

 

It would be helpful if you were to put your complete model number, and your configuration in your signature.

Where did you buy it?

Have you contacted their technical support?

What temperatures are you getting on the CPU and GPU when it is dropping frame rate and stuttering?

 

Thanks for the tip I have updated my signature with my model and configuration, hopefully it would up.

I purchased the laptop through an authorised distritbutor on ebay. I'm located in Australia so we don't get as much stock and the good pricing on Amazon like US.

I have not contact their technical support, didn't have time to, I was testing it late at night.

The temperature is quite stable around 77-78 degress celsius.

 

Can you do me a favor please?
Run your game in windowed mode with THROTTLESTOP 8.50 running in the background
You can get throttlestop easily from either searching or http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/
Then press the LIMIT REASONS box (BEFORE RUNNING THE GAME!!!), clear any 'yellow' mark you see, and play your game afterwards.
Play it in windowed mode or windowed/borderless so it remains active, then alt tab to throttlestop window and put it in front of the game with the limit windows box open.

Take a screen capture (either shift printscreen, control printscreen or alt printscreen captures direct 3D game images) then paste it into windows paint, save it as a JPEG (IMPORTANT), then upload it as an attachment to your post (and press "full image").

Thank you !

 

Thanks.

Now my dang keyboard lights won't turn on. Hopefully, it's a software problem and not a hardware problem.

Update: I'm an idiot newbie. FN + page up/down controls the keyboard brightness. This info is not available anywhere except the user manual. I find it odd that it can't be controlled in the SS3 app (or maybe it is.)

 

In addition to what @Falkentyne said; (i think what he said is the first thing you should do)

1) Could you please unplug your monitor completely and test the game on the laptop display only ? What's the fps and does it again stutter?
2) Could it be a single channel memory issue maybe, as i see you got the 16 Gigs RAM version which is only one RAM stick. (but its very unlikely)
3) Finally, did you try disabling the real time protection of Windows 10 Defender, and running the game on admin rights, with High Priority. I know this has nothing to do with the max fps but its known that it sometimes helps stuttering and fps dips.

 

I also wanna know what decibels the fans run at, under load and idle, so if you guys have the time could you download a simple app like sound meter on your phone and check it out ? I think it would be great if we could speak in numbers on the parameters that are measurable, for example my alienware runs at 52-53 dB on load, which is kinda high for me, so i limit the max fan rpm to 3700 through HWInfo and sacrifice 6-7 degrees (they are still under 80 so thats ok for me). But maybe for another person, the 50 dB is silent enough, i don't know.

 

More info on this:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1217...-networks-launches-the-killer-wirelessac-1550

Pretty cool!

EDIT: Just placed my order with HIDevolution for a MSI GS65 Stealth THIN 8RF-053 with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on CPU + GPU, and Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads. Thanks Donald S.!

 

Thank you for the reply, I have captured the image but I have no idea how to attach the file to my post... sorry I'm total newbie here. can you let me know how to attach the file?

I have followed the instruction and opened up the limit reasons box, but I don't know how to clear the yellow mark, I simply clicked the three button on top but under RING the yellow mark "EDP OTHER" just won't go away. Anyway the while in the game I get the THERMAL and EDP OTHER in the limit reasons box. The temp seems to be around 80-84 and Max 93.

I also updated the Nvidia driver and g-force experience but it doesn't seem to changed anything. I have also changed "Preferred graphics processor:" in the Nvidia control panel 3D settings to "High-performance Nvidia processor" and made sure overwatch under program settings also use GTX1070. Inside the game, I can see GTX1070 as the GPU used by the game. I also changed the power management model to "prefer maximum performance" and preferred refresh rate to "highest possible".

The game also seems to have a problem shifting the game to the monitor, as when I try to switch to play on the monitor it just won't switch. I have to manual change it to windowed, drag it across, and make it full screen again for it stay on the Benq monitor.

I did discover that when I have the MSI dragon center turned on and changed the profile to "performance" the FPS drops to around 90-100 and experience stutter. If I keep just the "current" profile I can get between 120 to 150 fps. When I turn off the dragon center completely, I can get FPS up 160-180. This is still below my old gtx1060 which gets around 180 FPS, but much better than the 90-100. I'm not sure if I should just leave the dragon center off and not even use it or should I use it to manage the fan speed. I'm happy that the stutter is no an issue anymore at least the game is playable but would still like to see if I can get to FPS above 180.

The other thing is the load on CPU and GPU seems to be around 50% most of the time, as monitored by dragon center, so I think the system definitely can get more FPS but I'm not sure why it just won't do it.

Not sure if it's related but Nvidia control would only detect the external benq monitor but not the laptop display and intel control panel won't detect the benq monitor only the laptop display.

 

On the limit reasons box, if the boxes color is yellow, than it means that it has been flagged before, thus can be cleared. However if it is red, then it means that it is still on (limiting is on) and since it is constantly flagging, you cannot clear it before the limiting is no longer present. You can attach the image by clicking the "Upload a File" button located next to the Post Reply button (right bottom of the message box.)