Well I've seen bits and pieces of topics mentioning this MSI model but no review so here is my review:
MSI 1032 specs:
15.4" wxga notebook chassis includes nvidia geforce go 6600 and dual layer dvd burner.
At a glance -
Front: media player quick launch button, volume control, IEEE 1394 firewire port, mic and headphone jack, and infrared.
Back: ...nothing
Left side: power connection, USBx2, ethernet port, modem port, and optical device
Right side: 1x pcmcia slot, 3 in 1 card reader, hot air exhaust, S-video port, 2x usb ports (stacked), and lastly a vga 15pin connection. Some will scoff at the heat exhaust coming off the right side and it is a bit odd especially since its nearly in the middle and not even towards the back...but I don't think this is going to be much of an issue for me.
Top: Plain, no badging included but space for it.
Bottum: From the bottum you see 3 main things; hard drive access panel, main access panel, and the battery. The main access panel is a nice feature in that you remove 3 screws and you uncover access to nearly everything you will ever need to get at. At the same time I feel that a little more of a solid panel cover could have been used here with a bit better fit/seal. I would even be ok with a couple more screws however it does stay secure just fine with 3.
The keyboard/touch pad area is nicely layed out and comfortable to use. The palm rest area is adequate without alot of extra "dead space". I personally prefer as little extra palm rest area as possible to make what is available more comfortable when working from odd angles. The keyboard itself feels very solid and is not annoyingly noisy. The touch pad is responsive but not to touchy out of the box and the buttons are smaller but again to me seem to fit well into the design. Above the keyboard and to the right is the power button, wireless enable/disable, numlock, capslock, and hard drive activity led indicators.
The LCD dislay is 15.4 wxga max resolution at 1280x800 this is comfortable for me on this size of display. The display has a clear crisp gloss type view and even from extreme angles still legible with slight color washout...MUCH better than any matte display but not quite up to par as some true gloss/clear displays.
My build specs (less than $1100 total):
1.86ghz Pentium M 533bus
2gb A-data pc3200 (400mhz bus)
80gb Hitachi 7k100 5400rpm
Atheros 5006sx based wifi mini pci card
All the connectors where the heatsink touched something to be cooled had thermal tape/pad on them. I removed the thermal pad from the gpu core and replaced it with a small aluminum square with AS5 on both sides. If I come across some copper I'll swap it out but this was at least better than just the pad...hope to have temps shortly. For the processor I removed the stock thermal coating that covered the entire heatsink area, cleaned it, and applied AS5 to the the cpu itself. The gpu memory chips also had contacts to dissipate heat but I left them using the stock thermal pads for now.
This is a slight modification I made to the main access panel to give the cooling fan a little bit of actual fresh air. Stock the panel had two areas of vent slats, by their placement in theory one set would move air over the ram chips the other over the processor. There was no direct acces to "fresh" air for the fan so it would have been cooling the main copper heat pipe that the cpu and gpu are on with already warmed air. I cut 3 slats directly over the area the fan covers, completely sanded and re-finished the panel with close to stock black paint.
I am able to run stable undervolting with notebook hardware control at .700v min. and 1.020v max. Startup to idle temperatures have been low 40's C for cpu and and high 20's C for the hard drive (sitting on a flat surface). -this is just turning the machine on, booting to windows and monitoring for 5 minutes. Before doing the mod above temps would average around 45C for processor and mid 30's for HD...idle after normal use. (Most temps are monitored in a room controlled for warmer temps -reptiles)
Haven't done alot with vid benching but here are some marks -no overclocking has been attempted yet on any hardware in this system.
3DMark06: stock vid driver(72.71) - 1144
3DMark05: stock vid driver(72.71 - 2348
3DMark05: Xtreme-G MobileForce(84.25) - 2397
Will keep updating this as I find notable things.
-TW
MSI 1032 specs:
15.4" wxga notebook chassis includes nvidia geforce go 6600 and dual layer dvd burner.
At a glance -
Front: media player quick launch button, volume control, IEEE 1394 firewire port, mic and headphone jack, and infrared.
Back: ...nothing
Left side: power connection, USBx2, ethernet port, modem port, and optical device
Right side: 1x pcmcia slot, 3 in 1 card reader, hot air exhaust, S-video port, 2x usb ports (stacked), and lastly a vga 15pin connection. Some will scoff at the heat exhaust coming off the right side and it is a bit odd especially since its nearly in the middle and not even towards the back...but I don't think this is going to be much of an issue for me.
Top: Plain, no badging included but space for it.
Bottum: From the bottum you see 3 main things; hard drive access panel, main access panel, and the battery. The main access panel is a nice feature in that you remove 3 screws and you uncover access to nearly everything you will ever need to get at. At the same time I feel that a little more of a solid panel cover could have been used here with a bit better fit/seal. I would even be ok with a couple more screws however it does stay secure just fine with 3.
The keyboard/touch pad area is nicely layed out and comfortable to use. The palm rest area is adequate without alot of extra "dead space". I personally prefer as little extra palm rest area as possible to make what is available more comfortable when working from odd angles. The keyboard itself feels very solid and is not annoyingly noisy. The touch pad is responsive but not to touchy out of the box and the buttons are smaller but again to me seem to fit well into the design. Above the keyboard and to the right is the power button, wireless enable/disable, numlock, capslock, and hard drive activity led indicators.
The LCD dislay is 15.4 wxga max resolution at 1280x800 this is comfortable for me on this size of display. The display has a clear crisp gloss type view and even from extreme angles still legible with slight color washout...MUCH better than any matte display but not quite up to par as some true gloss/clear displays.
My build specs (less than $1100 total):
1.86ghz Pentium M 533bus
2gb A-data pc3200 (400mhz bus)
80gb Hitachi 7k100 5400rpm
Atheros 5006sx based wifi mini pci card
All the connectors where the heatsink touched something to be cooled had thermal tape/pad on them. I removed the thermal pad from the gpu core and replaced it with a small aluminum square with AS5 on both sides. If I come across some copper I'll swap it out but this was at least better than just the pad...hope to have temps shortly. For the processor I removed the stock thermal coating that covered the entire heatsink area, cleaned it, and applied AS5 to the the cpu itself. The gpu memory chips also had contacts to dissipate heat but I left them using the stock thermal pads for now.
This is a slight modification I made to the main access panel to give the cooling fan a little bit of actual fresh air. Stock the panel had two areas of vent slats, by their placement in theory one set would move air over the ram chips the other over the processor. There was no direct acces to "fresh" air for the fan so it would have been cooling the main copper heat pipe that the cpu and gpu are on with already warmed air. I cut 3 slats directly over the area the fan covers, completely sanded and re-finished the panel with close to stock black paint.
I am able to run stable undervolting with notebook hardware control at .700v min. and 1.020v max. Startup to idle temperatures have been low 40's C for cpu and and high 20's C for the hard drive (sitting on a flat surface). -this is just turning the machine on, booting to windows and monitoring for 5 minutes. Before doing the mod above temps would average around 45C for processor and mid 30's for HD...idle after normal use. (Most temps are monitored in a room controlled for warmer temps -reptiles)
Haven't done alot with vid benching but here are some marks -no overclocking has been attempted yet on any hardware in this system.
3DMark06: stock vid driver(72.71) - 1144
3DMark05: stock vid driver(72.71 - 2348
3DMark05: Xtreme-G MobileForce(84.25) - 2397
Will keep updating this as I find notable things.
-TW
