-->*OFFICIAL: MSI GT627 Owner's Lounge*<--

Alas, no. zipzoomfly, newegg dont ship international.
I have emailed UPS about the total shipping costs + customs duty (if any).

Lets see what the total turns out to be.
Hopefully, it wont be too much *fingers crossed*

EDIT : Amazon doesnt ship too.

 

Thank you!

 

Not sure if anyone posted this before. Hitting the Turbo button while in Left4Dead will cause a BSOD :3 Going to the higher clock prior to launching the game will not.

Also, 9800m's doesn't pass the hardware test for Nvidia 3d Vision glasses.

 

Ditto and ditto and ditto.

 

Sorry for the confusion but, I wasn't addressing whether XP 32bit could use more than 4GB of ram. I was speaking about the GT627 being able to handle more than 4GB of ram.

My understanding is XP has a 2GB address limit. Any one process can use up to 2GB of ram. XP as a whole can handle 3GB+. This is for XP 32bit of course.

 

Gotchya Dalingrin, seems I was a bit hasty in my reading of your post.

Anyway I had a few minutes to look into your question, and what I found was that single 4gb ddr2 laptop dimms do indeed exist, so at least it's a possibility at this time to get up to 8 gigs of ram into the GT627. Unfortunately they're also slower speed than the ones that come with the laptop. But who knows, maybe larger or faster ddr2s will become available in the future.

I also found that, as with 32-bit XP, 32-bit Vista can't really make use of much over 3gb.

64-bit Vista, on the other hand, can go to 8gb (or more depending on which version you're running).

-----
And this is what I found about Vista's ram limits...
32-bit Vista 3gb-ish
64-bit Vista Home Basic: 8gb
64-bit Vista Home Premium: 16gb
64-bit Vista Business/Enterprise/Ultimate: 128gb

 

So far I'm loving my 627. Have still been installing stuff in between work but everything I've put on it has worked well. The keyboard doesn't bother me at all but it's good to know there's a fix out there if it ever should.

Hey Tigergixxer, where do you find the dolby stuff?

 

@abishai
If you go to "Start > Control Panel > Sound" it should open up the window that you can change Playback devices etc. On the Playback tab, select the "Speakers" output and then click properties. There should be a Dolby tab between Enhancements and Advanced. I turned on Sound Space Expander and Natural bass, adjusting the bass boost to my taste. Under advanced is where you would change the quality to CD from Studio to play COD World at War. You can also get to this screen by right clicking the Speaker icon in the task bar and left clicking Playback Devices. Hope that helps!

@all
I will have some 'real' gaming benchmarks today. It's been a crazy week and the most time I've had on the machine was yesterday while I installed Visual Studio 2008 Professional and SQL Server 2008 Developer.

 

Thanks Tigergixxer.

 

Someone asked for it before so here it is. Did a run of World in Conflict with settings at 1680X1050. Everything else was set how the game set it up(very high). Also ran the Last Remnant benchmark. Both of these were with stock gpu and the turbo button on.

 

Is there a tutorial anywhere that tells you how to install windows XP on this laptop? or will any tutorial do?

 

I think someone said the one for the 620 will work?

 

abishai
Thank you for the world in conflict test
WIC
is very graphics intensive..so that result is good
setting on very high not bad...

 

Tried to print screen the settings but it's not working. Just takes a pic of my desktop. The resolution was 1680X1050 and the graphic detail was set to Very High. Didn't change anything in the advanced tab so I'm assuming that it's the default Very High settings. The particular values for the ones you mentioned though are:

AA - 4X
Distance Detail - Very High
Soft Shadow - Checked

If you have any setting you want me to checkout let me know and I'll do it before I uninstall the game. Awesome game but I played it a bunch in beta/release awhile ago.

I also played the demo for Empire Total War on steam and it ran great. No idea what the fps was but it was completely playable. Better than my 7800 GTX did on my old desktop playing Rome Total War.

 

No you did very well thanks.. the game is fun...Im Ubba in WIC btw

 

I'll post how it goes when I get my GT627 in a day or two, my plan is to put in TinyXP, then load up all the 620 XP drivers and hope for the best.

Here's some links that I think might be helpful:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers
http://www.techspot.com/drivers/driver/file/information/11514/
http://www.notebook-driver.com/msi/msi-gx620-gaming-notebook-windows-vista-drivers/
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=driver&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1529

 

recaro- Thanks! I will be looking forward to hearing how it goes.

 

anyone tried GTA IV?
this is one game I really want to play!

