MSI Megabook M635

This notebook computer, based around AMD mobile processors, is also known as the MS-1039. It uses the ATI Mobility Express 200 chipset, with the RS482 host bridge and SB400 South Bridge. It uses a Mobility Radeon X700 VGA controller to drive its 15.4" panel which has a native resolution of 1280x800 at 24 bit colour depth.

Hardware Specifications

Processor Type AMD Turion 64 or AMD Sempron
Chipset ATI RS482 / SB400
System Memory 512MiB of DDR SO-DIMM
Video Controller ATI Mobility Radeon X700 128MiB RAM
Audio Internal Speaker: 2 Stereo Speakers
HDD 80GB
IDE Controller Ultra DMA ATA-100
Screen 1280x800 (15.4 inches wide)
Optical Drive DVD+/-RW Writer
Communication Port 56K Fax/MODEM
LAN 10/100/1000 Base-T on board LAN
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, ralink chipset
PCMCIA Slot Yes (1)
Card Reader Yes (5-in-1)
I/O Port Monitor(VGA) 15 pin Mini D-Sub x 1
USB x 3 (Ver. 2.0)
IEEE1394 (b) x 1
Mic-in x 1
Headphone out x 1
RJ45 x 1 Ethernet Connector
RJ11 x 1 Modem Connector

Important Work-Around Fixes

This system is relatively well-behaved with the Ubuntu and Debian installs I have tried it with. I've been fortunate with the supplied wireless card having out-of-the-box support since Ubuntu 5.10 Hoary Hedgehog. However, your supplier may have provided a different brand of mini-PCI wireless card.

Ubuntu LiveCD's

The monitor outputs don't automatically choose the LVDS port to which the notebook screen is attached. Altering /etc/X11/xorg.conf to include the line in bold and restarting the X Server resolves this:

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS, Auto"
Option "DPMS"

EndSection

(It might be a good idea to manually alter the alter the 'Section "Screen"' -> 'Subsection "Display"' -> 'Modes' to include the screen's native 1280x800 resolution.)

ACPI

The supplied DSDT with BIOS version 2.70 has no flaky behaviour errors, and recompiling it with the Intel IAST Compiler showed no errors.

Untested

The 5-in-1 card reader and the Firewire port have not been tested, but show up cleanly in dmesg and lspci. The BlueTooth? parts of the wireless adapter also have not yet been used in anger.

Web Resources

Review at TomsHardware.co.uk
MSI M635 Page