MSI WIND U210 thread

anyone else notice that the cam on the u210 is kinda weak? the FPS is bad i dont know maybe its the drivers?

 

Hmm, under xp pro sp3 and given enough light, the cam I have works very well. In fact, I was surprised at just how well it works. Might be a driver issue on your unit.

Next up, found an interesting use for that mini pci slot How would everyone like to run an ATI HD4650 on their U210's? heheheh, I had done something similiar using a 6800 ultra card off a compaq M700 some years ago, but didn't know that we have a whole group of hw techies here working out the problem on the newer units with mini pcie slots available

take a look :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5061567

3dmark06's of from 5k to 8k? hmmmmm

Seer

 

SEER do you have any source where i could download the Bison NB cam drivers ?

 

Fire, i'm not at home at the moment, but when I get back over there tomorrow, I'll take a look and see which driver I'm using.

seer

 

Just like to add the information I have about SetFSB and RMClock on this laptop, since there wasn't really too much available online.

Mine is the cheaper version that came with the Neo MV-40 1.6ghz CPU, 1GB PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM, and Windows XP. I replaced the 1GB module with a 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 stick I had kicking around and installed Windows 7. Windows 7 performs excellent with 2GB of RAM on this notebook, everything I use is mostly instant)



About the CPU:

- The Neo MV-40 CPU is effectively an Athlon 64 rebadge, so it performs like an actual desktop CPU (in the ballpark of an Athlon 64 2800+ at stock), in comparison to Atom which performs like a typical Pentium 3 or Athlon @ 1200mhz. The difference in performance is quite significant, everything feels fluid on the MV-40 much like using a regular dual core laptop, unlike the Atom which will noticeably choke on things.

- It came 1.05v stock voltage for all pstates. I used SetFSB and RMClock to manually tune everything much as possible, in the end I was able to significantly undervolt the CPU while overclocking it decently (1600mhz -> 2030mhz), with both applied: heat decreased and battery life increased, all while being faster than stock.

Here's a screenshot of my final rmclock settings with the overclock applied, this is the absolute lowest voltage possible that I could get for each pstate (tested each with prime), multiply FID by 254 to find out what mhz each state is running at:



Considering the stock VID was 1.050v, going down to 0.700v on idle and 0.925v @ 2030mhz is a pretty decent increase in battery life. Stock 1.6ghz only required 0.825v. The CPU is a big contributor to battery drain in this notebook, personally I just disable the 8th pstate in rmclock for the battery profile because it has the highest voltage jump, and 1905mhz is plenty.


About the GPU:

- GPU can be overclocked with ATI Tool but the effect is very small, stock clock is 400mhz, I managed to get ~570mhz out of mine, it only added about ~0.2 watts power drain and heat didn't really increase, boosted 3dmark03 by only ~50 points, fillrate benchmarks gained a decent boost though. Clock detection is weird in ATI Tool, but setting the value you want -will- work (ie: set 500mhz, apply, and it will change it to ~80mhz on the displayed value, however it's actually at 500mhz).

- GPU performance is entirely bottlenecked by system memory speed, I gained much more performance by overclocking CPU (in turn, overclocking memory speed) and reducing memory timings than by overclocking GPU.

- There is no proper DXVA decoding for h264 on this GPU because it is too old, it must be a HD 2000 series or greater, it will be processed by CPU.

- As far as GPU performance, you can expect somewhat similar performance to Geforce 3 Ti 200 or Radeon X300 - most pre-DX9 games are very playable. 3DMark01 of ~5100, 3Dmark03 of ~1700.


About battery life:

- I'm using the 9 cell battery, with my overclock and undervolt applied it gets approx 8 hours idling doing nothing on lowest screen brightness. Watching 1 hour of 720p h264 video @ ~70-80% CPU load (constantly running 1905mhz) on about 30% brightness drains the battery by about 18%, it should get about 5 hours of battery life on highest load (though I have not tested). This is much worse than the typical equivalent than the typical Atom netbook, especially since they typically get similar results out of a 6 cell battery. The performance tradeoff is easily worth it though.

