MSI GE60 3DMark 11 Benchmark scores

MSI GE60 2OE-003US

Unboxing photos:







The 120W power supply is thinner than my pervious one.











Underside



Inside


Plextor M5M (not included) and RAM


HDD


The keyboard looks nice and works just fine.








There have been many report of the new GE60 having high temps, and I found this to be true. After doing initial benchmarks to see where the idle and load temps were with the stock thermal compound on the CPU and GPU, I went ahead and did a repaste using IC Diamond.




I discovered that the factory had used too much paste.


I also discovered this mishap. The thermal pads that cool the GPU VRMs still had their plastic tape on!


Cleaned off the CPU


CLeaned off the GPU


Added the IC Diamond to the CPU and GPU

This tape wasn't removed prior to installation at the factory. Tsk Tsk.
Added some copper ramsinks where I could and reassembled the laptop.

Results are quite good

Chordate anatomy photos

Creative x-fi surround 5.1 sb1090 mod

This mod aims to improve the overall performance of this soundcard.  Capacitors are added in parallel to existing ones.  This helps improve linearity because film caps were used and transient response due to higher capacitances.

Before:

 

Suddenly, capacitors:

Caps are added at the V+ of the L/R opamp, Cirrus 4361 DAC, and Cirrus CS5345 ADC.

Listening to it, I can say that it sounds "faster" if that makes any sense.

Next, I might try to replace the current L/R opamp (TD1308) to the OPA2365 or completely bypass it and use it solely as a DAC.

EDIT: I don't know if it's all in my mind, but I dare say it's handing bass better now.  Before, it would start distorting a little before I had my amp at a good loud volume.  Now the bass is being handled better with no detectable distortion.

It's mostly done now.  What's left is figuring out how to deal with a small ground issue.  Maybe the power supply design was insufficient.

Here it is almost done.  There were too many wires going from the amplifier board to the power board, so I  reduced the number by daisy chaining power and ground cables.  Hopefully this doesn't affect the sound negatively.
I have made changes to this since this picture, but this will be the general layout.
Now I have to finish drill holes in the front panel for the headphone jack, power switch, and LED, and in the back, I need to cut out the rectangle for the IEC.

Completed the AC->DC section.

The power section consists of 2 rectifiers, one each for the +15V and -15V rails.
The filter capacitors are Panasonic FM 1500µF 35V metal foil caps and a 1µF Epcos Polyester film cap.
The linear regulators are the 7815 for the positive rail and the 7915 for the negative rail.
The reservoir caps are Panasonic FM 3300µF 16V metal foil caps and a 1.2µF Vishay-Dale polyester cap.
The dual TO-220 heatsink is soldered to the board, and the regulators are stuck to it by pressure and Arctic Silver Ceramique thermal paste.

The 1/4" headphone jack is not part of the power section, but it is there because of it's location on the front panel and so it can support the board while mounted to the front panel.