~GX660(R) Owner's Lounge~

Screen is fine for me, too. Vertical angles are the worst part, but its sharpness and brightness are very good! After trying various settings on CCC, I let it like: -4 for brightness (To "ungrey" the blacks), 110 for contrast and 120 for color saturation. It's just a suggestion, of course.
Congratulations and enjoy your purchase.

 

Hiya lads,

I'm seriously considering to get the GX660, as it seems pure awesomeness to me.

However, I'm wondering about its battery life. I've heared that versions with an i7 CPU have a much shorter battery life than the ones with an i5, even when not gaming (since the PM55 chipset and first generation i7 CPUs don't support Optimus / Switchable Graphics).

...which kinda sucks if that were true, considering there's a retailer over here that sells one with a i7-740QM for only 990 euros, while one with a i5-480M costs 1135 euros.

Needless to say, I won't be gaming without hooking it up to netpower first, but I also want to be mobile when I'm not gaming.

So, how long do your batteries last and which CPUs do you have?

Cheers & thanks in advance!

 

I get over 2 hours from a full charge with moderate to heavy use on a 940xm.

 

I get about less than 2 hours right now. The problem is when I updated my vBios because they use much higher core/memory speeds for the GPU. It easily topped off over 30mins of use.

Additionally, I abuse the battery almost every day due to work. I have lost aroun 17% charge already haha. But that's expected with about twice daily charges. Over half a year continously.

 

Ah well, that's still pretty nice if you ask me...

Last week I read a dutch review of a GT663 (i7-740QM + nVidia GTX460M), and the guy stated that he had less than an hour battery life when fully charged, even when he was only browsing the web. :-/



Any people over here who have a i5-460/480M?

 

i have the i5 460m and i get roughly 2 hrs if using the eco mode.
You cannot game on the battery though (not that i want to) , it just cant handle it. it doeasnt even play youtube videos properly on battery, but for web surfing its fine. TBH i very very rarely use the battery, its always tethered.

 

Hmm, I expected the 460M to last a bit longer because of its integrated GPU. Or doesn't the GX660 support Switchable Graphics and/or Optimus at all, even when the CPU has Integrated Graphics? Perhaps the Eco Engine is kind of a replacement/compensation for this?

I guess the 480M will have roughly 2 hours as well since it doesn't differ much from the 460M... So if both the i5- and i7-versions have nearly 2 hours of battery life, I might as well get the i7 as it's 140 euros cheaper over here.

(although; the more people here telling about their battery life, the better!)

Allright... How about gaming itself? Any people here who play Assassin's Creed 2 & Brotherhood a lot? And if yes; do they run smoothly enough on your machines with max settings?

 

What software do you use with the web cam?

I've used the keyboard shortcut to switch it on but, presumably, I need to have some software in order to use it for photos/video capture. Is there anything suitable pre-installed?

 

I'm using an i5 in Turbo Battery Mode running Firefox (no videos or sounds atm) and I've also got Steam running in the background. Apparently I've got up to 3 hours of battery time. This is a brand new laptop.

 

I just got my new GX660 today. Had it up and running for a few hours and then I got my first bsod. Now every time I try to boot it up it starts and runs win 7 for a few minutes and then bsod's again. I think it's possibly that I had a bad install of win 7 because I put the screen down and I think it went into sleep mode when I did that during the install.

I looked everywhere to try to figure out why the F3 hotkey function wasn't working to get into recovery. Just out of frustration and trying anything.... I placed the drivers and utilities disk in the disk drive during reboot and that started the recovery process. I don't know why that information can't be found ANYWHERE. You would think if it was a "hotkey" all you would have to do is press it. But anyway.....I think I am now in the recovery process and reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling Win 7. At least I hope.

I have some of the error codes from my bsod's

BCCODE: D1
BCP1: ffffffffffffffffd2
BCP2: 000000000002
BCP3: 000000000001
BCP4:
And the last one I didn't catch as it rebooted again. From what I've read the d1 means its most likely a driver issue.

I also noticed on one of the bsod it said "IQLR_not_more_or_less_than" etc or something like that and on another bsod it said bad "bad pool caller"


So my question is 1) Has anyone else had this issue and might it be a driver problem? Everything I have read says these are driver issues but would a bad install of windows cause this?

Also....where do I go to get the most up to date drivers specifically for the GX660 that are all compatible with eachother?

 

Nice... Do you have a i5-460M or i5-480M?

