Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Agreed. Since I modded my heatsink, my temps went from 85-90°C to ~75°C in GTA IV and Crysis. It seems that the results only got better with time, as the new thermal paste settled in and spread on its own.

 

Dakins, did you remove the thermal pads as well or just inserted the copper shim? And how thick was the copper you used?

 

BTW, if You guys are concerned about the warranty in case of removing the thermal pads, You can always get them on ebay...

 

Hi I got gx740 spec is the same as gx640 except it was 5870
any way is this benchmark score low?
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/5296/capturelm.png
http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/8426/capture1pr.png
thanks

 

ok thank you, I am going to leave the undervolt. Can somebody show me where to buy heatpads and tell me if any cooper shim will do the work ?

Thanks a lot

 

THere is a thread here on this board with somebody who has complete instructions on adding the shim in and why he left the thermal pads in. He really lowered temperatures down significantly.

If you look earlier in this thread, there is a link to that post.

 

OMG

Can you tell me how and what do i need to to get that kind of temp.
I saw your posts about headpad or cooper shim but didnt understood what those stuff are.

 

I own the gx640 about a month and have done many mods to the cooling system including copper shim, better thermal pads, and used arctic silver 5. Running furmark never reached above 85C under stock voltage and clock speed. everything is going well until I recently traveled oversea where as every time i plug in the power adapter (220v vs 110v in US), the metal body of the gx640 will give me a tinny static electric feeling on both the back of the monitor and the palm rest. I can not feel the sensation when i press my hand, only when I lightly brush my hand across the surface. using the battery only does not have this issue. I am wondering if anyone else have this issue? Could it be the power adapter not grounded properly or it has to do with the humid weather of this place or worse, the laptop itself? The computer runs fine. Its very minimal, but it is still annoying and I wish to have a problem free laptop. Any solutions? I will report back once I test it with US socket and my friend's gx640 power supply. Thanks

 

I remember a while back that someone posted a link to the MSI forums regarding warranty's and the re-application of thermal paste.

I recieved my GX640 and the temps are okay, but I'd like to lower them. Either the copper shim method or removing the memory thermal pads and thermal repasting the whole thing might be in order . . . but what about the warranty?

I've heard people mention that MSI is fairly lax about reapplying paste and getting warranties. Anyone had any experience or thoughts on the issue?

 

yes removing the pads will kiss the warranty good bye. Even worse, adding thermal paste will do more harm than good because the gap between the heatsink and the memory is too far, only a 2mm or thicker thermal pad will be effective. you can find those pads on ebay

 

You're saying a 2mm thick thermal pad for the GPU or the memory? Memory right?

Basically, any unscrewing of the heatsink voids warranty from what you're saying? How do the resellers get away with it then?

 

Am I right in thinking that the GX740 i5 will play fallout3 Maxed out @ full res with downloaded texture mods?

 

Ocz Freeze thermal paste: $3
2 copper shims on eBay: $5
15°C temperature improvement: priceless

So basically, there's a pretty big gap between the GPU and the heatsink. MSI saw fit to fill that gap with a humongous amount of thermal paste. Needless to say, it's a pretty dumb idea.

A shim is defined as a thin piece of material. It's a pretty broad definition, but in this case, it's a small square piece of copper that will fill the gap between the GPU and the heatsink. To apply it, you first need to remove the stock thermal paste using Q-Tips and rubbing alcohol. It's a PITA, but it needs to be done.

After cleaning up the GPU, you need to apply new thermal paste. Don't spread it with your fingers, it will spread on its own. Just drop a small pea of paste on the middle of the GPU. Then, you need to have thermal paste between the shim and the heatsink. The best way to do that is to flip the heatsink over on a flat surface. Apply another spot of paste in the middle of the little square on the heatsink that's supposed to touch the GPU and stick the shim right on top of it. Line up the corners of the shim with the heatsink and then reinstall the heatsink. Tighten up the screws, and reassemble the cover.

Results won't be immediately visible. Temps were mostly the same for me at first. Even though OCZ advertises no curing time for the paste to take effect, it took a few days for results to show up.

