Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Doing the upgrade will not affect the recovery partition (i.e., when you do a restore from the recovery partition it will reinstall the version of Windows your PC came with, not the upgraded version). Just keep your upgrade key in a safe place if you want to reapply it after a system restore, or use a 3rd party imaging app like Acronis True Image after the upgrade to back up your system.

 

Haven't been in this thread in a while. How you been kosti? How's your toy?

 

Hey Dook, I've been good man. It's good to be back. My toy unfortunately is RMA'd at the moment due to keyboard issues. I should be getting it back next week. I spent some time in the Alienware forum after picking up an m15x (the older ones), which was a nightmare that I ended up sending back. I'm keeping the GX, and upgrading it with a 720qm and a G.Skill Phoenix Pro SSD when it comes back.

 

I'm glad you've been well. Those upgrades sounds neato. G.Skill makes good stuff outside of desktop RAM, right?

 

Has anyone ever used SetFSB to overclock the i5(or i7) cpu yet? (on the GX640)
Will it work like a charm!!!

With the i5-430M (stock)


As you can see:
The software has been updated to read the GX640's motherboard!

Is this software as easy to use as ATI Overdrive?
-None of the changes stays because its software(not bios), so it resets after you restart the computer.
-check for stability (if it freezes, move the slider back after restart)
-Check that your not going over 100c

The 2 sliders?
One for each core or one for turbo boost?

PLEASE correct me if i'm wrong.
I want to be sure, like before when I never used overdrive and then before I updated the vbios...

 

I lost one of the feet on my 640 too. I called MSI and they sent me a pair of rubber feet in the mail at no charge. I thought that was pretty nice of them.

 

I want to know something..Does changing the thermal paste, the wifi card and vbios (for a modified one) void the warranty??

Thanks!

 

thermal paste, no because you wouldnt be able to tell the difference (physically, not temperature wise)

vbios, no as long as you follow the procedure on MSI's site and use only official vbios

wifi card, no they just wont give you a free wifi card if your new one breaks (obviously)

 

wow this laptop is probably the worst computer i have ever owned. I experienced more problems with this laptop in 3 months than I had with my desktop in 8 years. Im RMA'd the laptop after just 2 months. When I received it, it worked perfectly...but only for two weeks. Now it is having the same exact problems. The HDMI audio doesn't work, and watching any kind of flash videos freezes my computer completely. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I would've been better off getting a mac or a dell.

 

You're funny.

 

LOL get out of the msi forums and go buy an ipad

 

yea im about to. at least then I won't have to rma every month and wait for the month long rma process. Seriously though, the only good thing about this laptop is the gaming. It's soooo goood. But what use is it if I can't even do a simple task like watching a flash video.

 

Somehow anybody else are having no problems watching videos, gaming etc. etc.

While this notebook is not as user-friendly as f.e. my old LG S1 (notebook ahead of it's time), GX640 gives me awesome gaming performance. And since I use company's notebook for work - this one is purely for entertainment and it does the job very well.

 

Try updating your adobe flash player!
I watch flash videos all the time and have had no problems.

The GX640 works like any other, but with an awesome GPU and CPU for games(or other hardware demanding soft)!

 

i noticed when i try to manually adjust the gpu fan in CCC or whatever program, nothing changes. it doesn't matter which driver i am using. right now i am on 10.8. i do hear the fan on and changing speeds automatically, but don't see that being translated into the gui. i did do the mod for the vbios and am running 035701. did that effect how the fan operates? i get good clocks, 860/1065, but just would like to see the fan is operating at it's highest speed when i manually choose it. but nothing changes when i say set it to 100%.

 

Mooch, unfortunately the fan can't be controlled with CCC or any software as far as I know. This is because the fan speeds are controlled exclusively by the BIOS.

 

thanks for the info. was worried a little that there was something wrong.

 

-.- maybe try and reinstall ur flash player. Instead of complaining all time try and find a solution to ur problem. Give reinstalling ur OS a go as well and report back.

 

@ribtits: Mine is in RMA right now. I had issues with my keyboard and touchpad freezing. It mostly happened when playing back flash content on mine as well, but sometimes it would happen with just something like Outlook open. My system did not freeze completely when this happened; just the keyboard and touchpad. Have you tried an external mouse? Maybe you're having the same issues that mine did.

