MSI GS63VR - ArchWiki

# MSI GS63VR

From ArchWiki

## Introduction

The GS series of MSI laptops is considered to be a thin gaming laptop. Although it is not thin as ultrabooks, it is still very thin for a gaming laptop. As of October 5th 2017, the 2016 model works fine with the latest kernel. The 2017 model has a bug concerning the eDP LCD display. There is a fix from intel here: https://github.com/freedesktop/drm-tip/commit/0501a3b0eb01ac2209ef6fce76153e5d6b07034e.patch

This issue was discussed in this thread: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=230541

Device | GS63 (2016) | GS63 (2017) | GS73 (2016)
Display | -- | Full HD 120Hz/3ms | --
Intel IGU | Yes | (with patch) i915 | ??
Nvidia GPU | Yes | Yes nvidia | ??
Network | Yes | Yes | ??
Atheros Wireless | Yes | Yes | ??
ALSA | Yes | Yes | ??
Touchpad | Manual | Yes | ??
Webcam | Yes | Yes | ??
Card Reader | Yes | mmc warning | ??
Power management | Yes | No | ??

## Installation

Standard installation works per the Installation guide using Systemd-boot when the laptop is in UEFI mode.

## Drivers

### Nvidia/Optimus

It is possible to use Bumblebee to make the Nvidia GPU in this laptop usable. In order to avoid issues caused by the BIOS in the GS63VR when using bbswitch, add `acpi_osi=! acpi_osi="Windows 2009"` to the kernel options at boot (per NVIDIA Optimus#Lockup issue (lspci hangs)).

For HDMI/DP ouput: Bumblebee#Output wired to the NVIDIA chip.

### Touchpad

This laptop uses an Elantech touchpad, and as such libinput works well.

Note* As of 2017.04.18, some multitouch aspects of the touchpad do not seem to be working (two finger scroll, for instance). This bug has been reported here.

### Networking

#### Wireless

NetworkManager works out of the box for wifi on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks.

### Audio

The headphone jack always acts as SPDIF out and subsequently has no volume control and does not mute the speakers when a device is plugged in. Link to a description of the issue on the ALSA mailing list.

As a workaround it is possible to reassign a microphone input jack using hdajackretask to behave as an audio output.

### SteelSeries Keyboard

To set color to Steel Series Keyboard use MSIKLM

## Misc

### BIOS

To access the BIOS, from a cold shutdown, repeatedly press the `delete` key immediately after pressing the power button.

Category:

- MSI