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    ***The Official MSI GT80S Titan (w/desktop 980 GPU's) Owner's Lounge***

    Discussion in 'MSI Reviews & Owners' Lounges' started by -=$tR|k3r=-, Dec 15, 2015.

  1. Frankzro

    Frankzro Notebook Consultant

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    I added Hyper X 32 GB of RAM, two 950 PRO 512s and a 2TB VNAND PRO. I got pics :D
     
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  2. ryzeki

    ryzeki Super Moderator Super Moderator

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    Ok ok. lets get this over with! The new GT80 with 980 SLI is the new beast. Yes it is expensive, and yes it is quite fast.

    I will have to please ask anyone interested in comparisons/testings to please create a new thread for that. We need to keep the Owner's thread for specific owners and possible issues/fixes/situations among owners. This is not a pleasing thread so that we flood it with requests, random rants, speculations on whether the GPUs work or don't because of the PSU, on how it is "crap" to spend XXX money on this machine or anything.

    I will not tolerate coming to the thread just to insult/bother actual owners due to their decision to buy this machine. Actual owner discussions might be even lost between posts. We have seen this situation in the original GT80 thread where a question is often answered 2-3 pages AFTER.

    This thread is for owners, by owners. If an owner needs help, he comes to this thread to find relevant info. I don't want owners to feel alienated out of their own thread where half the posts are just random comments on how expensive it is or "please test this XXX setting" and even potential, more naive owners, testing without knowledge on how they can damage their hardware, just to please a request.

    I am NOT saying we shouldn't discuss testing and tweaks, please do so, but we will need to move it to another thread, and it does NOT need to be a testing thread for GT80s of any particular model or family. There are users that really want info or answers and they can definitely get them there, because so far we have a very good active community with great contributors.

    The GT80 family will only get bigger, and if we keep things as they are, there will be chaos haha :)
     
  3. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    What type M.2 SSD's can be installed in this model GT80? I know they are all (2280/NGFF/M.2) but are all three SATA compatible? I know the left two are PCIe compatible and the right one is SATA, but I cannot find any info if all three can run the slower SATA mode. Related to this, can the three drives, in any certain configuration, be configured for RAID 0?

    I'm asking because I back my stuff up very often, and have no concern of a drive failure, and much prefer to not have a bunch of small drives with data spread across them. I could use drive spaces to combine them, but I think windows just fills one up completely before moving on to the next. If it were to fill them all equally then that would be acceptable too.

    I am just asking about the M.2 slots, I'm not concerned with the 2.5" one.
     
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  4. hmscott

    hmscott Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    If you have a good feeling how we should seggrate the posts according to merit / topic, would you please make a thread hierarchy to hold them properly? Titling them with ***Official*** would also help.

    Also, how will new people know where to go? I would think they would come here first, and ask their "annoying" questions, since this is where they think "owners" that know the answers congregate, and are happy to help.

    Right now the GT80, GT80S 980 ***Official*** threads are the only official meeting places.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2016
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  5. ryzeki

    ryzeki Super Moderator Super Moderator

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    Right now, the reason why there are only two GT80 official topics is because GT80 was caught in a particular situation.

    GT80 launched in the same year where it got 2 additional CPU generation upgrades. Within 2015 alone we had GT80 with haswell, broadwell and skylake. Not only that, but we had models with 965m, 970m, 980m, both SLI and single GPU. Not only that, but we learned that apparently single GPU solutions could not become SLI or something of the sort? Don't remember. To make matters worse, we also had a new major OS release, with both win 8.1 and 10 models of the same hardware. And then we had the 980 SLI version.

    Since GT80 is the flagship expensive model, and it had so many variations and models within the same 1 year span, and we as owners know it isn't exactly an affordable notebook :D hahaha, well, let's say there aren't too many owners of each particular model configuration.

    Anyways, the new GT80S with 980 SLI is on a better position as it is almost exclusively a single configuration.

    As for actual threads, we don't need an official testing thread, it can be just a new thread aimed to get info you want. For example, do you want to know about the CPU or the GPU? Make a Skylake thread so we can test the CPUs of any models you want. For example, it's not the same to ask "how fast can the 6820HK be" compared to "how loud is the fan under load?" Mainly because 25 laptops can have 6820HK but only GT80s will have those fans. Same for GPUs etc, or SSD or miscellaneous hardware.

