The MSI EX625 Thread

Well Ijust got an email from MSI, turns out that all they did was reinstall the OS and apply a BIOS update (which is most probably the one that they just updated their site with which you guys already tried).

 

That doesn't help you or anyone else having issues.

 

I've played crisis for about an hour a few times without any issues.

The only game that I've had problems with is WOW, and that was just one application lockup after days of playing.

 

What drivers are you using and what version of windows?

 

I am experiencing a problem which may be related to the crashes others are getting during game play. I see severe video stuttering and audio lag when attempting to play some high def. video clips. I downloaded several sample WMV-HD clips from microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

Is anyone else having similar issues? Can anybody play these sample clips smoothly? By the specs, I thought this laptop would have no problem playing 720p and 1080p video.

I updated the Catalyst Control Center to the version released 6/15/09 hoping that video playback would improve, but no luck.

-Jim

 

Hi Jim, I was able to play a couple of the clips you linked to without issue. Maybe you have a process running that is sucking up CPU cycles? Could be drivers.

 

I don't think your issue is related to the gameplay issues others are having. I play 720p and 1080p clips all the time without this issue. What version of windows are you using? Do you have any codec packs installed? What media player did you use to play the videos?

 

I am running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit OS with SP1.

Playing the videos in Windows Media Player 11.

ATI 4670 driver version 8.572.0.0 from 1/8/2009.

I have not downloaded any codec packs other than whatever is installed in the default Windows Media Player installation. I have WMP set to automatically download any necessary codecs.

During playback, CPU usage is running 20-90%, jumping up and down a lot. The process that's eating up the most cycles is mfpmp.exe, Media Foundation Protected Pipeline EXE which is often taking 40-60% of the CPU. These numbers have got to be indicative of some kind of problem.

I can play 1080i recorded TV on Windows Media Player with no problems. Playback is smooth and the CPU runs at roughly 40-50%, pretty stable.

One funny thing is that I am pretty sure I tried playing some of these videos when I first got the machine about a month ago and my recollection is they played just fine. Since then I have installed Microsoft Office, and done a few updates, including updating the Catalyst Control Center. But I haven't done much else to change the machine.

The trailer from Alexander in 1080P is the one that seems to give me the worst problems.

Thanks for any help.

-Jim

 

I think I may have found the problem. I suspect the CPU is overheating due to a stuck fan. The reason I suspect this is if I go into the Windows Task Manager/Performance/Resource Monitor application, it shows my CPU running at 40% of maximum frequency, flatlined. I think this is the result of thermal throttling on the CPU. Within a few days of getting this system, I noticed the fan starting to make a whining noise. I even submitted a problem ticket to MSI support.

Then the problem "went away". But I suspect that the CPU fan actually came to a dead stop. About that time, I noticed the "fan" (probably the system fan) started running noticeably louder, all the time. Probably compensating for the stuck CPU fan. It all fits.

I will run a few more checks to verify my hypothesis and post the result.

-Jim

 

OK. Maybe not a fan problem. Looks like I somehow got stuck into "Power Saver Mode" instead of "Balanced" or "High Performance" power management. Now video plays ok. What a pain in the butt! I still wonder about the fan noise, however.

-Jim

 

Weird that the cpu fan got stuck. You might have to put some oil on the fan in order to minimize the fan noise I think. I also had a slight whining noise with the fan myself but it has minimized since the bios update so might want to try that as well.

 

Im running Windows 7 x64 with driver 8.620.0.0 from 5/15/2009 and the stock bios.

 

I'm running ther specs the same thing except i have bios 1.0m

 

What exactly does the new 6-30-09 bios 1.0m fix?

I checked and could not find any info on it.

 

We don't know as of yet. What I noticed is they adjusted the fans.

