Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Woah. I didn't see that one coming.

 

Wow really? My noob advice helped? Cool! Have fun watching 90s cartoon intros on youtube all day long. That's all I do on youtube

 

Awesome news! I just got a call from UPS informing me that my "shipment (gx640) has been accidentally misplaced at an unknown location". When I asked them for a possible location they said:"Possibly Korea, but it could also be in France because another transport departed at the same time as the one heading to Korea". Now I'll either get a refund or another GX640--either way it's probably gonna take another week

 

my ram only scores 5,9 in windows experience index, and the max bandwidth is 667 MHz according to cpu-z. ? its suposed to be 1066 MHz right? its ddr3, so something else got to be wrong. anyone else got this weird problem?

 

your ram is fine, it's dual channel. You actually have 1333Mhz RAM downclocked to 1066Mhz because of your proc.

The calculation is 667x2 (dual channel) = 1333Mhz
Your RAM should score 5.9 in WEI when at 1066Mhz, some of us see 7.4 because we're running quad cores instead of duals which allowed the RAM to run at 1333Mhz

 

oh ok. thanx for response makes me feel at ease at last


also:
do any of you get an "bad inpiut command (or somthing like that) when trying to flash the latsest bios in dos? i try to run the flash.bat file but no luck there. also the new vbios confuse me:/ atiflash.exe? will this run in dos? shal i use the bat file in the folder, despite the name?

sorry for my intense noob factor, never been usin dos before, and flashing sounds scary:/

 

BIOS. What it is, and all you need to know

BIOS flashing / BIOS RECOVERY

Are you a moron BIOS flasher?

 

Hmm maybe that'l fix my occasional problem with freezeups,

Cheers for the info.

 

No prob Bob. (Name the character who says that line. Hint: 90s sitcom.)

Also, anyone know how much of a performance boost there'll be with 450m vs the older 430m in this? Whcih will be the bottleneck- cpu or gpu?

 

You already asked that question! The gain will be very small.

And the Radeon HD5850 is way more powerful than the i5 450M.

 

Wowza. 11xx + tax wowza. Tough choice guys. Ken's too nice for me to defect to HP for. (someone correct my grammar-- that sentence doesn't look right).

7/27 is coming up soon, and I don't have anything to bring with me when I go hang out with the nerds in front of Gamestop on the night of 7/26.

 

The word you're looking for, in relation to HP, is "defecate". Because HP hardware causes bowel movements.

 

Guess you haven't been following my posts. My 2007 dv2610us is still going strong, so I happen to like HP very much. Only thing that always bugs me is their downspiraling build quality. It's getting worse and worse with these guys (but then again, everyone's going down as well). But yes, the $1114 price tag for stock config -260us at Xotic is VERY competitive.

 

Nope I haven't been stalking you, and I know all about HP's shoddy hardware. I've repaired their computers for a living, and believe me, they're the worst. Even worse than Dell, if you can believe it. Take the DV6000 and DV9000 series notebooks, for example. Before they were recalled by HP in 2008 for serious engineering issues leading to hardware failures, they were the most returned computers at Best Buy. HP decided to cut corners by using a super cheap cooling solution for the graphics chip, which eventually cause it to fry up completely. They ignored the problem for a really long time and extorted their customers with very expensive repair fees before they were forced to make a public statement and recall over 9000 computers.

Even their workstation computers suck. In a time where every motherboard manufacturer has switched to solid state capacitors, HP is still cutting corners and using traditional, el-cheapo caps. You've guessed it, they swell up and leak, causing hardware failures. All the time. I've spent days just doing those kinds of repairs on HP machines, de-soldering blown up capacitors and replacing them with solid caps. That's the kind of crap they sell to businesses and governments, believe it or not. I'd be ashamed if I were them.

They're trying to rebuild their image with the Envy notebooks, and they might very well succeed (I almost bought the 17) but in my mind they'll always be the same cheap company cutting corners everywhere they possibly can. Lenovo sucks, too.