    We can make as many topics as needed, but the idea is to keep specific threads for owners where they can gather to discuss their particular models. Making topics and staying on the topics allows us to have a wealth of information, instead of having few broad topics discussing a lot of different things.

    We never created GT80 for each CPU gen or GPU on them, mainly for the reasons mentioned (not nearly enough users of any 1 particular model/gen). Plus Broadwell and Haswell users share a lot in common. But we should really have an owner's thread for the different main models of GT80. For example, Haswell issues won't plague Broadwell models.

    BACK ON TOPIC TIME!
     
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  6. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Anyone with 3dMark on Steam can get the nearly impossible "mystery machine" achievement where you have to run a benchmark with hardware unrecognizable by 3dMark. I thought it was pretty funny to get. I know there are some achievement hunters out there ;)

    It looks like its the GPU's that show up as "VGA Adapter" in the tests. That's weird, with stock drivers and updated drivers it shows that in the 3DMark results. Also the CPU shows unknown.

    Oh well, unless it's a fluke for just me, take advantage of it and get the achievement before they add the desktop 980 & 6920 CPU to the list!
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2016
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  7. EphemeralSagacity

    EphemeralSagacity Newbie

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    Anyone have tips on rolling this clean with Win7 Ultimate from USB ISO? (Have the MSI GT80S 6QF-074US)

    So far I have:
    Enter bios by holding del at boot
    Boot->Boot mode, Change:UEIF to Legacy
    Boot->Fast Boot, Change: Enabled to Disabled

    This gets it so that I can boot from the USB and to the Windows loading files. After selecting language/region/timezone and proceeding I get immediately thrown to "A required CD/DVD device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD or USB flash drive, please insert it now."

    On the msi site it doesn't look like the drivers for the most part are packed to just throw on the USB and run (at least for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology I didn't see any INF files...and that was after running the setup to try and extract stuff on a machine that it wasn't supported on *cringe*).

    Pointers, tips and tricks much appreciated.
     
  8. -=$tR|k3r=-

    -=$tR|k3r=- Notebook Virtuoso

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  9. Kevin@GenTechPC

    Kevin@GenTechPC Company Representative

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    You need to have USB 3.0/3.1 driver slipstreamed otherwise the USB flash drive cannot be detected.
    Copy the USB 3.0/3.1 driver onto a CD disc, then load the driver from it so the USB flash drive can be recognized.

    Or you can just install a fresh OS from the Win7 installation CD/DVD disc.
     
  10. hoofhearted

    hoofhearted Notebook Evangelist

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    I've been considering the idea of getting a GT80S w 980sli. With the way the whole PNB situation is going, it is good to see that the SLI-072 model is available on Newegg and Amazon now. Would this be safer than purchasing through one of these resellers? I don't see Amazon and Newegg going out of business anytime soon and even so, I can't see them stiffing customers like this. $4600 is alot of money to put at risk.
     
  11. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    If you want some customization or want better support you could go through one of the other resellers besides PNB.

    You can buy from Amazon or Newegg safely, but realize you won't get any after sales support and no customization like you would with one of the other resellers. I think it usually takes a few more days to get it from a reseller vs Amazon or Newegg who just ship out the box as is.

    So it really depends on what you want and value.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2016
  12. hmscott

    hmscott Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    When buying retail, always make sure the item is in stock before paying for it. Never order when it is out of stock. Find another place that has the item in stock. That's the benefit of buying retail. They have it, you pay for it, they ship it as fast as you want, and that's that.

    If you have Amazon Prime, go with an Amazon source for the purchase, don't just click to buy, look at all the options for buying new, and sort by Prime and pick the one from Amazon.

    Many of the boutique sellers sell through Amazon, and people buy through Amazon instead of directly with the boutique dealer to get Amazon Prime protection.

    That would not be buying at retail, and it would end up being even more confusing than working directly with the boutique seller. To be avoided for everyone's sake. Better to buy directly from the Boutique dealer and use Credit Card protection - don't send a Cashiers Cheque or pay with a wire transfer.

