MSI Megabook S271: a Look at AMD's Turion X2
by Jarred Walton on October 16, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Compatibility and Stability Testing
When we first received the S271, the system worked fine in all of our tests, although as we mentioned it felt a bit sluggish due to the amount of memory. The first order of business was to upgrade the memory, and after determining that the system came with one 512MB DDR2-667 SO-DIMM from Transcend with 5-5-5-15 timings, we figured we would just pick up another generic SO-DIMM online. We went to Newegg and picked what seemed to be a reasonable choice, a budget module from Gigaram. Unfortunately, it appears that the MSI notebook was totally incompatible with this particular memory. Lesson learned: if you want to upgrade your memory in a laptop, you probably shouldn't get the cheapest memory available.
We contacted Corsair and Crucial to see about getting some sample memory after the bad experience with generic RAM, and they were happy to oblige us. One interesting note is that when we mentioned our memory incompatibility problems to MSI, they told us that the laptop didn't support DDR2-667 memory. This is somewhat interesting, considering that's what the laptop had when it arrived. Corsair sent us both a 1GB (2x512MB) kit and 2GB (2x1024MB) kit of DDR2-667 memory. The laptop did manage to POST with both memory kits, and initially we thought everything was fine. Then we started trying to run benchmarks....
After having zero issues with the included 512MB of Transcend memory, we rapidly discovered that we had severe instability problems once we upgraded to 2x512MB of Corsair memory. The laptop does seem to run a little warm when being fully stress tested, so that might seem like a potential cause, but oddly enough that's not when we had the most problems. The biggest problems seemed to occur when the laptop was idle or at least not under heavy load, and frequently it would just lock up and we would have to remove the battery and unplug the system in order to reboot. After the incompatibility with the Gigaram module, we figured there might be a problem with memory compatibility and the initial BIOS. The original BIOS was also an engineering version with a lot of debugging options and the ability to manually specify timings, although even with many attempts at tweaking the timings and memory speed we were still unable to run the system with full stability using the Corsair RAM.
At this point, we did what any sensible person would do: we updated the BIOS to the latest release. The new v1.17 BIOS release removed a bunch of the options from the CMOS setup screens; for example we no longer had the ability to specify memory speed or timings, and the debugging options were gone. So far so good, and at first the system did seem more stable. As we began to run more benchmarks, however, we eventually determined the laptop was still unstable with this memory configuration.
We contacted MSI about our problems, and eventually they gave us a new test BIOS. This test BIOS doesn't appear to be publicly available right now, but the major change seems to be that support for DDR2-667 memory is removed. Our Corsair memory is now running at DDR2-533 speeds, at 5-4-4 timings. While that is slower than the memory is supposed to run, after all of the stability issues we had encountered we were ready to take anything that would keep the laptop from crashing. We are happy to report that ever since the last BIOS upgrade the MSI S271 has been running perfectly stable in all of our tests.
Late in our testing, we also got some memory from Crucial, only this time we had them send us both DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 modules. We then went back to the latest public BIOS as of this writing. We were particularly interested in determining whether the problem was with the Corsair memory or if it was the laptop's support of DDR2-667. We started with the 1GB DDR2-533 modules, which booted at 4-4-4 timings. During a limited amount of benchmarking and testing, the Crucial memory appears to be fully stable without the beta BIOS, at least when using DDR2-533 SO-DIMMs. Having verified this, we moved on to the 2x512MB DDR2-667 Crucial memory, which has so far been running stable at 5-5-5 timings.
So what exactly is to blame for the poor memory compatibility of the S271 laptop? Given that an updated BIOS was at least able to address the issues we experienced when using the Corsair DDR2-667 memory, it seems likely that further BIOS improvements could solve the problems. If you're interested in getting one of these laptops, the best course of action for now appears to be getting DDR2-533 memory, preferably from one of the more well-known memory manufacturers. Of course, Corsair is a very well-known memory manufacturer, which is why it was particularly surprising that their memory didn't work properly with the MSI notebook.
In terms of performance, the 2GB Corsair kits was slightly slower than the Crucial 2GB kit, due to the slightly better timings which were used with the Crucial memory. The Corsair RAM should have been able to use the same 4-4-4 timings at DDR2-533, but the "compatible" BIOS revision didn't set the timings appropriately according to the SPD values, and there was no option in the BIOS to manually set timings.
