Asus 1201N Reviews and Owners Lounge

@some guy: Yes, with 50% bright on the screen and browsing the interwebs via WiFi, I get about 4-4.5 hours out of a full charge. I will try to get TF2 installed Friday or Saturday to give you an opinion on that. It should run it fine, as some newer games are getting 15-25 FPS, so I would expect a 20-30 or maybe even a 25-35 avg, from TF2; but, like I said, I'll try it out for you and post my findings.

@slumpey: That's fine slumpey, that is the same thing I do, except I run at 157MHz in OC Tuner. With that new ram you have, I'd imagine you could get a little faster than 150, maybe even as high as 160, just keep increasing it 1 MHz at a time, and apply after each increase. If it doesn't give you a BSOD, increase it another MHz. If it does, set it back to the last speed you were able to apply and try running some programs, if you still have problems, lower the speed by 1MHz at a time until everything works. That is how I determined I could run at 157MHz.

 

hmm ya slumpey should be getting higher than that with that ram im pretty sure if he highers the latency-timings he will be able to overclock more if he haven't did that yet.


right now i got mine at 2ghzs from useing 800mhzs ram mix with 533mhzs low latency ram but ram is ony at 667 which hurts the ion performance little.


im thinking of getting the kingston hyper memory 2x2gb soon problee next month and hopefully things would get better even tho im happy with the netbook now but more performance is good

 

I can probably get it higher than that but I feel like everything in the netbook is getting hotter the higher I go. I ran speedfan and I could have sworn I saw it in some areas 60 degrees, cpu? gpu? Maybe it was because I had a few programs running at the time or maybe speedfan doesnt work with the 1201n. That was why I get a little nervous.

Have any of you guys tried speedfan and if so what temps are you reading. Would like to compare.


Like I said the only program I used was OCTuner and the only thing I changed was CPU frequency. I have not touched anything else besides installing the 800mhz (PC2 6400) memory up to 4gb.

 

thanks Adolen. i really do appreciate all your help.

the TF2 results will pretty much put the nail in the coffin on the idea of me getting a 311.

i dont expect much over 20 FPS @ lowest settings but if you can get around there ill be a happy guy. the reason why this is important to me is its the only game i play that i foresee being hard on the 1201n. i mostly play heavy and engy so i dont need 60 FPS to play good. not to mention TF2 allows you to use multi core rendering (in the video settings) which may prove (once again) the 1201n a better choice for my needs over the single core netbooks.


im starting to see the only reason for me not to get the 1201n right now is the battery life. but i dont see any other notebooks/netbooks in this price range getting this performance and battery life. if you go with a $500 notebook you get a lil better performance but like only 2hrs battery life. if you go with any other netbook you loose out on that second core....

i think im one of the few the 1201n actually geared for. and thats awesome!

 

Yeah, I feel ya on that one guy. It had come down to the K50AB and the 1201N for me. The K50 is a lot stronger; but, the K50 also only had about 1.5-2 hrs of battery, no HDMI, and cost $100 more even if I got it while it was on sale. Obviously, I chose to go with the 1201 and I have not been disappointed. The gaming could be better, if you want to compare to full notebooks; but, the battery life is great and the performance in everyday tasks feels just as strong as my desktop.

 

You can now preorder this machine from j and r now. jr.com Is it having overheating problems?

 

No, it stays between 50-60c, well within the safe zone for it's components.

It has been on sale and in stock from Newegg.com since mid-December, no need to pre-order from somewhere else.

 

slumpey326 its pretty much normal for it too be in the 60s and even 70s sense its small and a netbook lol and around 40s to 50s idle

even my g50vt-5 laptop runs 60s and 70s while running games and stuff.

mine runs around 60s at load playing a game or stress testing heck even when i first got it it was running around 80s and it was fine but i found the problem that the ac plug was blocking the vent... lol


temps really didn't raise for me when i overclock from stock. maybe around 3 to 5c more if that.


also ony programs i use to overclock is octuner which is the ony one out to overclock this and ntune just to higher the timings more tho with this memory i can go up too 2ghzs with out messing with the timings anything highe rthan that i have too

