Official MSI GE60 2013 Owners Lounge

I highly doubt so, unless it's a gtx 770m or 780m as these cards are not soldered onto the motherboard

 

GPU cannot be upgraded. It is soldiered on the motherboard. But in general, there is no point in upgrading a laptop in such a major way. SSD upgrade is all you need in this day and age.

If I were to upgrade either CPU or GPU on a laptop, I just buy a new one.

 

I tried to look for an option that explicitly turned it off but couldn't find anything. I just assume that by going into power saver mode, it would do whatever it could to preserve battery.

I'm really banking on this as well. I still can't believe the battery life is so bad with the new haswell processors.

 

Doesn't the GE70 use a dual-fan system? That could very well explain the differences.

 

I agree, that's all I've heard about Haswell is how they supposedly offer better battery life. All the metrics I've seen online seem to support this as well. Hopefully there's a software fix in the future that can alleviate the problem.

 

The other possibility I'm thinking is the WiFi card is different than last years model, so that may be causing some extra power draw. If I get a chance, I'll check battery life with WiFi on vs off, and see if that's actually a very significant factor. Additionally, the hard drive is faster (7200 RPM) and presumably more power draw so maybe an SSD would help out?

 

That, or Optimus isn't quite working. I wouldn't leave that option behind, as Optimus is very well-known to be buggy, and NVidia drivers' quality hasn't been the best lately.

Hopefully someone can uncover the problem soon. By the way, Windows 8 battery life should be superior, although the difference probably isn't that big.

 

Probably, with 2 fans plus a decent heat-pipe layout, it's not hard to reach 60/70c under full load. Meanwhile, temperature is a rather moot point as long as the system functions the way it should and does not BSOD. You can use a laptop cooler and so on but decreasing the temperature has no effect on overall performance of laptops as well as any computer components. If it overheats and BSODs, then such laptops are poorly designed in the first place. High temperature may decrease its lifespan, but it will last more than the laptop's lifespan.
Servers operate in 80/90c almost always in case of 1U rackmounts, and they last a decade if you let them be.

I've pushed my GE60 to full load on both CPU and GPU over night. (10+ hours). It did not crash.. It got smoking hot on few spots, but those spots were where your hands don't reach generally.

On a side note, I can already tell that Optimus is iffy. I was playing a game and the screen turned blank few times and my graphic setting went ****ed with frame rate of less than 30. Then it blanked again and went back to normal. This has been a major reason I chose laptops without optimus. If I wanted good battery life, I'd have chosen something else.

 

Has anyone tried repasting and can share their temps? I should be getting mine next week and if I can repaste to have temps in the 80s instead of the 90s that would make me very happy.

 

Well, I repair computers here and there to get some extra money, and countless times I've seen out-of-order laptops because they heat too much, draw too much power for the circuit to handle or because the soldering job sucks - usually cracked balls in the BGAs and in need of a re-flow / re-ball job. I don't advise running them on 90c temps for too long, not because the CPU or GPU can't handle the heat as they're designed for handling worse temps but because the energy draw or heat might be too much for other components to handle continuously.

I can't say anything about that GE60 as I've never had one in my hands, but well, general advice never hurts, right?

Sorry to hear about that Optimus bug, although it might've been a NVidia driver crash and recover, and the Intel one acting as a failover while the 765M recovered. Fortunately I never had any problem like that with my laptop.
You can try forcing NVidia GPU in the NVidia control panel, people usually manually adjust some settings there in order to minimize Optimus problems.

 

Great to know its durability Keep your experience with this machine coming!

 

2 Hour battery life?
Are you serious?
That is insane!
Over there in the new 2013 GT60 owner thread people are reporting 4.5 hour battery life. In the GE40 owner thread they are reporting 8 Hours!
What is the point of getting this new 4th gen Intel than if the battery life is crap? It would make more sense to take the old GE60 while getting big out of shelf discount! (or just get the GT60)

 

I don't think it even last 2 full hours.At 100% battery, with just browsing web, it says I have 1 hr 54 min left. Now, if I use youtube or something, it will cut down. I am guessing 1 hr and 30 min with casual usage. Less than 30 min if you game.

 

Surely the battery life is caused by buggy drivers, as considering the components, the 2013 GE60 should have approximately equal or only a bit worse battery life compared to the 2012 model that I have. The CPU is practically the same as the IB ones aside from the iGPU, as in these high end parts there were very few modifications (just like the desktop ones), while the GPU is on the same architecture and manufacturing process, but with double the core count, which might increase idle power draw a bit. However, considering that battery life is this crap on the new model, my guess would be that it's caused by the GPU driver. Maybe someone could try monitoring the GPU clocks and see if it powers down correctly when idle.