In the end, performance and stability was excellent once we had the proper memory/BIOS installed, and we didn't experience any further issues. However, it would have been much better if we could have used any of the memory modules without the need to jump through hoops. This article was delayed for well over a month as we tried to determine why exactly our laptop was having so many problems, and once again we have discovered the importance of having an optimal BIOS.
When we first received the S271, the system worked fine in all of our tests, although as we mentioned it felt a bit sluggish due to the amount of memory. The first order of business was to upgrade the memory, and after determining that the system came with one 512MB DDR2-667 SO-DIMM from Transcend with 5-5-5-15 timings, we figured we would just pick up another generic SO-DIMM online. We went to Newegg and picked what seemed to be a reasonable choice, a budget module from Gigaram. Unfortunately, it appears that the MSI notebook was totally incompatible with this particular memory. Lesson learned: if you want to upgrade your memory in a laptop, you probably shouldn't get the cheapest memory available.
We contacted Corsair and Crucial to see about getting some sample memory after the bad experience with generic RAM, and they were happy to oblige us. One interesting note is that when we mentioned our memory incompatibility problems to MSI, they told us that the laptop didn't support DDR2-667 memory. This is somewhat interesting, considering that's what the laptop had when it arrived. Corsair sent us both a 1GB (2x512MB) kit and 2GB (2x1024MB) kit of DDR2-667 memory. The laptop did manage to POST with both memory kits, and initially we thought everything was fine. Then we started trying to run benchmarks....
After having zero issues with the included 512MB of Transcend memory, we rapidly discovered that we had severe instability problems once we upgraded to 2x512MB of Corsair memory. The laptop does seem to run a little warm when being fully stress tested, so that might seem like a potential cause, but oddly enough that's not when we had the most problems. The biggest problems seemed to occur when the laptop was idle or at least not under heavy load, and frequently it would just lock up and we would have to remove the battery and unplug the system in order to reboot. After the incompatibility with the Gigaram module, we figured there might be a problem with memory compatibility and the initial BIOS. The original BIOS was also an engineering version with a lot of debugging options and the ability to manually specify timings, although even with many attempts at tweaking the timings and memory speed we were still unable to run the system with full stability using the Corsair RAM.
At this point, we did what any sensible person would do: we updated the BIOS to the latest release. The new v1.17 BIOS release removed a bunch of the options from the CMOS setup screens; for example we no longer had the ability to specify memory speed or timings, and the debugging options were gone. So far so good, and at first the system did seem more stable. As we began to run more benchmarks, however, we eventually determined the laptop was still unstable with this memory configuration.
We contacted MSI about our problems, and eventually they gave us a new test BIOS. This test BIOS doesn't appear to be publicly available right now, but the major change seems to be that support for DDR2-667 memory is removed. Our Corsair memory is now running at DDR2-533 speeds, at 5-4-4 timings. While that is slower than the memory is supposed to run, after all of the stability issues we had encountered we were ready to take anything that would keep the laptop from crashing. We are happy to report that ever since the last BIOS upgrade the MSI S271 has been running perfectly stable in all of our tests.
Late in our testing, we also got some memory from Crucial, only this time we had them send us both DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 modules. We then went back to the latest public BIOS as of this writing. We were particularly interested in determining whether the problem was with the Corsair memory or if it was the laptop's support of DDR2-667. We started with the 1GB DDR2-533 modules, which booted at 4-4-4 timings. During a limited amount of benchmarking and testing, the Crucial memory appears to be fully stable without the beta BIOS, at least when using DDR2-533 SO-DIMMs. Having verified this, we moved on to the 2x512MB DDR2-667 Crucial memory, which has so far been running stable at 5-5-5 timings.
So what exactly is to blame for the poor memory compatibility of the S271 laptop? Given that an updated BIOS was at least able to address the issues we experienced when using the Corsair DDR2-667 memory, it seems likely that further BIOS improvements could solve the problems. If you're interested in getting one of these laptops, the best course of action for now appears to be getting DDR2-533 memory, preferably from one of the more well-known memory manufacturers. Of course, Corsair is a very well-known memory manufacturer, which is why it was particularly surprising that their memory didn't work properly with the MSI notebook.
In terms of performance, the 2GB Corsair kits was slightly slower than the Crucial 2GB kit, due to the slightly better timings which were used with the Crucial memory. The Corsair RAM should have been able to use the same 4-4-4 timings at DDR2-533, but the "compatible" BIOS revision didn't set the timings appropriately according to the SPD values, and there was no option in the BIOS to manually set timings.