 

So i tried again an undervolt but this time I set voltage to 0.95v and it worked ! I lost 6c° at 5 minutes furmark (99c° before => 92 c° after)


In IDLE the temps also dropped significatively (66c° @1.05v 625/1000 => 54C°@0.9v 625/1000).

But i've noticed some issues, when I downclock, the voltage come back to 1.05v (with GPU clock tool).
And when I take a windows to the top of the screen (to maximise) I can see some artefacts (some pixel lines). Do you have a solution ?

 

wait, you added TWO copper shims? How did you do that? did you just stacked them on top of each other? And do you need to add thermal paste in the middle as well?

Btw do you have to register the laptop on the MSI website to activate the warranty?

 

Yeah, I just sandwiched the two shims with thermal paste between them. Shims are cut manually from a large sheet of copper, so depending on who's doing them, you're gonna get different sizes and thicknesses. The ones I bought happened to be pretty thin, so I managed to fit two of them in the gap created by the thermal pads. My temps have since improved dramatically.

I don't think so. Nothing happened when I registered mine. I didn't receive an additional year or even a confirmation.

 

On MSI forums, they say YES :

Notebooks - FAQs - **Please read first!**

Look at the end of the questions.


BTW, you all seem very concerned about the cooling of the GX640. I have not bought it yet... is it a good idea to go for it?

 

if you do not register with msi you will only get 1 year standard warranty

 

Woah man, thanks for that link. Turns out I hadn't registered my laptop at all and I only have one week left to send my original receipt to the US of A or else I lose my 3 year warranty.

 

No problem

Do you recommend the GX640?

 

Definitely. If you're the techie kind of guy, you're really going to enjoy the freedom of playing around inside of the machine. It's a very moddable and upgradeable computer. Everything is swappable, even the graphics card. The heat is a non-issue for me, but if you mind, it's a very easy fix.

Sure, the GX640 is not the best at anything. It doesn't have the best screen, nor the best keyboard, certainly not the best speakers. But as an overall package, considering how much you can push the performance, I think it's the best value in its category. It simply breezes through Crysis and GTA IV on high settings.

There's only a really small number of people having serious issues with this notebook. As a comparison, look at the Asus forum. People are complaining about unrepairable BSODs on their brand new laptops and there's issues all over the place. The fact that there are so few people complaining about their MSI notebooks is a testament to MSI's quality control, IMO.

If you want pictures or something, ask away and I'll deliver.

 

I'm not yet a techie guy, except I repaired my falling laptop screen with epoxy glue (rofl, it was ridiculously epic).

Can you swap the speakers? hahaha.

Also: I heard that putting some thermal paste would void the warranty. Is it true? Is there a way to fix the heating issue..? I think I'll buy a cooler (Zalman 3000), but I'd like to fix things in it also..!

After fixing the flex issue with double sided tape, would you consider the keyboard to be good? Cause this laptop will serve me to take notes in university as well as gaming.

 

Hehehe, maybe I shall buy

1. A 23 inches desktop screen
2. A desktop keyboard
3. A super sound system

 

Oh and one more question...

Can I buy anything to add some USB ports that would be in the computer?

 

Dude thanks for sharing your knowledge with us, you are a big help to the nerd community all around North America

 

I guess that's a dumb question: I could simply put an express card in, right?

do these models seem suitable to you for a GX640?

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=54318&vpn=STAE101&manufacture=Seagate Retai

NCIX.com - Buy Acomdata USB 3.0 ExpressCard Adapter for Notebooks - ADPU3-XC In Canada.

NCIX.com - Buy Buffalo USB 3.0 ExpressCard Adapter W/ 2USB Ports - IFC-EC2U3/UC In Canada.

 

That's exactly what I did!

Would an ExpressCard do the trick?

I do my best!

