Asus 1201N Reviews and Owners Lounge

but you need the synaptic driver installed for the fn to work or you get an error message about missing touch pad driver each time you boot up the machine.

gordesky, which ram are you going to get, the hyper or the ocz

 

Oh I didnt know that, but then again I had my touchpad working but not my FN keys, I installed the hotkey thing and then they worked, never assumed I would need the synaptic driver tho it was there 1st .

 

the hyper x ram i problee get tho kinda alot for it 108$..


but i want to see how it overclocks and stuff cause i might than get it for my asus g50vt-x5 so i could overclock more on that too.

i problee couldve order it today but i bought the razer orochi sense i needed a new and gaming mouse for this and my g50.

but gona get the ram next month forsure.

 

anyone figure out yet how to increase the % overclock pertaining to Super Performance Mode with the Super Hybrid Engine.

what is super performance mode currently defaulted to, % wise that is?


Also, in your opinions what is the best way to boost battery life without effecting performance too much.

 

i was thinking about modifying the SHE profile too...

you can get more battery life by doing simple stuff like keeping the brightness down, keeping your HDD de-fragmented, running a lean version of your OS by turning off processes and programs you don't use(less processes mean leas CPU load) you can do that by going into run command and typing msconfig and unchecking boxes under startup tab. running Xp may help too.

 

thats, what I did. Reinstalled win7 64bit ultimate edition to get rid of stupid asus bloatware. under msconfig, only have like three or things under the start up section.

How often should I defrag, and where exactly do I do this on the windows platform.

 

i do it about once a week, you only really should defrag after you add/delete files or uninstall/install programs (you dont have to do it that often but every time you do any of those actions is when you get fragments). if you let it go for a long time your HDD can become all unorganized.

i use this

http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

 

cool, thanks dude. keep us posted if you figure out a way to tweak the SHE profile. I kind of want to know what percentage super performance mode is defaulted to.

Which stinks is that other eee pc's BIOSs have an SHE option where you can adjust the percentages. Maybe the 1201n will get a BIOS update to support this.

 

the super performance mode is 2% more only if i'm not mistaking.

 

well if you want the best boost in battery life without losing performance would be to go with a tweaked xp sp3 lol. aparently 45min more compared to 7.

also if you need maximum battery , you could tweek 7 to use the least amount of services as possible, you could try to downclock the gpu speed to reduce the watts , maybe downclock a bit the cpu with OC tuner to 1.3ghz.

edit:I learned that if you go in the setting power mode in 3d of the ion gpu and set the 3d to adaptive , it will activate the powermizer which cuts back the power when its not needed. aparently it cuts more power than just underclocking.

turn off bluetooth, extreme measures would be to also turn off anything your not using like card reader , ethernet , usb , etc... even if you don't use them , they draw a bit of power. not enormous , but if you add them all together it could save you some.

since you have 4 gig of ram , you could disable the system cache to reduce the access to the hardrive.( some software use the system cache so its not always good to disable it) or put the system cache on the ram, keep the hardrive defraged so it runs faster. I use Jkdefrag. pretty nice too.

 

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here as I am just about to pull the trigger on the 1201n and have not been able to find the information I'm after. Among other things, I plan to use this as a home theater PC, in the form of playing blu-ray ISO's and other similar media on my home theater. My home theater is set up for 1080p, all the latest losless audio codecs, etc. So here are my questions:

1) Can the 1201n SMOOTHLY stream 1080p via HDMI to my home theater receiver from an ISO (or similar) file and have everything run just as if I had a blu-ray player? Basically just looking for proper 1080p playback on a 1080p tv/projector.

2) Assuming the original file has the information (ISO?), can the 1201n pass the losless audio codecs along? (DTS HD, Dolby True HD)? Can it either decode these formats on board, or send them out via PCM? Either would be just fine. I would also expect to be able to play 720p TV shows along with their regular Dolby Digital and DTS tracks (non-HD).

