MSI GT63 - a mistake?

Hi everyone - recently I found a MSI GT63 at the following link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C94H7TL/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My thoughts were, "this is a pretty good price for a reasonably sided portable laptop that can possibly replace my desktop PC while also being able to be brought to work, AND a full GTX 1080! Count me in!", so I ordered it.

And then I started obsessively looking for reviews - there are not many at all, but the ones I did find kept saying the same thing, that the temps were awful.

So, my hopes with this laptop are to keep it for at least 3ish years before replacing it with something else. Maybe longer. Is the heat being put out by this thing ( around 90-95c on load for the CPU ) going to be a problem for me in terms of longevity?

I'd like to not have to put liquid metal on this thing myself, as I don't really trust my own unsteady hand, and seeing how it's already on it's way, I can't order it from HID to get it repasted by them.

Mostly just looking for reassurance or a firm smack on the face if I need it.

Thanks!

 

With some undervolting and repaste with ICDiamond/Kryonaut or GC_Gelid you'll not have any issues at all.

It's typical for users to run a notebook with stock thermal paste and then be suprised about the bad temps ._.

 

I don't like it when they go over 90C, but if it's maxing out at 95 you can get under that with just a repaste, not even LM. As @Danishblunt suggested, those pastes are viscous enough that they'll make up for things like wider gap, uneven contact, etc between the spreader and chip, and you don't have to take extra precautions like with LM.

 

Gotcha - well, I guess my other thought process was my warranty being voided. I guess there will be no way around it.

 

In most places you only void warranty now if you damage the computer during the procedure, or if the modification itself ends up being the reason for a failure (part of why I don't recommend anyone use LM unless they REALLY know what they're doing)

 

I have one.
Can't get it under ~93C with kryonaut and 125mV undervolt.
Even with LM temps aren't great. Still reaches 92C although at higher clocks. Already reduced the thickness of my foam once, maybe I'll try to thin it even more tomorrow but contact isn't great.(This in BF1 at ultra settings. PUBG it hovers around 83C)
GPU is always at 90C.
Heatsink looks great, but it has almost as much fins as heatpipes... CPU and GPU are super hot but the air coming out of the unit is just kinda warm... Considerably colder than most units I've owned.
The fan curves also play a role. On auto it's pretty quiet. With a custom fan curve (still well below max speed) you can squeeze out a couple degrees.

Right now I have LM, foam dams and stock thermal pads.
Maybe I'll switch out the thermal pads for something higher quality and squishier, maybe that'll help with contact.

 

Those temps are horribly distressing and really bad with LM..

 

The warranty will not be voided. It is actually illegal and unlawful to not honor the warranty on the basis of a broken seal.

The issue with the GT63 and 16L13 is that the pipes from CPU to heatsink fin (that actually dispels the heat) is very long. Shorter pipes with less bends are preferred to dump heat quickly to the fins.

It's also originally designed to only handle 4 core CPU and GTX 1070. But now they put more cores and a more powerful GPU. Temperature problems are bound to happen.

 

If the CPU and GPU have high temps but the air coming out isn't very hot, that sounds like a bad heatsink contact situation that may be improved with repadding and/or lapping.

 

This sounds like you don't really like the design of the GT63 - which based on the information I guess I could understand that. Wish I knew beforehand. I'm also surprised MSI would let that be a thing, seeing as how they seem somewhat popular.

 

You can return with amazon's policy right? Say the machine overheats and it bothers you a lot if it doesn't perform as advertised.



It's not that I don't like it, my comment applies to every single 8th gen laptops right now, they are built with the mindset of cooling quadcore 45w parts while in reality you're dealing with 70+w hexcore parts with massively increased thermal density.



If you can't return it, I can help you fix it (probably).

 

I repaded and applied LM for the third time. Temps dropped a bit more. Now they average ~87C on both CPU and GPU. Still there's small spikes to 93C or 91C respectively.
I'm sure the heatsink fit has something to do with it. But it's mostly the 8750H+1080 combo. It's a whopper! The heatsink seems to be very similar to last gen but has to deal with a bigger load. No miracles here.

