Asus 1201N Reviews and Owners Lounge

Hey Soviet, I know you said that you aren't interested in OC'ing and pushing benchmark numbers; but, I'd really appreciate it if you could see how far the HyperX ram will allow OCTuner to go, after you've finished your other mods of course. I'm currently maxed at 157MHz and am strongly considering the HyperX as an upgrade; but, I only want to pay that premium price if it will allow me to OC further than other, less expensive, 4GB sets.

Thanks!

 

Hi Adolen. Sorry, but I decline. Like I said before, if you want a higher overclock for your CPU, downclock your memory.

 

Thanks for the suggestion; but, no thanks. I've seen the numbers posted by users who have down clocked their memory to achieve better OC on the CPU. While their CPU performance was appropriately higher than mine, it did not seem to help their gfx performance; and, in some cases, it actually suffered. This defeats the purpose when one starts sacrificing one area of performance to gain in another, I prefer to gain performance overall, not just trade it out. Besides that, gfx is the individual aspect I'm most interested in improving, as the system is already, for the most part, fast enough for general day to day use.

 

Yes, that is the balancing issue with this notebook because the GPU and the northbridge are both on one chip. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5759017&postcount=163

 

tho if the hyper memory would have some head room too like 1000mhzs im sure we can get the best of both worlds


that's what im hopeing when i get my hyper set hopefully this month coming up or next sense newegg doesn't have any in stock yet...

sense right now i have the stock ram back in and tried anything over 155 it crashs if i mess with the timing a little i can get close to 160.

but even if i down clock my ion memory it doesn't do anything too help the overclock.

with the other ram i had in it 533mhzs which is cas 4 had alot of headroom i got a stable 2ghzs with it even putting the ion memory clock up to 800 850.

the 533mhzs ram was around 667 when i had it at 2ghzs but they pretty decent overclockers.

the stock ram is cas 6 which isint good for overclocking at all maybe too a extra 200mhz or 300mhzs but after that the ram starts craping out sense it cant get even close to 1000mhzs



just tested the stock ram too about 159mhzs oc and it 3dmarks 06 crashs so that's problee the limit of the stock ram. the 533mhzs clocked up too around 167 and even more when messing with the timings and i could get almost 2.1ghzs but the ram craps out around 700mhzs.

this is also with the ions clocks at the same speed sense i allways higher the ion memory back to 800mhzs with the 533mhzs ram sense the ion memory ran at 533mhzs with that ram.

 

Does anyone know which of the power functions to use. The standard windows power settings are there but I am also running the Asys Super Hybrid Engine (which I don't think has any effect now). I thought the hybrid engine actually overclocks the machine a bitat the one setting and underclocks it at the low setting.

Are you supposed to turn off the windows power options and then run the ASUS SHE, and how?

 

Adolen try this forum, has some useful information and several people who did benchmarking.

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=81900

 

so i got my 1201n today.

i played around in W7 for about 30min before i got tired of the laggy performance and installed Xp. im sure moving to 4Gb will help W7 out some but i planed on running Xp anyway. since i don't think anyone here is running XP ill post my battery life and other benchies soon as i get around to them.

so im on Xp32bit now with no mods what so ever and hit 1670 in 3Dmark06.

3DMark Score - 1670 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score - 626
SM 3.0 Score - 669
CPU Score - 814

i plan on OCing but pretty sure i wont get that far tonight. i did notice a good amount of flex in the keyboard so i took some thermal pads and placed them underneath the keyboard and the flex is gone. i really like this keyboard's feel now that its much stiffer.

the screen is also very impressive. nice and sharp! im loving the native rez on this 12" screen.

i hated scrolling around on my 1000HE (1024x600) with a passion!

 

here is scupking 3dmark06 test with a stock win7 1201 that he posted on the other 1201 thread in the asus forum.

3dmark06 test

Asus 1201n
3D Mark score = 1582
SM 2.0 = 605
SM 3.0 = 626
CPU Score = 756


So Xp does improve on 7. and your battery life should be better too since your using less ressources. I can only imagine overclocked how much better your scores will be. with 4gig your 3dmark will surely go higher than 1700 with everything else stock.

I'm wondering to see how it overclocks with xp with the stock ram. can't wait to see your results

edit: Look at the temperatures with HWmonitor to see how hot it gets during idle and load. thanks

 

Just ordered a 1201n from newegg. I was wondering is this memory upgrade works, I'd get two of these: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Technology-CT25664AC800-200-pin-PC2-6400/dp/B001342KM8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264797123&sr=8-1

Thanks a lot.

