Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Still haven't done it, kinda busy.

Also its going to be tough because... the die is raised nearly 3mm off the board
It has this huge chunk of metal on it... I dont get it

 

Sounds to me like you are going to have to mod your heatsink in order for it to work properly. That ought to be a good experiment if you have the time for it

 

Yea... I will pack up my other 24 graphics cards for shipping and then I've got all night

The worst part isn't going to be the screws, or 3mm cooling pads. I am prepared in that department, I have some 2mm and 1mm pads as well as long screws of the right thickness.
I think I'm going to have to bend the heatpipe.
This is way taller than you'd think, just kind of ridiculously the wrong dimensions here. I don't know if it will reach.

Has anyone seen a 470m with a big block of metal on it? Its not the size of the die, its the size of the whole BGA. Do you think theres any way to get it off?

 

I wouldn't really know. I'm not really experienced with laptop graphics cards lol

 

sorry kind of an irrelevant question but here it goes:
I recently found a monitor in my basement that I never knew existed, so I hooked it up to my GX640 since the screen size is about 24"". Upon evaluating its colors, brightness, refresh rate and contrast, I found it to be worthy of a monitor to sit on my desk. But the bummer is that it only runs at 1280x1024. I'm currently playing Bad Company 2. So should I run it at 1280x1024 at max settings 4xAA and 8X AF HBAO off in DX11 or should i run it on my GX640 @ native resolution and Medium settings, no AA and AF HBAO off in DX11???
I'm so torn between these two! And yes, I plan on playing Battlefield 3 when it releases.

 

Hello all,

i dont know what to do.
i have a MSI gx 640 laptop.
i am using it for making virtual machines for skool and gaming.
i want to upgrade my cpu from a i5 430m to a i7 740qm.
but when i use my laptop for like 2 hours of working with vmware (for virtual machines) my cpu wil be around 80 degreed celsius. and when i am gaming my graphics card will be around the 90 degrees. si it is a little bit hot. my question is: is it smart to upgrade my cpu. yea i know i can lower my temps with thermal paste but didnt do that so far. and will my laptop not overheat when i do vmware or playing games.

my specs are:
i5 430m
8 gb ram memory @ 1066
500 gb harddisk 7200 rpm 16 mb cache
hd 5850 1 gb

 

I have an issue. today I got a BSOD while watching a show on netflix. Then I heard a scratching sound. I tried to turn it on again and the scratching continued. The noise is coming from the area where the hard drive is. I am fairly positive the hard drive is done for. Would the steps to make my laptop usable again be to buy a new hard drive, install it and install Windows seven back on it?

Sorry for the kinda dumb questions, this is really my first time dealing with an issue like this.

 

Does it boot? Can you use any DOS-level HDD utility (maybe from Hiren's boot cd) to reevaluate the hdd (check for bad sectors etc.). If hdd is still readable, save your critical info and then continue with testing.

 

I don't have any critical info on my laptop. I keep it all backed up on my desktop (the machine I'm using now). All I need is to get the laptop working again, and quickly as I need it for school.

 

it should be okay if u upgrade it. mine works great with an i7 840qm in it.

 

thanks for reply tomorrow i am buying it.
what are the temps anyway and what cooling paste do you use for it

 

My cpu idles at around 50C and while gaming it can hit the low to mid 90s but not usually.

Also take into consideration that it will also make your gpu temps a little bit higher.

I use arctic cooling's MX-4 thermal compound.

Good Luck!

 

jonathan300,

Have you set other heatpipes in the laptop when you putted the new cpu in it. I ask that question because i have exchanged some mails with MSI and they sayed that you maybe need other heatpipes to lower the heat, and what cpu did you had in the laptop before you putted a core i7 in it?

greets
Robert

 

before i had an i5 450m. but i didnt add extra heat pipes. i just drilled holes out in the backplate for better airflow

 

Hi guys, I've just bought MX-4 thermal compound to put on my GX640. Where should I put it? How? Do I have to remove the fan? If so, how (after taking off the 4 screws)?

Thanks! If someone has posted an image of what should be done within the 292 pages of the owner thread, please refer me to it!

Edit : I tried to open the whole thing, but I can't remove the fan. Maybe if I remove ALL the screws... but I prefer to wait for your advices. There are a couple of videos on youtube about it but they're not about MSI GX640 and most of the time about desktop PCs.

