MSI Wind U100-641us

[Viscarious]

I recently got a MSI Wind netbook for taking notes and surfing the net in class. I upgraded the mem from the default 1G to 2G with an extra 1G stick. I got a larger 9 cell battery to get me through my 4+ hour classes too. I've got Windows7 and Ubuntu netbook remix on the HDD. Now, I've got a couple of issues.

First off, I've been wanting to upgrade the BIOS with the newest version which was release a last month. The new BIOS has fixes for Win7 related things. Can I use winflash to upgrade the BIOS or should I go about making a bootable CD? If a bootable CD, could you walk me through it as I have no idea how to make one. I've tried googling it and I've wasted four CDs now...

Next problem is with the new 9 cell battery. Every once in a while, like every hour or so, my netbook will just shutdown. No warnings, nothing. Just a complete and sudden shutdown. And not a normal shutdown of Win7...Oh, no, its as if someone held down the on/off switch for 4 seconds. I am trying to cycle the battery through as its brand new. Full 12 hour charge, start, complete drain, and repeat, four times.

Any help on these topics will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Arrakis9]

if msi has an exe bios flash tool i'd recommend using that as they are the most trouble free to use. if you want to go about making a bootable cd all you really have to do is get the iso file for it, load up your cd burrning app and have it load up your iso. make sure multi session isnt enabled, make sure finilize disk is also checked and you should be in buisness.

now if theres only a zip file for your bios your going to have to use a floppy or some sort of dos based flashing utility to do it, i find using a floppy is about as easy as it gets, just unzip the files onto a flopy get into the bios and go to the update bios if it has the option, if not follow the instructions for flashing the bios via msi's website if they have a dos based program that does it for you.


the laptop just randomly shutting down may be caused due to either one of two things i can think of, thermal shutdown or a power related issue, does it do it with the old battery? is the power supply putting out its rated voltage +/- 10% ? are you sure the system isnt blue screening? to see if its blue screening you can do one of two things, run linux and see if it gives you the same result or press F8 when starting windows and select disable automatic restart on system failure.

hope i've helped

 

[Mussels]

if you managed to install windows 7, most of the BIOS fixes are not needed for you.

I recently tried installing windows 7 onto one of them, and it was a nightmare to get it to recognise the SATA chipset on the motherboard - after the BIOS flash, it all went really well.


I did the flash within a windows install and had no issues. just boot up into safe mode or something, and make sure no antivirus (or any programs, really) are running at the time.

 

[Viscarious]

Thanks fellas. Well, with the BIOS, I can't make a bootable CD cause its got no CD drive, I can take it to work monday, and use one there but I was hoping for USB key booting. However, if I got windows 7 installed without much problems then I guess I'll just leave it all alone. I've got the 2nd newest bios anyways... 1.0D and 1.0E is newest with these fixes.

1.Update VBIOS.(for Win7)
2.Add SLP2.1 file. (for Win7)
3.Add F3 recovery function. (for Win7)
4.Add Samsung(HCF7) 1G、512M SPD data.
5.Fixed memory Speed fail issue.
6.Update EC file.

Seemed like I shoulda updated with all the win7 stuff there.

As for the battery issue, the original battery has a power rating of V 2200mAh 25Wh and is a 3 cell. As for the battery I bought for it, its power rating is V 7200mAh 79Wh 9 cell.

The 3 cell says BTY-S11 and the 9 cell says BTY-S12 N011. Did I buy the wrong battery? The 9 cell fits right with no issues, charges and everything except for the completely random shutdowns which I think it the battery's fault. I don't think its shutting down for thermal reasons, but hell, I'm not sure. The shutdowns show no blue screens, and in fact, I can boot the PC right up without coming to the 'windows did not shutdown properly' screen.

 

[Viscarious]

if you managed to install windows 7, most of the BIOS fixes are not needed for you.

I recently tried installing windows 7 onto one of them, and it was a nightmare to get it to recognise the SATA chipset on the motherboard - after the BIOS flash, it all went really well.


I did the flash within a windows install and had no issues. just boot up into safe mode or something, and make sure no antivirus (or any programs, really) are running at the time.

What did you use to flash inside windows?

 

[Mussels]

What did you use to flash inside windows?

i'm trying to remember the specifics, but i did it at 3am one morning so i'm not sure.

maybe we used my bootable USB dos flash drive, and flashed from there?