NetBookMag.com

Time for our second touch screen install tutorial and this time we’re going to use the MSI Wind. As you may or may not already know the MSI Wind comes in many other brand names other than MSI. For this tutorial we’re going to use the Advent 4211. The touch screen we used was supplied by www.fidohub.com who are based in Taiwan. So far we’ve used two of their touch screens and both times everything has been superb.  Hoda Technology/Fidohub were also featured on the MSNBC Top 10 Gifts for the hard-core techie and we are confident we are fitting a quality component.

You can buy the touch screens direct from fidohub, we were supplied with a Fed Ex shipping number so we could trace every step of the parcel’s journey and shipping only took a few days from Taiwan to the UK..

–==[ W A R N I N G ]==–

As with all procedures that involve opening up the case and modifying the original equipment this could and probably will invalidate your warranty and/or you could permanently damage your machine so be careful. Netbookmag.com will not be held responsible for any damage, use this guide at your own risk.

We recommend that whenever sensitive electrical components are going to be handled that the user take the relevant antistatic precautions.

OK, lets get on with it =) Give yourself a couple of hours to do the upgrade as you don’t want to be rushing things. It might seem like a very complicated upgrade due to the amount of steps we have shown but this tutorial is aimed at all from the complete novice to the l33t modder. Also take into account there is no soldering required and theoretically this upgrade can be reversed with no permanent damage if performed correctly.

All the pictures in this tutorial are click-able so you can that see the images in great detail.

Here’s are a few pictures of the Touch screen that we received from Fidohub.com:

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This is the netbook before the touch screen panel has been fitted. What we want to do is to get access to the LCD so we can fit the touch-screen panel. The following steps will show you how to do it.

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Close the lid, flip the netbook over and remove the 9 screws keeping the back cover on. We have circled the locations of the screws above. Once the screws are removed put them somewhere safe for later. Carefully lift the back cover off the netbook, it might be a little stiff to take off if it hasn’t previously been removed.

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Above shows the back cover removed.

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We are now going to remove the WiFi card. (Our card will more than likely be different to the one in your netbook but the main difference may be that the antenna wires are lower down)

Unclip the 2 WiFi antenna wires shown above in the yellow boxes, they will lift off quite easily. Next we remove the screw that holds the WiFi card in place. This is marked above with a red circle.

Once the screw is removed you can lift the WiFi card up slightly and pull it out from the slot. Thats it, WiFi card removed!

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Next up we pull back the black cloth tape a little as shown above and then unplug the connector as shown above in the red box. The tape can stay where it is for when we re-connect the connector later on.

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Let’s go to the other corner for a minute and remove the hinge screw as shown in the red circle. Remember there’s a wire between the screw and the hinge. Don’t worry if you forget as we’ll remind you later. Next we need to unplug the large rectangle shaped connector as shown in the red rectangular box.

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Back to the other corner now and completely remove the cloth tape as shown above but keep it safe for later. Now that the tape is removed you will see a small white connector, unplug it.

We now need to remove the hinge screw as shown above in the red circle.

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Now that we have unpluged and unscrewed everything we can remove the bottom half from the top half of the netbook. Simply pull the motherboard half towards you and make sure no wires get snagged anywhere.

Once its’ completely free put the motherboard half out of the way for later.

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Let’s work on the screen half!

We need to remove the little rubber screw covers that are located in the red circles above. They will lift off quite easily. Keep them safe as they will be going back on.

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Once the rubber screw covers are removed we can remove the 4 screws that were underneath them.

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Now we can remove the hinge covers as shown above. We found them easier to remove if we pulled the hinge cover from the top.

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Now remove the hinge cover from the other other side.

We’ve also took a nice close up photo of the wires/hinge for when it comes to putting things back together.

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Carefully use a phone card, credit card or anything similar to slide it along the joints of the screen bezel to unclasp it as shown above.

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Gently start pulling the screen bezel away from the screen until it’s completley removed. You might find it sticks a little around the webcam area, this is due to a little double sided sticky tape behind the bezel.

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Just a little info here guys, ever wondered why you have a magnetic USB port on your netbook? Can you see where we have marked with the 2 red boxes? Those are magnets and theres a 99.99999999% chance that they will jump out of where they are supposed to be as we found out many times :). Just remember that they go blue stripe up if you need to put them back.

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We now remove the LCD hinge screw on both hinges as shown above. Once the screws are out we can remove the LCD hinges, they just lift out.

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We now need to take the screws out of the LCD brackets so there will be more room for the Touch Screen panel once everything goes back together. Lift up one side of the LCD and remove the 2 screws in the red circles then do the same for the other side. Don’t take the brackets off when the screws are removed just leave them where they were.

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Time to prepare the touch panel. If you look at the picture above you can see that the ribbon is on the lower right hand side of the panel. This is the way it will go onto your LCD so we’ll call this the front.

Ribbon on the bottom left then we’ll call this the back.

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Get the rubber strips that were supplied with your touch screen kit as we are going to put them on the panel.

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Remove the protective film from the front of the touch panel as shown above.

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We now need to carefully put the rubber strips around the perimeter of the panel.

Make sure the rubber strips avoid contact with the active part of the panel, the active part of the panel is everything on the inside of the silver border. Keep the rubber strips on the silver border as they could give false contact signals if touching the active area when everything is put back together. Take your time on this stage and make sure you get it right.

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Completely cover the perimeter of the screen as shown above and trim any excess rubber. Don’t worry if the rubber is hanging over the outer edges of the panel.

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NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME TO CLEAN YOUR LCD SCREEN AS WE WILL SOON BE PUTTING THE TOUCH SCREEN PANEL ON THE LCD.

