MSI GX640-098US Review

is it recommended that I straight up install Windows 7 Pro x64 as soon as I get this laptop?

 

Well there's no big reason why not to, that's what I did

 

Got the GX640 2 weeks ago. After 1 week, it started blue screening repetitively. I ran MEMTEST and sure enough, one of the two sticks of RAM is bad. in fact, I removed it, and the laptop now works perfectly (although with only 2 GB - which is not what I paid for).

So the laptop is great, does everything I hoped for, but I only have 2 GB. I contacted MSI, ad the only thing I can do is RMA the whole laptop. They will not accept that I send the bad RAM (which they could verify) so they send me a new stick. Huge annoyance to me, the customer, in addition to the fact that I've already spent a number of days finding out what the issue was - now I would have to send the whole laptop and not have it for days/weeks until I get a replacement. *And* it's at a much more cost to them and me to send the whole laptop, and back. I see it as such a reasonable alternative to just send the bad RAM... alas, it's not "policy". :-(

Any suggestions from anyone ?

 

Ram sticks are very cheap , just buy one.

Did it came with some crappy transcend ?

 

Where'd you get it from?

 

You're the user that posted this thread on NCIX, am I right?

 

The RAM it came with is ASint. I have never seen this before.
And yes, I know it is cheap to buy a 2GB stick DDR3 1066 (about $65). but since this is a brand new laptop, sending me a stick of RAM would have been gracious of MSI...

 

That's me. So don't worry, there's only 1 of me out there that got bad RAM

NCIX are looking into this right now, but it seems they get the same policy from MSI: return the whole laptop. Sigh. I may well end up buying new RAM from NCIX...

 

Their policy sucks , it's not like alienware etc who would just send you the parts. I'm afraid you ain't got much of a choice here , Sending the whole notebook just for a stick is ............

Get some HyperX

Depends on your location. Just look around

 

Don't know if anyone's answered you yet... I have bought 4 PCs (3 desktops in parts and this one laptop) from NCIX, and they've usually been great with fast response time. Plus, if you are outside of BC, you pay no provincial taxes, which usually offsets the shipping

 

Since I ran into a 'slight' problem on this great machine, I have completely rebuilt the O/S from the grounds up. I thought it would be interesting for some to hear of my experience...

First, I did two things:

[1] I burned the MSI Recovery Discs (2 DVDs) directly on the laptop, so I can always go back to factory settings later.

[2] I used a freeware utility to 'grab' Windows' registration key, so I could re-install from scratch and use the same OEM registration that came with the laptop.

Then, I went ahead and repartitioned the HD. I hate having 2 partitions (in fact this laptop comes with 4: 2 are hidden recovery partitions).

Installed Win7 64 in very few steps.

Recognized instantly by the Virgin O/S, with no need for additional drivers:

- the camera
- the wireless (so I don't know what benefits I would get from MSI's supplied drivers);
- Bluetooth (same question about the MSI driver)

Also, I installed ATI's latest Catalyst driver. Works fine in all things, except: when the computer goes to sleep, the monitor does no come back to life afterwards. So I guess I will install the 'special' MSI Catalyst driver afterall.

So far, I have not installed the Intel Chipset driver, nor any other driver for this laptop. We'll see if I run into trouble. I expect I would get better CPU speed control wit it, which would impact my battery life.

Have not tried the modem (probably never will).

THINGS LOST
-------------

I lost MS Works which came pre-installed on the laptop. Don't care; I have a family edition of MS Office.

Lost some of the nice on-screen features when you dim the monitor, sound, etc. Nyah.

Lost the ECO button, which I though was quite nice. So I may install the driver to get that back. Don't know yet. It's not that hard to dim the screen with the Fn key combos.

Bloatware (Norton and MS Works).

CONCLUSION
------------

I guess it's a personal thing, but I like to know exactly what runs on my machines. Obviously, this approach is easier on a home-built desktop. But it is nice to know Win7 can pretty much get me everything I need from the laptop without needing all kinds of special drivers.

Thoughts anyone ?

 

All you have to do is install SCM to get those "lost" stuff back. (eco and so on)

 

You can just use the drivers DVD and reinstall all of the drivers that came with it. They all work, including the Eco button driver.

As for Catalyst 10.3:

every single one of us has the same problem as you. We are all waiting for MSI to fix it. Right now, there's not much we can do about it.

 

If I need to buy new RAM for this laptop (if MSI/NCIX don't come through for me - ref above post), do you guys think I could buy 2X2GB @ 1333, or should I stick with 1066 ? One local vendor was telling me the 1333 RAM would make a difference in speed, but RAM is no returnable, and I don't know enough about laptop mobos to know if this one could accomodate 1333 Mhz RAM.

??

Thanks.

 

I'm not too sure but I believe unless you have the i7 processors, the 1066 ram is best. The i5 processors wont utilize the 1333 ram efficiently. This is what I heard, not sure if its true.

In practicality though, you wont even notice the difference from 1066 to 1333 ram in normal use.

 

On the Intel's page for the i5-430M it says that the processor's built in memory controller can handle DDR3 800/1066MHz memory.
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43537&code=430m
In any case, 1333 Mhz and 1066 Mhz offer pretty much identical performance anyway.

