GhostDeck - for MSI laptops

_{(formerly “MSI Profile Switcher” - renamed to keep the project clearly independent of MSI; see docs/ABOUT_THE_NAME.md)}

A lightweight, independent Windows tray app to switch MSI laptop power profiles - Silent / Balanced / Extreme / Super Battery - instantly via global hotkeys, the tray menu, or auto-switch on AC/battery, with an on-screen overlay showing the active profile. Every release is digitally signed - Windows shows the verified publisher instead of "Unknown", and a tampered file fails the check (details).

Built because MSI Center 2.0 removed the Silent profile. This app talks to the Embedded Controller (EC) through MSI's own WMI interface, carried by Windows' built-in ACPI driver - no kernel driver, no disabling of Windows security - and it does not need MSI Center running. One prerequisite on a freshly installed Windows: MSI Center must be installed once to deploy the MSI WMI schema Windows needs (it can be uninstalled afterwards) - see docs/MSI-WMI-SCHEMA.md.

⚠️ Hardware-specific. Developed and tested on MSI Raider GE78HX 13V (board MS-17S1, i9-13950HX, EC firmware 17S1IMS1.114), and confirmed by an owner on the GE78 HX 14V (17S2IMS2, same board). EC registers are model/firmware-specific - read docs/TECHNICAL.md before trying it on another model. Use at your own risk.

📋 147 MSI models recognised - 22 models confirmed on real hardware by their owners (GE78HX/Vector boards, Crosshair A16 HX, Crosshair 16 HX AI, Sword 16 HX, GE67 HX, GE66 Raider / GP66 Leopard, Cyborg 15, both GF63 Thins, Raider GE76 12UE/12UGS, Raider A18 HX, Vector A18 HX, Vector 16 HX AI, Titan 18 HX Dragon, Bravo 15 B7ED, Bravo 17, Katana GF66 11U, Pulse/Katana 17 B13V, Katana 15 HX B14WEK, Modern 14 C12M, Pulse 16 AI C1V, Creator M16 / Pulse 15 / Katana 15 B13V), the rest are experimental (opt-in). See the full supported-models list, or browse it live in the app's Models tab.

Tip

❓ Five minutes well spent: the FAQ. Honest, sourced answers to the questions everyone asks sooner or later: why there is no watt slider - and the one real route to get one - running GhostDeck next to MSI Center, why the MUX switch needs a reboot on every brand (and what is quietly cooking there…), whether any of this can damage your laptop, and what to do when an antivirus grumbles.