In the end, performance and stability was excellent once we had the proper memory/BIOS installed, and we didn't experience any further issues. However, it would have been much better if we could have used any of the memory modules without the need to jump through hoops. This article was delayed for well over a month as we tried to determine why exactly our laptop was having so many problems, and once again we have discovered the importance of having an optimal BIOS.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
31 Comments
View All Comments
Cehtna - Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - link
You take one Acer Ferrari 5000 and a TravelMate 8210, and you benchmark them!These are both made by Acer and the battery and chassis are exactly the same and other features should also be the same..
They both come in variants with:
ATIX1600 - 256MB/512MB HyperMemory GRAPHICS
15,4" TFT WSXGA+ (1680x1050) MONITR
1024MB DDR2 MEMORY
120GB SATA HDD
Lithium 9 cells BATTERY
This way its;
LX.TEH06.017 TravelMate 8215WLMi with
Intel Centrino 2 Duo T7200 CPU
Mobile Intel® 945PM Express CHIPSET
versus;
LX.FR50J.016 Ferrari 5002WLMi with
Turion64 2X TL50 CPU
ATI Xpress 1150 CHIPSET
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 14, 2006 - link
Thanks... now just get Acer to send me both for review! Oh, wait... that's not as easy to accomplish, is it? I would love to review more laptops, with more variation among configurations. However, the simple fact of the matter is that we have to review what we are sent in most cases.I certainly don't make enough money to go out and buy laptops that I want to review, and a lot of companies don't necessarily want to have us do a head-to-head among their computing laptops. What happens if laptop X seriously trounces laptop Y and they both cost about the same amount?
In the end, most people purchase laptops within their price range, so if AMD offers cheaper laptops, some people will buy those laptops whether or not they are faster. Those who want better performance are generally going to pay for more expensive laptops, and in that market that AMD laptops really don't compete very well right now.
etee - Friday, November 24, 2006 - link
AMEN to that. I bet HP, MSI (or any other company that makes value notebooks) doesn't want to see a performance review between their $550 and $1000 notebooks whose only difference is +200Mhz CPU, +40GB HDD, +1GB RAM.... If the public saw the lack of perf. improvement for the money, they'd never buy the $1000 notebook. Too bad discrete graphics hasn't become standard on the mainstream midrange $1000 notebooks yet. That might actually would justify the price.I also found that this review was all over the place and really didn't do a good job of isolating the variables that led to various performance indicators.
How do we quantify the value of the discrete GFX of the ASUS notebook? Certainly system perf. would be significantly improved just because we don't have UMA graphics hogging up the system memory bandwidth. I think the intel notebook should have featured UMA graphics for comparison.
I understand that the notebook makers won't hook you up with samples of all of their offerings. That doesn't mean that the only option is to cover the ASUS and MSI side by side. It would be better to compare a single system with various components upgraded. You can't get every model of notebook from MSI, but you can make your own "models" with upgraded CPUs, RAM, HDDs, batteries and try to generate an approximate price for such a model. If we did this separately for the MSI and ASUS, then the reader can be left to decide what suites them better for a given price. At the very least we wouldn't be trying to compare apples to oranges.
abakshi - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
Honestly, I found this review pretty useless. Forgoing the fact that other sites have actually done comparisons of the 271 with its Core Duo couterpart (the S270, if I recall), it still doesn't offer much.Obviously an IGP solution will be much slower than a Geforce Go 7700. I think most people who are going to read and interpret your graphs know that. But why must everyone have a a GF7700? Integrated graphics at the level of the current ATI chipsets are a good step up from what the vast majority of Intel-powered laptops come with, which is Intel's GMA junk.
The article constantly refers to the ATI IGP as a huge drawback to the machine, implying that the competition has something better. Which other 12" portable has discrete graphics, besides the (heavier, not quite ultraportable) Dell XPS M1210? In fact, I'd argue the widespread use of ATI IGPs is a strength of the AMD platform - the Radeon Xpress chips are far better for everyday usage (from multimedia playback to general performance) than the Intel GMA950 chips. And unlike the GMA chips, R-X200/1150 will run Win Vista's Aero Glass interface and most modern 3D apps very comfortably.