 

For all that like to know the update description for the latest BIOS 1.08

BIOS 1.08 MS-1241 (MSI U210)

1.fix POST bluetooth led be turn off issue when cardreader unplug
2.fix do Lid S3,the brightness function lose issue(mobile center brightness adjust ui disappear)
3.change user mode access level for some cmos item

 

i have that brightness issue when i leave the pc on for to long idle but ya im to lazy to update my bios so ill just bear with this 1.7 for now also see the dual core wind is comming soon after all

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/03/msis-wind12-u230-flaunts-amd-athlon-neo-x2-chip-windows-7-os/

 

LOL Firemenace, I was a bit surprised to come across your postings over on the msi forum cutting and pasting my info as if it was yours. tsk tsk tsk.

Elanzer, xcellent summary. I had also been able to use ati tool to overclock the gpu, achieving nearly identical results, about 50 points, which I didn't consider sufficient to justify the danger to noobs of posting about how to do it here as it is VERY easy to damage your circuitry using Ati-tool, especially since the readouts are erroneous. Also, u mention lowering memory timings, what settings did you end up settling on?

Looking at your undervolt values, I'm going to have to go back and re-examine mine as the values I reached weren't as low as you were able to achieve. I could run at those values but my tests found computational errors. However, with my external cooler, my temps are lowered substantially anyway, so for my full power gaming runs, the power jump u mention is inconsequential.

I would b very interested in hearing the overclock results on a dual neo to see what that chip is able to do. All in all, I'm satisfied with the U210, as the only gaming I do on it is stolen WOW moments while on the move, and for that, the base config is enough. I am encouraged with the thermal engineering on the U210 (especially with my external cooler) and hope that MSI sees fit to up the internals: a dual neo with the 4200 series igp, and bluetooth for less than 500 would be killer.

Lastly, I forgot if i mentioned it here or in another forum, but the DIY Vidock crowd has found the parts to enable an external HD4670 adapter powered from the unused onboard mini pci-e slot. Since that card is now cheap as dirt, I'm seriously considering hacking such a setup into an unused external 5.25 drive enclosure. The overclocked neo appears to have enough *juice* to feed the card sufficient data to utilize the vastly superior 4670 gpu...

For someone looking to use the U210 as their sole computer, this might be a cost effective way to cover an awful lot of bases.

As for the competitors out there, anyone considering a U210 who has not already purchased one, should take a hard look at HP's 311, and dm3.

Seer

 

Havn't looked for those specific drivers, remember I'm using xp sp3, driver here is from MS,
5.1.2600.3264
2001 even....

seer

 

seer sorry about that, i honestly wasnt intentionally claiming credit for it, i was more stating that i found it but i shud have stated where i found it and ill edit it if you want but thanks for all your help so far nontheless

 

np Fire, just tweakn u a bit. <wink> The value of these forums and others like them is the sharing of GOOD information, not worrying about attribution life is too short and these puters are two damned fun

On your camera, you know on the 100 series, MSI used several variants of the camera. When i get a moment, I'll run a diag on the camera and see if I can get an id on the one I have which as I said before, with the std. MS xp driver works very well and at good frame rates.

Seer

 

me and my buddy was doing video chat on msn and i notice his cam his much better then mines FPS wise he has the G71t which has a 1.3mp camera aswell

 

Hello everyone!

I was looking for netbook with 3g modem and found out that this one is the best for it's price (at least in Ukraine).
The cheapest configuration costs about 450$. I will buy it after the weekend.
As for modem: first of all, thanks a lot for the internal slot tip.
Is there any differences in this slots ? I found a lot of modems at
http://cgi.ebay.com/Unlocked-SIERRA-MC8775-HP-HS2300-HSDPA-3G-WWAN-Modem_W0QQitemZ140357936494QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item20adfc256e
But i don't know if this notebook is compatible with this kind of modem. Is there a sim slot under battery deck ? Any other ideas ?

Cheers.

 

How much does the battery stick out the bottom? Is it a problem?

 

And yes, there is a Sim card slot and antenna hole!!!

 

One more question - is it comfortable to use it on you knees (isn't it too hot, or you feel it's weight in some time ?)