I have a 150mv undervolt and it's barely making any difference...

It's on sport mode, auto fans so that's probably the fans being slow to ramp up on some quicker loads.
Noise level is acceptable in auto mode. Not so much in max speed. A custom fan curve somewhere between should help even further.

You guys think I would get better results with Phobya nanogrease?

 

It may take some fiddling with different pad thicknesses and placements to get the contact just right. What are your temps like with max fans?

 

Barely?
It makes no difference at all. Undervolt doesn't do anything other than improve performance in your case. The thing with your CPU is, that it is power limit throttled, it will hit power limit of 45Watts, once you undervolt, it will still hit 45W power limit, but with higher clockspeeds.

That being said. There is clearly something wrong. You have 4 heatpipes and a huge dedicated fan for a puny 45W CPU. My 4940MX @ 4.5ghz uses ~90 Watts on a modded 4 heatpipe CPU cooling solution and runs around ~75c. I've seen 2 heatpipe small fan solutions that handle 45W much better, so clearly either bad fit (which I doubt) or another factor. Sadly I haven't had a GT 63 yet, so I can't do the diagnosis on it and find out for sure, but I suspect it shares the same symptoms as the AW notebooks do.

 

I'm hitting thermal throttling before I even get into power limit throttling. But yeah the undervolt allows for higher clocks overall.

There's heatpipes but fins also count and add mass. The heatsink isn't very heavy. I'm afraid the glossy heatpipe fest is more for show...

 

Just to feed my curiosity. Do you mind taking detailed pictures of this heatsink set for the GTX1080 variant GT63?

 

Here you go
https://i.imgur.com/zt5zKnU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ONaxe0j.jpg

stock pads
https://i.imgur.com/F1rItD7.jpg

arctic pads
https://i.imgur.com/VrIMm7n.jpg

I don't have access to Phobya ng right now. Maybe I'll try with some Noctua NT-H1 later. It's highly viscous so might deal with the gaps a bit better. I just feel like there's not much pressure to aid LM application.



Removing the undervolt causes havok. CPU spikes to 98C. GPU never goes past 91C again.
Average clocks on the CPU are around 3.2 while with uv they are closer to 3.7GHz so the uv is def helping a lot.
Tested on BF1 on ultra, same map and location over 20mins. Sport mode + auto fans.

 

Sadly it was through a third party, so I'm not sure if Amazon's return policy applies here. I would love some assistance for sure, if you don't mind.

 

The cooling is still wayyyyy more than enough for 45W. I have the feeling it has the "aw" syndrome. Can you idle around for 10minutes, then start a GPU only test and see if the CPU temps rises? I have the feeling that the Heatpipes work in reverse like on the AW models.

 

Please open HWinfo64 and have the CPU VID showing with the current and max VID, and run a stress test for a few minutes, then take a screenshot.
Prime95 works. Edit local.txt in the prime95 folder and add the line CPUSupportsAVX=0 then do a small FFT test for a few minutes. Make sure cpu temp is shown for each core as well.

 

Is it just me, or is the GT63 heatsink actually worse than that of the Tornado F5/16L13?

Spoiler: GT63

Two of the CPU heatpipes (in red) overlap other heatpipe(s) at the CPU core or the fins. That can't be efficient, right? And then there's the heatpipe (in green) that dumps its heat onto the memory chips and memory VRM on the GPU.

Spoiler: Tornado F5/16L13 GTX 1070 version

Spoiler: Tornado F5/16L13 GTX 1080 version

^This design is less unified. The CPU and GPU core each get 3 independent non-overlapping heatpipes running to their fins. And the shared heatpipe in the middle can be disconnected by unscrewing that plate to prevent the CPU and GPU core from puking heat onto each other.