 

ughh they won't send it cuz i didn't call in to confirm my identity. i'm in china, calling is expensive, and i did try calling them during their business hours but nobody answered..i had to stay up at 1am to do that >.> and now it's out of stock
i asked them for a refund last friday...still haven't gotten the charges back on my debit card yet... something smells fishy

 

How do you reliably force audio over the HDMI port? When I am watching streaming video on my HDTV via the EX625 HDMI port, the audio is hit or miss. It seems like if I start the streaming before connecting the HDMI the audio won't switch over. I have to close the browser and start over. Also, when the laptop screen saver kicks in I always lose the audio.

I have not attempted any systematic troubleshooting. I turn the TV on and off, mute and un-mute the laptop audio, unplug and re-plug the HDMI cable, use the control panel to select audio over HDMI (doesn't seem to have any effect on the audio of the video stream), etc. . . . Eventually I get it to work, but it's a real pain. Does anybody have a reliable way to force the audio output over HDMI? Or restore it once it's "lost". Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

Thanks,

-Jim

 

Got my laptop back today (now using it to type this).

They don't seem to have changed anything, although it is a clean install of Vista 32bit and they've replaced the warranty sticker on the bottom.

Now going to test the demo of Last Remnant.

UPDATE!

As we all expected, BSOD.

Vista 32 Bit, ATI Drivers 8.527.0.0

 

Noooo. Sorry to hear this vaant. Don't know what else to try.

 

This is getting annoying. What could possibly be wrong with our EX625s? even MSI didnt found anything (if they tested everything). My HD4670 passed every video memory test i ran, and also the 3d tests... can run 3dmark 06 and got about 6700 points

I have got two crashes now with Call Of Duty 4 wich had been running great until now.

I´m running out of ideas of what may be the problem. Maybe is an overheating issue as we first thought. The maximum temperature for the Core 2 Duo P7350 is 90C. Well, mine has been very close to hitting those temps while gaming, although i dont know the exact temps it reached when the crashes happen, but it could have been right there at 90C.

The crashes dont happen when i stress the video card alone, or when i stress the cpu alone, only when both cpu and gpu are pushed together. maybe, as both cpu and gpu share the same small heatsink, it cant keep up with the room temperature and conditions we are running our laptops in

has anybody applied some higher quality thermal material like artic silver on the chips of this laptop?

 

Just updated to Windows 7.

Still get crashing with driver version 8.56.1.13 (the one that worked for tassadar898)

I'm going to go ahead and install oblivion sometime tonight, see if I can play that at all.

I'm starting to think download26 might be on the right track with the heatsink thing.

Another thing, on the MSI User forums (where i've also made a topic for this issue) I've just found out that the MSI tech guy who worked on my laptop has now joined the forum. We arn't supposed to leave the 'MSI tech support' people PMs but i've mentioned him in my thread there and I'm hoping he can give his proffesional opinion on the matter. He also happens to be the only North American tech support person on those forums. Just thought i'd let you guys know incase you want to head over and read more about the same thing you're already reading here ^^;

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=128031.0

 

Ok, so i did some testing, and now, I`m 99% sure this is neither a temperature or power problem.

I ran GTA IV with "Eco Engine" on "Office Mode", so, well, the game ran like crap hahaha (still "playable" enough to test though), but i was sure the computer wasn`t by any means hot or pulling excesive power, the fan was barely noticeable, CPU voltage down to around 0.9v, CPU clock down to 800Mhz, RAM down to 400Mhz, and the GPU, well, i dont know what "office mode" does to the GPU but I`m almost sure it wasn running at stock clocks. GTA IV still crashed to a black screen within 3 minutes of playing


UPDATE!!

I ran furmark 1.7.0 and although it did not crashed like the games, the laptop did turned off itself because of high temperatures

CPU reached 95C and GPU reached 114C at the moment the laptop shuted down by itself. The test ran for 250-300 seconds before this happened

 

Im 99% sure as said before it is a heat related issue

 

UPDATE!

MSI tech support want to take another look at my laptop, apparently they weren't aware before that i was sending it in due to GPU issues (even though I though i'd made that much clear... why else did i send it in?). Anyway, one person from the tech support has read the thread I made over at the MSI user forums and knows that it isn't just me and he wants to look into it himself.

This time something will be done i'm sure, and MSI even sent me a shipping label so i don't have to pay for it to be returned.

