Asus 1201N Reviews and Owners Lounge

Sorry my engrish was poor

Let me be more precise. The box that I've un-ticked under device manager/mouse properties/power management was:

"Allow this device to wake the computer"

i.e. wake from sleep

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the same engine, probably modified somewhat. And there's definitely substantial room to lower more settings for performance.

Hmm, this has never happened to me, but I usually shut the system off rather than put it to sleep. I have a friend who just bought a 1201N last week who returned it because his kept shutting off. Hopefully a BIOS update will fix this.

 

Fudzilla has confirmed that the Ion 2 will have a G218 GPU, the same GPU in the 310M. How long before the 1201n is refreshed with the Ion 2 and Dual Pinetrail atoms?

Bronsky

 

I got my Asus 1201n from Amazon for $487.99 this past thursday. I 'm very happy with it so far, but today I found a minor problem.

The touchpad will not scroll with 2 fingers like it's supposed to. It worked fine until this morning. I went into the pointing device properties from the taskbar, but everything is set up properly there.

when I try to scroll with 2 fingers, the scrolling symbol appears on the screen, but the page stays in the same place.

Any ideas on what I can do to correct this? I'm just a simple user, so it wouldn't surprise me if it's just a setting that changed without knowing it.
Is there a way to reset the touchpad to default settings?

 

Ok, taking a serious look at the ASUS 1201N. I have a desktop that I currently browse the web & play Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2).

I have noticed a few posts stating this netbook has enough power to play L4D2? Is this true? I don't mind lowing resolution & graphic settings. Is playing L4D2 possible?

I don't mind upgrading the RAM to 4 gb. Would I have to OC to play?

It would be nice to get to play my favorite game, with out tying up the desktop.

 

yep lfd 1 and 2 does play on the 1201n but it does get low fps mainly with alot of zombies on the screen..

but it is playable the fps is around high teens and 20s avg and the low fps is around 8 to 12 when alot of stuff on the screen...

overclocking should higher that which it did for me but not much sense my ram was bottlenecking the ion.

but now that i just got my new ram and have my cpu too 2.1ghzs gona test the games and see what i get.

im sure its gona be a improment sense before i never could break anything over 1730 in 3dmark 06 even having the cpu at 2ghzs.

but now with 2ghzs i got a 1870



just got too the 1900 mark 1926. got the cpu at 2.1ghzs and the gpu too 550 800 and 1150.


but ya it will play even the new games but don't expect it play steady or high fps. but for a netbook\laptop this size it does pretty good just have how too watch games that takes cpu.

 

which RAM did you finally end up going with gordesky1?

 

i went with this ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231165


at first i was gona get the hyper ram but didn't really trust it sense it seems like all 800mhzs people tried in this netbook seems to not overclock well.

so didn't want too risk it


so far everything is performing nicely now

now just need too pop in the 7200 black hdd.

 

i see, those look sweet!

so when your not OCed does the RAM run @ 667? just wondering how the mobo would see the RAM speed/timings.

does the RAM/FSB ratio change? i think with the 800Mhz RAM its 2/3. (533mhz FSB/800mhz RAM)

i think with the 667mhz the ratio may change to 4/5. (533mhz FSB/667mhz RAM)

if thats the case you would be running 700mhz FSB/875mhz RAM when OCed to 2.1ghz.

i wounder how this would affect the shared video memory... i mean it would be running the same speed as the "system" RAM right? im pretty sure this is why most of the HP 311 3Dmark scores show higher marks in the SM scores... the DDR3 in the HP 311 is 1066mhz.

p.s. i got my eye on the WD 320gb black.




on a side note my quest for using Xp as my OS on this thing has ended for now. i really enjoyed the 20% boost in Fps and the battery life seemed to get about a 20% increase as well, but i feel i was encountering driver issues. im 99% sure it was driver related as i tried many different builds of Xp 32bit & 64bit (i tried at least 10 different installs). after installing drivers (cant nail down which one is the culprit) i would get random system hangs that would last 2-3seconds. it would happen no matter what i was doing. gaming, surfing... you name it. it really trumped all the benefits of running Xp. id like to try a run at it again later after i get my hands on one of the Xp restore disks thats used on the BestBuy version of the 1201n.

dont get me wrong i love W7. i just think its a little much for the atom's architecture and the performance & battery life suffers from it.

i think i may be cracking open my 1201n this week to mod the cooling solution a bit. i was afraid to at first (voiding the warranty) cuz of my charging issues but after my RMA Asus changed out the AC adapter and all seems to be good after one week.

