First and last MSI laptop for me (Code 43 problem)

[oscar.r.dlc]

Hi, for those who are planning to buy a MSI gaming laptop, here's my personal experience. After reading, judge by yourselves.

I bought an MSI GT62VR 7Re Dominator Pro (1800?) in Spain about a year and half ago. Nowadays I live in France but the warranty extension is not working out of Spain.
Happy with the laptop performance, few months later I got the GPU fan problem (you can check on google that this is a very common problem with the MSI laptops). So I needed to send the computer to a family member in Spain in order to be able to get it picked up by the MSI guys and repair it. So it was like 200? more for me to spend on the postal service.

Even if I was really mad about that, the laptop was sent back really fast, nice and clean.

As I always do, I update all the drivers as soon as they came out. Since a month ago, that I was updating the Nvidia drivers and the Code 43 appeared at the Device Manager. So Windows didn't recognize de Nvidia GPU anymore.
After a daily mail discussion with the tech support, I tried updating manually the drivers, I formated the laptop like 10 times in a row, tried different Windows builds. I even tried installing the Nvidia drivers from Ubuntu. But nothing worked. So they told me to send the laptop back to the MSI labs in order to get it fixed. And so I did.

I paid back again 200? to send it to Spain and a month later (last week) I got it back. Apparently they changed the Motherboard and the Nvidia GPU. 
The first surprise came after I took the laptop out from the box, as they forgot a detached piece inside wich is hitting the internal composants everytime I move the laptop. The second surprise came after I booted it up. Since after updating the drivers, the Code 43 came back, and this time freezing all the system. So again I was forced to revert the updates, format the laptop, try new Windows builds and old nvidia drivers until I found a stable combination. Now it is mostly stable but I cannot update anything because it freezes all the system.

So now I have the same problems that I had before sending the laptop to the MSI Lab, plus I need to disassemble the laptop by myself to fix the "dancing screw" plus I lost 200 bucks. 

Just to let you know, in case you want to buy a gaming laptop, I have my old Alienware M14x working as a charm 6y later, with no one single problem.

Thanks for reading and wish y'all a lovely day.

 

[RaiderGamer]

you should be able to get the second repair totally paid for and free

also one instant is not a representation of the whole. i would be curious to see the whole result in comparison to other companies though, like what percentage of laptops from each manufacturer break down. my guess is it would be about the same for each major brand

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

you should be able to get the second repair totally paid for and free

also one instant is not a representation of the whole. i would be curious to see the whole result in comparison to other companies though, like what percentage of laptops from each manufacturer break down. my guess is it would be about the same for each major brand

You are probably right and I am only exposing my own experience. But you can find many problems on google with those MSI laptops. The worst thing about it is that the person who packed my laptop to send it back should be fired, since it is impossible to pick the laptop and not hearing a screw (or whatever it is inside) hitting the composants as you move it around.

So, what are you suggesting me to do? Should I spend 200? again to send it to Spain and get it fixed? And if the problem is not fixed yet, send it back again until they fix it for sure or that they send me a new one? Btw I dont even want a new one, since I'm sure that the GPU fan problem will come back and for that time I wont have any warranty left.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Intentional Travelers Warranty is cheaper than mailing it to your family in Spain once.....and it would have been fixed in France.

The first time I had to send it to repair I asked for some kind of International Warranty, they told me that there is not such an option like that and that if I wanted to get it fixed in France I should pay everything.

Anyway I just needed a quick check on the forums to verify that there is not a global warranty policy on MSI.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/298040

If I am wrong just give me a link

 

[Geeker]

As I always do, I update all the drivers as soon as they came out. Since a month ago, that I was updating the Nvidia drivers and the Code 43 appeared at the Device Manager.

How did you update the driver? Via GeForce Experience?

I paid back again 200? to send it to Spain and a month later (last week) I got it back. Apparently they changed the Motherboard and the Nvidia GPU. 

Did the repair order record that changed the Motherboard and NVIDIA GPU? Or else, how did you know that these two components were changed.

Try to uninstall and re-install the Device driver, check this post's solution 4 which works for me.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Mine comes included, but yours doesn't state whether or not you have/had it.
https://www.msi.com/page/warranty-extension/

[attachthumb=1]

Good to know. But it would have been better to know when i purchased the laptop at the reseller, as they knew that i was travelling and they didn't suggested me that.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

How did you update the driver? Via GeForce Experience?Did the repair order record that changed the Motherboard and NVIDIA GPU? Or else, how did you know that these two components were changed.

Try to uninstall and re-install the Device driver, check this post's solution 4 which works for me.

They send you a note with the laptop where they precise the changes that they made.

About how i did upgrade the Nvidia drivers, i've tried everything as I said on my first post:
- Gefore Experience
- Manually from the nvidia website
- From the Windows Update
- Uninstalling from the device manager
- With the DDU (on safe mode)
- From an Ubuntu Live USB
And probably more ways that I cant remember right now.

I've done all those ways several times with different windows builds (1809, 1803, etc.) And after many clean windows installs.

Nothing has worked.

Did the same procedure after receiving the laptop from the tech service (which makes no sense as those incompetents should have test it before send it back).

 

[yopadato]

Hi Osfries,

Have you found a way to fix your problem ?

I have a GT62VR 6RE, it's almost the same laptop, except for the CPU. Error 43 appeared about two months ago, now I can't install recent Nvidia drivers anymore. Strangely, I can still get the GPU to work properly by using older drivers, so now I'm using 389.20 drivers, but I can't use any driver from 390.xx to 419.67, no matter what I try (I've already tried all the steps you mentioned). I don't think my laptop is under warranty anymore so MSI support won't take it back, but I've been in contact with them for two months, they're trying to duplicate the issue but I don't think they will be able to do it, since they are not using faulty hardware, which seems to be what we got...