 

the 800mhz (PC2 6400), cas latency 4 ram (2x2gb) is now back in stock on newegg.com
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Laptop Memory Model KHX6400S2ULK2/4G - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168201041480

 

hmm so tempting but cant get it till next month..


it does seem the overclock too 2ghzs does help a bit doom 3 was pretty much unplayable on even 640x480res and everything on low.

but today i tried it and it was really playable at 1024x768 and everything on maxed except shadows.


ok overclocking wasn't making doom 3 play better i just tried stock and its doing pretty good but overclock did help a bit like maybe around 5fps which smooth things out a bit

not sure why it was bad before tho couldve been a bad driver.

so far with everything maxed 1024res and everything on ultra even on shaodws now which overclock helped that i get around 18fps min and 20s 30s avg and 50s and 60s max . it does drop when you blow stuff up but goes right away.

i say it does pretty good on it tho it is a old game but still looks good and takes alot even for its age lol

 

i think i may get that.... ether that or the OCZ (all my other ram is OCZ)... but i probably need to get the 1201n first ehh?

 

hey gordesky, which driver do you think would have screwed it up

 

Jesus, I can't believe you guys are overclocking this thing. I run HWMonitor on a cold boot, and right now my CPU temperatures are both 58C, and my GPU is 66C, doing nothing but browsing with Firefox! I'm new to netbooks, but that seems a little warm to me. The air coming out of the vent on the left side is scorching hot.

Also, does anyone know if there's a utility or something to get the function keys to work? I think someone must have forgotten to install something, because none of the Fn+hotkey functions work, except for sleep and display brightness. Even the physical touchpad disable button does nothing. I tried Asus' product support downloads site, but it didn't have anything.

 

ATK_Hotkey should be the utility that makes the Fn keys work. You can download it from Asus's website if it's not already on your drivers disk.

 

I dunno what's on my driver disk, I don't have an external optical drive to read it with.

But no, I found it. Turns out I had to get to the Asus FTP with all files; for some reason it's not listed in the 1201N downloads list.

So, with regards to my temperatures, is something wrong here? Should I be concerned?

 

pretty much the temps seems fine and usely will go lower over time mine did.


also do you have the ac adapter right on the side by the vent?

i was getting pretty high temps like high 70s and 80s even at idle till i saw the black round thing by the plug that plugs in the netbook siting by the vent.

so i run the wire going in the back of the netbook so nothing is blocking the vent or even by it.

right now my temps while overclocking the cpu 2ghz and gpu

is 66 cpu 48 cpu core 1 and 61 cpu core 2 and my mcp is 62 and gpu is 57 and hdd is ony 32.


the atom 330 just runs hot even my acer one 150 atom single core 1.6 runs like 50s at idle and 60s at load.


slumpey326 the driver mightve got corrupted while overclocking because alot of crashing and blue screens from overclocking to high i had the new ones 195.62 so i reinstalled the drivers and seems to fixed doom 3 from playing bad.

 

I just ran some gaming tests on my 1201N. Team Fortress 2, at 1280x720 and all settings on minimum, multicore rendering enabled, got a pretty steady 30 frames per second. Not ideal, especially if you're using a twitchy class like Scout or Sniper, but it's more than adequate for just about anything else. I did pretty well as Pyro and Heavy in my half hour test run. Given the CPU-bound nature of the Source engine, I imagine a CPU overclock might help things out a bit.

I also installed Halo: Combat Evolved, and it runs pretty much perfectly maxed out at native resolution.

 

hmm i just tried tf2 and my fps is like 10fps min 18 too 20s avg and max i saw was 32fps this is with 2ghzs ion gpu at 600core and processor core at 1180. im using fraps too see the fps

settings with 1280x720 with everything on min and muticore rendering enabled its playable tho

when you say 30s fps per second steady you mean it always was staying at 30fps or does it drop like mine does?

i kinda expected it will do this sense tf2 relies on cpu more than gpu but if yous pretty much always 30fps or always close to it than i must be doing something wrong or mine is under performing ...

 

According to the in-game framerate monitor (open the console, type cl_showfps 1), when I was just moving around or standing still, it hovered around 30 to 35. Sometimes it would dip into the 20's when lots of people were on screen at once.

For the record, this was on my clan's 24/7 2fort server.

