« Apple iPhone and Blackberry Curve/8830 — The Comparison
sticking it to the man: jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone »

my MSI Wind; i’ll take a triple please (video)

2008 sure seems to be the year of the netbook/ultra-portable laptop. 

 Asus was the first manufacturer, founding father/mother of the new and now very popular netbook category.  Asus introduced its Eee PC in late 2007 with the 701 based model.  Following the huge success and praise for such a small and affordable sub-notebook, tons of manufacturers began working on their own ‘Eee-killer’ netbook.

I had purchased an original EeePC 701(w/4GB SSD, Black, Webcam/Mic version) early in 2008 but after using for a month or so i ended up selling it.  The main reasons for selling was its tiny keyboard.  Performance and boot-up times on it were amazing and the form factor was great for such a low price tag. 

After selling my Eeepc to a co-worker, I decided I’d wait this one out a bit more and be a little smarter (ie not impulse buying.. hehe) and wait to see how the Intel Atom based netbooks looked.  HP’s Mini Note was tempting but the whole Via cpu not an Intel was a huge factor against it and the reason why I went with my MSI Wind. Keep reading for more details and the video demo!

Quick Specs:

  • 1.6Ghz Atom N270 CPU
  • 1GB onboard DDR2 (expandable up to 2GB total, upgrade does void warranty)
  • 80GB WD Barracuda S-ATA HDD, 5400rpm
  • Intel 950GMA Video w/VGA out, 1024×600 native rez
  • 1.3mb webcam, mic and speakers (tinny though)
  • 3 USB (1powered, right side)
  • Multicard reader (SD, SDHC, MS, MS Pro)
  • Wifi B/G and Bluetooth 2.0
  • 3 Cell Battery
  • OS Shipped: XP Home Edition

The first thing you notice is about the MSI Wind vs the early EeePCs, a sleek and clean rounded design.  The second thing you notice is the nearly full sized keyboard. :)

The main reason why I went with the Wind was the idea of a nearly full sized keyboard in a netbook and the full range of connectivity options/upgrades (ie bt, sata hdd, sdhc/ms reader).  The price isn’t bad either at $479 and $499 for the 3cell and 6cell.  However, trying to get one at the moment at that price is a whole different story. :)  

Upgrades:

First things first, I don’t wear a “I void warranties” shirt for nothing. :P 

So as you may have realized by the above shot that upgrading your HDD and Memory does indeed VOID YOUR WARRANTY. So you’ve been warned.  I just quickly upraded my hdd to a 250gb hitachi and added a 1GB ddr2 memory stick.

Voila, after unscrewing a few screws and unfastening a few cables, i had a pretty sweet portable rig w/lots of storage and enough memory to keep it moving.

Operating System Setup Time

Ahh, I hate to admit it but I enjoy installing operating systems. Not sure why, but its kind of relaxing (when things work). :) with that said, I decided that I wanted to triple boot my Wind since I had read about people getting OSX up and going fine. Vista shouldn’t be a problem since you can usually get most xp drivers to work in Vista by changing them to run in XP SP2 compatibility.

NOTE:  see engadget post/forum board about touchpads being swapped out on newer models being inferior to the synaptics, mine has the synaptics (thank goodness!) 
this is very sad though since i love my wind so far (again has synaptics touchpad).
-http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/15/msi-winds-said-to-be-shipping-without-synaptic-touchpads

-http://forums.msiwind.net/general-discussion/new-cell-u100s-use-sentelic-not-synaptic-touchpads-t2133.html

So here’s my end result; a quick video of my triple booting Wind.

Posted by seamonkey420 on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 9:26 pm.

20 Responses to “my MSI Wind; i’ll take a triple please (video)”

Excerpt edited. Posted to the techrx front page.

Left by admin on August 30th, 2008

Strange, why would you do two versions of windows, but no linux flavors?

Left by Colby Olson on August 30th, 2008

@Colby

i’ll be honest and admit that i never use my linux installs when i do install them.

need xp for work and my vpn connection to work; my vista install is just to see how vista runs.

i may try ubuntu on it later but see no need if xp runs as good as it does on it.

Left by seamonkey420 on August 30th, 2008

How are you loading the other OS’s on there? I assume you’re using an external CD drive or the USB ports.

Left by Carl on August 30th, 2008

Your MSI Wind looks great, and the upgrades seem very beneficial.

But how about its weight and battery life?

Left by Kym on August 31st, 2008

@Carl yes, i used an external usb dvd-rom to setup the OS’s.

@Kym weight is great! under 3lbs (2.6lbs w/3cell battery i believe). battery life is about 2 to 2 1/2 hours if i crank down the lcd brightness. i really hope the 6 cell battery is under $100. I just wish it came w/a nice neoprene sleeve like the eee’s. :)

thanks for stopping by!

Left by seamonkey420 on August 31st, 2008

First, a question before I rant on about something. :) What method are you using to put up a boot menu at startup? It doesn’t look like GRUB (which I guess it wouldn’t be, since you don’t have Linux) - is that the Windows bootloader? And if so, what did you have to put in boot.ini to get it to chainload OS X? Right now I have OS X on my Eee 901, and I can’t get it to boot from a menu for the life of me. I have to tell the BIOS to boot from a specific drive - yuck.

Oh, and you can get rid of the Darwin boot menu that shows up afterwards by editing the properties in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/boot.plist.

