MS-1039 Expected in Early March

And for my second post...

Rob_Peer: CMN

I also wanted to toss a quickie out there for anyone else that is working with the 1039. Is there a way to disable the "Tap to Click" feature on the touchpad?

Thanks

 

In the touch pad properties there is an option to disable it.

 

Question for all u puter gurus

I'm working with the 1039 and I installed XP x64 on it...the 32 bit OS was trash and things were just not running smooth at all. I downloaded the 1029 drivers, which were compatible, mainly, but am having problems. I can't get the mouse drivers to work, at all. It is the Elantech touchpad, but neither Elantech nor Synaptics will install and work. I've tried doing everything I can, and it just isn't happening. Live update 3 won't run on x64, and since I built it, MSI provides zero tech support. The keyboard also seems to be acting funny and doing some random things like moving the type around...yes I know how to type correctly, and I know it isn't your standard keyboard by any stretch, but still I would love to know if anyone can help or has had these problems previously.

I searched but couldn't find anything related, so sorry if it is a re-post.
Thanks very much.

 

Just use the windows driver for the touch Pad, the drivers for the 1029 are not correct for the 1039. The x64 drivers for the 1039 will be released shortly.

 

I am currently using the Windows drivers, just the touchpad tapping feature obviously can't be disabled.
Any clue why the keyboard would be doing weird things, like while typing (and not hitting a key by accident) it goes up a line or back a few spaces? It isn't one or two times, is probably about 10 times a day...I am obviously using the window drivers for the keyboard, but not sure what would cause something like this to happen.

So far I am not impressed with the laptop, with both the 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems it hasn't performed well to handle software, like AOL (I know, ewwww), firefox, and some games. Processes hang, programs don't open, web sites run slow, I just don't know what to do about it.

 

Haha!

You're going to hate me when I tell you what the problem is....

When you are typing, you are hitting the touchpad with your palm! Because of the "tap to click", bumping the touchpad will cause the cursor to move to where the mouse is positioned. Looks like you're going to have a problem if you can't turn off tap to click...

I don't know what the problem is there. What I can tell you is that that sounds more like an Operating System problem...

Websites running slow depends on your internet connection, not your computer speed.

You could perhaps have a bad stick of RAM. Download memtest 86 and run it for a few hours to see if it generates any errors.

Did you ever install the procesor driver?

I don't own this laptop, although I do hope to buy one over the summer, and I don't have any experience using a turion; however I do have a laptop with a mobile AMD DTR, and a desktop with an X2, and I must say that even when clock speeds are low, the system still performs wonderfully. I doubt what you are experiencing is due to not having the processor driver installed, although if you installed the incorrect one...

On a further note, I would suggest staying away from anything AOL. I don't trust any of the software one bit.

Aside from bad RAM, wrong drivers, or a butchered OS install, I don't have any ideas what could be your problem.

I suppose you could have a faulty processor, although that would be quite uncommon.

Also, from what I have heard, people have had many problems with Windows x64. I could understand having such problems in the 64 bit version, but if you had them in the 32 bit.... I would have to say you have a faulty piece of hardware then, unless you managed to butcher both OS installs or you have a talent for picking up viruses.

Sorry I can't be of more help.


Does anyone have an updated ETA for the WSXGA? I'd be interested in getting mine 1039 from Xmeld with a WSXGA option, although I need to wait for some review and pull some money together first.

P.S. I've read through this entire thread, and have been following it for the last month or two. I just haven't taken the time until now to make an account and post something.

CS/Unleaded: Would it be possible for one of you(or some other kind user) to measure the temps of the right handrest? I have a Uniwill 258kA with a 7200 rpm hard drive under the left palmrest, which causes the palmrest to get increadibly hot while playing games. At first it didn't seem to bad, but after a few weeks it started getting to me. I estimate that it can get to 105~110F atleast, which I can't stand. Hopefully the 1039 doesn't get up past 90F or so. If it does, I think I'll be waiting for a nice barebones with a Turion X2 and a good graphics card.