 

Anybody try the hdmi port yet? I'm trying to hook it up to my TV and the laptop doesn't seem to be recognizing that a second display is hooked up.

 

After hearing about the battery life I'm looking into an external battery pack. Amazon.com: Anker® Astro Pro2 20000mAh External Battery Charger High Capacity Power Bank for Tablets, Netbooks, Notebooks, Laptops, Smart Phones - Compatible with HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Toshiba Notebooks, Google Nexus Tablets, iPads, iPhones, Samsung Is what I've been looking at, does anyone know if one of those tips are compatible with the GE60?

 

It does sound like the GTX 765M is on continuously and not powering properly indeed. I hope that new drivers will fix this.

 

Temp report by using Core temp and GPU-z

During intensive gaming, CPU went up to 70c. GPU went to 75c. (Idle temp is CPU 50c, GPU, 52c.)

There is an issue with the aluminum surface of this laptop. It acts almost as if a heatsink and transfers that heat to your hand.

And, on left palm rest, there is a HDD directly under. If that HDD is stressed, the palm rest above gets uncomfortably hot. The cooling system is working really well considering it has only one fan holding CPU and GPU together, but I feel that the aluminum surface is a major con here.

How ironic for me. I've always been wanting aluminum palm rest and now I got it but it's cooking my palm.

 

Every sign I can find points towards the dGPU being powered down including the 'optimus test tool' which definitively says 'nVidia GPU off' when you click it when everything is idle. This is at the same time the computer says it has 2 hours of battery life left and is at 95% charge. The only thing I can think of is that the computer thinks it's off when it really is not, as that is exactly what the battery performance implies.

Question to the person who installed Win7 and re-installed all the drivers: how is your battery life?

A couple stats on power usage according to CPUID Hardware Monitor:

Battery Voltage:: 12.3 on battery
Processor Usages: .87-1.48 W Package, .08-.11 W IA Cores, .06-.09 W GT, .79-1.03 W Uncore
Battery Capacity: 48840 mWh (4522 mAh) designed, 4635 (4293 mAh) mWh fully charged
Hard Drive power usage from datasheet: .80 W
Hard Drive power usage read/write:1.75 W

Battery Eater states that the battery designed voltage is 10.8 and we are drawing 11.2 which seems within range of normal operation, though I don't really see why it isn't drawing exactly 10.8. Most interestingly, Battery Eater only detects 3 cells in the battery though it lists the mAh the same as does CPUID Hardware Monitor

I started this post about half an hour ago and got sidetracked; it seems my mussing around in various settings might have startled Optimus into turning its self on: I see 83% remaining with 2 hours and 20 minutes projected. 3 hours would be a respectable, though not ideal, battery life and right no par with the 2012 GE60.

When I started Battery Eater (not the test, just the program), the fan spun up and the air coming out got much hotter. Projected battery time dropped to an hour and 20 mins down from 2 hours 20 mins, which is rather significant I think. It appears to go right back because once I closed it 10 minutes later, it is 1 hour 56 mins remaining. The nVidia control panel displayed that the 765M was turned on for Battery Eater so that was working as intended.


Optimus appears to be working, though there might be some glitches as usual. I'm pretty sure a couple evenings ago when I was using it, it started the dGPU with Steam or Chrome so that may have caused the especially poor battery life. 2.5-3 hours isn't great but it isn't abysmal either.

Edit: One last thing: I ran a powercfg -energy in the command line and generated a report. The only interesting thing it found was a couple USB devices not suspending and this:

PM me if you want the full report.

Could someone with last year's GE60 check to see if they get this too?

To someone who installed Win7 on this laptop: Please check out Microsoft Joulemeter and see what is using the power. The program does not work on Windows 8.

 

I've ran powercfg -energy on my 2012 GE60 and got the same results as you: 3 USB hubs and ASPM disabled. Here's the report file if you want to take a look at it, however it's in Hungarian unfortunately.

Regarding Optimus, there are some apps that aren't correctly detected and use the dGPU in default, such as Steam, but you can manually set it to the iGPU using the nVidia Control Panel. Also, battery life on my GE60 was around 2:30-2:45 under light load when I purchased it; a few days ago when I watched a full HD 2:12 movie in VLC player, using powersaver mode, but pretty high brightness and max volume, by the time the film ended I got the below 10% battery warning. Considering that the new GE60 has the same battery, but possibly more power hungry GPU if you can get similar results to mine I would say that's satisfactory.

