Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Well, I know how the paste/shims work. Just wanted to know if you can throw paste ontop of the pads, cuz I'm not sure what they're actually made of.

 

You don't have to, the reason the pads are there is so you don't have to use thermal paste. Memory modules don't get hot enough to justify thermal paste anyway. Use a copper shim to reduce the space between the GPU and the heatsink.

 

Not true for me. I didnt start having the sleep issue till i started playing with the GPU tool.

 

Wow, supposedly you can overclock the gx640 cpu with setfsb. Check out one of the threads on the hardware forum (Its like q9200 vs 820qm).

 

You may be able to trim down the stock thermal pads but it would be a very delicate process. You'd have to use a hobby knife or razor blade. I honestly don't think it will be easy without ripping the pads. Also keep in mind that you are not supposed to touch the pads with your bare fingers as the oils and/or dirt from your fingers can contaminate the pads and reduce their effectiveness. I tried looking for thinner pads at first but the only ones I could find were too thin, almost paper thin, so I decided to do the copper shim mod and I purchased new pads which were about the same thickness as the stock ones.

Also, I originally tried putting paste on the memory instead of the pads, but the paste would not make good contact with the heatsink except for one or two memory chips. I would have had to put on an enormous amount of paste to achieve good contact and didn't want to do that as it would get really sloppy then.

 

It seems the new bios definitely reduces overheating. RKcomputers also has a forum post that shows off the heatsink upgrade. 80 max on an 800/1040 OC with Vantage looks great.

 

Overclocking i series was posted aaaaaaagggeees ago for the msi machines but it was so fastly stepped over, people have missed it.

Wonder how they're cooling the cards, undervolt?

 

I think its a pretty big undervolt to .95 but somehow either these cards need very little voltage on a big overclock or the vbios does something else (maybe memory voltage?). Also yay for iseries ocing. No one told me about that. Now I am really pumped for wednesday.

 

Thanks for the reply! If I want to do the copper shim mod, what's the thickness of the copper shim i should use? And how well is your mod working? any significant temperature drops?

 

Really gota update the MSI OC thread with all this new junk, problem is its full of stuff on the first page lol.

 

Check out this thread here. I posted the parts I used and the procedure with pics. I also posted my before and after temps. It was definitely worth it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/482836-thermal-past-upgrade-worth-6.html

 

Why would MSI delay the release of this laptop till july when they've already got the product ready to go? I think the first batch of the GX 640 are used as test models, to get some user's feedback. Hopefully MSI will make changes to the official July release batch accordingly before their release. Sorry if my wordings are messed up, I was listening to the news when I typed this.

 

I don't think MSI will address much with the new GX640. I think it will be exactly the same except for the CPU. What I am interested in is when the GT660 or GE700 will be released because they have nice chicklet style keyboards, and I just have a funny feeling that they will fit and work on the GX640 as well.

 

I have a 260US with a build date of June 4th and there's no difference with the previous model, except for the keyboard: I'm not getting any flex at all. Hurray.

It's actually one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever used, minus the fn and ctrl placement issue.

 

Under the keyboard MSI has placed some cushions (kind of like the type found in double-sided tape) to address flex. The 0980us model that I have has the same cushions and I don't think they added more in the 260us model.
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Eh, I'm not taking off the keyboard to verify that info, I'll just trust your word. I'm just surprised that so many people are complaining about keyboard flex when I'm getting none at all.

 

Mine still flexes a bit, especially around the spacebar so perhaps MSI put some more of those cushions on the new models.

 

It all depends how you type. My brother noticed it immediately when he tried it the first time while I hardly notice it at all. I type lightly whereas my brother comes down hard on the keys. I only notice it when I game and press on the left-ctrl and left-shift keys. But, yeah, MSI needs to work on their keyboard build quality. My ASUS doesn't have this flex. On the bright side, it doesn't have the keyboard lag that the ASUS is notorious for when you have the synaptics drivers installed.

 

hmm, how long would you expect this laptop to last without any cooling mods? I highly doubt I'll be able to find a store that has copper shims in Toronto.

 

The new bios really cools things down so it should last a while.

 

really? What's the new max temp after the bios update? screenshot please?

 

Well rkcomputers has some benchmarks of it with their heatsink upgrade. Even without the heatsink, it is a pretty sizable undervolt, so it should fix the overheating.

 

I love how MSI would rather do a BIOS update on all the GX models than to invest and develop a better cooling solution for its entire line of gaming laptops.

Still not convinced by the bios update, I think I'm still gonna try to do the copper shim mod

 

It seems all the 5850 and 5870 got a bios so I don't get your problem. The heating is actually really good, just a couple adjustments (better backplate, slight heatsink redesign) and its supercool. RK, with new bios, ic diamond tc, and mirror finish heatsinks, got 80 celsius max on memIO with an oc to 800/1040 with vantage. If that isn't good, I have no clue what is.

 

yeah the problem is that I'm not buying my GX 640 from RK computers so I can't get the heatsink upgrade! Let alone the IC diamond thermal paste.