→ Browse the full FAQ

Features

• 🖥️ Tray icon (color = active profile) with a profile menu, plus a tabbed main window (Scenarios / Status / Fan curve / Models / Report / Updates) with a light / dark theme; Settings is organized into icon sub-tabs (a Start page with tiles + General / Power / Notifications / Gaming / Hotkeys / System) and reopens on the sub-tab you used last (or always on Start, your choice). On a narrow window the sub-tab strip shrinks to icons instead of pushing a scrollbar, and clicking the tab you are already on takes you back to its first page
• 🎬 Scenes - one-click macros that set any mix of profile + fan-curve preset + refresh rate + screen brightness + HDR + overlay + charge limit + keyboard backlight + webcam + Windows-key lock + touchpad + Fan Boost in a single stroke ("Gaming": Extreme, 240 Hz, 80 % brightness, HDR on · "Work": Silent, 60 Hz, 45 %, HDR off). Run them from cards on the Scenarios tab, the tray menu, a per-scene hotkey, the tray scroll wheel or the CLI (--scene "Name"); an example set is one click away
• ⏰ Scene schedule - different settings for work hours, nights and weekends: rules (weekdays + a time window, overnight ranges fine) apply a scene when the window starts, also right after boot. Edge-triggered, so your manual tweaks inside a window are respected; first matching rule wins (Settings → Power)
• 🔋 Battery-level rules - e.g. below 30 % → Super Battery, above 80 % → Balanced: two direction-aware thresholds (the low one fires while discharging, the high one while charging, once per crossing), each running any profile or scene (Settings → Power)
• 🌡️ Temperature in the tray (opt-in) - show CPU and/or GPU temperature as their own icons next to the profile ghost, with your own warning / hot thresholds and colours
• 🖱️ Tray-icon mouse actions - scroll the wheel over the tray icon to switch profiles (or scenes / backlight), middle-click for Fan Boost; left, middle and wheel are all configurable in Settings (open a tab, toggle overlay, panic reset, …)
• ⌨️ Global, rebindable hotkeys (default Ctrl+Alt+F1–F4, Ctrl+Alt+P = cycle)
• 💡 Keyboard-backlight level (off / low / mid / high) on supported models (single-colour keyboards, per msi-ec's register map; per-key RGB laptops keep their own Fn key - why) - a brick on Scenarios, a cycle hotkey, a wheel mode, a CLI switch and a scene field; follows the Fn key
• 📷 Webcam switch - the EC-level camera cut-off the Fn key uses (the camera drops off USB, below Windows privacy settings), as a brick / hotkey / CLI switch / scene field - plus an advanced hard camera block that even the Fn key can't override (a panic reset always restores the camera)
• 🔁 Fn / Windows key swap - swap the two keys in hardware on boards where msi-ec documents the fn_win_swap register (162 firmware prefixes): pick the side the Fn key sits on in Settings → System or with --fnswap left|right; the setting lives in the EC itself, so it survives reboots
• 🚫 Windows-key lock - block both Win keys while gaming so the Start menu never steals focus: a brick on Scenarios, a scene field, a hotkey shipped as Ctrl+Alt+F8 (off by default) and --winlock on|off. Software hook, works on any laptop; fine print: Win+L is blocked too while active, Ctrl+Alt+Del never is, and a panic reset always unlocks
• ☀️ Screen brightness in scenes & CLI - the internal panel's brightness as a scene field (Gaming 80 % · Work 45 % · Travel 25 %) or --brightness <0-100>; driver-free Windows WMI, works on any laptop (external monitors excluded)
• 🌈 HDR in scenes & CLI - switch HDR on for games and films and off for work, automatically as part of a scene or with --hdr on|off (Windows DisplayConfig API; shown only on HDR-capable displays)
• 🖱️ Touchpad switch - turn the precision touchpad off for gaming from a scene, a brick, a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+F9, off by default) or --touchpad on|off - device-level, works on any laptop; the hotkey and a panic reset always re-enable it
• 🔔 On-screen overlay (OSD) on every profile change
• 🎮 Detachable gaming overlay (HUD) - a small always-on-top panel with FPS / frametime, temps / fan RPM / profile / load / GPU% / VRAM / clocks / RAM / battery, in a card or bar layout. Pick which metrics to show, drag it anywhere (position remembered) or snap to a corner, toggle with a hotkey (default Ctrl+Shift+O). Rendered per-pixel with independent background & content opacity, smooth anti-aliased text, a readability shadow, optional click-through lock (Ctrl+Shift+L)
• 🎯 FPS & frametime of any game - measured driver-free from Windows' own ETW Present events (the same source Intel PresentMon uses): no DLL injection, nothing touches the game, anti-cheat-safe. Live FPS + frametime in the overlay, and a Status → Gaming tab with a 60 s frametime chart (stutter markers), 1% lows and a stutter counter. The monitor runs only while the overlay or the Gaming tab is open - zero idle cost
• 🏁 Game-session report - when a game exits, GhostDeck pairs the FPS story with the EC story nobody else has: "1 h 42 min · avg 87 FPS · 1% low 54 · CPU max 91 °C" in a sleek borderless popup (frametime sparkline included) with one-click save as PNG and data export (JSON/CSV), plus a summary card on Status → Gaming and a change-history entry
• 🌍 15 languages - EN / PL / DE / FR / ES / 中文（简体） / PT-BR / RU / 日本語 / 한국어 / 中文（繁體） / TR / VI / ID / IT - native-speaker corrections welcome as pull requests (Core/Lang.cs)
• 🎨 Custom color per profile
• 📊 Status - live CPU/GPU temperature & fan rings, fan RPM, CPU usage & approx. clock, GPU load % / VRAM, RAM, battery %, plus NVMe/SSD temperature, estimated battery time left, the GPU core clock against its own ceiling (a busy card held under its ceiling is the firmware limiting it - read from Windows itself, no vendor software, with a click-open ? bubble naming the adapter) and a live EC profile-byte matrix (what each profile writes vs. the current values). Extra metrics are read driver-free (Windows PDH/WMI - no kernel driver, anti-cheat-safe)
• 🌀 Fan curve editor - drag a custom CPU/GPU curve and run it on Balanced / Extreme / Super Battery (MSI Center only allows one in Extreme); fully reversible. Silent is the exception: its power cap lives in the same EC byte the curve needs, so turning a curve on in Silent necessarily leaves Silent for Balanced - the app warns and switches for you. Single-fan-curve boards (where MSI Center shows one slider, e.g. Thin GF63 12VE) automatically get a single full-width curve editor, and the unused GPU tables are never written
• 🎛️ Four views of the same curve - Chart (drag the nodes; a live operating point shows where the fan really sits, faint audibility zones, intent tiles Quiet / Balanced / Cool / Max derived from the factory default, up to three comparison layers of saved presets, and a coupled points table with typed-in percentages), Equalizer (one fader per node, mouse wheel for fine steps), Deck (rotary dials, live VU bars and a crossfader that blends the whole curve between two shapes) and In action - your curve with the last hour of real readings drawn over it, so you can see what the fans actually did rather than what the curve asks. Everything explained in docs/FAN-CURVE.md
• 🔬 Fan sweep - holds the fans at 30 / 45 / 60 / 80 / 100 % for 6 s each and records the tachometers, then restores your curve, fan mode and profile: a duty → rpm table measured on your own machine, behind a consent dialog that names every address it writes. It says in plain language what the numbers show - whether each fan followed the command, whether one lags, how fast they settle - keeps the last 30 runs so you can compare, and copies a report ready to paste into an issue
