Making Wifi work on MSI Wind UMPC
My CEO just arrived from the U.S. and bought himself this snazzy new sub-notebook from MSI. Yep, its MSI’s latest Wind Notebook. And I’m excited to be able to work with this baby. The boss told me that he’s been having a problem making the Wind connect to his LinkSys WiFi router at home and asked me to take a look.
Upon seeing the Wind, I was amazed at how light it is. Yet under the hood it seems pretty much capable. Check out the specs:
• Intel® Atom™ N270 Processor 1.33 GHz
• Intel® 945GSE+ICH7M Chipset
• 2GB RAM DDR2-667
• Genuine Windows XP Home OEM
• 10” Wide Screen Display
• Convenient Magnifying Capability
• Ergonomic Big-Size Keyboard and Touch Pad
• 120 GB Hard Drive
• Built-in 1.3 Megapixel Webcam
• Built-in 2 Channel Stereo Speakers, and Microphone
• 802.11b / g Wireless Lan with Bluetooth
• Li/Ion 3/6 Battery
• 4 in 1 Card Reader
• ~1.0 Kg weight
The Problem
The MSI Wind is using Realtek 8187SE wireless adapter built-in. When I started tinkering with it, I’m surprised that even though the device was detected, and the driver installed (from the bundled support CD), I can’t seem to make this notebook connect to our wireless router. I’ve decided to download an updated driver for the 8187SE from Realtek’s site and reinstalled the driver. After a reboot, same thing - it can’t find our wireless network.
Ok, I might have overlooked something. Sure thing, the (almost) idiot that I am, forgot to turn the wireless adapter on. The Wind has this (not so obvious) access button to activate your wireless adapter. To activate wireless, press Fn + F11 (Function key plus F11 which has this satellite looking icon). The access button icon was not common compared to other laptops which uses “radio” icons. It looked like a satellite dish thus was overlooked. Upon pressing Fn+F11, I was presented with graphical dialogs on which devices will be enabled. You can cycle from activating WiFi only, WiFi and Bluetooth, or Bluetooth only.
After activating the wireless adapter, our wireless network was identified. I tried connecting but it just cycles and stops. So I reviewed the settings again looking for something that I might have missed. What could have been a shoot-or-miss endeavor turned into a feel-good learning experience. I was reminded again by this activity to always review default settings and change them as much as I can (I know I do when I’m on Linux ).
I opened the properties page for the wireless adapter in order to check some of its settings.
• Open Network Connections
• Right click on the wireless adapter icon and click properties
• In the General tab, click on the Configure button right next to the wireless adapter card list
• In the wireless adapter card properties dialog, I made sure that the following is set:
• 802.11d - Disable
• CCX Max Off-Line Measurement - 0 (Zero)
• CCX Radio Measurement - Enable
• IBSS Default 11b Mode - Enable
• Network Type - Infrastructure
• Wireless Mode - IEEE 802.11b
After changing the settings, I applied all the changes, and let the wireless adapter reinitialize and voila! I’m connected to the wireless network.
A short word of caution though. Your wireless router might not be the same as mine and may use a different encoding and keys. Double check what your wireless router will actually support.
Overall, the MSI Wind seems like a very capable UMPC in my opinion and its screen doesn’t make me squint at all. The keyboard fits quite well. I’m beginning to think of getting one myself (if I have the dough! Save save!)
Enjoy!
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About the wireless mode (802.11b): did you set it to be B-only on purpose or is that the auto-detected network capacity?
Not that hotspots now are restricting connections to G-only but if it’s a custom setting, I would think it is best to set it to B&G so getting better stream is possible (where possible).
Had a nice read on your set-up.
Comment by audienceone — October 26, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
A month or two ago, I purchased an MSI Wind and I’m having problems with this very wireless card under Linux Mint 5 Elyssa. Being new to Linux, I’m limited in my ability to fix these problems so I went hunting around the internet for fixes. Thus far, I’ve tried three distinctly different ones and none of them have worked. These include using ndiswrapper to install the Windows drivers from the MSI site and from the Realtek site as well as a couple of odd Linux-specific fixes involving different methods of compiling and/or installing drivers. Have you tried this card under any distro of Linux? If so, have you been able to get it working?
Comment by Mellos — November 2, 2008 @ 7:15 am
@audienceone:
Yeah I purposedly set it to B only. I agree with you if you are roaming around hopping from one wifi network to the next you might as well use B&G. But then again I found enabling B&G support on the Realtek Wifi on Wind quite quirky.
@Mellos:
Sorry but I’m afraid I haven’t tried Linux Mint 5 Elyssa. Though I’d be happy to take it for a test drive however, the Wind unit is owned by my boss heheheh. So no dice testing that one out
.
I hope you’ll find the fix soon. I’ll also hunt out and put it up here.
Regards.
Comment by baudizm — November 3, 2008 @ 10:39 am
My wife just got a U100 and I used your tips above to connect to a netgear wireless, worked great. Worked on it about 2 1/2 hours and it would see the network but never connect. Thanks,
Comment by Flip — December 26, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
Thank you for solving the promlem for me.
Comment by Jan — January 3, 2009 @ 2:57 am
I have tried your suggestions. Downloaded latest drivers.
Uninstalled old one.
Installed latest. Tinkered with the settings.
I managed to connect to the LAN,
but the network kept blinking - it says I am connected but the signal turns from around 80% to 0%. It cycles. I am a bit stressed now. I don’t know what I am doing wrong…
Comment by Asa — March 5, 2009 @ 2:45 am
Thank you so much baudizm! I was about to return my new Wind because of my inability to figure out this wireless problem. Thanks for doing it in plain English. It works!
Comment by Linda — March 14, 2009 @ 7:39 am
@Flip:
Sorry, I never had any chance of working closely with a Netgear wireless router before so I couldn’t think of anything that might have caused your problem. Probably some rules in your router ?
@ Jan:
Glad that it worked out for you.
@ Asa:
What kind of router did you use? try switching from 11b to 11g or both b/g .
@Linda:
I’m happy the solution worked for you also. Enjoy your MSI Wind
Comment by baudizm — March 18, 2009 @ 1:04 pm
These settings didn’t work with my Netgear router as well. What worked was to change the channel to 1 and set the mode to B and G instead of Auto. My MSI Wind
Comment by B — April 4, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
Thank you. Very helpful
Comment by Alex — June 6, 2009 @ 4:26 pm
Thank you very much for finding this post helpful. Look forward to new helpful posts soon
.
Regards.
Comment by hardwyrd — June 8, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
Baudizm you are my hero! It worked! THANK YOU! One of the settings was different than you suggested!
Comment by Tracey — September 30, 2009 @ 6:37 am
Hi. Just to add to this thread. After uninstalling norton internet security over a remote desktop help connection, internet connectivity was lost. So far to recover, I’ve re-installed norton internet security and will attempt to uninstall over a locallly logged in user. This may have screwed up the connection. Just in case anyone else is facing the same issue. Wired nor wireless connectivity worked for me prior to this uninstall over a remote help session.
Comment by Lee Vermont — October 3, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
Uninstalling norton internet security properly after trial expiration resolved my issue with connectivity on both wired and wireless
Comment by Lee Vermont — October 3, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
Whoever you are, wherever you are — thank you for this. The Wind site has been now, I just got mine, and this was spot on help. Cheers mate.
Comment by Gratephil — October 8, 2009 @ 10:28 am
OMg thank you soo much i was trying to figure this out for like 4 hours already!
Comment by ponpon — October 16, 2009 @ 5:43 am