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

that's awsome . 25fps at native res. simply brilliant all without turbo!

 

Not bad Abishai. That sounds pretty playable which is pretty impressive for any computer. Much less a laptop.

 

@RayanMX
Thanks a lot man for the awesome pictures!
Nice pics always make me drool!

Thanks abishai for the benchmarks!
I have been waiting for those...

BTW, can any of you guys make a video review/preview of the laptop?
I hope its not too much too ask.
Please?

 

I second that. getting only screenshots of benchmarks isn't enough. would love to see some actual gameplay vids.

 

I wonder if any one of you guys know of what custom video drivers are the currently the best suited for the 9800M GS?

I'll go and check laptopvideo2go.com anyway but I remember on my old Asus G1S the normal video drivers that came with the laptop where really bad, but once I upgraded to another driver I got from laptopvideo2go.com performance changed dramatically.

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

I haven't looked to see if they're available. But I was planning to get some omega drivers and see how those work.

 

OK, let us know if you try Omega but in the meantime I'm downloading the official nVidia 179.48 with CUDA and Physx.

I'll let you know as soon as I install them tomorrow morning.

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

Have you guys tried to play bluray on battery yet? I am experiencing the same slow down playing bluray on battery as reported by someone else, and haven't figured out how to deal with this problem yet. I was wondering if this is an universal problem, or individual cases...

 

a guy reviewing the notebook on newegg said the same thing.
this is the result of the underclocking when on battery.

i had a similar question related to the underclocking...
how is the gaming performance?

 

What software are you using? Do you get different results with hardware acceleration on vs off?

 

I wrote the newegg comment for the laptop regarding the underclocking of the laptop when playing a BD. In retrospect, it may not underclock but limit the usuage of the video card during battery use. Given how badly it performs during a 3dmark06 test off of the ac adaptor, I wonder if this laptop uses an integrated video card on the mobo, like I have read some high end gaming laptops, and switches between the two to conserve power.

EDIT: Anyone else BSOD when they press the Turbo button while in game?

 

I used PowerDVD, and I couldn't find any options regarding hardware acceleration or utilization when I looked. I noticed that if I change the battery mode minimum CPU utilization in advanced power management to 100%, the video quality improved a bit, but still choppy. I haven't found ways to fully utilize the video card in battery mode yet. The default drivers that comes with the laptop does not have any power options for the video card as far as I can tell.

As for gameplay in battery mode, it's playable in native resolution with minimal visuals, or drop it to 1440x900 with high visuals. I used Vista's high performance battery mode for this and the battery lasted a little over an hour. When I have more time, I could try charging it to 100% and see how long it could last in game.

I read about problems pressing the turbo button during game play before, so I didn't bother trying. Just press it before you start the game is the general consensus.

 

Got mine today, I'll keep everyone updated on it.

 

The underclocking IS a FUNCTION of the nVidia drivers when running on battery power (powermizer). You can disable it (Google how to do it), although I really can't recommend doing so as it WILL impact battery runtime, and potentially cause thermal control problems.

ATI mobile cards do the same thing.

(Likely CPU downclocking will also be a problem as BR movie playback is more CPU intensive as well, so might have to override the mobile settings there too, but again caveats as above plus with everything set back to higher clocks power use WILL increase, and your battery runtime WILL be SIGNIFICANTLY degraded... i.e. if you insist on gaming or performing other power hungry activities will on batteries, you'd best hope for and invest in 12 or more cell batteries when/if they become available, and then NOT whine about the weight... actually 12c batts are probably available already from an OEM, but you'd have to make sure that they fit both physical sizewize and electrically, which is kind of hard to do unless you have a store or something with a selection of stock onhand... or an OEM that actually has reps that know they're talking about...)

 

Its been a while since I've used PowerDVD but iirc there should be an option to change video acceleration in the video settings. Its the first option I believe. Additionally, some DVD/Blu-Ray players have power options in them. With Total Media Theatre you can have it control your power saving settings while a movie plays.

