Unleaded's - MSI MS-1029 Review - Page 26

Speaking of this, I've just run into my first major problem with this notebook...

Anyone have a 64-bit driver for the 3-in-1 card reader? I didn't realize there was no driver installed until I popped the memory stick from my digicam in the slot. Poof! No driver. :P

It does it automatically for plug-n-play devices, but those like my external bluetooth device which require a cd-based driver, is only recognized by the port in which it was originally installed. If I want to plug the device in another port, I would need the cd handy (obviously, just for the initial install, but what a pain!).

The 3-in-1 reader works for me under XP-64 using auto search for applicable driver after device discovered upon initial insertion of a card.

I did this early in the install to make sure the reader worked before installing most other drivers.

I had the same problem. for some reason, the computer didn't recognize my dane-elec card. when I bought a pny card, suddenly the reader worked.

I had the same problem with a Dane-elec card in my old Compaq Presario. I'm thinking it's the cards, not the readers...

Cool, thanks!

If you want a tip ( if you have a prebuilt system ). Check the cooling on your MSI 1029.

I opened the compartment, and took a look. The GPU does NOT make any contact with the pink thermopad ( well, in my case at leased ). Added a bit of arctic silver to it, to remove the air layer between the pad & the gpu, and redone the CPU also with arctic silver. I was only able to do this, because the difference between the pink pad & the gpu block was to large. Didnt want to risk putting a almost 1mm uncompressed layer of artic there.

The effect was noticeable even whiteout any temp checks. 3Dmark2003 took a while longer before the fan turned up. The fan now never ran at 100% ( about 70% ), with much longer stretches off low speed.

Its also nice for your battery, because the less the fan needs to run, the less it drains the battery.

Well after reading through 34 pages I have a question, Apart from superlatent can people list all the sticks they have that function at 400mhz with two sticks in? perferably any available in newegg as im buying a few parts of my system from there.

Ive did the same thing with artic silver ceramic paste and its never gone over 59 deg since! and even when its on my bed its at about 54 deg while browsing web and lsitening to music!

Yea, its amazing to hear the difference

I never even bothered to check the temperature. I was curious, and took a look at the cooling, until i saw the disaster of thermopadding used. Then a bit of work on it with AS, and wow ... its amazing how little the fan now needs to throttle up. Until now, even while gaming, it never has gone to the 100% like it did before. The maximum based on the sound seems to be 70%.

Just imaging how many laptops die because they did such a crap job on the cooling pasts.

Well, I just recieved my MSI 1029 from Ibuypower.com yesterday. Total came to around $1382 shipped for an MT 37, 1 gig of standard ram, an 80 gig 7200 rpm hd, and the intel wireless module. Although their reputation isn't the greatest in the world, so far I've got no complaints worth mentioning, (although to be honest I'm just starting to play around with it and haven't performed any real tests). No dead pixels, ram seems to be running at 400, and overall everything seems pretty well tuned. They seemed to get it put together and shipped here fairly fast, (around 10 days), given the fact that I ordered it around Thanksgiving and hadn't put any rush on it or asked for any special shipping. Only game which I've run so far is Giants, and that ran perfectly fine at 1280x800 2x AA. I'll try and update this in the future as I get a chance to run it through some tests.

Dude, how did you manage to get the clocks for the X700 that high???

I can get the core up to around 430, but the memory craps out at around 350 for me. How come everyone else can get their memory up above 350 with the same damn notebook??

i'm blown away by the differance in mem overclocks too, i can only get 330

Ok, since it's crying time again in this thread, I'll join in with my usual rant:
for some damn reason I'm getting a low 3dmark03 score - around 4700 no matter what I do with my system (disabling antivirus, powernow etc.). Except o/cing the gpu of course. Can anybody think of a reason for this? To make is even more strange, in 3dmark05 I'm getting around 2200 - this seems to be ok.

