*** The Official MSI GT75 Owners and Discussions Lounge ***

Do you guys all suggest to uninstall Dragon Center and use maybe Throttlestop and Silent Option if its compatible?

 

Thank you Phoenix, please take your time, I know everyone appreciates your help in tuning up the MSI GT series - and so do I.

 

Dragon Center should be renamed to Cancer Center. Avoid it like the plague. All you need is the BIOS.

 

MSI GT75 TITAN (2018) GAMING Laptop Review - Core i9 GTX1080 BEAST!
KitGuruTech
Published on Apr 27, 2018

Spoiler: Details...

MSI has released a new range of GAMING laptops for 2018. Today Briony takes a look at the flagship GT75 Titan which features a Core i9 processor and GTX 1080 graphics card. If that wasn't enough MSI have configured two NVMe drives in RAID 0 for the ultimate in performance. It's £3,500 - so has Briony been impressed with the performance for the money? Read the full review over at www.kitguru.net here: https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/br...
Specification: Graphics: GTX 1080, 8GB DDR5x Processor: i9-8950HK, 2.9 GHz, Boost 4.8 GHz, 6 core, 12 threads Memory: DDR4 2 x 16GB, 2666 Mhz SSD: Super raid 4-512GB (256*2) NVMe SSD HDD: 1TB SATA 7200RPM

MSI GT75 Titan 8RG Impressions | Dream Gaming Laptop
AllAboutTechnologies
Published on Apr 22, 2018
MSI GT75 8RG is the new MSI laptop with intel 8th Gen Coffe Lake Processor. It comes with 8750H Processor, 32GB DDR4 Ram, GTX 1080 GPU, 17.3 inch 4K Display, 512GB Raid-4 NVMe SSD, 1TB Hard Disk & 2yrs warranty.

 

Prema Mods for the current systems had been finished since around NewYears plus there have been a couple of updates since then.
I just don't make any public release announcements since every Partner takes their own time for internal testing and evaluation...it's up to them to inform their customer once they are ready.

 

So about how long has it been taking from start to finish + testing until customer release of the last few BIOS's?

It depends / varies on the changes between motherboards / laptop releases too, so I know it's not always easy to predict how long it will take for the next future release.

It's helpful for people's expectations to have some working idea of how long they will wait for the tuned BIOS vs. rushing to order the first laptops shipping, those aren't ever the same dates, right?

There is some delay between release of the new laptops vs release of the final BIOS update, even if you have a slight jump on the release by getting BETA hardware for BIOS development?

 

This video isn't in English, but the graphs, charts, and tables are mostly readable, plus there are good comparison benchmark results, gaming FPS starts around 05:15, but there are interesting results well before that, almost from the beginning.

Intel Core i9-8950HK vs. i7-8700K - The first test of a six-core laptop - LC - Igromaniya
Published on Apr 18, 2018
The first test is a mobile Intel Core i9 with 6 cores and 12 threads. Comparison with i7-7700HQ and i7-8700K.
A full review of the GT75 8RG is available on our website
https: //www.igromania.ru/article/3009 ...

*Google translate used for all text from video page...

 

They have the Mods for 5 months now, so do the math.
I neither get beta hardware nor do I get final hardware to do my work. I did all the TM Mods without access to hardware just by sending tests to others...Clevo changes how their throttle works in every generation, model and even over different updates for the same models. So there is never an ETA until it's done...

 

I don't mind doing the math, I was asking the Start to develop and Final Release to owner span, I thought it was about 3-6 months but I didn't want to simply guess when I can ask and get the correct number directly from you. At least I thought it wasn't a big ask when first asked.

 

It only helps the end-user to know where in the systems cycle the Mod got completed. Which was within it's first month of release.
Doesn't really help if I tell you that e.g. my P870TM tester got his system in the middle of December and we finished the Mod two weeks later around NewYears after spending the entire holidays and every waking Minute working on it. Then we had to add another 1-2 weeks for Intel to get their **** together on Spectre before Partner could push it to end-user.

 

Er...not longer than me. I was here helping people 4 years before you started. Company Representatives are, and have always been, encouraged to post at Notebookreview. No need for this kind of comment.

So, please start with this by post @Phoenix showing what stock MSI BIOS settings provided, and read forward. I think you will see that it doesn't take a fancy BIOS, it just takes changing the MSI default BIOS settings that have already been discussed in the pages after this post by @Phoenix.

Then, as you can see from my post above, HIDevolution will be using these settings going forward.

To say that Grizzly Conductonaut and Fujipoly Expreme Thermal pads are not necessary...just doesn't reflect reality with the new Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK models with an nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080. While they may not 'necessary', just watch for the temps on any brand laptop with this configuration. Bringing the temps down by 10-14C may not be 'necessary', but it is far better than not having them.