I actually reinstalled the OS a couple of times on mine, and tried different driver versions, AV software, etc., and the problem still occurred; therefore it probably is a hardware issue of some sort.

I am getting mine back on Tuesday. I just hope they actually fixed it. My guess is a motherboard replacement should have been done, but we'll just wait and see.

 

to anyone who wants to make their laptop cooler when they are not gaming, follow the following steps:
1. make sure the eco touch button at the top is off
2. click start, and in the text box type in battery, and choose the first option
3. the "BALANCED" power setting should be selected, if not, select it manually
4. click on "change plan settings" beside the balanced power setting
5. choose advanced power settings at the bottom left hand corner
6. scroll down the box that appears, and expand "ATI Graphics Power Settings"
7.Set "Plugged in" to "Maximize Battery Life"
8. Save settings, and exit

Now whenever you have the eco touch button turned off, the CCC will automatically set your graphics card to 300/400, which will make your GPU run at around 50 degrees when running Web browsers and non 3D intensive stuff.

Not sure if this will help anyone, since everyone who posts here seem to be a lot smarter than me , but I'm gonna throw this out there anyways,

 

TO GapItLykAMaori:
Wow you don't even know me. Thanks for making assumptions. I'm the type of person to look for solutions first, then ask for others for help. I did what you suggested five times already, and I googled other solutions but they do not work. If you're the type of person to go complaining and asking for help first, then that doesn't mean everyone else is either. All I'm doing is expressing my opinion on how much trouble this laptop is giving me, just in case a person who is thinking of buying this laptop browses through this thread.

I mean I already went through the best possible solution already, which was to RMA this brick. And that hasn't even solved my problems. If you actually read what I typed, instead of glancing at it, maybe you would have realized.

TO EVERYONE ELSE:
Excuse me for the post above but I get heated when people make such baseless assumptions.
And in case anyone is really trying to help me (as I know many of you guys at Notebook Review are trying to) instead of blindly criticizing me, this is my main problem: For the first two weeks after receiving my GX640, the laptop worked perfectly, and I mean flawlessly. Then all of a sudden, flash videos did not work. They would freeze my whole computer -- I used an external mouse to make sure it wasn't just my keyboard/trackpad. This is the same problem I had before. So I checked my device manager, and what do you know, all the same symptoms are coming back. "ATI HMDI" is no longer listed in "Sound,video,game controllers" in my device manager. So my HDMI audio no longer works. I did not receive a virus before nor had I installed something that may have caused this problem. Just in case though, I did a system restore and that did not work. flash reinstalling/os reinstalling do not work either....I really thought I wouldn't have to put up with this bs (at least so soon) after putting my laptop in RMA just 2 weeks before.

 

Why are you unloading on him? If you go through the entire 208 pages of thread you'd realize that others had the same problem you do. Have you tried updating Java (possible fix to your flash player problem)? Computer problems, either hardware or software, all tend to appear spontaneously. My computer can run for two years without encountering a single error and one day just crash and die. Who is to blame for that? So how well your computer ran before the problems started to appear means very little to us.

 

What does updating Java have to do with Flash player issues? Please explain.

 

...
I honestly don't know...but it did the trick for me. I forgot who but some guy told me to do it and it worked.
the world is a mysterious wonder

 

Hahaha I remember I suggested that, lol... I honestly have no idea either--but it worked for me too on my desktop and my lappy.

 

Lol u need to calm down its probably not a hardware error by the sounds of it. With that attitude ur not gna recieve much advice, just saying.

 

Word. 10char

 

What FPS readings are you guys getting with Starcraft 2? Does it run smoothly on ultra settings? I'm thinking about getting either the GX640 or the GX740/E7405. Much thanks.

 

don't know fps, but runs smoothly full settings. even in large battles.

 

how many 2.5 hard drives can you install on this laptop? i would like to add a SSD, but would also prefer to keep the 500 one for storage. is it possible to have both of them. thanks

 

You need to get an Optical Bay drive caddy.

 

New owner here, got mine last week. Was kind of hesitant to move on to a MSI laptop after having excellent luck with 3 different Thinkpads for about the last 10 years. Pretty satisfied with it so far. The heat and weight of the thing was my main concern but it doesn't seem to bad at all. I can comfortably use it on my legs for web browsing and media watching. The keyboard seems pretty good. I didn't notice much flex at all although I wish they did away with the numpad and made the rest of the keys a bit bigger.

