\/\/\/\/\/\- The Official MSI GT60-2OD Owner's Lounge -/\/\/\/\/\/

HDD removed, and Intel 520 SSD installed. Now does anyone have any recommendations for another mSATA SSD drive? I am looking at either a 240/256GB.

 

You could always get the biggest Clevo or Alienware AC adapter you could find (~240w?)of the correct voltage, butt connect the correct tip size and then there would be no need for hybrid power. In my mind it can be a limitation, like if you are gaming or running some number crunching project, overclocked all day, your battery will get low. But AFAweK it's impossible to hack this.
Glad they put in a 780m into a sub 8 pound laptop though. Crazy.
Hope we can overclock the CPU to 3.5GHZ+ on all cores constantly under a full load. Maybe I'm a bit too hopeful. The CPU is the weakest link in terms of productivity, day to day responsiveness. The GPU is the bottleneck with gaming in most cases I think.

Svet's Nvidia BIOS mod thread so look here for news of full support of 780m bios modding; http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=148273.650

Upgrading to an Extreme CPU (if ever possible via hacked BIOS) might not be very beneficial since overclocking will do the same thing and the thermal envelope isn't infinite and Turboboost couldn't do as much if you leave it on auto.

Anybody wish for a 15.6" dragon edition? The paint job is nice.

2 to 3 concerns; You can't run the 780m at all on battery power alone? Even at partial load?
You can't move the mouse while pressing keystrokes? Is this just a mouse driver setting so palms don't move the mouse and can be disabled?
Some of these have bad thermal compound on the CPU ? Will repasting void the warranty? Probably so.

 

@Talon UIUC, I think the Samsung PM841 is the highest end mSATA right now. Weakest point is sustained write speeds but pretty awesome. http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews...w-performance-and-capacity-in-a-client-ssd/3/
No need for mSATA raid at all. Won't notice any difference I don't think. Just do it for capacity once 1TB mSATA SSDs are like $50 each and grin ear to ear

 

Hi,

I just received my gt60 and I'm confused how the hard drive configure. When I went into my computer I see two hard drive. One is the 128gb msata and the other one is the 1TB. So my question is when I start installing game and software does it store in the 1Tb? If not then how do I make it install onto the 1TB? Thank!

 

Install Steam to the 128GB SSD, and then set the default download and install location to the 1TB HDD. Games would fill your SSD pretty quickly so I'd recommend installing them to the HDD. At 5-15GB a game they add up quickly.

EDIT: Link

 

If anyone is swapping his default sandisk X100 msata SSD for another, PM me (potential buyer)

 

How about game from origin? Do I get an option to choose which HDD to install onto?
Thank!

 

Yes you can do the same from the settings menu. You can choose whether to install and download games to either drive. I would recommend you install most games to the D: or 1TB HD. Otherwise as others have said you will fill that 128GB SanDisk SSD very quickly. Maybe install your favorite game to the SSD, because this will allow for faster loading of the game, and faster level load times.

 

I haven't used Origin much, but I do remember being able to choose the install location also the last time I used it a few months ago. If I remember right, choosing the install location is an option during the install (IE: you had to choose a location or it picked default) and was much easier than Steam's method.

EDIT: TalonUIUC beat me to it

 

So... this whole kerfuffle about Hybrid power and NOS seems to be point that the design/feature is actually quite bad. I mean; if people start OCing or changing voltages then this feature kicks in? Or would it even kick in on a default system/boost clock default system. Because if that happens then... ugh. It's just unnecessary battery drain and stress. I don't know who in MSi thought this was a good idea unless it's so incredibly refined that it doesn't stress or wear down the battery at all :X

 

I don't think you really have to OC anything to tell you the truth unless you wan't to set personal high scores on benhmarks. The 780M/4700QM combo is more than enough to handle most every game at the highest settings fluently stock.