 

@hmscott you need to chill.

 

MSI probably come with intel spec G15816-001 (TC-1996) or similar. You can usually order pads of tim from whoever you want via oem channel but it does not make any financial sense to go above and beyond. Thats why what @Donald@HIDevolution and others offer are so important since "it works" is worse than "it works really well"

As for the bios...for the common user is unlock needed? not really...and its done that way to prevent any improper tampering that could cause a normie to panic and potentially need an RMA... but to have option available there for power users is just common sense and thusly with demand that hole has been filled in sorts...its business and only eurocom is skinning people alive for the unlocked bios (though im sure they have some justification for the price)

 

It may not be clear, but I am not making any BIOS for MSI (other than the LGA) they are talking about stock MSI BIOS settings here.

 

That's good news, not that you aren't making a Cool BIOS, just that an out of the box stock BIOS is good enough to get things tuned up and running fine.

That's what I've been trying to point out for so long, we've been doing just fine with a stock MSI BIOS and tuning undervolt and OC, been that way for years.

I was concerned things here in this thread were being pushed in the same direction as Clevo - trying to force the same sales / profit model on MSI laptops, custom unlocked BIOS, re-pasting, re-padding, sanding down heat plates, etc.

It's really not needed for MSI laptops, GT73 and forward never has and I don't think it every will be. Things were running so smooth here in the GT73 / GT75 threads for so long I never imagined this all would start being pushed in the threads for MSI like it has for so long with Clevo.

Buy it retail, check out all the port functionality, undervolt, OC, and benchmark to make sure it's not thermal throttling, then forget about all that tuning and enjoy it for what it is - for enjoyment or for work.

Use the manufacturers warranty, upgrade the RAM and storage yourself, RMA if something fails. That's only happened once out of dozens of laptops over the years.

I've done this for 30+ years without any problems, and everyone I know does the same, no need for anything more - the risks and costs far outweigh the benefits quickly.

It's the newbies that fall for all the glitz and are easy to be sold more than they need, that's what we are here to protect them against, being taken advantage of for no good reason.

Overselling in the threads, that's something that vendors aren't supposed to do, and it used to be curtailed, that's not what I am seeing now, IDK what's up with that, but it's not cool.

 

MSI laptops work just fine without re-pasting and re-padding, or any other over the top modding - like cutting holes in a perfectly well designed laptop.

Cutting those holes short-circuits the air flow coming from the front of the laptop over the storage devices and the rest of the motherboard components, designed to cool them as the air is drawn over them heading toward the heat-exchanger exhaust fans.

Cutting the holes lets the heat-exchanger fans draw in air directly - right next to the heat-exchanger - instead of pulling air from the front of the laptop over the whole laptop chassis.

The storage devices heated up, the bridge chips heated up, and the chassis heated up, so even though there was a marked improvement in the thermals of the CPU / GPU due to the heat-exchangers getting cool air from the outside, the negative side effect was too great, and we shelved the idea.

You have to consider the whole system before making such mods.

Again, just pull the laptop out of the box, undervolt it, OC it, tune the fan curves, and as designed it will operate under the thermal throttling point for a long long long time.

The other physical mods aren't needed.

 

Not when everyone's getting the bum rush being sold on buying everything from one company, and on top of that being sold on buying way more than they need for a working laptop, it's ridiculous and you should all be ashamed and embarrassed.

This isn't the HID site, this is NBR and all vendors are welcome, not just one - and building a gang of supporters and directly intervening to funnel all the business to HID isn't cool.

Really not cool.

What set it off this time was @Donald@HIDevolution swooping in and taking all the hard work for himself and his laptops, apparently he has all the settings and tuning already, and we haven't seen squat.

That's unacceptable for a vendor to take away the previously publicly shared information and get a sales advantage before the rest of the members and vendors get a chance to see anything.

None of that is "Chill".

What's gonna happen if no one speaks up?

More of the same. There are other vendors on this site, and I see none of them doing this, never have, and they are just as able to provide products to NBR members, and should get an even shot at doing so.

 

Those settings were my settings that I gave to Phoenix.

You already know them
but you refuse to accept them, because you worship undervolting because you intentionally try to hide other companies mistakes and turn the other cheek.

Because you refuse to accept that MSI does VID BOOSTING which applies VOLTAGE BOOST to both STATIC and adaptive voltages.
AND on top of that, they use an INTERNAL loadline calibration that removes vdroop (Evga laptops do not do this @Vistar Shook )
Them being in combination with each other causes extreme voltage vrise and very high temps.
Your "undervolt" posts simply remove one of the two MSI shenanigans.
(Either the 1.79 mOhms of voltage boost based on current, or the vdroop).