Thanks in advance, the answer to this question will seal the deal for me. I am trying to decide between the 1201n and this laptop (seems to be the best bang for the buck laptop I can find in my price range): http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=72,73,74,4157&webid=830077&affixedcode=WW however the size of the 1201n REALLY appeals to me.

Also, I've read some of this thread and found the overclocking information most helpful, thanks for that.

Thanks in advance for any input,

Mark

 

quick question, with totalmedia theater and 1080p watching, should I have the hardware acceleration option enabled in the settings > video section. If so, which option should I set it to auto deinterlace, force deinterlance, or interlace.

 

@ Mark, I have played several mkv h264 1080p movies with no problem, all silky smooth granted these are at slightly lower bitrates than the a BD iso but I wouldn't think they would be a problem and this was on a 54" plasma. I believe it will pass thru the DTS HD/ Dolby True HD via HDMI (I have heard of other people having success with other ion based systems over HDMI) and it has worked for me with Dolby Digital, if you would like to send be a AV Receiver with HDMI inputs that supports DTS HD and Dolby True HD I would be willing to test it for you since mine only does DD and DTS.
If you are thinking about this for a HTPC I would highly recommend it, in fact I was so impressed with the ion I went out and bought a Revo1600 (ion nettop) to replace my original xbox has a dedicated HTPC.

@ slumpy, I would leave it on auto, unless you are outputting to a interlaced display (you probably aren't since all modern monitors/HDTVs aren't) and you probably aren't watching only interlaced videos (most digital HD content is either 720p or 1080p) then it shouldnt have to do anything, leaving it in auto will deinterlace your interlaced (1080i or 480i or anything else i) to progressive for display on your progressive panel otherwise it will leave it alone.

 

what about if I am just watching it on the netbook, still on auto..

 

Thank you very much, this did it for me. I actually read your reply from my iPhone in my car before going to the store haha. I went and bought one. I have 7 days to try it out with full refund but I'm not worried. I'll try out all the HD codecs myself thanks to the return policy! Thanks again for the peace of mind!

Mark

 

Sorry guys one more question for now - I was able to find the latest Nvidia ION driver and replace the included antivirus with avast, but what other driver/software updates should I do immediately? I can't tell exactly what kind of motherboard or anything, or how to update audio drivers, etc.

Pretty cool machine so far, the test will be tomorrow when I try run some h264 1080p through it to my home theater.

Thanks again,

Mark

 

I saw some stuttering last night when trying to play a youtube hd video, but could this have been my wireless connection since the video wasnt fully downloaded yet. Does your videos stutter until the thing is completed downloaded or does it play perfectly while streaming. I may try with an ethernet cable plugged in to see if it does the same thing.


question regarding ACPI driver:

I put a fresh reinstall of win7 ultimate 64bit on my 1201n along with 4gb of ram. Have everything working including SHE in super performance mode. I didnt download any acpi driver, was I suppose to or maybe just alittle confused. If so, from where exactly.


Since I have win7 64bit installed, what are chipset drivers. Do I need to get the chipset driver & graphics drivers from nvidia's website. I saw there is a chipset driver listed on the asus 1201n support page, but is that different than what is on the nvidia website. Is there more than one chipset driver. Do I need to pull it from intel's support site.


Just didnt know if it was me because the netbook seemed alittle slow at times since I did a fresh win7 64 bit reinstall. I just didnt know if I am missing something that I should have downloaded.

 

So I've been taking my 1201N to class the past few days...I'm pretty impressed with the battery life. Putting it to sleep in between sessions, it managed to last through a 2-hour chem lecture and 3-hour psychology lecture and had over half an hour left to go, according to Windows.

 

Hi guys, I really need some quick help here (only a few days left to return the 1201n). I am having major buyers remorse, as every 1080p movie I try to playback onto my home theater comes across EXTREMELY choppy, not even watchable in the slightest. Even some other 720p movies come through very choppy and unwatchable. I am using the ARC Soft Total Media theater 3 that is included. It did play one 720p movie with the dolby digtal track working perfectly, but I have yet to be able to duplicate this, even with other .mkv files. Every .ts file I try crashes the media player, but when I play it from VLC its very choppy and I only get the audio in stereo. If I play the movie on the computer it self, some are OK, some are still choppy, but not at all just not over HDMI. I have the computer set to super performance mode and the latest drivers for nvidia ION.