• 🗂️ Fan-curve presets - save curves under a name, switch them from the editor or the tray menu, assign a preset per profile (auto-applied on every switch; Silent stays stock), and export / import / share presets as JSON - a Share button opens a prefilled GitHub Discussion with your model and curve
• 📈 History charts - local trend of CPU/GPU temperature, fan duty, fan RPM and game FPS over the last 5-60 minutes (Status → History) with a crosshair value readout; memory-only, nothing is stored or sent anywhere - unless you hit Export… to save the window as CSV/JSON for your own analysis
• ⌨️ Command line - GhostDeck.exe --profile Silent, --fanboost on [seconds], --curve "<preset>", --scene "<name>", --refresh 240, --charge 80, --travel 7, --brightness 45, --hdr on, --touchpad off, --kbd high, --webcam off, --fnswap left, --winlock on, --panic, --diag and --status (rich JSON: temps, fans/RPM, battery, disks, states) for Task Scheduler, Stream Deck and scripts - same safety gates as the UI
• 🌪️ Fan Boost - force both fans to full speed with one click, a tray entry or a global hotkey (default Ctrl+Alt+F5), independent of the active profile; shown as a compact toggle "brick" on the Scenarios tab (equivalent of MSI's Cooler Boost), with an optional auto-off timer (30 s to 15 min, or your own value) so a quick cooling blast never turns into a forgotten hurricane
• 📜 Change-history log - a running log of recent profile switches and EC writes (time, source: hotkey / tray / auto-AC / fan curve / external sync, the bytes written, and a readback), with a full-log window - handy for model-support reports
• 🛡️ Firmware-change guard - after a BIOS/EC update the app detects the changed firmware, blocks automatic writes and asks you to re-verify the model before it touches the EC again
• 🌡️ Temperature alert (opt-in) - an OSD toast + tray notification when the CPU or GPU stays above a chosen threshold (70-100 °C) for a chosen time (5-60 s), with a cool-down between alerts and an entry in the change history; the OSD display time is adjustable (1-15 s, alerts stay up at least 5 s). A separate SSD temperature alert (opt-in) watches the hottest drive (55-80 °C) through the Windows storage APIs, so it works on every machine - even unsupported models
• 🆘 Panic reset hotkey (default Ctrl+Alt+F10) - one press returns the machine to a safe stock state: Fan Boost off, Balanced profile, fans back on the automatic curve
• 💾 Settings backup - export every preference (colors, hotkeys, rules, overlay, alerts) to a JSON file and import it after a reinstall or on another machine; machine-specific state (firmware guard, window position) stays local
• 🌡️ Temperatures even on unsupported firmware - a few MSI models ship firmware without MSI's EC control interface (GhostDeck used to be dead there); the app now falls back to MSI's WMI sensor blocks and still shows live CPU/GPU temperature in Status and the overlay, while saying plainly that profiles, fan curves and the charge limit are unavailable on that machine
• 🩺 One-click diagnostic package (Settings → System) - a single zip with a read-only EC dump, settings, change history and error log, ready to attach to a bug report; no personal data involved
• 📊 Power test (Report / verify ⚑ → Power test) - measures your profiles instead of asking you to judge them by ear. The same load runs on the processor and the discrete graphics chip in Silent, Balanced and Extreme while temperatures, fan speed, fan RPM, clock and the work the processor actually completes are sampled every second, so a model report carries a comparison table rather than impressions - and a profile that only lifts a budget the two chips share shows up too, which a CPU-only load cannot see. The baseline is measured twice (Balanced opens and closes the run), so a run carried by heat soak or running order reports its own drift instead of pretending. On boards whose entry records a fourth performance value (the switch some MSI Center versions put inside the top scenario) it also probes whether that value can be set from outside, reading the register back after the write and again after the revert. Every address it may touch is listed before you start, it needs mains power and your consent, and your profile is restored at the end. Takes about seven minutes. Unlike the other two report wizards it does not need MSI Center - and the whole Report page now opens on a start screen that says what each of the three tests answers and what it needs
• 🔌 Optional auto-switch on AC / battery (off by default, so it won't fight MSI software)
• ♻️ Startup / wake restore (opt-in, Settings → Power) - the EC resets to factory state on every cold boot (and sometimes wakes in Super Battery on its own); GhostDeck can re-assert both your profile and your custom fan curve a few seconds after startup and resume, so the machine always comes back exactly as you left it
• 🖥️ Refresh-rate auto-switch (opt-in) - drop the panel to 60 Hz on battery and jump back to 144/240 Hz on AC, automatically; pickers list only the modes your panel reports and always target the built-in panel, even with an external monitor set as primary. Pure Windows display API, so it works on every laptop - even unrecognised models
• 🔋 Battery charge limit - the three presets MSI offers (60 / 80 / 100 %) plus any value from 20 to 100 % on a slider - with a travel mode - one click charges to 100 % for a trip and the previous limit returns automatically after 3-30 days - plus a battery health panel (design vs full-charge capacity, wear %, charge cycles) in Settings → Power
• 🚀 Start with Windows (elevated scheduled task - no UAC nag at logon)
• 🔄 Syncs the UI if the profile is changed externally (e.g. by MSI Center)
• 🗄️ Signed model-database updates - support for newly verified models and fan curves arrives without waiting for a release: the app fetches a digitally signed model database from the repo at every start, when you open the Models tab, or on demand from Settings → System, and applies it straight away when it is newer. Signature verified on every load, older files rejected, anything invalid falls back to the built-in tables - a bad download can never break the app
• ⬇️ In-app updates - a daily update check (can be disabled) with a tray notification, plus one-click install from the Updates tab: it downloads the new release, shows a progress bar and restarts itself on the new version (the previous .exe is kept as a .bak and cleaned up on next start); falls back to the download page if the download fails. The tab also lists the last 20 releases with download counts and full release notes readable inline (click an entry to expand), and recovers from a lost connection on its own (retry button + automatic re-check)
• 🔏 Digitally signed releases - every release published since v1.24.0 carries a verified publisher signature ("WYGODA DAWID FENIX INSPIRE"), so Windows can confirm who built it and that nobody tampered with it - see Download for what that means in practice
• 📣 Announcements & feedback - occasional in-app notices (tray balloon + a dismissible banner) fetched read-only from the repo on the same daily check; a Send feedback… tray entry opens GitHub Discussions. No data is collected by the app (a plain download, same privacy footprint as the update check); both can be turned off with the update-check toggle

