~GX660(R) Owner's Lounge~

Thank you Ryzeki, I really appreciate the answers. I had this laptop during the last week of august, i know i was one of the first as well, but i wanted to get rid of the raid, so I imaged the drives, then turned off the raid and reformatted it. Im wondering if i would have seen any real improvement if i had left the raid on. Of course in removing raid I got rid of the recovery partition so thats why i wondered if i could remake it with an image or partition magic etc..
Now to find a copy of webcam companion, I may try that new bios as well..

 

It seems the new BIOS is mostly for Raid enabled machines, check the description. There are two available that seem to do the same thing, but one for raid and one for regular setup.

Raid will increase performance but not much with these standard 7.2kprm, and nowhere near a single SSD. You will be fine without raid.

You can download the webcam companion from MSI page I think. Or try to find it on the discs provided from MSI. Since I moved to a new place I forgot my laptop box on my old place, and I forgot if they included a drivers/apps disc.

 

They Include 'CameraRecorder' on the disk but not Webcam Companion 3, which is odd I emailed support and trying to get an english answer is near impossible, basically they dont give it out even tho it comes with the laptop, its very odd!

 

Hello, i'm glad i've found this forum

I just bought the GX660R, full of expectations. Yesterday, i had the time to test it. I started it for the first time and pressed DEL to get into the BIOS. While doing that i noticed, that the cooler is going on and off for approximately 5 seconds constantly (during my full testing time of about 1 hour). It seemed that the cooler had only 2 conditions: off OR 100% on. The cooler booster key didn't have any effect. The loudness of the cooler was very annoying. I thing i will send it back and try to get a new one.
Can anyone confirm to me that the cooler booster works with on and off intervals of about 5 seconds and independently of the temperature of cpu and gpu?
Thanks

 

That is not normal, the fan is very quiet when on the Internet and doing lite tasks.
Yeah the TURBO fan is loud but it should not be shutting on and off every 5 seconds, but once you do press it it's full blast until you shut the feature off.
What are your temps?

 

Hey guys.

I've been reading your comments on the gx660r for quite some time now (thanks btw, very helpful), and today i received mine; only to box it back in after 1h of use. As others have made pretty detailed reviews of it, i won't go into details.

My specs:
740qm
5870m
2x4GB DDR3
2x320GB HDD
FHD 1920x1080

> Good (but not excellent) build quality.
>Noise from the Fan (even turbo) is acceptable
>Sound is great for a laptop. i still would not give up my 5.1.

BUT:

>the display is bad. very bad. don't get me wrong, colors are quite good (after a little fiddling in the ati control panel), the resolution is unbeatable, and the brightness is very good. I'm even willing to say that the contrast is more or less acceptable. What absolutely sucks are the viewing angles: i could not find an adequate tilt of the display so that the upper and lower extremes were both viewable. Either you keep the tilt near 90° but then most of the lower half has a contrast of... well, no contrast at all, basically. Tilt it further back and the upper half greatly distorts colors. I won't even mention that viewing the screen even minimally from above renders all blacks a very light gray. Either way it is not usable for darker images.

Keep your content mostly light and maybe you won't really mind; i find it extremely disappointing even though i had read from you guys that it wasn't that great.
I tend to disagree with Ryzeki: even for a gaming rig and even for non-demanding users i consider the display to be highly inadequate. I do quite some heavy photoshop work myself, so i might be more demanding; still: Consider my more than 2 years old acer 6920g, which I'm sure went on sale way before I bought one: a 16" fhd screen (sec304c) -> isn't even in the same league as this auo15ed.

tl;dr: performance = very good; performance/price ratio = one of the best; screen = sub-par even for non demanding users;
conclusion: no, unless you plan to use it with an external monitor. i'll send mine back and get a clevo w870, which is really a pity, because i like everything else about this notebook.

disclaimer: i did the testing in broad daylight; tried all possible combinations of saturation, contrast, lightness and gamma; double checked that it was the same old auo15ed lcd panel.

One last hope: did i get a worse screen than you other people, do you have the same problems? Or is expecting at least decent angles/blacks from this screen wishful thinking? In the back of my head i really hope my particular panel is somehow flawed...

 

the ONLY thing holding me back from this laptop is the screen, besides that it perfectly suits my needs.

 

Well, I'll say this:

I'm glad I'm not a screen junkie. I wouldn't enjoy the return process and getting a more expensive machine just because of the screen.

