Getting RTX2080 MSI GS75

Is it worth getting 3 year warranty from HIDEvolution? It costs 400$ extra. You guys think its worth it?

Also how good is the quality of so called "IPS-Level" TN panel on this laptop?
Thank you!

 

For laptops with soldered CPUs and GPUs, I would consider an extended warranty to be absolutely necessary. If one of them happens to go bad, you would need an entire motherboard replacement, which would likely cost at least double what you paid for the extra coverage.

 

IPS-Level is NOT a TN screen. The screen on the GE75 is excellent.

 

So what exact screen is "IPS-level"?

It's not TN, but doesn't say outright that it's IPS either.

 

VA would be my guess.

 

If they are anything like the “IPS level” asus is using its a beautiful screen. The rog hero ii I had was a piece of crap(sold it) but the screen was excellent. I myself ordered the GE75 / 2080 and am very excited

 

IPS-level is VA panel. It is having the advantages of speed from TN and contrast from IPS but not excellent in either.

 

Brother Donald, I have to disagree with you, but it's not your fault. It's MSI's fault.
Companies (ODM's, not resellers) should clearly state what panel they are supplying rather than playing word games like this.
My panel was labeled as "IPS level" when I bought it from XotiC PC, but it is the 120hz CMI TN panel.
IPS level in this case is referring to color accuracy and gamut, I'm guessing 98% SRGB coverage or something.
It's worse marketing speak than the Max Qippled Gefarts cards.

Proof:
https://laptopmedia.com/news/what-is-an-ips-level-display/

 

VA has glow issues though.

 

Only an LG screen can properly be called IPS (In Plane Switching). IPS is just a type of screen technology, but people used to refer to other screens of this type as IPS because they are using almost exactly the same technology.

The other screens of this type are the Samsung PLS (Plane to Line Switching), and the AUO AHVA (Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle), but since LG introduced IPS first, people sometimes still refer to the Samsung and AUO AHVA as IPS, when it fact they are properly referred to as IPS-level, or IPS-type.

Bottom line is they are not TN, and to judge quality you have to Google the screen model number to find the detailed specifications.

The GS75 hasn't arrived in the USA yet, so we will know the model number as soon as they arrive in early February.

 

That's not unique to VA panels. Any LCD can suffer from it.

 

I haven't heard much negativity with current MSI screens. I assume it's a quality screen in general. At least the 1080p high refresh one.

As for warranty, I only recommend getting warranty if you use your machine in a way that requires it: frequent traveling for example. Otherwise I don't think its worth it.

 

Thank you all! I will be getting warranty then.

 

Thank you! I will send you a follow-up email on Monday after I come back from LA to NYC

 

As always, YMMV, but I always recommend getting warranty coverage for the time you own it, and arrange to be able to offer extended warranty to whoever you sell it to.

Laptops usually run fine, until they don't, and then whatever you paid for warranty will pale in comparison to the cost of a replacement motherboard (with CPU) or GPU. Even power problems can end up causing cascading component failures, which will add up.

If you travel, get the accidental damage coverage too for sure, even if you only carry it around the house or to work / the coffee hangout, these things are heavy and not meant to take a physical fall, so again it's good to have if it's offered.

Be sure and get the optimizations - paste upgrades + screen guarantee's + etc - as it costs a lot to ship back and forth so you want to have everything done before shipping the first time.

Congrats on your new laptop.

 

Looking forward to your input on the system, I might be getting a GS75 myself

 

Couple more questions.
1. It says that MSI GS75 has 3 m.2 SSD slots and then under that says * 1 port SATA only. Does it mean that only 2 SSDs will run via PCIe and 1 will run via SATA interface?
2. Currently I am using 2 external screens + my AW 17R4 screen. Am I able to use same setup in upcoming GS75? I connect 1 monitor via HDMI and other one via Mini-Displayport

 

Thank you! I also asked Donald to swap out wireless card and install Intel 9560 instead of Killer one. I have killer on my AW 17R4 and it sometimes drops connections and behaves badly.

 

Isn't a 9560 a CVNI card? Different connection?

 

I am not sure. But Donald assured me that it is possible for 35$.