You have a MSI laptop. Or you had one
Yet you refused to find out for yourself?
I found out about the vdroop that MSI "blocks" last week.

If you set IA AC loadline to 1 (0.01 mOhms) and IA DC loadline to auto (1.79 mOhms), the VID will DROOP at load, just like you see vcore dropping at load on desktop motherboards, when Loadline Calibratoin is disabled. However temps and power draw are completely unaffected (set DC loadline to 1 and you will see), but the intel chip thinks vdroop is happening as its there by design, so it drops the VID at full load.

MSI's IA AC DC loadline 1.79 mOhms of VID boost is an intel specification. It's supposed to apply to adaptive voltages.
Applying LOADLINE CALIBRATION on top of this is NOT. AND IA AC DC Loadline affecting STATIC voltages is ALSO not supposed to happen either.

Oh, and what did you say about MSI using high quality thermal paste on their GT Titan laptops?


Back to videogames I go.

 

Thank you for that, but I don't see what the settings are, just a bunch of unconnected thoughts and text.

A list of settings to change would be just that, a list. With a short explanation of the why for each change *needed*.

1.
2.
3.
4.
...etc.

Example:

1. Undervolt -100mV using XTU or TS.

2. If -100mV is stable that should be enough of a thermal drop at 100% load, about 10c, to stop thermal throttling. You can stop here or continue optimizing the voltage tuning for a little more thermal drop.

3. Undervolt -10mV at a time until unstable, then back off +5mV

4. Let the laptop idle for 30 minutes, with all applications closed and no keyboard or mouse input, and if you are stable you are done.

5. If you do crash then reduce the undervolt by +5mV and test idle again.

Now, if you can do that in the vendor BIOS, you can set your final setting there instead of using XTU / TS and that BIOS setting will work for Linux as well.

Other BIOS changes haven't been needed to get an OC of 4x 4.5ghz, without thermal throttling, without re-pasting, without sanding down the heatsink, and without replacing the thermal pads.

If there are other advantageous changes in the BIOS, I haven't needed them, or felt the need to spend time trying to find them. Performance has been great, so no need to spend time pursuing it further.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

And, for most people that are far less interested than I am in tweaking the laptop - instead of just using it for the reasons they bought it - they are not interested in changing settings they don't understand, or need.

Keep it simple, and straight-forward. Make it work in a way they can understand easily and quickly. That way they stay in control of their understanding of how their laptop is set up, and that's a good thing.

I have no other motivation other than providing guidance and solutions that users can understand and use, and support themselves by making changes they understand later - if things stop working down the road.

I am not trying to protect any laptop makers mistakes, I am here to help people get things working quickly and in an understandable and straight-forward way so they can support themselves moving forward.

Many times I've been in a situation when I am asked to take over recovering systems that have odd BIOS settings that were put in "to improve performance" that had no such effect, but had the effect of locking out the client from feeling like they had control of their systems.

It's not a good sign when someone making the BIOS changes can't fully explain exactly why those changes are needed.

@Phoenix when you are done copying that 10TB of data and can boot to BIOS, please provide the list of BIOS options changed, what the default / original setting was, and what the new settings required are to tame the CPU voltage.

The kind of list that simply explains each change would be nice too. Thank you.

 

MSI heatsinks are NOT the best, remernber the GE60, and the many variations of that family?

Those heatsinks are crap, and MSI replaced hundreds under warranty and many where left with a crap cooling solution because they didn't have warranty no more..

My GT72 2QE, a laptop that costs 2200€+ needed a repaste, and a lapping on the CPU heatsink(I used 4 sheets of 400 grit just to remove the concave shape of the cooper slug, and each sheet was cut in 4, and it took around 3 hours just on the cpu heatsink...) so it would stay under load at less than 70ºC, so far it hasn't gone above 65ºC under gaming loads.

Dragon Gaming Center is a turd, as is SCM manager.

It didn't allow my CPU to idle at 800Mhz, and the GPU was stuck at at least 450Mhz.

Nothing says good like draining 75Wh of battery in less than 2 hours while remaing above 50ºC with no load at all.

BIOS unlocks are a bit meh, I prefer the part where the oROM's are updated and there is better RAID performance, better compatibility and more stability on edge cases, or there are patches to critical vulnerabilites like the ME FW, that MSI still hasn't and wont release a patch/updated BIOS to fix, I modded my BIOS, because I care about my system security, if you can fix that with XTU, go for it..