    Never pay for expedited or rush build, or anything else that is offered to get it shipped quicker. After 3 months, shipping overnight delivery isn't a rush build / delivery ;)

    Amazon Prime is still the best option for making sure you are covered on a return or problem resolution. If you don't have Amazon Prime, this is a good time to buy it, ask over the phone for the Amazon Prime operator and see if you can combine a membership with your purchase for a discount.

    Amazon Prime is only $99 for a year, and offers lots of free stuff besides free shipping, and hassle free returns.

    Newegg is good too, get in contact with them as soon as you notice a problem with the order, delivery, unboxing, power on, etc. Be specific when you report the error online, and then follow up with a phone call to verify what action they want to take.

    If you inspect the box on the outside before signing for it, and find physical damage, I would take a picture of it and refuse delivery due to damage, then call Amazon/Newegg immediately and report the problem, send them the photo(s), and ask when they are going to send out the replacement.

    I only mention these things because you need to be prepared to notice problems, and have a plan of action to resolve them quickly.

    I run into too many people that through inaction leave time run out and have to then pay a restocking fee, usually 15-20%.

    Usually you only have 14 days to return, but you might be able to negociate longer when you order. Make sure your receipt/confirmation shows the return time limit / date.

    And, don't waste time with a dud, return it right away.

    You don't want to send it in for RMA repair at the vendor site, that takes much longer than a return RMA and reshipment of a new unit from the seller - usually they will do them at the same time.

    Oh yeah, don't bother with 3rd party warranties, I just read the one on Amazon - it said "If we cannot fix or replace your item, we will refund you the remaining portion of your warranty" Right.

    Please let us know what you end up doing, and how it works out :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2016
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  13. hoofhearted

    hoofhearted Notebook Evangelist

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    Thank you for this. My college-aged daughter has been trying to talk me into Amazon prime for months now. So this works.
     
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  14. hmscott

    hmscott Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    You can get a college Amazon Prime for her too, that may be best and cheaper for the purchase. It's worth reading up on the Amazon Prime and Amazon "College" discount options.

    Free movies, tv series, documentaries, books, streaming music, etc, etc. Even free grocery delivery if you live in a Amazon Fresh area :)

    The Amazon Prime concierges via phone, or maybe start with Chat, can help you organize the best purchase options / order to get the best benefits.

    Another option to consider if you have a Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, or Microcenter within reasonable driving distance is to special order through them so you can inspect the unit at purchase in their support department.

    That is how I bought my GT80. Fry's took 2 weeks to get in stock and I was able to test it out, do the MSI BurnRecovery there - I bought USB 3.0 flash drives right then, and when I walked out I knew what I had purchased was working.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2016
  15. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yes I am quoting myself :)

    You should be able to use a SATA M.2 in the two left slots where the PCIe NVMe SSDs come installed. Obviously they would run at slower speeds. I did not actually install anything or try to use it past booting into BIOS and seeing the SATA drive in each slot.

    As expected, the PCIe drives don't work in the right hand slot. They actually don't even fit because they are keyed differently.

    You can RAID anything together, but they do have to match SATA or PCIe as it says "cannot span controllers" when trying to combine a PCIe and a SATA.

    I went the route of getting dual 512GB PCIe and a single 512GB SATA, but in a way I wish I would have got 2 more of the cheaper 512GB so I could raid all three together into a single 1.5TB drive. It still would have been plenty fast for me.
     
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  16. hmscott

    hmscott Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    You could still get a 2.5" version of the same model 512GB you have as M.2 SATA, and 2x RAID0 those :)
     
  17. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    I have a 2TB already sitting in that spot. And a 512GB SD card too. :D And I am not willing to give up my optical bay.
     
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  18. hmscott

    hmscott Notebook Nobel Laureate

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  19. lichensoul

    lichensoul Notebook Evangelist

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    Is there any idea when the Bios update will be out for the 6th gen processor?
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2016
  20. EphemeralSagacity

    EphemeralSagacity Newbie

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    That was quite an adventure.

    In order to keep the GPT partition I needed to change the bios boot to UEFI + CSM.

    One can just press and hold F11 while booting to select the boot device (used USB...much faster) but did need to ensure the USB drivers were accessible.

    I needed to integrate the intel chipset and mass storage drivers into the boot.wim and install.wim using dism.

