Upgrading MSI's GX70?

[Akutalji]

I don't know if i'm looking in all the wrong places, or maybe people just don't know. I own one of these laptops, and it runs awesome, but sometime in the future I may want to upgrade the RAM, or add in another hard drive.

Unfortunately, opening up the backplate voids the warranty. I only have a one year, so after that's up, I do plan on doing a few upgrades to it. Would be nice to know what I can do under the hood.

Anyone know whats under there? (RAM slots, .25in bays, mSATA slots? stuff like that)

 

[Legohouse]

I don't know if i'm looking in all the wrong places, or maybe people just don't know. I own one of these laptops, and it runs awesome, but sometime in the future I may want to upgrade the RAM, or add in another hard drive.

Unfortunately, opening up the backplate voids the warranty. I only have a one year, so after that's up, I do plan on doing a few upgrades to it. Would be nice to know what I can do under the hood.

Anyone know whats under there? (RAM slots, .25in bays, mSATA slots? stuff like that)

Yes, the RAM slots will under the laptop but not sure about the others. Refer your manual to locate whatever that you might want to. But IMO, upgrading RAM will not void the warranty.

Well, GX70 Series support upto 32GB of memory and it has 2 slots. You can go with DDR3-1600MHz SODIMM memory and sizes per stick is 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB & 16GB. Also make sure the voltage is 1.35v. Try crucial or Kingston you may find the appropriate memory.

Good luck!!

 

[onetoomanypcs]

I know this is an old thread, but I finally cracked mine today and thought I would let you know. There is one additional DDR RAM slot under the installed RAM, and a spare SATA III bay to the rear. MSI also provides a little rubber mount for the second bay (in your box) so I am not sure if you will void the warranty. The APU and GPU are both fully upgradeable, though the A-10 5750 and the Radeon HD 8970 are the top of AMD's mobile chips right now. This machine definitely speeds up a good amount with an SSD. I've cloned it and moved the stock 750GB to the second bay and the SSD in the lead bay. Make sure you use the correct voltage and AFAIK the BIOS only supports up to 1TB drives.

 

[Akutalji]

Unfortunately, removing the sticker to allow the removal of the backplate voids the warranty.... Did alot of digging since this thread, and the GX70 has two 2.5" bays, and three (yes, three) mSATA III ssd mounts configurable in 0, 1, 0+1 raid formation (total speeds up to ~1300mbit/s)

Two ram slots allowing up to 32GB DDR3 1600mhz (2x16) @ 1.35V.

To get to any of those parts, the warranty must be voided. There must be a way to remove that sticker so i can place it back on (to make it look like i didn't void the warranty)

 

[dvdt24]

Unfortunately, removing the sticker to allow the removal of the backplate voids the warranty.... Did alot of digging since this thread, and the GX70 has two 2.5" bays, and three (yes, three) mSATA III ssd mounts configurable in 0, 1, 0+1 raid formation (total speeds up to ~1300mbit/s)

Two ram slots allowing up to 32GB DDR3 1600mhz (2x16) @ 1.35V.

To get to any of those parts, the warranty must be voided. There must be a way to remove that sticker so i can place it back on (to make it look like i didn't void the warranty)

Shaving blade and some lubricant. In any case, putting a nice high quality layer of transparent tape over it might help during the removal process.

I've had some experience in removing warranty stickers and putting them back... haha.. practice does help

 

[The_Hunt1]

Unfortunately, removing the sticker to allow the removal of the backplate voids the warranty.... Did alot of digging since this thread, and the GX70 has two 2.5" bays, and three (yes, three) mSATA III ssd mounts configurable in 0, 1, 0+1 raid formation (total speeds up to ~1300mbit/s)

Two ram slots allowing up to 32GB DDR3 1600mhz (2x16) @ 1.35V.

To get to any of those parts, the warranty must be voided. There must be a way to remove that sticker so i can place it back on (to make it look like i didn't void the warranty)

The AMD A-10 5750M Richland APU will support 1866MHZ RAM @ 32GB (16 x2)
I have Ripjaws 1866MHZ ram and its running at full throttle. I haven't tested with the newer 2133 MHZ RAM however, kinda afraid to throw down the money if the CPU or latest BIOS update supports it.

The CPU uses a FS1r2 socket, so any FS1 or FS1r2 chipset will work in it, but the 5750M is the best there is right now. No desktop APU will work in this.

GPU uses a standard M-PCI-E slot, but I haven't used anything other than the 8970 thats in it because there is no real reason to upgrade it at this time.

There are indeed 2x SATA III HDD slots, which the bottom-most one can support thicker Enterprise (2TB+) 2.5" drives. I personally use dual SSD at RAID 0.

The optical drive is upgradeable, but due to the unique shape of the laptop, I do not think you can find anything better than the blu-ray player thats in it, unless you find the GE or GS series laptops with a blu-ray burner.

Keyboard is easily replaced incase you break keys. So is the screen and anything else.

The wireless card I cannot reach, but its pretty high end for this model. The rest of the stuff (Sound, motherboard, etc) is all integrated.

CPU fan is a centrifugal blower design that intakes through the vent in the bottom center, pulls along the GPU, goes into the fan and selectively chooses which sinks to exhaust to. So if on APU, you'll notice more air flow out the side, but when gaming, more airflow out the back. Could watercool the CPU but the GPU is spread out too much.

All in all, I do hope AMD keeps with the FS1r2 slot for the next generation of APU's because the APU in the GX-60/70 is the bottleneck of the system, and Enduro still needs work.

The next generation (GX-70 Destroyer) is EXACTLY the same as the GX-70 that was released before it, just the R9 mobile graphics is a re-branded 8970, and it comes with 12gb 1600mhz RAM (8g+4g)

I HIGHLY recommend dumping Windows 8 for Windows 7, the CPU gets bottlenecked even more due to the heavy CPU usage of Windows 8/8.1. Benchmarks in Windows 7 exceeds the benchmarks set by MSI using Windows 8 in every catagory.