 

But what about 5 years from now, everybody will be complaining why we can't upgrade the CPU or overvolt the CPU/GPU and bump up clocks without the battery draining.
I too would like to know if this activates on a stock system with no overclocking, if the AC adapter cannot handle the power of the stock setup with furmark +prime95. That wouldn't be cool. Especially if just gaming, nothing crazy that would be even worse.

EDIT: I just saw an Asus G750 unboxing vid and it has a 180W AC adapter like ours. The CPU and GPU is the same.
So either the Asus laptop can overdrive the AC adapter, or, 180W is fine for stock clocks.
I've emailed MSI asking about why Hybrid Power(NOS) exists.

 

Unless NOS is super optimized or doesn't take huge hits against the battery; I can only see this being a bad thing. Any of you guys who are actively digging up info wanna help clarify/vindicate this feature?

 

Your concern is valid but 5 years from now CPU's and GPU's will probably use different sockets anyway ( incompatible ) making your point moot. I'm sure if the power brick couldn't handle we would have heard about it from members that do have these new models.
It would have been nice for MSI to explain how NOS works to clear up any confusion or worries.

 

Hey guys, I'm new to the forums and have never had the chance to have a nice laptop (my last one had trouble running LoL at lowest settings..barely 30 fps) but my parents agreed to get me one for graduation! I've spent the last few weeks "researching" laptops and I'm definintely thinking this is the one! I haven't been able to play a graphics intensive game in years, so I'm excited to finally be able to.

Some questions:
1) I've heard amazing things about GentechPC from these forums, but how quickly can they ship out? Say I ordered the laptop this morning, would they be able to ship it out tonight and hopefully have it here by the weekend (in the US of course)?
2) I think I'm going to go with the basic RAID 2 config and just use the ssd's msi gives me instead of upgrading. Will I regret this decision? From what I've read here (and I've read every page in both the GT60 and the GT70 2OD forums), they should get the job done fine. I'm not looking for something over the top.

So far these are the specs I'm thinking of buying: i7-4700QM, GTX 780m, 24GB (8GBx2 + 4GBx2) RAM DDR3 dual channel (whatever that means), 384GB Super RAID 2 with a secondary 750GB, and the IC diamond thermal compound thing. Everything else I'm keeping the same. Is there anything in this setup you guys (or GentechPC) would recommend changing? I want to get the most out of this laptop without spending an absurd amount of money, $2,300 is enough as it is.

I'll mostly be playing LoL, Warhammer Online/SWTOR/WoW, Skyrim, and Battlefield 3 (all at the highest settings finally :thumbsup .

Thanks in advance!
Auzzi

 

You really cant go wrong with gentech. I would call them or email direct ( Gaming Laptops - GenTech PC - Gaming Notebooks - Custom Laptops - Custom Notebooks ) and ask.

I believe they generally build them and there might be orders in que already but cant hurt to call. Otherwise
Ken will probably answer here usually within the day.

Sounds like a nice spec. I am also thinking about the same machine. Good luck with it.

 

No you pretty much have a very good configuration, I might drop one raid drive but everything else looks great, just PM GenTech, Ken's on these forums all the time,great guy and he will take care of you.

 

What would dropping one raid drive do for me? From what MSI advertises, it seems like it's faster. And thanks! I look forward to talking with Ken!

 

A few quick questions:

1) How's the stock screen? Has anyone tried calibrating it? Any idea of the gamut coverage? (Basically, I'm curious as to whether the upgraded screen option, with its 95% NTSC gamut coverage, is worth the price.)

2) If one purchased a system with only one (or two) mSATA drives, and then wished to add another drive later, would a full reinstallation of the OS be required? Or could one simply drop in another drive and take right off?

 

@auzzi, yep 1 drive is slower than 2 drives in RAID. Will you be able to tell the difference most of the time? No. 1 SSD is very fast. You would probably only notice the speed difference in super low RAM situations where the page file is being used excessively. You might as well do the SSD RAID if money isn't a concern because you'll have more capacity. But keep in mind future upgrade options, when massive mSATA SSDs get cheap.

