Bought MSI Wind U100, CD Missing, Need Drivers

[larrytucaz]

I have an MSI Wind U100-035US netbook on the way. The seller may not be able to locate the original system restore CD (XP Home), so if that occurs I'd need to install from my Windows XP Home or Pro disc and obtain the drivers for the netbook components from the MSI site.

That's easy enough, except for this--the site has the "profile" page for the U100 in general, with drivers, but it doesn't distinguish for WHICH of the U100 configurations this applies to. I would imagine it would apply to any U100, as APPARENTLY the only difference amongst them is the amount of hard drive-RAM space, but I can't seem to find anything that confirms this for sure.

I posted to the MSI notebook forums regarding this (link) but I'm getting no replies so far.

Any tips?

 

[Fayd]

most netbooks use the same chipset. because of that, that's the only drivers you need.

since most of them use the 945 chipset, you could logically just download it directly from intel. i did that when i installed xp pro on my netbook.

 

[larrytucaz]

Thsnks for the tip. Also I did finally receive a reply in the MSI forum, and it confirmed--the drivers are the same for all U100 variations, other than the WLAN (there are a few different ones and you have to identify the one yours has) and whether or not you need the bluetooth driver, as bluetooth is apparently an optional feature (not sure if mine has it). That's the only variations you have to contend with, no big deal. The only difference amongst the various U100 variations are the hard drive and RAM capacity, which WLAN it uses and whether or not it has Bluetooth. Again no big deal.

Also, the thread I referred to in the 1st post states you are to install the chipset drivers first, then the VGA, the rest in whatever order--then you're good-to-go. Easy enough.

In case anyone else is watching this thread, is it better to install the OS using an external USB DVD drive or a USB flash drive?

LRH

 

[Fayd]

Thsnks for the tip. Also I did finally receive a reply in the MSI forum, and it confirmed--the drivers are the same for all U100 variations, other than the WLAN (there are a few different ones and you have to identify the one yours has) and whether or not you need the bluetooth driver, as bluetooth is apparently an optional feature (not sure if mine has it). That's the only variations you have to contend with, no big deal. The only difference amongst the various U100 variations are the hard drive and RAM capacity, which WLAN it uses and whether or not it has Bluetooth. Again no big deal.

Also, the thread I referred to in the 1st post states you are to install the chipset drivers first, then the VGA, the rest in whatever order--then you're good-to-go. Easy enough.

In case anyone else is watching this thread, is it better to install the OS using an external USB DVD drive or a USB flash drive?

LRH

does it matter?

it's faster installing off a flash drive, but it's somewhat a pain to set up.

 

[larrytucaz]

(Fayd) thanks for help. No it doesn't really matter whether I do it USB or DVD drive (I guess I'd prefer DVD drive), it's just that I've never dealt with a netbook before & didn't know if there was a consensus on a particular method being the best. I have installed Windows on laptops before, with their built-in optical drive (back then they weren't called that, this was back in 2002 and 2004), but of course being a netbook it would be different in that particular regard.

LRH

 

[Ika]

it's more convenient to do it off an external DVD drive, but if you don't have one a flash drive works almost as well.

Anyway, I have a Wind as well and for some reason my default XP install kept hard-freezing for no reason. I installed my own nLite'd version of XP and it worked just fine, and later on W7 which is currently running almost without a hitch (a little laggy sometimes, but I'm running Aero, so it's expected).