 

@IKAS V
After setting up windows for the first time the temps are between 30 and 35 degrees (Celsius), seen on CoreTemp (CPU) and ATI Catalyst Overdrive (GPU). I didn't start any tasks or programms. The reactions of the cooler prevented the CPU and GPU from becoming hotter
I sent my notebook back yesterday in order to get a new one. So, i'm excited again, now. I hope to get it till the end of the week.


Another question to all:
Can i install a 2,5" hard disc with a height of 12,5 mm?
I'm thinking about buying and installing a "Western Digital Scorpio Blue" with 1000 GB. Any suggestions?

 

Hi guys, I own the GX660 (not R). I've reviewed the laptop on the other GX600 thread(last post).

Do you guys know why do i get less fps in Starcraft2 (high settings) with the turbo feature on?
I've checked speed on cpuz with turbo on and the cpu reaches 2.8 ghz with about 55 fps on starcraft 2, and using gaming profile (pushing the eco button) cpu is at 2.6 ghz and about 60 fps on Starcraft 2, which is 5 more than using turbo. It has no sense. Shouldn't it go faster? I dont understand anything, now overclocking means slower fps? lol. I've also compared the battery profile when using turbo (high performance profile) and gaming profile, and they are basically the same :S

Another thing i don't understand is why are guys on the alienware thread playing SC2 on ultra setting without lags even on big battles with a m15x, a much worse laptop. If I set everything to ultra my fps drop below 20 on big battles. And all that considering the GX600 has a resolution of 1333*768, and the alienware is FullHD.

Hope you can help.

PD: if you find a review of this laptop playing sc2 it would be helpful too. Thx.

 

What kind of performance are the Alienware guys saying they get on ultra? My previous laptop with a GTX260m played full HD on ultra for about 24 fps. I seriously doubt the Mobility HD5870 can get over 60 constant at such settings and never drop.

Big battles are killers. But to be honest I haven't played it on my new laptop, so I can't say much. Maybe drivers are influencing?

As for turbo, who knows? Maybe it works by making only a single core get the extra % overclock, and thus SC2 might run slower because it requires at least dual core to shine.

I have noticed my fps drops with turbo button, but usually about 2 fps drops. I used to think it was because it forced the CPU to run on 4 cores, but maybe it is just that, running in 1 core.

 

Well I can't say why the turbo button is not always faster, but in the review I posted I also posted 2 benchmarks and as you could see there, Turbo had some gain on some points and some loss on others.

I have to say turning off speed stepping increased performance overall.

I don't own starcraft but what I did notice, maybe the same here is that it depends much on the game - one game has a preference for Nvidia and the other for AMD/ATI even in driver versions it can make a huge difference.

 

M15x is probably a lot better than the GX660R. All the GX660R has got on the M15x is USB 3, some decent speakers, and 2xHDD bays.

I highly doubt any of you guys will get 960-1010mhz runs on the GPU core without your system crashing on 3Dmark Vantage. Or all 26x multiplier across the board on the 920XM.

but anyways, we're getting 40-50 everything ultra and dips to 20-30 fps in some sequences.

 

Hell yeah I can get 960/1010, probably easily. Our cooling system is not only superb, but so far, on stock 1.05v I play at 870/1030 and I am not even pushing over 70s temps. I can just up the voltage a bit and overcome 900s range. I still have to find the limit of 1.05 though. But the core is not exactly what I wish I could push further, but the memory. Man would I have been happy with mere 1100mhz. My best memory was 1050 but even that was unstable in some games.

And well the superior speakers are way more than "some decent speakers".

Actually, the only thing you have over the MSI is a sturdier design, better BIOS options, much better screen and quite a higher pricetag haha. But well, you ARE paying for an extreme CPU and the option of running it unlocked. I would rather save that money for now

 

Well, you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk? Plus, there's a bit of a flaw in the cooling. If you have the 920XM at 26x multiplier and the 5870 at 950+, you're going possibly overwhelm the single fan and fry both your CPU and GPU. Has anyone stressed both GPU and CPU with Furmark and continuous runs of OCCT for more than 15 minutes seen any increase in temps for both? I'm curious as to how that will work out...

The speakers are decent at best. Why? Because. 1 They only work in 2.1 sound. You'd have to buy a new speaker set anyways to get 7.1 or 5.1. 2. Headphones are always better sounding, NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY. It's a proven FACT. 3. They are limited in size, you can find bigger and better drivers out there.