 

nah its pretty light i use it daily i can literrly hold it with 3 fingers no weight at all or heat when it sits in my lap pretty cool when it heats at most u might feel the keyboard on QWERTY part of the keyboard a little warm

 

Thanks!
Any ideas on internal 3g-modem?

 

the one i got off newegg.com doesnt come with 3g modem nor bluetooth

 

Hello again !
Today i've ordered one for me (039 modification) and in 3 hours it was delivered.

The first impressions are not very good - the suse enterprise, that came installed killed grub after first restart.
I've installed Ubuntu. But what i didn't like is that the cooler is running all the time, and there is a little vibration in the left side of netbook from this cooler. Who else got x2 processor ? Maybe this is because of Ubuntu, maybe it was some drivers issue.. I'll try installing Windows 7.

 

And as for modem, I wrote before about idea of buying internal modem into pci slot.

 

What video drivers are you using ? Where can i download them ?
Becuase i've installed last from ATI cite and my windows perfomance counter is 2.0 for games graphics.

 

i get 3.2 on gaming performance im using catalyst 8.12

 

btw to improve Cs source fps i figured u gotta turn shaders to low everything else on high and i get good perofrmance

 

i've figured out, that i was running this tests in battery saving mode. Mine index is 3.2.

I realy don't like the sound of the cooler, i thought that it would be off if cpu temperature is low , but instead it always on. Maybe it is because of the 2 cores ?

Is there any way to lower it's speed ? I've tried ASUS eepc utils, but they are not working.

Also, what are the minimum values for RightMarkCpu utilty that are comforatble enogh to browse internet but to keep processor cool (and fan off) ?

And who consumes more - hdd or cardreader ? Maybe there is some sense putting cache on SD, using eboostr for example ?

 

too many questions at one time

 

Hey, Im interested what kind of battery life you guys can get with the 210 while undervolting/underclocking. I am reading the dual core (u230) gets 4 hours with a 6 cell, and I wanted to compare that to what you all get with the mv40.

 

Rumors being reported are the U230 will get 4 hours with the 3 cell battery.

 

some people on newegg are reporting that the 4GB ram works on u210

 

so no update on the bison cam? cause im still getting slow FPS in video chat

 

Anybody have issues with the wireless drivers in 64-bit Windows 7? Mine is hit and miss if I let the RALink utility or Windows manage the connection.

And it took a good few solid hours of searching to get the 64-bit drivers. The only things I have left are bluetooth and the camera.

 

The Ralink driver is actually an excellent driver, however it is designed for power users so you need to read up on the settings. The key one is the CAM setting. By default the ralink driver goes to a power saving mode which connects and disconnects on demand...its a pita. You need to change the setting to CAM which once connected, will maintain the connection until you decide to disco.

Seer

 

Can someone confirm this please????

 

Rip My u210 Dropped my bookbag by mistake and my u210's screen cracked in the new case i bought for it womp womp. Anyone know how much to fix the u210 screen? my LCD is broken and the bottom of the bezel is a little pushed out but the pc itself workds (im on it now) with a externel display.

 

Similar lcd's cost about 100$ on ebay. What about service center ? How much do they want ?
Some kind of curse over MSI netbooks - i have a bad cooler, other people - clicking HDD's, you - cracked screen.

 

called today they said 75 bucks for the repair + i have to pay for the shippment to them

 

Hi, Good Day. I'm a newbie to this site. Can anyone confirm if this 3g modem works with the MSI U210. Thanks

 

Hi everyone, has anyone tried sticking a 4GB Ram Module in the U210, was it recognized?

Also is anyone else's wifi card really weak compared to any other notebook, my signal is always lower.
Can I plug a wireless miniPCIe card in the slot and use it?


Thanks!

 

SEERATLAS

Thanks for the overclock tip it works great, is there any way or any program that can save the settings and auto apply it at startup

Thanks

 

there are several . google "setfsb auto " and they should come up.

 

Thanks
http://go.notebookreview.com/?id=52...apps.com.sapo.pt/SetFSBAutoTool_T7300_2.5.rar
I put that in my start up folder, shoots my u210 right to 2 ghz
not one problem! haha

 

Were you able to do this!!
Or is just a thought haha

 

Havn't had time to mess with it. Been playing with some other boxes that have come thru my hands. Typing this on one of the 198.00 Walmart special emachines, (the eme627) which has the low freq (1600) AMD single core TF-20 but also the HD3200. Going to slap a TL-60 in that for around $40.00. So far, looking like the deal of the year. already getting 1200 3dmark06.