 

I'd go with these instead. Same manufacturer, they're a little cheaper and you know they'll work for dual-channel, plus, it's from Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145598

 

Hey everybody,

I just bought a 1201n and am trying to squeeze as much performance out of it as possible short of going SSD. I have 2 questions:

1. Are SDHC Class 10 cards compatible with the 1201n, specifically for readyboost?

2. What is the largest hard drive I can plop in this thing using win7 32?

Thanks

 

1) I have no clue

2) Any 2.5" SATA hard drive will be compatible. Currently the largest models that will fit are 500GB.

 

hey guys...i've been thinking about a netbook that i can carry to work and then game in between.....seems like this could be the ticket...im not worried about battery life (need this size) and want something that will game decently on the commute, methinks, ok, on this?

 

well with only messing around with the stock hardware and XP32bit i got this

View attachment oc.bmp

i can get to about 1.95GHz before BOSD, but id say im only stable to 1.9Ghz(159 FSB).

i also ran the CSS stress test @ lowest setting/native rez. i got 41fps @ stock and 57fps @ 1.9Ghz.

im having a lot of trouble getting my GPU OCed. the Nvidia system tools software just seems really slow and the settings don't apply. i gonna try to figure out why when i get the time. i feel that once i can get to about 500Mhz on the GPU i should be hitting 2K in 3Dmark06 since ive ran faster than 1.9Ghz but it didn't really change my score at all so one would assume that on my current config i have no more CPU bottleneck @ 1.9Ghz.

as far as temps go... i really confused. like most have seen when i OC i get lower temps than when im @ stock speed. (im using coretemp)

idle @ stock - 70/80c
load @ stock - 70/80c

idle @ 1.9Ghz - 60/70c
load @ 1.9Ghz - 60/70c

the GPU seems to stay around 45c idle and 50-55c load

one more thing.... has anyone noticed random lag? it happens to me no matter what im doing. gaming, surfing, typing... it happens maybe once every 3-5min and last like 1-2sec. its pissing me off.

im hoping its a HDD issue but ive never seen a system doing this unless all CPU resources are being used up. which in my case they aren't.. cpu load doesn't even jump. weird...

i cant really give battery life yet as i haven't even been thru 2 full cycles but i can tell you that even thru all this benchmarking and whatnot ive been seeing just under 4hrs of use before i hit 20% charge left and put it back on the charger.

im hoping this means ill see a full 5hrs!

 

hmm on css test did you try all max settings except anti ?.

on everything on low on mine @ 2ghzs my fps is 49.


but when i have everything maxed except anti and filtering i get around 47 to 48fps. and at stock cpu speed i get around 45 and 46.


but my ram is also holding me back sense im still using the 533mhs mix with one 800mhzs stick..


but ya seems like xp does offer more performance and might even in games.

but i want too see how it stacks up with all the settings maxed which what i run on mine.

 

those temps look high at idle. can you try with HW monitor software and check the temps again or Everest.

everybody I've seen overclocking the 1201n see the same thing as you. the temps drop after overclocking.

Looks like you'll hit that 5hrs , maybe more when only surfing the web.

I think you should easily be able to go higher than 2000 mark without changing anything and going 4 gig ram.

 

The fan is most likely ramping into high gear once the temps get hot enough from overclocking.

 

or could be because of the temp censors is goofy sense they shouldn't go lower when you overclock lol so i don't really go by the temps much on mine much.

cause at bone stock temps would just be in the 70s and 80s idleing and pretty much stay the same at load just couple more c and the system or the air coming out of the vent doesn't even feel that hot.

sense with my g50vt-x5 you can feel it when the gpu gets that hot and is really warm air coming out.


like right now mine is at stock temps is showing 67c for cpu and 75c for the 2 cores and that's pretty much not right sense the bottom or the side vent is just warm and the hdd is ony at 31c?

im pretty sure if temps was really in the 70s the hdd wouldn't be that cool

and again its weird sense when you clock even 1mhz the temps lowers like 10 or 20c lol which might be the right temps maybe overclock fixes something lol..

with overclocking my temps is showing around 51c idle for the 2 cores and goes lower the cpu didn't change at all still at 67c. load is around 58 too low 60s on the cores and 72 for the cpu temp

 

Hi. Does someone have tried these ram ?
GSkill PC6400 5-5-5-15
http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00093104.html

some problems using Windows XP : only 768MB of ram are avaiable. Are the others 1,2GB reserved for ion ? It's hard to play Bioshock with some graphic options with only 768MB. Does anyone have a solution ?