I'm going to try the -dxlevel 80 (forces DirectX 8 instead of the default 9) parameter and see if that helps anything.

 

thats great news!

let us know what you gain in FPS with running in DX8.

 

Thanks for starting the owners' lounge!
I have added it to the Info Booth and to the Reviews and Owners' Lounges Index.

E.B.E.

 

Ok, I know there has already been a couple reviews on TF2; but, I said I'd check it too, so here goes. I ran TF2 with a LAN server, native res, and 3 players. Not exactly a stress test, but a test none the less. I did not OC anything and still, the game ran smooth as ice. I would imagine that, even with a few extra people, so long as you OC'ed, it would still run very well. At least in my tests, I did not notice any significant FPS drops, this may be simply because I didn't have enough players.

The 1201N has just enough muscle to push through and provide a satisfying game experience while on the go. As usual, I would not recommend it as a primary gaming system; but, it certainly proves itself as a good all around-er. After trying TF2 for myself and seeing what others have had to say, I would rate the experience about the same as most other games on the 1201N, 'Easily Playable but not Awe Inspiring.'

 

awesome! ill be ordering a silver one along with 2x2gb set of DDR2 as soon as i can sell one of my desktops thats collecting dust.

thanks once again for your help.

 

On Sunday I sold my N10J (Great machine btw), so I could get this nice new toy. I will have it tomorrow! First mod will be to slap in my 128gb SSD. I've already found (on Newegg) a description on how to get at the HD. My main computer in a G51j, but it to big to really move around much.

I need to figure a way to sync them OTA. I want something that will do Outlook as well as files. Any help would be welcome.

Thanks'

 

hmm just found out something weird...

at stock clocks 133fsb my temps was showing around high 60s to 72 max idle and i was wondering why it was this high.

so i put my clock up too 2ghzs like i usely do and my temps drop in like a sec too 40s and 50s?? lol than if i put it too stock in like sec they will show 72c..


im useing everest to monitor my temps


is this a bug or is something going wrong with my 1201n...


edit i just tried cpuid hard ware monitor and its showing the temps alot lower around 20s core 1 and core 2 is around 40s but as soon as i lower it from 165fsb too 164 temps will go higher like 5c more... and its not download clocking sense i gain fps in games when i overclock.

 

just updated too 0318 bios thinking that could fix it and it still does the same..

 

I noticed that also with the temps being high, around 60-70 also. Is this norm?

Gordesky, did you contact asus support yet. Maybe they can do a quick BIOS update, would that even fix it?

 

I notice the same thing, I don't know why it does it and which temps are right. I wouldn't worry about it, unless it's getting very hot to the touch or freezing. The max temp for the CPU is like 125F or something so either way you aren't getting close.

 

cool, thanks jake

 

Also with certain games I notice a difference between fps depending on the FSB (and it isnt the OC making it better). For example with Unreal Gold at the stock 133 I get 54 fps, at 166 I get 45, interestingly that difference is about the same percentage ~20% as the difference in FSB speed. I am assuming that maybe some games use the FSB in calculating fps and when it is higher than expected it throws off the calculation, not sure if that is causing the problems with the temps.
Lastly here is the link in the other thread for my 3Dmark06 scores (1900).

I get about about 22-25 fps average on COD:MW, low of about 10 high in the 40s that is at native res and most settings on high (specular maps/effects and rag doll only thing turned off). WoW I get about 40 average, low of 20ish high around 60 that's at native res and good settings.
This is all running W7 HP.

 

ok thanks guys for letting me know i thought mine was the ony one doing it..


but ya i figure it was wrong sense its ony warm to the touch by the vent and doesn't freeze or anything.

be nice if they would put a bios update to fix it.

slumpey326 i would ask asus but what will they when i say im overclocking it and it lowers the temps when i do lol


yep my fps is around that too never tried unreal gold on it tho.


ony games that the oc dont really help much is left 4 dead's maybe about 1 to 2fps more but that is it. those 2 games seems to be really hitting on the cpu hard.