    I also had to change a configuration in IRST because I kept getting nasty stalls O(secs) with the following in the system event log: iaStorA: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

    In the INSR UI switched Performance -> Link Power Management from "Enabled" to "Disabled"

    Will monitor, but stalls seem to be completely gone.

    As to why would you want win7...well this is for those that intend to use this beast on an extremely heavily graphics modded skyrim. On win10 and win 8 the video memory consumption was limited to exactly 4 GB. Win 7 does not have this problem for ENB. While it is true that tesv is a 32 bit dx9 app, the 4GB limit applies to the app and not the VRAM usage.

    All drivers and patches are now installed, event log is coming up clean on errors, and zero bloatware. Time to image and then get on to the fun testing.
     
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  21. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Is there a place to save the keyboard backlight setting? For me it resets to max brightness, which is super bright I must say, and I have to manually lower it to the lowest "on" setting. I have looked all over but I'm hoping I just missed it.
     
  22. hmscott

    hmscott Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Yeah, it's kinda tricky, the big red banner that shows under your Gear in SteelSeries systray app is clickable, click it and the selected Profile opens up (Default).

    Then change the setting on the huge lightbulb - Global Illumination - on the far right, first setting is Off, then Save the profile - I save it to Default 2, and then it will come up without backlight :)

    steelseries 3.64 default 2 profile - lights off.JPG
     
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  23. Katiecat

    Katiecat Notebook Consultant

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    Well gosh do I feel silly now. Turns out the optical bay is 6Gbps on the GT80S. >> Probably should've verified that before cutting up a perfectly good caddy. At least now I can add another M.2 drive.
     
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  24. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Thank you so much for this. I glanced there originally, but I was thinking that program was only for messing with key combination/macros etc, dummy me didn't think about the keyboard lighting being there too.

    I am one happy camper, I don't really have any complaints about this machine so far. I was expecting to get the gold keycaps, and possibly even a mouse but didn't get either. I knew about that possibility before purchase though. I had my own mouse and I bought some red keycaps off amazon already. I just put them on the WASD for now as those keys will wear the most for me, and these are textured so they will be easier to find and stay on top of while gaming.

    I like the way the machine is so user serviceable. I mean popping the top and bottom off are super easy. I've had many laptops where you have to pry something loose and try not to damage anything, and sometimes they have wires you have to disconnect which worries me after several times taking them on and off.

    I did manage to drop one of the small M.2 slot screws INTO my machine when I had it open. I was on the phone (so i was distracted) and I wasn't being careful enough. Well I tried to get it to roll out the top which I had open, but the more I moved the machine around the deeper it fell inside. I decided to take the bottom panel off and hope for it to fall out that way. By the time I got the dozen or so screws off, the screw wasn't rolling around anymore!

    I looked and looked but finally decided to try to power it up and hope the screw didn't cause any electrical problems. It booted up fine, I used it for a couple hours. I finally was ready to put the bottom and top back on knowing there was a loose screw somewhere inside which would bother me forever. I robbed a like screw from the optical drive connector which was right next to the SSDs. Powered down and picked up the machine to put the bottom on, and the screw had fallen out and was sitting right under it now.

    I was so happy, put all the screws back (had to count them a couple times because I couldn't believe it magically showed up like that. I mean I shook the machine, rotated it, and the screw was not making and noise at all and it just "fell" out while I was using it in the normal position.

    Anyway, long story but I wanted to share, so others would be much more careful than I was especially with those little screws.
     
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  25. hoofhearted

    hoofhearted Notebook Evangelist

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    Needle nose pliers are always good for grabbing them screws that like to jump into those hard to reach spots.
     
  26. zipperi

    zipperi Notebook Deity

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    I use Blu-Tack on the screwdriver.
     
  27. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Thanks. The driver was actually magnetized but just didn't have enough pull to hold on to the screw. I bet if I re-magnetized the driver bit it would have worked ok for me.
     
