** 1070 laptop: "bd prochot" causing cpu throttling to 800MHz and stuttering **

Ok girl, look later if you want with vpn we could share the info and experiences from this issue. Let me know if you want when you got the laptop.

 

@Falkentyne you are amazing. Did you figure out all of this on your own or do you have some education in computers? I totally swear MSI should hire you this instant. For some nice paycheck and free hardware haha.

 

They'll never do that. They won't even allow me to use the unlocked EC. And I'm a tweaker and I like to test stuff or even break stuff. It's what I've always done. I'm a chess player. I like to see how things work.

 

I truly admire you @Falkentyne (might be the drunken me talking) but I'd swear you would have not let MSI sweep the floor with you. If I even knew there is supposed to be some hybrid power I would have noticed the laptop was a bit off since the first day. If I understood even half the things I find out from people like you I would have accepted the offer to trade up to gt73vr 6 months ago when my laptop went for repair for the first time for what seemed to be broken drivers (to be fair it worked better afterwards, had to just install a normal vbios instead of the .82 they pushed onto it). Sadly I am still learning and let myself get into this situation, being naive. I accepted a product I was not 100% sure was flawless. That does not happen to more experienced people. I spent years worth of savings on it. So, please teach me more senpai (yeah, lame anime fan). I am literally scared to even buy a damn tosti maker cause I totally believe I am cursed with electronics. My lg g2 phone was not working well, especially after lg abandoned development of sw for it and made it stuck on unusable android lollipop (bugged as hell)... my laptop is not working well since the start, my samsung s7 phone came with ghosting on the screen, the first tosti machine I bought did not get hot enough so I had to return it, now I need another one but I am so scared to buy anything anymore. Did I mention I drowned my first proper nokia phone in the damn toilet and it never worked the same so I sold it to a pawn shop?
I mean, this old pc I am using - my bf used it without single issue for more than 8 years and NOW when I get it the mb or psu start to die...? What is this! I am so frustrated. End of rant.
PS. There were 2 pieces of electronic in my life that did not break down on me. My old panasonic walkman I owned from the 90's (I lost it around 2013 or so) and my first phone - the siemens A52. That thing was indestructible. Trust me, I tried.

 

@Falkentyne

Is possible/worth undervolting the igpu on GT72VR? Even if disable, this consumes voltage?
On hwmonitor says GT offset and system agent offset, i assume that GT offset is the igpu right? And system agent offset?

 

I don't think that would help at all.. plus undervolting anything is still just hiding the problem? I would not be happy with that. It should work out of the box. But you might be happy with it since you don't have the unlocked cpu. For me the laptop without ability to overclock literally looses all the reasons why I bought it. Why else would I spend 500 euro extra on GT series if I could have GE series with 7700HQ and 1070... >.> I picked the laptop with the best thermals, best design, best screen, best cpu, best internal accessibility. I would not settle for needing to hide problems with new laptop on stock system and settings ^^

 

Im just waiting your response to see what they made on your laptop...if they just installed a vbios to camo the problem, i will just RMA and request a new laptop.

 

I was looking around for alternatives... I hate my country though. In germany they sell the gt75vr 7re with 7820HK cpu and 1070 for 2300 euro. Here they only have the 7700HQ with 1070 and it is even more expensive at 2500 euro. Pointless. So I would have to live with german keyboard I guess and drive 2 hours to germany and buy it there. Good luck to me trying to deal with warranty issues afterwards though. So far it is looking that if msi does not fix it or offer a worthy replacement, I will just build a PC and live the "stuck at my own desk" life to the fullest. Already bought a mechanical keyboard so I am half there haha. And trust me, I cannot wait to see how the laptop comes back.

 

Well, im thinking a laptop with 7820hk and GTX1070, for me its enough...i will still trust on msi since they have the best cooling solutions. Also getting GT73VR or GT75VR not is the same?

 

gt73vr has the old type keyboard, gt75vr has a mechanical one with low profile switches. Plus I would hope all bugs etc would be dealt with better in the newer model? Though in notebookcheck review the cpu reached 100 degrees in stress test, which is unacceptable imo. So I don't know. I really think building a pc at this point will be better, if anything dies it is just the specific part that needs to be replaced and not the whole thing. Not speaking of better upgrade options. Yeah I still like laptops better, I hate I cannot just drag over the laptop to watch a movie or sit in the living room and game there... but if it does not work then it does not work? Though I still hope MSI fixes my laptop I miss the poor little thing.

 

Well, if my problem not fixed i will request a GT73VR without discs and ram and will see what reseller/MSI have to say about that.