Thanks

 

when you pop the ram in did you go in bios after that?

because you have to go in bios first so it detects it

 

I know that, but I've not yet changed the ram, and I've only 768MB of ram detected for using the system and applications. I think the rest is reserved for ion, but I can't be certain.

 

I play heroes 5 on this, it runs the game in the highest resolution fluently. U can play cs on this also, but sometimes fps drops below 20 if too much action going on.

 

Is that Counter-Strike 1.6 or Source?

 

well quick update here...

i was having issues with my Xp32bit install so i went and installed XP64bit and im so glad i did. im missing a few drivers but nothing really impairing yet.

i was also able to install the newest version on evga's precision tool with great sucess. i used it before to monitor FPS and temps but it also now alows OCing of the Gpu/shaders/ram!

this is really great cuz i HATED using nvidia tools.

you need to be a registered member to download the tool but heres the link anyway.

http://www.evga.com/PRecision/

so now coupled with my highly stable 1.9Ghz OC on the CPU and DX8 tweek im seeing awesome Fps in TF2. using lowest settings with vsync & multicore rendering enabled im seeing 30-60 Fps @ the native rez!

ill be back with 3Dmark06 scores soon...

 

Don't know why, but after rebooting, going to the bios, changed nothing, and saved, it detects now my 1,7GB of ram as usual

I've problems with my hard drive too : when using 7 or Xp, the drive clicks noisely (3 times when I'm not using the machine).

I've called my reseller and he proposes me a return, and changing my machine.

I'm looking for new memory modules (PC6400 cas 5 or...) to upgrade my 1201N.
Is the Dual Channel mode more efficient ? I don't need more than 3GB. Does I buy 2x2GB for performance with Dual Channel ?
Does someone know modules whick have been tested with 1201N ?

 

@someguy for that evga tool did you do anything too it too detected the right clocks?


cause when i used too use that i even tried it now and it ony shows the clocks at 350 800 and 533 which are the level 3 profile its showing. it should be showing 450mhzs 1100 and 533 or 800 depends on your memory.


i would use it too over ntune but it overclocks the level 3 profile instead of the level 4 profile which is used while playing games and stuff.







oh and Jussi713 i pretty sure that click is normal sense the hdd goes to sleep and usely makes the click if you don't mess with the power settings.

mine did that couple times so i went too power settings and told it to not shut off the hdd which i don't like anyways

and i haven't herd it again.

i also downloaded quiet hard drive and set the options to max performance and the hdd seems a bit faster and always running.

 

EVGA has a weird clock detection. In any case, I use GPU-Z to monitor my clocks in the background while I use Precision to monitor my temperatures if I'm so inclined.

Also, you can download Precision from someplace like Guru3D without any registration.

 

ya seems like it ony overclocks the level 3 profile instead of 4th which is the main one...

 

Thanks for the answer
My hdd is always running, but he clicks loudly every 15 minutes...
I've tested to set my power management to 254, and the problem stays. The clicks of a "normal" power management was not so loud in every laptop I've tested last 2 years...

 

Hey everyone. I just wanted to say you all have made me want to get this netbook now. I just wanted to know if you can get a bigger battery for this netbook? Im still not sure if I want to hold out for ion2 but i do know I want something a bit bigger then my 10in netbook I have now with a bit more power.

Thanks in advance.

 

@ gordesky1

yea... precision isnt really doing anything in 3D. my 3Dmark was the same as before...

on a side note as i mentioned earlier i was having issues with Xp 32bit... yea well the same exact issues reared their ugly head in Xp 64bit as well. the 2 issues i was having is random dropping of my wireless connection which caused being disconnected from servers in game and other obvious annoyances. also i was getting random system freezing. it would last 1-3 seconds long. i really think it is a video driver issue but i don't know for sure. i just think its odd that it happened on 2 different builds of Xp (SP1 32bit & SP2 64bit). i even tried the drivers from Nvidia's site but no change.

so im back on W7 for now installed from the disc that comes with the 1201n and all seems fine for now. ill run all the same tests again to see if there is a big or any difference between the Xp/W7. well all but the battery life seeing as how i didn't get the battery broke in before i put W7 back on there.