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Flip over the touch screen panel so the back is facing you and remove the protective film.

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See the blue band running all around the screen? This is covering the double sided sticky tape that will attach the panel to your LCD. Pull back and peel off the thin blue film.

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Once you’ve peeled off the blue film you can flip the panel over so the ribbon is on the bottom right.

Carefully line up the panel on your nice and clean LCD screen. We found it best if we started in one corner and looked along to see if the panel was nicely aligned. When you are happy you can apply light pressure all around the perimeter of the panel so the double sided sticky tape attaches the panel to your LCD screen as shown above.

Remember that the panel actually attaches to the silver outer of the LCD screen and not on the LCD itself.

Thats it, the hardest part is over

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Let prepare the touch-hub controller board.

Get the controller board and the large double sided rubber sticky pad that came supplied with your touch panel kit.

Peel off one side and stick it onto the bottom of the controller board as shown above. Don’t bother peeling off the second side from the pad just yet.

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If you haven’t done so already put the LCD hinges back and screw them down as shown above.

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Bend the ribbon cable as shown above. You can see there is a screw hole next to the cable so make sure you bend the cable away from there. Next you can attach the ribbon cable to the controller board as shown above. You may want to attach a small piece of electrical type tape to the ribbon cable and the silver part of the LCD housing to keep the ribbon cable in position.

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Nearly time to put the screen bezel back on. First check the wires running down the right hand side of the screen to make sure they are nicely tucked away. Also check that the 2 magnets are where they belong.

Once your happy with everything you can start putting the bezel back on. Pay close attention to the wires coming from the hinges as we want them in the same locations as before we took the bezel off. If you have forgot where they were just look at the pictures near the start of the tutorial.

Once the bezel is lined up and the wires are in place you can start gently pressing down on the outer edges of the bezel to clip it into place. Once done we can put the screws back as shown in the red circles above.

DO NOT FULLY TIGHTEN THE SCREWS AS YOU COULD CRACK THE TOUCH SCREEN

When your happy with everything you can stick the rubber screw covers back on and that’s the LCD side of things more or less sorted. The hard work is over

Grab the motherboard side of your netbook and put it into position so we can screw down the hinges.

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OK, screw down the bottom left hinge as shown above, don’t forget about the wire that goes between the screw and the hinge

Next you can reconnect the wire/plug as marked above in the red rectangle, just push it down then tuck the wires away like they were.

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We can now push the hinge cover back on, make sure no wires are being nipped / snagged.

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Screw down the other hinge as shown above.

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Push the hinge cover back on taking extra care that you have the wire locations correct and that you don’t nip any wires with the hinge cover.

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Within your touch screen box you will find four wires. You want the one that goes from the big red rectangle on the motherboard to the small red rectangle shown on the touch screen controller board. Check the connectors out to see which wire it is.

For ease we will call one wire red and the other yellow as in our tutorial we have marked their positions in red and yellow.

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Once you have the right wire go ahead and plug it into the motherboard. Dont bother connecting the other side of that wire into the controller board just yet. Ignore the wire we have marked in yellow for now.

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Take the red and black twisted wire and plug it back into where it came from, we have marked it’s location with a red rectangle above. Peel back the black tape a little and put it back over that wire as it was near the beginning of this tutorial.

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Get your Wi-Fi card and push it back into the slot where it came from and then tighten the screw shown in the red circle.

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Clip both Wi-Fi antennas back onto the Wi-Fi card as above.

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Nows the time not to ignore the wire marked in yellow like we told you to do before.

Out of the 3 wires you have left in your touch screen kit find the one that fits the connections marked above in yellow. One side needs to fit the motherboard connection and the other side will go to the touch screen controller board where we have also marked in yellow. When you have the correct wire connect it as above.

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Now tuck that connection along the side of the Wi-Fi card as shown and then stick the tape over it also like above.

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Go ahead and peel the backing paper off the sticky rubber pad on the bottom of your controller board and stick it in the location as above.

You can connect the wire that we marked in yellow to the controller board shown above also marked yellow. Now connect the other wire (RED) to the controller board as marked above in red.

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Heres the wiring route we took and we also stuck the wires down with some insulating tape so they dont move about. Make sure you have no wires crossing over any screw holes.

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Replace the black cloth tape back over the wires near the hinge as shown above, make sure you have the tape tucked in where it runs along the battery compartment.

Have a double check of your wires and connections to make sure nothing will get damaged when you put the back casing on. Everything cool? Let put the back casing back on.

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Basicly its the same as when we took it off but in reverse. Once it’s in place put the screws back in the locations above and tighten them.

Thats the hardware installation complete just a couple of more steps :o)

When you power on your netbook you need to enable the camera by pressing Fn + F6 before you install the drivers for the touch screen.

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Once you have the driver installed conduct the 25 point linearization to give you accuracy with your new touch screen.

Thats it folks, mission complete!

Your new MSI Wind touchscreen is installed and we hope you feel more confident with having a go at fitting one yourself. As with the NC10 Touchscreen install guide we are going to shoot a quick video showing the touchscreen in action and we will post that up real soon…

We’ve tried the touch screen on the MSI Wind with Windows XP, Windows Vista (also with origami project) Windows 7 and OS X Leopard 10.5.6 and it worked without any problems at all :o)

Once again a big huge thanks to Fidohub.com for supplying us with the touch screen and be sure to check them out.

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written by admin \\ tags: fidohub, MSI Wind, MSI Wind Touch screen, MSI Wind Touchscreen, touch screen, Touchscreen, Wind