Osfries, when you look in Windows Devices Manager, is your monitor detected as a "Generic Non-PnP monitor" ? It's the case for me, I can't even get any information on the laptop screen by using HWInfo or Speccy. I'd like to know if your laptop has the same problem.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Hi yopadato,
I'm sorry to hear that you are having the same issue.

I have not found a solution yet and right now I have no time to start wondering how to fix it again. In fact i have tried everything on my knowledge and, as I said, even the MSI technical service didn't solved the issue.
Since they sent it back to me I am using old drivers aswell and ignoring all the updates from Windows and Nvidia. I am not sure how long I can run it like that without affecting the laptop performance.

For answering your question, i can't remember it at 100% but i think that the device manager was showing a standard monitor as you said instead of the GPU. In fact as soon as i got the Code 43, the HDMI output wasn't working anymore, so i can't use my external monitor.

Please keep me updated if you find a solution!

Cheers!

 

[yopadato]

The thing is, my monitor is not detected as a standard monitor anymore, it's detected as a "Generic Non-PnP Monitor", but a standard monitor should be detected as a "Generic PnP Monitor". Hardware detection software such as HWInfo can't give me any info on the monitor anymore, it seems the screen EDID is corrupted or sth is wrong with the video card that prevents the system from reading the EDID.

When you can use your MSI laptop, could you tell me if you see a "Generic Non-PnP monitor" in the device manager ? To be clear, I'm talking about the laptop screen, not an external monitor.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Hi
I misunderstood what you meant yesterday. I just checked the device manager and affirmative, the screen is shown as a generic Non-pnp.

 

[yopadato]

That's what I thought, this is exactly the same problem, and it seems guys at MSI support are not able to understand it. They think my case is unique, but obviously it's not. What is the last drivers you can install ? For me it's this one : https://www.touslesdrivers.com/php/constructeurs/redirection.php?v_code=57040

Anything from 390 and above gives an error 43, same for you ?

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Rigth now I'm on 385 or so. They are drivers from 2y ago (05/17 I guess).
As I said I tried many other versions and different windows build combinations, some of them worked momentaniously but it always ended on Code 43 after the restart.

 

[yopadato]

Since we have the same motherboard and the exact same problem, I guess you could try the 389.20 drivers. If you have time and wanna give it a try, you can find it here : https://developer.nvidia.com/38920-win10-64bit

Please note that in order to keep good performance in recent games, you can download the latest Nvidia drivers, extract the package with Winrar or 7-Zip, then go to the Update.Core folder and run the following exe files with ADMIN rights :

- NvProfileUpdater32.exe
- NvProfileUpdater64.exe
- NvSHIM.exe

I've also tried many Win 10 Builds (1703, 1803, 1809, 19H1, 20H1) and I can never install a driver newer than 389.20

This morning I installed the new Nvidia 430 WDDM 2.6 driver, which is only compatible with Win 10 1903 builds, and the same problem appears.

Guys at MSI support don't seem to accept the fact that sth is wrong with the computer, this can only be fixed by a BIOS and/or EC update, but they seem to think the problem comes from Nvidia drivers. The problem doesn't come from Nvidia drivers, since I was able to use 417.xx drivers before, and now I can't.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Thanks but I preffer not to mess up anymore with drivers until i find a final solution or i get full time to do it..

Deffinitely doesnt come from the drivers as I used to use latest ones aswell. Doesnt seems to come from a hardware problem with the motherboard, since (apparently) they changed mine and the problem is still there.

 

[yopadato]

Honestly, I'm not sure MSI support team will be able to fix this. I've talked with several advanced users on Nvidia forums, some of them know a lot about error 43 on Nvidia GPU, especially laptops GPUs, and they all told me the same thing : ask MSI support for BIOS/EC updates and eventually a screen replacement.

Since the support team is not able to duplicate the issue, they just don't know why we get error 43, why I can't use G-Sync anymore and why the screen is detected as a Generic Non-PnP Monitor. Basically, they don't understand anything about what happened to our laptops, so they send me useless procedures that imply Win10 clean installs, various Nvidia drivers versions (installed through Geforce Experience, as if that will change anything...), in order to find a workaround. I've told them this is not the way to go, but they don't listen.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

I know mate, I've already been in your place. All the steps they told me to do by mail finished on, "ok, send the laptop to the SAV so they will fix you problem". So I did and they just made the problem much bigger than it was at first.

What's sure is that is not a screen problem, as the HDMI out is not working either when the code 43 pops up.

 

[yopadato]

Today I was able to install Nvidia 425.31 drivers on a clean install of Windows 7 on BIOS Legacy mode (doesn't work with UEFI), even G-Sync is working again. I'm gonna try with Win10 tonight and let you know how it goes.

 

[yopadato]

I can confirm, if I set my BIOS to Legacy mode, then install Windows 7 (I used Win 7 Ultimate x64), I can install latest Nvidia drivers (425.31), the GPU works fine and G-Sync option is back in Nvidia control panel.

I tried Win10 v1809 on Legacy mode, unfortunately it didn't work, I get an error 43 after installing 425.31 drivers. I will try Win10 1803 and 1709 tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure even on Legacy mode, I won't be able to use latest drivers on Win 10.

Anyway, performance is great on Win 7, and the OS is still way better than Win 10.

 

[oscar.r.dlc]

Thanks for your feedback yopadato ! 
I am not thinking on formatting the laptop right now, but just in case, how do you switch the BIOS mode, actually? Is it a firmware downgrade?

I still don't get the main problem anyway. Do you think that it is an OS problem? As I said, I tried on Ubuntu and I was unable to update the Nvidia drivers from there. And as soon as I can tell, the code 43 appeared right after a Nvidia update and not a Windows one...