im really hoping its just a software thing cuz i don't want to RMA my 1201n.

regardless i will give XP one more go after i get my newer 7200rpm HDD & 4Gb set of RAM which should be in a few weeks.

i should be back tonight with some more numbers in TF2, Assassins creed, 3Dmark06 and a few other games. im really hoping to get the same smooth Fps in TF2 that i was in XP cuz that was sweet and more than i expected out of this lil thing.

oh and to soviet sunrise...

the weird temps after OCing isnt from the fan variable (at least not in my case). my fan isnt loud but in a quiet room i can tell the difference when it changes speed. i noticed this same exact behavior in my 1000HE when i would OC with SHE or SetFSB.

i realize my temps aren't ideal but i think its just a crappy mounting of the heatsink from the factory as we all know it just has to be good enough to not fail and its consider read to ship. once i declare that my freezing issue is software related ill remount the heatsink and possibly do a good lapping when im in there for the HDD swap later this month. i dont want to void my warranty if its already broken...

 

You temps will drop like a rock once you open up your notebook and start making magic. My thermal paste is about done with it's break in cycle and I just blazed through a few rounds of CS:S, and a whole game of L4D and L4D2. My CPU and GPU temps never exceeded 62*C. I will try and get a 20 minute run each on OCCT CPU Linpack, GPU OCCT, and OCCT PSU test later on during the week.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5808746&postcount=4531

 

cool, waht thermal paste did you use? or which would perform the best? there is AS5 is there others?

 

oh and is there any space in the 1201n to do some modding? specifically like adding a usb gps or something similar?

 

You can use AS5 if you have some laying around. I still recommend using MX-2 as it has perhaps the lowest viscosity out of all of the thermal pastes on the market, meaning that it is easiest to apply, as well as being affordable with exceptional performance. On my 1201N, I used Shin-Etsu X23 7783D, which is the most expensive paste on the market, but has been around for a long time like AS5. It is difficult to apply but has been proven to be the best performing non-metallic based thermal paste for years. This is not a performance notebook, so just use whatever you have laying around or pick up a syringe of MX-2. The difference in thermal performance is almost fractional between the leading pastes out there.

I am having second thoughts on going deeper with my 1201N mod. The space that I have to work with on the underside of the motherboard is extremely limited. If I put super low clearance copper blocks on the CPU and GPU cold plates, I fear that it will kill airflow pressure and adversely affect temps. This is because the base of my blocks alone are almost as high as tall as the heatpipe itself, meaning that I would need to chop off all of the pins and leave the bare base on the cold plate. However, because I have removed the EMI shielding over all of the intake slots, having an obstruction there wouldn't be too bad. I'll see what I can do this weekend.

 

well the space that interst me is the one inthe movie, where the 2nd part of the mobo connects to the main, could i stick something in there?

 

You can stick "something" in there, but it's not going to benefit the CPU or the GPU if that's what you're going for.

 

no i want to put like an internal usb device

 

Did I miss what OS you're running, drivers, etc? Sorry if I did, but am curious to know if you are running 64-bit Win 7 HP, or what?

So far I am stock Win 7 32-bit HPremium, 4GB RAM (PC 6400 800Mhz Crucial 6-6-6-18-51-2T Clocks timings), + added a WD Scorpio Black 320GB HD.

I Cloned the old HD's installation of Win 7 32-bit to the new HD with Paragon's Partition Manager Personal 10.x "Copy Disk" feature, proportionate Cloning so that the new HD matches the old HD's proportions. However, I dispensed with the 3 partitions, Deleted N0. 2, so that I have 1 partition 285GB, Recovery Partition 13GB, that's all she wrote...

Now that being said, will performance be better with Win 7 HP 64-bit? And what do I do for drivers? The Asus web site drivers are all 32-bit, and I want the keys to work (Fn), I'd like to have *some* of the Asus software, etc.

What is your advice? What did you do for drivers if you went 64-bit?

I have a spare Win 7 HP 64-bit license here that I could use...and what about keeping the Recovery Partition intact? Did you do that? Or do you have no such thing with your setup?

I could always do a Backup Capsule ala PManager/Drive Backup 9.x which accomplishes the same thing. Sorry if I missed your setup back in the archives here, but I did somehow...please advise. Mostly I am concerned about drivers to use if I go 64-bit Win 7 HP....advice?