  28. ole!!!

    ole!!! Notebook Prophet

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    can anyone post a screenshot of cpuz of their 6820hk or 6900hq at 4ghz, looking for vid
     
  29. EphemeralSagacity

    EphemeralSagacity Newbie

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    Well, must say that extremely heavily modded skyrim runs on this beast very smoothly. I have the Unbleak ENB preset as a base but tweak up all the enb quality settings to the max and enable all the bells and whisltes. After modding there is on the order of 100 GB of textures 2 & 4K texture sizes as a min...about everything is retexed (all of SMC - skyrim mod combiner - and then augments on top). Have ~400 esps (merged ~200 into one to avoid the 255 plugin limit) with script heavy mods like frostfall, wet and cold, ineed, Perma, SoT Ultimate Deadly Encounters, ASIS, footprints, headtracking, skymo, sic, immersive patrols, convenient horses, eff, obis, hdt hair+armor+bodies... (took on and off about 2 months to put together in anticipation for what I thought this system should be capable of handling).

    Note, on Win10 this setup was restricted to 4 GB VRAM. As a result it was both unstable and framerates frequently hit 15 fps as there was memory thrashing from textures. It was...well disappointing.

    So, enter the upgrade to Win7. Here the same setup uses ~ 6 GB VRAM on each card (bye bye cache thrashing). This is not due to inefficiencies, but with this codebase more vram can be utilized for skyrim with ENBoost. The mins for FPS are at ~35 fps in demanding areas driving the gpus at a steady 70-80% and fans running on full hairdryer mode. Note many of the cores are getting pushed on the proc at sustained levels of ~70-80% as well. This is all stock, just tweaked the environment. Of course enboost and skse and hdt memory patches so skyrim itself remains stable under this torture test.

    I'll likely tweak with some of the overclocking settings mentioned in the thread to push better but the experience was sublime. Skyrim was better than any modern game I've played with this rig and all the mods. Any inferior gaming rid would cry uncle under this setup. Cannot wait for Skywind :)

    The only negative is that the dac produces atrocious sounds in the game. Voices go quiet (or provide a bizarre echo with the softness when nahimic is enabled). I could not get that to work and was reduced to the basic headphone jac which resolved myself to parity with my previous rig for sound. I have vmoda crossfade m100 for my headset and was hoping that this would really bring it to life...sadly no.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2016
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  30. hoofhearted

    hoofhearted Notebook Evangelist

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    WOW! I would love to get ahold of your Skyrim build. Do you have a howto? or some way to do this? I have an old version of Nexus and it is confusing for me just to keep track of 30 mods and keep everything in order. I had to make a text document for myself just to make it repeatable (various directories to migrate when moving to another machine). I am guessing there are better ways nowadays to manage Skyrim modness.
     
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  31. ole!!!

    ole!!! Notebook Prophet

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    @ryzeki more GT80S model coming up LOL

    with polaris coming up, amd could once again enter mobile high end gpu market with hbm2 and 14nm FF. nvidia on the other hand pascal will have a ton of issue with compute so who knows when that will arrive, 2017?. more same technology, for almost 3yrs, http://wccftech.com/nvidia-maxwell-geforce-gtx-980mx-970mx/

    i mean its great they are more powerful but then we can just overclock 980m to get performance out of the card so whats the point.
     
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  32. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    I agree with you, and for many of us enthusiasts it is true. However I know many more folks that don't overclock, and have no interest so it still helps them a bit at a time. It does feel like they are just extending the life of the product, and that happens with no competition unfortunately.
     
  33. Katiecat

    Katiecat Notebook Consultant

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    I think there's some sort of bug with the EC firmware. Has anybody else noticed the battery draining under load? It seems to happen even at stock settings, and at quite an alarming rate. If I let it run, the battery would probably drain within a couple hours, so I'm guessing it's drawing around 20-40W. Sensors are telling me that the CPU and GPUs are consuming a total of 290W or so.
     
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  34. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Sounds like the MSI power boost or whatever they call it. By design, it will use from battery if the system uses more than the stock adapter can supply.

    I think it is designed to stop robbing battery power around 30%. Then you will drop in performance a bit running of the adapter by itself.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2016
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  35. Katiecat

    Katiecat Notebook Consultant

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    Yes, but it's a 330W power supply. A power meter shows ~325W, and that's at the wall, so that's like 275W after conversion, which is way below spec.
     
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  36. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Unless it's designed for 240w, which I sure hope not! ;) I will try to tel myself and report back here.