Am I happy I have to send it in again after just getting it back? No.

But if we want to fix this problem then I know they need to look into it, and since this tech support person has read into the problems we're having I'm sure something will be fixed this time.

I'll be sending it off on Monday, and once again... I'll keep y'all posted...

 

Good to hear vaant. Hope everything gets straighted out.

 

1chaoticadult,

I know you were able to play Oblivion fine so i'm going to ask you this question. In the ATI Catalyst Control Center under 'Powerplay' do you have it enabled? If so do you have it set to maximum battery life or maximum performance?

I just updated my drivers and was able to play oblivion fine (on highest settings) for a long time, it never even crashed while i was playing actually. I then just now happened to look at those options under the CCC and realized (to my dissapointment) I was set to maximize battery life under both battery plugged in options.

 

I have mines set as maximize performance for both battery and plugged in using the high performance power plan. Also using ATI Display Driver 8.612 on Windows 7 x64 Build 7264. Hope that helps...

 

well vaant, here its set to maximum performance but it still crashes on gta iv and crysis. Btw, Oblivion I can play fine.

 

Try setting it to max battery, I'm able to play crysis and TLR without crashing on this mode (and I can only seem to play oblivion on this mode too...)

But having it on max battery mode underclocks the card I guess, so you will have to turn the graphics pretty low I'm afraid... But at least you should be able to play the games in question, i played Crysis for an hour and TLR for 2 hours no crashing but i've had a report from someone else that GTA IV still crashes even on max battery.

 

Maybe the issue is the heatsink. If you can play it underclocked without issues but it crashes when at max performance, maybe the heatsink cannot handle the heat emitted from the gpu when at max performance, which causes it to crash. I personally would try applying arctic 5 silver compound on the gpu and for the fun of it the cpu as well and see if it makes a difference. I would do it myself but I'm waiting to get my new cpu soon so I can do everything at once

 

hey guys i figure i'd pop back into this thread. I returned my ex625 =( to newegg because of a faulty fan for a full refund after having to nag for several hours/days. I got a Sony Vaio VGN-FW465 which has a ATI 4650 HD (basically an underclock 4670). Since this computer has a much better heatsink I ventured into overclocking the GPU. Using 9.6 drivers on windows 7 64bit, I got the EXACT same BSOD on crysis when overclocking my GPU clock speed past 600mhz. I uninstalled the drivers to default to the windows 7 and even overclocked above 600mhz I got no BSOD in Crysis, but if overclocked above 650mhz with these drivers i got a BSOD. It seems with certain clock speeds + certain ATI driver combinations it causes BSOD in high 3D games. Another quirk I noticed is that it does not have to do with temperatures. If I go back to 9.6 drivers and clock my GPU to 595 mhz for example, I get NO BSOD, just 5 mhz below the clockspeed where I normally get BSOD. With a decrease in 5mhz I get no decrease in temps in GPU/CPU so i'm pretty sure its not a heating issue but simply a GPU clock speed + driver issue. There seems to be a threshold where there is a "all or nothing effect" meaning if the clock speed is over a specific number youll get BSOD but underclock by a few mhz and they are gone completely. If you do a google search on BSOD and ATI drivers (especially 9.6 and especially when overclocking) there are alot of people receiving them when playing Crysis, Oblivion etc.

This makes alot of sense, because by playing on Maximum Battery windows 7/vista underclocks your GPU to save power. What I would suggest is downloading GPUtool on a specific driver (say 9.6) and UNDERCLOCK your GPU with it set on Maximum Performance and keep testing it until you don't get BSOD and report them back to this thread to see if it helps others.

Just my 2 cents good luck!

 

ill give it a try

 

Very very interesting. I appreciate you coming back to tell us this, it could help us a lot, or at least the people who don't want to send their laptop into MSI this could be a solution to play games sill with reasonable settings.

 

Did you change the memory clock as well and do the settings reset after reboot?

 

Guys, I played crysis all day today... it crashed just twice, but not as BSOD, i could ctrl+alt+del and close it and open it again. I mean, the game crashed, not the pc. So really, try playing just with the AC, take off the battery, see if that makes any difference.