I'd really appreciate if someone could comment on whether I should be able to do what I am trying to do or not - I want to send 1080p .mkv and .ts files out over the HDMI port onto my home theater with at LEAST regular dolby digital/dts and have it play perfectly smooth. I got excited because I downloaded one 720p .mkv file and it worked flawlessly with audio and everything (it still does) but absolutely nothing else will work properly.

Thanks in advance! I really love this thing, it will be such a disappointment if I have to return it for not doing something it is specifically advertised as being able to do (send 1080p over HDMI smoothly). As mentioned earlier other people are having success with these types of systems and 1080p so I'm wondering if I should be using a different player or if I need to turn on some sort of setting?

Mark

 

Hi dear 1201N owners!

I've got the following serious problame with the video playbacks:

I am using the ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre Platinum to watch mkv movies. It runs perfectly some of my 1080p 1.2Gb size mkv movies. BUT it sais unsupported file type for a 7.2Gb 720p video, and an other 1080p movie (also mkv). These files dont even start. If I try to run with the vlc media player, i get only sound but no image. Is there any other player or codec apart from TMT, that i can use to play my 720p and 1080p movies?

Please help!

 

^^^ I'm having these same problems. I solved the "choppyness" by enabling hardware acceleration in Total Media Theater, however some .ts and .mkv files crash. When I open them in VLC, they sort of play, but it's so choppy and full of artifacts it isn't even remotely watchable. These problems only exist when I try play them over HDMI. The files play fine in VLC on my 3yr old desktop so I know the files are OK. The files also play fine in the Total Media player when HDMI is not connected. So, I guess I have 2 questions:

1) Are we limited to Arc Soft's Total Media Theater 3 because it helps take advantage of the CPU/GPU allowing us to play 1080p and similar movies? It seems programs like VLC won't play smoothly over HDMI.

2) Is there anything else out there that will run on the 1201n and play .mkv, TMT3, and .ts files like VLC will? It appears to have changed all .mkv and .ts files to .TMT3 files.

Thanks,

Mark

 

Ok, after further experimentation I have identified the following set of events that repeat themselves.

1) All files I am having problems with play in Total Media Theater 3 on the computer itself, with no HDMI cable plugged in.

2) If I plug in an HDMI cable and attempt to play the files on my home theater, the program tries to play the movie, exits to the landing screen, then tries to play it again, exits, etc. and the cycle repeats itself until I end the program via windows task manager - nothing else stops it.

3) Now, if I unplug the HDMI cable, the problem described in "2" above occurs even when trying to play the files back just on the netbook with no HDMI cable connected. If I restart the computer, it will again play the files back perfectly on the computer itself only - plugging in an HDMI cable again repeats the problems in "2" above and I am back to square one.

I have sent an e-mail to ARC soft support, but so far I am very disappointed as Asus is specifically advertising that this netbook has the ability to play 1080p over HDMI. I have one single 720p .mkv file that works, and streams perfectly over HDMI with dolby digital audio. Every other .mkv and .ts file, either 1080p or 720p will only play on the computer itself after a fresh restart, and not over HDMI.

Sorry for all the posts, but I really need some quick help or I will be forced to return the netbook for an issue that could possibly be resolved.

Thanks again,

Mark

 

Re!

It seems my problem is solved. None of the players are good enough, but i found a 4mb player, that playes everything fluently!

Check this link out and follow the instructions carefully! It really plays everything, ill uninstall TMT, vlc, bsplayer and other bad stuff!

http://www.guru3d.com/article/accelerate-x264-1080p-movies-over-the-gpu-guide/3

I hope i could help!
Lajos

 

Just install CoreAVC and Haali splitter that is all you need to get GPU accelerated playing of h264 .mkv files in windows media player.

 

Will either of the above 2 methods send the audio to my home theater in the form of dolby digital, dts, dts HD MA, Dolby true hd, etc? That is equally important to me.

