Msi Gx620

Yayyy...woot ! Finally UPS delivered my MSI GX620-001US, the Ebay seller was factual that the notebook was new and factory sealed. I could deal with the factory warranty if there was a problem since it was not opened, but if it was opened then I would think the seller sold me a broken notebook. It's all good !

The software installation process ask if i wanted to install crazy talk...its like huh?...had to google it "CamSuite utility"...ok...clicked install.
Next was asking to make 2 recovery disks, thanks for the tip guys to make the disks & blank DVD's are included. Haha...would not surprise me if I missed them and used my own...ouch...haha

My notebook has the;
Model: WD3200BEKT
WD Scorpio® Black™
Mobile Hard Drives
320 GB, 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM

So far no weak or dead pixels

First impressions;
1. Build quality is very good, fit and finish.
2. Will need pratice getting use to typing on the keyboard, need the numbers pad, so I'll have to deal with it...haha...better then lugging 16" or 17" screen notebook to get the numbers pad. Feels great to rest palms on metal then plastic.
3. Pretty quiet fan and HD noise so far...only net surfing right now.
4. I'll let it burn in for a few days before installing to many programs on it, learned from experience most new computer components will either break in a few days or last for years. Lazy me, not wasting my time if it breaks. ;P
5. Not to much spamware installed on this notebook. NIS 2008 & MS Office trial versions.
6. Screen picture quality after Nvidia adjustments is good, not the best or worst, average from my experience.
7. Hard Disk Partition is horrid...C: 50 GB D: 250 GB...Some programs dont allow the option to install on D drive, oh well, guess I can move them later over to D:
8. Overall right NOW the GX620-001US has meet my expectation for Initial Quality & Excellent SPEC value lappy.

 

guys do you feel like some electric current on the aluminum palm rest?
same goes with the brushed aluminum at back of the lcd?

and another question.. is eco button and turbo button work in XP?

 

After bios flash and System update the turbo works with WinXP. The button isn't present, but the touch panel is so sensitive that it takes an effortless tap in the general area...

 

hi all, just got a brand new gx620, installed an XP SP3 (originally it had only freedos). also refreshed the bios (using this zip). under freedos my turbo button was working, if i touch it now, nothing happens. what needs to be done so that i can use the eco/turbo buttons agan? thanks, cheers from Hungary
ocsibusz
P.S. all hardware are working properly, got all drivers from here

 

The Turbo and Eco functions work in conjunction with an MSI Windows app... Not at all sure if or how(if it can) it can be made to work under XP...

I never bothered to experiment with it when I had my 1651/GX620...

 

Next MXM card test:



Our next MXM guest is a Geforce 8700M GT (Master) from an Alienware M9700. This card is the master card, meant to be run in conjunction with a slave 8700M GT for SLi, but as shown here, the master card will work independently as a single card configuration.

Fortunately this time I was able to monitor the GPU temperatures (The Mobility Radeon X1900 lacked this feature), and I came to a conclusion on how inadequate the GPU heatsink is on the GX620/MS-1651. The 8700M GT's clock throttle works just like it should, running at 169/100 in idle mode and ramping up its clock speed when running a 3D application. However, temperatures were not so good. Using the older 80nm GPU, its idle temperature was about 55C and after half an hour of FurMark, it maxed out at 87C. Still within tolerance, but that's about 8-10C higher than the 9600M GT. Being a 35W TDP MXM III card, it's an indicator that you will need the heatsink from the GT627 if you want to run a high-power card in this notebook, otherwise stick with the MXM II cards if you do not want a new heatsink or worry about your new GPU's temperatures.

 

^^^ AWESOME!!! now i know the 8800gtx i have sitting here can be used. now to get my hands on some heatsinks

 

hi guys.. does this notebook supports dual channel memory? because i have only 1 2 gig memory and planning to upgrade it to 4gig memory

 

DDR2 ram is what it uses...


Also, any one get a 4850/4870 running? i wanna know compatibility (Heat sink) and temps

 

Just try it without the heatsink to see if it posts first

 

Not a good suggestion. Even if it's only on for a few seconds, running a GPU without a heatsink can prove to be a big mistake. I had a puny Radeon X600 desktop card that had its clip-on heatsink pop loose, and even when it was only running like that for 5 seconds, it was still more than enough to damage it. It ran fine in 2D environment, but it'll start to artifact and eventually lock up when it has to render 3D.

Never run a CPU or video card without a heatsink.

 

true words...my dad never seated the heat sink for this cpu we bought. bsod when we booted it up. ended up buy a new cpu because of it. my advice DON'T BOOT WITHOUT A HEATSINK!