 

I wish you guys would not be so paranoid about heat All laptops run very hot especially gaming lappys, unless it is shutting itself down becuase of the heat I really wouldn't worry to much - as long as you keep the vents clear and don't use in a dusty environment I'm very sure your laptop will be fine... besides you all have a 2 year warranty

so enough about heats I'd really appriciate it if you guys could give me some game benchmarks, FPS in certain games, such fallout 3, metro 2033, ARMA2... (Maxed settings)

pleeassseee

 

Not those exact games, but this should give you a good idea.

MSI GX640: $1100 for a Speedy DX11 Laptop - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

Crysis Warhead 1680x1050 All settings High no AA avg framerate 32FPS. But that's for a GX740.

 

Okay well I'm pretty much sold on this laptop but I just want to be reassured on a couple of things.

1)I'll be buying this at ncix ( NCIX.com - Buy MSI GX640-260US Intel Core i5 450M 4GB 500GB 15.4IN WSXGA+ Radeon HD5850 Windows 7 Premium Notebook - GX640-260US In Canada. ) Is there any concerns about this. I'm buying it from here because I can literally walk to the store and it saves me the headache of buying online.

2) By buying it here there won't be any moddifications to the heating I don't really mind the warmer operating temp as long as it doesn't lead to anything annoying with the maintenance of the laptop.

3) I'm just entering university so I'll will only be playing Starcraft 2 / Sims 3 on this as well as general stuff web browsing and school work so I have no background with computers. In saying so I have no idea how to update any of these drivers and what not should I be concerned?

4) Warranty, can anyone clear this up for me with everything concerned.

Bascially all I'm asking is "can I a major noob with computers" purchase this laptop with no modifications, play a couple of lower tier games and some school work, without any major concern of having to pay or any repairs or any other failures?

 

Question:

As of today, what are the best drivers to install for the GX640 on a clean format of Windows 7?


Also, is Cat 10.6 the best to install for the 5850 and are these the ones on the ATI or MSI site? Thanks.

 

Drivers: Download them from the manufacturer's website
Warranty: You must register this product on the MSI homepage in order to activate the full 3 year warranty. I think I screwed mine over because when I enter my msi account email into its log-in screen it tells me that my account doesn't exist, yet when I try to register with that email it says EMAIL ALREADY IN USE.

 

What is actually the main difference between the GT640 and the GX640? :O

 

Thanks but what about all this BIOS stuff and everything else I'd like to get this but I'm still hesitant to commit to it

 

no matter what type of computer you buy, you are eventually going to have to update your bios and drivers. I strongly recommend this laptop

 

you upgrade your bios on MSI's website or do they deliver some auto-upgrade program?

Also: do you recommend to reinstall win7 when I get the thing?

Is there bloatware to remove?
Is there anything I'll lose forever if I uninstall win7 (such as some power manager)?

 

You need to create a bootable DOS USB drive. Once you've booted into DOS, you just run the batch files and cross your fingers.

Yes. My notebook booted twice as fast after I installed my own copy of Windows.

Some pretty tame stuff, like Norton Security Suite and Office 2010 trial. The automated setup also installs Adobe Reader, which is an abomination to mankind.

Everything can be downloaded from MSI's website. What you're thinking of is MSI's SCM, or System Control Manager, which activates the touch controls and ECO. ECO is the power manager.

 

GT640 has nVidia 250M GTS GPU, GX640 has ATi Mobility 5850 GPU.

 

I just need amd gpu clock tool to check my temps and under/overclock right? btw did anyone find a way to undervolt this card?

and is ati ccc 10.6 reliable for checking temps? I was playing battlefield bc 2 and I brought ccc in the background. I went to the ati overdrive section and the temp said 90 C! i was suprised bc I ordered the ic diamond/mirror polish upgrade to my cpu/gpu.

 

Which one is better?

 

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to say that i received my Gx640 this morning. It's European version- 089BL to be exact. This is my first new computer in 3 years, i've been using Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 1718 until now.
The Li 1718 even though is very low in it's power, has worked without a tiniest flaw for 3 years, and i bet it will keep going another 3 without anything breaking. But it has very bad graphics card, CPU and nearly non-existent amount of ram.