 

I am using Windows Seven Ultimate x64 optimized for minimalism, Nvidia chipset and HDMI audio extracted from ForceWare 196.21 WHQL x64, manually installed ForceWare 186.81 WHQL x64 display driver, Realtek R2.39 x64 audio driver, Realtek 2009.0 wireless driver, Asus HotKey driver, and touchpad driver. The rest of my components are using the basic Microsoft drivers.

I am using an Elpida 4GB 800MHz kit set for 4-4-4-12-23-2T, and a Seagate 7200.4 250GB ASG drive. I will be putting heatsinks on the memory soon.

You are going to get better performance using a 64-bit OS. If you can't find 64 bit coded drivers for some components, just use the 32 bit ones.

I disabled all of the backup, shadowing, recovery, and restore feature on my installation. I have no use for them as I have setup my OS to be very modular and ready to migrate and reformat at any given time.

 

Thanks for the tips Soviet Sunrise...that is invaluable info!

I have a software crutch that I am thinking of using for a 64-bit installation, and I wonder if it can pull a rabbit out of the bag-trick? It's called Driver Magician, which I use when I build systems, with all new installations of new parts and pieces, and it could possibly do the deed with a 64-bit install. Like you wrote if I can't find something critical, like the BlueTooth driver for example, I can most likely get away with using the 32-bit action...good show, I was thinking the same thing, but was not sure with this proprietary setup on the 1201N.

Thanks so much for the feedback, it's appreciated.

I love the 1201N, but think it is overburdened with Asus crapola presently, if you get my drift...Asus this, Asus that...lots of backup crap going on in the background constantly, and it screws with the GUI...like defines a little hitch in typing that needn't be there, yah? It is ever so noticeable, this little lag time that occurs when I am typing fast, and it just infuriates me!

I think that a nice, clean installation would cure that and all other ills 100%, and be it 64-bit even that much better! I have a spare 64-bit Home Premium license sitting here ready for the installation, so am looking forward to trying out my little theory about this typing hesitation and other quirks it has presently. I'll let you know how it goes, but definitely am doing it.

 

Thanks to the subtle encouragement of Soviet Sunrise I upchucked the factory's 32-bit "installation" of Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit and spent the afternoon installing a fresh copy of Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit, with all new drivers, fresh programs galore, and am just finishing up with the job now...in a word or two... NICE, NICE, NICER YET! 64-bit on a 1201N, a nice fresh installation, is Da Kind!

I've now got a computer on my hands, yessiree I do. The snowballing 'lagtime' during fast typing is gone, apps launch in a NY Second or two instead of waiting forever, in short folks this is the way to go, if you ever had any thoughts of doing it, by all means it's full speed ahead and do it!

I only had one small hiccup in terms of drivers, and that was getting the 64-bit nVidia Chipset and MainBoard drivers handled, but Driver Magician came to my rescue and *found those* no sweat when called upon to serve my needs, and BAM! It's all done, down, and dirty and the machine is truly blessed for doing this service. The other drivers were cake-like to find and install, just those two were a difficulty if I can call it that...until Magician did the trick, that is.

The few Asus apps that I wanted to keep, namely SHE (SuperHybridEngine for energy saver quick settings), YouCam/LiveCam for the built-in camera, and TMT for viewing movies with the HD upscaling codec, those all installed off the System Restore Disk without issues, the rest of the Asus stuff is shirtcanned for lack of a better word...no need for it so it's not installed.

I used Glary Registry Cleaner to spiff up the Registry after all the installs were done, and good thing because there were 274 bad entries that needed fixing, but that was the only maintenance-like-item I had to do with the 64-bit installation.

The whole job took the better part of the afternoon, about 4 hours to do the whole deal, but it's very much worth it, and I want to thank Soviet Sunrise for inspiring me to do this thing, even though he didn't know it probably, it's appreciated a bunch.

All the Hot Keys work fine, I even kept the OEM factory 13GB FAT32 partition intact--installed the new OS on the existing 285GB partition that previously had the 32-bit install on it, in case at some point this machine has to go back to Asus to repair something or other (hope not, not ever, but be prepared!), I'll just do an F9 and reinstall the factory crap until it's fixed.

But yes, this is a much faster, better 1201N without all the Asus crapola clogging up the works, slowing things down, making the GUI miserable, so I highly recommend a 64-bit installation to those who are sitting on the fence about it...just go for it, and you'll be very happy you did the deed.