I keep checking the the thread you mention. Hoping the prices come down a bit, but from all I've read, it *should* work sweet on the MSI.

seer

 

Hahah now that's awesome
Props!

Btw, have you tried sticking a 4GB RAM in there, does it recognize

 

Havn't tried a 4 gig. Someone earlier in this thread remarked that he had seen reports that it worked. I have not seen such a report and frankly have my doubts...but...who knows. One of those believe it when you see it things

Seer

 

I guess I'll try it myself if I ever get a 4gb module
Btw seer, i had a question on another forum no one answered, I was hoping maybe you'd give me some insight on this:: rep
----------------------------
I had one more question about the Wif Card in the U210
I have found its signal to be very weak , on campus, my buddy with his Dell always has a dash more then me and connects strongly, where as my internet would never connect in some areas, pretty frustrating. (For example with 2 dashes I can't open a page, but others can load anything with 2 dashes)
I owned the U100 and I can confirm its card was atleast better and I was able to connect in these weak wifi areas

I was curious, if I were to buy a PCI-e mini wifi card and install it, is there anyway that would get me better range/speed then then this current built in card or are those not really efficient

Thank you kindly

 

There seems to be two problems with the card that comes with the msi.
First, the driver is not set to CAM on default, (equivalent to 24/7 "on"),
and Second, I believe the antennae for the wifi are not properly routed.
This latter is a pita problem as you have to pretty much disassemble the whole unit to reroute the wires. You want as much separation as you can get, and you want them running up thru the monitor bezel as high as you can get them.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with the wifi card itself (other than no "n" heheheh), as assuming your signal is strong enough, it works great. On the other hand, as you have observed, if the signal is weak, it sux. Luckily,there are several things you can do if you just need to get a stronger signal around the house. There are very inexpensive wifi amplifiers, and repeaters you can purchase to enhance the local strength of your wifi signal but this doesn't do much for you on the road or out and about so unless you go inside the box and either reroute or replace the existing antenna wires, you're going to have to find some kind of mobile amplifier/repeater to improve your reception. The HAM guys have a whole number of designs to do this, and if you're a "Burn Notice" watcher, <wink> on one episode he showed how to make a Mcgiverish antenna out of a can

For myself, when I get a few free hours, I need to open it up to do some modding anyway, so, I'll fix the antennae, add some blue tooth, do the sim card thing, rig up the wiring for the external vid card etc., all in one pass and be done.

On the four gig thing, we just need someone with access to a 4gig chip to pop one in and see if it works. I don't have a local friendly tech who has an open box 4gig chip to loan me at the moment, and I'm disinclined to buy one blind Course I'm running xp sp3 so its overkill for me anyway.

seer

 

one other observation. Since the onboard wifi isn't in the accessible mini pci slot, if you're going to remove it (as opposed to just disabling it in control panel) you're going to have to disassemble the unit anyway, so i'd certainly do the reroute /replacement antennae bit first before I bought a new module.

I guess I'm just going to have to tear this whole box down to see what MSI did in there, as I want to keep the mini pci open for the external 4650

seer

 

Can you tell more about Sim card stuff ?
Did you have to solder something and did you put special antenna for 3g modem ?

 

Haven't done it yet so can't tell you exactly what you need.
*If* the connector is already attached to the mboard, you'll just need to add a sim, and get the driver from MSI. However, I *suspect* that the sim cage is NOT on the mboard so you'll have to find one that duplicates whatever msi uses for their 'optional' installation. Probably need an onboard antennae also, but again, won't know till someone either posts pictures of the mboard (both sides) or I get the time to tear the unit down myself.

seer

Edit, ok this may be more complicated. Just read an article about the U210 in India. Their version apparently has all the 3g innards all set up, just waiting till next year's release. So I don't know what your version is going to have. I sincerely doubt the US one I have has the modem, the antennae and sim cage installed but ...like I said. Someone has to open it up.

seer