 

Obviously flex of the keyboard is one of the bigger issue on this otherwise awesome laptop. There was a post awhile back about how to remove the keyboard. It seems to be similar to other one's I've seen. Two screws on the underside of the lappy and two tabs at the top of the keyboard. Can anyone tell me if one of those screws on the underside is under the warranty void sticker?

I am planning to buy this laptop in about a week and I plan to place a little support on the underside of the keyboard so I was wondering if this is feasible w/out "voiding the warranty".

Thanks

 

Hello Mr. Wolfram,

I just received my MSI GT627-218 today. I love it, but the keyboard flex was admittedly pretty bad (but I bought it knowing this in advance). Fixing the flex is very easy, and the results are superb and well worth it. I'm a pretty anal guy when it comes to things being just right and done correctly, so I can assure you that if you take your time in putting double-sided tape under the keyboard, it works wonders. I will, however, add a disclaimer that I am not responsible for anything that may happen to your laptop as a result of following my advice .

In doing this, you will not come across any void warranty stickers (fortunately). The process to fix the keyboard is rather easy:

1. Get a thin, rigid plastic object that you can use to gently pry up the plastic assembly between the keyboard and screen that has the buttons on it. If you use something metal, you may crack or scratch the plastic, so make sure your tool is plastic. A plastic butter knife may work.

2. Locate the "indentations" on the plastic assembly where it meets the top edge of the keyboard. You can see one between the PgUp and PgDn keys, for example. Use your plastic tool to GENTLY pull up this plastic. Be careful, as there is a ribbon that connects the plastic assembly's buttons to the motherboard. This ribbon can be detached (like a normal one in laptops) but be careful not to accidentally rip the ribbon cable when prying up the plastic assembly as it may jump up on you.

3. There are about 5 screws now visible that hold down the keyboard. Remove them and gently pop out the keyboard in a similar fashion with your plastic tool. You should see that the keyboard is primarily held down by the 4 little red tabs surrounding the keyboard. Again, the keyboard is attached via a ribbon cable, so be careful. The ribbon is easily detached and reattached to the motherboard's connector; just pay attention to the orientation of the contacts of the ribbon and the contacts on the female connector.

4. Apply foam double-sided tape underside the keyboard. I found that applying strips horizontally along the length of the keyboard in the center (i.e. across ASDFGH...) worked well. Don't apply too close to the edge of the keyboard, or it will tend to bow up after reassembly. Try not to cover too many holes either, as the laptop needs to breath. You may need to pop the keyboard in and out several times before and after application of the tape to see whether or not you reduced flex in all areas. I had to play around with it about 6-10 times. Then again, I am very picky . Just be careful not to scratch your brushed finish in the process or break any tabs. BE GENTLE AND TAKE YOUR TIME!

One suggestion is to not remove the plastic film on all of the tape. This makes future keyboard removal much easier. Make sure you do remove some of the film in some areas, as the tape does help hold the keyboard down to lessen flex.

You probably noticed that the keyboard is slightly too small for the laptop in terms of length, which causes it to bow outwards slightly. I think this is the main mechanism for the flexing. There is also a small gap below the keyboard. So, the tape fills in this gap and pulls the keyboard down to keep it flush.

After this easy modification, the keyboard is much more enjoyable to type on!

 

all i did on the 1651 was use a tool to pull upward a bit on some of the holes this lifted the base for the keyboard up a bit and now it sits flat. you only need to pull it up just a bit. there are also tabs that go down to meet the dvd drive that i bent further down fo they actually sat on the drive as before they were not making contact i have next to no flex now and no tape was needed

 

Unboxed mine last night and really only got Vista up and running and burned backup discs.

The keyboard flex doesn't bother me in the least. I actually kinda like the softness of the keys, types very quietly. The full number keypad already worth it's weight in gold when I typed in the huge wireless password.

A little strange there's so little documentation with the laptop. It's my first laptop so It'd be nice to have more. IE: If i plug it in and see no light for the battery, does that mean the battery is fully charged?