I also paid Svet and I'm not ashamed of saying so, so that I can use his EC Editor, so I don't need yet another program to set a custom fan curve, instead of having to blast my fans at 100%, then run at 62-65%, producing a lot less noise, and keeping my system under 65ºC for the CPU and under 70ºC for the GPU. The stock paste and fan curves would leave my laptop near 95ºC on the CPU, downclocking to less than 2.8Ghz, thats plain dumb on a laptop that costs 500€(but is accepted), much less on a 2k€+ one..

Why do I need to run a program that is not even on the Service pages of the laptop, that I need to download from some forum post to change something as basic as fan curves?

Desktops allow you to set them on the BIOS with a graphical interface since the Haswell cpu's.

This forum is more or less visited and frequented by the power user, not the average user, wanting to get the most of their system is almost this forums moto, I dont get why you are so upset lets say about some BIOS mods.

Nobody forces you to buy or flash a modded BIOS, but there is a lot more to a modded BIOS than unlocking a couple menus, a LOT more.

 

Preach it, brother! This guy gets it !

 

The video shows very comparable performance. I guess for CPU limited games the 8700K shines...

What I like on this forum is that people are arguing with arguments.

I guess you all have some merits. I don't see @Donald doing anything wrong other than loving his job.

Saying this a clear list of changes like what @hmscott mentioned would have been great...

Peace ☮️

 

Something that always puzzled me and I see people here not considering is how safe is to undervolt.

I remember there is a 101 in power electronics that if you undervolt quite a lot the gate may be half open meaning that there is both significant voltage and current across it at the same time resulting in power build up that will lead to overheating, which can even kill circuits. Isn't this the case for CPUs?

 

Would be cool if we had a top down view IR image to see how heat builds up on the case with and without the mod.

 

No need. Just follow up PCH and NVMe ssd’s maximum temperature during high load with proper test software (use stock fan profiles).

The fan holes mod is perfect for use with a proper notebook cooler. And some people here forget the internal notebook fans will have a much better lifespan as well the Cpu/Gpu with the Bottom cover mod.

 

@Phoenix @Donald@HIDevolution @Falkentyne -

After modifying the BIOS settings that HIDevolution will be doing as standard, what are the CPU and GPU temps under AIDA64 stress test (15-20 mins) with the Conductonaut CPU+GPU repaste and Fujipoly pads, bottom ventilation mod at a CPU OC of 4.5GHz or more (all cores)? If any undervolt was applied, what was it?

Thanks a lot in advance. If you guys can't share this info in this thread, if possible, either PM me or I will PM you if you mention it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I do this kind of mod on my first gaming taptop ever and it was an medion erazer X6823 which was an MS-16F3.
there i use the Fan Profile Applier by Pherein and the U3 mod.
the temps at the beginning were arround 100° and after using the complete modifcation of Fan Profile Applier by Pherein, bottom hole and u3 i had between 82-90° on the cores.
what i do as well since my first modding attempst is cooper polish (without silicon) for the hs on cpu and gpu. to ensure that the cooper is clean. just some degrees 1-3° maybe a little more.

I'm sure we know it all but what we should not to forget... MSI, AW, Gigabyte or EVGA produce gaming taptops for gamers which are not freaky like us.
and they can only make money when they bring out new devices with new specs see the GT75 which supports 2666Mhz if you using only 32Gb (2x16GB) when you use only 2 slots instead of four.
i'm sure we will see this year taptops which will support 2666Mhz on all four slots. the onlyx question is who will be the first company ?

 

That's one of the tools we used to view the changes in temperatures after stopping the air flow over the motherboard, but due to the closed nature of the laptop case, it blurred the changes and required long runs to see the differences.

If you pull the case parts off to get a clear IR shot at components, you've opened up the laptop to air flow and temperatures drop quickly.

Better and quicker views were from running thermal probes to components that didn't have thermal readings available. Like the memory, PCH, and other components that shone through with more heat after longer runs.

Part of the improvement from cutting the holes is reducing air pressure - draw of the air through the short path vs the original long path through the chassis.

The other part of the improvement is that through the holes you draw air at ambient (lower in temperature) vs a few degrees hotter air that has picked up heat from the other laptop components while being drawn over them from the front of the laptop to the back of the laptop.

You can't cut holes and then tell people they need a high pressure laptop fan solution to cool the rest of the laptop, as most of the time when mobile you won't have that option. Also, since there is no air being pulled through the vents in the bottom and front you need to force the air at much higher pressure from a laptop cooler to get into and through the laptop, otherwise you are only cooling the case / exterior.

In the long run this was all tried by someone that wanted to try the mod, and he ended up blocking the holes and recommending others not do the mod as the trade-off wasn't good.

Besides, if you already aren't thermal throttling from undervolting - or making other BIOS changes - you don't need to re-paste, re-pad, or punch holes through your laptop bottom case.