Simply, I can just go out and buy better speakers. I already have a nice ol' gaming headset that's got better sound than any sub-250$ speaker set cannot surpass.

 

What kind of comment is that the speakers only work in 2.1? Seriously, if you are just going the route of "I can just buy a pair of speakers" Well then you can just buy a whole new computer piece by piece. I can get a better external monitor. Hell, I can even go external graphics cards.

The point was comparing the simple machine. I can't test the extreme CPU at all, but I am sure I can handle it, but surely the CPU would get way hot. Even when fully stressing my CPU and GPU, I don't get that over 80 C, and no game ever gets me near that point. It's an unrealistic scenario that won't happen. So I am happy for you that you can survive that.

 

Crysis is pretty demanding CPU and GPU wise. Benchmarking can also do that. By the way it's not unrealistic, you can easily do that while benchmarking.

Simple machine wise, of course the MSI would win, but most gamers should have a seperate headset and mouse, so the speakers are deemed basically useless. I personally have used an external headset and mouse for every computer I've owned. Also, my M15x speakers are perfectly fine for music and such. Coupled with a really nice max volume and decent sound quality I'm down with it. I'm also fairly certain that with sound eq tuning, the speakers would be almost as good. But then again, I have no idea why we got into the speaker conversation because I'm fairly certain we were merely discussing performance in SCII.

I've heard the MSI GX660R audio performance, it's great, but it's not as good as every one exaggerates it to be. I'm disappointed.

 

I've attempted, but something causes the AC connectin to wig out when attempting an OCCT PSU run. It'll revert to battery, and only replugging in the PSU will get me AC power. I've tried both the 120W Liteon stock PSU and my old Asus G51vx's 120W PSU. If I really wanted I guess I could see if an aftermarket 180W PSU would do the trick, but eh.

Also, Miah, go back to your M15x, we'll go back to our GX660[R]s, and we'll all be happy.

 

thx 4 replying guys. well i dont know but i've never seen a computer that runs slower when u overclock it. the alienware guys may be exagerating it a bit too. A 5850 cant run faster than a 5870, even with an i7. I'm sure about that because my desktop pc has a core2duo and i can play sc2 on ultra always smooth, even on big battles.Not to mention that the gx660 is hd and the m15x is fullhd, which greatly decreases performance.

I'll try disable the speed step option that u mention.

 

now that i have 940xm, im tempted how it perform on msi gx660r

 

Wait. 120W PSU??!?!??!? Wow. How'd they manage to get that on a 5870 and i7. o.o You get any throttling? But that's pretty sweet lol. I can't game at the airport using the crappy 120V outlets...

and @ above, I'm pretty sure you'll throttle with a 920XM and a 5870M on a 120W psu.

 

Wait. 120W PSU??!?!??!? Wow. How'd they manage to get that on a 5870 and i7. o.o You get any throttling? But that's pretty sweet lol. I can't game at the airport using the crappy 120V outlets...

and @ above, I'm pretty sure you'll throttle with a 920XM and a 5870M on a 120W psu.

 

Wait. 120W PSU??!?!??!? Wow. How'd they manage to get that on a 5870 and i7. o.o You get any throttling? But that's pretty sweet lol. I can't game at the airport using the crappy 120V outlets...

and @ above, I'm pretty sure you'll throttle with a 920XM and a 5870M on a 120W psu.

 

I'm pretty sure your CPU is throttling. The M15x throttled with even a 150W psu!

@ Above, I think the computer would throttle out basically every other second. Maybe you should try investing in the generic 180W PSU that Forge talked about.

 

I recieved my Gx660r yesterday evening, and wow, what a machine.

Can I just say, firstly, the sound is the best I have ever heard. It's not 'subpar' or 'okay' it's amazing for a laptop. The accuracy of the sound is insane. After comparing to a dell a HP and a toshiba I appreciate it even more. It's loud, clear and packs some bass, not to make you feel it, but you hear it, which is important.

Build quality of laptop is fine, flex in the keyboard is quite extreme, but not too bad when typing. The keyboard takes a while to get used too from the positioning, the small enter key the \ next to the alt key etc.

Graphics; well I have tried trackmania and Starcraft 2 and ran at full with ease. I'll update later.

Tempratures are insane. After playing 3 hours on trackmania with turbo on temp was 59 degrees on the gpu. Extremely good.

