Asus G1 Owners

I now have all the drivers for XP, just waiting for nyceis to log in so that i may upload them to his server.. And so we have an easy access to those files.

 

Here we go - thanks to Thorne for downloading and uploading these.

Here they are on my server...I was downloading them at 850K per sec, so that's bit a better than Asus!

http://www.abxzone.com/g1/XP/

Enjoy!
Nyceis

 

I too had similar experience with my G1 and Vista, I have gone back and forth over the past 6 weeks and tried virtually every combination of Microsoft OS I could come up with.

Here are a short list of pros / cons for each of the following. I ran each OS for 2 weeks and used the same programs across them: Photoshop, Lightroom, Company of Heros, Nero Recode, Visual Studio 2005, Office 2007

---------------------------------

Vista Home Premium - 32bit version

Pros: Looks nice

Cons: Virtually useless, can't disable the UAC, highly unstable, according to MSFT site, Home Premium doesn't support Dual Core so not sure how this plays in.
---------------------------------

Vista Business - 32bit version

Pros: Looks good, When disabling UAC OS is now usable, Love the new explorer, ability to filter by date, etc. Love the new locations of the User folders, love the instant search feature.

Cons: still unstable, many applications would just freeze. relatively slow. bad battery perfomance.
---------------------------------

XP Pro - 32bit

Pros: BLAZING FAST!!!, stable, easy to find support for, familier OS, takes up a lot less HD space.

Cons: Doesn't have the new Explorer features, will eventually go the way of win2k so will need to change out at some time.
---------------------------------

Vista Business - 64bit version

Pros: Much more stable than the 32bit versions, Much faster than the 32bit versions, added OS features of Vista in general

Cons: Some programs / or drivers aren't updated for 64bit yet (ex: nikon NEF codec)


------------------------------------

General notes on Vista

Don't run anything less than Business edition
Disable UAC
Disable System Protection (a must or it will eat your HD alive)
64bit version highly recommended
Battery life actually improved on 64bit version


My choice at the end was hard, but it was the Vista Business 64bit version, why?

Love the new features!
with business can disable all the new "death traps" of vista
64bit version really does make a difference
XP, loved it, but always felt it was missing something, vista filled the gap.

 

Hey ppl, there are some drivers missing from Nyceis's FTP, for example UUA, and Direct Flash. Just finished my own XP installation, and figured that i didn't have all the necessary drivers. I'll upload them when i get the chance.

Oh, what's the deal with the left side of the keyboard? Buttons react somewhat different than the rest of the keyboard.

 

I was wondering if anyone else's G1 was getting very hot under the touch pad where the Intel Wireless chip is? I think that is what is heating up the area anyway.

 

mine seems to be fine, in fact I've never had much of any heat issues with mine. Only thing I had was a RAM chip went bad which Vista64 promptly pointed out to me with it's integrated ram tester.

 

I am not an owner yet but I am 99% positive I am going to buy this laptop for my college years. I am going to preferebly buy my laptop from Newegg. I was thinking, with all this new talk of XP..why not buy a copy of Windows XP Home and when I get my laptop, wiping the HD and clearing everything off and adding the XP and starting off fresh like that? Would that work right? and would that be a good idea ...there was something else I wanted to ask but I forgot

 

Lollerskates, i'd recommend doing that ATM, but depending on when you're getting your G1, it might be wise to reconsider vista, since with time there will better support for vista and more programs will be translated to it.

 

Has anyone messed around with the Direct Messenger function of the Direct Console yet?

I see in the folder there's an MSNHOOK.DLL, so I'm guessing it can say whether or not you have a new MSN message? And I know you can add custom icons by placing any bitmap (32x32) in the \ICON\ folder, renaming it to "icon_###.bmp," but I don't know of anything else to do with the darn thing.

 

@kingfetty
it really seems to heat up when I'm doing the wireless for a long period of time, or the battery is charging. I took off the cover for the ram/wireless and that helped a little. So maybe I shouldn't do heavy downloading on the wireless for long periods of time I guess.

And all I use my Direct Console for is time, since I don't use Outlook express, or MSN messenger, it is useless to me.

 

"Vista Home Premium - 32bit version

Pros: Looks nice

Cons: Virtually useless, can't disable the UAC, highly unstable, according to MSFT site, Home Premium doesn't support Dual Core so not sure how this plays in."


Ive been using vista home premium for over a week now not a single lock up or problem after using windows updates.As far as no dual core support, I really doubt that, every game I have uses both of my cores.

 

I installed WinXP Pro last night on my G1. Thanks so much for posting up the drivers -- they all downloaded in no time.

The G1 runs *MUCH* better with WinXP in my opinion.

 

Do you think by say May or June, Vista would be a better OS? I predict that is the time frame when I'll buy mine..right before I go to college. I wonder during that time if it will still be a wise decision to buy a copy of XP and such like that...while at college I do plan to do a little bit of gaming, I mean I will have some down time right? And I hear Vista (at the moment anyway) sucks for games and that like.