I wonder how MSI will view this mod cutting off cooling air over the motherboard and storage components, perhaps causing component failure issues long term, and how cutting those holes will affect the warranty support?

Really, all you need to do is undervolt - or make BIOS changes that modify voltage behavior - to fix the too high voltage out of the box causing the CPU to get too hot.A

fter you tune the voltage and stop thermal throttling, any other mods are vanity mods - or in the case of punching holes in the laptop - Frankenstein mod's.

 

@Phoenix when you are done copying that 10TB of data and can boot to BIOS to see your changes, please provide the simple list of BIOS options changed, what the default / original setting was, and a simple explanation for each change.

Basically what you would post to a newbie so they won't confuse what to change, from what to what, and why. Maybe even before / after screen shots to make it even clearer.

Thank you

 

I'm afraid I won't be able to post those settings because of a few things:

1) These are @Falkentyne settings and I have no authority publishing them

2) These settings worked on my taptop, if they do any damage to someone else's system, I will be held responsible (ie. Hi guys, I used Phoenix's settings and now I see smoke from my taptop, what shall I do? )

People who are having heat issues need to contact MSI maybe that way they'll be more motivated to fix their horrid stock BIOS settings

 

Wow, but... wait, what?

You've always shared such settings before, and just told us you would tell us again, so what's the difference now? What changed over the last few hours?

Unless changes are published, I wouldn't trust getting a laptop with unknown unexplained changes... would you? Wouldn't you want a clear explanation as to what was changed and why before buying a modded laptop?

This is why mixing commercial proprietary interests in open shared environments like this is a corrupting influence, and why in the past interventions like this by vendors was prohibited. And still should be.

Well, I hope someone comes clean for the NBR members, or take the development cycle out of the public view if you don't intend on sharing the contributions that in total made the solutions, we shouldn't be made to suffer with the process - and have our time wasted - for no shared benefits.

Sheesh, what a mess.

 

The difference now is I am not the author. I have no right sharing someone else's knowledge as I gotta be honest I would've never figured this crap on my own.

 

We the NBR forum members are all the author, the changes are based on long term development here in this thread and others, with lots of people contributing time and experimentation to the solution.

Certainly lots of shared angst suffering through the months of incomprehensible posts throttling normal conversations with the never ending cycle, and now we don't see useful results?

See my previous post, I went into more detail there.

Sorry you got pulled into this, I know you share what you do without limits, except time of course.

 

@Falkentyne could you please share the settings publicly, or authorize @Phoenix to share them?

@Phoenix You are not liable for anyone's computer. Here we are all adults and understand the risks. It's a community thing after all.

 

Did you try undervolting this laptop as you did your previous GT73, making the other fan and application tunings? I am guessing no, since you just started and have everything else at stock settings.

It would be nice to run both ways and see the difference between simple undervolting and the new BIOS changes. Can you please do that as you progress through getting to know your new GT75?

 

I try my best to NOT undervolt. The more you undervolt the more stability issues arise. I don't need to undervolt as it stands with the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut + Fujipoly Pads + Bottom Lid Ventilation mod that I got from HIDevolution afterf @Falkentyne did his magic on my laptop. Everything running fine now with no throttling so...

On my previous GT73, I didn't have to undervolt as well after changing IC Diamond to Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and was able to raise the overclock to 4.4 GHz

 

Well, because the mods aren't being shared, the only option others have now is being forced to purchase from HID, or use undervolting.

Turning shared community results into a proprietary advantage for one vendor isn't the expected result.

If you are still here to help people, those people with laptops purchased everywhere else will only have undervolting available as an option to tame the CPU voltage.

Providing a comparison between undervolting and the mystery BIOS changes would be a fair compromise to sharing the data developed here, at least better than nothing.

Undervolt tuning delivers stable results, you know that too, which makes your comment suspect in a way that makes me very uncomfortable with the rest of your statement.

I really hope you don't continue down this path, as it's going to taint everyone involved.

 

I don't owe anyone ANYTHING buddy. I will not be instructed what to post. Why does it feel like you're burning deep inside?

We all see what you're trying to do here

 

Yeah I'm am trying to keep a vendor from taking community results at a point keeping them hidden so only they benefit from them.

And, as long established I am trying to help everyone from getting pulled into making BIOS changes that don't matter, when simple undervolting solves the problem.

That's what commercial interests do, down play the simple solutions, and take complex solutions made proprietary to take commercial advantage.

Another step is to call long established solutions "unstable" to cast doubt, to be solved with stacks of your money on their proprietary solution.

We are all seeing it unfold right in front of us in real-time. It's obvious to me, and I am sure to many others. For the rest of you, do some critical rational thinking before encouraging such behavior, or rewarding it financially.