~JPZ

 

JPZ,

As for the touchpad issue, you're thought was my first thought too.
Turned out to be wrong though. I disabled the touchpad, and for a short time had the client rely on the keyboard only...same issue, lots and lots of times.
I've been typing for about 18 years if not more, and am pretty skilled, and it was doing it for me too.

As for staying away from AOL, what the client wants the client gets...as much as it pains me to say that! Most of the problems do seem to be driver or Operating System related (Thanks Mr. Gates ) Client is using a cable Internet connect, I've plugged in before and had my laptop running smooth as silk on the Internet, so not sure what the problem is.

I'll test out the ram and re-install the processor driver later tonight, but thanks for the help.

 

the amd processor driver has absolutely NOTHING to do with performance.
it's just to increase battery life with speed-stepping

 

Oh, I didn't realize it wasn't your computer.

If you client has slow internet, that would explain the "slow webpage loading". And since you know your client has an internet connection, it is very possible that he has managed to overload it with viruses and crap like that.

Bad RAM could be causing the issue with the lockups and such, although the keyboard issue is quite odd. I wouldn't think it would be the keyboard causing something like that, and if it's not the touchpad, then what?

Correct me if I am mistake, but if the Turion is anything like the Athlon 64, you need your processor driver in order to even use speedstep...

You processor will stay at the lowest speedstep level without the drivers, which on the Athlon 64 DTR is 4x multi(800mhz). This would have an impact on games and such, although performance is stil decent at 800 mhz.

Time to go back to class, I'll comment back later.

~JPZ

 

I installed the AMD processor, rather than using the POS M$oft driver and wow...the keyboard issue looks to have been fixed. The touchpad obviously won't be affected, but seems to be cool now. The Internet is running fine it seems, some conflicts existed on the 32-bit, but not so much on the 64-bit. Memtest won't run on x64, so can't test the mem like that...any other suggestions? Thanks for the help.

 

There do not appear to be any touchpad properties anywhere >.<

Elantech ehh?

 

JPZ
no, not installing the driver will make it always go at full speed.

 

Oh, I must say that is quite interesting. Must be something new with the Turions. Probably in response to so many people yelling at AMD about their processors running at 800 mhz instead of 2.X ghz. You are sure this is the case? The athlon 64's clock down to the minimum without the driver.

To Commer:
Wow, I can't believe the client didn't have the AMD drivers!!!
I don't know why not having correct drivers would have had a problem with the cursor moving everywhere, but again I have never even seen a Turion based computer in person. I wish retail companies would move away from Intel already...

On a side note, Windows drivers are only meant so that your computer will function at a low level if you absolutely can't get real drivers for that part. I would not suggest ever using Windows default drivers unless you absolutely must.

You can definately use memtest 86... You can create a boot disk(floppy or cd) and you boot from that before you even get into an OS. I guarantee you can use it. It is a very helpful program, try running it for around 12 hours if you have that long, overnight is fine. If you receive errors(even 1) then something is wrong. If there are two RAM sticks, you can try swapping them in one at a time to find the bad one. If there is only one stick, try a different stick and see if you get errors. If you still get errors, something on the motherboard, possible the RAM socket, is bad. Does the entire system ever spontaneaosly lock up, crash, or do you even get memory reference errors? If so, I would say there is a good chance of a faulty stick of RAM.

Now, back to the MSI 1039.

Does anyone have any answers to any of my questions?

Exactly how warm is the right palm rest, what is making it warm, where specifically does it get warm?

Does this laptop have a problem with running 2 memory sticks like the previous MSI whitebooks?

Is there anything else worth noting about the laptop? Someone try and run Doom 3 or Quake 4 and give me some benchmarks, along with the configurations. I'm hoping the x1600 can handle Doom3 in WSXGA resolution with most settings on full. My Uniwill with an m9700 and a 2ghz AMD DTR can run Doom 3 in WXGA at 40-60 fps, but that is with shadows off. I think the MSI 1039 could meet my expectations...

Looking forward to some reviews!

