Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Why can't there just be a perfect keyboard on these gaming laptops? The Envy had the useless column on the left that made me type too far to the left.. this apparently types to to the right...

 

^
Seriously, the fn/ctrl keys being switched are extremely annoying to me for my FPS's. I don't want to have to go through the trouble of modding them either,thats annoying as well.

 

Yeah, I asked for overnight shipping.

 

I'll probably just do what I was doing on my desktop back in Australia - turn Caps Lock into Ctrl.

 

The 10 char is the only reason I'm hesitating. I've *never* used it even on desktops. It moves the whole thing off center :/

 

Perhaps related to the supposed problems with installing the Mobility 10.3 drivers from AMD's website.

With them installed the MSI wouldn't wake up from sleep. I uninstalled them and reinstalled the drivers on MSI's website and now it will wake up. *shrug*

 

Seems like we all have this problem then.

 

Are the drivers you speak of the ones located here: http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=nbdriver&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1998 ? With the specific one being the VGA: "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850" Driver download?
Just making sure thats all, so when I get mine, I know which file to download.

 

Those are the ones.

 

That's exactly our problem with those drivers .

The BIOS is so locked, just a handfull options available. Nothing important unfortunetly. I need to change the treshold of increasing fanspeed temp. It's now at 54C, I need it to be 56 or 57, my HD5850 is in idle 55C. Any chance MSI will solve this problem? Not familiar with them, how are they handling such issues? Or do they not care and it's part of having such heavy GPU. How is their history with these kind of problems?

 

I know that it may be a stupid question, but how long is the length of the power cord?

Cause, with my Sony Vaio FW, the length was not enough (about 6,5').

Thanks

 

Hey, guys! My GX640 just arrived. So far I've just been feeling out the system and I have noticed a few things so far.

1) The screen/bezel/etc. is absolutely amazing. It feels sturdy and solid, yet sleek due to the metal enclosing.

2) The palm rest is also of the same quality. The bottom of the notebook, however, is a little less stellar. The plate covering the ram, etc. is a little "bouncy" but it's not too big of a deal.

3) The keyboard is a bit strange, as others have noticed, but I find it will only take a few days to get used to, at most. However, there is a considerable amount of flex on the keyboard. The space bar and the enter key are the worst, creating a considerable amount of flex, however this is *only* if the key is pushed down with an unusual amount of force.

4) The screen brightness seemed fine to me, I always thought the Macbook Pro (the laptop I'm coming from) was a bit too bright.

5) The red trim is not as bad as I thought it would be. It looks like it was painted on, and though I'd prefer it not being there, it is far, very far, from intolerable.

I'm going to do a clean install of Windows now, and then start running benchmarks and tests as well as testing the new ATI drivers. So far, I am very impressed. It's not as sleek or sexy as the HP Envy 15 I previously owned, but it is of a higher caliber, all around.

Will I be keeping the notebook? Probably. I want to see how it performs on games. If it's as good as I expect, then of course I will keep it!

 

Look, sir, if nothing else has disappointed you so far, then gaming performance / benchmarks probably won't... lol

 

Probably wont? your joking arent you,

Gaming performance will turn this guy into an addict .

 

Lol ya. Although, I got to say, last night I wiped down the notebook to take some pictures for my review. This morning I looked at it again and the back has so many smudges and fingerprints... and I need moisture just to get it off. Wiping it with a microfibre cloth doesn't do it :S

 

Well, I am starting to really love this machine, but I am a bit worried about battery life. I really need around 3 hours or so of battery life. If I can't get this machine to give that to me in some form, I may have to return it and just go with an M11x or something.

But I really do love this thing so far, and I haven't gotten to gaming yet.

 

your pictures of the 9 cell battery coming up? I am waiting...

 

Hmm i think thats only achivable with a 9 cell battery centrik, unfortunately 6 cells dont seem to cut it

But try some gaming, i mean definately dont excuse the book because of the battery life, thats for certain!

 

My Asus has this same problem. What I ended up doing is is shifting my whole key setup to the right one, so instead of WASD, it's ESDF. The other nice advantage of this is that the F letter key (on most keyboards) has the little bump on the surface (to assist with finding the "home" typing position). This has the advantage of making it really easy to tell when your hand is in the right spot. It also gives you the "W" and "A" key to use for other buttons. Works well.

 

Hey guys, my gx640 arrived but I have been having a weird problem. Every now and then, the screen goes black and doesn't come back up, so I have to shut the laptop off and turn it on again. Can anyone help me? What is the problem? I have uninstalled Norton from it, installed FF 3.6, Steam, Adobe Reader 9.0, AVG 9.0 free, CCleaner and that's about it so far...

 

Hey lightning, sorry to hear of this problem, but it seems something is causing the PCI device to act in 1x speed instead of 16x, this is possibly the problem you're also having,

There is a thread open about it and hopefully the issue will be resolved promptly.

 

With the 9 cell battery




You can also see an example of the finger print smudges on the lid in this pic.