 

Hi GX660 owners

I’m about to order my GX660 with the following specs:

(If you are wondering about the choice of why I choosed those specs pls see http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...uy/564459-college-working-league-legends.html)

MSI GX660-260US - Gaming Laptop
- 15.6" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Anti-Glare Screen w/ 95% NTSC Color Gamut (1920x1080)
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- -Intel® Core™ i5-460M, 2.53-2.8GHz, (3MB L3 cache) - Standard
- IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU (Cools better than all Compounds)
- ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5870 1024MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11
- 4GB (2 SODIMM) DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory
- Standard Finish
- Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti 8X DVDRW Drive w/ Software-
- - 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s) - Default
- No Additional Hard Drive in ODD Bay (When adding Hard Drive, Optical Drive Is Not Included/Removed)
- Internal 4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Built-in 802.11 Wireless B/G/N - Stock Wireless Card
- Integrated Digital Video Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (9-Cell)
- No Thanks, Please do not Overclock my system
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Pre-Installed + Drivers & Utilities Disk

- 2 Year MSI US Parts & Labor 1 Year Global Warranty w/ Lifetime Tech Support

This will end at about $1450.

Is there anything I should be aware of with this setup? Anything I should change out or consider? My budget is around $1450 so I can’t afford a GX660R or GT680…

Hope to get some inputs from you all

 

460M.

Hope that helps.

 

Certainly, thanks!

 

I paid 1,450 on a GX660R, two months ago. At Amazon is out of stock, but I think if you search a little more you'll find an unit available that fits your budget. The only drawnback on my lappy is stock thermal compound, wich doesn't bother me, since I have amazing temperatures, anyway. Ok, your setup includes a matte screen, maybe with better viewing angles, but stock glossy screen is good, IMO.

 

dont think the i5 can utilise the 1333 ram can it??

 

Thanks for the reply I like that you found a GX660R for that kind of money, nice! It is good that the stock screen is good, but I don't think I can live with a glossy screen - but that is a purely personal preferrence. So I would rather have an I-5 and a matte screen then a i-7 glossy screen and raid-0 (guess I have to by an SSD in the future )

Is your laptop very quiet when you idle, surf, and write in office?

 

I couldn't choose anything less than 1333 ram, so I might as well take them I don't know if it can utilise then, but I would guess that it can.

 

I virtually can't hear it, idle or not. Hitting turbo fan is another thing, of course, but it's not that loud. I ignore it, because when it's on I'm playing, and game sound is way much louder. And this fan does its homework, dude! When you get your unit with matte screen, take some pictures and post here, if you don't mind. Just curiosity that kills the cat
Greetz.

 

How do you use the web cam on a GX660R?

I just want to take a couple of pictures with it but I've no idea how. I've tried activating it using the keyboard shortcut but nothing happens.

 

You need to download and install the webcam program from the msi website. Type into google "msi gx660" to get the right page.

 

Thank you.

 

That sounds perfect! I really need a gamer laptop that is quiet in office mode

So your stock thermal compound is good enough? I must admit that one of the reasons why I choose xoticpc was that they could apply a better compound for me. Other than that they are just $100-150 more expensive than their competitors I think I could change the screen myself if I wanted to.

For sure I will do some sort of review. Was thinking about a video showing the viewing angles and such

 

I think the msi driver for the camera doesn't have a still camera feature, seems like it only does videos. anyone found a good driver for it's camera?

 

What are the chances of a i7 920/940xm actually failing?

 

Yes, stock thermal is enough. Of course you'll have a substancial temp drop with Artic Silver or IC, but 66C max GPU and 60C max CPU with 23C ambient while gaming (my temps) with stock TC is pretty good. Turbo fan on. If I were you, I'd buy thermal paste (cheap) and reapste myself if needed. Check other sellers, like Power Notebooks, they must have better prices including thermal compound repasting.
I have an opinion about all these temp discussions: much ado abouth nothing. Temperatures become a problem if they are pretty high for a long period. And this means 90C+. I know gamers who owns Macbooks, wich are known for heating a lot, for more than 2 years, and the machines are still working properly. They reach 90C easily... And this is in Brazil (!) with 30C+ ambient temp. Regarding to screen, MSI GX660R' is good enough for me.
Greetz

 

It's nice to hear they're selling models with matte screens now . I think I'd prefer having one of those. I wonder if the screens themselves are available for purchase and, if so, how difficult it would be to install?

 

I remember when I read through this entire topic that someone posted a webshop where you could get all kinds of loose components for the GX660, like Blu-Ray slimline drive etc.

Could the person who originally posted the link repost it? I'd really hate to go through all 99 pages again


Edit: Nevermind, found it on Page 22.

 

Hmm.. is this laptop CPU overclockable?