 

The right palm rest isn't that warm (read below first), I have left it on for several days. You need to look out for leaving this notebook on a soft surface such as a bed, couch, chair, rug, pillow, dog, cat etc. These geniuses put the air intake for the fan that cools the CPU, GPU and various chipsets underneath the computer. I would highly recommend an aluminum notebook cooling pad with fan, it will help immensely.

To deal with the heat issue that crops up remove the thermal tape from the heat sink on the CPU and use AS5. Also, on the GPU heat sink strip off the thermal tape, lap (flatten) the contact points and also put AS5, not only on the points they had thermal tape but also on the additional flat surfaces that line up with additional chips (I can post a picture of the additional chips later). They should have done some more engineering on the heat sink & het dissipation.

There is no problem running 2 memory sticks in this machine that I have had.

There should be other complaints about this notebook before "right palm rest gets warm" gets this kind of press. Like switching to a plastic chassis instead of magnesium alloy, the plastic underside instead of metal that dissipates no heat, the battery life, still no upgradable graphics slot (because I am already getting, "When is the x1800 going to be out?"), texture on the mousepad.

The keyboard seems to be better, the DVI, ExpressCard slot, WebCam, x1600 256 MB and upgraded resolution are all a plus.

 

just got mine in the mail yesterday. right palm rest isn't that bad, my only real complaint is that the PCMIA slot and the power cable plug are on the right side of the notebook, which means that occasionally my Audigy 2 sound card gets in the way of the mouse.

still looking for a lan driver. anyone know which of the 2 wireless lan drivers to use? (i got 2 cd's with the laptop, both have different a/b/g/bluetooth driver sets)

on the plus side, 3DMARK05 comes out at 4219 marks on default settings.

Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion runs at native res (1280x800) and all options on medium (except textures which are set to high and grass distance which is medium-low) completely smooth. heck yes!

 

Wifferfoo528, go to the device manager and right click on the "Network Controller" showing as an exclamation point on a yellow background and select install driver. Have the driver/utility disc in the drive when you let Windows search for the driver.

As for the Wireless LAN driver, I'd go with the one on the communications disc as I have found that using the one provided on the driver/utility disc for Bluetooth (IVT BlueSoleil) causes the application to give a message stating that the software is pirated and will run in evaluation mode (dunno why it would do that). I haven't noticed that happen using the software on the communications disc.

 

OK, everything sounds good so far.

I DO use a cooling pad with my current laptop, and I always use it on hard surfaces. The hard drive still heats up to ~110 F and really sucks. No one has found a solution for this yet.

How bad is the texture on the touchpad? Is it really annoying, unuseable, or just a little different from what people are used to?

My biggest concern that I would like answered:

What kind of battery life does this get? I noticed that you bolded battery life, so I didn't take that as a good sign. What is the battery life for this notebook? My current one gets 2-2.5 hours web-browsing with screen brightness down and processor locked at 800 mhz(amd 3200 DTR). With undervolting I can get 2.5-3 hours. For gaming, screen brightness up and cpu locked at 2 ghz, I get 30-40 minutes. While gaming with screen brightness down, processor locked at 1.6 ghz, and undervolted, I can get 1-1.25 hours battery life. The better battery life is one of the major reasons I want to get this laptop. What kind of battery life do you guys get with screen brightness down, processor locked at minimum clock speed, and web-browsing/coding? How long for gaming with parts at max speeds and screen brightness up? If you have the time, how long does it get gaming with max speeds and screen brightness down? I'd like to get a good idea of how long the battery lasts.

I would really like an upgradeable graphics card, which is why I might end up waiting for the 15.4 inch amd turion x2 with a possible nVidia 7600. I am not an nVidia fan and I do not have any computers with an nVidia card, although they aren't really that different from ATI and although I would prefer an ATI card, the MXM upgradeability might cause me to move to nVidia for laptops. The downside is that nVidia cards use a ton of power and would kill my battery life.