Comparison with MSI software

GhostDeck is a small, focused tool - it deliberately does one thing (power/fan profiles) well, rather than replacing MSI Center. The table shows where it helps most: the Silent profile MSI removed, a fan curve outside just Extreme, no background services, and full transparency of what it writes to the EC.

Feature	MSI Center 2.0	GhostDeck
Silent profile	❌ (removed in 2.0)	✅
Balanced / Extreme / Super Battery modes	✅	✅
Full fan speed (Fan Boost / MSI Cooler Boost)	✅	✅ (+ auto-off timer)
Battery charge limit	✅ (60/80/100)	✅ (60/80/100 or any value 20-100 %)
Charge-limit travel mode (auto-revert after a trip)	❌	✅ (3-30 days, CLI 1-90)
Custom fan curve	Limited¹	✅ *(Balanced / Extreme / Super Battery)*¹
Measured fan characteristic (duty → RPM sweep)	❌	✅ (30-100 %, per-machine history, plain-language findings)
Global rebindable hotkeys	Limited²	✅
Scenes (one-click multi-setting macros)	❌	✅ (profile + curve + Hz + overlay + more)
Tray-icon wheel / middle-click actions	❌	✅ (configurable)
CPU / GPU temperature in the notification area	❌	✅ (opt-in, own thresholds + colours)
Keyboard-backlight level (EC register)	✅	✅ (supported single-colour models)
Webcam switch + hard camera block	✅ (switch)	✅ (switch + firmware-level block)
Screen brightness as part of a scene	❌	✅
Time-based scene schedule (work hours / nights / weekends)	❌	✅
Battery-level rules (below X % / above Y %)	❌	✅
Auto-switch profile on AC / battery	❌	✅
Auto refresh-rate switch on AC / battery	❌	✅ (any model)
On-screen overlay (OSD)	✅ (profile / Fn keys)	✅ *(every function)*⁶
Detachable gaming overlay (HUD)	❌	✅ (FPS / frametime / temps / RPM / GPU% / VRAM / clocks / RAM / battery; card or bar)
FPS + frametime counter (any game, no injection)	❌	✅ (ETW, anti-cheat-safe)
Game-session report (FPS + temps/fans together)	❌	✅ (on game exit)
Live EC profile-byte view / transparency	❌	✅
Change & EC-write history log	❌	✅
Temperature alert (threshold + duration)	❌	✅ (opt-in, OSD + tray)
SSD temperature alert	❌	✅ (opt-in)
Panic reset hotkey (back to a safe stock state)	❌	✅ (Ctrl+Alt+F10)
Settings backup (export / import)	❌	✅
Fan-curve presets + per-profile auto-apply	❌	✅ (share/import as JSON)
Local history charts (last 60 min)	❌	✅ (temps + fans, memory-only)
Command-line interface (automation)	❌	✅
Hardware monitoring	✅	Limited³ (temps, fans, disks, battery health)
One-click diagnostic package for bug reports	❌	✅
Measured comparison of the power profiles under load	❌	✅ (Power test: same CPU + GPU load in each profile, sampled every second, baseline measured twice)
Works with any / no MSI Center version	❌	✅
Installed size	~950 MB⁴ + background services	~2.5 MB⁵ (single portable .exe, no services)
RGB / per-key lighting / other MSI-Center features	✅	❌
In-app self-update	✅	✅ (one-click install + restart)
Open source	❌	✅