 

I think I figured it out! The Windows 8 Metro screen, I believe is causing the dGPU to go into action. Ironically, I can't check because it's up, but right after I closed it, I noticed the battery time remaining dropped by about half and a lot more than before had been used.

I think surfing the web, I can expect 2 hours 50 mins-3 hours which I'm actually completely OK with, as it is on the range of the P151SM1 which weighs an pound and a half more.

Now the only things I have to complain about it the slightly flexey keyboard, the windows key on the wrong side, and the fan that's a bit louder than it should be. I wonder if someone could make a firmware that swaps the Win and Fn key. I also wonder if I could add some padding underneath the keyboard to reduce flex. Anyone had any experienece with the underside of their MSI keyboards?

 

Be careful not to touch the top middle aluminum part above your trackpad. CPU is directly under it and I am pretty sure it goes above 70c under stress.

Under windows 7, battery life was about 2 hours with very light usage. I am currently back to Windows 8 at the moment on it. As a pc enthusiast, I feel obligated to try to get used to the new OS before completely ditching it.

For a moment, I thought of returning the unit due to the heat issues. Battery life doesn't concern me and I stated that numerous times. I am still thinking about returning the unit, but I can't seem to find a suitable replacement where it gives easy access to all components while retaining similar spec. For an hour or two, I considered Asus ROG G750 until I saw they haven't improved in design wise. In fact, they made it worse by blocking user accessibility and upgradability. I am not going to tear a whole laptop apart just to access cooling fans, ram, and msata slots. That's ridiculous. It's almost as if they just want dumb users to use their laptop.

The unit also has palm rest overheating issue which it can be solved by either using a thin insolation sheet above its HDD or use SSD entirely.

I have about 10 days before finally deciding to stick with it or returning it.

 

The same keyboard flex and heating issues are present in the 2012 model as well, however personally I think the flex is hardly noticable.
The cooling system of the GE60, is practically unable to handle a quad core CPU under stock conditions though. I have had to repaste the laptop multiple times and buy a cooler to be able to keep it around 90C max. Now - because I don't move it around a lot - I have it with it's backplate taken off and on a cooler and this way I'm getting pretty nice temps of around 80+C max, even though ambient temp is 30C. When the CPU gets stressed the same area heats on the palmrest (around the upper right side of the trackpad), which is a spot I don't really touch during gaming though, so it's not a big deal in my opinion.

When I first saw the new GE60 I so wanted to just try to sell mine and get it as it seemed like a massive upgrade in hardware and build quality as well. Looking at reviews though, it turns out that the main update in the chassis was the aluminum palm rest, but the internal layout and the cooling system is almost exactly the same, and the other build quality issues are still present (loose DVD drive, keyboard flex, ect). I'm not saying it's a bad machine (that's why I bought it as well ), but MSI could have focused on fixing the existing issues a bit more than changing the outside of the chassis a bit to make the update look more than it is.

Anyway, before returning the GE60 I would factor in the thinness and lightness of it compared to other laptops in a similar price and performance range though, and would only do it if size and portability wasn't a high priority.

 

I am pretty sure the palm rest wouldn't get as hot as it is if it was plastic. My CPU temp never went to 90c though. CPU running bonic client (stressing all 4 cores to 100%) over night, it recorded maximum temp of 85c and that hardly happens in real life. To reflect that, casual gaming made CPU teach 70c only.

The thing is that the aluminum palm rest spreads heat out too well and the left palm rest will go to as high as 50c with a HDD directly under, and that is not comfortable to have your skin on for a long time.

 

Awesome for winter time!

 

It may or not be a solution for you, but exchange the HDD for a SSD and it should improve considerably since they almost don't generate heat.

As for hardware placement, I'm not sure if it would be entirely possible with the GE60, but I think Sony nailed it with the Vaio S15 line. The only thing below the palm-rest is the battery, so heat never really comes as an issue there as it's generated in the "back" of the laptop and promptly exits through the back (and thus the battery never heats up as well, which helps longevity a lot). Also the whole chassis is made from magnesium alloy, so it also dissipates heat.