 

Mmm I hope it works out for you. In my country those are not sold anymore, atm one last gt73vr 7re available but I am worried it will be gone before this gets resolved >.< My only hope is MSI in getting me a working laptop. Else I will build a PC cause there is just no other choice. Don't feel like ordering an alienware after all I heard about crooked heatsinks etc. It just seems all the laptops have something.

 

At least not here - just got a GT73VR 7RF from a new batch - probably 5 laptops to the whole country, sold in a week and the next batch to come in a month.

 

Thank you ^^ that raises the chance of getting a reasonable replacement, knowing they are still probably being made!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...3-owners-lounge.797884/page-696#post-10690298

 

Yeah... undervolting gpu or locking its voltage to 0.85 has the same effect and works. Already figured that out before I sent the laptop in last month. Probably has to do with lower power consumption.

 

Second post*

 

@heliada

I put a aluminum heatsink in the PCH in conjunction with thermal adhesive from Artic and the maximum temperatures are now 60 ° C ... so the problem of the PCH can be excluded in this case.

@Falkentyne

Thanks for the report on Alienware laptops.

 

@heliada Any news?

 

@Pedro69 been to the reseller today. The girl I talked to was a laptop gamer herself, felt totally sorry for me. Laptop has not arrived yet but was sent back to the reseller couple days ago already >.> Not sure what crappy transport they use, probably some guy on a bicycle trying to cycle 1500km or sth with the laptop on his back. Takes so long it's been 4 weeks since it's gone and they did not even do anything more than reinstall windows and "update" vbios according to the info I got! Frustrated. Will ask for money back if I can. Eying the gt73vr 7re, but suckily enough only last piece is available right now and it will surely be gone before this gets solved. So frustrated.

 

Dam, we need your feedback to see what MSI made with laptop.

 

Why don't you try asking for money back as we speak? You can argue that the machine has been trouble from the get go and you would like another problem-free machine instead.

From my experience, the GT73 is basically everything I expected from a high end laptop. While I miss having socketed CPU, the GT73 is generally great enough to make me forget about that and just focus on enjoying. It's been the least problematic, while simultaneously the most powerful in every regard, laptop that I have ever owned. Every other always had caveat that made me think twice about it. Most of the time due to temperature or power limits.

I've been so happy with my GT73 that I haven't even attempted to move up to the GT75 despite it having the one thing I missed about my GT80, the better keyboard. Right now I am waiting for new CPUs and GPUs to see if it's a big enough jump.

 

My reseller will not let me get money back before the laptop comes back unrepaired. Then I can start arguing. I owned it for like 9 months after all, the fact I only found out now complicates it a lot. Plus the reseller does not sell gt73vr so I would have to go to different one (who also only has last piece atm and they arent coming back in stock anymore I am afraid). The trend here in the netherlands is to declare older models "end of life" and stop selling them completely which is what happened to the gt72vr, there are none available at all. And only 1 piece of gt73vr 7re (no other variants). So yeah, it really sucks. And the gt75vr is not even sold with 7820HK in the 1070 variant here (I can guarantee the 7700hq will become a bottleneck in the future). So if I cannot get my money back before the gt73vr sells out or if msi does not offer me equivalent replacement (I settle for nothing less than 6820hk or 7820hk with gtx 1070) then I will have to wait or build a pc. Probably build a pc, cause the one I am using now is dying and postponing does not seem plausible atm (talking sudden loss of power to all peripherals, internet disconnects when using cable, gpu not boosting,... it's old and loud and most likely motherboard and psu are on their way to heaven/scrap yard). I miss my laptop, but if it's not fixed I will probably cry and ask for money back. Had nothing but trouble. Can you imagine even my damn subwoofer cover popped off which makes the bottom case vibrate ever since on loud volumes (I did not do anything to it aside from playing music haha).

 

Oh wow, it does seem you are in quite a predicament. I hope things get better for your situation and that you manage to obtain either a refund or a working machine. It sucks when you are stuck with something that doesn't work correctly, even more so when you see other machines performing as they should.

It reminds me of a very old Acer laptop I had back when I started college, oh so many years ago. The laptop had impressive specs back then (AMD 64 CPU, 1GB of DDR2, ATI X700) but it ran incredibly hot and always throttled. When I went to Acer to see what they could do about it, they told me that I just wasn't using it correctly, because the laptop was meant for working/office and not gaming. So even when repasted it still throttled. And then it started breaking down limb from limb until it no longer resembled a laptop. It had cheap plastic.

Acer has improved so much now, with actual models that even I recommend. 14 years ago I wouldn't even recommend them.

the GT72 is generally a good laptop but using something that is underperforming is always depressing. And you are right the 7700HQ will be a bottleneck.