 

You don't have to use IC Diamond. OCZ Freeze is $3 a tube and will work nicely. A copper shim can be purchased on eBay for around $3 shipped as well. I bought two for $5 and the guy threw in free Arctic Silver 5. The whole mod will cost you less than $10.

I can tell that you're nervous about purchasing this laptop. But don't worry, the default cooling is more than adequate. In fact, you don't even have to mod the laptop at all, it's fine as it is. It's just an option that's out there for you.

 

why is it that all of you guys fin the firmware and bios update so easily? i feel like a total retard atm

i folowed this MSI Europe ? Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more
as good as i could. but when i try to boot from usb stick i get an bootmang is missing error:/

also this guide confuses me a bit, as they suddenly mention the EC update in the middle of it. shal i update ec first then? and how do i do this? meh, this is so complicated i cant seems to get the vbios update on msi's site to work well eighter, and the beta one i could burn to cd wouldn't boot eighter.

is it me overlooking something obvious or is my model acting out of the ordinary?

 

Does applying the paste yourself and doing the shims void the warranty? My gut says yes but i'm hoping no.

 

it voids the warranty on your gpu and cpu as well as the fan and cooling unit. Basically anything you modify or touch in any way you risk voiding your warranty on

 

The Official MSI MSI HQ User to User Forum - Index forums have a different view.
Official Reps claim that cleaning and re-pasting done in a "professional" manner does not void warranty.

P.s: "Professional" means that you don't go around damaging parts of your laptop.

 

Hey guys, I posted a topic in the "What laptop to buy" subforum and one of the recommendations was the GX640. I've basically read through this ENTIRE thread (The more I read, the more excited and curious I became), but I still have some questions. Hopefully I didn't miss them if they were in here already.

1. I thought I read something somewhere about an included mouse? What does it look like? Is it worth using? Or is that a bonus that they don't include anymore like the backpacks?
2. From what I gather, the heating problem seems a bit overblown, but has anybody actually gotten a heatsink upgrade from RK? If so, which one? Worth it in the long run? I'm afraid my knowledge on this kind of stuff is lacking a bit. I'd rather not do upgrades myself if I don't have to, so if it's really worth it, I'd rather get it done when I order it.
3. I'm thinking about upgrading the ram to 6gb, but $215(xotic)/$300(RK) is a bit much. Did any of you upgrade the Ram? Is it worth the cost? My father is an IT professional, and he's recommending I get 6gb for windows 7. Are any of you 4gb guys bothered by the RAM size?
4. Why so much inconsistency with the laptop speakers? Some places say they're some of the best laptop speakers they've ever heard, while others say they're terrible. What gives? (A side note: think I'm going to ask RC/Xotic to test the speaker beyond 30% volume for me to check for that static problem I've read about)
5. Do you guys know of any protective sleeve that will fit the Gx640? I'd like to have something to keep it in while not in use.

I think that's it. I've done soooooooo much laptop shopping these past few weeks, but the GX640 might be my top pick at the moment. That warranty makes me pretty relieved...

 

I am getting my laptop tomorrow with the full heatsink upgrade. The mouse and backpack is only for europe. 6 gigs of ram is a waste now, when 4 gig sticks become cheap, it is very to upgrade. The other questions I don't have answers to yet, I can help out tomorrow. The warranity is very good.

 

1. The mouse is a MSI Starmouse GS-XXX(Mine was 502, maybe they offer a new ones now). It is fairly good, I mean since touchpad is out of question for gaming, between a standard optical/laser and gaming one like from Logitech or Razer, MSI comes in-between where you dont feel the need to get a "pure" gaming mouse.

2. I really dont know about RK, but if you plan on upgrading the CPU, then you'll need some work. I know how skeptic one can be about modding, I would recommend doing it yourself. I mean how much better RK can be from MSi itself? Plus you'll need a thermal re-paste anyways.
Actually if you dont really indulge into temperatures then this is more or less a time-waste, cuz it isnt a big deal(until your unit is defective and hits 110*c).

3.Nah, 4 is good for now, until you are into Maya or Max.

4.Speakers wont match any desktop, get a good pair of headphones or a external surround system if you are audiophile.

5.Do you mean a bag? Then pick up any one of the Targus laptop bags.

 

I think that when I can eventually order and get my GX640, I'll just be buying thermal paste myself and doing it myself. That being said, i'll also be emailing an MSI rep and asking if this voids the warranty and what would constitute voiding the warranty when doing this. And then I will proceed to save that email and print it out just in case of a dispute.

I'm going to be buying this laptop largely due to the 3 year warranty it has, which makes me less apprehensive about the heat issues, I don't want anything to void it. I just don't want ball-burns when playing COD.

 

after a lot of job i finally got a working bootable usb drive, with the latest bios, vbios and ec. as i'm green on the subject could someone please give me a helping hand on this? im so nervous

i plan to first run the ec update, where i use the eccall.bat file
then i'll run the bios update and use the flash.bat
and finally the vbios update where i use atiflash.bat

shal i turn off/remove batery and powercore and reset bios to default setting between the updates, or shall i run all 3 updates first? is there anything else i need to change/know before i do this?


i find the info @ msi verry poor on this subject. and therefore i hope for help here

 

How would one go about overclocking the i5 450m in the 260us? Same way as the 098us? Is it just using setfsb or throttlestop?