 

1. while there are 3 m.2 format slots only the first 2 support NVMe, the 3rd only sports SATA. meaning that the 3rd slot will not be able to get to the same speeds as the NVMe slots. You actually will not be able to plug in a NVMe m.2 into the 3rd slot because the data slot has an extra notch to prevent you from plugging in the wrong ssd. (The NVMe slots are backwards compatible with SATA though so you can plug in M.2 SATA ssd's into all 3)

Edit: A very important note about the GS75, all the m.2 slots are easy to access. As soon as you take off the back cover they will be right there. (Unlike the GS65 where the slots were behind the motherboard, making it so that you had to actually take apart the whole laptop and disconnect every ribbon connection just to get underneath it to change the hard drive or upgrade the ram.) the empty ram slot will also be on the same side as the m.2's, while the other slot with the 16gb stick will be behind the motherboard (like the GS65)

Edit#2
2. Looks like there is no mini display port but instead if you get a usb-c adaptor you would be able to use that instead of the mini display port.

These ports will be on the right side of the laptop.

I am also planing to get this laptop, though the 2070 not the 2080.

 

Wow! Thank you for such detailed response and explanation! Appreciate your time!

 

If you are still having issues with your Killer Wi-Fi adapter on your Alienware, try clean installing to the latest version of the Killer Control Center by following this guide - https://www.killernetworking.com/ki...q/105-clean-install-the-killer-control-center.
If that doesn't resolve the issue for you, please reach out to us directly by filling out the form here - https://www.killernetworking.com/killersupport/contact - which will also allow you to submit a diagnostic.

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

Hello! Thank you for reaching out! I will follow your instructions and let you know!

 

Killer Networking is basically malware, swap it to Intel and be done lol.

 

Come on, why the exaggeration? It's not malware... I did notice that my previous killer cards (GT80 and GT60) had issues when I had a crappy router. Once I switched to my Asus RT87U, my issues went away. That was using Killer Control Center as well.

 

Killer is a good software, the speed limit is one of the best among the consumer grade net limiters. But there is one big issue, it relies heavily on the WmiPrvSE.exe, it became a problem for users that relies a lot on the battery life. At 1.2GHz, the WmiPrvSE.exe ramps up to 4% CPU usage every 2 seconds, which translates to 1-2 watts. But once you close Killer Control Center, the WmiPrvSE.exe no longer ramps up and stays at 0~1% CPU usage. So in short, it's basically a battery killer.

This issue has been there since the package released after version 1.5.1859.

But there's still a fix for this issue:

1. First bring up Task manager, go to start-up tab, disable Killer Control Center from startup.
2. Now you need to add take ownership to your context menu, there are quite a few guides on google, we are doing thie is because all the new Killer Control center needs to go through Windows store, and we need to gain access to that just to know the path of the actual program.
3. Go to C:\Program Files and right click on the WindowsApps and take its ownership, wait for the take owndership cmd command to finish its work, sometimes it takes half an hour, depends on how many app you have installed.
4. You can now enter WindowsApps folder, beware that you now have the highest privilege so be careful not to delete anything.
5. Once entered look for folder name start with RivetNetworks.KillerControlCenter, you can just press R key to search it.
6. Go inside, if your killer control center is V1, go to KillerControlCenter_v1, if yours is V2, go to KillerControlCenter_v2.
7. Look for KillerControlCenter.exe and copy the path to a txt file.
8. Open up Task Scheduler.
9. Setup a task called Killer Control Center.
10. Open the task and go to general tab.
11. Under the safety option bracket, select Execute only when a user is logged in and tick Run with highest privilege, pick Windows 10 for the setting.
12. Add your killer Control Center path to action, for example "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\RivetNetworks.KillerControlCenter_2.0.2354.0_x64__rh07ty8m5nkag\KillerControlCenter_v2\KillerControlCenter.exe"
13. Go to Trigger program tab and setup 2 trigger procedures:
14. For first trigger procedure, start the task when a user logs in, delay the task for 10 seconds.
15. For the 2nd trigger procedure, choose when an event occurs, pick System for record, pick Kernel-Power for source, enter 105 for the event identity, delay the task for 10 seconds.
16. This is for your own knowledge: Every time when you plug-in or unplug the power core, Windows generates an event called 105, so we are using that to tell Windows when to kill the killer Control Center and when to load the Killer Control Center.
17. Go to Condition tab and tick Execute this task only when the Computer is on AC power. and also tick Stop the task if the computer switches to battery power.
18. Go to Settings tab, untick Stop the task if the run time has exceeded how many days.
19. Select Do not run a new instance.
20. Save the task.
21. To test if the task is running normally please do 2 kinds of test, restart the laptop is test number one, plug in wait for 15 seconds to see if it loads and unplug to see if it is killed is the number two test.
22. You may have to move your mouse over for the tray icon to update the tray icon status.
23. The ultimate goal is to have killer Control Center running when plug-in and quits killer control center automatically when running on battery.
24. Killer Control Center needs to be started by the task scheduler otherwise the automation breaks.