Thanks,
Mark

 

You could try installing AC3Filter that allows certain options regarding DTS/DD I assume it should allow passthru of the HD versions.

 

I'll try that, thanks!

 

Update: I have confirmed that installing AC3 filter completely fixes my Total Media Gallery crashing issue, and gives me dolby digital or DTS audio for those files that use it. What I can't figure out now is how to get audio from DTS HD / Dolby True HD encoded files. I get the picture but no audio, not even in stereo. I was expecting Total Media Theater to be able to play these files as it advertises, but the program crashes unless I'm also running AC3 filter, and AC3 filter over rides the audio settings in the Total Media Theater so its a bit of a loop (which also leads me to believe the crashes were due to the audio tracks, which it is supposed to play no problem).

Any suggestions to get the losless audio codecs to be recognized by AC3 filter?

Thanks again for the suggestion to use AC3 filter, it totally fixed the majority of my issues.

Mark

 

@Mark S: have you tried using MPC-HC player?

it is the prefered player in the mini 311 forum. check the thread out. it might help you resolve your problems.

http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2331

 

Does anyone know if the 1201n uses the same power tip as the 1005ha or 1008?
I need to get an airline adapter but dont see any 1201n tips on Ebay.

 

Where am I supposed to put the extracted direct x files?

 

Mark, try disabling the AC3 encoder option under the spdif tab of AC3Filter config if that doesn't work play around with the other options there.

 

Not sure where i was supposed to post this (kinda new & extremely forum challenged

Don't Listen To The Naysayers - There Are MANY Reasons To Buy 1210N

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even though so much of the reviews i see are positive about the 1201N, there are those that say "this notebook is pointless to buy". I've read a lot of folks saying since its spec border on netbook & notebook, they cannot see any reason to purchase it-

Here are a few of mine, feel free to add any of your own-

1. 12" inch perfect sized screen (only available in much higher-priced laptops)
2. Bluetooth included (only available in much higher-priced laptops)
3. Asus Excellent Customer Support (rarely available in ANY much higher-priced laptops)
4. I know i'm an island of one, but i actually really LOVE a lot of their "Bloatware Programs" Some are too cool!
5. (Should've listed this FIRST) 1366x768 LED Display- (Rare find in a netbook - If you've ever stood next to a duller, lower resolution netbook in the store and compared it to a higher priced laptop, y'all know what i mean) - eeessssshhh!
6. Might not be the best One Touch Web access that's ever been developed, but you can't beat it - when you are in a hurry and u need quick info, do you really care if the fonts or formatting isn't perfect?
7. Those who say they cannot see the point of this, work on a netbook with 1GB ram for a little while and THEN tell me you didn't wish there was a netbook you could have with 3GB Ram on it
8. Ion (Will let THAT one speak for itself
9. 500 GB free online storage for One Year. That is awesome.. Have you priced Carbonite or some of the others? Talk about expensive. They nickel & dime you for every MB. Totally Ridiculous....
10. 5 hours of battery life may not be GREAT, but some bare bones laptops out there are STILL only offering 2 hr 30 min runtime selling for the price of this one.

i'll stop at 10 because i haven't even received mine yet...lol BUT i have read every word ever written so i feel as if i have owned it a year already!

 

Thanks ferrarista - I will give it a try. Does it take advantage of the nvidia ION, CUDA, and all of that too? I suspect it does if it works well on the 311.

So far, other than the lossless audio formats, I am totally satisfied with Total Media Gallery 3 platinum so long as its combined with AC3 filter, so if there was one program that just worked on its own that would be great.

EDIT: I just realized MPC-HC is media player classic - I actually tried this and although it will play the video, it won't play anything but stereo over HDMI to my home theater, and I need the dolby digital/DTS at the minimum. Am i just missing something?