@Covariant; Assuming the laptop sees the single mSATA SSD as a regular SATA drive not in RAID, then you could boot to a Norton Ghost 11 CD and make a backup image of that drive to another drive (image boot mode). Then you might need to reformat the drive before putting in the new SSD(s) and having the RAID controller create the array. Or maybe not.
Anyway after you've set up the SSD RAID array, restore that image to the array. If you get a BSOD, run the windows 7/8 boot CD and run the automatic diagnostic thing and it should fix itself.

If you have 2 SSDs and you want to upgrade to 3, I'm not sure if the Ghost CD would see the RAID array volume. You might need to use different software.

No I don't think RAID 2 supports on the fly array expansion. That's only RAID 1 and maybe RAID 5 or something.

 

Thanks for the response! I think MSI's Super RAID 2 has three 128GB SSD's in RAID 0. IKAS said he might drop one of them, leaving me with 2 SSD's in RAID 0. Do you know what the difference between 3 SSD's and 2 SSD's would be? Thanks again!

 

I suspected as much. Thanks for the detailed response, though!

 

Money and capacity

 

I recommend you contact GentecPC directly on the forums, and they will be able to answer you quickly They post on this forum with the same user name GentechPC, Ken Lee is the one answering here.

Nice choice of laptop, I prefer the GT60 due to size mostly, but both are beastly.

 

Sent him an email, very quick response! Looks like I'll order it today so it can be shipped out on Friday and hopefully be delivered early next week. Thanks again for the help everyone!

 

I am amazed about the cooler booster. I ran several benchmark tests with and without cooler booster. Below are the pictures of it. Everything is at stock.

Without Booster!




With Booster!



I will be running test later for under 30% with AC, to see if there willbe a difference with NOS!

Erikranger

 

The cooler boost is really nice, but also sounds like a miniature turbine engine. I changed my thermal paste on both CPU/GPU and now my temps are significantly better without cooler boost.

Also for anyone who might be interested. I called MSI tech support USA to ask about the warranty void sticker, and was told that it will NOT void your warranty as long as you don't actually hurt anything. You are allowed to change hardware, and do preventative maintenance on your laptop, just don't physically damage it and your warranty should be honored fully.

That is all.

 

I have a bit of a issue here. Whenever I ran 3dmark11 at stock clock I would get around 7300 but when I try to overclocked to +135/+400 my score would decrease to 7100. I also noticed that whenever it overclocked my combined test score in 3dmark11 would decrease by half from 6100 to 3000. Anyone you guy experience this or know what would cause this?

 

Exactly, personally If you want Super Raid set up I would just get 2 for the basic needs and go with the reg HDD for storage.
I don't think speeds will be affected, I could be wrong but I don't have one yet to test .

 

Well no matter what I do, anything is better than what I have now haha. My current laptop has 1gb ram and a toaster acting as both the gpu and cpu. it overheats watching youtube videos

 

Talon, thank you for calling. It's bizarre that they would void it over that and regardless what the sticker indicates, it seems that they won't give us a hard time, especially since those of us who are re-doing the thermal paste are doing it to prevent warranty claims in the future.

I'm waiting on some IC diamond to arrive. In the meantime, I've repasted the CPU/GPU with some of OCZ freeze thermal compound that I had from 3+ years ago. My CPU dropped to about 88/87 C under load (down from about 94 deg C) while my GPU has stayed about the same (93 C under load).

The temps are rather disappointing. The immediate culprit is probably still too much thermal paste (used tiny pea method on GPU, very thin line on CPU due to it being rectangular). I will try to repaste it with less when the IC diamond arrives.

 

Hey,

I just add a sandisk 256gb ssd but when I go into my computer it doesn't show up but it show under device manager. How do you get it to recognize? Thank!

 

Are those the temps with the cooler boost fan on? I would run the boost fan while gaming or under load.

 

Windows Key + X, Open disk management. It should show up in there, and format the drive.

