Hi gang,
I'll try to be as brief as possible because I can run on for an olympic sport.
Bought the MSI Stealth 16 Studio in late December 2023 (so I still have a few weeks of warranty left) and didn't really have any major problems with it other than having the sense of it running like a dog and several months of feeling like MSI drivers were jerry rigged and cobbled together and somehow not cohesive.
The system runs Windows 11 Pro (I upgraded) and has plenty of RAM.
Issues I noticed included the laptop seemingly taking two or three minutes to fully load the system tray, underwhelming performance and also I run the laptop mostly as a desktop so I have it set to charge to 60% through MSI Center, and when I DO unplug it from mains to try to use it mobile, it doesn't take very long before it starts to slow right down, sometimes even going as far as to inject observable delay in keyboard input while attempting to type or enter URL's in the browser - sometimes even causing letters to sttttttttttttttttttttttutter. Plugging the mains back in very quickly returns the laptop to some degree of normal operation.
However, the most distressing indication of something very wrong is that several months into ownership the laptop began to experience problems waking from its automatic sleep state and anything between two in ten occasions all the way to six or seven in ten, it hangs on waking up.
After the press of the power button to wake the laptop flashes up various LED indicators as normal and flashes on the full keyboard backlight for a few seconds before displaying the MSI logo boot screen and the initial rotating circle 'loading' type logo at the bottom of the screen. The screen goes back to black and the power and num lock LED's on the keyboard illuminate but the keyboard backlighting does not come back up, as would be normal immediately before the laptop proceeds to load in the operating system and resume the display of the Windows intro page. Instead the computer hangs on black screen for about two to three minutes before going to a BSOD which notifies me that it is gathering data before a reboot.
There have been a few different error messages delivered at this point including DRIVER_POWER_STATE__FAILURE but most commonly it is INTERNAL_POWER_ERROR.
I've got BlueScreenView running, and the logs over time have all been very similar and report an issue with ntoskrnl.exe (which I already know is a bit of a non-specific error) - it tells me currently that the failure was caused by address ntoskrnl.exe+414d50. The data also adds flags for PSHED.dll (Platform Specific Driver Error) and BOOTVID.dll (VGA Boot Driver).
I can't tell what triggered this shift to now extremely regular events, perhaps a past Windows 11 update, an MSI BIOS update.
Over the months I've tried all sorts to clear it out from uninstalling all MSI specific drivers and software all the way through to their reinstallation with fresh ones from the website. I've tried uninstalling and then letting Windows Update and Intel Driver Assistance (and nVidia and Intel Arc) go entirely automatically.
I've also suspected the hibernation/sleep mechanisms and jigged with those including increasing the hibernation file size. I've forcibly changed sleep power modes, disabled and re-enabled and altered the sleep timers.
I've wondered if it was related to the way MSI Center gathers all the power and performance management settings and wondered if it was going into conflict with Windows, but then not found any definitive improvement messing with those. Wondered if it was the automated MUX switch between integrated and discrete graphics baked into the MSI Center, but then disabling MSI Center doesn't offer an improvement.
I've used DDU and reinstalled both sets of graphics drivers cleanly.
So finally I opened up a world of pain and BitLocker freak-outs by setting up (eventually) a second SSD with a completely clean install of the latest release Windows 11 into which I installed all the MSI Stock drivers and apps fresh from the website in the exact order that their guides propose.
This seems to have created a system that offers the snappiness I expect from specifications like this, which does not seem to be compromised on battery-power usage, and has not yet thrown up any of these BSOD's. The disadvantage is that the system is also not capable of running the MSI True Color software which allows the laptop display to operate in AdobeRGB mode amongst others, the whole purpose of a 'Studio' version of a laptop.
I then ran MSI Restore to return the primary drive to it's factory state and then prior to Windows Updates and other automatic updates, fully uninstalled the factory drivers and then reinstalled using the latest installers from the MSI website before allowing automatic updates to bring the system right up to date.
This seemed to give a very stable system, awaiting thorough testing of the off-mains performance, and it stayed rock solid for about a week and with no 'event' identifiable as prompting a change, I am now right back to the hang during wake and the eventual BSOD and reboot.
Can anyone offer any more insight or advice, please?
