Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

When did you get your system? I'm embarrassed to even admit to how long it's been since I've upgraded from my last desktop system (the GX640-260US will be my first new, personal home system in ages), so forgive me if I'm wrong on this: doesn't it take a little while for thermal paste to settle in after it's first applied? I also ordered this system with the mirror polish and IC paste recently, but I've prepared for any heat issues by buying a couple of cooling pads before it arrives (today, hopefully - UPS has had it stuck in Seacus, NJ for the last three days and I live in Seattle ).

 

I used Goo-off as well as paper towel moistened with soapy water and got all the residue off without problem and without any damage

 

Hey

When I press the Eco button on the touchpad nothing happens -- the webcam, Bluetooth, Wifi, and P1 buttons all work. Anyone else run into this? Not that I am freaking out since I read in the Anandtech review that the Eco function really did not do anything worthwhile anyways...

 

Hey Dakins,

Do you have the 260US or the 098US model? Do they both have this "gap issue"? Do you have a link to the copper shims you ordered? I am assuming you voided your warranty doing this or were you able to save your thermal pads for retrofit in case you need to return it?

Thanks

 

Has anybody here tried the new Cat 10.7 Drivers?

What were your results?

 

Do you have System Control Manager installed and running? If you don't then go get it

 

Hahah you're just like me. My last computer was a desktop, the Dell dimension 4600, it's about 8 yrs old. hahah. Now I have my gx640. Everything about it is great except for this hdmi audio issue I have yet to fix and the surprisingly high temps. I know what you mean about the paste settling, I read it somewhere before, but I received my laptop in mid July so the paste should have definitely settled by now. This summer is pretty hot in jersey though! I really wanted a completely problem free laptop though because my old desktop was filled with problems. Plus, my summer sucks enough as it is!

 

Haven't decided, as SC2 didn't come out till just Tuesday, which was my 2nd reason to buy a new comp. First reason being grad school acceptance (of which I might not attend cuz not so sure about CSULB's grad program).

Haven't decided which lappy yet, but the 5650 packing lappies are kinda low on my list now, cuz many users reporting disappointing experiences with SC2 beyond medium-settings

Yes, thermal paste makes me wary, cuz I had fine temperatures on my old AMD Athlon 1600+ without paste, and good temperatures on my Arctic Silver'd Athlon 64 3200+ OC'd to 2.5ghz. But once again, nothing to compare to. I live in Rosemead, CA though, so temps here can hit high 90s quite often during summertime, and I also have bad ventilation in my room. But this is a desktop we're talkin bout.

I wonder if the paste upgrades would be worth it in a laptop, if MSI already has stock paste (most likely being shin-etsu paste that Fry's sells). I mean, I could just do it myself, right? Does MSI void our warranty if we re-do the paste/add a shim/thermal pad replacement/etc?

 

My last personal computer was a hand-built Athlon XP+ 2600 desktop system with 1GB of RAM and a Radeon 9600 card and is now just about 7 years old, so I feel your pain

Regarding the HDMI audio issue, there was a thread that mentioned that here which I can't seem to find. I believe it was just a driver issue, so visit MSI's site to see if there's a specific new driver.

 

That did it. Thanks! I thought I had installed that but I guess not.....thats the problem when you buy a new comp. You gotta spend hours downloading & installing the latest drivers etc so by the end you can't remember what you've done.

Now I wonder if there is a way to tweak the SCM so that it automatically loads AMD GPU tool settings appropriate for the Eco profile you are choosing since I read that Eco mainly just adjusts screen brightness.......

 

For those who are worrying about the high temp. it is normal for a laptop this size and power with 1 fan to have. However there is improvement to be made. I mod my heatsink by adding copper shim with tuniq tx-4 thermal paste, added thicker thermal pads. The result are pretty big. Originally with 77F room temp, running fumark will reach to a dangerous level of 104c! with the mod, it never reached above 91C. And idle temp also improved from 70C to 58C.

 

I saw someone asking about Rapid Storage Technology

i will try to make it easy (sorry i am not english so my grammar/spelling may sux)

short answer: it helps you if u have an SSD and allow automatic TRIM on W7

long answer:

when you install an SSD there are 3 things that you have to be sure (but those work with HD too they just doesnt make much difference in that case)

to have the latest controller driver of your chipset
to have the right setting for your SATA port
to have the right driver making everything works fine

- the chipset driver "intel 5 series" ver 9.1.2.1007
(the one on MSI site is not the latest)

- the right SATA setting for SSD is :AHCI (setting are RAID-IDE-AHCI)

- and finally the right driver: RST ver 9.6.4.1002
(the one on MSI site is not the latest)

RST take place of the more known MATRIX STORAGE DRIVER that was the standard till 6/8 mounth ago


I just bought a GX640 and i have installed a SSD vertex 2 120gb and my set up is the one i just said

SATA on AHCI + RST (9.6.4.1002) + chipset driver I5 series (9.1.2.1007)


conclusion: you need a driver to control your HD and RST is definitely the new intel driver but it wont change much unless you have a SSD from the MATRIX driver that was the standard for W7

 

Thanks! So, if I'm using a standard HDD, can I get rid of RST without any issue?

