"Official" x460DX Owners Thread

all i can say is best bang for the buck 14 inch laptop out there... period.

glad i picked one up

 

Just ordered one! Can't wait to get it!

 

Don't get me wrong - I considered the Y470 and Vostro 3450 too (actually, I bought the 3450 and am returning it), but my choice is still the X460DX.

You made some good points, but the size and weight and throttling are too important for my use. I love the MSi.

I'm writing this from a rooftop terrace in Quito, with Spanish accordion sounds waiting through the air. This is solid enough and portable enough and powerful enough: maybe you need a full desktop replacement, and won't take it around that much, in which case the Y470 with a cooling pad would be good. Otherwise, I'm having too much fun with my choice.

 

Coming into this a bit late... But you can't overclock the 550m in the y470 like you can the 540m. Hate how people eat up advertising and coupon codes. The 550m lenevo put in the y470 is gimped, all it is is an overclocked 540m. Pushing it a lot further would be retarded. And the y470 looks great on paper. But i've read plenty of complaints besides the ones that have become pretty apparent, monitor cable bending when opening causing screen flicker, bsod, battery not because of more power but because lenevo shipped a large portion with an actual battery. Feels clunkier than most lenevo as well. I gave serious thought to it. Put the x460dx side by side with it, and, well, I opened my eyes. Lenevo does a good job selling products. It's an unbalanced system, maybe not as unbalanced as the y570 but it's close enough imo.

Also...Skyrim + x460dx = ..that is all.

 

Well. that's some reply with lots of angry mobs with their pitch forks and torches ready to burn the witch (me) .

let me actually clarify, I bought the computer. both x460dx (haven't arrive yet. Damn UPS 2 day shipping my its the 3rd day already!!) and the y470. I agree about the build quality of the lenovo. very poor indeed compared to msi who actually build it themselves. lenovo just buy barebone premade stuff and add a bunch of things they want in it. I have Asus G51jx (self manufactured by asus) and I dont have any complains whatsoever hardware wise. as for throttling issues that you have heard about lenovo y470, its because of the driver. once its updated, I didnt have that issue anymore. (unless you got a defect product which happen to me the first time i bought lenovo).

did you test it? cause I got at least 4 hours before the notification appears on lenovo y470 with intel GPU while browsing. and x460dx SHOULD get better battery life. with it being i5 and all. and both have 6 cell lithium batteries. even with your said hours it should make sense too.

do you mean easy because of msi have the provided software? well The joker did it by pushing it with his x460dx GPU card. I am just saying that it should be possible too for that 550m gt card. from what i understand right now is that both 540m GT and 550m GT are 2 identical cards with different settings. so, maximum capability wise should be about the same. however, since 540m gt is underclocked, having the stock 550m GT should provide better fps. In order for 540m GT to produce the same fps, it has to be overclocked. but by doing this, you run the risk of voiding your warranty.

Well, I Havent receive the x460dx yet. but judging by the satisfied customers that replied my post, this laptop should be a great gift for my big brother who is still using old HP 12inch tablet that still uses celeron processor. Thanks for the reply guys.

 

1. I've never heard of Lenovo not making the own laptops. I'm pretty sure MSI and Lenovo do it the same way.

2. Lenovo estimates the battery life at 4 hours. We all know that manufacturers estimates are always high. Giving is 3.5 hours web surfing is generous.

3. You missed his point on the video card. The GT 550M in the Lenovo is underclocked to 540M speeds. Now, why would Lenovo underclock that nice 550M? Because the thermal solution(fan + heatsink) can't handle a full clocked 550M. Now the MSI has a 540M that runs very cool, so there's lots of headroom for overclocking. The 540M in the MSI is not underclocked.

 

is there a way to manually control when the discrete graphics card is used versus when the integrated graphics is used. whenever i watch a video the graphics card kicks in, and im sure the integrated graphics can handle things like videos and youtube.

 

Right click on desktop and select the Nvidia control panel. From there go to 3D settings. You can adjust which GPU is used in each program.

 

Mine's coming from NY and I'm in CA the wait is killing me.