 

Total length of the power cord is about 12 feet.

 

Thats not bad at all and i bet the battery life is buzzing ^^

 

So, it is driver-related problem and nothing something I have to repack and return it? I sure hope it is just an easy fix! It has been rather annoying, having it go black all of a sudden and not coming back...

 

By chance did you install new video drivers from ATI's website? Don't if you haven't already. If you did try reverting to the ATI drivers on MSI's website.

 

Temps

Mine seem to be a little higher than those posted earlier. My ambient temp is 72 F.

GPU at Idle: 64 C

CPU at Idle and throttled down: 51 - 53 C
CPU at 100% for 1 Hour (OCCT LINPACK): 77 C
(GPU went to 72 C as, I suppose, a result of the hot CPU.)


I've noticed that it's picky about throttling down the CPU. With the Windows 7 sidebar.exe process running and consuming ~3% of the CPU it will not throttle down, the processor runs at the full (non-turbo) speed of 2.33 GHz. This speed causes the fan to kick it up a notch and run noticeably louder.

One thought is that I haven't done a fresh install of Windows 7, I just did the best I could to clean up the factory install. Do you guys think a fresh install will make a lick of difference?

 

thank you for honoring my request.


Also, could you run a few battery time tests and let us know?

Thanks!

 

No, I have not! Thank you for the heads up!

 

Can you link me the thread on this problem?

Thank you

 

Seems like you need to tinker with the settings , Control panel , power options , click on "change when the computer sleeps" on the left .. from there change the tun off the display to "never".

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=476342

 

To all GX 640 owners, I will be ordering a GX 640 within the week, but I have one question.

I will be using this laptop to game on. What cpu should I get? The i5 540, i7 620, or i7 720 quad?

 

The upgrades are quite overpriced on the GX640, because you're paying for the new CPU but not getting reimbursed for the i5-430M that comes with it.
If you think it's worth it, you might as well go for the more expensive ones like the i7-620M or the i7-820QM. You really don't need to upgrade, though, especially not for the prices charged.

 

what gives the resellers the nerve to charge full value for upgrades without giving any benefit to the stock CPU?

Even Dell doesn't do this, let alone your neighborhood used-car dealer. We should avoid buying the Gx640 from the resellers and go with other dealers like Provantage or Amazon.

 

Dell doesn't do it because they are the manufacturer. They have to charge full prices because their resellers and upgraded the cpu when the machine arrives. if they only charged the difference then theyd end up with a giant pile of i5-430ms and nothing to do with em.

Only Clevos at resellers charge the difference because then they just get clevo to send it to them with the upgraded parts already included

EDIT: If you're going to upgrade the cpu, might as well go as high as you can since ur paying for a whole new cpu anyways (hence why i went 820qm)

 

I guess they don't want to be stuck with a bunch of i5-430Ms and not be able to get rid of them. Still, it would be possible to sell them or use them for barebones laptops, so that's not an adequate excuse, especially when the upgrade prices are mostly higher than the prices of the actual CPUs I see on Google Shopping.
As far as I know, you can't upgrade the CPU yourself without voiding your warranty, so I guess that's how they can get away with it.

 

well i guess if you factor in labour and the pain it must be to get certification for upgrades without warranty voids it makes some sense, plus its all OEM parts

 

Regarding upgrades, is the Intel 6200 wireless adapter an upgrade?

If yes, what is the stock adapter? Thanks.

 

the stock network card is a Intel 5100 I think

 

What company did you go to that put in the 820, or did you do it yourself?

 

Could you have saved money upgrading the wireless adapter yourself? Would it have voided the warranty? Thanks.

 

Correct, it's a 5100 AGN adapter.

 

Wow, i just noticed how much flex there is on the left Ctrl and Fn key. Anyone else notice this? And I mean *horrible* flex! I usually don't complain much about flex, but this is quite annoying.

 

Does yours flex under normal typing presure? Mine does not.

 

Yea mine doesn't flex during normal typing. It only flexes if you hold down the keys and kinda lean on em

 

Yes, it's under a little pressure, but not a huge amount.

My GPU seems to be idling at like 69-70 while I browse the web and download/install 3 games. That seems quite high. It's getting uncomfortable to type on my lap.

 

Do you find it get's as hot on the bottom as the Envy 15 2nd Gen?

I suppose even if it did, it's worth it since the Gx640 has a 40% higher 3DMark06 score than the Envy 15.

 

If its idling high, pop the GPU into power saver mode (unless that messes up the pci thingy.)

 

How do you switch the GPU's mode?


Edit: nvm, I think I found it in the Catalyst Control Center. It didn't really lower my temps too much. I'm going to play around with it a bit more now, but the only major issue I can see with the machine right now is the heat. If I can get that sorted, I'm 100% sold on this baby.

 

Go to CCC
(The red ATI icon on the bottom right of your screen)

Click on power play,

Change from high performance to power saver, this should throttle (Probably volt down) the clock and run much cooler,

Try to avoid blocking the underside intakee.