Take a look at my network status:

Duração=duration
More than 8 hours turned on and I played crysis a lot
(I didn't play for 8 hours, I was away about half the time hehe)

 

So all you did was remove the battery? I tried playing the last remnant today without the battery in an i still crashed like normal, never got around to testing crysis though since i've now sent my notebook back to MSI.

 

yeah i just removed the battery... but i have yet to play gta iv which is the biggest crasher, i was able to play crysis for a while before, so i can't say that will fix the problem.

 

at first, i was going to buy this laptop when i have enough money, but just now, i've found everyone get many problems with this laptop. now i'm seriously thinking whether to buy this laptop or not since there's quite few problem ss with this laptop....

 

Well not everyone is having these problems, and you have to remember the problems only occur during a select few video games. The laptop is still worth the money specially if you're not wanting to play games or if you not interested in playing the ones that crash, all other games seem to work fine.

But it's my understanding that they aren't even making this laptop anymore since it's not even being sold in any stores that i can find online.

 

Well said vaant. I think people are getting the impression that is laptop is issue prone from the problems reported in the thread but I agree with this being a great laptop worth the money, but hopefully the issues get resolved so ex625 can get the positive attention it deserves.

 

Here is one in the UK that comes with a blu-ray and 500GB hard drive...

http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=183587

 

Update: The only game crashing here is GTA IV. Crysis I've been playing no problems, I only got 3 or 4 BSOD from auto savegame 30 and before that, I just finished the game, it crashed a lot, but no BSOD. GTA IV sometimes I can play around 30 minutes and sometimes 5 minutes. Also, vaant, I played Oblivion for around 2 hours today, so that game is not in my list of crashes at all(actually it was my cousin, but he didn't mention anything).

I want to try downclocking my GPU, should I just download something like RivaTuner and do that or what?

 

I just tried the latest version of AMD GPU Clock Tool (ver. 0.9.7) to downclock and it wouldn't take. Says "set clock failed Please check device configuration."

Anyone else have luck downclocking their 4670 and if so what did you use?

 

has anyone upgraded their CPU in this machine yet? I've been wondering what would be the best upgrade that this machine could handle without overheating.

 

Hey guys,

I really wanted this computer, but it's gone everywhere. I posted a thread in the what computer should I get section, but I just don't see anything I liked as much.

Do you guys have any suggestions of something that's close to the MSI EX625?

 

This is the only place that has it and they ship to the USA:

http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=183587&sbdel=emptybasket

 

Hey nacr05,

Thanks, I did see that reading through the thread, but it seems to push the cost up a bit, being in the UK, not to mention shipping costs to US.

I'll reflect on it and see if I want to pay more for it, because I really did like it.

But meanwhile, if anyone knows of any other computers that are comparable for me to take a look at, I'd appreciate it!

 

There is a nice little Acer on Newegg with a 1gb Nvidia GT 130m for around $750.00 and 64bit vista premium, I was eyeballing for my wife. I own an EX625 and the Acer was the closest in bang for the buck features as the EX625. The 130m is a little slower then the 4670 but it should still game pretty well.

I was able to buy an open box EX625 by luck at Newegg, for my wife, but they're out now. Keep checking.

*Edit* I forgot to mention there is a nice little Toshiba and now an HP both with a 4650 at around $799 each on Newegg. These are also possible alternatives.

 

Repeat post. For grins, has any EX625 owner tried underclocking their GPU and if so what tool did you all use?

 

Try to underclock it with GPUTool

The 1gb Nvidia GT 130m mentioned above comes with DDR2 memory so it's on par with 9600M GT DDR3 which is close to HD4650 DDR2.

If anyone has opened his EX625, can you please tell me the HD4670's part number. Thank you I really want to upgrade my GPU with this one, sadly Acer's HD4670 is MXM-A which is new MXM type and my lappy doesn't support it. There is an Acer HD4650 and 5920G user already upgraded his with it, but it has DDR2 memory