The screen is ridiculous sharp. I only have my desktop monitor to compare it to but I'm very pleased with that. It's also very light, lighter than I expected. Downloading some games from Steam to get some 3d tests going.

 

New question for all you gt627 owners... What color is your touch button area? xoticpc has pictures of a blue one as do some review sites. Amazon and newegg have pictures of a red one as do some other review sites. Are there two versions? I personally like the blue color over the red.

 

The touch button area is red... I would've liked the blue too but the red is fine.

As for trying to play bluray on battery, with powermiser disabled in the registry and the minimum processor utilization set to 100%, the video playback improved vastly but still very choppy and not really watchable. Turning off hardware acceleration in the player software just makes bluray completely unplayable - blank screen.

Anybody else tried to play bluray on battery?

 

They are saving some trees by not printing the whole user manual on paper... It's included in the hard drive in multi-language pdf. I promptly deleted all the other languages since these pdf files are pretty big. And yes, it does tell you what those lights on/off/blinking mean.

 

I'm assuming MSI will release some improved firmware/bios/patches as more and more people get these laptops and realize bluray on battery isn't possible. They make a point in their product description that with the battery it can play a full bluray disc, turns out that's not accurate and they better address it.

 

Even though you are right about MSi prompt BIOS/Patch release for the Blue Ray fix, I think they are in a dilemma... "Hmmmm should Blueray disk play with battery by increasing power consumption, then battery will not last for the average movie length"...

 

Hi, this is my first post

I just checked the ddr2 memory speed of my gt627 with memtest86+, cause cpuz isn't able to display it when set to "auto" (bios default) or 667mhz. Surprisingly, for BOTH settings it read 534mhz (2*266). In turbo mode ergo 616mhz. Now this is of course too little for ddr2-800 ram.

No issues when set to 800. Then both cpuz and memtest display the correct value.

However, the problem with 800mhz is, turbo mode will overclock the ram, which, according to cpuz, is cheapy transcend jetram, to about 924mhz. I don't know if the voltage is raised too, then it probably would be ok, but normally 924mhz is too much for cheap ddr2-800@default voltage.

Could it be that msi intended to set the ddr2-800 ram at 667mhz, which would result in 770mhz@turbo? Of course, that's not possible cause the only option so far seems to be 534/616 or 800/924.

By the way, at "set by spd", regardless of the frequency the timing always stays at 5-5-5-15.

What do you think of it? Could anyone check if he gets the same results?

 

Well, the battery life is really besides the point... I just wanted to find out if I received a defective unit that have trouble playing bluray on battery, or it's a problem on every GT627... I'm just a little surprised that nobody else reported this issue besides me and the earlier reviewer that's all.

 

Good luck with MSI and their BIOS/other firmware releases as they ENTIRELY fail to provide any sort of changelog or ANY other info to give a clue as to what the new BIOS fixes or adds. They're incredibly deficient in this matter!

As to batt runtime: For me battery runtime trumps EVERYTHING else when running on batteries, or IOW I bought a notebook from which I expect at least decent battery runtimes and not a desktop that runs continuously off of AC power. (Just my $0.02.)

Still waivering between an MSI GT725-074US and the GT627-218US though, primarily because of (or lack of) decent ATI X11 drivers. (Still slightly inclined for the 725 as I'd like to try an ATI GPU, but it's not exactly like a desktop where I can swap out a crappily supported card for a better supported one in a couple of minutes... really just waiting to see some more benchs and feedback about the 627... as price and size don't really matter as they're both so very close as to not truly matter...)

 

Mine's black with red stripes and blue lights...

 

Yeah, I too like the softness of the keys...

Here's some more eye candy for those interested...










5.6 Windows Experience Index Score while on Turbo mode. Not bad huh?
Download larger size to see details

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

What's Windows Experience Index?

I'm a benchmarking n00b.

 

It's a Microsoft Vista gimmick to measure performance of several computer components.