 

Just received my GT63 - the temps are very very bad. On both the GPU and CPU, it hits a consistent 93c in Assassin's Creed Origins after about 10 minutes of gameplay. When I tried to benchmark it through Aida64, it didn't thermal throttle ( surprising ) but maybe it should if it's reaching this temp without anything stopping it.

The fan noise is incredibly low, however. I barely hear it even on full load.. gonna mess with the volts and fan curve, see if that helps.

 

Fan curve and undervolting by 140 gave me about a 5c decrease in load temps - overall not very impressed, but the laptop itself performance-wise other than the heat? Excellent. I almost wish I was ignorance of temps so I wouldn't have it in the back of my head that my laptop is ON FIRE, because I would never notice it without my performance tools.

 

Fulfilled by amazon? Doesn't have to be prime.

Just contact amazon and complain lots about the laptop and its faulty cooling solution.


I'm not sure how to help you, short of getting physical access of the machine.

 

I don't think the pads need to be replaced, they're decent enough at stock. Unless you spot one that's way too thick from excessive pressure marks.

What do you mean heatpipe work in reverse like on the AW models?

That they actually work?

Have you tried the full speed fan boost mode?

Or you can just return it and claim faulty temperatures alongside every single complaint you can think of.

 

AW notebooks use the CPU as a heatsink instead of the actual heatsink. People have done GPU only tests and had 90c on the CPU.

 

Ah right, the cpu has 3 pipes going to the fins but the gpu only 2.

 

If I put LM on this, would you guys recommend the laptop or do you just all say send it back and get something else? I thought this was a value, but maybe I'm mistaken.

 

just test it if its bad, send it back.

 

Also, if you decide to purchase again. I would recommend getting it from HID. The price is the same (with current promo and NBR discount), but you get their thermal treatment and TS, etc. Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

155mV undervolt + custom fan curve + Coolermaster Mastergel Maker Nano (kinda like Phobya nanogrease, a bit worse maybe but I couldn't get phobya easily where I live).

GPU at 90C, CPU hovering around 84C, pinned at 3.9GHz while gaming.

I got it more under control now. This paste is very viscous and I applied a thick layer after warming up the paste a bit. It seems to be a nice choice.
GPU temps still worry me a bit. Core clock is never below 1750MHz so it isn't throttling that much. Maybe It has to do with the thermal pad thickness, gotta check it again.

On max fans GPU temp doesn't improve, but it gets closer to 1950MHz. My current custom fan curve is still pretty far from max fans.

The MXM module is also quite movable. You can push it down, away from the heatsink with little effort. May but a little rubber spacer behind it to improve contact.

 

So glad I found this site. I had the GT62VR and it ran around 72c full load, so when bought the GT63, I was expecting higher thermals, not 90c in the first 3 minutes of stress testing. I actually had it RMA because I called MSI and they told me it shouldn't get that hot. After getting it returned to me, the temps didn't change. I complained and got an extra year warrantee on it, so that was cool. Anyways, I used Innovation Cooling Graphite Thermal Pad – Alternative to Thermal Paste/Grease (30 X 30mm) and it greatly slowed down the the time it took to get to 90c, but still hit 90c. I removed the bottom case and then ran stress tests again, and it held 85c (GPU) and 77c (cpu) for over 15 minutes. This case has serious airflow issues which is expected with a laptop. I'm think I'm going to buy a used GT62vr bottom cover, since it fits perfectly and is cheap, and do some modding by cutting some holes where the fans are and see if I can improve air flow, since gaming without a bottom cover is out of the question.

 

HID Evolution does a great mod in the GT75 series. Looks like this



I agree, the bottom cover doesn't make much sense. The fans are literally a few milimeters away from a solid plastic wall.
Maybe it forces air across other components on the motherboard and that ain't so bad. But they still struggle for air.

In the GT63 lifting the rear of the laptop a few cms, undervolting the CPU and raising the speed of the fan curve in dragon center make a world of difference.