 

Pretty much until you plan to install a secondary hdd.
Btw RST is a firmware RAID not a software one, so I dont know how you plan to get rid of something thats embedded in firmware.

 

Well, I mean the Windows application. I don't really understand what its purpose is.

I have a RAID card in my desktop PC and it doesn't require an application to run at startup.

 

technically u cant get rid of the RST yes u can get rid of that program that start at the widow start you can REPLACE the RST with the MATRIX one that doesnt have the console... but you need a driver for the controller RST or MATRIX.

6 month ago my desktop used matrix (and i had SSD) then RST came out form intel and i switched to it.... so RST is not the name of the chip is the name of the driver is not the piece inside your pc that is called RST is just the name they gave to the new driver type that before was MAtrix for some reason ( i never understood why those names)

RST is the latest (intel stopped updating MATRIX and replaced him completly with RST) but that console it's just for show like Catalyst for ATI... you can just install the video driver without Catalyst it will work the Catalyst help you with some functionality (same with that program i think you are talking about)

so if you dont want RST disinstall it and window will put back his own.... it's impossible to stay without a driver but you dont need to have RST u can have a window7 standard driver that i guess is the MATRIX one.


I want to be more precise RST perhaps may help your HD to go faster (even the normal one) but the problem is that in a normal HD the improvment that RST bring on the table are useless since the rest is too slow to take advantage of it... on the other hand on an SSD that have an access a lot lot lot faster the little improvment they made will help the speed of the SSD as well as adding the automatic TRIM... so actually the RST help your normal HD as well but is not at all necessary you will not be able to measure the difference thats why I say it's for SSD

 

How much better is the tx-4 over the tx-2? I'm thinking of doing the copper shim mod and the shop closest to where I live only sells the tx-2. I've heard comments that the tx-2, being softer to begin with, gets "runny" over time. Is this true?

 

My wireless card seems to be shabby as hell. I constantly lag out even without losing connection. Is it just the intel wireless or is there a better option?

does it at work / home

both completely different networks.

 

hmmm sounds like a network thing, haven't had many (if any) reports of the default wireless card giving ppl issues. If you want to upgrade it go a 6200 or 6300

 

Just wanted to thank everyone here for all the great info. I bought the GX640-260 and have been up and running for about a week. Made sure to update the vBios and grab latest vid drivers, and so far everything is running great. The few games I've tried have run smoothly, and heat (so far) hasn't been an issue. I'm looking forward to seeing what this thing can do.

 

Just got my gx640 yesterday and I'm impressed, but I need a few advices and info/help:


1.After removing bloatware I end up using 1,3Gb memory in the taskmanager. Is that normal or would a reinstall do anything?

2.If I do a complete reinstall can you point me to a thread where I can follow a guide? Is a reinstall worth it? Should I burn the msi-backup or is it not useable for anything?

3.Will a Vbios update do anything or should I stick to it as is (if it aint broken don't fix it)?


Tx in advance

 

1. It's normal. You could kill some Windows 7 services to free up memory.
2. It's not worth it unless you're OCD. You don't need a procedure, just boot up the DVD and the rest is self-explanatory.
3. Updating the VBIOS will lower the voltage of your GPU, which means lower temps. So yeah, I'd recommend doing it.

 

Thanks for the quick answer

Just to be sure, in your experience it's not worth reinstal?l (i thought so too but needed to ask, and I will update the vbios when I get home today

I remembered the Vista thread with things to do to optimize vista is there anything like that for 7 or is it just flying?

 

Just do the reinstall. Win7 isn't doing anything on my comp (I'm using Ultimate). And all I have is just 1gb total RAM on my desktop (AND laptop which is also on Ultimate). CPU usage is at 14% right now, RAM usage at 439mb.

 

Ok and delete the 60Gb hidden partition?

 

If the "hidden" partition contains recovery materials, try backing it up, or just leave it alone. Just reformat the C drive, and reinstall Win7 over that. Someone here should have a tutorial for ya for the GX. Or you can go over to the HP forum, and look through the "HP Win7 Out of the Box" guide, and follow the basic procedures (minus the backing up the swsetup folders).

 

Meh, you might want to use something like Partition Magic (commercial) or Gparted (free) to delete the useless partitions and expand the main partition to 500GB. After that, once you're done removing what little junkware there is, you're good to go.