 

got bored and did the deed.

all i did was remove 2 of the sticker/tabs that block air flow from coming in the existing vents near the CPU area along with replacing the stock goop with AS5.

i didnt really see any way to add additional heatsinks as the space in there is extremely tight but i did get some nice results. now my fan actually turns completely off some times (never happened before the mod) and i dropped a easy 10c on each core. also now the temps are closer. before they were about 10-15c apart, now more like 7c apart. my GPU is roughly the same @ idle maybe about 2-3c better than before.

the whole process took maybe 20-30 min and was totally worth it.

 

Very nice results, some guy. 7*C deviation between the cores is a really big gap. Even before I modded, my cores were either matched or 1*C apart during idle. Try putting pressure on the heatsink when you're screwing it back on. That should ensure you get the highest retention out of the screws so that the cold plate rests flat across the two dies. If you're still getting a large difference in core temperatures, then lap the cold plate. If that doesn't help, then the thermal diodes inside of each of the dies are probably mounted slightly off compared to one another, or it is just a result of quality control. You should remove the shielding on your RAM panel as well. The system memory on this notebook is heavily used and every little bit helps in keeping them cool, though they don't really need cooling anyway.

I agree with you with the heatsinks. Last week, I tried test fitting some 3mm and 4mm copper blocks onto the existing heatsink but I couldn't cover the area of the cold plate closest to where the bottom of the chassis tapers as a slope. It is an extremely tight fit and adding heatsinks that small of a size will not benefit at all if not become a detriment to the delicate airflow in this notebook. I'm dropping the heatsink mod on this notebook altogether. It is not worth sacrificing my time, energy, and some of my blocks I have reserved for my W870CU on this notebook. The "light" mod is more than enough and both of us are satisfied with the results.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5817234&postcount=286
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5808746&postcount=4531

 

yep my memory runs at around 875 at 2.1ghzs and at stock its 667ghzs

but from what i herd when the ion gets over 800 that's a sweat spot for it and anything over that it doesn't get much better for the ion. sense i ran the stock ram up too 960mhzs and with the ram at 875 it scores higher than the 960mhzs lol

yep i also got the wd 320gb black in with the ram didint have a chance too install it yet


also what does the hp 311 sm score? mine is around 700 and sometimes 800 sense i got this ram much better better than the 600s i use too get.


ony thing im having problems with is it seems like when i overclock the cpu with this ram games like counterstrike source has a lag problem the fps is really good but it has a lag problem like when you go front wards it wants too go back a step.... cant figure out why it does that. it ony happens on online which is weird

 

@ Soviet Sunrise

i did try bending back the retention arms that the screws go through a lil bit to help add pressure when mounted but thats as far as i got.

i considered lapping the plates tho i noticed its not the plate that has a uneven surface but its more the fact of the BGA mounting job is a bit off. ive seen this before on many laptops but the chipset is normally far enough away from the CPU to be able to bend the heat pipe a smig to compensate for the deviation in angle between the 2 chips. in our case however we are dealing with much smaller distance which makes it harder to get the heatpipe bend just right. if you notice they already bend the heatpipe due to the height difference between the ION and the Atom. i think another factor may be that because of the 330 being 2 separate cores on one die, we will see the same temp differences we seen with Intel first Quad cores because each core sits just slightly different than the other. some are very close and almost perfectly even and others not so much...

i may jump back in there sometime this week if i get enough courage to take a shot at bending the heatpipe.

also an idea i got while i was in there was to use a very thin copper plate in between the chip and the heatsink. not only will this add pressure to the mount but you could extend the plate out in areas that had a lil more room and put some groves into the copper with a razor for some more surface area. if i decide to do this ill take some pics and post emm here.

@ gordesky1

thanks for confirming that for me. i think you have made me changed my mind on what ram i was going to get.

the Sm scores i was seeing over at the miniHp web site was around the 700-800 area while running @ 2.0ghz while the CPU scores were in the 600s

i think there comes a point where the CPU/FSB bottleneck come into play with the comparison tho. as with us we may benefit from OCing the GPU when OCing the CPU past say 1.8ghz. were the 311 users may not notice a difference with a OC on the GPU at all due to the CPU holding it back even if they are running it past 2.1ghz.