Anybody order the x460dx-216us? The 2430m version with 2gb video memory one. It's the same price as the older 2410m version with 1gb video memory on newegg right now.

 

Definitely X460DX is the best bang for your buck!! Been using mine for almost 2 months now and I'm loving it.

This thing never overheats, never throttles, and it looks subtle sleek because of the black color. It is also lighter than my m11x (I believe x460dx is around 4.2-4.3lbs not sure).

 

No regrets with my x460dx. I play games on it, type on it all the time, go on the internet, and watch movies on it. It is yet to fail me as my current main computer. (I'm a college student with a small room so no desktop for me, at least for now.)

 

Had my eye on this laptop for a month or so now. I am due an upgrade, and whilst I love the ASUS zenbook 31. I want to be able to get back into gaming after several years of not playing games.

I think the X460DX is a good combination of size vs power.

Anyway

I noticed that there is a new rev of the x460DX which features a faster CPU and 2GB video memory.

The australian version can be seen here:
TECS MSI X460DX-073AU 14" NOTEBOOK WITH 2GB GRAPHICS

I am still waiting for the UK version. Any Idea why there has been no UK version yet?

 

You won't be disappointed, the X460 is awesome!

A note on the new rev. The extra 1GB of memory won't make a difference in games, it's pretty much a marketing gimmick.

The difference in processing power is minimal.

Passmark:

2410M: 3454
2430M: 3354

You might be able to find an eBay selling willing to ship it to Ireland. I think there's a brand new X460DX-006US for $720 on eBay.

 

The newer "216US" variant is also on the US ebay for $837. Even with $99 postage, that works out quite reasonable in Euros.

Problem is the VAT which will likely be added to the final cost...

The Irish govertment needs to get money through taxes due to its economic position, so I cant see them doing me any favors.

MSI X460DX-216US 14" i5-2430M 2.40 GHz 6GB 500GB Windows 7 Black | eBay

 

Anyone play Shogun 2 total war on this laptop? If so, how well did it run?

I ask because I expect to play Rome 2 total war when its released (one day).

Also, has anyone managed to update the CPU to the intel quad core i7??

 

Shogun 2 should run great. The requirements are fairly low:


- 2 GHz Intel Dual Core processor / 2.6 GHz Intel Single Core processor , or AMD equivalent (with SSE2)
- 1GB RAM (XP), 2GB RAM (Vista / Windows7)
- 256 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (shader model 3)
- 1024x768 minimum screen resolution
- 20GB free hard disk space

As for upgrading to an i7, it would fit and power on, but there is a possibility it could run to hot. But, the MSI has an Awesome cooling system. If I still have my X460 in 6 months or so I might upgrade to a quad.

 

I'm thinking of picking up the X460DX but just have a quick question. I was wondering if the stock wireless NIC can be easily changed? Or does MSI lockout non-OEM nics like similar to Dell, HP and Lenovo??

If I were to get this laptop, I'd like to change the Intel 1030 with one of the dual band nics such as the Intel 6230.

 

I'd think if it works with the Intel 1030, it would work with the Intel 6230.

 

im really lusting after an SSD for my x460dx, but ever since i had to return mine due to a factory fault (still on waiting on my new one) the idea of voiding the warranty by opening it up has got me a little rattled.

for the people who put SSD's in their's..what kind of startup times are you guys getting?

also, has someone managed to come up with an aesthetically appealing faceplate solution so the laptop doesn't look like its so obviously been modded?

 

My laptop finally came in.

I have a dead pixel on the upper left of the screen ;(. It doesn't bother me too much but definitely kind of a letdown. Also, there's this constant hiss from the bottom of the laptop, from the hard drive or something. Anybody else have that?

 

Try this program for the dead pixels: AdamuSoft - PixelRepairer

You should also try massaging the dead pixels with decent pressure while the laptop is off.

 

Thanks for the link, I ran it for a little over an hour and it's still there..

I'll try massaging it.

Do you have any idea how to get rid of this faint hiss I'm hearing from the bottom right side of the laptop?

 

When I put my ear within a few inches of the case, I hear the fan and hard drive . IDK if it's a whine noise though.