1. MSI Center only allows a custom fan curve in Extreme; this app runs one on Balanced / Extreme / Super Battery, fully reversible. Silent is a hardware exception: its power cap and the fan-curve mode share the same EC byte (0xD4), so enabling a curve in Silent necessarily switches the profile to Balanced (the app warns first).
2. MSI Center's shortcuts are limited; here every hotkey is global and rebindable.
3. Monitors CPU/GPU temperature, fan RPM, CPU & RAM usage via EC/WMI, plus GPU load %, VRAM, an approximate CPU clock and battery % via driver-free Windows PDH counters, and game FPS / frametime via Windows ETW Present events - not MSI Center's full telemetry.
4. MSI Center 2.0.x as the UWP app plus the files it installs to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI on first launch.
5. Self-contained single .exe - no installer, no background service, no separate .NET runtime.
6. MSI Center shows an overlay for profile / Fn-key changes; this app shows one for every action it performs - profile switch and Fan Boost (and future functions) - so you always get feedback on what changed.

The comparison is against MSI Center 2.0 (the version that dropped Silent). This app is an unofficial, independent project - not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored or supported by MSI. "MSI", "MSI Center" and "Cooler Boost" are trademarks of Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.; they are used here only descriptively to state compatibility.

Screenshots

Tray menu - switch profile, run a scene, Status, Language, Settings	Scenarios - profile tiles, quick-control bricks (Fan Boost, overlay, charge limit, refresh rate, webcam, Windows-key lock, touchpad, panic reset) and one-click scenes
Scenes - every setting the scene touches as a chip; the profile pill wears that profile's color	Scene schedule - a rule is a scene + weekday chips + a time window (overnight ranges fine)
Scene editor - switch on only the settings a scene should apply (brightness, HDR, Windows-key lock and touchpad included); everything else stays as it is	Settings → General - pick which bricks and sections the Scenarios tab shows; the gear on Scenarios jumps here and highlights this card
Status - temperature/fan rings, fan RPM, per-disk S.M.A.R.T. temperatures, battery time, RAM	Settings - Start dashboard: icon sub-tabs, live state on every group tile, quick switches
Settings → Power - charge limit with travel mode, scene schedule, battery-level rules, battery health, Fan Boost auto-off timer, refresh rate and HDR	Settings → System - tray-icon mouse actions, tray temperature icons, camera privacy block, Windows-key lock, touchpad, Fn/Win keyboard layout, diagnostics, backup
Settings → Hotkeys - every action rebindable, including one shortcut per scene	Updates - one-click install, 20 releases with download counts and inline notes
Report my model - guided in-app EC capture → pre-filled GitHub issue	Models - every recognized firmware with its support tier
Report start screen - three tiles say what each test answers, what it needs and what it writes	GPU clock on Status - core clock against its ceiling, no vendor software; the ? bubble explains the figure
Fan curve - Chart - drag the nodes, with the live operating point, audibility zones, intent tiles, comparison layers and a coupled table	Fan curve - In action - your curve with the last hour of real readings over it, plus the fan sweep and what its numbers say
Fan curve - Deck - one rotary dial per node and a crossfader that blends the whole curve between two shapes	Status (EC bytes) - live profile-byte matrix, legend and fan-curve tables
Change log - full history of profile switches and EC writes	Fan Boost auto-off - the OSD note when the boost timer hands the fans back
Temperature in the tray - CPU and GPU as their own icons next to the clock, colour by your own thresholds	Narrow window - the sub-tab strip drops to icons instead of pushing a scrollbar; the tab you are on keeps its label
Settings → Notifications - CPU/GPU and SSD temperature alerts with their own thresholds, OSD display time and one-click restore defaults	Travel mode - charge to 100 % for a trip; the previous limit returns on its own after the chosen number of days

Download

Grab the latest GhostDeck-win-x64.exe from the Releases page. It's a single file, no install. GhostDeck 1.35.0+ requires the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime (x64) - most machines already have it, and Windows offers the download if it is missing. Run it and approve the UAC prompt (EC access requires administrator).