 

Hi all!
Just wanted to provide a small update in regards to the Blu-ray features. The stock WinDVD8 played 2 out of 3 discs I picked up yesterday. After a few hours of work and searching I got the third to work using ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater. All update attempts I made with the included WinDVD were unsuccessful as they appear to be valid for only retail versions.

I watched Transformers, The 5th Element, and OfficeSpace and with ArcSoft TMT they were smooth and flawless. Faster loading and smoother initial play than with WinDVD. I have not used the HDMI yet but the 5.1 analog out worked great.

I got fraps and will be doing a couple runs with COD4 and World at War. I ran the WIC test and recieved similar results. I played some World at War as a demo for my prof yesterday morning @ 1680x1050 and it was smooth like my desktop (I just need to get used to my MS Habu mouse).

 

I ended up picking up PowerDVD Ultra to use for my blu-ray player. I don't have many movies, just the ones I got when I bought my PS3, but the one I picked at random(Underworld Evolution) worked with no problems. Just got done playing Sins of a Solar Empire for a couple hours on my 627 and no issue. Ran great but it's not really a graphics intensive game. Bought GTA4 through steam and downloading it now so i'll let everyone know how it goes.

Just an FYI to anyone I have a decent internet connection so if anyone wants me to get a demo/benchmark app let me now I have no problem doing so.

 

I ordered this laptop and I'm obviously very excited. I've only ever had XP and the more i've read about Vista, it seems the SP has helped and I'll live with it until Windows 7.

But I haven't read a good answer on the reason MSI has 4gb of ram on this thing and only a 32bit version of Vista. I assume the 64bit has issues with support for the laptops features? If that's the case, would a windows 7 64bit have the same issues?

 

Might be a good idea if you could run hw monitor or some other similar app, e.g. everest (hw monitor seems to be better for this though) and set it to monitor CPU, GPU, and hdd temps (and whatever other sensors it finds) during benchs.

 

Well my modifications are complete. I replaced the CPU and put in a Intel P9500 and threw in a 160GB SSD in place of the stock 320 (which I put into a external enclosure to use for backup ). Everything went very smoothly. Couple points to note. The Overclocking can be tweaked by a setting in the Bios, you have 2 choices 15% and 20%, I believe the 15% is factory default, I selected 20% and have no problems at all. The 2.53 Ghz P9500 shows over 3.0 Ghz with the turbo button down . . . rock stable under Win7 beta. I replaced the goo on the heatsinks for the GPU and CPU with AS 5, I didnt take enough readings beforehand to tell whether I am getting a huge benefit, all I know is that its running reasonably cool now, no heat issues after gaming for extended periods.

I saw only a 5% bump in 3Dmark06 (to just under 9k at max res) in changing processors, not a huge difference between the two other than a doubling of the 2ndary cache to 6MB and a .13GHZ raw clock change. The P9500 I think is replaced now by a 2.6ghz chip (but not widely available).

The unit is blazingly fast with the Intel 160GB SSD, I will clock the boot times later, but it is noticeably faster.

Couple points to note when digging into the inards, there is a hidden screw under the "Warranty Void if removed" sticker, I almost cracked the plastic before realizing it . . . also the HD cage is actually held in place my a black rubber like cushion on one end of the drive, just held in place by friction. (there also seems to be a place for a screw to hold the cage in, but there was no screw in mine) To remove the hard drive, you pry out this block, then slide the HD back and then lift out. Not really exactly the configuration I would have expected. Once you decipher how the drive is held in place, it is very easy to swap out.

I've loaded COD:World at war, WoW, Fallout 3 and a few older games, all run smooth at the native res. Very happy with the unit given how small and light it is. Its no where near as fast as my Clevo 901c based behemoth, but it doesn't weigh 13lb either. Pound for pound its a great bargain, and the price allowed me to splurge on the SSD (which I wanted to try out more out of curiosity than anything else).

 

I have no problems using the 32 bit turbo utility with Win7 (64bit) beta, MSI has 64 bit versions of the other drivers on their website. All the features of the laptop appear to work as expected after you install the appropriate drivers. As I would expect, I can see all 4 GB of ram in Win7 (64bit). Win7 seems to be what Vista should have been all along. Hope they dont muck it up too bad before official release.

 

I ran some benches on COD4 and World at War today using Fraps. I ran each multiple times for 180 seconds each time to get a good average. These were run with turbo enabled at 15% boost.