 

If you bought it from Amazon, try and return it. They were very nice to me when I returned it over a dead pixel and a loose bezel. Got a new unit in one day. O_O

 

I did buy it off amazon, but it was an open box from a private seller that had really good rating on both ebay and amazon. I guess I took the chance and failed lol. It's not bothering me too much and too be honest I haven't noticed it since I stopped looking for it. If it really starts to bother me I'll ask for a refund. So far I've only asked him for an exchange and he was unwilling to do it.

After some googling I found out the hissing might be normal. It's not loud at all but I just wanted to make sure.

 

one thing to note for those not thinking about it is the Intel Centrino wireless-N 1030 card that is factory installed IS also the bluetooth module so upgrading it you will lose the bluetooth function. I personally dont care for the BT 3.0 and have since upgraded to a Bigfoot killer 1103. (the only thing i needed bt for was my orochi )

FYI instead of having 1 antenna for WIFI and 1 antenna for BT on the intel card, on the bigfoot both antenna is used for wifi. makes for a hellofalot better connections.

since i had it open i also threw in my 160gb intel 320 and 8gb of PNP hyperx 1600 (yes i know itll run at lower clocks ) makes for a fast piece of machinery

 

because my laptop went faulty within 8 days of purchase, MSI is counting it as a DOA (dead on arrival). not only are they replacing it with a brand new one, but they are upgrading me to the new i5-2430M model with a 2gb 540m instead of the i5-2410 and 1gb 540m. for free

now thats service

probably wont notice a difference, but its the thought that counts (the newer model costs like 100euros more over here) .

 

anyone have any info on a backlit keyboard mod?

 

You'd have to find a laptop that is a very close model to the X460.

 

The Intel HD 3000 GPU in my X460 scores 4616 3DMark 3DMark06.

 

Just an update that my X460DX-006US survived over a week on a boat being used out in the open on salt water with minor spray, and no hiccups. Dried salt cleaned off easily from the glossy plastic, screen and the metal lid. Also stuffed it in my camera bag and went racing down a mountain (not entirely by choice - it was slippery as heck!) bashing around with only light padding, and then took burros back up the mountain, and the bag constantly swinging and banging against the side of the butt of the mule the entire way: lots of twisting and some hard G's. No problems, happy to say. Glossy screen reflections weren't too much of an issue either in bright light (certainly not perfect, but totally usable, after adjusting screen angle & such). Far-screen tilt and passable display viewing angles made work possible in a variety of flight seating conditions, buses and even cramped cabs pretty workable.

Wanted to say that after a few weeks of abuse and unusual conditions on a tough trip, including questionable power sources for the adaptor, it's still holding up nicely. Wish I had the 2GB Nvidia though. I don't suppose it's socketed VRAM? And a backlit keyboard was missed a bit. Touchpad is quite decent once you get the hang of its uniquenesses.

In general, I think my battery performance might be a bit lower than when I first got it, but then again, using it at full brightness really drops the charge a lot faster than at low light. Unless that wasn't the only cause, and I should be keeping an eye on battery performance. In high ambient noise environments (like speeding on a boat!) it's hard to hear the speakers, but then it was even hard to hear people. One of the battery apps (can't recall which: super-charger?) does actually restrict battery recharging until things slip below 95%, so that was one thing I missed from some competitor laptops, and am happy to see that working on this box.

Even with the limited colour depth of the screen, I have had no substantial surprises editing images in a variety of conditions, although the brightness is something I have learned that you really need to keep tabs on (stay consistent!), or you will think you have different contrast in your images and end up with a final image that is too contrasty or not contrasty enough. I would say keeping it at a minimum of 50% seems to give fairly consistent contrast, but that means you lose the benefits of working at low brightness when its a dim environment, at least if you want accurate colour and contrast.

Generally, still a happy camper.

 

There is virtually no reason to have 2GBs of ram with our gt 540m. It's not fast enough to run games at settings that would require greater than 1GB. Only a few of the latest and greatest games(BF3) use more than 1GB at ULTRA settings. The only reason to add it is because it's a cheap way to 1-up competitors when compared by the uninformed.

 

Agreed, for off-the-shelf titles.