 

If i put a HDD just for storage in the main bay (Videos mainly) and then put the 750 that comes with it in the ODD bay for games and stuff would that solve any potential heat problems on the palm test? It wouldn't spin up unless I'm actually watching something off it right?

 

It will reduce the heat, yes, which I've already tried. In such a case, the left palm rest will remain warm and won't get any hotter.

Anyway, I've decided to return this laptop.

 

Where did you get it from?

 

Hey, everyone.

Been looking for a new notebook to replace my current 4 years old Samsung,
and I think I'm going to get the new GE60.

Just have a question for the people who installed 7:
Where'd you get the drivers for 7?

All I see are drivers for 8.

Thank you.

 

So you wouldn't recommend this laptop? I'm also looking at the Asus G750 but the JX model. It is flawless with only one con, the WEIGHT. Will you be using your laptop for school? I'd just like to know what you thing of the G750 as a college laptop. If you won't mind the weight, it shouldn't be a problem for me either, i guess (size doesn't matter to me)

 

I haven't test the battery life but I think rally_point is right, higher temperature meaning less battery life. however, if repaste with IC Diamond both they shouldn't be much different in temperature and battery life.

 

Windows 8 really is far superior to windows 7. I assume you just dont like the new start menu, if you get startisback (which is a whopping three dollars) you can bring back your old start menu functionality and then enjoy all the new features of windows 8.

 

School?! Come on, man. I am almost 40. And I cannot recommend 17 inch 5kg monster for school especially one that cost 1.5k It will be stolen sooner or later. A major con for all Asus ROG laptops is that Asus think their customers are stupid and blocks access to internal components.

So, no, I cannot recommend Asus G750 for college. The laptop is just not practical for school. You want 14/15 inch. Actually, Lenovo Y410p is probably the most ideal for school if you want to retain some gaming power. It's lightweight and has a good display and an okay battery life for having 750m.

I also cannot recommend GE60 for school simply due to its battery life.

 

Drivers for 8 works for 7. You just need USB3 driver from intel website.

I don't think so and I am currently using both Windows 7 and 8 due to having numerous rigs. Windows 8 lies how it does things in order to make it appear faster and blocks few basic tasks like being able to change product keys. (Why do I have to use cmd and enter slui 3 to enter a different product key is beyond me).

Not having the start menu doesn't bother me. Over years, I stopped using that start menu anyway, but I dislike when my OS does things behind my back

 

Can anyone share some 765m overclocking results?

 

Well, I'm 38 and I still go to school every day. I'm a teacher. I'm using a VAIO VPCCB 15.5", it works well, but the GFX is just a 6630m, the battery lasts about 3 hours, and it's maybe a bit heavy with 2.7 kg. The GE60 has a lot more power and it's 300g lighter, but it seems it isn't what I'm looking for, so hot and with even less battery life. I think the GE40 is a great option for someone that uses it to school. Yes, it's more expensive than the Lenovo, but it's more powerful too and has 4-5 hour battery life.

 

For a teacher, then I'd recommend Lenovo Y510p. It has a business appearance.

 

Hi folks, I received my laptop today and the first thing I wanted to test was the battery life. Here are the results. I am not an expert in testing laptops so sorry if I am missing any detail.

Scenario: Web browsing, streaming music in the background, little youtube (around 20 mins). Screen brightness: 40%. Using earphones (speakers for around 15 mins). Power plan was “balanced”.

The GPU and the CPU has the IC Diamond thermal paste.

The time remaining was initially 2:37 hours. That seemed to be ok. I kept checking the time remaining now and then. It seemed to vary drastically from as low as 1:30 hours to as high as 2:50 hours. Could Nvidia Optimus be the reason for this as it would keep switching the graphics card depending on the load?

The following was the battery level at various stages:

Start: 97% (It doesn’t charge to 100%. Is the battery faulty? CPUID also shows reduced capacity. The wear level is 1%. )
0:30 - 77%
1:30 - 34%
2:00 - 10%
2:10 - Hibernated at 5 %

If the battery life had been 3+ hours, this could have been the perfect laptop for my needs. If I used “power saver” plan, could I get higher battery life?

I see that the battery capacity is 49 WHr. Is there any chance of getting higher capacity battery for this laptop?

Other comments: The display and audio are great. Keyboard was good except for the “home” and “end” key placements (have to use Fn key). That’s very inconvenient. What were they thinking when they designed it?! Touchpad is good. The build quality is ok. The DVD drive is shaky.