Ask the tough questions of your vendor, have they tested their mods for side effects, are the mods approved by MSI or the laptop maker involved for long term warranty support, and most importantly, do I really need to pay all this money to you to get a working laptop out of the box, can't I just get one at retail, undervolt, and enjoy my laptop?

They only care about money, so if you stop the flow of money they won't have a reason to continue their efforts, and mend their ways to be a little less ruthless and be more community minded.

 

Doing all the settings means using the MSI BIOS unlock key-combo, which (just like many persistent 'unlocked BIOS' out there) expose options that can also permanently brick the system, so...yeah...Phoenix is simply between a rock and hard place here, so let him be.

 

The unlock combo, or an unlocked BIOS is needed to set the negative operand for undervolting as well, simply stating that undervolting BIOS glitch without sharing the unlock combo, with a pointer to Svet on the MSI forums is all that is needed to share the undervolting BIOS mod.

Many are confused as to why the negative symbol can't be set in the stock BIOS, letting them know they need an unlocked BIOS relieves many from banging their heads against that brick wall.

The BIOS mod for undervolting is fine for those that want to go that extra step for using Linux or not needing DGC or XTU / TS running in Windows. But, it's not required, because undervolting can be done from the OS.

We don't expect the unlock combo to be shared, but certainly naming the BIOS settings to change, their original default and the changed values are ok to share, right? Then point them to Svet to get an unlocked BIOS.

It's not a good excuse, sorry Prema.

 

What the heck are you so upset about? Do you have this laptop? NO! So what help are you expecting?

The undervolting or even the magical @Falkentyne settings require the unlocked BIOS and it is NOT going to be publicized as MSI will void any warranty if the laptop is bricked or the settings caused damage and believe me it has so many settings it's scary, one wrong thing you do and you can destroy your laptop so no we are not going to share the settings. Keep banging your head against the wall. Not going to happen

 

You don't need to share the unlock combo, just share the setting names, default values and what the new value needs to be, all of them required to make the mod.

Then point them to Svet to get an unlocked BIOS for $50 (be nice he deserves that much) or $20 if that's all you can afford, and then they can make the changes themselves.

There are plenty of times we've pointed people to Svet to get the unlock BIOS, so they can explore what it offers.

Why be shy now?

Even if you recommend against individuals making the changes as they are too dangerous , at least people will know what the mystery settings are, you've shared them.

 

Those 'unlock everything BIOS' expose even more non-working 'brick options' than doing the key-combo, so that's not something you would direct regular user to to actually help them...

 

Wasn't you who said unlocked bios ain't for the novise people? I think you should re'read all your posts, Hmscott!!

 

I think we need to get @ryzeki in here.

Every time someone has posted the "mod" (which is not even that but that combo), they have been directly asked to REMOVE it. I had to ask several people who posted it themselves to remove it. It's been posted elsewhere (not notebookreview) but I'm not getting into that.

The issue is if people start spamming information, MSI may completely remove the ability to do so in the future. And, even worse, they could turn around and enable Bios Guard, which would prevent EVERYONE, including Svet, from unlocking any bios menus at all. And then you get stuff like this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r5-owners-lounge.815492/page-23#post-10720235

And this poor user can't even try to tame the beast because doing so would result in a brick!

Do you guys really want that?
100C on stock dell settings.
You guys want that? Really?

The change itself is common knowledge. I've probably posted it 100 times now.
However I am NOT THE PERSON WHO FOUND THIS MOD. I need to make this clear and direct. It was brother @sirgeorge who found it. and he posted his results directly in the MSI GT73VR thread. Except he had to use a value of 10 rather than 1. (values of 1, 2 and 3 were extremely unstable on the SKYLAKE GT73VR, and Ryzeki had problems with a value of 1 on his too. It's fine on kaby lake. Could be hardware bug, as I learned from the chinese forums, that the 6820HK used a 1.0 revision of the GT73VR mainboard, while the 7820HK used revision 1.1. This also makes sense because @Arestavo kept having 'white screen' crash issues on his GT73VR 1070 SLI (6820HK) that was not the 'pascal crash problem', as it occurred when copying large files over, and MSI took SIX MONTHS and finally they were able to reproduce the problem, and they said it was a hardware flaw and was not fixable. They wound up sending @Arestavo a 7820HK 1070 SLI system after all of that.