 

Guys, thinking about picking this up, and was wondering how it handles Hulu HD playback, as well as how it fares for light gaming...say maybe Guild Wars or something similar....Also I hear the black model is a fingerprint magnet, and the silver is much less so. Anyways, I know that this thing isn't quite near the same league of the M11x, and I have my G51J to do all the serious gaming I need, I was just wondering about this thing handles light gaming.

Thanks in advance!

 

Funny you should ask about HuLu HD playback...last night for the 1st time I watched "The Dresden Files", which is a Sci-Fi program originating in Canada, and it was just mesmerizing on the 1201N, I thoroughly enjoyed it full screen HD using the latest Flash 10.1.55.xx Beta Player in FireFox 3.6x. There was some non-synching between the voices and the action, but overall the experience was a bonafide 100% success...perhaps with this new 64-bit installation the OS will perform even better than it did last night using 32-bit Home Premium.

I think the HuLu deal is a winner, as I had yet to experience it before last night. I've been using the ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3 to watch HD upscaled movies prior to that, and that is a very effective codec/aid in viewing HD movies full screen. I have watched 10+ movies in HD so far on the 1201N, taking M4V and MP4 movies, sub-1GB mostly, from my iPhone 3GS and/or AppleTV, and launching the TMT3 program which then upscales the movie to HD, full screen, and it's very, very effective at doing that hat-trick.

So you don't have to have a full-on HD movie to enjoy HD with the 1201N and the TMT3 program, just put on any old M4V, MOV, MP4, whatever movie and have it upscale the thing to HD and BAM! You're watching full HD without having to go through the trouble of making such a movie!

I have only changed the HD out in my 1201N, installing a fast WD Scorpio Black 320GB HD with Free Fall Sensor, to both protect and speed up my data rendering, and I'm using the OEM Hitachi 5400RPM HD for backup in a USB 2.0 case. That was a very painless operation, Cloning the HD and replacing the factory HD with the new fast 7200RPM HD, that took less than 1/2 an hour to do...actual time spent with the notebook apart. Of course it took about an hour to Clone the HD initially, so about a 1.5 hour job in total.

Overall I rate the 1201N's media abilities at 9 on a 10 scale, so far, and I am pretty critical and not-forgiving when it comes to performance. It will never approach a notebook with a Core i7 CPU of course, but for a $500 quasi-netbook (really a small laptop, too big to call it a netbook) it does the job very, very well. I love the keyboard, especially since I installed 64-bit OS and got rid of the "factory lagtime", and all the overhead that Asus programs do to the OS...the GUI is fantastic, especially with the 7200RPM HD in place, the ION graphics work amazingly well.

The only area it needs a performance improvement, to me, after having it virtually on 24/7 for two straight weeks since I got it, is the battery--it is weak...I cannot get more than 3 hours straight performance out of it and that seems to be where its Achilles Heel is...when using ION graphics and a little CPU it eats the battery alive. Others say they can get 4.5 hours out of a charge, but not me...never come close to that, not once, not ever. I have turned off WiFi and BT, tried Energy Saver tricks, to no avail... but I will *not* have the HD spin down constantly and sleep, as that is death to HD's, and I cannot see where you should have to keep it dark and unusable in terms of screen brightness to conserve battery.

I have brightness set at a nominal 52% on battery, and that's dark enough...still, I have yet to break 3 hours straight usage when watching movies or listening to iTunes, it just hasn't happened. Maybe I have a defective battery? I dunno!? Seems to be fine; my battery utility says it's aok fine, it just discharges fast! That's all that happens...

That is my only reservation with the 1201N, after 2-straight weeks of use, day in and day out, lots of movie watching, net surfing, and plenty of iTunes and writing in Word and Excel. I just am totally dissatisfied with the battery's performance, a 60,750mWh battery! Love the 1201N, but it could use a battery with 12 cells at this point!

 

Disclaimer: This PSU test was "uncontrolled" on my own standards. It was an impromptu thing that I decided to just do on the spot. But I will give as many details as I can.

I just ran a 20 minute (25 minutes including the one minute countdown and the four minute cooldown) PSU stress test on OCCT. I'm really surprised how this notebook remained very cool during the test. Both the CPU and GPU temps never exceeded 66*C. There was no stuttering due to power constraints.

The GPU was running on 186.81 WHQL. The notebook was sitting on my hardwood desk. Ambient temperature was ~19*C. Relative humidity was 60%. OCCT PSU test was configured for a 25 minute run at 1366x768 with shader complexity set to eight. Full screen, 64 bits Linpack, and Hyperthreading were also enabled. The PSU was sitting on a flat aluminium surface with a small aluminium northbridge heatsink ontop of it.