Keeping it short, I have to rush out, will update later.

Peace out.

 

Welcome to the club! Glad to hear everything is working for you. This machine sure is a beast in performance and price

Several laptops had thorttling, but not all from the same cause. My previous Asus G51J also had throttling, but it was due to intel thermal sensor, not the PSU. If you disabled 1 bit from the thermal sensor, no throtling would occur even on 120w PSU. If I remember, the original throttle problem with Dell machines was due to a limit they imposed at BIOS level, so even the first users that got higher wattage units, they would still throttle until an update. Then it became a power issue. Specially in some laptops that used 90w PSU.

And I haven't noticed any throttling so far with my current GX660, but then again I haven't been pushing it to the limits lately.

Maybe we should use the Targus 180w PSU to see how it fares. Specially if we are going to overclock.

 

120w psu, i7 940xm and 5870m is ok, as long you dont overclock it. tried to oc my 940xm to run stable at 3.33ghz on all 8 threads, only under heavy load then it went shut down....

guess i can only hope after getting the 180w psu.


@ryzeki, where to purchase the targus 180w psu?

 

I imagine this would be my first choice, but I don't know if you can get them cheaper somewhere else.

The worst part is that I had an Asus 150w PSU that fit perfectly, but I lost it

 

Hi Napbree, thanks for your review . I too am an owner of the GX660R and I saw you mention the annoying \ key to the left of the spacebar. Google a program called Keytweak and download it. It should be freeware. It allows you to reprogram your keys (most of them) however you like. I programmed it so the \ serves as a second Alt button, which I recommend. Trust me, your thumb will be hitting both of the keys when going for Alt sometimes . Also, the original placement of the \ key still functions properly (as is evidenced by my ability to type it lol).

Quick question for all owners:

I seem to be experiencing a small problem. The Turbo button doesn't light up or seem to function at all anymore. This started happening today.

First what happened is this. I put a flash drive in before booting up and it tried to boot from the flashdrive (which doesn't have a portable OS). I had to turn the laptop off and restart and that's when I noticed the Turbo button not working anymore. I notice there an additional boot screen now that has information on some type of Realtek device, PCIe, I think it says. And it mentions it not being connected. I also had a Windows Update that updated the Realtek PCIe driver last night, so I wonder if it screwed anything up (Windows update hasn't been very good to me lately).

So, out of all of that, any ideas anyone? Thanks

 

Yeah the dynaudio speakers are probably the best or up with the best laptop speakers on a laptop. But personally, I were an audiophile, I'd still go with a high-end premium set of speakers or OEMs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're mediocre, I'm saying it's practically impossible to get ultra-highend sound on a laptop anywhere.

Also, I'm wondering if that generic 180W PSU will work for the M15x. We've been having to go to that huge- 240W M17x psu for extreme OCing. :/

Anyways sorry for the spam posts. The website was acting up on me yesterday. :S

@ Above, I'm guessing it's a bad driver or a mobo problem. Try reverting back to what you had before and see if works again. If it doesn't work after reverting bad, the mobo might have gotten screwed...

 

Problem solved. Actually, it wasn't a problem at all lol. I didn't realize that the Turbo function could only be utilized while it was plugged into the PSU. Sorry! . Still curious about the new info on boot up, but I'll research it.

And regarding this silly debate about the Dynaudio Speakers. Of course they aren't as good as a 5.1, 7.1 or studio monitoring system, nor would they be as good as high quality headphones. The comparison to all of the above is irrelevant. The fact is they are the best laptop speakers out there currently and mentioning their quality is a worthy point of recognition. Not everyone will have audio accessories to take advantage of the GX660R's excellent sound system and there are obviously plenty of people who use the speakers. When I'm not at home they come in quite handy, especially if I don't feel like wearing a headset. The quality of the audio isn't merely how loud the speakers can get without sound distortion, it is the clarity and the many details you can hear that you wouldn't hear in other laptops or even in some stereos. I would compare these speakers to the Bose small radios. Great quality from a small package. So let's stop comparing apples to oranges. Also, not everyone pretends laptop speakers don't exist like you do, miah

 

I'm pretty sure I praised the speakers and acknowledged their top-tier quality. :S Personally, I can get along with my M15x with it's slightly above average speakers, which I don't use much because I've got a nice headset, but it would be nice to have those fantastic integrated speakers.