Mark

 

Is this to get the lossless audio to play using AC3 filter? Thanks I will try that. Turning on SPDIF is what allowed the regular dolby/DTS tracks to play properly and going in to all this I didn't even know what SPDIF was. Thanks,

Mark

 

im also thinking about getting this for a portable HTPC. but damn mark you're scaring me.

is it really neccessary to use the built in video software..? i'd prefer to just use VLC or MPC with the proper codecs..

also if possible could anyone record a video using thier webcam and upload it? im just curious as to how video quality is on the 0.3MP webcam ASUS uses.

 

So mark you have problems playing 1080p films you got from a source and it stutters even with the codecs? I read you are playing discs from arch media center, are you playing blu ray movies from a external blu ray drive? Now i have played 1080 and 720P files on a single core atom and it didn't really stutter at all. I usually just get CCP,vlc for certain files and extensions, and gom player as my main player most of the time, whenever i play mkv files with media player everything is fine as long as you have the codecs, you are always going to need the codecs.

 

what is the best way to clean the 1201n, i.e the black part of the netbook along with the screen.

 

Monster anti bacterial lcd spray or just plain old very damp water.

 

mark are you using the MPC-HC with ac3 filter?

did you go in the sound settings ?

menu in Media player classic

play -> filters -> ac3 audio decoder

check the SPDIF option in the DTS section?

also make sure you follow the guide in the link I showed you. MPC doesn't need any extra codecs. MPC-hc has dxva hardware accelerated decoder that can take full advantage of the Ion GPU.

you don't really need any other player.

 

I just wipe the glossy black parts down with an old T-shirt. Same with the display, but I get it very slightly damp first.

As opposed to dry water?

 

No, he meant as opposed to *new" very dry water... lol

 

so damp water on a cloth will work on the screen

 

Well kinda damp but for a screen i really recommend a monster lcd cleaner. Too many times i have washed out a screen with just water, sometimes i also use hand sanitizer on it from my college lolz. How fast is this CPU? I have seen video how it decodes 720 and1080P very well and very good!

 

Nobody knows if the charging tip of the 1201n and the 1005ha are the same huh?

 

strange question, someone posted earlier the ftp site that asus posts the drivers/utilities/bios, etc. But why when something new gets added that sometimes it is a lower number than one that was posted previsouly. For example:

File:SHE-1_16.zip
1499 KB
1/18/2010
12:03:00 PM

File:SuperHybridEngine-V2_10.zip
1986 KB
12/15/2009
3:50:00 PM

File:SHE-1_19.zip
4904 KB
12/7/2009
4:29:00 PM

File:SHE-2_09.zip
1615 KB
10/20/2009
12:20:00 PM

File:SupHybridEngine-1_18.zip
3188 KB
9/3/2009
5:52:00 PM

Shouldnt the latest entry date have the highest number. Doesnt make sense. I noticed this for various utilities on the ftp site. I thought that even I downloaded a particular utility with the most recent date, then that would be the latest one. I am not so sure now.

 

It seems that I will be joining you fine gentlemen fairly soon.

 

I solved my problems playing the actual video content by installing AC3 filter, apparently many of the audio tracks were crashing TMT3, but it works beautifully with AC3 filter running in tandem.

My ONLY problem now is getting losless audio to come through my home theater over the HDMI port while playing .mkv or .ts files that are supposedly encoded with DTS MA or Dolby True HD.

 

Yes, I have that selected, and it won't send the DTS/Dolby Digital tracks over my HDMI, however it will play in stereo, and the video side of things works perfectly. I am not overly concerned with this as TMT3 plays my videos perfectly (Since the installation of AC3 filter) over HDMI and sends the Dolby Digital/DTS properly to my home theater receiver, however I am still working on getting the lossless formats through (DTS MA, Dolby True HD). Checking the SPDIF box for DTS in AC3 filter was what got it to play the regular DTS tracks for me. I have more DTS MA material to test with in case my first test file was a dud, so I'll do more testing and let you know.

I followed the guide but I can try it again, maybe I'll get lucky and it will handle the lossless stuff too =).

Thanks,

Mark

 

take a look at these links. maybe it could help ya in some way

http://blogo.biz/?p=24

http://www.avforums.com/forums/computer-systems/630437-media-player-classic-mkv-files-5-1-help-please.html