Skyfire IV just ordered

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t-dome

Active member
Skyfire IV review

Hi all,

just ordered a laptop, here the spec:

Chassis & Display
SkyFire: 14" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-4210M (2.60GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
4GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX 12
1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 HMC (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
4 - 6 DAY DELIVERY TO ROMANIA (66 €)
Build Time
FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH

Don't worry about the RAM and the HDD - I have a HyperX Savage SDD and a spare 4 GB stick lying around here.
I intend to do only light gaming (mostly CS: GO, and whatever older game should come up).
I hope it doesn't take too long until it is delivered :sorcerer:.

Have a nice day!
 
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Daviid

Active member
Good specs for light gaming. I'm getting new laptop later this year too... I don't want to waste the summer by playing games because I know I would. :yinyang:
 
T

t-dome

Active member
Laptop has arrived

OK, so yesterday the laptop arrived and I did a quick check in the evening.
The packaging was done very well - here a picture:
DSC_0439.jpg

Display (10/10)
First of all, GPU-Z says that the 950M is accompanied by GDDR5 (!!!) instead of DDR3, as indicated in the order. This should make quite a difference in high resolutions.
The display itself is very good, the contrast is miles better than that of my old Lenovo e130 and even my Lenovo T540p FHD from work.
Only the brightness is just average, at max brightness the display is not really "blinding". I have yet to test it outside in the sunshine.
Too small fonts because of the relatively high resolution is no problem, I set the DPI in KDE to 144 and everything looks perfect.

Input (8.5/10)
The touchpad is good, I have no problem with its rough surface. On the preinstalled test version of Windows 8 (8.1?), 2 finger scrolling didn't work but that surely can be fixed with a driver setting. But after I put in the SSD from the e130 and booted Linux Mint KDE from there, 2 finger scrolling worked just fine.
Keyboard - the layout is fine, but the keys are a little soft - anyway I am sure I will get used to it.

Case (8/10)
One can tell that MSI hasn't invested much into designing and building the case. The keyboard flexes a quite bit under pressure (event when typing normally), and almost every sutface on the laptop is a fingerprint magnet. Swapping the HDD for a SSD was not quite easy, as the drives are held tight in place on the side by the case. Also the top RAM slot was a little tight.
Screen flex is no issue - there are many laptops out there with a much more flexible display.
Overall I am satisfied because from what I've heard from other reviews I was not so sure what to expect.

Noise/temperatures (10/10 until now)
The laptop does get a little warm on the underside even when not doing anything.
The fans can rarely spin up even under medium load - but the noise is kept down. I played CS-GO under Linux and the Intel GPU for a few minutes, and didn't even perceived the fans - but this might change when gaming with the Geforce chip. Note that there were 35 centigrades outside and 28 inside - that's hot :) .

Linux support (10/10)
I started Linux Mint 17.1 KDE from the SSD I put in, without installing drivers or changing anything, and everything(*) worked out of the box - bluetooth, wifi, touchpad with 2 finger scroll, the integrated Intel GPU, sound, USB...
(*)I have yet to try to install the NVidia drivers when I have more time.

Overall - I am very happy with the laptop, especially because of the screen and the video card.
 
T

t-dome

Active member
I come back with some more: I finished Bioshock Infinite with everything on ultra except the shadows which were set at High, and it was very smooth - 50-60 fps with vsync and triple buffering on. The fan ofcourse went somewhat loud and the underside of the laptop got very hot.
The CPU reached a maximum of 85 celsius but mostly staying at 80, and the GPU too stayed within 77 and 80 degrees.

I also managed to install the GPU switching drivers on Linux Mint and they work well with Open Arena for example, but Steam has some library compatibility issues for now and starts only with the Intel GPU.
 
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DRKSHDW

Member
wow so ur GTX 950m was with GDDR5? that's fantastic since most of other 950m come in the slower/cheaper DDR3... my Skyfire was a 850m with GDDR5 too. I'm also loving my Skyfire... but only 2 things I hate... which is the Heat and the Battery life... apparently this is caused by the BIOS... unless u get an unlocked one from MSI... well now I'm only getting less than 2.5 hrs of battery which is unacceptable... hope urs is much better!
 
T

t-dome

Active member
I unplugged the laptop a few minutes ago and the estimated battery life left is 03:50 hours (Chrome opened with a few tabs, no videos). The battery has 46 Wh.

Do you have more details about the BIOS "bug"? How can I check for it?
 
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t-dome

Active member
I have a PS3 (super slim) and "in heat" its fan can get extremely, worringly loud (experienced at an ambient temperature of 36 degrees celsius). At first I thought it was broken but it's normal.
The Skyfire gets nowhere near as loud, but hot :) .
 
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DRKSHDW

Member
Its not really a bug more of the settings in the BIOS I think... even if I have the latest BIOS and EC installed from MSI... but the problem still persists... btw 3.5 hrs is brilliant... try changing to Power Saver mode and u will see around 4 hrs... u can download this program called HWiNFO64 to check the battery charging and discharging state to see how much battery ur laptop is consuming while on battery... mine is around 15-16w and I'm sure urs is less... could be that urs is a newer model maybe...
 
T

t-dome

Active member
Under Linux, powertop reports 13W consumption. I installed HWinfo64 in Windows 7 and it says that the discharge rate is -27000mW (balanced & power saver mode). Probably there's something wrong with a driver under Windows.
 
T

tasdha

Active member
DRKSHDW said:
Its not really a bug more of the settings in the BIOS I think... even if I have the latest BIOS and EC installed from MSI... but the problem still persists... btw 3.5 hrs is brilliant... try changing to Power Saver mode and u will see around 4 hrs... u can download this program called HWiNFO64 to check the battery charging and discharging state to see how much battery ur laptop is consuming while on battery... mine is around 15-16w and I'm sure urs is less... could be that urs is a newer model maybe...
Click to expand...

How did you get MSI BIOS? how do I get it?

Thanks
 
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