Firmware info for GT80S users

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking for a while, but I figured I should let people know the outcome of my month and a half struggle with MSI to address the battery drain issue. I figured this should go into its own separate thread since it's important info to anybody considering such a huge purchase and it would eventually get buried in the owner's lounge. I left a review describing the issue on Newegg, but either they or MSI had it deleted.

Long story short, per multiple conversations with me, MSI will not be fixing the issue.

For those joining us late, the issue is that the laptop battery will drain when under load at stock settings, even when plugged in. Once the battery hits 30%, the CPU is hard capped at 45W and the GPUs around 105W. MSI informed me that the EC firmware was designed to start using battery power at 306W, which is kind of ridiculous given the specs.

After a few weeks of back and forth, the BIOS team finally acquiesced to supplying me a "beta" firmware (which is probably what the MSI rep promised us a few weeks ago) which supposedly bumped up the limit to 324W. I ran some more tests, and even though each GPU was averaging close to 120W (135W peak) and the CPU around 30-35W, totalling 275W (305W peak), it was still pulling a bit over 9W from the battery. Given a 72Wh capacity, that's still 6 hours max until it drains to the minimum, at which point it throttles exactly the same as the old firmware. My Kill-a-watt agreed with these numbers, showing around 345W consumed at peak, or 293-310W with 85-90% efficiency. After reporting back with these findings, they refused to provide any further firmware updates. The funny thing is, when I also loaded the CPU using a stress test at the same time, the PSU was then pulling 410W from the wall, so clearly it is more than capable of that kind of load without using battery power.

Maybe the rest of you will have better luck dealing with MSI, but their dismissive attitude has really left a sour taste in my mouth. I lost count of the number of times the same person told me that it was a feature designed to help overclocking when I clearly stated several times that it was happening at stock settings.

 

It's a problem by design, because MSI updated the same GT80 line with even more power hungry hardware. More than a firmware that allows to pull more slightly more from the wall, users need to have a fully open draw, so you can use dual PSUs. It's the only way to fully use the systems without power worries.

A single PSU 330w is hardly enough power. Even if you managed to get a firmware that allows you to work the PSU to the limit, you will still experience drain one way or another. And all of this is keeping the CPU and GPU at stock speeds.

Gonna have to go with modded BIOS from external sources.

As your other test drawing 410W by loading the CPU, what were you testing/loading there?

 

It's a problem by design, because MSI updated the same GT80 line with even more power hungry hardware. More than a firmware that allows to pull more slightly more from the wall, users need to have a fully open draw, so you can use dual PSUs. It's the only way to fully use the systems without power worries.

A single PSU 330w is hardly enough power. Even if you managed to get a firmware that allows you to work the PSU to the limit, you will still experience drain one way or another. And all of this is keeping the CPU and GPU at stock speeds.

Gonna have to go with modded BIOS from external sources.

As your other test drawing 410W by loading the CPU, what were you testing/loading there?

 

I am hopeful MSI will provide a fix as promised to all of us in the owners lounge. All they need to do is either get rid of the limit (like almost every other laptop out there that I have ever used) or at least increase it to the limit of the power adapter at a bare minimum.

As others have said time and time again, you can easily get 400w or more out of the stock 330w adapter. Also some of us (like me) have dual 330w already so we have 660w available. Right now we’re being limited to well below a single adapters ability.

Just put in an option to enable higher power needs in the bios, with a disclaimer saying “do at your own risk” or “warranty may be void if this setting causes an issue”. This is not rocket science. I hate having a artificial limit, especially when it’s below the already conservative manufacturer’s rating.

 

With the GPUs limited to 130W and the CPU running at 45W, there should be more than adequate power to fit under the envelope. Not just that, but it starts to happen well before it reaches this point. Also, from what I understand, heavily overclocking the 980Ms on previous GT80 models would result in nearly the same power draw with no drain, and many people have been running that with no problems. I used Unigine Heaven plus the XTU stress test together to load the PSU as high as I could. If anybody was capable of modding the EC, that would be great, but Svet already told me it was impossible for him.