Nobody really cares much about that WEI Scores really, but it serves as an initial rough idea of how good a computer performs under Vista (and I noticed that Windows 7 also integrated this scheme).

You can see it when you right click on the My Computer icon and select Properties. Or at the Welcome Center screen when you click More Details.

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

Anyone install the 3 software programs when setting up for the first time? One was the burning program which was a necessity, the other two were optional and I forgot their names, but I unchecked those. What were they?

Also, there was a Click-Me icon on the desktop, of course I clicked it, but it seemed to have no result and the icon is now gone. What did I just do?

 

They are:

- Burn Now
- Office Trial Works 8.5
- Crazy Talk

The first two are self explanatory but the last one (Crazy Talk) it's just some webcam software that has some nice features, like the ability to share your desktop as video and several other toys.

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

RayanMX, do you happen to have a bluray disc laying around to quickly check the battery mode bluray playback? If so, your input is much appreciated!

 

Unfortunately no... I'm not really into Blueray at the moment, but I will go rent a couple of movies to watch during the weekend and promise to post results...

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

I'll test the bluray issue when I get home.

 

The score values for WEI were changed for WIndows 7, but I have to admit that I never looked into it other than reading something about it at ars technica IIRC several months ago.

@Rayan
Do you still have that outer protective plastic cover on the LCD lid? It looked like there were some bubbles there or something...

Also, I'd REALLY appreciate it if you could run benchs on some games(that have any) and maybe FRAPs impressions from some that don't have any. Any games are fine(for me) as long as they're kind of recent and/or semi-demanding for one reason or other... e.g. Gothic 3, Stalker(s), Fallout 3 (mostly because the engines in these games aren't exactly well optimized, yet are still somewhat demanding at a basic level), Source engine games too maybe(likely to be common), etc.

Also, how do the temps seem while you're running it. Or i.e. I'd appreciate if you could also run some of the tests with hw monitor or something running to check the temps during some of the benchs along with room temp. (I'll be using whatever I purchase in non-air conditioned areas at times durin the summer which is typically 80 - sometimes 90s F here and almost always high humidity...)

[EDIT]
Oh yes, resolutionm is pretty irrelevant for me too as I had a 1651/GX620 before I refunded it(long story), and had many of the above running OK but at less than 1680x1050 res. They still looked fine to me... and overall FPS was more important than minor visual defects, but as alluded to, I never really noticed any as newer LCD seem to do a MUCH better job than older ones running at non-native resolutions.
[/EDIT]

[EDIT2]
Oh yes, given the option, DX9 rendering path is fine as well, since DX10 doesn't seem to offer much and near as I can tell no developers are really targeting it yet or imminently...
[/EDIT2]

 

Well, sent mine back today. Gonna wait gor ASUS n51 to come out and see the benchmarks.

 

Anyway we could trouble you for some pictures and maybe a guide thread. I'm a little scared of snapping something but I'll probably give this a try soon enough myself.

 

Well, even though the springy keyboard didn't bother me, I decided to give it a try and examine the "problem" myself.


Touch Sensor Panel Removed


Here you can see how instead of running the tape horizontally across the length of the keyboard, I decided to place the tape INSIDE the grooves in the aluminum base ( see this picture for a better closer look). This way I would avoid any unnecessary bulk the tape would create on the keyboard (the keyboard can bow outwards), which can pose a risk of damaging the screen because of the keys touching the LCD Panel (like those fugly Dell's ) and also it will prevent "ventilation" hole obstruction.

I left the tapes as you see them on the photo for easy keyboard removal if needed.

Conclussion: The keyboard feels much better indeed. Very easy to fix.

@cutterjohn -

Not really, I removed the protective film right away however I did took a picture with the protective film installed but as soon as I turned it on for the first time, I removed it.

I haven't downloaded the 3Dmark06 app still but will do tonight and post some tests.