    Do you have another supply you can try? It could be a failing supply.
     
  37. ole!!!

    ole!!! Notebook Prophet

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    use dual psu + converter? if that doesnt help then its likely mobo/bios restriction.

    i'd hate to use battery, imagine running during game or w/e you're doing and battery goes down to 30% then power goes out, real great lol
     
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  38. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    I am trying the dual PSU solution, but not much faith it will do anything. If MSI has the controls in place to start using battery power after a certain point (say roughly 330w (actual input to the notebook) for arguments sake) then adding additional capacity to the input power won't change anything anyway.

    What we were talking about though, was Katiecat's machine is well under the 330w design by like 50w so it should not be using battery at that point for any reason. I read a review where they measured 400w+ usage by the stock adapter, so a limit of 325 at the wall is really low for a 330w output adapter..

    I was hoping that they didn't implement the "battery drain" feature on this model to be honest. I asked about it on these forums but never got a response so I'm not 100% sure if they did or not.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2016
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  39. Katiecat

    Katiecat Notebook Consultant

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    So after the battery gets too low, it starts throttling the GPUs. Lol. I do love this machine, but that is some terrible firmware... if it's not just me, and MSI refuses to budge on fixing the EC, then it might be time to talk to my credit card company, since I'm pretty sure the specs don't say "6 hours of continuous use on AC power."

    Would someone else mind testing? Just see if it drains under full load (Unigine Heaven does it for me), and say what BIOS/EC version you have.
     
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  40. Talon

    Talon Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yea that is MSI sweet "NOS" feature. That sucks that they would implement such a terrible feature on such an expensive piece of hardware. I had that feature on my old GT60 when they first introduced it and it is certainly limiting on what you can do as far as OC is concerned. My guess is that the stock system is just too taxing for the PSU, so overclocking is going to be even more detrimental to the battery. It causes battery wear prematurely, and if you decide to pull an all day gaming session, you will wear the battery down, and eventually you will have limited performance until you recharge the battery.

    If the "NOS" feature is anythign like on the GT60/70 laptops it was introduced on, no you cannot use a larger PSU to overcome it. The "feature" is built into the EC, and MSI refused to remove it or release an EC without it there. Your best bet would be to talk to Svet over at the MSI forums and see if you can get him to remove it or create a custom EC without it.

    Good luck! That is a nasty feature they implemented. Desktop class performance*




    *until the battery drops below 30%.
     
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  41. Katiecat

    Katiecat Notebook Consultant

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    It's not even though? The PSU is running at a good 60W under its rating. Not to mention that this is with stock clocks. Being limited to 330W I could understand, since it's Clevo that makes the adapter combiners, but there's no excuse for this at all.
     
  42. Talon

    Talon Notebook Virtuoso

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    Have you verified that it actually throttles or loses performance when you are below 30% battery? Since you're claiming to draw below the rated adapter power then maybe they set the threshold even lower.

    Run a Fire Strike bench above and below 30 % battery and at stock clocks to verify this. You could also just try and remove the battery and compare the scores as this should have the same effect.

    I think someone else mentioned this happening earlier in this thread.
     
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  43. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Realize that I have not played many games recently, and not for any long periods. However, I just did a quick test with GTA5 and every single option and slider maxed out at 1080p, vsync off, meaning I wanted to push everything to the limit to make sure it would take as much power as it needed.

    While it played great, I was disappointed when indeed my battery was going down (discharging). I only lost 2% during my 15 minute session but it was noticeable. Power maxed out around 340w at the wall, and mostly it was around 300w, which would mean much less than 300w used by the notebook itself (250ish?). This is disappointing to say the least. I expected the battery drain, but did not expect to see way less than 330w being used by the computer.

    If I wanted an efficient computer I would have gotten an ultrabook, I wanted max power, and expected even the gimped desktop 980's to use more power than this. Say my CPU and mobo, drives and screen all use about 50w or so during this test where the CPU was being used pretty much maxed out, that means each 980 was using less than 100w, which is below the 980m level. What this means to me is, if I could actually get a full 330w used by the machine (say 380-400w at the wall maybe?) then I could be getting a much higher framerate than I am now.