Let me know if you find a compatible bottom cover anywhere. I was looking for one but I only found quite pricey offers.

 

I picked up a used GT62VR bottom case cover on ebay for $33. I see a few new ones on ebay for $89-95. I should be getting the cover this weekend, and I will start cutting some holes. I might try just drilling some holes with a screw first to see if that will be enough. If that is not enough air, I will cut out large holes, and glue some mesh over the holes to keep large things from getting in the fan.

I think another reason for the fan placement was noise. With the cover off, the fans are very loud with cooler blast on. I'm wondering if there is a way to kick up the fan RPM. I tried to use afterburner, and other tools including dragon center, but I guess I am not able to change it within windows. I wonder if there is a hidden bios setting. I am not really worried about burning out the fan, since new fans are cheap online anyways ($25-35 each).

I wonder if there are any hardware changes I can make. I am also going to see if I can some how mount another fan in there somewhere, but I am am not sure how I could power it.

 

Is your heatsink making good contact with the cpu die?

Silent Option doesn't let you change the fan speed?

Last resort, ask Svet and he will either mod your EC firmware or send you the EC editor and you can set custom curves, I have made custom curves on my GT72 and now I never need to put the fans on max, bumped the idle speed a bit and made the ramp more proportional to the temp and it stays at 65ºC on the GPU after hours of gaming, that and using Kyronaut.

 

Looking forward to your mods on the bottom case...i have the GT63 Titan with the 1080 and had HIDevolution do a Liquid Metal repaste on it and a BIOS applied -50 undervolt and it seems to have really helped the temps compared to what others I am seeing (high 70's, low 80's max after some stress testing on my lappy). Always looking to drop the temps more though. Can you post photos as well when you are done Dr. Frankensteining the bottom?

 

I will do. How do i get hold of Svet about modded SC firmware or how to unlock the bios? I think I am going to try to get a small fan in there somewhere just because I can. I am trying to figure out how to power it right now.

 

Go over to the MSI forums and post in the BIOS Mod requests, he will then PM you back.

 

Send him a private message on the official MSI forums https://forum-en.msi.com

You will have to donate for his work but his work is top tier. He has helped me several times and even saved my Intel ME firmware from me bricking it by messing with an option in the unlocked Bios I had no business messing with (Please don't disable the Intel ME . just don't).

BTW the only thing useful that you would care about in the unlocked Bios is the overclocking performance menu (where you can set adaptive or static voltages and undervolt easily, and set memory DDR4 voltages--GT75VR allows this, GT73VR's bios doesn't have that compiled), CPU VR settings, where you can set the internal IA AC DC loadlines to 1 to stop automatic MSI overvolting (Never ever go anywhere near the upper values, ever); this happens because MSI uses a preinstalled "Loadline Calibration" that the user has no access to, which somehow affects CPU VID (long story; in desktops, Loadline Calibration affects the CPU VCORE circuit, not the VID request), changing IMON SLOPE to less than 100 and IMON OFFSET to a negative value (to make the CPU report its using less power to bypass TDP restrictions), and changing a few other things of questionable importance (FCLK to 1 ghz rather than 800 mhz, or unlocking "CFG Lock" which lets Throttlestop change the C-states in windows). Nothing else is really that important unless you're using an external monitor (there's an option to allow the Bios to output to the external monitor while in the Bios. Busted on the GT73VR--doesn't work with the Nvidia GPU but does work with the iGPU).

MSI GT73VR users needed to unlock the bios to set the Peg root port 1 from auto to enabled, to bypass a silly bug which caused a black screen when switching from dGPU->iGPU->dGPU under some bizarre circumstances (zero drawbacks to doing this).

 

Thanks for the useful information. I will send him a message later tonight. I was going to post a of my modding experiment, but not sure how. I just cut the holes to test what temps I'm getting. I'm hitting 87c and 80c after 15 minutes of stress testing.