 

just FYI, my 1000HE does the same exact thing when i change the profiles in SHE.

when in power saving mode core temp reads 60-70c but when in performance mode (OCed to 1.73ghz) core temp reads 30-40c. ???

i dont think its based on fan speed as the fan only spins under load regardless of what profile im in. also i would assume it would not be a voltage issue as if the voltage increases so would the temps and we are seeing the exact opposite. i am thinking its just a Atom thing because not to mention im running on a Intel chipset and the ION is an Nvidia...

could just be jacked up temp sensors too... all the 45nm CPUs i own have stuck temp sensors and dont read below a certain temp.

 

there is a new OC tuner version available 2.3.13 which aparently runs better.

http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=3414

any of you tried this version?

 

I just downloaded and installed that OCTuner you linked, but when I open it, a message comes up saying "This utility is not for this platform!" and then closes.

 

You need to add the line

Code:

1201n=ion.ini

to the asroc.ini file again, when you install the program it overwrites the old edited asroc.ini file.

 

how are you guys doing on battery timing. I have my brightness set halfway and when not even overclocking I get between 3.5-4hrs. Is that about right. What are you guys seeing.

Should I be adjusting any other settings to increase battery life but not really effect performance. Oh yeah, I do have super performance mode running also

 

jake, do you need to add that ion file also like with the last OCTuner version.

 

You shouldn't need to add it if you are installing over the top, but if you uninstalled the old version it may have deleted it.

 

I did that and saved, but the same messages comes up when I launch it.

 

you need to add the ion file as well to the octuner folder.

 

kind of a dumb question but does the 1201n have a faster processor than the UL20 or UL30.

UL20 = CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3G
UL30 = CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3G
1201N = CPU Type Intel Atom N330 (1.60GHz)


Why would people want the ULs over the 1201N. Is the graphics better on the ULs.

 

the 330 atom is slower by a nice margin when compared to those C2D CPUs... but the Intel graphics on them suck. unless you go with the ones that have switchable gfx 210m/4500HD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...nPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=402:49716

in that case they are better in every way... but also $300-$400 more than the 1201n.

 

how is it slower, wouldnt 1.6g on the 1201n be better than 1.3g on the ULs.

 

nope. its not that easy. CPU architecture is what makes a CPU fast, not its speed (Ghz/Mhz)... technically speaking.

its kinda like saying you have a 150 horsepower car or 150 horsepower motorcycle.... there is a huge difference in weight. so the motorcycle will go much faster with the same horsepower.

i hope that makes sense. ether way the core 2 architecture is much more efficient per Mhz than the Atom's architecture. which in turn makes it a better CPU than the Atom.

 

with OCTuner is there a reason why when I got the cpu frequency up to 155 (about 1850) my screen hit the blue screen at some point afterwards.

I have 4gb ram installed 800 (PC2 6400). This is the one I purchased:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227251


Would this one have been better,:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104148


How are you getting yours much higher when you are only touching OCTuner only.

 

I got it working, thanks for your help. I never actually had the ion.ini file.

I've been running at FSB 155MHz for a while now (core speed 1.9-something GHz). Beyond that and it freezes when I hit "OK". And according to HWMonitor, the CPU temperatures have dropped 10 degrees. Curious.

For the record, I'm using 4GB (2x2GB) of Samsung DDR2-800m 6-6-6-18 timings. I may play with the timings with nVidia system tools or something.

 

slumpey326 you problee have to mess with the timings a bit because its 800mhzs ram and usely you have to higher the timings to get more out of the ram.

i pretty sure even with the hyper ram at some point you gona have to mess with the timings

that's the ram im problee gona go for next month


even with my cas 4 533mhzs memory i had to up the timings a bit to get a stable 2ghzs but the memory is slowing the ion down a bit because its ony running at 667 right now..

 

what is this Bupdater Utility, do I need to install it since I reinstalled win7 64 on my computer.

Also is there away to get the Fn functions working without having to install the snyaptic drivers. When I had the snyaptic drivers installed the touchpad would always mess with my mouse.

 

The FN keys work with asus hotkey utility, has nothing to do with the synaptic touchpad drivers.

 

bupdater utility is too update the bios but i just used the one came preinstalled.

but i wouldn't recomned updating to a bios unless you having problems

i did because i thought i had a problem with temps and was hopeing that would fix it but it didn't.


cause a bios update can wrong and pretty much you would have a 12.1 in paper weight.. lol