 

TRT, good day to you. i have a question about the gx620. what's the coaxial port at the back of the unit? can i use it? how can i use it?

 

With the X600, was this during a session in Windows or during the boot up/boot menu?

 

Booting up. It doesn't matter when it happens anyways, these things are are not designed to run without heatsink.

Take out your slave 3870, and remove the heatsink from your master 3870 and tell us how that works out for you.

 

Funny this came up because I think I killed my 3870 while doing it (this was yesterday night). I used the 1722's heatsink and a piece of copper to extend it a bit. But apparently it didn't stick to the heatsink well enough that I smelt a bit of smoke.

Now my Master 3870 doesn't show any picture in my system's LCD screen, but it shows picture when hooked up to an external monitor. Debating if I need a new one or just wait for the 4870s to come out.

But bottom line, lesson learned. Only good news is that it posted, but only for a second.

Ironic, isn't it?

 

Hi people!
I just read on MSI forums, the new bios that has been released recently somehow allows you to use the latest beta nVidia driver (179.48) without the 16-bit issue.
Link to the bios: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=bios&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1529

Link to the thread on the MSI forums: http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=123765.0 (scroll down)

Link to the drivers: http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_drivers.html

Just thought you might be interested, as I read about this problem in this forum before.
-It's working for me-

 

your correct it does work great!! rep for you

 

oh shoot new bios? awesome so those nvidia drivers 179.48 is a lot better for gaming? grabbed off laptopvideo2go.com right?

 

no use the official nvida ones off the web site. the laptop2go dont install the same for some reason.

 

ohh alrighttt so the one on the site is better than the one on the cd/msi website?

 

yes for sure

 

hi, i've recently purchased a Msi gx620. everything works fine except the turbo and eco buttons. what exactly do i have to do for it to work?

thanks for any help

 

You have to install System Control Manager

Download it from here: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=utility&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1529

(sry for the multiple posts, something went wrong with my connection/browser)

 

it works fine now, thanks for the help!

 

I remember reading on some thread on NBR that the G50vt's heatsink resembles something like the GT627s heatsink (go figure they both have 9800m GTs). Anyway, would one of those possibly work as a replacement for the GX620's?

@ TRF-Inferno
What did you do to get your X1900 and 8700M GT to fit in there?

 

Nothing. I simply pulled out the 9600M GT, and put in the new card. Fitment is a little tight with MXM III cards, but it all works out surprisingly well.

 

hi does this notebook have an in-built TV tuner and firewire port?

 

anyone know how to do this? i'm also figuring out.

 

I just want to say that I read this entire thread. Thank you to everyone especially TRF-Inferno.

I'm going to do my best to give back, so I'll document my attempt to install Windows 7 (beta) on my brand new gx620.

Thanks again,
Chris

 

Installing Windows 7 on an MSI GX620 (213CA)

I know the beta is closed, but it's not hard to get your hands on a copy of the beta for Windows 7, and Microsoft is still giving out CD-Keys.

So I burned the DVD, and it booted up fine.

I click "Install Now" which is really the only option.

Then you have the choice between custom and upgrade. I'm going to do a clean install because I just have the fresh Vista install there and there's nothing to keep.

In the list of partitions "Advanced Options" reveals "delete" and "format" buttons. Since I have a copy of the recover CD's, I'm going to delete the C and D partitions and create just one partition for windows. I'm also going to delete the OEM partition, but you may not want to.

After deleting all the partitions and create one large one, the installer creates a 200M system partition, and a 297.9GB primary partition.

Highlight the large partition, and click format. It takes just a few seconds to complete.

The windows 7 install looks just like the vista install. Including the complete lack of information and progress bars that stay at 0% for forever, and then jump to 100% in seconds.

Answer all the normal install questions, and it boots into the desktop.

Wired network drivers work right away which is nice.

There are no Windows 7 drivers on MSI's website, so I'm going to assume the 64 bit Vista drivers will work.

Run the install for the video drivers, choose reboot later.
Run the install for the audio drivers, choose reboot later.
Run the install for the Intel Matrix Storage manager. ( This error's out)
Run the install for Bluetooth. When asked to plug in the bluetooth device, enable bluetooth above the keyboard.
Install the card reader drivers.
Install the CIR drivers (I'm assuming this is the IR)...
Install the WiFi drivers from the 64 bit vista folder (be patient, the program takes a few seconds to come up).
The chipset drivers will not install right now, but after a restart they will. (This may have been my fault)

Restart.

Install the chipset drivers. Reboot later.
The LAN drivers will not install, but that's alright because they work out of the box.
Install the SCM.

The device manager should not show any warnings at this point. If it does, go back and install the drivers again, or try to manually install the driver.

