Purchasing a GX640

So I'm planning to buy the GX640 today. Couple of questions:

1. What cooling pad do you recommend? Looking for something inexpensive and high quality.
2. How much bloatware does this laptop come with and what is the best way to remove it?
3. I asked this in another thread, but if I purchase from Newegg.com do I still get the 3 year MSI warranty?

Thanks!

 

not much bloatware. some software for webcam (came pre expired on mine, lol) Norton security free trial (ew)

just register it through msi and you're good.

 

So what software updates do I need to look into? I've seen a few people mention that it has some outdated drivers...

 

most laptops you buy will have outdated drivers. update the ATI 5850 drivers to 10.4 and you should be good to go.

 

My GX640 will be here Thursday! I'm excited, but I don't want to screw up the software right off the bat. I keep hearing that the new drivers are flawed, should I update my ATI drivers? What is the disadvantage of leaving my drivers how they are for awhile?

 

Your games wont run "optimally"
not that they WONT run...
just that, the updated drivers are more optimized than the stock drivers..
therefore yielding better performance

 

Might be worth it to buy from a reseller like XoticPC or Gentech. Order a minor upgrade like a better wifi card or even upgrade the optical drive to blu-ray. Then request for them to update your drivers for you and test out the machine before they ship it. Will probably save a lot of headache with the ATI driver failures popping up in this forum.

 

Is it smart to do a clean install of Windows as soon as I get it?

 

It's a good thing to do, but it's not strictly necessary.

 

Hey man, the forums have been slow lately so I thought I'd give you a reply even though I don't have too much to add.

1. What cooling pad do you recommend? Looking for something inexpensive and high quality.
--I'm not convinced a cooling pad will do much for internal temps as long as you give your system good clearance from below. The bottom of the machine gives off almost no heat and after gaming on mine for hours my table isn't remotely warm (the side vent where the heat comes out is another story).
So from a cooling standpoint, the pad won't be bringing in cooler air. However, you may be forcing 'more' air through the system which could have some benefits. This brings my to my word of warning - cooling pads come in two varieties, some blow air up and onto the bottom of the system, some suck air down away from the bottom. Avoid the latter - if you are sucking air down from the bottom of the unit you are competing with the fan already in your computer (which is trying to pull air up).

2. How much bloatware does this laptop come with and what is the best way to remove it?
--Mine came with no bloatware at all, minus Norton trial which I promptly removed and replaced with Avira. I planned on doing a clean install but once I ran msconfig and saw so little enabled on startup I decided to skip it. I also took off a few programs that I wasn't interested in, but they were full programs and not what I would consider bloatware.

3. I asked this in another thread, but if I purchase from Newegg.com do I still get the 3 year MSI warranty?
--I believe so, as long as you register the system once you get it.

Also, as others have said - update your video card drivers once you get it (if they aren't already updated). Find and install Catalyst Control Center 10.3 or 10.4. I've heard of a few minor problems with 10.4 and 10.3 worked great for me so I'm sticking with that version for now.


Thanks!

 

Thanks man! I was waiting for someone to answer some of my questions. I'm still questioning the driver update, there are so many cases of it crashing with the new drivers. I may wait until the next driver update comes along that fixes these problems before I update.

 

I haven't seen any complaints over 10.3 (found here: http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/tips/Pages/catalyst-10-3-preview.aspx).

I got a very big boost in frame rate after updating. All that I did was disable power play, ] uninstall the current driver (from device manager) and catalyst control center (from add/remove programs) - and run the installer from the site. Everything worked fine on reboot.

Unfortunately my system did die two days after I got it, but the people at Xotic were great about sending me a new one which is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow morning. Cant wait to get my hands on it again.

 

How did your system die?

 

Gonna be a long wait as ATI won't fix anything related to the 640 .. It's MSI job to do so as it's their card.

 

Just turned it on one day and got a blue screen loop on startup - I have a feeling that there was a bad power supply that either killed the motherboard or video card when it was powered on.

 

Gotcha... So if I disable Powerplay and install Catalyist 10.3 I SHOULD be fine?

 

Yes, that's all you need to do.

 

So I just want to clarify for the final time, should I install 10.3 or 10.4? I got mixed messages when I read up on this...

also, do I disable powerplay, then install old drivers, then install new?

Finally, what program can I use to check my idle temperatures?

 

I like 10.3 better then 10.4, my fan has been kicking in less often. You've got it right - turn off power play, uninstall old drivers, uninstall catalyst control, restart and install new drivers.