Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Here you go http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/tips/Pages/catalyst-10-3-preview.aspx

You need to uninstall you current display driver completely before installing new one.

 

personally, I don't see an issue with carrying around an 8 pound laptop instead of 6 pounds. there really isn't that much difference. battery life IS an issue though, as is size. a 17" won't fit on my desk at the college, the 8690 is a 15" though. xotic recently lowered the pricetag on that though.

 

Thank you!

 

Nice! I don;t think processor is an issue here. Core i5 has 25W TDP, and goed already to 1,1 Ghz down AND they are 32nm... very low power consumption. And also, there isn't a app to undervolt for these new i5 as far as I know and can find, and in BIOS, no options.

But I look forward to see any results on de 5850... undervolt, lower clocks to 100/500 would be great.

Btw, 10.3b, anybody working with that one exept for Dead2th3world, ánd no problems after reboot?

 

Re-ran Vantage for the heck of it.

Got P7058, CPU 7335, GPU 6970.

I feel better now that I cracked the 7000 ceiling.

Next, I'll try upgrading the driver to 10.3b and then a clean windows 7 install after that.

 

So your average performance was a driver issue?

 

Good question. I don't think it was a driver issue, as I haven't upgraded the driver yet. I think the first test I ran was a fluke result (or perhaps the 2nd test was the fluke).

Either way, it's like Lackofcheese said, it's around 7000 and that's where we expected it to be.

I love this laptop so much more than the Envy 15.

 

those are good news
congratulations on poppin' >7000

 

I'm very much interested in your results with this!

 

Banker, like you I dumped my Envy for the gX. I haven't received my GX yet but I was wondering how you found the temps like for the GX. Is it hot to game on your lap? What about for just browsing?

 

The GX640 has been interesting temps wise, it idles at a higher temp than you would like but it runs games cooler than you would expect.

 

I dunno why you might want to game on your lap. What can you play without a mouse?

Also, probably not a good idea. Your legs and pants will block the air intakes and... well, it is a lot of power in a 15" notebook.. so.

To above:

if you think about it, it actually makes sense. It's a tiny notebook with a lot of power dissipated, but the chassis feels cool. This means: very little heat is dissipated through passive measures (out the keyboard, chassis, etc), and the active cooling is everything. So when on idle, the fan doesn't spin very fast, so less heat is dissipated. Under load, the fan spins up to maximum, and proves that the cooling system is in fact sufficient. So it comes down to just a BIOS / fan speed control issue.

 

The main reason for the high idle temp seems to be that the memory stays at 1000MHz even though the core goes down to 100MHz. It should be possible to change this.

 

I tend to game with my laptop on my lap . . . sorta.

I have a rather nice lap BOARD (edit) that's about 24" deep and 36" wide, made of faily light plywood and stianed + laccqured. It's big enough to accomodate my laptop AND a superpad (a gigantic mouse pad) . In the right chair (i.e. IKEA's poang chairs or the couch) it's really comfortable.

And there isn't any worry about pants and other parts getting sucked into the intake

 

Really? Hmmmmm dynamicly changing memory clocking program?

 

Well, this thread in the ASUS subforum covers some efforts to underclock the G73JH.

 

That would really nice if it all works out. I'll try after I fix a few other things. I've got a mirror driver blocking aero right now causing a BSOD when I try to change personalization setting that I need to sort out

 

I was one of the delayed Envy's and cancelled my order last week. Your post has me looking back at the MSI again.

Nice to see this notebook working out for you guys. Sounds like a beast!

 

I used to have one of those! But mine was smaller. Really liked it. I sat on the bed and put the board on my legs or the bed sometimes and played... maybe a bit awkward sounding when I put it on a forum, but hey

Look, if the heat of a laptop burns through a piece of plywood, I'm pretty sure the laptop itself would be on fire.

 

Anybody can try this? 5850 mobile is just a lower clocked 5870 mobile, so should be working.. But I cannot test it upcoming days.

 

I just got my GX640 from Amazon, and as far as I can see there are no defects of any kind. The weird plastic protrusion of mdsniper7 is certainly not present.

It took me some time to work out how to enable the wireless adapter, because I hadn't realised what the touch sensors were. Silly of me, but I hadn't seen the like before.

There isn't too much bloatware, so I don't think a full reinstall of Windows 7 is really necessary; it would be easier just to remove the programs.

Also, this keyboard will take a little getting used to, because it's a little smaller than usual and the layout is a bit weird. I've swapped Caps Lock with LCtrl which should be nice for avoiding the unfortunate Fn/LCtrl situation, but the small RShft isn't so nice. Nonetheless, I think I shouldn't have any real trouble adapting. Also, the flex isn't at all noticeable when typing, so I doubt I'll bother with taping it at the moment.

 

How do you switch the functions of keys? I'd really appreciate being able to move the ctrl command to a different key (although I'm getting used to it)

 

It's a registry setting. I downloaded the .reg file here; I'm pretty sure it will work for Windows 7 but I haven't restarted yet so I can't confirm that it works.