 

I'm trying to decide between this and a G750 (while trying to figure out what handling a 4 kg, 5 cm tall laptop is going to be like). How is the noise while browsing and youtubing? What's the battery life like when not gaming?

 

@TalonUIUC Thank you! By the way what is your stock CPU n GPU temperatures after a 3d mark 11?

 

Nice review, thanks

Did you get the stock screen? I was on the verge of getting a Sager 9150 but the poor sound and keyboard issues held me off. the new MSIs are looking good, I'm leaning there now but I'm wondering about the screen... the Sager is $50 to upgrade but the MSI is $165, it makes me suspicious of the standard screen...

 

I have the stock screen and it is very nice. The MSI machines are great. I've had one for almost 4 years and never had an issue.

 

No problem. Ran 3dmark11 at stock and no cooler boost on, and got 73C GPU and 68-70C CPU. Ambient temps is 20C. My temps do vary daily due to changes in ambient temps.

 

For those that have this model and had a GT60/70 previously, how is the sound on this compared to the previous models? I'm curious as to how the "Soundblaster" designation comes into play. I'm guessing it's just using the same type of software application?

 

I think soundblaster is a replacement to THX that was featured previously.

Coming from a GT60-0NE, I think the sound is louder & better, but I might just be biased.

 

I have a GX660 laptop which first featured the Dynaudio speakers, and these ones featuring sound blaster sound slightly better when gaming and using headphones.

 

They sound better than the GX660R? Consider me officially hyped soundwise

 

I love me some Bose; I have it in one of my cars, surround sound, head phones, and computer speakers. These sound just as good if not better than the computer speakers and head phones. These speakers can be loud and very clear. Playing any classical music on this beast is nothing less than perfect!

I have been extremely impressed by the sound form this!

 

For anyone interested WOW on Ultra everything will get you somewhere between 60 and 90 fps without OCing anything!

 

I'm sure its all sofware, but when playing BF3 the game sounds deeper, punchier?, and crisper using my Bose earbuds. Yes I game with earbuds lol. My fiance would probably leave me if I was rocking the huge gaming headphones. My rainbow colored keyboard was the joke of the evening when I got the laptop.

 

I heard all about my rainbow keyboard also!!!

I have yet to try the earphones with this. I will give that shot a soon!

 

Try lower memory clock. Not all cards are the same.

So you might want to start at lower clocks and see if the score goes up!

 

Thank you, I give it a try.

 

Are you talking about Svet modding the Nvidia 780m BIOS, or also (or someone else) the BIOS for the x86 computer portion to remove "Lock Bits" so you can have full control? I don't know what they all are but I hope we can have full TDP settings, duration, throttle temperature control for regular non extreme CPUs and extreme chips alike, and for extreme CPUs; voltage control, multiplier control, full TDP settings and whatever else I'm forgetting to let a 4930MX run at or close to 4GHZ constantly under full utilization via Throttlestop. And to allow the 4930MX as a supported processor in the BIOS.

Does the MSI bios set lock bits that are important for overclocking? If not, then Throttlestop can do it all right now. If so, then are people working on modding the MSI BIOS? Are the modders thinking of putting the CPU overclocking options in the MSI BIOS or just unlocking the registers (not setting the lock bits) for software to manipulate?

But, there is Hybrid Power that will be the limitation 122+ watt Nvidia, + 55w+ extreme CPU = a lot of hybrid power mode time when fully utilized. No power supply headroom. And AFAIK zero power to 780m when on battery power. I understand lowered clocks but not disabling it.

Can you post BIOS setting screenshots if there are any overclocking options in the GUI for the BIOS? Thanks
@People wondering why you'd want to overclock this super computer; If the laptop has a lot of thermal headroom it's the right thing to do. But yeah with Hybrid Power and long duration high utilization (battery drains), it won't work out. I'm sure if the GPU is idle you wouldn't have a power problem with just the overclocked extreme CPU.