It's changing IA AC DC loadline from 0 (on GT73VR and GT75VR), which is auto, which defaults to 1.80 mOhms, or 179 on GT75 (probably GT83 also), to 1 (0.01 mOhms).
That's not a trade secret and I don't mind posting that.

the PROBLEM is MSI hides this option. Not only that, changing this option to the wrong value can be more dangerous than changing vcore to a high value. You can actually destroy the motherboard if you go anywhere near the upper limits. The EC would probably save you in windows by shutting the laptop off, but if you wound up putting 1.7v through your CPU while in the Bios (the bios is capped at 1.5 max), you are going to destroy the mainboard.

Even a value of 400 (4 mOhms), which is double the Intel reference value, is enough to turn 1.0v into 1.3v. And it goes up to 62 mOhms. Although a lot of MSI Bios settings only work up to the halfway point then it starts over like it's 0 again (e.g. IMON OFFSET has a maximum value of 63999 or -63999. But going past 31999 (e.g. 32000) is the same as using a value of 0.

There are only 4 things useful in the advanced bios menus anyway, that actually have benefit to the common user:

1) GT73VR and GT73VR: System Agent->PEG Port configuration: Enable root port->Change from auto to Enabled. Note: The GT75 Titan allows you to use the iGPU via the System Agent settings area also, but again, setting the wrong option=black screen. Not fun right?

This permanently and completely prevents the black screen bug (only other option is to clear cmos, and if you dont know how, you RMA) that occurs when you change dGPU ->iGPU->dGPU under certain conditions. This bug has caused SEVERAL RMA's of perfectly good laptops back to MSI in the past and has affected multiple users here, and MSI released a bios to "correct this bug" but in fact it didn't correct it. It only corrected one trigger of it but there were multiple triggers.

2) Offset voltage (negative): in Overclocking Performance Menu--allows undervolting without having to use windows softwares to do it. TBH someone is going to call MSI dumb or stupid for not having negative offset voltage in the "OC" section to begin with, but this was AMI's decision. None of the AMI Bioses have negative offset undervolting possible in standard menus. Because when people overclock, they *drumroll, please* usually need MORE voltage, not less. Why would AMI allow undervolting in basic menus to correct a design oddity that has nothing to do with them?

3) IA AC DC Loadline; changing this from auto (1.80 mOhms, or 180) to 1 (0.01 mOhms) removes the VID (voltage identification) boost which raises the voltage based on current, at load, with the higher the current, the more the voltage is boosted. The issue here is that this is an Intel intentionally designed specification that is supposed to work with Adaptive voltages to help stabilize systems when overclocking. This setting isn't actually the problem. The problem is actually something else:

3.1) IA AC DC loadline INCORRECTLY applies voltage boost to STATIC (manual) voltages rather than only adaptive voltages. Desktop motherboards ignore this setting when using standard voltages. the problem is that there is no vCORE sensor on these laptops, so the true vcore, which cannot be read, is derived from VID. Alienware laptops also apply IA AC DC loadline (Auto) value to static voltages incorrectly (eVGA laptops do not do that), also (which basically means, if you enter 1.25v as your static voltage because you think you need 1.25v for that 4.3 ghz overclock), you're going to have 1.25v at IDLE (since there is low resistance since the current at idle is low), but at full load (cinebench, Realbench, prime95, AIDA64 FPU test) that 1.25v is going to turn into 1.4v !!! and, the VID shown will not be accurate due to a "MSI Design issue":

3.2): MSI Design issue: MSI uses a preset setting well known to desktop overclockers, called Loadline Calibration (LLC), which is set to a medium level. This is done to minimize the efffect of vdroop. Vdroop is an intel designed specification that DROPS voltage under load, based on power draw--the more draw, the more the voltage drop. I BELIEVE the AMOUNT Of voltage drop is the SAME as the mOhms of RESISTANCE causing VOLTAGE RISE with IA AC DC loadline ! (1.80 mOhms). Someone would have to call Intel and ask for one of their high IQ engineers and ask them what the vdroop resistance slope is, when loadline calibration (LLC) is disabled on desktop boards, but this seems like a close guess. Vdroop is designed to prevent processor damage caused by "transient voltage spikes" that occur when the CPU changes quickly from a load state to an idle state, and vice versa. It's by design, but vdroop is bad for overclocking because the voltage may drop far lower than what is required for stability, so people usually apply low to medium amounts of loadline calibration to compensate. Having the LLC so high that the voltage RISES AT full load is *BAD* and can cause huge voltage spikes which can seriously degrade your processor.

And now you see the problem.

You have TWO different mechanisms, which are basically supposed to do the same thing, working at the SAME TIME:
1) IA AC DC loadline applying voltage boost of 1.80 mOhms of resistance at full load (intel designed specification).

2) MSI internal loadline calibration setting which users have NO access to and cannot be disabled (MSI design choice).