For COD4 I captured using the Beginning cargo ship map and video intro (helicopter rappelling to the ship and gameplay into the innards of the ship).
10782 Frames, Min 24, Max 107, Avg 59.9

For World at War I captured using the Little Resistance map and video intro (amphibious assault vehicles taking the beach head).
6133 Frames, Min 18, Max 51, Avg 34.072

These were both run at 1680x1050, no AA, and Anisotropic filtering maxed. As you can see, which I already knew from many people, World at War is not very efficient in terms of hardware usage. I experienced similar, but higher, results with my desktop. It saw a drop on WaW also.

In terms of heat, here are results from HW Monitor:
CPU core 0: Max 65C
CPU core 1: Max 61C
GPU core: Max 70C
HDD: Max 39C

10 Minutes after playing:
CPU core 0: 33C
CPU core 1: 33C
GPU core: 44C
HDD: 37C

I have done zero modifications.

 

I want to add that I used this at school on Saturday and was pleased with the battery results.

While demonstrating gaming I did run with turbo and on AC power.

For the majority of the class I ran on battery. This screen is excellent in that being in a very well lit classroom I was able to comfortably view the screen with it set for minimum brightness. I was connected to a WPA2 Enterprise AP for the duration with no issues. When I first checked the estimated time it stated >3hrs. I used the laptop for over 2:45 and it still had battery remaining estimated at 45 minutes. I did use the ECO saver function. I did not have Webcam or Bluetooth enabled. I was running MS Word 2007, LogMeIn, and standard Windows RDP.

I'm happy with the battery life. I may use it more off AC than I initially expected.

I am also now very comfortable with the keyboard. I have found that using the right control key helps me from accidentally using the Fn key. When I'm coding or writing without the need of the 10key, I am turning off Num Lock and using the 7 and 1 keys as home/end. That does make things better in terms of those buttons. Just my take, but thought I would share! Maybe it will help someone.

 

those are some good results Tigergixxer. cant wait to get mine.

 

Just got mine. Hey, am I supposed to fully charege the battery and then fully discharge or smth?

 

Supposedly mine arrives today!

I can't wait to get it!!!!

I'll post some beauty shots and possibly an unboxing video asap.

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

IF YOU DIDN'T GET THE MANUAL LIKE I DID, DOWNLOAD IT HERE.
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=manual&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1670


P.S. Small question, is it really any good to put that sponge inbetween keyboard and screen like it says?

Update: Well, I'm blind, it actually comes on the CD with drivers...

 

Has anyone tried ordering this from germany? Im in the UK btw.
On a side note, is it going to be hard getting used to the german keyboard?

 

I think my laptop is defective, or is it supposed to be this way?

1) First, when I press CDROM button to open, I hear click, but the tray doesn't slide to the left, I have to lift my laptop and slide it form the bottom to have a grip.

2) Second, I think someone mentioned, hard drive supposed to be really quiet. Well, mine is vibrating. I can really feel it if I put my hands on the laptop. And the sound.. it sounds like fan, but I'm pretty sure its hard drive...

3) From time to time smth clicks inside the laptop...

 

I've never read anything about that outside of cell phones. But i'm definitely going to charge up my battery all the way until I start draining it.

 

The CD thing doesn't surprise me. A lot of laptops have to do that. The other stuff sounds like it might be horrible. Especially if that's the hard drive clicking. You might want to get it exchanged if it's all possible.

 

Well, I'm very dissapointed with gt627 and MSI. First, who said build is solid? It all bends, not only keyboard, but the whole laptop. Then this HDD and CDrom... And yes, keyboard look and feels and is very cheap. I mean, it's, probably, a good deal for 1300$. I should have known better.

Update, a had Dell and sony before. Dell was plastic, didn't bend anywhere, not talking about excellent keyboard. Vaio - metal, but keyboard was still nice... Anyway, now I'm considering making myself live with 9600 video card, but better build and keyboard...

P.S. I ordered from amazon, so should return easy.

P.P.S. Does any1 can imagine, why I have no sound in COD5?

 

@Konstantin
The sponge is to protect the LCD panel from possibly being marked by keyboard/other keys when the lid is closed, so if you keep it I'd really use it.

All of my Apple nbs REALLY should've come with one of those, as they ALL eventually got marks from the kb I'm sure. Looked like the primary culprit was the spacebar on those.

As to it flexing wow! I don't remember the 1651 flexing that much, or at least not any more than some of the other nbs that I've had with plastic cases. (Primarily Apple nbs, although SOME of them did have thicker plastic housings that did not flex readily, while others were pretty bad , e.g. some of the last powerbook G3s before the powerbook G4, while the ibooks from a similar period had some fairly heft cases...)