BUT...

DIY virtual environments could have a single texture-set loaded that would be good from far away to up really close, which would be so wild (not going all pixelated up close). Plus I don't really have the time to make any environments like that anymore. But it was a nice daydream...

 

I just bought this laptop, but i'm little disappointed about the screen. Viewing angles are bad and colors are faded. I know i can't do anything with angles, but can you share me yours color settings?

 

On the first page of this thread, there's a link to the Notebookcheck review (translated), which has a downloadable ICC profile. Definitely use that, then just do a standard Windows display calibration. You'll lose some (more) brightness, but the colour will be fine. Make sure your display brightness is at least at 50% or higher, or the colour saturation and contrast will be off.

Just to be safe, check your display panel Device ID properties, to be sure MSi hasn't switched panel suppliers from CPT, or the profile will be useless.

Note that if you're hoping for an excellent quality display, you'll need to readjust your expectations. TN screens all have very limited viewing angles, and this one fits in the middle of those characteristics. And this display doesn't even have 24-bit colour, but then not that many of the TN displays do for the consumer target markets.

I agree that an IPS or even larger gamut display would really be nice on this unit, but this is every bit as good or better than the Vostro 3450 professional display or Lenovo Y470 displays, except that its a glare screen, or the comparable Sony (except it's higher res and non-glare, but horribly contrasty and colour-shifted). I haven't compared to the two recent 'thin & light powerhouse' notebook releases - maybe their displays are better.

So yes, it's not a great display, but I've found that it's perfectly usable for quality editing, which I wasn't sure would be possible (see all my posts on this topic). I hope that helps.

 

not sure i remember correctly, but the 2410m version of this had a soft power button didn't it? as in pushing the button didnt make a "click" but was basically like pushing down on a marshmallow. or at least mine did

just noticed that my new one (2430m) fixed this and now has to be clicked. making it more difficult to accidentally push the power button from the side. although maybe it was only my unit that did that

 

Yes, and it's a 'hair-trigger' marshmallow at that!

Only accidentally sleep it every couple weeks nowadays, but its still a nuisance.

Do you notice any other differences after having run the 2430 for a while? Cool news: thanks for the update.

 

Hello all,

I just received my X460DX a couple of days ago. It's a nice little machine indeed, and it would be perfect for me, but in the current state it is completely unusable to me.

I live far from my work and have to travel by train about an hour each way. I bought this notebook specifically so I could get my gaming fix on the train. The thing is, the CPU is severly throttled when on battery power, to the point where games are unplayable. The framerate gets decimated.

Now, I was hoping that this could be fixed with ThrottleStop, but this does not seem to be possible: the problem is not that the CPU multiplier is brought down, but the actual voltage sent to the CPU is lowered.

Here is a ThrottleStop log sample when gaming on AC power:

Code:

  DATE      TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  CHIPM   BAT_mW  TEMP  GPU     VID   POWER
12/18/11  21:08:01  23.89   23.3  100.0  100.0        0   60    55   1.1509   12.3
12/18/11  21:08:03  23.97   26.8  100.0  100.0        0   59    55   1.1509   12.5
12/18/11  21:08:04  22.89   38.6  100.0  100.0        0   57    55   1.1509   19.0
12/18/11  21:08:05  24.00   29.1  100.0  100.0        0   61    55   1.1509   18.0

And here is what I get on battery power:

Code:

  DATE      TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  CHIPM   BAT_mW  TEMP  GPU     VID   POWER
12/18/11  21:09:29  24.00   30.7  100.0  100.0        0   64    63   1.1259   14.4
12/18/11  21:09:30  24.00   30.4  100.0  100.0        0   64    63   1.1509   14.3
12/18/11  21:09:31  23.59   24.0  100.0  100.0        0   63    63   1.1259   12.7
12/18/11  21:09:32  22.19   18.2  100.0  100.0        0   63    63   1.1259   10.8

The voltage is always 1.1509 on AC power, but is unstable and generally lower when on battery power.

As far as I know, there is no way to play with the voltage of the Core i CPUs in software, and unfortunately the BIOS does not allow this either.

Is there a way to get my frames back!?