 

@ryzeki I also had a laptop like that about 8 years ago! It was a compaq, not really made for gaming but it had a dual core processor and 3 gb ram (amazing for that time given it only cost 400 euro haha). It did not even run world of warcraft (well at first it did, then it got progressively hot). It even shut down on me in emergency thermal cut-off. When my bf repasted it, it was better tho (he found some melted plastic inside). But still ran over 90 degrees xD

 

How many time more you think that will take to get the laptop in your hands?

 

@Pedro69 I really don't know... I am so frustrated. Honestly at this point your question just made me a bit irritated, I would obviously let you all know when it does come back. I asked the reseller and they cannot tell me. A week-ish is what they said. Can't do anything they said. Too bad for you they said. You get the point. Basically they have no damn idea where the laptop is aside from that it was sent in their direction... at some point. Don't even know when. Like what happened to track and trace >.>

 

Please stop being so selfish and rude.

 

I can understand the impatience though ^^ I have the urge to drive to the reseller every day and bother them, but it does not help anyone so I don't. Might drop by tomorrow as the laptop should already be on the way for at least a week now and they promised to call and find out where it was. Did not hear anything from them though so likely they don't know anything. It's just frustrating. I have the feeling something just went wrong in this warranty claim.
After all MSI did not have any news for me until the reseller pressured them, at which point they were nearly at the end of the time they have by law to fix the issue (21 days). So I think they are just buying time. There is a slight chance it was not actually sent back yet. The VBIOS will not fix anything, they will want it to be sent back for another repair to have more time, just trying to avoid having to return money back as they could not find out what the problem was. That would also be the best for the reseller I guess so no idea if the info I am getting is right. I hope that's not the case though as I trust the reseller and MSI too - I would just murder the person who installs limiting vbios to bandaid all the issues but I don't think MSI would stand behind such repair as a company.
@Pedro69 I will take the normal vbios installation file with me as well as nvidia drivers from msi support page and assasins creed origins files. Will test it all right in the store and let you know.

 

Sooo...

The EC is from ENE, ENE states that all their EC's have 8051 core, the EC image on the MSI site is full of crap and random bits of text, but 8051 is ancient, not that hard to understand, and can be disassembled with ease...

Does anyone has a full dump of a GT72VR flash chip(or the EC if they are separated physically)?

It might be doable to run it through IDA and try and find a way to disable the BD-PROCHOT to ever be triggered.. I have err, humm, made student versions out of paid niche programs a couple years ago, it was Intel ASM, 8051 is a lot simpler, compiling it back might be a major pain, but if all it needs is to change a jump into a couple NOP's, hex editing might be all its needed after discovering how it works.

There is a PCHOT=1 PCHOT=0 plus a couple more interesting bits of text in the EC update package, its either a small serial interface or some obscure key combo to invoke that when in the BIOS to set somethings.

The core boot guys re-did Renesas EC rom's, its not impossible to do so.

 

Are you talking about code like this that is for example
(in GT73VR EC 17A1EMS1.108):

CPU_CrtT = 0.CPU_ThtlT = 1.CPU_ThtlT = 0.SYS_CrtT = 0.SYS_ThtlT = 1.SYS_ThtlT = 0
?

how do you change these exactly? You cant just hex edit a 1 to a 0, can you?

 

At no time did I want to make you angry, you should also realize that I'm impatient for the result, I apologize.

@senso

Thanks for the info and the help, but we need BD-Prochot active since protect the heating from another components on motherboard. Anyways im able to execute the tests that you need.

@Falkentyne

Get a life and instead of saying nothing, try helping...

 

Considering I spent more time 'help'ing you than anyone else in this thread, WELCOME TO MY IGNORE LIST. I don't help rude, selfish unparented people who act entitled to everything and only know how to TAKE TAKE TAKE TAKE TAKE and never GIVE or show any respect. Cya. You have NOW been IGNORED. Permanentely.

 

You continue to spread the pride of knowledge, where was my question rude? But I'm not going to do any more off-topic because it's what you like to do people who do not know about it ...
@heliada

Tomorow i will talk with someone from Poland MSI to check what they do on your laptop...i will left a PM with the mesures that they made on your laptop.

 

There is a lot of readable text in the binary file from MSI, but I dont think that is part of the code section, its a bit puzzling seeing so much text to be honest.

I'm going to research this a bit more, maybe someone here can try to dump their BIOS using fptw(can be found on win-raid in the Intel ME firmware thread there are all the tools for each ME version, on each there is the correct fptw version that can be used to try this).

MSI ships the EC with EcFlashWin, but I dont think that program allows reading the image into a dump, at least all it accepts is /s and /k as arguments.