Reboot.

I had hoped this would be more of a troubleshooting guide, but I didn't run into any trouble.

Next up will be application and game compatibility.

 

Does anyone know if this computer comes installed with 32 or 64 bit windows? I would figure 64 bit due to the 4 gigs of ram but I remember reading a review on newegg which talked abou 32 bit preloaded.

 

Vista 32 bit. Find a 64 bit disc and you can use your product key, which will make it a legitimate Windows installation.

 

Huh, that's cool. I wasn't aware that it came with it's own key... my previous experiances with windows all had them come preinstalled without a key

 

Is it just me or are the video drivers from MSI site messed up?
I got the ones from september, downloaded them twice to make sure, but half the filenames are truncated and have _ replacing parts, like .dl_ instead of .dll.
(I'm using 176.44, I don't have time to flash my bios right now)

I haven't seen anyone mention this and I can't find anything in search, anyone got an idea?

 

is there any way to momentarily off the notebook screen for while when i'm not using it?

 

Beyond just the screen settings? You might be able to find a really light weight macro program to do it for you, and if you set it up with the user identified 'P1' touch button there you go. Check out some of the earlier posts in this thread for info on changing the button functions.

 

Next GX620/MS-1651 MXM victim: 512MB GDDR3 Mobility Radeon HD 4670 from the MSI EX625.



It didn't do so great in 3DMark06, but it tore the 9600M GT a new one in Devil May Cry 4 (High detail):




It's in dire need of a new driver though, MSI only has Catalyst 8.9 available for it, and it's causing random BSODs in games. It's a keeper for sure, as the 9600M GT will be transferred to the Ex625.

 

That's awesome! What are some temps on that thing? Does anybody know if there are any other ways of getting some of these newer cards without buying all new laptops?

So I've been reading about the mobility Radeon 4830/4860's. Since they only have a 128-bit bus I've been wonder if they stay cool enough to be installed in a MS-1651 (also the battery life may be more comparable to a 9600m GT.. yes!). What does everyone think?? Also, what would the availability be on these? Heck, I don't even know if these are released yet.

 

now your laptop will be GX1651EX-038US

no need for "625" in the name because you took the VGA only

nice work

 

The biggest flaw to my setup, unfortunately, is the lack of temperature monitoring. I picked up an early sample of the SP9400, which lacks temperature monitoring, and the driver for the Radeon is so outdated.



I will mention that there is a good possibility that the 4670 is actually running cooler than the 9600M GT. With the nVidia card, I noticed the fan will kick up to medium speed at about the start of the second test in 3DMark06, but it doesn't spin up until the first SM 3.0 test with the 4670.

Unfortunately we will not see the 4830/4860 for at least two months, since the die they're using hasn't even taped out yet. The big push for the 128 bit with ridiculously fast memory is to keep the die size down. AMD is taken advantage of what nVidia hasn't done, and it worked out well for their 4800 series. The desktop 4750 will follow a similar principle, so will the MR 4830/4860. Thanks to GDDR5, that 128 bit interface might not be so bad after all.

 

New bios Released 2009-03-23
1.0U
Check out GX620 download page

 

MSI really needs to work on a change log for these kind of things. That might as well be extraterrestrial language as far as I'm concerned. I'll pass on it since I don't have any problems with my system at the moment.

 

Some Googling shows:-
ASPM=Active State Power Management
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/connect/pci/aspm.mspx

 

Okay, at least we know what it is, but the description is still confusing. So they disable ASPM altogether, or just removed the L0 and L1 option? Reading that web page you provided, I wonder if this will solve the massive video card downclocking/performance hit while running on batteries?

 

umm yeah this new bios remove the overclock from the bios!!! now im screwed i dont have the 1.0s anymore i forgot to save it.. does anyone have it they can upload for me??

 

in this document here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/PCI ASPM.doc

they said " Laptops and battery-powered configurations require special consideration because turning off ASPM entirely can seriously affect battery life, Enable L0s and L1 Link capabilities only when devices truly support and have been tested with ASPM."

 

can anyone please shoot me the 1.0s bios?? i can not believe i dont have it.. this sucks

 

http://www.microstar.ru/program/support/download/dld/spt_dld_detail.php?UID=703&kind=11

turbo mode now works only with SCM

 

THANK YOU... but what do you mean it only works with turbo? it never worked before unless it was plugged in with turbo on either? or am i wrong??

the oc option along with just about every other option is gone with this new bios. you can set memory or anything it went back to a simple no option bios. i am away with the notebook so i have not had a chance to look inside the bios but there are no options now. it also tells me its the wrong bios for the system when i try to flash it??