 

I have two boxs that will be showing up today. One with the ASUS 1201 and another with "Crucial CT2CP25664AC667 200-Pin SODIMM DDR2 PC2-5300 CL=5 Unbuffered NON-ECC DDR2-667 1.8V 256Meg x 64 2GBx2 4GB Kit"

Should I refuse delievery of the RAM? I'm not planning on overclocking. It looks like I'd be better off with 800MHz DDR2 based on a quick glance at these forums. I'm just wondering if it makes any difference on a non-overclocked machine. Thanks.

 

to be honest i dont really know if you would see a difference in basic computing (surfing, word processing, etc..). things that rely the video performance tho may be a different story due to the shared RAM.

would it be a big deal... probably not due to the CPU holding back the ION at stock speeds anyway. but im sure there would be scenarios were you would suffer a bit from the slower RAM speed. to what degree i really couldn't tell you but im pretty sure it wouldn't be a pass/fail thing.

 

Thanks. I do play on playing HD videos and games that should push the system a bit. Maybe I'll cannibalize the 4GB of DDR2 800 out of the iMac downstairs until I can get an exchange on the 667.

 

hey n/p.

as i just pretty much learned the mobo will change the multiplier to adjust for different ram speeds. so in your case taking in to consideration that you wont be overclocking... 800mhz would be your best bet.

how ever if you were to consider over clocking your odds of getting a better OC are higher with 667mhz RAM.

 

You can also increase your potential for a higher CPU overclock by only using one stick of memory. Removing some burden from the MCH will free up more bandwidth for the FSB.

 

If I use the one stick method what speed should I get? Any particular stick you would recommend? Thanks.

 

one bad things is your gonna loose out on duel channel which will pretty much hurt the ion even more.

if you gonna overclock i would get 667 like ones ones i link a page back which i got

but if you not gona overclock i would just get 800mhzs too even things out.

even with the 800mhzs you still can get too around 1.8ghzs.

but getting too 2ghzs too 2.1ghzs you gonna need 667 because there's no 800mhzs ram that will let the cpu go that high with out getting unstable.

 

well i did the cooling / heatsink mod.

heres the pics. if you want more pics, like a "how to". let me know i took more.

what i used...



what i ended up with...





mounted...





thermal pads i used to connect the heatsink to the keyboard back plate(its aluminum)...



a pic after the keyboard plate was put back on to give you an idea of what i was trying to do...



and the thermal pads i used to stiffen the keyboard flex and also allow more ventilation...




results were as good as i hoped. i took out all the sticker/tabs that block the openings to the vents on the underside an added maybe 25% more surface area to the heatsink. i saw a pretty nice drop in temps. now im in the 60s stock idle and the 40-50s OCed. keep in mind i was in the high to mid 80s before i cracked this thing open. so your results may not be as drastic unless you have horrible stock temps like i did.

 

nice work you did someguy



just installed the 320gb wd black 7200rpms and runs really nice now


ony problem im having now is it seems like when i over clock over 1.8ghzs online games seems to lag mostly counterstrike source like you see other people jittering around and sometimes my guy would go back wards than front wards like a delay i cant figure it out why it does that sense my ping is fine 30s and 40s


seems like ever sense i got this ram it does it sense the old ram doeskint do it but it never went this high either.

i checked the ram with memtest it didn't give no errors which ran for 7hours.


and what weird is single player games plays smooth no problems at all

call of duty 4 is pretty much really smooth now even with most settings up.

 

thanks man. a bit of a hack job but you see what i had to work with as far as tools. (what i would give for a machine shop! )

ive had the same issue your refering to. altho it didnt happen on ever server. maybe try disabling your windows firewall?

oh and i noticed a nice tweak to improve Fps in source games. enable the developer console by hitting the "`" (usually right under the esc key) before you connect to a server. once the console opens type "mat_dxlevel 80" and hit enter.

it should freeze up for about 30secs or so but then you will be running in DX8. you will have to go back into your video setting to lower the settings again but after thas all done you should notice smother game play with all the DX9 stuff turned off.

i cant wait to get my WD 320 black and a good 667 4gb set.

i imagine the upgrades will help reduce the longer than normal load times for games and such. at least i hope.

for those with the stock 2gb 800mhz i tried a 1gb SD card with ready boost enabled and i noticed things load a tad faster and overall seem snappier opening windows. i assume this wont make a difference to those with 4gb sets but just a tip for us with the stock 2gb set and a random SD card laying around..