 

Check your AC input requirements, maybe the Targus can fit. Unless Alienware uses a different type of plug, it should work no problems.

What I like about this MSI and my previous 4 Asus, is that they all basically had the same plug connector for my AC adapter. That plug should simply be standard now.

 

Thanks. I'll check it out.

 

Downloading Metro 2033 and Cities XL 2011, ill let you know how they peform

 

I play metro 2033 on high settings DX11 no advanced DX11 effects, at 1600x900 with over 30+ fps average. I can play on 1920x1080 (and I actually did so for half the game) but I don't like it when the fps dip under 30 too much. The game is tough to aim as it is lol.

I use my GPU O/C though, but DX9 mode is also possible and runs faster, albeit looks a bit less "alive" with certain effects.

 

Well considering I can play games and my GPU has never gone over 60 degrees, I think I can overclock mine as well! The cpu runs hotter than the gpu by a long run.

I tried last night, and it was playing 1920x1080 at normal @ 15-20fps

I'll fiddle again.

Update: Playing at 1600x900 at high with dx11 - 30-40ps. Looks nice as well.

 

Sounds like lots of fun....

Boy, can't wait until i get mine back from a simple HDD swap (remind me just to do it myself next time, and send the faulty HDD(s) back with a very unkind note and possibly on my legal letterhead )

I don't like to break out the lawyer pants when dealing with notebooks/technology (this is my escape from the ambigiousness of my chosen profession) but darn it. If it gets me back my technology quicker I will send it on that formal (and waaaay too expensive - is paper not printed on trees anymore?) letterhead!

Still. Living vicariously through you folks in the meantime.

 

You sent the whole system back due to the HDDs? Dayum, bad idea , you're right you should of done that yourself. That's really unlucky!

 

This might be a weird question, but during bootup, how many times do you see the MSI screen (where you can access the BIOS)? I see it twice in this order: It comes up first, then it displays the hard drive information, and then it shows the MSI screen again before it pulls up Windows.

I had a weird boot up issue that I believe I resolved, but I can't remember if it showed the MSI screen twice before I had the issue or not.

Sorry if this seems petty lol.

 

Which exhaust is for the cpu, the back or the left side? My left side is always hotter than the back side.

 

The left side will be the CPU. reason being, my cpu is at 45 degrees and my gpu is at 35 and the back is colder. Unless they're combined..?

 

2 hour gaming session on metro 2033 1600x900 high, dx11 gpu temp, didnt surpass 50 degrees. Is this for real!?

This is insane.

 

Well it was a simple thing of "ship it free, we take care of it for free, and send it back for free" as opposed to "go out and buy some HDDs and then fill out this paperwork and we'll see what we can get you."

Strange, I know, since I plan on getting the Seagate XTs with the hybrid, but here was my school of thought:

Two fresh 320s in RAID-0 which I will swap out and save. When it comes time to sell the laptop and upgrade (or change, etc.) I swap in the two "new" 320s in the RAID and Boom. Like a factory-fresh install. Good for me, good for potential buyer of used laptop.

At least I had it long enough to enjoy my purchase! Though if it takes much longer, I'll pretty much have saved up enough to buy myself one of the new revamped Clevo x8100s or AW 17x's and get Crossfire 5870s!

(Wait, Wait... calm down. You only play RTS games on the computer, you console everything else... no sense going overboard)

Excuse me, I just had an overwhelming of the "I WANTZ MOAR NAO" mentality that put the US in a recession the past couple of years. I'm back to normal.

 

got an issue here, just received my new GX660R-060, and this is what happened.

I booted up the original RAID0 setup, to check out what's in there. Messed around a bit, then decided to remove the RAID and install a clean Win7.

No issues so far.

Reinstalled Windows 7 after removing the RAID array, then started to install all the drivers.

I've changed the boot order in BIOS, then after the 2nd or 3rd reboot, my USB ports have become disabled and I haven't been able to re-enable them.

It's not only in Windows, I can't boot from my USB key anymore either after POST.

Any ideas?

 

chipset driver update

 

Does the same here, so seems normal

 

I don't have that. Try changing the booting order to make sure your HDD is booted first?

 

Is there any way update Catalyst driver to 10.10? or just wait msi releasing it..

 

Well for the AWs they've been modded by the AW owner community. (May not be true though, I'm not 100% sure)

And I'm pretty sure they've just released the 10.10s today. BTW, Msi doesn't release it, ATI does.