MSI MS-171F Owners/Users

any others out there with this model?

 

Just bought a couple barebones units that i will be building soon . . . any thoughts, annoyances, BIOS upgrades that you might share?

While waiting for hard drives to arrive, I tried to boot my Ubuntu live USB key with no success . . . hangs right as it is in the final stages of loading.

When I was installing the CPU and RAM, I noticed what looks like a mini pci-e slot that is listed as "TV". Do you know what tuner might work?

Overall, seems like a simple and nice machine.
Any thoughts would be appreciated,
-N

 

I just bought one of these for father's day. How is it going for you so far?

 

I just bought a barebones and it arrived today. Was really simple to install CPU, memory, and hard drive. Word of advice, the hard drive would not show up in BIOS when I first started it up. So I opened it back up and had to really push the hard drive into place. BIOS recognized it then but I still had to change some settings. Once I got that straightened it out it worked great!

 

I'm trying to get Windows 7 on it and the hard drive shows up fine in the Bios just not during the Windows setup. I'm guessing I just need to find the right driver.

 

Is there a specific driver for the storage controller I need to use or does Vista detect it automatically during the initial setup?

 

Never mind, BIOS upgrade was required.

 

Whats up guys, I just bought a MS-171f and when I installed my hardware and power up the laptop it does not go to the post or the BIOS, the screen is just black. I here the fan come on, power button lights up and the cd drive goes, but the screen stays black. do ya'll think i bought a bad cpu(intel p9500) or could i be doing something wrong. please help!!!

 

I am having the exact same problem. Tested the cpu (intel T9400) seems to be good.Swapped out the Ram,Hdd,Lan but nothing has worked thus far. Even tried hooking it up to an external monitor,powering down and resetting the CMOS,reseating and locking the CPU and nothing. I am at a loss as to what to try next. Can't even install the driver disk for the notebook let alone Windows 7.

Powers up fine, I get no beeps and a black screen. All the components are new and compatible.

 

Try reseating your CPU and make sure to lock it in with the set screw. Worked for me!

 

I've been wondering about these 171f's.

Do they support 3x3 Wireless cards or are they 2x2?
Do they support Quad Core CPUs?
Is the integrated GPU 8200M or 9400M?

 

same here electro, i just caught wind of these, itd be a nice little secondary backup, but the thing that im mainly curious about is what they look like inside, apparently its a unified archetecture, but certain versions of the chipset support hybrid sli and such, so that leads me to question, is there an available slot in this badboy for a new card?

 

I actually have a few in my possession now, so I guess I can answer my own questions (and for anyone else interested).

Nope, it has no MXM slot.
It supports 2x2, not 3x3 for WiFi cards (IE 5100, RALink, etc...)
It uses the 8200M integrated GPU
It does not support Quad Core (verified)
It can not use 44W Dual core extreme CPUs (verified)
It can support up to a T9900 (verified) with excellent temps for the T9900's which can run warm (as expected @ 3.06ghz).

The retail models come with a T5800. I would avoid this CPU like the plague. It runs very hot, only 2mb cache and neutered (Under load, its temps were on par if not higher than a T9900) and is basically a Celeron IMHO.

It scores a ~1310 in 3Dmark06, which is respectable for an integrated GPU chipset. The 1440x900 glossy resolution lends itself well for gaming with details dialed back.


On the flip side, it is easily the lightest 17" PC Notebook I know of with a small adapter to go with it. It is even more compact and lighter than the 1722 with a smaller PSU. Size wise, it is on par with the Macbooks and runs very cool and is pretty quiet under load.

I wish MSI used the keyboard from the 171F on the 1722. The keyboard is much crisper and firm than the 1722 keyboard.

It uses the same chipset (MCP79) as the Macbooks.

It has a matte black finish and thus is not a fingerprint magnet.

If top end gaming is not a priority, I can't really find many faults with the MSI-171f (barebones) / MSI-VR705 (Retail model). If you have any aspirations of doing medium to high end gaming, look elsewhere.

 

I am selling an MS-171F on ebay and have run into a couple problems.

I purchased the barebone on ebay, then purchased ram, hard drive, WM3945ABG wireless card, and t9800 processor. I also swapped out the DVD drive for a Blu-ray I purchased.