On a side note, would using AS5 void the barebones warranty? I am planning to buy from xMeld, although that is not a definite. I should think it wouldn't. I do, however, think that lapping the graphics heatsink would void the warranty. Is it necessary to lap the heatsink in order to use AS5 with the graphics card? I would very much like to replace the graphics card cooler with AS5 if I got one of these, although I probably would not if it required a heatsink lapping.

~JPZ

P.S. Still looking for Quake 4/Doom 3 benchmarks. Please post game settings, and if you have the time, your system specs.

 

If you get a laptop with MXM, it doesn't mean it'll be an NVidia card. Although it was developed by Nvidia, it's design is free to be used by all companies, including ATi.

 

i hope you realize that 110F (43.3C) is not bad at all. 43.3C is pretty average, especially if you're actually doing something intensive.

 

I agree, 110F is not bad for a laptop har drive- but that's not my hard drive temp!

My hard drive runs at 120-125F, it's my left palm rest that gets up to 110F. If the computer is left on long enough(5 or so hours) then the palm rest will eventually get up that high, but it normally curves off around 110F. The Harddrive is literally right under my left palm. This makes it worse because my left hand is always there, for typing, because I use my mouse/touchpad with my right hand, and all the key controls for FPS games are on the left side, causing my hand to be on that palm rest no matter what I am doing. I would much rather have the hot side be the right side, but I would prefer neither side to be warm. Atleast I wouldn't have to deal with it on the right side while using a mouse/touchpad, but it would annoy be to death and irritate by hands while coding and doing homework.

As to the upgradeable graphics-

I know that MxM was developed by nVidia. I have never seen an MxM ATI card. ATI has their own special standard(AXIOM). Sadly I have never seen an ATI mobility card with AXIOM- it seems that ATI is making both AXIOM and non-AXIOM versions of all the mobility graphics cards. One of the has the memory on the chip, the AXIOM version, and can be upgraded. The other does not have on-board memory, and is soldered to the motherboard. This seems to be what most ODM's are using, but I have no reason why. I would really like a laptop identical to the MSI 1039 that has an AMD turion x2, ATI x1800, with an AXIOM graphics port. But this would be asking too much.

EDIT: Hold on a second, how did I get a Rep Point?

 

MXM-Upgrade, a store that is operated by one of our members on this board (Iced-Tea, IIRC), sells the ATi X1800, although its Europe only...

http://mxm-upgrade.com/store.html

 

The battery? It's poor at best. I consider about 2 hours as "good", but this isn't even near that. They shouldn't have wimped out on the battery, it's really getting bad marks by me. Enough said on that.

As far as lapping the heat sink to apply AS5. No, you don't have to do that at all. All you need to do is peel off their thermal tape and apply the AS5. Will it void the warranty? I would ask MSI directly if you are just getting a whitebox and xMeld isn't installing any components for you. If they are it is really up to them because then they are pretty much the warranty provider. MSI's support and warranty is a joke anyway.

 

What the.... how is it not even 2 hours of battery life... I was hoping 4 for coding and 2 or so for gaming? When you got 2 hours battery life, how bright was your screen set, what were you doing, and what was you cpu clocked at?

I have an Athlon DTR that uses 81.5 watts, an incredibly bright and power consuming screen, and a power hungry ATI m9700. I have a year-old horribly worn out battery that, when new, was the same capacity as the MSI 1039's battery. How can you not be getting over 2 hours?

My computer has a 165 watt power adapter. The power "brick" is ****ing huge. It weighs three pounds and is about the size of an actual brick. The MSI 1039 has a 65 watt adapter. This means that the 1039 at most uses roughly 3/8 as much power as my current lappy.

Can someone else provide input about the battery?

As to the warranty:

Does anyone know of a company/place that offers a decent warranty? I was moving to MSI hoping that they would have some decent support. If you're telling me that MSI's warranty is a joke, I might have to look into another company, especially after all the trouble I've had with this laptop. I bought it last June and I've only used it for a total of about 6 weeks. It is now nowhere near the performance of modern technology, the battery is worn out, the warranty expires in a few weeks, and it's been RMA'd 5 times for the same problem(Took Ibuypower 11 months to properly diagnose the problem and get it fixed, after I told them the first time that my mothebroard was faulty and I wanted another one. They swapped in a new motherboard 2 weeks ago and I can finally use this poor thing again).

