MSI GX740 - newcomer questions

Hey guys, I've bought my new laptop yesterday and for some reason decided to open it today. I was wondering if i need to update any of the drivers at all or the stock ones are good to go, if not which ones are necessary to update (note: I've never bothered to update any of my drivers on my old computers in the past).

Also, for this particular model I kept on hearing about how it gets heated up pretty badly and while browsing through the MSI section on the forum I've seen a few thread about needing to update the bios.

While browsing, I came across a thread Bearclaw made on the new bios http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/528254-gx740-new-bios.html is this new bios better than this old one http://forum.notebookreview.com/6587366-post1299.html ? which one is better to use?

Thanks

EDIT: Another thing I would like to know is how to disable the touch-click function on my trackpad. On my brother's laptop (win7) he has a multi-touch settings in his control panel, however, I don't have that setting and there is no options for the trackpad in the mouse settings too.

 

I would upgrade to the newest 5870M 10.10 drivers from AMD's website.

The GX740 new BIOS is separate from the vBIOS in the other thread.

You should definitely update to the newest vBIOS but the BIOS isn't really needed.

To disable touch-click download the latest Synaptic drivers.

 

I see~ I just checked out both the MSI and AMD website and was confused which one to use...
This one is from AMD ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver
and this one from MSI MSI Global ? Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more
the one from AMD is more recent i believe dated oct 22 and the MSI is dated july 2. How can those two vbios file be so far apart? Unless, they're two different type of files.

 

AMD doesn't supply vBIOS.

vBIOS is under firmware VGA adapter MSI Global ? Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more

If you're talking about drivers, MSI is behind on their driver process. They convert AMD's drivers to specifically cater to their MSI machines. This takes some time and MSI will not release one on a monthly basis like AMD does.

Newer AMD ones may fix game issues and improve performance, MSI's ones are probably stable and they also say ATI Mobility Radeon 5870 instead of 5800 series.

 

oh! I see~ thanks for all your help bearclaw

just before I start flashing my vbios, I have one more question to ask. I found another guide that teaches you how to flash your bios and near the end of the steps there were additional steps to do compare to the guide zero gave.

At the end of zero's guide, he said to type falsh.bat then turn off the machine. However, in this other guide I've read, after the machine is turned off, unplug both the battery pack and the ac adapter then plug either the battery pack or ac adapter back in and go into bios menu to select the [Load Setup Defaults] followed by the [Exit & Save Changes] option.

Are those last few steps after the falsh.bat really necessary?

just in case you were wonder what I'm rambling about, here's the page I read it from http://www.msi.com/uploads/faq/faq_f7de5205157e274e4620683aeac43f66.pdf

Thank you for all your help in answering my newbie questions

 

It's not a bad idea. It's mainly meant to keep any lingering config bits or strings from causing trouble, which for 99.9% of people won't be an issue, but for the other .1% can cause some very bizarre behavior that can be hard to pin down. I always like to be extra sure so the small amount of time those last few steps take is worth it to me.

 

Yeah I agree, nothing to loose for taking extra precaution eh Thanks for the quick answer Paralel =)