The other problem, related to the point on IGPs, is the focus on gaming. Who plays 3D games on a 12", <5 lbs. laptop? Aren't things like battery life and heat output far more important in this setting than how many FPS it can get in Half-Life 2? Why is there any stress at all on gaming? The almost nonexistent ultraportable gaming market is clearly not the target audience for this machine.
The review even goes to the point of suggesting that mid-level discrete graphics chips like the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 are inadequate. Something like an X1400 is more than adequate for the vast majority of users. It will run every common 3D function (like Aero Glass) and will even run relatively recent 3D games decently. Ever hear of battery life? Not everyone needs to get 60 FPS while playing Half-Life 2 on their miniscule screen in the train.
So for example, I play games -- but for that, I have my desktop rig at home, with a dual-core A64 X2 4400+ (ironically now probably outperformed by my laptop's Core 2 Duo @ 2.0) and an ATI Radeon X1800XT 512. I'm currently using a Dell E1705 as my primary laptop, with an ATI MR X1400 GPU, which is great - it's solid (with consistently updated and universally compatible ATI drivers, unlike Intel junk), currently running dual-boot Win XP MCE and Vista RC1, and gets far better battery life than versions with more powerful GPUs (NV 7900GS, GTX, etc.).
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - link
Exactly. Then who cares whether you have a slow integrated card or a SLOWER one. The point of most IGP reviews are to see whether any people who plays latest 3D games will bother with the IGP for their 3D games.
0.1 to 0.2. Nobody will care.
There are no direct comparisons of GMA and R1150 testings on Win Vista's Aero Glass. They are both certified, so they can both run it that's for sure.
Intel also has unified drivers and updated drivers for their IGP. 845G to G965. Of course the drivers aren't up to par as ATI based ones, but considering ATI's specialty, its expected.
I'd say then having GMA950 will be more important for battery life than R1150 then. Because R1150 is more fully featured, and will waste unnecessary battery life.
Final point is: the review isn't perfect, but there aren't many better Turion X2 laptops either. Anandtech happened to review the ones they got in hand.
That's the problem with laptop reviews, it isn't as vast as the desktop ones, but that's little out of scope.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
Did you get hung up on page 10? That was there merely to point out that the IGP solutions CAN'T play modern games. End of story. A couple quotes:The point of the article isn't comparing IGP performance; we took exactly one page to clearly show that IGP is inadequate for gaming, and if you don't play games it largely won't matter. A "focus on gaming" would be more what we had in the http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=274...">XPS M1710 review, where we did spend a lot of time on that subject as anyone buying a $3500 notebook with high-end graphics will probably want to make use of them! Oh yeah, I also talked about the advantages of an http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=276...">E1705 with X1400 in another article.
Most notebooks with GMA950 run everything they need to without problems. GMA950 will run Aero Glass I believed (slower than Xpress 1100 but again, that's probably not a concern of anyone looking at budget systems). To say that Xpress 1100 can "run Win Vista's Aero Glass interface and most modern 3D apps very comfortably" is simply not true. It can run them, and perhaps Aero Glass will be fine; modern 3D apps choke on X300SE type hardware. I will worry about fully benchmarking/testing Vista on laptops when it actually ships, but I've read that Aero Glass may kill battery life. :|
hondaman - Monday, October 16, 2006 - link
After upgrading to the new bios from MSI that made the laptop stable, did you try the generic ram again to see if it fixed it?JarredWalton - Monday, October 16, 2006 - link
Yup, still no POST. Should have known better than to buy Gigaram. Heh. Still, it will make for a nice "worst case" test of other notebooks. If a laptop can boot with the Gigaram, it can probably boot with just about anything! That or the SO-DIMM is just bad, which is always a possibility.Patrese - Monday, October 16, 2006 - link
Have you guys seen a huge ANATEL sticker inside the notebook? It is from the Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações, the regulatory agency of telecomunications here in Brazil. Kinda funny to see that on a notebook meant to be sold in the US market, as I have never seen one of these in any PC or notebooks sold in Brazil... :)randomas - Monday, October 16, 2006 - link
I would really like to see a Linux test using 64bit distribution and a 32bit distribution on the same machine and then compare it to an Intel machine, which if I'm correct still doesn't support x86_64 instructions on its portable line of cpus.Seeing the results of the 64 vs 32 bit Linux tests already published here on Anandtech it would make for interesting reading, especially as IMHO this machine has a strong appeal for Linux users who can take advantage of its full potential.
Personally I own a MSI M635 (turion mt34 atix700) which I'm very happy with.