There's plenty of guides on the net on how to optimize Windows 7 but honestly, I think W7 is already pretty well optimized. I just disable that horrible search indexer service that eats up CPU cycles, memory and wears the hard drive needlessly.

 

Stock clean install Win7 is good enough. It's unlike Vista which still is bloated/slow even after reformatting. If you're curious on perfect/fast configs, google Black Viper's Config. He's a G.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it.

 

Another new owner here. Have the powerplay issues with the clock sticking at 100/100 and not waking from sleep been fixed (presuming update to catalyst 10.7 and the latest vbios)?

Is there a guide anywhere that tells exactly what powerplay does to the GPU in each of its settings? I seem to remember something like that in one of these threads, perhaps (probably) this one.

Many thanks in advance.

 

Right now I'm overclocking my mobility 5850 to 775 Mhz and getting to about 77 C. Is that an ok temp? What do you guys have your settings on?

I also have the GPU fan on manual at 100 percent. Doing that isnt going to wear it out or anything right?

 

well for one thing, you're not actually changing the fan at all. CCC fan control (or w/e utility you're using) is lying to you. Since the fan cools both the CPU and GPU you are not given control of the fan. The only way would be to hack the BIOS.

is that 77C idle or 77C at load?

 

Well, CCC is actually telling me that my GPU temp is like 95 C as soon as a I alt tab out of Starcraft, but then, only a second later, it says its at 80C... But I'm running Starcraft at maxed out settings on high resolution. I have a notebook cooler underneath the computer.

 

that's because your gpu is actually running at 95C. And it goes down as soon as it stops needed to work to so (i.e. when you alt tab out of that window)

your fan speed is the only thing it can't monitor properly

 

Ahh ok. I guess I better just leave it at the default settings

 

95C isnt bad for such a big overclock, although I doubt 95 is the peak temp. Go get HWINFO32 and let it run in the background while you game.

 

What kinda temps should one expect a 450M + 5850 to peak at if say, environmental temperature is around 88degF? Peak meaning, the temp we should LET it peak at.

 

3DMark06 at 11800+ (I think it was 11853) -- max temp during the test around 72C. Stupidly, since I was just running the benchmark as a test for my clean install, and then deleted it, I didn't write down any of the numbers. Needless to say, though, I was pleased. Didn't run 3Dmarkvantage.

 

Eeekkk. Gx640 finally mine!

It arrived at my house and luckilly I checked my shipping number. (machine was sitting outside my house alone because of my dads work "no signature required" barcode

anyway, I'll be home to play with it in 3 hours. (comming home from losing in the finals of my lacrosse proocincial championship . )What should i do? Is a reformat required? Any manditory updates? Thanks guys!! Can't wait to dig in.

 

You're a fool if you're going to start couting degree by degree and acting like you can control it. When gaming it'll hover around an area say 95-99. If it hits 100 does that mean it's the end of the world? no. How much does ambient temp affect internal temps? There's no perfect equation as far as I can tell. Just start worrying if you get hardware shut downs. Besides that try not to go over 100 too often and you'll be fine.

 

Sounds good for a 1fan solution. Or MUST I combo it with a cooler/room fan?

 

Liquid nitrogen is the only solution, man.

 

Sh*t.

$30 Thermaltake Massive 23T @ Frys'll do it.

 

Diamond heatsink should do the job nicely.

 

hey i have a question of the temps while idling. what is better to set 100/150 or for example 300/400? i didn't find any noticeable changes but there was a small increase in temps (2C) on 300/400. but the launch of games on 100/100 always goes with small screen flickering because the gpu change's it's clocks to normal only when u start playing but not while changing settings in the menu for example. from this point of view it is better to set 300/400 to allow the gpu to perform a launch of games without any problems. so, i am thinking about the necessity to flash vbios again with the idle stocks set to 300/400 or not.

ps.sorry for my engl

 

hi i was wondering if anyone can link me to the keyboard flex video. I saw it earlier but can't find it anymore.

Thanks!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/359411-msi-gt627-keyboard-flex-fix.html

 

Erm....how do you manage your clocks? Because powerplay only works automatically without posibillity to adjust clocks (except editing vBios), or ATI GPU Clock tool, which only allows to change clocks manually?

I'm a bit confused because you talk about automatic clock speed changing when a game is launched. Please explain more thoroughly.

 

my fail i didn't understand correctly how the switching was done
now its ok

 

From someone who's had that happen a time or two, it is because the electrical system you're plugging into is poorly grounded; so you (to a degree) become the ground. Fortunately, it's not so poorly grounded that it kills you or the laptop, but it's enough to make it uncomfortable for you. Will it damage your laptop? Short term: probably not. Long term: probably.

I would like to know the answer to this question as well. Does anyone have an idea?