 

Yah, maybe mine was the last of their "good" stuff lolz? Dv2610us=Dv2500=Dv2000 series. 2007 prolly the last of the "good years." And I completely agree about overpriced, overhyped Lenovo/IBMs. Yuck.

 

A few years back, HP was at the top of their game when it came to notebooks. They had the best screens, the best speakers and the best trackpads. Their keyboards were second only to IBM (naturally). There was an attention to detail that was almost obsessive. The casings were rock-solid and the designs were industrial, but functional.

Nowadays, it's all about the gloss. I wouldn't be surprised if half of HP's budget for a particular notebook went into designing the flowery patterns on their casings. The screens suck, they're all glossy TNs with bad viewing angles. The keyboards flex like mad, the speakers sound tinny, and the casings are so badly put together than you can make the cheap plastic creak with your bare hands. It's not just HP. Modern laptops suck.

/rant

 

Quite annoying really, there are alot of manufacturers taking the cheap shoddy route, and i definately remember when HP were ontop of their game.

 

Well, I'm about to pull the trigger on the gx640. Stock config. Quick questions though:

(1) How bright are the lights on touch panel above the keyboard? Frankly, the thing looks pretty ugly, and if the lights are bright on it, it could get irritating. That said . . .

(2) If I do find the touch panel irritating, do you think it could replaced by the touchpanel from the barebones version of the gx640?

(3) Lastly, how have people found MSI's warranty? The biggest reason why I'm going for the GX640 over a barebones version equiped with an i7 (and with better looks IMHO) is he 3-year MSI warranty vs. a 1-year non-MSI warranty. But if the MSI's service isn't good, it might be worth just going for a 1-year?




EDIT . . .

Well, I pulled the plug. GX640-260US has been ordered. For any of those waiting to order, btotech.com has them in stock I ordered my first laptop from them as well. Good guys.

 

The warranty is good. Pretty easy to deal with their RMA ppl. Not overly suspicious of warranty voids or anyting

 

To whom this might interest, I've installed a 2TB hard drive inside of an Acomdata Samba Quad enclosure. The particularity of that enclosure is that it embarks a controller that offers USB 2.0, eSata, IEEE 1394a and 1394b (AKA Firewire 400 & 800).

Since it's gonna be my external storage for years to come, I've decided to test transfer rates on the GX640 on all three connections. The results aren't really surprising, but hey, here they are. One thing: the hard drive is working in legacy mode (1.5Gbit/s) because of the restrictions of the eSata interface.

eSATA


IEEE 1394a


USB 2.0


I'm particularly surprised by the quality of the 1394 controller, especially considering that it shares functionalities with the SD card slot, I wasn't expecting that much.

 

Is it good or bad Dakin? And we have restrictions with esata? :S lol..

Esatas performing better then my tosh built in drive haha.

 

Dude, I've been lied to. According to the specifications of the controller, it should support full SATA 2 speeds. I removed the jumper from the hard drive and speeds skyrocketed. The documentation for the product is full of lies. LIES, I SAY. I've sent a support ticket to Acom, they'll give me the official answer within 3 working days. Until then, new benchmarks!

eSATA


1394a


USB 2.0


Ah, much better.

 

Haha, hell of a lot better mate if i may say so.

 

Yeah. The peak speed in the benchmark test (~110MB/s) is the peak speed of the hard drive itself. WD Green hard drives are on the slow side. On the other hand, they run very cool.

I'm now transferring my collection of Linux distros and public domain MP3s to my drive *cough cough*

 

do u guys get any sound problems connecting your gx640 to your tv via hdmi? I dont get any sound and I looked at the playback list in the sound menu and there is no hdmi option.

 

Realtek

Install the ATI HDMI audio device driver.

 

It's giving me the message" No Driver was supported in this driver package." Even when I tried a different compatibility mode.