 

Confirmed.
By the way, I was browsing with a whole bunch of tabs while installing programs and doing various such new-computer tasks, and the GPU temp got to around 70 degrees - it felt a little hot around the vent.

I believe it wasn't clocking itself down at all, though.

 

That's the problem with these single heat dissipation system setups. If the CPU gets hot, it affects the GPU's ability to dissipate its heat also.

 

OK so while trying to cope with power consumption issues I figured out that Eco modes are rubbish. Completely not worth it and they cannot be altered or configured in any way - so sad.
But, I set up w7's power plans in control panel and now I can get all three: power saving when on battery, performance while gaming and a bit of silence while watching movies (I still have to manually downclock GPU, but it is worth it, because it shuts the fan up and GPU temperature while idling drops to 50-53 C (on full default clock speeds stable 61 C idling)).
I'll need to make some tests with battery and see how much I can work on battery.

 

Well, my GPU is currently running at 100/300, and it seems to be working fine at those speeds. The GPU is now at 58 degrees C while I'm browsing and typing here - it seems hotter than it ought to be, so I'm a little worried about how it'll go during gaming and benchmarking. Room temperature is 23C, too.

When I tried to clock the memory below 300MHz I started to get artifacting, though.

The version of the AMD GPU clock tool I found when I merely googled for it didn't work at all, but the version in this thread worked perfectly.

 

Very nice! And Molius also! But how you guys managed this? Turn off this MSI ECO thing, (how?) Can you be more specific? Which driver, which programs to turn down clock speeds?

 

I'm using the stock drivers that came with the laptop, and I downloaded the AMD GPU Clock Tool from the link in my previous post.

 

ECO is useful in the fact that is underclocks ur processor. Don't know how much it does with the i5s but it brings me from 1.73Ghz to 1.19.

With power saver, eco turbo battery, gpu at 300/300 and 16x im at 52-54 with quad core while web browsing

 

That's the way, I have unpacked my GX640 (was to return it), installed it and now running @ 100/300. Ambient temp = 19.5C/67.1F, (Core i5 running @ 1.2 Ghz, consuming 7.12 Watt), GPU temp = 48C/119F, and my fan is finally quiet al the time!!! Thanks guys.

 

I wonder what battery life with these clocks are? Would you mind testing (at some point)? This sounds quite awesome.. better than I expected.

 

Turns out there's a little protective bit of plastic on top of the MSI logo underneath the screen.

I just found it!! I bet 99.999% of you didn't find it either!!

 

Hello everybody
I have just bought this laptop in our local msi shop Everything is nice. I haven't installed any additional drivers or deleted any programs just installed some programs/games. I got 5358 3dmark vantage score (4967 GPU and 7018 CPU) and 10.317 3dmark 06 scores. (SM2.0-4733, SM3.0-4474, CPU-2600). It seems to me it is not good result. What should I do to impove it?
Sorry for my bad English please.

 

Hmm, well, your ambient temp is nice (something like 3.5 degrees lower than mine), but my GPU is still at 56C as I type this, even though I'm running at 100/300 like you. I guess my GX640 is a hotter.
Gah, I hope it still gets nice temps while gaming.

 

Eco mode is off by default and can be turned on by pressing "Eco" on touch panel. However, I didn't find any of these modes useful because most of them keep CPU at maximum speed for all the time (although processor is "intelligent" enough to put more power when it needs to.)

lackofcheese, I also used the same AMD clock tool, but I have no problems when downclocking to 100/150 and even 100/100 (remember to take middle step when downclocking (300/300), or you'll get artifacts)

As I mentioned earlier, this helps to reduce both GPU and CPU temperature and to allow the fan to reduce the revs to minimum level, drastically reducing the noise level. However, fan kicks off from time to time (about once in 15-30 seconds). I'd like to keep it in "silent" mode constantly while not gaming. I believe more managing tools and programs will be released in near future that allow us easily manage CPU, GPU and their power consumption and temperatures to a fully feasible level. (I loved Notebook Hardware Control in XP: monitoring, undervolting, profiling, battery management in one package)

Also, another of my issues about sound and touch panel "blurping" I noticed that I can eliminate this effect when pressing the corners of the panel (it has some minimal flex), so my problem was because this panel has some freedom so move and it easily resonates and vibrates to speaker sounds of certain frequencies (especially middle freq . range sounds).
I think I will disassemble and reassemble this part of the notebook tightening this touch panel and thus making it impossible for that panel to vibrate and ruin the sound from speakers.

Edit: my temps with 100/150 and processor on 1.2GHz are: CPU 42 C, GPU 54 C. The fan is quiet and I love this setting for quiet web browsing. In few days (maybe on weekend) I hope to test battery on these settings. with reduced screen brigtness, disabled unneded devices (modem, bluetooth, DVD drive etc) I hope to get a solid battery usage result.

One more interesting thing from ATI's website:

So, let's wait for next driver release.