This is detailed 3dmark03 results, can you compare it with yours?
Game tests: 4867
gt1: 152.9
gt2: 30.5
gt3: 26.9
gt4: 35.1
CPU tests: 682
CPU1: 81.3
CPU2: 11.3
Feature
FR(ST) 894.1
FR(MT) 2433.9
VS 22.1
PS2.0 48.1
Ragtr 21.7


And now for something constructive:
About the mem overclock. I had a similar problem, and finas suggested to me earlier in this thread to "warm up" the laptop before o/cing the x700 - namely to speed up the fan by running 3d mode for some time. I guess the fan is controlled by cpu not gpu temp so if the cpu is cool and the fans don't kick in - the x700 overheats and you get artifacts.

Here is mine compared to yours:

From what i can tell, it looks like your gpu is the problem. GT1 is a rather CPU limited test, while GT2-4 are very GPU limited. GT1 has a 3% difference, while GT2-4 are 10 to 20% different. The CPU tests are very close ( note: 680 is not uncommon, my tests are also never stable when it comes down to CPU. Must be the CPU going back & forth between idle 800mhz & 1800mhz ).

Strangely, your Ragtr test is very high. In all my tests, with different drivers ( inc omega ), i never got 21.7. I only got it to 23.7 when i oced the memory to 350mhz ( from 300 ).


I agree that the GPU is in a bad position. I posted the problem already with the gpu making no contact with the cooling ( at leased on my targa msi - 1029 ). Gone see if i can improve it.

Update:

Just finished placing a copper strip between the GPU & the cooling block, and totally remove that pink crap. Now its:

GPU -> Arctic Silver -> 1mm cu plate -> Arctic Silver -> Cooling Block

instant of

GPU -> air -> pink crap padding -> Cooling Block.

Running ATI Tray Tools with OC detect on the core. 385mhz on the core. So far, so good...

Thanks for your time!
So it seems to be gpu-related, but in this case I'm wondering - what's wrong with my GPU? The clocks are Ok, maybe it's the ram itself (timings?). It says DDR1 in AtiTool Settings - is that ok?
Funny thing with Ragtroll - I don't know why I get such a high score.

Maybe your GPU is speed throttling to cool down?

Have you updated your cooling? I may break your warranty ( if they ever notice ), but in my targa's, the cooling was very very badly done.

The CPU had a small thermopad that did make good contact. I replaced it with Arctic Silver.

My GPU, now that was a disaster, as you can make out from my post above. It was litterly: GPU - Air - Pink Thermal Pad - Cooling block. The heat was building up in the case more then it got removed. I first tyred placing a bit of Arctic Silver between the GPU & the pad, this helped. When i removed it, now the pad was sticking to the gpu for a small part thanks to the Arctic Silver, and me tightening the screws a bit more. But, i didnt trust this 100%, so i did like somebody else said. Placed a small copper plate with Arctic Silver on both side's, between the GPU & the Cooling Block.

So far so good ... overclocking is doing 424 at the moment

I also looked up the memory, and based from what i can tell, its the same memory type in my Targa, that's on the 9800 XT ( 2.5 & rated 365mhz ).

Gone try later how much the memory can do. It produced massive artifacts at 330 on my old tests, but i think it was because of the heat up from the GPU.

Ps: Yes, the memory on the GPU is DDR1 ( hynix h50S573222 if i copy'ed it right )

pan_kara...

Almost forgot, you don't have AA or AF forced in your controle panel do you? That might explain the big dip also.

aa and af are off. I can't check the memory or cooling because of the damn sticker on one of the screws
I don't think the gpu is throttling down, but who knows? I tried turning off powerplay etc. Also, I did run 3dmark with the clocks around 400/330 - and got a score around 5300. So this seems to scale with gpu speed.
I was thinking maybe it's the crappy preloaded xp home on this machine, but I've done lots of crap-cleaning, with no real effect.
one thing I'm wondering is am I the only one that has such a low score among the m635 users.