Thank you!

 

Worth a try (if you haven't already):

A) Windows advanced power settings, and
B) MSi S-bar to Game mode.

Probably done already, but just an idea.
I've done some moderately demanding titles on battery without a problem. Maybe not as demanding as yours.

 

I can say with pretty good certainty that MSI did fix the power button or that it was limited to a certain batch. I went through 2 replacements before I found one that didn't have a borked display. The first 2 were extremely annoying and constantly causing me to put it to sleep. The 3rd one that I have now requires a lot more force and pushing on the left of the button doesn't cause any action. Haven't had a single accidental sleep in the months I've had it.

 

Thanks wumpus243 for your answer!

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, as you guessed I already tried this. I also changed "minimum processor state" to 100% on battery in the energy saving options, disabled Intel SpeedStep in the BIOS, tried every possible option in ThrottleStop.

At the moment I want to play Skyrim, a somewhat demanding game. I suppose if I were to drop the settings to "low' I would manage to play, but this defeats the purpose of having a high-end discrete GPU in the first place. I'm afraid I'll have to return the X460DX... it's a shame, really!

 

Hi, I just acquired a X460DX-079 (being french) yesterday.

I'm very satisfied ftm but one thing disturbs me concerning the battery. It was charged at 98% when I first started the computer. Generally it is about 50% but even it's not a problem, I'm worrying about the wear level of my battery which is already at 5% does it seem normal ?

Both battery care and hwmonitor give 4-5% wear
I've been testing battery browsing web with wifi and luminosity near minimum in turbo battery mode and battery lasted about 5 hours.
Is that normal ?

Thanks in advance.

 

Mine is the same way. 5% battery wear from the first day.

 

Well, at least I'm not the only one in that case..

Concerning your battery life, are you so far away from the 8 hours announced ?
I've cautiously calibrated it and battery wear even increased to 6%
In any case I'm more worried about my battery life of 4-5hours than battery wear. I think I'll contact MSI for a replacement battery.

 

I just got my x460DX-007US! This version comes with a 5400rpm hard drive. Which, of course, means that I will have no choice but to upgrade to an SSD! I also plan on upgrading the RAM from 4GB to 8GB.

My battery was at 7% wear out of the box.

I did some benchmarking.

Windows Experience Index:


3DMark06:


CrystalDiskMark:


Yea, 5400rpm hard drive sucks. Maximum GPU temperature during 3DMark06 was 75 °C. And does anybody know why my WEI Graphics score is only 5.3?

Overall I'm loving this new toy!

Oh and another quick note. THX TruStudio PRO is actually quite impressive. I've actually been going through my entire audio library because everything sounds so different (in a positive way). Of course, you'll need a good headset to take advantage of this program (on the integrated speakers the program doesn't make much of a difference).

 

Hello,

Did you find any way to charge your usb devices when the computer is halted or sleeping ?
I tried both i-charger on the website and supercharger from liveupdate software pretending it permits charging while sleeping but it doesn't seem to be working at all.

 

Have you tried charging from all three USB ports? My X460 is still at MSI, but I remember the blue light on my Razer mouse stayed on even when the laptop was asleep.

 

Hi i just got my msi x460dx-007us a few days ago and i love it! I've read through most of this thread but i'm still a little confused.

I'm new to windows 7 since i was using xp on my desktop.

My questions are:

1) Do i need to burn a disc of some sort for backup? (burn recovery)
2) What bloatware do i need to uninstall? i installed Ccleaner but i don't understand how to use it.
3) what drivers do i need to install? are they all up to date?
4) i uninstalled the 60 day trial of Norton and installed avast free and anitmalware free. also installed advanced systemcare 5.
5) i downloaded google chrome. can i uninstall ie9?

My specs are i5-2410 with 4gb ram and 500gb 5400rpm. There is an 120gb ssd for $99, should i switch that with the hard drive? theres also 160gb ssd for $149.

Thanks for your time, i could really use the help!

 

also, the driver install dvd was working before, but now the list of drivers doesnt show up when i run the dvd

 

also, the driver install dvd was working earlier, but now the list of drivers doesnt show up when i run the dvd