 

That's the curious thing. The GX640 internal temps (CPU, GPU) are about 5-10*C hotter on average than those of the Envy 15's. However, the GX640 fan is almost just as quiet as the Envy's. Even better, the bottom of the GX640 gets warm. That's it. It doesn't get as "blistering" hot as the Envy did. I could fry eggs on the bottom of the Envy.

I'll gladly take higher internal temps (within reason of course) to avoid burning my hand when I pick up a laptop.

 

One thing I was wondering about this notebook is does it support multi touch scrolling, zoom and other features?

 

No, it's a simple touchpad.

 

Mine seems to artifact as soon as a I drop memory to 250MHz or lower, even if the drop is from 100/251 to 100/250. On the plus side, it seems to be perfectly happy to jump between 100/251 and 625/1000 without any trouble at all.

There doesn't seem to be any trouble with 50/251, but it hasn't cooled down enough to drop the fan speed below 30% - it seems 55C isn't cool enough. Nonetheless, the fan doesn't trouble me at all when it's at 30%, so I don't mind.

Molius, what's the ambient temperature where you are?

 

I have absolutely no regrets about returning the Envy 15 and going with the MSI GX640.

I'm glad to see that whatever build quality issues MSI suffered through in the past have been addressed in the present.

I love the touch sensor controls above the keyboard. I love having a laptop that uses space effectively by adding a number pad. I love having a screen lid that can open as far as I want it to open. I love having a touchpad that doesn't have buttons underneath the surface and causes the cursor to move whenever I press down on the buttons. I love having more ports than just USB.

For me, the Envy 15's cardinal sins were:
limited screen lid open range
quick launch keys to the left of the keyboard
really hot bottom of laptop while gaming
embedded mouse buttons in touchpad
an in-home service warranty which really doesn't provide service in your home

 

Congrats on getting it lackofcheese. It's about time!

Why did you want to swap the left Ctrl key with the Cap Locks key?

I'm in total agreement about the minor keyboard flex. I have so many things I want to do with this laptop before I even possibly think about taping it (it really is such a minor thing if you're not a typing groundpounder).

 

The Caps/LCtrl swap is a registry setting I linked in a previous post. The reason for the swap is that the LCtrl on the GX640 is rather unfortunately positioned because of the Fn key. I think that the Caps Lock key is much nicer to reach with the pinky, so it makes sense to swap it with LCtrl.

I find it quite amusing that I tried to underclock my GPU before running any gaming benchmarks or the like. Can I even call myself a gamer now?

I'm still a little worried that my GX640 might be hotter than other peoples', but it's running reasonably cool with my 50/251 underclock as I type this - CPU @ 48C/44C (Core #0/Core #2 - why does HWMonitor label them like that?), GPU @ 54-55C. GPU-Z reports the fan running at 30% - audible but I don't mind. How goes the fan for the rest of you, and is GPU-Z reporting it correctly?

Also, the previous time I restarted my PCIe was at x1 according to GPU-Z, but now it's at x16; I don't think I've changed anything either. I figured I'd disable PowerPlay, though, since I'll probably be able to get better results changing my GPU clocks manually.

 

Wow, I am not sure how, but my GPU is now 45C and CPU's are 31 and 34C (100/300). Ambient temp is now 19C. You would expect if ambient temp does rise with 4 degrees, the CPU/GPU temp would also. However, I can't test it @ ambient 23C now . But maybe I am lucky, and my cooling unit is very well pasted to GPU and CPU, so my temps are relatively lower despite lower ambient temp. I have a GX640-084NL, but I am pretty sure, there is not 1 difference between 098US and 084NL, based on all your specs and mine. So most likely exact same product line from factory, just other stickers.

 

Indeed, you're absolutely right that you would expect component temps to go up 1 degree for every degree of ambient temperature, so it looks to me like your cooling is just better (a hell of a lot better!), for one reason or another. It's still possible the 084NL might be different somehow, but it's more likely that you just lucked out.

I'm now at 48/43/53 (CPU#0/CPU#2/GPU) with my GPU running at 50/100 (Beat that!); the temps might go down a little more, but I don't think it will be very much.

What kind of temperatures are you getting under load? I've been too scared to load my GPU at all.

Oh, and is your battery attached?

 

What are you using to measure? Speedfan does not report the right temperature.

 

Battery was not attached! Now im working pure on battery (no power cord) and de GPU temp goes to 47/48 (it was 43 @lowest).

edit: HWmonitor and GPU-Z.

And another cool thing, don't know if it's true, Windows 7 says: 3h 37mins of battery time left!! @100/300. Will test lower clocks later, should have been sleeping 3 hours ago..

 

HWMonitor and/or GPU-Z (they both agree on the temp).

What about with the battery attached (and fully charged) but on A/C power? That's how I have it at the moment, but I think the temps might be lower if I remove the battery. Do I have to turn off the laptop to remove the battery?

Windows 7 tells me ~3h 10min on min brightness with my GPU at 50/100, which sounds pretty good to me.

 

If it's plugged in , no.

 

10 char delete