 

@senso

My Bios(E1785IMS.30E) dumped with FPTW64 https://uploadfiles.io/whxrg
My EC saved as .rw file from RW-Everything https://ufile.io/x5wr3
And EC from MSI website https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GT72VR-7RE-Dominator-Pro.html#down-firmware

 

The EC is just the exposed memory interface from the EC, not the EC code.

 

Oh ok, senso, feel free to ask me anything if you could help in this issue.

 

It accepts other arguments too.

/i2c and /fake

There's one other argument which I don't remember.
I saw those when taking a hex editor (HxD) to the ecflashwin binary.

but I have no idea what those are for.

I've already dumped my bios file with FPTW64, to unlock menus. It just dumps the APTIO user capsule (which can be edited with AMIBCP). The EC isn't part of that. I only dumped the aptio user capsule,, not the ME region or anything. The ME region dumping says something about "no CPU access". I don't know about the "EC region."

 

The ME region is usually locked, you can use the -DUMPLOCK switch on fptw, I'm still on another laptop(toshiba p50) and it doesn't even show anything EC related, it shows CPU Master, ME region and GBE region.

But this laptop has two flash chips, one 4MB for BIOS and one 2MB for EC.

There are some things called EC, but they are functions to talk with the EC, lets call them drivers, no EC image.

The MSI flash chip is marked with a red or yellow dot, and its near the EC, if some one can dessolder one to read it, that would be nice, I never had luck with in place programming of laptop flash chips, either doesn't work because the programmer complains of massive current draw because its powering a lot of chips that share the same 3.3v rail, or the mobo didn't have resistors to limit current and the QSPI interface was hardwired to the cpu/chipset, so I didn't even risk it, at the time lots of high end Ersa tools, it took me 10 minutes to remove, hunt a dump or use a clean OEM image, flash, re-solder.

Maybe svet could enlighten me/us, because is EC Editor can at least change the fan tables from the binary file that MSI as on their site..

 

The GT73VR has "two" chips.
The red marked Bios chip is under the GTX 1070 video card and that's the master Bios chip.
But there is a "blue" chip behind the mainboard, on the "keyboard" side.
It's the same shape (so the Pomona 5250 clip could read it easily, into the Skypro programmer), and I'm sure not taking my laptop apart to try to take my Skypro programmer to it, but someone suggested this "blue" marked chip may be where the 128k EC flash is written to. It's guaranteed to be either a backup Bios, or the EC flash area.

BTW if you're bored, here is EC 17A1EMS1.109 from GT73VR (CM238 version). .109 is not a typo. I extracted this from the 'master' bios file as it seems to be embedded with it. Yet the EC on the MSI website is 17A1EMS1.108. The structure is definitely different overall, and there is an extra "battery" variable text in it that is also in 17A1EMS1.112, but not in 17A1EMS1.108. I think BATT_OUT=1 or something? I forgot by now.

Have fun with it.

 

This is going to be fun, for now the only thing that I have not tried is a more up to data IDA "Pro", 8051, one of the most used cores/IP in the world is not that easy to disassemble :/

This sums my last hours(not my blog, but hits too close, wish I found it sooner):

https://blog.flameeyes.eu/2017/01/virtual-rewiring-part-two-the-ec/

This, kinda-ish-more-or-less works:

https://radare.gitbooks.io/radare2book/content/arch/8051.html

Still not sure what is code or not, still lots of blank space and random text in that 128KB file Falkentyne.

There should be a serial port from the EC in some unpopulated connector/test points in the mobo, but that requires a teardown of laptop to probe it around to see and try to discover it, soldering wires to the mobo of a laptop under warranty.

 

@senso check your PM if you have time. Thank you.

 

Been to reseller today. They found the laptop, should come tomorrow or Monday or Tuesday. Either way I don't have the right for money back so no gt73vr for me. The bastards have indeed 3 tries to fix the problem, so I can be missing the laptop 3 months or more before any real solution. Really pissed off now.
@Pedro69 I obviously called msi already. Where do you think I get the info from that Windows and vbios were reinstalled...?

 

MSI support from Portugal already said that the engineers have the information about this issue, so soon, they will left a message about this.

@heliada But is strange that they not even changed the motherboard at least to test the idea of a bad sensor...

 

@Pedro69 Well I hope I got the wrong information about what they did to my laptop then. Cause obviously windows reinstall will not help (I tried factory reset) and vbios update just 100% means to the limiting one. If they know about the issue, they would not just do that to the laptop but actually fix it. I will see tomorrow I hope.

 

If its a firmware problem(either BIOS, EC, or both), no repair center in Europe can do anything besides following the guidelines.