I was waiting for a Haswell gaming laptop for quite some time in order to get a good battery life. In the case of MSI GE60, it looks like there is no difference or it is even worse. I have to think about my needs and see if I should return this and get the GE40 as everyone is reporting very good battery life in it.

 

I was able to pull out 3 hours(well I had been using it for an hour and a half and the battery was at 50%) with the screen brightness at low. I think there are definitely optimus issues size the ge40 seems to be getting mighty fine battery life and even though the 765m is higher wattage than the 760m, it shouldn't matter if it is disabled.

I've decided to keep mine because I think many of the issues with it are fixable with a little tape and I do not really like any of the alternatives (y510p because sli and p151sm1 because of weight and noise). I hope we can get some real drivers from Nvidia that will fix optimus once and for all.

Also, if you're using chrome, by default the 765m turns on.

 

I checked the settings 3D settings in Nvidia control panel. For chrome, it uses integrated graphics by default. How do you say 765m is used?


Also, how are you confident that the battery life issue is because of faulty optimus? I would really love to keep this laptop if the problems can be fixed by a driver update.

Also the ge40 uses 4702QM processor whose max TDP is 10W lower than 4700MQ that is used in ge60. Wouldn't that bring about a significant difference in battery life?

 

Wait the Battery is only 49W ? I see why it's so horrible now.
The lesser GE40 has a 65W Battery.
Make no sense why this bigger & heavier laptop has a smaller battery.

 

I must be wrong about Chrome, sorry. I'm pretty sure the battery issue is because of faulty Optimus because I have been able to get acceptable/good battery life out of it (3 hours) though I was at lower brightness than you were. I can confirm the battery is only 49 Wh. It boggles my mind why they would stick a bigger and better battery in the GE40. I wonder if the GE40 battery would fit in the GE60?


Edit: Just checked the page for this laptop and there is an update available for the BIOS and for the firmware, supposed to fix fn+f10 for Win7 (didn't even know this was a problem), update the Intel VBIOS (hopefully help with Optimus) and update fantables (maybe help with noise, though I don't find it loud at all).

 

Great! Do share the improvements after you've updated it

 

Haven't updated yet but doing some research on the battery, x-post from the GE40 thread. Right now I'm experiencing the "plugged in, not charging" issue which is very weird. I haven't tried restarting yet so I'll update some time tomorrow with that.

I pulled the battery to get the actual information. Here's what I got:

Rating: 11.1 V 4400 mAh, 49 Wh BTY-S14

That's in comparison to last year's GE60 which was 5200 mAh and this year's GE40 which is 6000 mAh. So what it looks like is the nimrods at MSI said to themselves "what the customers really want is a battery that holds less capacity and weighs the same amount." I can honestly think of no reason why they would think that to be a good decision other than pure cost cutting, or they're just a gigantic bunch of idiots.

That said, has anyone had any experience with extended battery products, such as these ones which should supposedly fit this computer?
MSI BTY-S14 batteries - Replacement MSI BTY-S14 Laptop Battery

These look a little too good to be true but it would be wonderful if they were.

In case anyone cares, here's a picture of the battery:
http://i.imgur.com/UwQV2XE.jpg

Edit: so cpuid hw monitor says it's a 3 cell battery...is msi lying to us or is hw monitor unreliable?

 

Wow if that 6600 mAh battery actually works that is an amazing find, hopefully someone can confirm that it works! It would give us similar runtimes to the GE40 which would be perfect. I would order that up in a heartbeat if its actually legit.

 

Would love to see someone using the extended 6600mAh battery I'd go with the GE 60 if it works

 

I don't know if any one realized, but the computer is also heavier than the marketed specs. Even with the hdd replaced by a ssd, it's around 5.8 lbs, so with the hdd, it's almost 6 lbs. As others have mentioned, I am a bit disappointed by the battery life because this was one of the reason why I chose this over the y510p. Furthermore, optimus doesn't seem to be glitched as I don't see the power button turned orange (gpu mode) for stuff like chrome and other light-weight programs. GAH!~

 

What is the difference between the 50C and 70C BIOS's? Is it just RAID vs. AHCI? Doesn't the stock BIOS support both? I was able to put 2 mSata SSD's in RAID 0 with the stock BIOS.

I'm really hopeing for a quieter fan when idle. Better battery life would be great but the fan is my main issue.

 

Genxi, would you mind posting a picture of the computer on a scale? I'm honestly not too displeased by it because it feels pretty light still but it would give me the ammunition required to return this laptop to Newegg if I decide to.