6. Mobile Sempron Test System, Continued

How long the 65 Wh battery was able to keep the Turion 64 CPU, the graphics system, and all other subsystems going before the screen went dark will be shown in our benchmark results.

The Turion 64 notebook draws its power from a 64 watt-hour battery.

Fully charging the Megabook M635's battery took only slightly longer than two and a half hours under normal processor loads. This is primarily owing to the powerful 85W AC adapter.

Recipe for short charge cycles: the M635's powerful 85 Watt AC adapter.

The notebook supports all the current interface connectors. Above all, we found the selection of the four USB ports on the left and right outside edges of the device to be slightly awkward. The two ports on the left side are very close to the power connector for the AC adapter. It's not inconceivable that such cables could become entangled, and lead to potential problems or disconnects. The situation on the right side isn't much better: next to the pair of USB ports you'll find the S-Video port. Here again the potential for mishap seems likely as well.

Better than expected for this type of notebook: Fast, 8x Dual-layer LG Electronic DVD Burner

In executing office applications the device is acoustically inconspicuous, and in fact, barely audible. But when accessing the hard drive, the notebook stands out from typical background noise levels at 34 dB(A). Drop a DVD into the optical drive, and the noise level swells to a more noticeable 39 dB(A). You seldom hear the system fan. If you play an audio CD, the drive runs up to maximum rotation and doesn't slow down. These deficits can be fixed with tools such as "CD Throttle," for example.

Under a full CPU load the system fan revs up to high speed and produces a noise level of 46 dB(A). When the GPU is likewise fully loaded, the fan spins up to maximum rotation and produces 49 dB(A). As soon as the CPU and GPU load decrease, so does fan speed and related noise. This behavior indicates that the system components could get by with less cooling, so that a slower fan would also do the job. What's missing is MSI taking this matter to heart, and reworking its fan speed management algorithm accordingly.