Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

As a max temp? and what's your ambient temp?

 

Same here Tree_Burner. Ordered on 8th. Went on Phase 2 on 12th. Mailed xoticpc and they told me last week that my order should be shipped out early or mid week ( this week), and its already wednesday .

Still in phase 2 as of now ....Please let us know when you get your order, thanks .

 

I'm thinking of buying the GX640, and am thinking of getting a palm rest because my last lap top started to stain (although it was very old). Would it be wise to get this accessory? Or will the heat from the laptop effect the palm rest (in turn overheat the computer more?).

 

Mine is 22 degrees Celsius at the moment, it seems.

In any case, I'd already figured my GX640 is hotter than average, but it doesn't seem problematic to me.

 

hmmmm why is xotic being so slow these days?

I ordered from gentech on sunday and it shipped on the wednesday

 

I talked to Joseph L over there and he said they've been extremely busy. he hasn't even had time to review the gx640. mine is being worked on now though and should ship today or tomorrow.

 

Yes, max temp running Vantage. PCIe x16, stock clocks (625/1000).

My temp here is 76*F (sorry, too lazy to convert to C). I hate the cold!

 

Well hopefully, mine will be out too by tomorrow at the least. Should have been out much faster considering its a stock model. 9 business days and waiting.

 

anyone else going to test this new vbios? see if it fixes the pcie "problem". Don't know how much I'll test it since my battery isn't connected right now since I won't be unplugging it for the next week or so

 

Hey ! I've just received mine... but I've got a problem : I've started the computer, seen Windows Startup logo, and then "Starting up services", and finally "Installing devices (2 %)". And after that, the screen went black. And now, 30 minutes after, it's still black, the fan is running, and the hard drive icon on le keyboard doesn't blink (it's off).
What's happening ? Anyone knows ?

 

thats....unusual. Where did u purchase from? Are you planning to keep with the default OS or just upgrade it to something else?

 

Yet another question.

Has anyone played BFBC2 on the gx640 yet? If so, what kind of average frames are you getting?

I've heard BFBC2 really wants a quad core processor, but those rumors are not confirmed. Thanks!

 

Rumors and pure speculation.

I was playing BFBC2 on my ex-HP Envy 15 2nd gen (i5-520M CPU; ATI 5830 Mobility 1 GB DDR3 RAM). With stock GPU clocks, I was averaging 35 fps at low/medium settings combination. With the GPU OCd, I was averaging 60 fps at those same settings combination.

While I haven't played BFBC2 on my GX640 yet, I expect it to have much higher framerates, given its GPU is much better than that of the Envy.

 

I purshased from NCIX. I want to have Windows 7 64-bit.

I've done a few tests, and I've found that after shutting down and powering up the PC, the screen doesn't turn on. I have to wait a couple of minutes, and then power it up, to get it working.

I think the video card is in cause, and that it's not well plugged (I hope so).

I've tried recovering the system, and when it came to the end, there's a pop-up telling that you have to reboot your PC. When I click "OK", the screen goes black, but never turns on anymore.
If the cause was the video card running too hot, the screen would have gone black while recovering the system, no ?

I really don't want to RMA this one, I live in Quebec and I've waited more than a week to receive it.

 

Hmmm not quite sure. Anyone have any ideas?

If you need to RMA it, the MSI service centre for Canada is in Richmond Hill, Ontario so that's a bit closer than sending it all the way back to NCIX in BC.

 

Thanks.

What I'm going to do is opening the laptop, and unplug/plug the video card.

I'm still waiting for any advices.

 

That voids the warranty. I suggest you to try plugging it into an external monitor and see whether it's the LCD's fault, first.

 

Well what do you know ...2 hrs after my last post ranting about the shipping, they actually shipped my order just now ...Waiting to get my hands on it !! ..

Will do basic benchmarking on the laptop and show you the scores I am getting ..

 

Thanks for the info... but how will they know I've unplugged it ?

But before, I will try plugging the laptop into my brother's LCD via the VGA output, as you said.

 

I did it... but I have no output. None on the screen, none on the external LCD...

The video card is in cause, f*** it.

Are you sure I can't unplug/plug the video card ???

 

email msi? or go look up the warranty and read it

 

No you can't. Try this , unplugged the power cord and remove the battery .. take the back cover off and remove the cmos battery. Wait 10mins and pop every back in.