Only the the headquarters/real engineering departments have access to those docs, and dont think they will make a task force team to fix this in 2 days, because this laptop for them is an old model that was at most designed last year, going by EC and BIOS dates..

Then there is the fact that they might not even be able to fix this due to hardware limitations, and they wont re-test the mobos to be sure that those extra 10-20-30Watts under load dont reduce the MTBF to a number that is lower than 2 years.

No idea if this wasn't forced by either Intel and/or Nvidia even, all current laptops suffer from throtling under heavy loads, they are more or less tailored for being benchmarked once to make nice numbers and then what happens is an unknown, look at notebookcheck extended Cinebench testing that shows a big number on the first run and then its throttle city everywhere..

Just look at this:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X280-i5-8250U-FHD-Laptop-Review.287454.0.html

First run: 670

After 7 runs it sits at 527, thats worse than what my old ass i7-2670QM can do all day long..
Top case at 41ºC with a 15Watt CPU.

Heck, just the min/max at the top on the CPU article show that the CPU is as usual configured to show nice big number for one run, then it shows its true nature, gimped, wimpy crap:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i5-8250U-SoC-Benchmarks-and-Specs.242172.0.html

The OEM's dont give a flying **** for the enthusiast, there isn't a damm laptop on the market that doesn't run with chassis at over 40ºC under load, even on a wimpy 15Watt TDP CPU.

And then, this can be a signal that is generated in the GPU that is feed into the PROCHOT pin on the CPU that then auto-throttles everything, if someone here can pull favours, find a schematic of the laptop because I'm getting the idea that the EC isn't the main culprit here..

 

@senso well my laptop never overheated and the bd prochot triggered even when the cpu/gpu/motherboard temps were around 50 degrees (ultra max fan speed and just within starting the game in the first minute). Thus no temp performance drop can account for this. And whether the laptop is an older model or not is irrelevant to be honest. My laptop is now 9 months old to me. It should be made to run for the next few years. The fact it cannot do that even when relatively new is not acceptable.
I am sure there were ways to push the hw to its limits even when the laptop was brand new anyway and it should have been tested. I think this is totally not a problem for all these laptops as it is weird ours never use the battery while gaming as they should. It seems there is just something wrong and it should be repaired.
And btw, my laptop NEVER gets even warm to touch on top of the chassis when gaming/stress testing. That is why I picked it too: scroll down to emissions and look at the thermal camera pics. It's the real deal. https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-GT72VR-6RE-015US-Notebook-Review.171103.0.html#toc-emissions
While it may not be warm to touch, when you put hand behind the fans it's a mini heater on full load ^^
I just remembered why I bought this laptop over any other and well... guess I will be happy if they fix it even if it means it has to be sent off again. CPU temps in the 70's when stress testing even slightly overclocked and 100% stable, using stock paste...gives me goosebumps!

 

That is what confuses me.
I still remember my GT72VR using the battery while gaming. I thought nothing much of it. But I don't have it anymore to even test at all.

ARE THERE ANY GT72VR OWNERS IN THE USA, EITHER 6700HQ OR 7700HQ OWNERS, WHO CAN VERIFY THAT USA MODELS USED THE BATTERY WHILE GAMING? (this might require extremely high loads, full CPU 45W loads, with the 115W GPU fully in use, with maximum backlight and a mouse or keyboard plugged in).

I've been getting some information that I'm not able to discuss fully right now, that "NOS" (battery drain) may be some sort of government regulation, and that different "regions" have different requirements and restrictions for NOS. The GT73VR (And GT75VR)'s "Current system trip shutoff" points for exterme heavy load during overclocking, e.g. small FFT prime95 with FMA3 or AVX, AIDA64 stress test, etc, are also related to similar diodes where the system will either 1) throttle if the CPU gets too hot under normal usage, 2) shut the system off if the power draw would cause the CPU to get too hot at full fan speed, via a preset calibration, EVEN IF THE CPU IS ICE COOL (this is assuming NORMAL thermal paste, so users of liquid metal would never reach those thermal limits but still get the "Power cutoff/reboot" problem at very high loads/amps/voltages when overclocking.

The same person said that the GT73VR and GT75VR's VRM's _can_ handle higher load than the "Cutoff" point is set for.

If your prochot issue is for Gt72VR's, are these GT72VR's ONLY in South America? Even though the Bios and EC may be the exact same as North American units? What is it? Extra hardware on the boards or a region marker that says 'South American units cannot use NOS, but will PROCHOT at the NOS trigger point (e.g. 160W of power draw?).

 

I am in EU, not America at all. The Netherlands here ^^