 

welp i think something on my 1201n is dieing...

i tried the new ram i bought for it in my g50vt and it has no problems im having with the 1201n with jumping jittering lag when overclocking.

which pretty much effects every online game on the 1201n.


i tried the stock ram back in and overclock too 1.8 and it still did the jumping lag at stock its fine....


gona try and restore the os back too when it came and see if it does i there...



maybe something with 64bit is causeing it not sure

 

Nice mode Some Guy, how do you like the gray one, I would guess not finger prints magnet right?
Oh and, where did you get the thermal pads, please advise.

 

tho if something was dieing wouldn't single player games suffer too?

i also just reinstalled back 32bit 7 and still the same problem

when the cpu is stock no online game lags but when i just up it 10fsb the lag starts.

like on star trek online it will jitter each 2 secs and feels like it wants too jump back alittle but with stock speed its fine.


tho i just tried world of warcraft and so far that seems fine which i would think that game would be the worse lagging.

 

"out for delivery" I must resist running out to check for brown truck...

Not bad, ordered Sunday on my ipod from Rio, Brazil to sometime today for delivery using free shipping from big river. Umm, that's from Tulsa to New Orleans, I arrived back Monday; using new ski equipped trucks? There was a weather delay warning on order.

Nice to see some modding going on..

gordesky1, I would see the games get laggy when OC my 7900gs, as if timing issue with software/hardware/ heat throttling.

cheers

 

did it get laggy ony when online gaming or even in singleplayer too?

because it will ony do it online gaming in single player its nice and smooth which i don't get...


gona do another reinstall and try my other online games maybe its just the 3 counterstrike source and half life death match and star trek.

cause when i was playing on left 4 deads online it seemed fine same as wow oh and alien vs the predator demo also seemed fine.

 

In all modes of play. After re-reading, your problem seems unique to online. I wonder if same problems would affect XP users as well?

 

@ trentbg

thanks man. i did get the gray/silver one because i hated cleaning the smudges that my 1000HE collected on a daily basis. not to mention the darker colors show scratches much easier.

the silver one hides the smudges better thats for sure. if they would have had ones with a matte finish at the time i bought mine i probably would have went that route. in fact i may sand blast mine or take a really fine grit sand paper to mine here soon.

the light blue pads i had left over from my Swiftech video card heatsink. the gray ones i got off ebay a while back. they were cheap but came from China so shipping took 2 weeks.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=thermal+pads&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

Thanks for the feedback sir.
P.S. Actually your info and modding skills made me take the decision and get one of these bad boys, so thank you again.

 

hey N/P.

 

Cleaning junk out of C drive. I found no reason for the D partition so deleted and expanded the C drive. Anyone know what Asus uses the other two hidden partitions for?

TIA

 

i asked this before, but could anyone tell me if this could play empire total war?

there is a demo of it on steam, i really like this game, but it needs top be playable for this netbook/notebook to be worth it to me

 

if i get a chance tonight to download that demo i let you know

 

@ hydra

im pretty sure those are the recovery partitions. you can do a system recovery from the bios and i think those are the partitions it uses to do the restore.

@ cpt_jr

im downloading the demo now but my hopes arent to high. im pretty sure this is a CPU intensive game (like most RTS/TBS games) and the Atom isnt the greatest CPU. ill give some results by the end of tonight.

 

@ cpt_jr

well i don't play this game normally so i wont know too much of what your looking for but here goes:

at lowest settings this game stayed in the 15-20Fps range in the first ground battle i played. it never dropped below 15Fps and would sometimes go up to 25Fps.

note that i did play while OCed to 1.9ghz with the stock 2bg of RAM and HDD.

i would say it was playable as its seems the game doesn't require split second timing like a first person shooter. but one thing i should note is that the load times on this SUCKED! im not talking like 60seconds... im talking like 3-5min just to get to the title screen. once i changed the setting to the bare minimums and hit "ok" it took another 4-5min to apply them. the only reason i knew the game didn't freeze was because of the fact that the HDD light kept flashing rapidly. after that i selected the game to play then waited an another 5 min for it to load up. im seriously not exaggerating here. i didn't use a stop watch but lets just say i listened to about 4 full length songs before i got to start playing.

i still have it installed if you want me to test anything specific. but just keep in mind i dont know how to play this game.

 

I believe one is for recovery and one is for use with the 'quick boot' function.

 

LOL, I finally got time to RTFM last night during a 40gig music transfer. Wow, coming from a T9300, I would love a FW 400 port with embedded controller for fast IO.