 

It's the other way around actually , 1333mhz is more suited for i7 7** and up.
i5 & i7 6** 1066

 

thank you all for the quick reply. I won't take a chance, and simply buy (if I must) 1066 RAM and be done with this issue. 2GB is simply just cutting it too close in some games

 

No prob man Good luck regarding ur ram issue , if only their policy wasn't like that things would have been better.

 

I was just about to go into a ranting question about why you guys don't use the drivers off of ATi's site...apparently they still haven't taken back support for their products...

Do older versions of the video drivers work?

 

Ok, I'm hoping to buy one of these in the next month or so and was waffling on where to get it from. This pretty well decides it, I think. Xotic all the way. I'll be getting the IC Diamond and upgrading the WiFi card. Having THEM update the drivers and test it all would be awesome.

 

I just e-mailed Gentech asking them similar questions:

 

That looks promising as well O_O!

 

Win-win I guess.

I"ll just have to flip a coin or something I guess...

 

So XoticPC will install 10.3 catalyst for you? does that mean they know how to fix the sleep/hibernate problem?

 

I tried the crysis demo on my gx640, and I could only get a really solid framerate at medium settings with the highest resolution. Is something wrong?

 

Stock drivers kind of aren't very good.

 

Yeah, upgrade drivers,
High performance power plan
Game on

 

which drivers are safe to upgrade to?

 

I second this.

Also, when I get my GX, what should I do to it immediately after reformatting+installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit version? Could you please reiterate what drivers to get: from the MSI cd, site, or elsewhere? Also will Windows 7 take care of 100% of everything? And should I go to ATI for the graphics drivers+CCC? Or will Windows 7 also take care of that? And lastly, what to do with regards to the sleep/hibernate thingy?

Thanks guys

 

Look for the ATI 10.3 drivers, they wont need mobility modding either (Atleast i think.)

 

So fresh install of Windows 7, followed by ATI 10.3 will address all those issues of pcie 1x/16x, downclock/underclock, hibernate/sleep ? Is it really just the GPU that's giving problems? or is it related to something else, like the CPU itself or the BIOS?

(Sorry, I'm not really tech-savvy, so further explanation would be much appreciated). I've been reading all these threads but I dont quite understand 300/300 vs 100/1000, for example.

 

No it wont fix the issues, you need to turn powerplay on a single option i think (Set it to high performance.)

10.3 Will result in best performance,

I think a bios update would resolve the issues but its unknown if it'l ever happen, lets hope so.

The numbers you are reading are the GPU clocks, it seems the graphics card is refusing to re-well..function basically at a core clock of 100 mhz, which is quite odd.

Best bets to wait a few hours, i dont have the machine but some good users do have decent fixes.

 

Thanks for the great explanation. You sir, are a savior, and MSI should be happy, as I havent defected just quite yet.

 

Hehe, no problem, i mean theres no problems with the unit, its just more like bugs.

 

So what problems have encountered on your unit, cata?

 

Apserlutely 0

 

Is that before or after the driver/software fixes?

 

cata doesn't have the gx640. he has the gt725 (i think) from a rebrand.

 

im unsure to get it though. i dont understand if the problem has been fixed(stopped). if you turn of the powerplay do the problems still happen or does it stop the porblem?

 

Check this thread. The 10.3 drivers with PowerPlay disabled are doing the job rather well.

 

Would that generate too much heat during gaming sessions though?

 

Lol powerplay has no effect on heat during gaming sessions because the graphics card just goes

So nope, it wouldn't really change anything sibelius .

 

Ok, sweet. Forgive me if I sound like an idiot; I'm pretty new to this

 

Naa man, its fine, powerplay just changes state according to power profile really, thats about it ^^.

 

Ok...I am having some serious problems. Today I installed the 10.3 driver and turned powerplay off. Now when I play my crysis demo, I can't play more than 10-20 minutes without my computer shutting down in the middle of gameplay. The screen just turns black and the computer turns off completely a few seconds later. This didn't happen before, although I don't think I ever played more than 1-2 hours at a time. I decided to check the temperatures, so I just played crysis for 5 minutes, closed out, and checked temps with Hmonitor. My gpu had risen to 89 degrees celsius in 5 minutes. Keep in mind that the shutdowns with crysis had taken place immediately before I took these temps, so it's not like it rose from room temperature to 89 degrees in 5 minutes. The total amount of play time including the shutdowns and reboots was probably around 45-60 minutes. My fans seem to be working, too; I can always hear them, especially while I'm playing the game. Sorry for the wall of text, but I'm really worried about this. Any help?

 

Run hwmonitor,

Play crysis for longer

Every 5 mins or so alt tab out

check temps

Report back.

 

Ok, so the before I started crysis, I was watching youtube videos. At this time, the gpu was at 74 degrees celsius. I ran hmonitor, booted up crysis, played for 5 minutes, alt tabbed out, and checked hmonitor. At first it said 104 degrees, but this changed to 93 degrees very quickly (in a second or less), and 93 went down to 90 degress in 2-3 seconds. I started playing crysis again to do another test, but the computer shut down again in just under 5 minutes. After powering on again, I immediately ran hmonitor, and the gpu temp sat at 83 degrees.

 

This sounds fairly much like preventive shutdown from overheating :\

 

Yeah its overheating and shutting down :/

Or safety shutting down rather.