Trust me, I've already repeated this ad nauseam to everybody I could get ahold of at MSI. They flat-out refused to do anything else with the EC to address the issue. They could possibly change their mind, but I wouldn't hold your breath based on past history.

 

Any updates to this issue? I'm sure one of you would have posted if anything changed, but just checking... I am almost ready to commit to a new laptop and it's either the GT80S 6QF with the desktop 980 SLI or a P870DM with 980m SLI. Unless there's an update that will eliminate the battery drain or allow for dual power supplies, I'll probably go with the Clevo model.

 

If you plan on overclocking, then the clevo might be the better choice with dual PSUs. Otherwise the 980 SLI model provides the same performance as 980m SLI without battery, and drains while providing more than 30% extra performance.

I suspect that the only way to get around power limits will be with custom made BIOS which might be very difficult to obtain/make. Similar to Intel's HQ power limits.

 

If you're going with the 980m SLI I would recommend the Clevo for the reasons ryzeki mentions above. Don't support MSI's choice to insert limitations that are completely unnecessary.

Unfortunately with 980 SLI we don't have any choice (yet). MSI are shooting themselves in the foot with this dumb move of not supporting at a minimum of 330w power usage of the single power brick, not allowing the ability to disable the "battery boost" that was never advertised in any way, and even though two adapters work great, not allowing us to use that 660w of power and having the same 300w limit.

I know that I have personally pushed many sales away to other brands, and will continue to do so unless they make this right. I cannot even get an answer from Geno in the MSI thread. Unfortunately its a nearly great laptop with some correctable issues that they refuse to deal with, with poor customer support on top of that.

 

Could try ThrottleStop's new PowerCut feature. That might fool the EC as well, making it think the cpu draws ~1W, rather than the 45W+ it's actually using.

 

Is there anyone working on a custom bios? Maybe we could fund Prema to make us one... But yea, I'm not holding my breath on this one.

I agree in not supporting them. I would think that if they are going to advertise the performance increase of desktop 980 SLI, then they are also obligated to mention that full performance only occurs in that very specific situation. It is BS, and I won't support them with my dollars until they fix the problem or show some integrity and make it clear that max performance is only available when battery boost is available.

Well wouldn't this be an awesome work around! Can someone give it a try and report back?

 

I believe that feature is only enabled for *well CPUs, so that wouldn't help. I'm also guessing that they use a current probe rather than polling the CPU for its power usage. I also wouldn't count on a modded EC, since it's a huge pain without knowledge of the microcontroller opcodes and pinouts.

 

I really wish this would happen. I would pay $100 for this today instantly, possibly a lot more depending on what all it did. Sadly it would take someone a ton of time and effort and it's likely not worth their time.

 

I think we can be lucky if we develop ideas. For example, PowerCut fools the CPU power reading, so it never stops the turbo feature as it doesn't read that it is beyond the TDP value. Something like that must be happening with the GT80 when it starts draining the battery? Maybe a particular reading of, lets say, 300W triggers battery drain. I don't know. But if there was a BIOS for the older GT60 which disabled the battery consumption, it means it is possible for the GT80.

Obviously, all of this would be at your own risk, but might be worth it. Particularly for those with dual PSUs.

 

It all depends on which sensors it uses to trigger BatteryDrain. If it polls the CPU for its reported package power, then that would work. If it's a simple current probe, modifying the CPU's reported power usage won't accomplish anything.

I'm 99% certain that MSI just used the same throttle power profile as the 980M version, since 105W/GPU matches the TDP max for stock 980Ms. Maybe you can convince them to adjust it, but I've already jumped ship and am not planning to wait around for a half-baked fix that may or may not come, especially since by that time Pascal will probably be around and render the point moot.

 

Hey guys!, actually the custom or unlocked bios is possible, i have the GT80S 6QE 980MSLI and Svet (MSI Forum user) makes me an special bios, have a lot of options.

 

A feature-unlocked BIOS is not an EC firmware fix.

 

Yep, we need an EC tweak to fully use power.