Upgrading from v1.34.x or earlier? Install v1.35.0 by hand. The release file is named differently now, so the in-app updater in older versions opens this page instead of replacing your copy.

Requirements: Windows 11 or Windows 10, 64-bit (x64) only - there is no 32-bit or ARM64 build. No .NET install needed (the runtime ships inside the exe). Profile, fan and EC features need an MSI laptop; on any other machine, or on an unrecognised firmware, the app starts read-only.

Digitally signed releases

Every release since v1.24.0 is digitally signed. In plain terms: before publishing, the exe gets a cryptographic seal tied to the developer's registered business, verified by Microsoft (Azure Artifact Signing). That gives you three guarantees:

• You know who made it - right-click the exe → Properties → Digital Signatures shows "WYGODA DAWID FENIX INSPIRE" (the developer's registered company). Windows shows the same name in the UAC prompt instead of "Unknown publisher".
• Nobody tampered with it - if even one byte of the file were modified after signing (by malware, a broken download, or a fake mirror), the signature check fails visibly.
• Publisher identity and integrity - Authenticode lets Windows and security tools identify who published the file and verify that nobody altered it after signing.

If a file presented as an official v1.24.0+ release does not carry this signature, don't run it.

What is signed, and how you can check it yourself

Three different things carry a signature, for three different reasons. None of them replaces another:

What	Signed with	What it proves	How to check
The release .exe	Authenticode (Azure Artifact Signing)	The file you downloaded came from us and nothing altered it on the way	Right-click the exe → Properties → Digital Signatures → "WYGODA DAWID FENIX INSPIRE"
data/models.json - the model database	ECDSA P-256, public key in tools/model-signing.pub	The model list the app downloads between releases is ours; a swapped or older file is refused	The app verifies it on every load and falls back to its built-in tables if anything is off
Commits and tags in this repository	SSH signing key registered on the GitHub account	The history CI builds from really is the maintainer's, not someone using the same name in user.email	GitHub shows Verified next to the commit; git verify-commit <sha> locally

The third one closes the last gap in the chain: a signed binary is only as trustworthy as the source it was built from. Commits are signed from 2026-08-16 onward - anything older predates the key and is unsigned, which is expected and not a warning sign.

Supported models

Each model is ✅ tested (verified on real hardware) or ⚗️ experimental (built from the msi-ec register maps but not yet verified - the "Silent" power-cap behaviour is unconfirmed). On an unrecognized firmware the app runs read-only (Status works, writes disabled), so it never writes wrong registers on an untested machine.

Experimental models are opt-in: enable them in Settings → Power → "Enable experimental models". They write only documented MSI shift/fan registers (low risk), but switching may not give the same low-power "Silent" until an owner confirms it.

147 models are recognised, grouped into EC families using hardware mapping information documented by msi-ec, with fan and temperature register layouts cross-checked against MControlCenter:

Tier	Models	EC firmware / registers	Fan curve
✅ Tested	MSI Raider GE78HX / Vector GP78HX 13V, GE78 HX 14V / Vector 17 HX A14V, Crosshair A16 HX, Sword 16 HX B13V/B14V, Raider GE67 HX 12U, Cyborg 15 A12VF / A13VF, Thin GF63 12VE, Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition, Bravo 15 B7ED, Bravo 17 C7VE/D7VFK, GF63 Thin 11UC/11SC, Katana GF66 11UE/11UG, Pulse/Katana 17 B13V/GK, Crosshair 16 HX AI D2XW, Katana 15 HX B14WEK, Raider GE76 12UE/12UGS, Raider A18 HX A7VIG, Vector A18 HX A9WHG, Modern 14 C12M, Vector 16 HX AI A2XWHG/A2XWIG, GE66 Raider / GP66 Leopard, Pulse 16 AI C1VGKG/C1VFKG, Creator M16 B13VF / Pulse 15 B13VGK / Katana 15 B13UDXK	17S1IMS1.*, 17S2IMS2.*, 15PLIMS1.*, 15P2EMS1.*, 1545IMS1.*, 15K1IMS1.*, 16R8IMS1.*, 1824EMS1.*, 158PIMS1.*, 17LNIMS1.*, 16R6EMS1.*, 1581EMS1.*, 17L5EMS1.*, 15P4EMS1.*, 1587EMS1.*, 17K4EMS1.*, 182KIMS1.*, 182LIMS1.*, 14J1IMS1.*, 15M3EMS1.*, 1543EMS1.*, 15P3EMS1.*, 1585EMS1.* - shift 0xD2 / fan 0xD4	✅ editable
⚗️ G2 family (110)	Raider / Vector / Titan HX (13V–14V), Stealth 16-18, Sword / Pulse / Crosshair 16, Katana, Cyborg, Bravo, Modern / Prestige / Summit	shift 0xD2 / fan 0xD4 / super-batt 0xEB	◉ editable after opt-in (unverified)
⚗️ G1 family (35)	older GS / GF / GE / GP, Modern, Alpha, Bravo, Delta, Creator	shift 0xF2 / fan 0xF4 / charge 0xEF	- profiles only