The thing that I noticed was that the fan would kick into high gear when either the CPU or the GPU would exceed 66*C. The fan would cool down the CPU and GPU faster than it can output heat down to the lower 60's before spinning down to a slower speed again. I don't know if the fan temperature threshold of 65*C is the fan's highest speed as I did not attempt to choke the fan during the run. But sometime later on, I will block the fan to get the CPU and GPU even hotter and observe if there is a higher fan speed beyond what I saw during this session.

With only a few light mods and a paste replacement, this notebook is guaranteed never to exceed 66*C on either the CPU or the GPU. I understand that it is still winter time and my room temperature will get hotter in the summer, but from seeing that the fan's cooling potential has not been fully utilized due to it cooling the components faster when it kicks into high speed, I'd say that it can still keep the CPU and GPU cool at ~66*C at my standard testing temperature of 22*C. Also, the notebook can still benefit even more from a passive or active notebook cooler.

I will do a formal test again in a few months when the weather gets warmer and when, or if, I get to proceed with a copper mod.

 

ok so last night i put in my 500gb hard drive and did a fresh install of win 7 64 bit i got all my drivers going and i got the graphic's, chipset, and hdmi audio driver off the nvidia web site for the ION desktop (because i needed the 64 bit drivers) and everything is working fine but... before when i was using the factory install of win 7 i would plug something into the headphone jack and a pop up would come up and ask me if i am pluging in headphones or speakers and now im missing that and i have no idea of how to get that back and since i like to plug in my 1201n into my surround sound im really gonna need it can someone please help me with this.........please

 

Hello, I have been following this thread for a few weeks now. I am in the market for a small-ish laptop in the 12-14" range. This Asus 1201NB is the only nettop that I would even consider at the moment since it has the somewhat faster dual core 330 Atom with Nvidia ION graphics.

I am not that big into games but more of a casual user with internet, photoshop, online HD movies through Netflix, and flight simulator. How do you think the 1201 would do with each of these?

I currently have a 2003 Gateway Desktop with P4, 2.4GHz and 1gb ram with NVIDIA 8400GS graphics. A 2005 Dell E1505 laptop with a T2300 Dual Core Duo (not Core 2), 1.5Ghz ram and only intel graphics.

Is the Atom 330 in the 1201 going to be faster than those? They are kind of slow in running photoshop and processing large photos. And in flight simulator it occasionally lags (more so on the Dell laptop due to no graphics card).

I have also been looking at the Asus UL30VT, UL40VT, and am waiting for the new UL30JT or U30JC laptops to be released. The UL30VT would be fine but I just don't know about the SU7300 processor. I would prefer the i5 or i7 but may be too much for me right now.

I know, the Atom 330 won't even compare to the i5 or i7. I am just looking for feedback on what I have to compare it with.

I have a few bestbuy gift cards and would prefer to use them on a laptop such as the 1201NB. Has anyone been able to add bluetooth to that one since it doesn't have it? And why doesn't BestBuy carry more ASUS models in store such as the 1201NB and UL30VT models. They have the UL50VT but I want a smaller one. Its sucks I have to order online and wait for one.

 

You forgot to get the 64-bit RealTek drivers, both for the RealTek HD Sound Manager, and the WLAN also...is your WiFi working? You gotta have the RealTek Wireless LAN also and the Sound Manager has the things you want and are missing...surround sound, the audio manager for devices (headphones, microphones etc)...The site is really SLOW also, so be patient when you get there are are downloading the files, it is SLOW!

RealTek.com is the site, just find Audio Drivers and go from there...Did you install the Asus Hot Keys also, to make sure the Fn key works properly?

I just did the install last night-- all of this is fresh in my mind right now, so ask away if you have other things to "take care of" from the install of the 64-bit OS...I have my notes right here and they are a good reference!

 

i think i am a really happy 1201n owner
it is a small machine that run most appz i need

it can play HD video
light gaming,
i start playing fallout 3 again now,

two days ago i got a pretty good deal on a 160gb x25-m G1 ssd
i thin kit just perfect for 1201n
it have enough size for me to install like 5-6 games( big one. like fallout 3 , mass effect 2)

everything run fast and quiet now,
the only think i can hear is just the fan!!

I love it!