But enough of old junk, let me tell you how great it was to open the box with Gx640 this morning:
It was amazing! Computer looks great, much better than it looks on pictures (just like myself hehe). I also had few surprises when opening the box, first of it came with 9 cell battery rather than 6 like i expected, not sure if im happy or sad about it. Second surprise was the fact that CPU is i5-540m with 2.40 GHz, was expecting i5-430. This surely is nice news.

Screen looks fabulously bright and clear, especially compared to my old computer.

Keyboard is much better than i was expecting based on the comments of you guys (i spent yesterday evening reading through most of the 180 pages of this thread and some others to be prepared). It has no flex anywhere, at least i havent managed to detect any. Keys are ok, very similar to my old computer. The layout is bit different so i make lot of typos at the beginning but i'm most confident i will get used to it in matter of days.

Fan also is much more quieter than i thought it will be. Under low workload (browsing the web) it's barely noticable.

For last 6 hours i have been tinkering around installing fresh windows 7 ultimate and updating drivers. I'm absolute beginner when it comes to hardware, even updating drivers is quite a bit of a challenge for me.

I have also ran into few complications and could do with bit of help.

1) My bios version is 10C from 06/04/2010 (It was so when i received the computer) Is it the newest one or old version? Hard to figure it out from the msi website, it has also 10c as the newest version but the date is different. It seems awfully complicated and dangerous to update the bios and as much (or little to be correct) as i understood from the msi forums there isn't really much need to update it if the computer works just fine with the old version? So should i update it or keep it as it is? I did manage to update the vbios tho (i think).

2)What on earth is EC? My version is 4.06 and it dates back to 12/15/2009, how does one update that and is it neccessary to update it? I did look at the guide on msi website but as always i failed to understand it.

3)This is a silly question so please don't laugh but i havent used 64 bit OS ever before and i noticed i now have 2 program files folders, one is just "Program files" and other is "Program files (x86)" Is it supposed to be like that and could i merge them?

4)I've read that the newest gpu drivers may cause some problems, making the graphics card work with lower clock speed (whatever that means) where can i look if mine works OK or not?

5)Do i have to register my computer on the msi website? I tried but the register product page simply doesnt open all i see is blank white page.

6)Is there any other things i should do to make sure my new computer is running properly and it doesnt have any defects?
Thank you already in advantage!

I did the 3Dmark Vantage trial performance test and the results are here:
The temps are measured while browsing the internet, computer has been working for about 2 hours before that.

Those who used the 3DMark06 got 11 000 something result, is it because of the difference in the 3dmark version or is there something wrong with my computer?

 

I don't think I will be able to help you much... What I can tell you is that I flashed my Bios, vbios and Ec as mentioned on the MSI webpage but I think that your Bios is already up to date!

I notice that your notebook's CPU is also an i5 450... I was also expecting to get the 430 but I don't really know why I end up getting the 450

Another thing I notice is that my descriptive sticker (on the left side) tells me that my display is a LED Panel... I checked some review and everybody seems to have a normal Lcd, and my screen doesn't seem that bright... So could it simply be a typo by MSI or is this really a LED panel?

Any help to check on this would be warmly welcomed ;-)

 

Mine says LED panel too but im pretty sure it's not meaning led screen. No idea what they were thinking.

 

Pretty sure that "LED panel" refers to the touch sensitive controls above the keyboard. Because when it comes to screens, LED is just a backlighting technology. It doesn't refer to the panel itself. The panel can be of the TN or S-IPS type or whatever, but it's independent of the backlight. Therefore, you can't have an "LED panel". You can only have an LCD panel with LED backlighting.

 

but the size of the panel dosen't match
mine says
LED Panel: 15.4" WSXGA+(Glare type)

 

the 5850 will outperform the 250 in every way imaginable.

 

Wow, that's a pretty big mistake on MSI's part.

 

The 450 has a better Idle mode ?
My minimum consumption is 7.12W and yours is 3.13W

 

Try the new 10.6 CCC people.

I get 7109 pts. in 3D Mark Vantage, and
11566 pts. in 3D Mark06

on stock clocks.