The G2 fan-curve tables use the fixed addresses (CPU 0x6A/0x72, GPU 0x82/0x8A) that MControlCenter writes across the whole family; on experimental models the curve is editable once you opt in, but stays flagged unverified until you compare it with MSI Center on your own model. See the full per-firmware list of all 147 models (source of truth: Devices.cs). A handful of models whose msi-ec config documents no "Silent" fan value are deliberately left out (Silent is this app's core function - guessing it would be unsafe).

Got a different MSI - or own an experimental one and can confirm it works? The easiest way is right inside the app: tray menu → Report my model… (also a button in the Status window). It walks you through a read-only EC capture in each MSI Center scenario, builds the report, copies it to your clipboard, saves it to a file, and opens a pre-filled GitHub issue - just paste and submit. (Requires MSI Center installed as the scenario reference.)

No MSI Center on the machine? The third sub-tab, Power test, needs none. It runs the same all-core load in Silent, Balanced and Extreme, samples the controller every second, and hands you a comparison table: whether Silent really caps power, and what Extreme actually buys you, in numbers rather than impressions. On a board whose entry records a fourth performance value it also probes whether that value can be set from outside MSI Center. It takes about five minutes, the laptop gets hot and loud while it works, and your profile comes back at the end. Details in docs/TECHNICAL.md §60.

Prefer to do it by hand? Open a Model support request with your EC firmware (shown in the app's Status window) and the output of the diagnostic scripts in scripts/diagnostics/. The procedure is in docs/TECHNICAL.md §11.

CLI / automation

Every core action is scriptable - handy for Task Scheduler, Stream Deck, AutoHotkey or plain shortcuts. Run from an elevated prompt (EC access needs admin, same as the app).

The examples below call the executable GhostDeck.exe. The release file is named GhostDeck-win-x64.exe, so either rename your copy or use that name in the commands.

GhostDeck.exe --profile Silent        # or Balanced / Extreme / SuperBattery
GhostDeck.exe --cycle                 # next profile
GhostDeck.exe --fanboost on 120       # full fan speed; optional auto-off in N seconds (needs the app running)
GhostDeck.exe --curve "My quiet"      # apply a saved fan-curve preset ("auto" = stock fans)
GhostDeck.exe --scene "Gaming"        # apply a saved scene (needs the app running)
GhostDeck.exe --refresh max           # panel refresh rate (a number or "max"; any laptop)
GhostDeck.exe --charge 80             # battery charge limit (20-100, "off" = stop managing)
GhostDeck.exe --travel 7              # charge to 100% for a trip; the previous limit returns after 7 days ("off" = end now)
GhostDeck.exe --brightness 45         # internal-panel brightness (any laptop)
GhostDeck.exe --hdr on                # HDR / advanced color (HDR-capable displays)
GhostDeck.exe --touchpad off          # precision touchpad, device level (any laptop)
GhostDeck.exe --kbd high              # keyboard-backlight level (supported models)
GhostDeck.exe --webcam off            # EC-level webcam switch (same as the Fn camera key)
GhostDeck.exe --fnswap left           # which side the Fn key is on (EC-persisted swap)
GhostDeck.exe --winlock on            # block both Windows keys (needs the app running)
GhostDeck.exe --overlay on            # gaming overlay (needs the app running)
GhostDeck.exe --panic                 # safe state: Fan Boost off, Balanced, fans auto
GhostDeck.exe --diag                  # diagnostic zip, works even when the UI won't start
GhostDeck.exe --status                # rich JSON: profile, temps, fans/RPM, battery, disks, states

If the tray app is running, the command is executed by it (with the exact same safety gates as the UI - tier, experimental opt-in); otherwise a one-shot mode talks to the EC directly and exits. Exit codes: 0 OK, 1 failed, 2 bad usage.