Two things will miss from my Thinkpads:

1. The trackpad buttons are horrible on the 640. The flush sitting makes clicking a huge PITA.
2. Wish there were external volume controls. Kind of a pain to open the lid if you want to change volume while playing some music or something.

I'll echo what was said earlier and hope someone can figure out a way to control the fan. The built-in algorithm seems to hit some kind of boundary condition around the mid 50s where the fan will continuously cycle on and off pretty rapidly. Too bad its not smart enough to keep track of whether the temp is rising or falling and base fan speed on a bit of historical data.

Anyway, a couple of small issues but overall, I like it a lot. Its nice to have a PC that can play some games again. Hopefully, its built well enough to last a few years.

 

New gameplay video on the GX640:
YouTube - Fallout New Vegas MAXED-OUT all the settings - MSI GX640

Details:
No overclocking: 625/1000 @ 1.05v

-Fraps show the fps in the top left
-Game settings are at the start
-Clocks and volts at the end

-----------
If you want to see one after overclocking: (815/1075 @ 1.15v)
YouTube - BF:BC2 MAXED-OUT all the settings - MSI GX640

 

DUDE You weren't lying about your awesome temps! How did you get it to stay so low? Your temp in that video is lower than my temp on idle

 

The numbers I give are all true, but some are out-dated...

I guess you didn't do any mods on your GX640 then?
Mine used to idle around 61-64c.(no mods)

Here's some parts of what I already posted on the tread called "MSI GX640-098US Upgrade Log":

Temps:
-Huge improvement after swapping the stock thermal paste for Arctic's newest MX-3 paste
-with also swapping the stock thermal pads for MX-3 thermal paste
-Laptop cooler (3 fans after I added one larger fan)
-Heat sinks over the GPU
-Leave the bottom panel off when its on a laptop cooler

After most of the above:
Video after 3+ hours of playing BF:BC2 MAXED-OUT:
YouTube - BF:BC2 MAXED-OUT all the settings - MSI GX640
(only there were just 2 small fans and the overclocking was @ 815/1075)

After all of the above (10/17/2010):
NOW(no video), it stays around 81c. Even if I play more than 3hrs MAXED-OUT!
(forgot to add that the clocks were at 860/1080 @ 1.15v)

 

Lowering the voltage helps too. On my 5870 at 840/1080 it doesn't go above 79.
(backpanel off, Zalman NC2000)

 

Anybody know where to get replacement thermal pads?

 

lol, need to do those, thanks a plenty

 

hello everyone
wanted to know the max gpu temps at stock clocks without any mods.
i'm in the market for a sub $1100 gaming laptop.
i'm leaning towards to asus g51jx-x3 because the temps on msi gx640 are very high as per the reviews.

 

lol, temps are about 84 max. G51 gets to 93.

You decide.

 

u sure?
cos even in this thread people says it reaches 95+ c .
i'm not a techie & will not do any mods, i'll only be using a cooler.
i'll be playing cont. for 3-4 hrs.
i'm really confused.

 

It'll be around 84.

Also, if you're not going to be taking the thing anywhere, just take the backcover off.

With my 5870 in my E7405 it gets to 79C after 840/1070 OC

 

Where i can download the VBIOS BR35701.030

Because the links in MSI are DELETEEEEEEED

 

Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

There you go, and obviously as with all vbios/bios stuff, use at your own risk.

 

ha i was looking for that too, wonder why msi deleted the links??

 

i'm planning to buy msi gx640 from xoticpc.
will they check the laptop completely & do the latest drivers & vbios update??

 

if you ask them to and purchase at least one upgrade. If you buy stock they will ship it to out straight sealed like you would buy retail. I believe testing only takes place if they have a reason so ensure everything is working perfect after a change (i.e. an upgrade)

 

hey does anyone know where to buy ram for this laptop? I would like to do the upgrade myself because i cant send my laptop back to rk because i'm in college and need it.

 

Newegg!

 

Any SO-DIMM DDR3 will work.

If you're thinking of upping to 6GB of RAM what you want specifically is 1 stick of 4GB 1333Mhz RAM with 9-9-9-24 timings to match what you've already got in there.

If you want 8GB of RAM then just any two matching sticks of 4GB either 1066Mhz or 1333Mhz will do. Any timings will do as long as both sticks match.

Of course if you want to real technical about it they don't have to be identical but if they're not the better stick is just going to be hampered by the other.