I very well might not be going with the MSI 1039...

The price is attractive, as are the features, however I am led to believe:

Battery life sucks.
Warranty "is a joke".
Touchpad is horrible-
Palmrest heats up-

Not to mention the fact that I would really like something with an x1800xt GPU and a turion x2, but that would be asking too much.

Right now I am just looking for a reliable, yet affordable, notebook manufacturer. I prefer to build my own computers, yet I have not built a laptop. After all the bad experiences I have had with numerous companies(Dell, HP, Ibuypower...) I have decided that you just can't buy a reliable laptop. I would be delighted to build a laptop, yet I haven't found a good ODM with a model I liked. I really thought I found something when I came upon the msi 1039.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still interested in benchmarks, Doom 3 and Quake 4.

Would like more input on battery life.

If anyone knows a good laptop ODM other than MSI, please let me know.

~JPZ

 

well, asus (s96j/z96j) and compal (hel80) offer something similar to the ms-1039. however, the ms-1039 is the only one that offers a good gpu with the turion.

 

Yeah, that always seems to be the problem. Trying to find a laptop that has all the things you are looking for, not just some of them... that's why I love building desktops so much- you can always get exactly what you want.

I really don't know what to do at this point. I'd just like to see some Doom 3/Quake 4 benchmarks, and get someone to do some rigorous battery testing, and if the results are decent, I will probably be building one of these over the summer.

If not... perhaps I will be waiting for the turion dual core 15.4 inch with the nVidia 7600. I might be waiting for another year if I choose to do that, though.

~JPZ

 

I had the same problem and found the driver after looking through MSI's site. It appears that the MSI 1029 and MSI 1039 are virtually identical in hardware. Use the touchpad driver for the MSI 1029. If you installed the generic Synaptic driver first (since the touchpad appears to be made by Synaptic), uninstall it first.

 

no ones posted a picture of the backside that i can recall. please rectify this! =D

 

Are you insinuating that the turion outperforms/is engineered better the intel core duo?

I would wait out the turion x2 or get the intel's dual core, there is no reason to buy old turions anymore.

 

I know it's a wee bit late to respond to this, but AXIOM is dead and about half of the MXM cards out there are ATI.

Just thought I'd share

 

The back doesn't really have anything on it. Check out my image page though to see a couple shots.
http://www.killernotebooks.com/eliminator/eliminator_gallery.aspx

 

Battery life sucks.
Warranty "is a joke".
Touchpad is horrible-
Palmrest heats up-

Hey, don't forget the keyboard is complete JUNK... I have customers who want to return their computers they are so sick of it. I have had several machines just lock up, and even though this happens over and over MSI wants to blame the CPU the memory and everything but MSI.

Do yourself a favor and get an ASUS S96J like someone said above. The screen is way better, the keyboard makes this one look like a stone tablet and a chisel, the Turion socket is a dead end as far as upgrading and you don't have to deal with MSI which is so much of a PLUS that you'll never even know if you don't get one of their machines.

 

I don't know what your doing but i have to seriously disagree:

Battery Life, if you adjust the SCM and ATI powerplay you can get extended life out of the battery.

Warranty, We have never had a problem getting any component or notebook repaired or replaced under warranty ever!!.

Touchpad Horrible? Why?
The touchpad in this unit i feel work very well, and have no complaints or problems with it.

Palmrest Heats Up Yes it does, but it is nothing that is extremely uncomfortable. It's warm, thats it!!

Keyboard, I use this notebook everyday and do not or have never had an issue with the keyboard??

Machines Locking Up? Maybe it is the components you are using, i own one, we have delivered ALOT and I myself have never had the machine lockup for no reason. I have yet to hear anything negative from any of our customers about this notebook. We have heard how much they love it and nothing but thanks??
We have delivered XP pro and X64, and even run Vista and never heard any lockup complaints??

 

I think he's joking. He sells the 1039 too, you know.