This thing plays my DVD ISO and mp4 files just fine. Torchlight runs fine. I'll try some other games as I get time.

 

Hey guys I am hearing some people having an issue with the headphone jack, is any of you had that problem, where it will output only left or right signal? Some guy, do you know anything?

 

Last night I plugged in my headphones..and only left channel was heard

I tried another pair and all was well. I'm using itunes as I type this. So, no problem on mine. Uh Ohh!

I spoke too soon..There IS a problem. I just found out that both Sony headphones play fine on the Gateway, but one set must have the plug turned just right to hear both channels out of the Asus. Both plugs look identical, I would have to venture that marginal jacks are being used in the 1201n.

I'm using the "problem" headphones now, sound is solid as long as I don't yank or rotate plug. I'll give Asus a call down the road or return if more problems surface.

 

All,

As I played my movie files, I noticed a strong yellow cast. After checking around, I found my Nvidia control pane color setting for hue hard over to the left???

I reset this but dang if I know how this got changed since first boot yesterday.

cheers

 

hmm update with my lag problem

so far when ever i overclock i get really bad lag in online games the one that shows the most is counterstrike source.

i just cant figure out the problem in single player games even 3dmark06 its fine but as soon as i start a game like counterstrike that's when the lag comes and the more i overclock it gets badder...


like at 1.8 which i always ran i remembered it was fine but now it even lags on that even on the stock ram..

so now im wondering did the overtime overclocking did something too hardware?

even tho its fine in single players.

i would say heat but wouldn't it cause problems on single player games too?


any one that overclocks there cpu over 1.8 play counterstrike source or any other game and check and see if yours lags or not?

like it would make you guy go back and forth and have a hard time moving and when you watch other people playing there guys is jumpy and jittering along...

 

I think Some guy can check that for you, he have his CPU on 1.9ghz
hydra, can you please try external speakers.

 

I tried my old pair of Sennheiser, no problem with those either. So far only one cheap pair of Sony's. I would have to run Minny jack patch to my amp, I'll try later in the day AND try the HDMI to receiver.

 

hey guys,

in regards to the headphone jack issue... ive heard people complain about this in some newegg reviews too. i would believe the issue to be the depth of the contacts inside the 1201n headphone jack. as in if you move the plug in or out a smige you may get both channels working depending on the tolerances the head phone manufacture uses on their jacks.

in theory, id blame Asus on this one seeing as so many are having this issue with several different brands of headphones. i haven't tested mine yet cuz its not really a issue for me if its working or not so i cant speak from experience but its not cool that so many are having the same issue.

@ gordesky1

is your "lag" the type thats more like a temporary system freeze or like jittery?

ive experienced both. the system freezes i only experienced in Xp not W7 and it was system wide, as in it didn't matter what i was doing or what CPU speed i was running. the jitteryness i experienced only in CSS on 1 or 2 servers. but other are fine. it was like i couldn't move correctly and i seen other players move like they all had like 1000ping or something. it was weird, and a side note i was still getting 30Fps avg. so i don't really think it was a hardware thing for me. more than likely some issue with the way my PC and the server were communicating if you ask me.

something else i want to test...

i think SHE may be useful after all. at first i didn't see a reason in running the program due to the lack of underclocking and or small 33mhz overclock.

however... i did notice that i cant run my stable 1.9ghz when im using the "power saving" profile it will randomly BOSD on me. but if im using "super performance" profile i can get up to 1.95ghz no prob.

just thought id mention it because to me it would seem that the profiles change something other than just the FSB (probably the vcore) and that may change our battery life and or our max OC depending on whether we have the program installed and what profile we are using.

 

where can u get this netbook from currently??

 

its pretty much like you said that you couldn't move correctly and seen other players move like they all had like 1000ping.


its pretty much on all css servers... and other games but not as bad.

with out overclocking its fine no lag at all.

i just cant figure out what causing it...


all i could think of is heat but would that ony cause lag on mutiplayer games?

that's what got me puzzled...

cause one of my temps seems kinda high and not sure what it is its called tz00 in cpuid hardware monitor it gets around 80 and idles around 60s

and maybe its getting to hot and causing the network adapter to fail or something?

the gpu pretty much never passes 70c

 

newegg, tigerdirect and amazon i would say are the most know site to carry the 12101n. i think newegg is out of the silver one right now.

 

I actually got mine from B&H they have the gray one and their price is the cheapest out there, also free shipping.