 

Ok, here are some pic. Still working on how to pretty it up. I contacted Svet, and working with him to get an unlocked bios. I think i also figured out how to add to 40mmx7mm fan inside the case and using the USB power. The other power option would be to take out the 2.5" ssd and use the space and power from there, but to make up the storage shortfall, I would neet to upgrade to a 2TB Nvme. Not sure I want to drop about $500 on that, so hopefully I can get the USB power to work. Still working on exact details. Any ideas? We'll see how this goes.

 

Ok. I added some fans, using the USB port on the left side to power it. I bought a cheap L-shape usb cable and spliced a connector to it. I liked this cable because it is reversible, and little more low profile when plugged in. I installed two 40mmx7mm fans (6.5 cfm each), plus two 30mmx7mm (3.3 cfm each) blowing air in. The hardest part was finding a spot where the fans were not against a component, so that is why the fans are placed where they are. The electrical tape covering the area next to fan, is so I can force the air blown into the case up and over the CPU and GPU blocks, for a little extra air flow and cooling, while also cooling other component. This is not the final product. I think I will clean it up, by using a different type of tape instead of electrical, although it might be the best option because it is no conductive. I will also find a better way to mount the fans. Right now I am using the really strong double sided mounting tape, which is pretty strong, but not permanent.

So with this configuration, I was able to get the GPU temp to top off at 81c and CPU topping off at 72c, wilthout LM. I have GPU overclocking set to +170 GPU clock and +220 Mem clock. I thought those were pretty good numbers. The negatives to all this is it does increase fan noise, loss of the USB port on the left side, and no way to turn off fans, without unplugging from USB port. However, all the modification are done to the bottom cover only, which I was able to get a used GT62, so nothing was touched on the motherboard. I did this, so that in case I had to return the machine for warranty, I can just pop the original bottom cover back on and ship it off. I included the pics for people to see. Please let me know what you think.

 

I think you made that cable coming out the bottom as pretty as it could be; nice work!

I'm really glad you're getting somewhere with this project. I just got my GP73 from HIDevolution and they did all their thermal mods to it. I'm topping out at 87° after gaming for a couple hours straight. I'm wondering if I could use a hole saw to get some nice clean cutouts where the fans are and install a filter mesh to get some extra airflow. HIDevolution offers their bottom plate mod on the higher end MSI models, but not on the one I got.

 

Nicely done. I like.

 

Nice work from a true modder.

 

Nice work!

How loud are those little fans? And why did you feel the need to put aditional fans in that area?

 

Thanks for the support. I really appreciate it, coming from you guys.

The fans are loud. About 1/4 the loudness of max fans. It's very noticeable by itself, but then again when gaming, I'll usually have head phones in or volume up, so it's not noticeable then. When not gaming, I can unplug the fans. I need to think of a way to mount the USB plug when not in use. Maybe magnetic tape or something.

Anyways, I added the extra fans because when I cut the holes, the center of the mobo was no longer getting air flow and started to get noticeably hot. By adding the fans, I was getting air flow again. I decided to seal of the bottom area by the fans to add extra air flow by creating a wind tunnel, which definitely helped.

This little project was a lot of fun. It's a shame is almost complete. Not sure what I can do next. Liquid cooling maybe?

 

That is the problem, with all respect to HIDEvolution, that cover mod with increase the temps of ssds for example.

 

Another quick update. I bought an after market GT62VR Fan from amazon (link below), because in the comments it said that this fan was able to get up to 5000 RPM. I only bought one for now to test, and I installed it on the GPU side. I was able to get the GPU temp to top off at 79c, along with the other case mods, but man is it loud. It sounds like a get engine at times. Now I see why MSI went with the fans it did. I think I will buy one for the CPU side as well. I was thinking about applying LM at some point to see if I can get it even lower. We'll see if i can get some courage for that endeavor.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077ZNG23K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

You can try to take such a radiator. And do something like the photo. Then your fans will take heat from it. Unless of course there is enough space under the lid for him.