 

Argh! My GPU is idling at 405/1000...

 

that seems normal for the gx640... only with a laptop cooler do i EVER reach 90oC on the hottest core for my 720QM. Usually average around 85oC across all cores after long sessions of bc2. With my graphics cards toned down on the voltage i.e 1v temps dnt rech 80oC very often

 

Well, the 470m starts up to a black screen. I'm waiting on VGA and HDMI cables to test any further...
I'm not sure if I'm booting to my flash drive or not but I couldn't recover the vBIOS blindly and there are no beeps.

I think I'm going to try and fix my 3800m... I hope the EEPROMs are compatible, the newer eeproms on these things have been looking strange lately.

 

Hmmm, anybody has screen flickering in new Firefox 4.0??? (100/150)

 

man thats too bad. i was hoping that would work for ya

 

ahh im getting this soon
i used to have alienware m15x feels quite heavy
because i travel alot. hope this system is lighter for me to carry out..
arriving in 3-5 days time!!

Intel i5 540m 2.53 processor (with 3.0 Ghz turbo boost)
8 Gigs DDR3 PC 10600 Memory
500 GB SSD Hybrid Drive (Seagate Momentus XT) (hows the peformance of this? hmm )
ATI Radeon 5850 1GB Video memory
15.4" LCD Monitor
8x DVD/RW
1 x Power Brick
10/100/1000 Wired Network Adapter
B/G/N WIFI NETWORK ADAPTER
BLUETOOTH ADAPTER
SRS PREMIUM SOUND
BUILT IN MIC, PC EXPRESS SLOT
HDMI Port
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

any guide how to overclock this system to the highest setting with this spec?
cheers~
cant wait to get this beast..

 

This laptop IS a beast. It can play Crysis 2 on the extreme settings with minimum playable fps no problem at all if you overclock the gpu. Check my signature to see my specs. You should do some small cooling mods and get a good laptop cooler to overclock it to the max.

It is also a pretty light laptop. I use it at college all the time to do school work. If you decide to overclock or downclock you should use this software: http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-GPU-Clock-Tool-v0.9.26.0-For-HD-5870-download-2383.html

 

thanks for the reply.
may i know what are the small cooling mods?
i dont want to drill/make holes on my lappy
looks creepy lol
any guide to overclock and change the voltage etc?
whats your highest 3dmark vantage score mate?

 

lol i used to have alienware m17x r1 and it aint very heavy. so when i get this its super light to me. but i get this because my m17x failed performance and dell didnt care no matter how many times i called and emailed

 

is this cooling pasta good for it i have artic silver 5 high density polysynthetic silver thermal compound? and have you put other cool pasta than the normal one on the graphicscard. did you do the artic silver on it? next week ill get the cpu at home!

 

You can change you thermal paste to a high performaance one like Arctic Cooling's MX-3 or MX-4. And then get some of these:
DDR DDR2 RAM Cooler Heat Sink Heatsink f RAM VGA RHS-03 - eBay (item 260501884623 end time Mar-29-11 23:28:45 PDT) and put them on your gpu heatsink in your laptop. Are you sure you don't want to drill holes because they help alot. If you drill them neatly then they wont look creepy lol. Well i can tell you to use RBE tool to change the voltage, but do a lot of research about it before you attempt anything.

 

yes thats good but mx-3 or mx-4 is a little better, and yes i put it on the cpu and gpu.

 

Ahahaha I've heard about thermal past before but never cooling pasta

In my experience as5 thermal paste has good value and there is really no noticeable difference to mx-3.

People think its all about heat conductivity, when really its all the same. You should buy cooling paste based on your personal preferences of thickness and how you like to spread it.

 

I Lol'ed at that too, but I would have to disagree because i had as5 on once and was getting temps at around 94C then i switched to mx-4 and my temps never went above 82C

 

Hey guys. So i bought a GX640 260us (the one with the i5- 450m) last week. It was second hand from ebay and so far it seems really good (though why msi swapped the ctrl button for the fn button i will never understand).

The problem though is that i got the laptop and only the laptop - no manual, no starter kit and especially no Windows Installation CD. I should also add that i bought the laptop from the US, and that i live in the UK.