@Killer_Networking I hate doing all this and I also hate not being able to use Killer Control Center on battery mode, I really want to use Killer Control Center on Battery mode, but the current situation leaves me no choice. Could your team look into the WmiPrvSE.exe CPU usage please? Would be really nice if we can have Killer Control Center running even when on Battery.

Edit: This CPU usage issue occurs after you have introduced xtend for the first time, until now it still exists, when I joined the 2.0 driver beta few months ago, I've found one more new issue, xtend prevents the laptop from entering Sleep, but hibernate works fine, but hibernate takes up a lot of SSD space, so most users prefer using sleep, could you also look into this issue, maybe you guys can add an option for the user to choose for allowing the computer to go to sleep or prevent the computer to go to sleep when hosting xtend. xtend is very nice by the way, I use it very often, nice thing to have when you need the hotspot sharing to run automatically when you need to share the traffic of some specific network.

 

Fantastic post, and I can see why Killer (battery) network software would be at odds with battery users, makes sense that just by having it, it was draining the battery. The step by step guide to make the change when windows generates the event 105 is very ingenious and I hope Killer reads this post as to why there is concern, and hopefully they can implement the functionality to their software.

I suppose the answer is no, but if you only use the basic drivers without killer center there is no issue right, since it's the same as when killing the program? But you loose the net limiter I suppose.

Since I mostly use the laptop when connected, I never bothered to check this issue. And when using battery I was content with 2 hours of battery life that I never checked if I could improve it. Then again I think my GPU is the main culprit, since I never switched to intel GPU.

 

Yes, with the current Killer software, using only the basic driver seems to be the only fix for when on Battery.

Unfortunately, 1.5.1859 is the last driver with killer software that doesn't utilized the WmiPrvSE.exe to a level that the battery draining speed becomes a concern. But using the 1.5.1859 means you cannot use XTEND, which means you have to activate the hotspot manually where XTEND does it automatically when you are connected to the WiFi network you wish to use hotspot.

Usually hotspot is needed in a situation when you only have one wifi account and you wish to connect multiple devices to the internet.

 

Huh, the killer software has more built in functionality than I expected. The only feature I ever tried a while ago with my GT60 was the... double shot? I don't remember how they call it but you used both wifi and Ethernet cable as a single internet connection, or more accurately, both simultaneously. Supposedly gave the best results when gaming. I only noticed small improvements but changing the router gave a much better improvement

Ever since, I use the card with stock drivers, no center.

 

Yep, router plays a big part here, I'm using the Asus RT87U too, it's been 2 years already, quite reliable .

 

Read this thread and decided to try this killer app thing (downloaded from the MS store). I always avoided anything killer software because of wifi disconnect issues I had back in late 2015.

It's actually pretty cool!

 

I'm actually a bit confused by this. That module is used by many Windows applications, ours included, but it does not increase in resource usage when using the Killer Control Center. I tested myself just to be sure. Even running a speed test, I watched the .EXE on my own system and it never went above 0% CPU usage and 1,500 K memory usage. I have never seen that particular .EXE use any measurable amount of resources. I think you might have something else going on with your operating system.

Also, apologize for the late reply. For some reason, this tag never made it as an alert, so I found this by keyword search just today.

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

Could you try enabling xTend to see if WmiPrvSE.exe bumps up its CPU usage?

On mine the WmiPrvSE.exe's CPU usage stops straight away once I terminate KillerControlCenter.exe.

 

Ah, there it is. You're right, it's tied to Wireless xTend, and it doesn't go back down when Wireless xTend is disabled. I will report this to QA!

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

It's going to be really nice to have Killer Control Center running even on Battery mode again I'm looking forward to the new release!

 

And this is why this community rocks!