    I went ahead and overclocked my GPU's with afterburner, and it still never used more than the roughly 250w it was in the normal clocked tests. I really don't want to return this beast but it's tough with these findings.

    **The more testing I do, the more upset I get. I've tried with different settings, different ac adapter, compared a wall outlet and even from my UPS, and compared the dragon center numbers with my killawatt. All evidence shows I am using the max output at the wall of 330w, and much less at the computer. It is almost like the engineers got confused and chose to limit the power usage based on wall power vs the output power of the ac adapter. With these numbers we could almost get by with a 240w supply, which is stupid for a 980 sli laptop even.

    All of my past machines, would use the full output of the adapter plus roughly 10-20% or more at the wall, and get scorching hot. The two adapters I have for the GT80 only get warm, no where near hot. This also makes me believe the numbers I am seeing.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2016
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  44. Kevin@GenTechPC

    Kevin@GenTechPC Company Representative

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    This is a technique used by MSI to draw battery power to boost performance. Once battery drops below 30% then power boost will stop and performance will drop due to lesser power available. EC firmware is locked therefore the power draw stays constant even if you have a 500W PSU hooked up to the system.
     
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  45. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    What we don't understand is why would they design it so it uses battery power when it's not even using all that the ac adapter can put out?

    What I wonder is, do we have a bum BIOS or something? I read a review on notebookcheck where they measured 411 watts at the wall. That is what I expected to see but I am getting 80w less that that. Overclocking doesn't change the output a measurable amount either.
     
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  46. Katiecat

    Katiecat Notebook Consultant

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    Yes. It downclocks to non-boost core clocks and 5GHz on memory, and never goes above ~105W.

    There is absolutely zero reason for this to happen this far below the PSU rating. Furthermore, this occurs at completely stock settings. It is completely inexcusable to not disclose that a system is incapable of running at the power the hardware was designed to for more than a few hours. I don't want to be that customer, but honestly, if MSI doesn't release an EC update to correct the power draw limit within the next two weeks or so, I see zero reason not to begin a refund process.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2016
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  47. Talon

    Talon Notebook Virtuoso

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    That is pretty unacceptable for such an expensive piece of hardware. MSI most likely will not release any EC update to remove this feature. They refused to change it for the GT60/70 laptops when it was first introduced, and it received a lot of criticism from users, and its my guess why MSI kept quiet on this "feature" with this laptop.

    Overclocking will only make the situation worse as it will put more load on the battery. Since this is now in the open, I think potential buyers should seriously consider if this is something they want to deal with, and certainly something that needs to be advertised and made public to consumers. Since this isn't an advertised feature or drawback to the laptop, I am sure you would win any case to be able to return the laptop or complete a charge back to your retailer.
     
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  48. GTVEVO

    GTVEVO Notebook Deity

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    Bummer for those that purchased, Ok who is going to wire up extra power to the battery connector too overcome this little obstacle. I am just saying anything is possible

    Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk
     
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  49. Porter

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    While I don't like the NOS feature that's not even my big complaint. even on my gt70 it would use all 180w from the adapter before it used any battery. Here it just seems like something is flat out wrong otherwise they should have shipped the GT80 with a 240 watt power supply and it would have worked the same. My last Sager could max the 330 watt power supply easily. No reason the GT80 can't too. Like I said before we didn't buy these things for good efficiency and saving power.
     
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  50. Frankzro

    Frankzro Notebook Consultant

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    Guys, I learned my lesson long ago.

    You gotta treat this Laptops like Laptops and less like desktops.

    Ever since my 7970Ms died in my Sager I started using my New Laptop as sparingly as possible.

    When I am done using it I disconnect it from all power sources and I put it away until I need it again. Overcharging the battery can also cause it to degrade and drain way faster.

    I NEVER leave this laptop running overnight, ever. I will not have it doing anything unless I'm on it and usually if I'm gaming I only do it for 4-6 hours with the fan on high and that's not even consistent gaming either.

    Still, that feature needs to die. It needs to die a horrible death because the laptop is only as good as the battery ?? Come on!

    The fact that the battery is internal is not a good case. I don't know how I feel after knowing this information and in a way I feel cheated. The life of the laptop and the money I paid for it does not even out.

    What do you guys think now?
     
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