Either way the laptop clearly needs a fresh install of Windows but i don't want to pirate because that is wrong and immoral and bad and i am a law abiding citizen but mainly because the windows reminder to get geniune thing is more trouble then its worth. So what are my options ? Do you reckon i'm within my rights to request a starter pack from msi ? Is there a way i can reinstall from the hard drive ? I tried the website but as far as i can see there is no help there.

 

Is there a Windows sticker with a Windows license key on the laptop? You can download a Windows Vista or 7 DVD and use the key supplied on the laptop.

 

IF you never did this kind of dirty job i would advise that you stay clear of AS5 as it's electrically conductive and don't seems to drop temp that much either ...

Get MX3 or 4 , just put a little blob in the middle and put the heatsink back on .. no need to spread.

 

if im not wrong u can press f3 or something at boot to do recovery.

 

There is, I think, an option when you start the computer to execute a complete recovery. I think it's not as effective as a complete uninstall but you can still try it.

I'm surprised you didn't get a Windows CD (I had one included in my shippement). Still, I'm in a completely different situation (I live in Canada and bought it from Canada).

 

Yeah, thanks. I might just do this. But that doesn't take care of part two; drivers and manuals and other things i might need with the starter pack.

 

Drivers and manuals are available on MSI website : MSI Global ? Notebook - GX640

 

I don't think there is a facepalm big enough.

Thanks.

 

Wrong.

Its capacitive. And not at all significantly. We are talking about smaller measurements of capacitance than any electronic component manufactured.

Also, it is a good paste. It requires cure time.

 

Just a quick question here. all the drivers on the website say Windows 7 32 bit. is that gonna affect anything if I'm running 64 bit?

 

oh. haha, stupid me. thanks. +rep


Edit, still haven't updated vbios on the system, How do I make my flash drive DOS bootable? will this work ok? Bootable flash drive


EDIT 2.0: just saw on the site this guide from msi, I think I trust it a bit more thank the other. MSI DOS mode

 

Rofl. =D

P.S. : the drivers are not always up-to-date (I think of the audio driver). --> I realised it because of "Game Booster" (which checks for driver updates).

 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention: the drivers on there are pretty much all outdated. The reason for this is that MSI doesn't publish drivers on their website unless they've tested them for compatibility and stability. Keep in mind that they release dozens of computers each year, and in order to keep their newer computers up-to-date, the older models (GX640 is discontinued) get left behind.

We should have a post with all of the up-to-date drivers for the GX640, or at least links to the manufacturers' websites, that could be useful.

 

my laptop was all fine until... my friend said hey sp1 update improves performance. i went to youtube and checked alot people said it does. so i went ahead and update. then boom! my loading speeds are all messed up now. game performance are like . i reinstalled graphic drivers still the same. =( sigh

 

Hehe, fortunately, my SP installation failed! I'll wait for your comments before installing it.

When you talk about the thermal pads, do you mean the grey things? Is it really safe? (because the pads don't "stick" while the paste does). Also, do you think arctic silver 4 would be appropriate for this task? Maybe you posted something longer about it. You'd be kind to tell me where it is!

 

i uninstalled sp1 and still sucky loading times and lousy performance. im gona try reinstalling sp1. then if its still the same ima have to do recovery =( sad

edit: i reinstalled sp1 and its fine now. dont see any performance increase though. and feels like my game performance might have decreased abit

 

Ok! What about other people?

 

yes it's safe. pads are worthless. I need to do this myself soon, Don't know why I haven't yet... I think Artic silver wasn't a good option, but I'm not sure what is.

 

On which side do you put the paste, then? Directely on the 1 gig DDR5 (black spots) or on the "piece" that you put on it (where the pads are)?

YouTube - Frostycomputers's Channel

The "piece" = the heatsink, etc. that he holds at 1:00 --> on the side he doesn't show, the pads are there... so should I put the thermal paste on THIS VERY PIECE or on the GDDR5 memory?

Also : how much paste should you put to replace the thermal pads?

 

AS is electrically conductive. Because it's made with silver, duh. If you don't know what you're doing and get a glob of it onto the motherboard, it could cause a short-circuit and then it's RMA time.

It's fine for GPUs and CPUs, but I'm not sure I'd want to get that stuff anywhere near RAM modules. Just my opinion, as usual.