Rant Mode:

Not another of those wretched Ralink wireless adapters. They are simply evil on OS X. Why?
- The drivers they’ve written expose the hardware to the OS as a wired ethernet device, not a wireless one. This means - among other things - you lose all OS integration like Airport menu extras, any third-party programs that want to monitor the wireless signal or look for networks, etc. It’s just wrong in a very fundamental way.
- Since they expose it as a wired ethernet, they have to get the wireless info on there *somehow*, so they include that awful Ralink utility to do so. It runs on startup - every startup - and runs it as *root*. You also can’t move the utility, rename it, or try to fix the permissions issue, as any of these break it. They also install parts of it into /System/Library, not /Library. Nothing third-party (except kernel extensions) goes in /System.
- Said utility and drivers will frequently break shutdown, causing the system to hang just before powering off. Either the daemon they use to run the card doesn’t exit, or the driver refuses to unload from OS X.

In a nutshell, AVOID the Ralink-based adapters at all costs. I had one in my Eee 901 originally which caused all of the problems above with OS X (and failed to work with my network reliably on top). I swapped in an Atheros card, which is natively supported (should be - I pulled it from a MacBook Pro :) ). Not only is this internal, cheap ($20ish for 802.11g, $50 for 802.11n), and supported out-of-box by Windows, Linux, and OS X, but everything “Just Works” in all systems without hacks. HIGHLY recommended.

Left by Joshua Ochs on September 1st, 2008

@Joshua Ochs

thanks for stopping by buddy!

i am actually using the vista bootloader and in turn using the chain0 method to get to the osx/darwin bootloader.

getting the vista bootloader working w/osx can be a pain in the arse. what i do is this: install xp, install vista, install osx (w/my wind i used 1 hdd and 3 partitions; each were primary partitions).

then i go back and repair my vista installation (ie in turn makes my vista/xp partitions active and hands over control of booting back to vista). once i do this, i then put my chain0 file from my osx install dvd on the root of the C:\

i then create a legacy entry in vista’s bootloader either by using the bcdedit commands or using VistaBootPro utility (the latter is much easier!!)

but yes, i hate the Ralink adapters now that i’ve used one. i am pretty pumped to get my internal card this week working; i may replace my intel adapter in my hp dv6700t w/one too since who the hell even has a 802.11n router? i don’t. :P

Left by seamonkey420 on September 2nd, 2008

[…] a few weeks back i posted a video on triple booting my MSI Wind with XP Prof (nlited), Vista Ultimate Ed, and OSX Leopard (10.5.2) and have noticed people have been […]

Left by the digital tirades of seamonkey420 » Blog Archive » my msi wind, osx leo and vmware fusion demo (video) on September 14th, 2008

[…] auf dem MSI Wind ist ohne Probleme machbar, wie dieses Video auf Youtube beweist. Die Jungs von tech-receipes beschreiben auf ihrer Seite ausführlich wie sie den MSI Wind für den Triple Boot (Windows XP, […]

Left by Triple Boot auf dem Wind | MSI Wind on September 16th, 2008

nice to see, but i miss xubuntu or something like this. i think xp is very good for that device, vista is overkill and osx i dont know but maybe … ;-)

Left by jtj on September 16th, 2008

@jtj

XP is very nice on it.

Vista runs better on it than most older desktops i’ve seen but i could do with out Vista (may end up putting ubuntu on it instead)

OSX runs really good on it and right now is my main os. :)

ubuntu booting coming soon this week! i’ll post a vid once i image my machine and redo the booting.

thanks for stopping by!

Left by seamonkey420 on September 16th, 2008

[…] Video und eine Anleitung hat der MSI Wind Besitzer hier zur Verfügung […]

Left by MSI Wind: Apple OSX, Windows XP und Vista | EeeBlog.ch on September 17th, 2008

Hi
The drivers they’ve written expose the hardware to the OS as a wired ethernet device, not a wireless one. This means - among other things - you lose all OS integration like Airport menu extras, any third-party programs that want to monitor the wireless signal or look for networks, etc. It’s just wrong in a very fundamental way.

Max

Addiction Recovery Michigan

Left by Max on September 20th, 2008

P L E A S E S T O P S A Y I N G A N Y H O O

Left by derek on September 29th, 2008

@derek

so.. anyhoo.. i’ll stop that.. haha! my bad..

Left by seamonkey420 on September 29th, 2008

Is there a walkthrough of how to do something like this anywhere? Really I just want XP and OS X on mine, but most documentation I’ve found on getting OS X up and running doesn’t seem to address also having an option to run XP.

Left by Ben on October 20th, 2008

@Ben

ahh.. yes, i have a quickie guide on it! :)

http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/seamonkey420/2008/10/14/howto-multibooting-xp-osx-and-linux-tips-and-video-on-a-msi-wind/

hope that helps!

Left by seamonkey420 on October 20th, 2008

im in the last stages of desideing which netbook to buy, an dthe wind is looking like the winner. but can you tell me anything about the durribility of the thing? will it hold up to rideing around in my back pack while im at school? doesit feel like ur gunna brake it if you look crosseyed at it? thanks.

Left by another Ben on January 27th, 2009

hello there, I’m having a different problem - and I’m looking for drivers. I’ve upgraded my printer and now it’s not connecting. It’s an HP deskjet F4 series (the previous one in the C series wouldn’t scan but at least it would print) and I’m flummoxed. Anyone know any hacks/drivers out there?
The other issue I have is with recognizing/installing the drivers to run USB-internet from a ‘data card’. Help help?

Left by chhavi on July 18th, 2009

Something to say?