I have tried Call of Duty 4 (Crew Expendable level) all maxed out at 1680x1050, antialias 4X, all set to YES (except dual video cards), Number of Corpses: Insane, Texture Settings: Trilinear and Texture quality: All on EXTRA

I got about 48 FPS on the Ship's dock and about 56 FPS inside the ship according to Fraps.

Under Flight Simulator X (with acceleration pack) I can play at 16 FPS at 1680x1050 with all settings at ultra high, all settings maxed out and using DirectX10 Preview, Billinear Filtering on. Default Ultralight Flight on Harbor Bay.

While playing Flat Out Ultimate Carnage with all maxed out @1680x1050, Antialias at 4X I get about 30 FPS on the Timberlands 1 Single Event

And finally I have briefly tried Crysis with the following settings:

Screen Res: 1280x800
AAlias: Off
VSync: On
Advanced Settings:
Texture Quality: High
Objects Quality: High
Shadows Quality: High
Physics Quality: High
Shaders Quality: Very High
Volumetric Effect Quality: Very High
Game Effects Quality: Very High
Post Processing: High
Particles Quality: High
Water Quality: Very High
Sound Quality: High
Motion Blur: Off

Frame Rate according to FRAPS: 23 FPS

I haven't checked my temps yet, but will post results as soon as I get them.

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

thank you RayanMX....so glad for your post. Can you do some more tests on FSX on a lower resolution though as it will be my primary game on this laptop. thank you +rep.

 

Just received my 627 today in the mail...everything seems to be working fine, started installing crysis....installed 95% of the way, then stopped....

cancelled installation

tried another game, and the blu-ray drive didnt recognize it,

tried crysis again, didnt recognize it,

tried a recovery cd, didnt recognize it.


I can eject the cd tray from My Computer but the drive wont recognized anything put into it...after an hour....i literally took it out of the box an hour ago

I can hear the drive rev then stop, over and over again.



help....
any suggestions?

 

Ok, As you requested I used the same settings as before except I lowered the resolution to 1024x768 and surprisingly it went just a couple of frames up (to a miserable 18 FPS) So I guess it's more a problem with the amount of detail than the screen res (probably due to the 1 GB VRam), so I then changed back all the way up to 1680x1050 and all settings to Ultra High, Antialias ON and voila! I got about 25 FPS!

@Chiefcinque, that's really odd... I've been installing lots of games and software and all is great... I really don't know what is causing that... Sorry to hear that!

Any ideas anyone?

 

hello all! I just recently bought a MSI GT627 and LOVE IT! However, I've hit a financial strain and NEED TO SELL IT ASAP! What's a good place to sell (other than ebay or craigslist?) Is it alright to post it here? Sorry im such a newbie!

 

nice...fsx seems promising. w00t. i now have a life. lol. thank you RayanMX. I can now play my friends at LAN parties and pwn in COD4 and still enjoy practicing with fsx when i'm alone or at school.

 

I've been testing FSX at different locations including dense cities and it really plays smooth even at native 1680x1050 res.

That keypad on the right really comes in handy with FSX when a joystick is not at hand you know?

Wow, COD4 seems much nicer than my XBOX 360 version!!!

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

I know what you mean . I've had the Saitek x52 pro for a while and i've been waiting to test it out on a good fsx rig. glad to know this laptop is it. 3 days seems so far away *explodes and goes crazy*

 

Well, it happens a lot on my Dell Inspirin 1720, when I'm burning movies. I always fix it by just restarting it, but I suppose you already tried it.. Did you try safe mode?

Also, did you install anything/updated drivers? Did you stop installing crysis yourself, or it stopped on its own?

 

Hey KonstantinDK, why did you sent it back??? Because of the DVD tray "problem"???

Too bad my "tip" didn't work...

Why didn't you go for the G50V instead?

Good luck with your n51 I'll be checking your feedback at the Asus forums...

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

Can anyone help getting my bios options to be available? When I go into the bios all my options say i can only see but not change anything. I saq that someone said before they could change their settings. Thank you.