Unfortunately, MSI does not list the MS-171F on their support site for me to obtain driver downloads. There is no serial numbers or MSI symbols anywhere on the laptop. On the back of the LCD there is typically a sticker identifying the laptop, this is missing - and I can see through to the back-light of the LCD. (which is kind of cool if there were a transparent sticker over it). The box it came in is from MSI and seems legit, but there is almost no viable information about the system.

So I installed XP 64-bit, no problems except for some driver issues.

I googled MS171f drivers and found this site: equuscs.com


So I download and install the drivers, but still some issues....they are the following:

No sounds - when I look in device manager, there are 3 ? marks - and their descriptions are:
-Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus
-Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus
-Unknown Device

I installed Intel's PROset wireless (which I downloaded from their site, which also sucks), and when I open the utility it has an X with the notification: "Driver is not installed" (but it was supposed to be bundled with the proset utility)

When I go to websites, and try to scroll the system is very slow and choppy - I'm 99% sure this is a video card driver problem - where could I get the correct driver?

Any help with these 3 problems would be much appreciated as the buyer is waiting on these issues to be resolved before I can ship.

PS. If anyone knows how I can easily obtain warranty information, I would be very appreciative.

 

MSI-171F is the barebone classification of their retail MSI VR705 here:

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1700&maincat_no=135

Note: XP 64-bit is low to nil for this laptop.

Here are the XP 64-bit video drivers:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winxp64_186.81_whql.html

 

ok, everything is working except for the wireless. thank you soooo much

I installed the intel PROset/wireless wifi connection utility that I downloaded from intel's driver download page. I put in my model number, and downloaded the win xp 64 drivers.

When I open the utility it says 'driver not installed'

So I went back to the site and just downloaded the drivers (ICS_Dx64.exe). When I run the .exe a gray box appears that reads:
"Now performing Intel[R] PRO/Wireless network driver installer operations. Please wait."

That appears for 5 seconds and then disappears, but nothing else happens even after waiting 20minutes+...

I found that my webcam wasn't working until I clicked the webcam button next to the power button. There are also a wireless button (nothing happens when I press it) and a P1 button (don't know what this is, nothing happens.)

Thank you for such a speedy response. I feel like I'm almost there with the laptop =)

 

Make sure you grabbed the XP 64-bit version. The fact it loads up and disappears real quick is what usually happens when you try to load in an incompatible driver install from Intel for their wireless cards.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17752&lang=eng

If the auto install package (ICS_Dx64.exe) won't work, try the manual install package (ICS_Dx64.zip) and install the drivers from the device manager.

 

ok so I downloaded the .zip from you link. When I execute the iProDifX.exe, same 5 second problem happens.

When I execute dpinst64.exe, a device driver installation window opens. I click next, and it says in less than a second:

"The drivers were successfully installed on this computer.

You can now connect your device to this computer. If your device came with instructions, please read them first."

and then it shows a table:
Driver Name: Intel (NETw5x64)net (05/28/2009 12.4.3.9)
Status: Ready

but when I open the PROset/wireless utility, it still reads: "Driver is not installed"...even after system restart

The wireless and P1 buttons above the keyboard still do nothing (when I hit the camera one, windows makes the hardware found/removed noise and enables the webcam)

When I go into device manager and look under network adapters, there is only one: Realtek RL...gigabyte ethernet NIC. But no wireless device detected.

There is one 'Other devices: ?! Unknown Device' ...which I tried to install the drivers for, I followed the wizard and selected the Intel corporation 3945 drivers from the list of manufacturers/models. Not sure if this is how I should be doing a manual install. After I do this, it shows the error: There was a problem installing this hardware: This device cannot start. (code 10). After I click finish, there is now a second device in the Network adapters tab of device manager - Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection #2. But it has an exclamation mark next to it. When I view its general tab, it shows error: The device cannot...(code 10)

I've tried pressing the wireless button again / reinstalling the drivers from the .zip file - but the same things happen every time.

I've tried re-seating the card physically in both the 'W' and 'TV' slots and tried both black wires in the AUX output from the card.

I hope it's not a dead card, but I can pull one from a working laptop of mine if it will help.

Thanks again! I definitely owe you one.

 

bump for ugrency? sorry

 

I think the problem was the card. I swapped out a wifi card from one of my dell laptops - and now it's connecting to wireless no problem.

But I have to put the dell wifi card back in the dell.



Now which wireless adapter should I get for my MS-171F?

Budget is under $20 (ebay)

 

Go with a Intel 5100 here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Intel-Wifi-...in_0?hash=item45ee06f24c&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14