 

one question about the warranty
If I live in Canada do I still get the full 3 year warranty? Because on the MSI website it said one year GLOBAL warranty and 2 year basic warranty IN THE US ...What the hell does that mean? does it mean that if I live outside of the states (Canada is where I'm currently holed up) I only have a crappy one year warranty?

 

1. It's supposed to be a European exclusive, but some of the specialized vendors have it. I'd say screw the "free" goodies and get yourself a decent travel mouse and backpack instead.

2. There's no heating problem if you don't overclock. The default cooling solution is meant to provide adequate heat exchange with a stock configuration.

3. 4GB is perfect unless you use specialized (medical, simulation, aviation, etc) software. In which case, this is not the laptop for you.

4. The sound is horrible on the speakers. It's tinny, there's no bass at all, and if you pump up the volume past 50, the aluminum grill starts vibrating. HOWEVER, the on-board sound chip is great for music. I'm anal when it comes to sound quality and I can tell you that MSI has done a great job with the sound. There's no audible interference on speakers or headphones and the audio is clear as day with all of the effects and enhancements turned off. The card easily competes with my old Audigy 2 in terms of clarity. Just use headphones.

5. Any 15.4" laptop pouch should do, just make sure that the protruding battery fits as well.

 

It looks like it's 2 years for you guys.

MSI Canada ? Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more

Hey, at least you have universal health care coverage.

 

Huh... maybe thats standard minimum policy and certain laptops may come with longer warranties?

My MSI account says 3 years

 

lol you are right I am very jittery about this . I'll see how the default cooling performs when I get the laptop. What are your temps btw? thanks!

 

Well right now it's pretty hot (~30°C + 70% humidity) so the temps are slightly higher than usual, but I'm getting:

idle (stock clocks, powerplay enabled, so 100/150MHz when idling, minimum temps)
CPU: 45°C
GPU: 51°C

load (stock clocks, max temps after an hour of Crysis on High settings)
CPU: 73°C
GPU: 93°C

That's without any mods and using stock thermal paste. I'll post new temps once I mod everything next week hopefully. Oh, and with a 745/1000 overclock, I hit 105°C at one point during Crysis. Bacon anyone?

 

Hey, I'm new here and I've been reading through this thread because the GX640 seems like it would be awesome for me. The only thing is that I'm between this and the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820. The GX640 has the Aspire in GPU horsepower, 5850 v. 5650, but the battery life is lower by as much as 50% of the Aspire's. I'm a Senior in high school, so this laptop has college in mind, so I need to be able to take this thing to class to take notes, and I don't think my classes will always have convenient outlets. So, since I'm sure people here are knowledgeable, do you guys think that the battery life on the GX640 will get me through my lectures? If it does, this laptop seems better in every way, thanks.

 

Will you be gaming? If yes, then GX640. Its 9-cell will give you above 2hours computer time. If you're not gaming, then get the TimelineX 3820T, since you won't need the GPU. Run's cooler too, and has long battery life.

 

Yeah, I was planning on gaming. I'll be honest, I'm actually not sure how long college lectures are Am I really going to run into 2hr+ lectures very often?

Either way, you think that the 5650 is so much weaker that I should just go for the MSI?

EDIT: I feel rude; thanks for helping me out so quickly at midnight, that's pretty sick (especially for someone who *still* hasn't bought the thing xD )

 

Does anyone know where to find the GX640 in stock right now? I need the laptop delivered by the 20th, any ideas?

 

93C is a bit on the high side, but still acceptable. And I'm assuming the 30C ambient temperature reading was taken outside of your house, cause no one would survive a room that hot. looking forward to your new temps after the mod

 

well its official release date is mid~late july, but I think RK computers has some in stock

 

I'd say around 3.5 hours with Power Saver/MSI ECO and PowerPlay, if you're just using Word or OneNote. I wouldn't recommend gaming while on battery power, but 1.5 to 2 hours is a pretty realistic figure for that usage. You can't have it all when choosing a gaming laptop, it's either raw power or battery autonomy. But hey, props to MSI for including a 9 cell battery.

Also, take a look at these sweet charts:
MSI GX640: $1100 for a Speedy DX11 Laptop - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

There's an Acer laptop with a Core i5 430M and a Radeon HD 5650 in there. I don't know if the specs are the same, but it should help you a bit, hopefully.

 

Thanks for the response. RK is taking pre-orders it looks like.

MSI GX640-260US 15.4" WSXGA+ Intel® Arrandale Core™ i5 Gaming Notebook 9S7-165611-260

"This Item Is Currently A Pre-Order. Manufactures ETA Is Mid-July And Can Be Subject To Change. Limited Quantity Available. Stock Shown Is Pre-Orders Available."