 

What does your device manager tell you? Is there an unknown device somewhere down the list? This is what it should look like:

 

Agreed, all the way, dood. I'm proud to say I own a non-modern HP lappy, lol. You're totally right about the flower sh*t, and the flex. Every brand I've tested out at the store had flex. Ya know, I never knew what the term "flex" meant until recently. I didn't know what people were talking about, so one day I decided to go to BB and type on some lappies. So in Spring 2010, I discovered what "flex" meant. And holy crap, every single lappy (except mac books) had this concaving plastic sheet of plastic that I'm supposed to take notes on. My dv2610 must be that damn good, for me to never have known what "flex" meant. Damn you modern-day notebooks!

 

i bot also mine gx640 same hapen w/me.. but i found d solution to fix it yeah msi rock

 

i tink u typin realy not good

 

lol My family sells houses for a living and this one guy came in and started asking me what type of broadband was available in a certain area. He said he needed to know cause he downloads alot of "Linux distros" Im still not sure to this day if he actually made bunny ears as he said it or that was just a figment of my imagination. I told him fiber was available and he got excited and proceeded to sell him a house and a piece of land.

 

Alright guys, went for it and bought the gx640 from xoticPC.
I know they're supposed to come back mid-July, but does anybody have a date? It's gotta be pretty soon I'd imagine.

 

the ati hdmi driver just won't install. In my device manager the only thing i see under sound is Realtek High Definition Audio. I do not see any kind of ATI HDMI audio. The only different thing i see after plugging in my tv to my gx640 is generic pnp monitor and that is under monitors. I even installed the latest driver for my realtek sound card. And my 5850 is updated to the 10.6 ccc. I can't seem to find an answer anywhere. And it can't be my tv or my hdmi cable bc my ps3 works perfectly fine.

 

Despite an e-mail confirmation from BTOtech saying that they had the GX640 in stock, a follow-up phone call confirmed the opposite. However, they said they had recieved their tracking information on the shippment, and expected their stock to arrive this Thursday. A few days for testing, and I'd expect they'd start shipping them out mid-end of next week. So I'll probably get mine sometime during the week of the 26th I'd guess.

 

I received my GX640-260US from JR.com today.

I love the look and feel of it so far, but have not had time to update the video drivers and play some games.

 

Mine comes in today also , but I am out of town until Monday. How was the packaging from J&R? The laptop has been with UPS since Friday so I am a bit worried about the condition of my order.

 

The laptop was packaged in the retail box from MSI, which was then in a larger thick cardboard box with padding. Then it was all wrapped in a thick plastic. In other words, two boxes, each with their own packaging.

 

Do you know if J&R charges sales tax for California (or anywhere in US for that matter)?

 

J&R is based in New York, I believe. They do not charge sales tax in CA. Thats where I live, no sales tax.

 

yes yes yooo i found d solution to fix black screen msi rockkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!

 

elaborate?

 

Bronsky

 

MSI GX640-260US now available on Newegg.com for $1099USD (and you could get a whole 2% off with bing cashback too! )

Newegg.com - MSI GX640-260US NoteBook Intel Core i5 450M(2.40GHz) 15.4" Wide SXGA+ 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850

 

JR has 5% cashback.

 

The J&R deal looks really good. Anyone know if they made any changes to the cooling on this thing?

 

Cooling is exactly the same as the previous model.

 

I placed my order at newegg. Just couldn't say no at that price... the minor upgrades I had in mind just don't seem all that important for $1115 shipped.

 

I think the cooling of the 260US has been improved over the 098US version. GPU stays cool when idle 50c (fan at 30% which is quiet), gaming makes it warm (high 70's) but not hot. This is based on ATI Overdrive's readings.. All on stock thermal paste. No need to get a shim or modify the case or a notebook cooler or anything like that (which I read some people have done to their 098US). All this on 24c room temp.

 

I bought an open box model on newegg for 879. =) Now if i could just flash the vbios I'd be happy!