 

I've opened it, but It's too much trouble to unplug the videocard... so my only option now is to send it back -_-"

 

Yeah don't "unplug" the vid card, that requires taking off the heatsink which breaks the thermal paste, it's pretty obvious when someone removes a heatsink without reapplying paste. Not worth risking a warranty void, I'd RMA it. If you are a bit mroe daring and willing to try things before RMA, you ought to try a bios flash/update.

 

Try what i said , that won't void your warranty .. your call.

 

Thanks for the answer, hakira.

I'd love to try a bios flash/update, but I can't get the screen to turn on !
Whatever I try, there's no output

 

@Dead2th3world --> I'm going to try this.

 

Haha where is the CMOS battery ? Is it between the heatsink and the Ram ports ? If that is, it's pretty hard to remove .

 

It's a flat round cell. It's safe to remove the ram though (if needed)

EDIT : It's hard to locate on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr75CNudmGM&NR=1

 

oh good. since ours went into phase 2 on the same day maybe mine will ship soon (today) too.

 

I don't think the CMOS Battery is removable.

I've tried different ways, and still no such luck.

 

It should be removable otherwise how would you reset your system ?

But if you can't remove it , just leave your machine without any power source connected. Holding down the power button(for 60sec) helps draining any additional juice too.

 

I've got a last question for you guys : is it better to RMA with NCIX (I paid for the 30-days Express RMA) of directly with MSI ?

Which will be faster (I live in Quebec) ?

Someone on this thread told me that MSI Support Centre is in Ontario (close to Quebec), but will MSI send me a new one ? Or the process time will be faster with NCIX ?

Thanks again for all your help, you guys are great !

 

You paid for express RMA, so might as well use it, right?

 

Alright, this is my last hope, thanks

 

Haha you're so right

 

I love when people ask questions that they already know the obvious answer to!

 

A bit of confirmation helps, sometimes

 

So does having confidence in oneself when you know what the right answer already is.

 

Everybody likes knowing other people agree with their decisions. Hitler was awfully confident he knew the right answers to everything.

 

But he also was surrounded by people that agreed with his decisions. Those that didn't sort of disappeared.

 

Agreed. But in this person's case, it was a no-brainer decision to use a service that he'd already paid for in cases just like what he is currently going through.

 

Is there a sticky or section in the forums to get informed about all these benchmark programs and how to set up my core/gpu temp gadgets?

 

Just look at other people's screenshots and do the same. I'd never done any before, but I just looked at what other people did.
You'll want GPU-Z and CPU-Z for information, HWMonitor for temperature monitoring, and 3DMark Vantage is currently the easiest way to verify if your GX640 is performing the way it ought to be.

 

so anyone try the new bios yet?

 

woo!!! it shipped today!! =)

 

new bios is nothing. I tried and it's the one already installed. Boooo MSI for posting it late.

 

I'll also add 3DMark06, since it's been around for a long time and it's free (unlike Vantage).

However, Lackofcheese is correct about running Vantage first, since it's basically replaced 3DMark06 as the benchmark du jour.

Congratulations!

 

Which 3DMark Vantage is recommended - basic or advanced?

 

I'm hoping you MSI GX640 owners can shed some light for me. I am comparing two notebooks now, the MSI GX640 (1) and a new, cheap Dell Studio 15 (2).

(1):
Intel® Core™ i5-430M
15.4" TFT-LCD Widescreen Display (1680x1050) - is it LED or CCFL?
ATI Radeon™ HD5850 3D graphics card with GDDR5 1GB VRAM
500GB SATA Hard Drive 7200RPM
Intel Centrino 5100 wireless? (can someone confirm this?)

vs (2):
Intel® Core™ i5-520M
15.6” Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5470, 1GB
320GB SATA Hard Drive 7200RPM
Intel© Centrino© Advanced-N 6200


Both laptops have 9-cell batteries, internal bluetooth, 4gb RAM. Both will end up costing me ~$1100. The Dell only has a 320gb hard drive, but like the MSI it is 7200rpm and that's all I really care about. The Dell has the faster CPU, but the MSI clearly has the better GPU. While I do consider myself a PC gamer, I would prefer the faster CPU as I plan to do many non-gaming activities such as programming/compiling, occasional x264 / other video encoding, and Adobe/Autodesk applications for school/work. I assume the Dell would last much longer than 3 hours on a full charge. I am also concerned about build quality - I've read that the Studio 1555 has issues with the touchpad getting hot, and I've also scanned most of the pages in this thread and read of potential GX640 problems too.

Any strong reason you guys can give me to choose one or the other?