I have the i5 460m

I got SetFSB running with the ICS9LPRS113AKLF PPL but it gets bugged when I adjust the FSB. Any ideas?

 

Getting games to recognise your numeric pad


There are a few games (Bioshock and Borderlands to name two ) that don't recognise the numeric pad properly. They see 8, 4, 6 and 2 as up, left, right and down. 7, 9, 1 and 3 are recognised as Home, Pg-Up, End, Pg-Down.

It's frustrating as this makes it difficult to use the controls that I'm most comfortable with as these games can't distinguish between keys on the numeric pad and the actual up, down, left and right keys (the ones that also control volume and screen brightness).

Is there anyway to force these games to properly recognise the numeric pad?

edit- nm, fixed it in one of the ini files.

 

I have tried it as well. but think you need the registrered version of SetFSB for full support.

 

I'm interested in the MSI GX660R and I used google shopping to search up some prices. Well I came across a website that I found too hard to believe. I just want your input.
MSI Gaming GX660R-060US 15.6-Inch Laptop - Black

What do you think about it?

 

I am an owner of the MSI GT660R and need advice and how I can fix the clicking/whining of my CPU, I cant be the only one out there that notices this noise..and no its not my speakers,hdd,fan etc..its coming straight from the processor itself..please could someone give me directions on maybe how to tune the frequineces or what not so I can get rid of this noise its annoying as hell..and I have taken the cpu out and re set it to make sure it wasnt loose or what not..

 

I would investigate that company/site heavily if I were you. I know the price has gone down, but not close to $900! The lowest I've seen it I think is around $1400ish lately. Just be careful with that one. But if it ends up being legitimate, good find!

 

Stay Away The Site is dangerous!
I REPEAT STAY AWAY!

 

Seems way too good to be true, mate...


And there ya go... check out this topic:

Can this site be REAL (comments #4 and #5 in particular)

 

Geez i hate scams

 

I know this is slightly off topic, but has anyone tried playing Borderlands on your GX660R? Even with a lot of the higher settings turned down, it seems a bit sluggish and doesn't have the best frame rate.

 

Try the new 11.3 driver.

I ran Prime95 with Furmark at the same time and the PSU (stock) turned itself off! Ooppss! I am getting the Targus PSU soon.

 

I've been running Borderlands with 8xAA, 8xAS, 1600x900, everything else on high, v-sync enabled, and get a a very smooth framerate in both 1st and 3rd person.

It does crash a lot though. Not sure if the two are related.

 

I guess it also kinda depends on which processor you have in it?

I'm also still very picky about wether to choose for an i5-480M or i7-740QM. My gut says I should choose the 480.

 

i7 is better!

 

Although I agree that the i7 quadcore is more powerful, I've read some pretty good arguments why to choose for an i5:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/what-notebook-should-i-buy/518566-core-i5-460m-i7-740qm.html

- It benefits only games & apps that are optimized for using all 4 cores / hyperthreading.
- Most games aren't optimized for this yet, I doubt there will be a lot of difference.
- Turbo Boost only works for 1 of 4 cores.
- i7 seems to be more powerconsuming than an i5 (which kinda sucks if you need to be mobile on a regular basis, like I do).

And I've also seen some benchmarks in which the i5 got the upper hand. So yeah, my gut definitely says I should go for the i5-480M

 

Is there a way to start with the touchpad turned off?

 

Fn-F3 disables the touchpad but I'm not sure how to make that more permanent.

 

heyhey gentlemans and some ladies i guess...i did a renewal of cpu and gpy thermal paste and my question is: when i took off the heatsinks i noticed some sticks that i assume is some form of heat remover...i wonder if iam supposed to remove them and replace them with my arctic silver 5? and to be clear...i think those stickers where connected if we take the gpu, on the gpu memory.....what do u suggest...anyone who have done this? take care!!!

 

Leave the "stickers" (thermal pads) alone.

 

Power Plans:

I have always set the power plan to high performance. But I now this sets the CPU to 100% at all times.

I have now set it to balanced and the idling and normal use temps have now dropped by about 5c.

 

Hi friends,

Do you have this feature, capable of running?

 

ATI HD5870 graphics card, the GTX 485M graphics card I have successfully upgraded. Very few heatsinks need modification. But I did not do. I did not just assembly. Everything is normal computer is starting up, the screen image is coming, everything is normal. But unfortunately the computer does not recognize the video card driver and setup happening. In other words, can be installed on a standard display driver. I think an appropriate BIOS update is necessary. Accordingly, the GTX485M graphics card is not fully compatible with the model of the MSI GX660R I can say.