Full reference - every command, the --status JSON schema and ready-made recipes (Task Scheduler, Stream Deck, AutoHotkey, game-launcher wrappers): docs/CLI.md.

Build from source

Requires the .NET 8 SDK.

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false ^
  -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:DebugType=none -o publish

The app icon is generated by tools/gen-icon.ps1 (already committed as app.ico).

How it works (short version)

Each profile is a small set of EC register writes sent through root\wmi → MSI_ACPI.Set_Data (a 32-byte Package_32 buffer: Bytes[0] = address, Bytes[1] = value). The key lever is the fan-mode register 0xD4 (Silent = 0x1D), which the EC firmware ties to the power cap - in testing it dropped package power from ~104 W to ~30 W under load.

The chain has three independent layers: the MSI WMI schema (a small signed resource file, msiapcfg.dll, that describes the MSI_ACPI class - deployed by MSI's own software, it arrives with MSI Center), Microsoft's built-in wmiacpi.sys transport, and the firmware implementation in the EC. GhostDeck never needs MSI Center running, and a one-time MSI Center installation is enough - the schema stays behind even after everything MSI is uninstalled. GhostDeck deliberately does not redistribute or deploy the schema itself (an MSI-signed system component; licensing is not ours to resolve) - full story, measurements and sources: docs/MSI-WMI-SCHEMA.md.

Full reverse-engineering write-up, register map, measurements and the diagnostic scripts: docs/TECHNICAL.md.

Full per-firmware list of every recognised model: docs/SUPPORTED_MODELS.md (also shown live in the app's Models tab).

EC register map credit: BeardOverflow/msi-ec.

FAQ

See docs/FAQ.md - fan control outside Extreme, exact-wattage / PL1-PL2 sliders (and the BIOS route), running alongside MSI Center (and why changes don't show in its UI), "unsupported" after a clean Windows install, keyboard backlight and why per-key RGB laptops don't get it, RGB/colour control, auto-clearing RAM, safety, and the admin/UAC prompt.

Documentation

Everything this project knows about MSI's Embedded Controller, and about itself, is written down rather than kept in someone's head. All of it lives in docs/:

Document	What is in it
TECHNICAL.md	The main reference: EC registers and per-profile recipes, how each feature works and why it was built that way, the invariants that must not be "fixed", and one numbered section per shipped change.
FAN-CURVE.md	The Fan curve page end to end: the curve arithmetic (and why its interpolation is a model, never a measurement), all four views, the fan sweep and its safeguards, how each finding is composed and where its thresholds come from, and the page's DPI and scrolling rules.
SUPPORTED_MODELS.md	Every recognised firmware with its support tier and what is enabled on it. Generated from the code - CI fails if it drifts.
MSI-WMI-SCHEMA.md	Why a clean Windows install can report "unsupported" until MSI Center is installed once, measured end to end.
RENDERING.md	How the UI is drawn: sharp text at high DPI, the buffered Status canvas, the per-pixel overlay, and the scrolling rules every page must obey (§5.1).
LIGHTING.md	Keyboard backlight: what the EC exposes, and why per-key RGB laptops are out of scope.
CLI.md	Every command-line switch, for scripts, Stream Deck and Task Scheduler.
BUILD.md	Building from source, and how a release is produced and signed.
FAQ.md	The questions people actually ask, answered with sources.
ABOUT_THE_NAME.md	Why the project stopped being called "MSI Profile Switcher".

Release notes live in CHANGELOG.md, and each version also gets an illustrated tour on the wiki (reachable from the app: Updates -> Wiki on any release).

Testing the model gate (developer)

To preview the experimental / unsupported UI on any machine, set the MSIPS_FORCE_FIRMWARE environment variable to a firmware string before launching. The app then simulates that firmware and performs no EC writes (UI preview only):

# Run from an ADMIN PowerShell so the variable reaches the elevated app:
$env:MSIPS_FORCE_FIRMWARE = "16V1EMS1.100"   # an experimental model
# or "ZZZZ" for an unsupported firmware
& .\GhostDeck.exe
# (close it, clear the variable, relaunch to return to normal)

The Status window / tray show a (test) marker while simulating.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later © 2026 Dawid Wygoda

GhostDeck is free software: you may redistribute it and modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, either version 3 or (at your option) any later version. A modified version you distribute must keep those freedoms and make its source available.

Releases through v1.34.x were published under the MIT license for material the project had the right to license under those terms, and existing MIT grants to such material remain in effect. From v1.35.0 onward GhostDeck is distributed under GPL-3.0-or-later.

The name GhostDeck and the project's visual assets are not covered by the code license, see TRADEMARK.md and LICENSE-ASSETS.md. Where GhostDeck's hardware knowledge came from is recorded in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md; licenses of the components bundled in the executable are in licenses/.