Sound:
You MIGHT want to check for a sound driver update. IIRC it uses the Realtek 888 chip, so if worse comes to worst you might want to check the drivers on the Realtek site... probably should also look on the COD5 forums if there are any to see if anyone else had a similar problem with Realtek based audio...

 

If you go to "Start > Control Panel > Sound" it should open up the window that you can change Playback devices etc. On the Playback tab, select the "Speakers" output and then click properties. Under advanced is where you would change the quality to CD from Studio to play COD World at War. You can also get to this screen by right clicking the Speaker icon in the task bar and left clicking Playback Devices. Hope that helps!

 

Unless you are able to bend metal, I think you are overstating the flex. The keyboard doe have flex because it is suspended 1/16 " or so over the internal metal frame. It is easily remedied by a number of means noted in this thread. The rest of the Notebook does NOT flex (unless you are able to bend some pretty thick metal). As for the CDRom drive not immediately popping out... well you hear the click when you press the button, there is a delay between that and when the drive tray come out (designed to let the DVD/CD spin down), be patient just wait a sec or two. If you forced it at some point, you may well have damaged the mechanism yourself. DVD Rom doors do not instantly pop out. You may well have a defective HD if it vibrates enough to feel, these small notebook drives dont create huge torque,and are typically pretty silent. The drive in the 627 is a high end 320gb 7200rpm part, you wont find a higher quality drive in any notebook. There is always the chance one is defective, you might have been unlucky. You are more likey to feel viibration from DVD drives however, are you feeling the vibration with a CD/DVD in the notebook?

 

can you do a video showing all of this?

 

I'll try to do video, but don't have camcorder, and quality on my camera is bad.

CD-rom Cmon, i know how it's supposed to open, and it's getting stuck.

 

Do you think there will be any performance gain with installing Vista 64bit instead of the 32?

Or should I not bother and just wait for Windows 7 64?

 

not a huge performance gain but you will be able to utilize more than 3gb of ram. imo i would install win7 x64. it runs much better than vista.

 

Well, that's me CD-ROM problem, sorry for terrible quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RjRsRn2-s8

 

welll...that is wierd. its not supposed to open like that.

 

That might be how it's supposed to work, the tray might just be spring loaded a little instead of powered with it's own motor.

I'll see when mine shows up today. Unless you hear a little whir when you press the button it might just be that way.

 

I just got mine today (about 1 hr ago) and my first impression was very positive.

The build quality seems nice and top notch. Very sturdy, no creaks or squeaks!

Right now I'm in the process of creating the two recovery DVDs and I noticed that my BD-DVD tray opened just fine with a spring action (not like the KonstantinDK tray). It pops about two inches out.

However, when I close the tray, I noticed just a tiny bit of friction on the top side of the tray (where the BD logo is) and the red bezel on top. (see pic)



Then I decided to remove and re install the BD-DVD face plate and all is great now. It seems like it was not properly seated.

To remove the face plate, simply eject the tray, then carefully grab the face plate with your two thumbs (as pictured below but I had to use one hand so I can snap the photo) and finally gently pull with a downward motion. In my case this was a very easy and required no force whatsoever.





To replace simply reverse the steps. There are two clips one on the left and one on the right and you should feel a small click when properly installed.



If this procedure doesn't work for you, then you can take it one step further and remove the face plate and carefully use a file on the top edge.

Good luck!
RayanMX

 

congrats RayanMX, glad to hear that the build quality is great. can't wait to get mine. Keep the pics coming.

 

Thank you ChinNoobonic, I'm sure you will love it too!

I wonder why MSi decided to put an IR receiver on the laptop... Because of it's location I suppose there is or will be a media center remote control like on the HP Notebooks?



Here you have a few more shots of my newly aquired MSi GT627



I love the brushed aluminum finish!



Right now I'm in the process of installing Crysis and run some tests...

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

Grats yo! I just got mine today too, but atm it's charging and I've been too busy to really get into it yet and see what it can do.

 

Ran the GTA4 benchmark without turbo, here are the results.

Statistics
Average FPS: 25.03
Duration: 37.24 sec
CPU Usage: 88%
System memory usage: 67%
Video memory usage: 55%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: Medium
Water Quality: Medium
Shadow Quality: Very High
View Distance: 26
Detail Distance: 51
Definition: Off
VSync: Off

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS
Video Driver version: 179.48
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz