The Official MSI GS73VR Owners' Lounge

montobrah · Nov 11, 2016

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lovidore · Nov 7, 2016

montobrah said: ↑

I would give anything to know how common many of the issues with this laptop are. No one responds to me. Literally zero responses or corroborations to my reports of banding, coil whine, touchpad issues, anything. The only evidence I have that they're more widespread issues is that multiple reviews and posters here have had some of the same issues. They don't respond to me but they say words and put them on the internet. Seems people don't even bother checking, or whatever. I am in the dark. Seems like it would be easy to ask people to put their ear next to the speaker and listen for noise, but it's not.

Here's my tally:

Major problems:
-Coil whine/buzz from right speaker and AC input - buzz becomes very loud during gaming but is drowned out by the fans after a few minutes; always audible when scrolling and moving the mouse
-Different coil whine from CPU area; becomes unbearable and constant in High Performance power mode - only cure is disabling C states, which also limits the Turbo to 3.1GHz instead of 3.5GHz
-Occasional stuttering and input lag when multitasking
-Key press repeating issue when running heavy background apps - lllllllliiiiiiiikkkkkkkkeeeeeeee tttttttthhhhhhhiiiiiiiissssssss
-Touchpad becomes jammed if you press left click too hard; requires bottom panel removal to reset
-Keyboard cutout misaligned by a couple millimeters
-Left hinge plastic was separated out of the box; display itself is a few millimeters misaligned
-Bottom edges are sharp
-5/9 of the bottom feet do not touch a flat surface
-CPU throttles down to 2.5GHz after a few minutes of Prime95 unless undervolted or repasted - industry substandard

Minor problems:
-Metal is bent around several ports
-Color banding on display
-Fans occasionally clip the surrounding plastic - fixed by slapping the laptop repeatedly
-Left speaker rattles and the area under the numpad also rattles against the battery - fixed with pieces of foam placed inside
-Nahimic eats up 5-10% CPU
-Killer eats up 1-5% CPU; the drivers are buggy and performance is poor
-MSI X-Boost eats up 5-95% of the CPU
-Dragon Center clashes with MSI True Color and SteelSeries Engine settings
-The m.2 SSD and 2.5" hard drive are both very slow, even for SATA
-Several LED's are irregularly colored when choosing a keyboard color other than red, green, and/or blue
-With Chrome open, whole computer freezes as soon as the display turns off
Etc.
Click to expand...

Derek712 said: ↑

Hi lovidore,

The only major issues on this list above I've had are the CPU coil whine, occasional stuttering from GPU switching and the bottom edges being sharp(on my previous unit). I definitely haven't had issues with constant keypresses - that would drive me crazy. I might have the touchpad issue but I don't ever click it, I only tap and double tap. I have no misalignment problems with my keyboard or screen but I do see that some of the footpads aren't touching. Luckily all 4 corners are touching and there's no wobble but a couple of the center ones look like they have a gap. I don't think the CPU throttling is a major issue though. That's pretty normal for thin laptops with this CPU. I guess they could have done a dual fan like they did with the GPU.

I had some of the minor problems but I resolved most of them by doing a clean install. I don't use Nahimic, Killer, True Color or Dragon Center. The only catch with not using Nahimic is I have to manually change my output device when using headphones. To me it's worth it to have better sound and CPU overhead but it's slightly annoying. Color banding isn't an issue on my screen(I have the 4k version currently). I don't remember it on the 120Hz version either. After a couple months, I've generated a small amount of BLB on the top edge, likely from the lid being so thin and the panel flexing. The BLB varies day to day so I'm confident that's the case. In my opinion, it's really minor and nothing compared to how bad it "could" be. On the 120Hz TN panel there was super light edge bleed but it was hardly noticeable at all. I agree the M.2 and HDD suck - I replaced them immediately. As for the LEDs, the primary colors are solid but mixing them gives you strange results on some of the bottom keys. This is actually pretty normal given the LEDs they are using rely on resistance to change colors and they aren't individually lit. Alienware also has the same issue which is why they lock you into only using 16 or so colors and no longer white(it looks beige/pink).