I'll try to be as brief as possible because I can run on for an olympic sport.
Bought the MSI Stealth 16 Studio in late December 2023 (so I still have a few weeks of warranty left) and didn't really have any major problems with it other than having the sense of it running like a dog and several months of feeling like MSI drivers were jerry rigged and cobbled together and somehow not cohesive.
The system runs Windows 11 Pro (I upgraded) and has plenty of RAM.
Issues I noticed included the laptop seemingly taking two or three minutes to fully load the system tray, underwhelming performance and also I run the laptop mostly as a desktop so I have it set to charge to 60% through MSI Center, and when I DO unplug it from mains to try to use it mobile, it doesn't take very long before it starts to slow right down, sometimes even going as far as to inject observable delay in keyboard input while attempting to type or enter URL's in the browser - sometimes even causing letters to sttttttttttttttttttttttutter. Plugging the mains back in very quickly returns the laptop to some degree of normal operation.
However, the most distressing indication of something very wrong is that several months into ownership the laptop began to experience problems waking from its automatic sleep state and anything between two in ten occasions all the way to six or seven in ten, it hangs on waking up.
After the press of the power button to wake the laptop flashes up various LED indicators as normal and flashes on the full keyboard backlight for a few seconds before displaying the MSI logo boot screen and the initial rotating circle 'loading' type logo at the bottom of the screen. The screen goes back to black and the power and num lock LED's on the keyboard illuminate but the keyboard backlighting does not come back up, as would be normal immediately before the laptop proceeds to load in the operating system and resume the display of the Windows intro page. Instead the computer hangs on black screen for about two to three minutes before going to a BSOD which notifies me that it is gathering data before a reboot.
There have been a few different error messages delivered at this point including DRIVER_POWER_STATE__FAILURE but most commonly it is INTERNAL_POWER_ERROR.
I've got BlueScreenView running, and the logs over time have all been very similar and report an issue with ntoskrnl.exe (which I already know is a bit of a non-specific error) - it tells me currently that the failure was caused by address ntoskrnl.exe+414d50. The data also adds flags for PSHED.dll (Platform Specific Driver Error) and BOOTVID.dll (VGA Boot Driver).
I can't tell what triggered this shift to now extremely regular events, perhaps a past Windows 11 update, an MSI BIOS update.
Over the months I've tried all sorts to clear it out from uninstalling all MSI specific drivers and software all the way through to their reinstallation with fresh ones from the website. I've tried uninstalling and then letting Windows Update and Intel Driver Assistance (and nVidia and Intel Arc) go entirely automatically.
I've also suspected the hibernation/sleep mechanisms and jigged with those including increasing the hibernation file size. I've forcibly changed sleep power modes, disabled and re-enabled and altered the sleep timers.
I've wondered if it was related to the way MSI Center gathers all the power and performance management settings and wondered if it was going into conflict with Windows, but then not found any definitive improvement messing with those. Wondered if it was the automated MUX switch between integrated and discrete graphics baked into the MSI Center, but then disabling MSI Center doesn't offer an improvement.
I've used DDU and reinstalled both sets of graphics drivers cleanly.
So finally I opened up a world of pain and BitLocker freak-outs by setting up (eventually) a second SSD with a completely clean install of the latest release Windows 11 into which I installed all the MSI Stock drivers and apps fresh from the website in the exact order that their guides propose.
This seems to have created a system that offers the snappiness I expect from specifications like this, which does not seem to be compromised on battery-power usage, and has not yet thrown up any of these BSOD's. The disadvantage is that the system is also not capable of running the MSI True Color software which allows the laptop display to operate in AdobeRGB mode amongst others, the whole purpose of a 'Studio' version of a laptop.
I then ran MSI Restore to return the primary drive to it's factory state and then prior to Windows Updates and other automatic updates, fully uninstalled the factory drivers and then reinstalled using the latest installers from the MSI website before allowing automatic updates to bring the system right up to date.
This seemed to give a very stable system, awaiting thorough testing of the off-mains performance, and it stayed rock solid for about a week and with no 'event' identifiable as prompting a change, I am now right back to the hang during wake and the eventual BSOD and reboot.
Can anyone offer any more insight or advice, please?
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