Combine the two and you get VOLTAGE BOOST AT LOAD and OVERHEATING.
I don't even think that it's possible to use both simultaneously on desktop motherboards. I haven't done enough research as I don't have a "current" desktop mainboard, but I am almost sure that "Loadline Calibration" (LLC) doesn't work with adaptive voltages on desktop boards.
And if it does, it should NOT BE USED simultaneously with the default IA AC DC loadline with adaptive voltages!

Basically, two things would have been fine here:
1) MSI NOT using internal loadline calibration to stop vdroop. Then there would be no problems. Everyone would be happy. there would be peace in the world. And IA AC DC loadline changing to "1" would do nothing but cause massive instability because you would have FULL complete vdroop with adaptive voltages, meaning even the default VID of your processor might not be stable. So you leave everything alone and NO ONE is unhappy. AND NO MSI LAPTOP WOULD EVER NEED TO BE UNDERVOLTED, EVER, EVER.

Because:
There would be vdroop.
IA AC DC loadline of 1.80 mOhms (Auto) would remove that vdroop
the voltage point would then be flat.


2) MSI shipping all their laptops to default IA AC DC Loadline to 1, and keeping their internal loadline calibration setting.
Since MSI is using LLC to stop vdroop, there is therefore no need to have voltage boost to stop vdroop. that's basically what we're 'doing' here.

Unfortunately the only way to access IA AC DC loadline is by unlocking Bios menus, and there are only 3 ways to do this:
A) Paloesco's method (AGAIN, Sirgeorge is the one who posted this first!!!), with AMIBCP 5.0.2 and dumping the aptio capsule with FPTW64.
and then disabling the Bios Lock option via a EFI boot menu option.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-clear-cmos-and-prevent-common-issues.812372/

This works, I've tested it, but there is a risk of bricking as always with stuff like this.

B) Donating to the MSI Guru Svet and having him make an automated flasher for you (he manually will unlock menus himself which takes HOURS), but very low risk of bricking this way.

C) the bios unlock combination keys which no one is allowed or wanting to post, because this being leaked all over could cause MSI to completely remove this brick free option, as well as do what Alienware did (which is why Paloesco's method won't work on that mess!) and have Bios Guard enabled, preventing any bios unlocking at all. (BIOS GUARD is NOT the same as bios lock. Removing Bios guard is basically impossible, you would have to re-write the PCH to do that).

It's a sad situation where no matter what is said or done, someone is going to get mad at someone. whether it's brother Papusan, brother Prema, brother Phoenix, brother Mr. Fox, brother Ryzeki or brother me.....

Or you can just buy a desktop and be done with it.

 

Yeah, my recommendations in the past as well, don't get the unlocked BIOS as the changes you can make are few, and the changes that matter can brick your laptop, so stay within the vendor BIOS options and settings from Windows, undervolting is enough.

Now, practically speaking, given someone buys a laptop with these changes in the BIOS, what if they get cleared during some event the user experiences?

They aren't going to be given the BIOS unlock combo, and from what you and @Phoenix are saying they won't be given the information so they can set the settings themselves, so are they going to need to RMA the laptop back to the seller to restore the settings?

It seems like straightforward instructions on how and what to set, in what order, with strong warnings to not vary or change the settings and not change any other settings unlocked, would be possible, so they could be sent to the owner so they wouldn't need to ship back their laptop for restoring the BIOS settings?

Right? That's all we are asking for here. To share the settings, and if you feel it's required - probably is - clear instructions as a step by step how to direct people in a safe way to make the unlocked BIOS changes, as many times has been done in the past.

IDK what the confusion is, in order for these changes to be practical to laptop buyers as a product you will need to provide a restore path should those BIOS settings be lost.

I don't understand why all these complications are necessary to get a perfectly good laptop to work out of the box. I think it's all gilding the lily to encourge people to spend $ they don't need to, and limit their purchasing options, like with the Prema BIOS partners situation.

That would be very sad if the Clevo Prema BIOS paradigm was brought to MSI laptops and caused people to feel bad about buying their laptops from Retail or other Boutique sellers because they aren't part of the BIOS partnership.

What a mess.

 

This is great reviews! I am looking forward to your review. In the meanwhile could you please comment on the mean noise levels under average load?

 

It's really hot in here. Gotta love the MSI section...

OK, here my 2c and then I am dipping back to Clevo Island:

- @Phoenix will surely try just to do some basic undervolt and TDP settings when he finds the time, so regular user can get the best out of what they have.

- @Falkentyne This guy below has a VERY valid point and I would suggest to use a loadline value of 25 minimum to prevent something along those lines. Even if not visible by just temperatures due to only being valid during switching at specific power states/clocks:

@hmscott hugs

 

Right back at you Prema, nothing but love, sharing, and caring for all, always.