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Hello!

Thank you both so much for your reply, it seems from your comments that QC issues are a bit too much for me to handle. Specially considering that I live in Qatar (middle east) and returning a laptop for exchange/repair is a huge hassle.

I think I'm going to go with Alienware 15 R3 once the first launch batches go out and they iron out their assembly process.

styde · Nov 7, 2016

Hi,
Just got mine today. Thank you for your advices, I finally tune it up after some hours. Bought from french store (-014FR-), no static noise, no sharp edge. I turned internal hdd on an external drive and put a 2nd ssd for a perfect quiet.
temp max: cpu 94° gpu 78° (20min doom-vulkan)
undervolt cpu/cache -105.5mV, overclock gpu +164MHz core +0 mem (for boost reach desktop 3GB version), using throttlestop, afterburner
temp max: cpu 81° gpu 76°
I uninstalled norton but no others from msi except scm/xplit. Update all of them and disallow autostart until no taskbar icons, only elan and intel rapid stay now.
Finally 2 problems left: 1s mouse lag on gpu wake up, no subwuffer until i mute it from windows parameters under playback device in volume.
For lags it is about optimus, no solution except wait for intel driver or magic bios update, I reduced uac level to stop fullscreen alert so no stupid lag on admin confirmations before and after.

montobrah · Nov 11, 2016

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styde · Nov 7, 2016

montobrah said: ↑

@stydeI kind of figured the sharp edges were part of the design. I'm not sure what MSI has done differently to fix that.
Click to expand...

You are true. It could be better by a little polishment but I saw some picts with gaps near the back. I was afraid.

D4nthr4x · Nov 7, 2016

What GPU temps are people getting if they run unigine engine heaven after repasting with liquid metal? I think I didn't put enough metal on mine I'm seeing temps in the upper 80s low 90s after a repaste.

montobrah · Nov 11, 2016

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TigerFoo · Nov 10, 2016

colonels said: ↑

REPEATABLE NOISE!

run any internet speed test, i use Xfinity speed test, and listen to the lower left corner near the headphone plug in.

it is louder on 2.4ghz wifi and quieter when on 5ghz wifi.

make sure you are in a quiet room.

can you hear the electronic crackling on the download and upload parts?
Click to expand...

Funnily enough, it's the exact opposite for me. Downloading data on 5ghz wifi causes a high pitched buzzing sound coming from the right hand corner around where the speaker is on the Laptop.

I've had mine for about 2 months now. When I first booted up the laptop I experienced the stuttering that people have commonly reported, However a clean install completely fixed it for me. I've noticed a slight coil whine from the PSU and/or CPU that is a bit more audible on high performance, but it isn't loud enough to bother me thankfully. The buzzing from downloading data on 5ghz however, is loud enough to be annoying.

montobrah · Nov 11, 2016

TigerFoo said: ↑

Funnily enough, it's the exact opposite for me. Downloading data on 5ghz wifi causes a high pitched buzzing sound coming from the right hand corner around where the speaker is on the Laptop.

I've had mine for about 2 months now. When I first booted up the laptop I experienced the stuttering that people have commonly reported, However a clean install completely fixed it for me. I've noticed a slight coil whine from the PSU and/or CPU that is a bit more audible on high performance, but it isn't loud enough to bother me thankfully. The buzzing from downloading data on 5ghz however, is loud enough to be annoying.
Click to expand...

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caitsith01 · Nov 12, 2016

caitsith01 said: ↑

1. The main benefit to me of Dragon Centre is that is has custom fan speed profiles. Is there a light weight alternative that doesn't have a nightmarishly bad interface? E.g. will Afterburner do the same job, but better?

2. Likewise, is there some way to have one of the MSI screen profiles always running (specifically, sRGB which is actually accurate and very nice) without having to run the stupid app every time the machine boots?
Click to expand...

Anyone know the answer to these questions?

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