 

I've had my G1 for a couple of weeks now.

Vista will be good once Microsoft forces the world to use it and the world shows Microsoft all the flaws. It's just too new to have all the kinks work out of it. As all of us should know, the early adopters of any new product, especially Microsoft software, are the true beta testers so the designers can make the next update/model/service pack. As far as compatibility, the only severe incompatabilities I've seen so far is that I can't use my Zune with it (oddly, both Vista and Zune are made by Microsoft) and stay FAR away from Partition Magic.

To make a program compatible, right click on the program, select Properties. Select the Compatibility tab and click the checkmark that says "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select XP Service Pack 2. That solved 90% of my compatibility issued (as I mentioned before, my Zune and Partition Magic don't like Vista at all).

I know Zune came out with some updated software, but my connection sucks too much to download drivers. I think Partition Magic is screwed, though.

I dual-booted. I got XP and Vista, so I can pick and choose which one I use for what. If you decide to dual-boot, you will need to set up two partitions (the G1P already had 2 partitions, one called "Vista OS" and the other "Data" - I don't know about XP versions). There are plenty of websites that have a walkthrough on how to do it, and it's pretty easy, it just takes some time.

But I have to agree, XP takes like 15-20 seconds to boot to a stable user state. By far the fastest time I've ever seen an OS load.

As for the hardware. I'm impressed, but the HDD is slow (5400 RPM on a gaming machine? What were you thinking, Asus?) and I have issues with the audio crackling from time to time. Other than that, it's a solid machine, and rivals my Xbox 360 for attention time.

 

Yeah the 5400 RPM HDD was scaring me as well. But I guess at milestonepc.com (or other sites I'd imagine) you could upgrade to a 100gb 7200rpm HDD for like 46 bucks, a wise investment IMO...at least I think thats how it works.

 

Very wise, actually. A faster harddrive would increase the overall speed of the system. 1,800 RPM may not seem like a lot when you're comparing 5,400 and 7,200, but it's a noticable difference. Loading times for everything should go down because the computer can access the HDD faster. If you're concerned about HDD space, there's an easy solution to that, too. Have your HDD upgraded and take the drive that was in there and get a 2.5" HDD enclosure and place that drive in that enclosure. All major online computer retailers carry the 2.5" enclosures. Viola! Instant external HDD for storage. If you run it through USB, even USB 2.0, it will be slow and should only be used for things that don't require lots of computer resources. Like I store movies and music on my external, which frees up 50 or so gigs on my laptop's HDD. Also, if you upgrade your G1, keep in mind that the G1 uses SATA harddrives and not the traditional ATA133 format. SATA is faster and is the new standard for harddrives, but about 75% of the computer market still uses ATA133. So, about 75% of the retail stores carry the ATA133 style enclosures.

 

Hey lads, plz tell me, what gpu drivers are you using? I have the stock 86.02 and Jade Empire keeps yelling at me that i should get new ones.. There doesn't seem to be much drivers for 7700 even at laptopvideo2go.. :S

 

I'm using the 97.92 drivers and they seem to work fine. You can get it here. Hope that helps.

 

Ok, i'll try those. If they don't work, i can always roll back to the original ones. (had to to that a couple times already when fooling around with those INF's and wrong drivers) Oh and btw, can something be done to that left side of the keyboard, which is prone to rattling, keeps more noise when pressed and keys sink deeper than in the rest of the keyboard?

 

Sigh. Well after my fancy G1 arrived with a corrupted Vista installation (forever rebooting in a cycle) things haven't gotten a whole lot better. Reformatted, so now Vista is up and running, but sadly, little else is. I guess that's the downside of me enjoying Indie games. Vista just won't play nice. I can't even run Diablo 2. The games that do run (Dawn of War and Guild Wars, plus one or two others) have severe graphical errors now and again that either obstruct the screen, or make the terrain disappear. I figure maybe I need to update my Nvidia drivers. Oh.. Nvidia doesn't support the GeForce Go series. ASUS needs to supply drivers. Oh, they don't have any. I finally found some with a hacked inf file, and things have gotten marginally better. I can play for a couple hours before no longer being able to see what the hell I'm doing. I want to like my computer, I really really do, and Vista sure is pretty, but so far it is only really stable enough to surf the internet. I ordered my computer with Windows MC and the Vista upgrade, but I guess I ordered a day to late, and I got the 100 dollar "upgrade" to Vista and Lightscribe for free. Now I have to go drop 200 for Windows XP, which for some reason still costs the same as Vista. Oh, right, it's because XP actually functions. I'm hoping that the small partition for reinstalling Vista (which was also corrupted) will be enough to hold XP and whatever I need until Vista finally starts working. I'd rather not reformat my whole drive. Anyway, I just needed to vent, and this seemed like the place to do it. I'm having trouble understanding why the Gamer System "upgraded" to an OS that is totally unstable with games. Is the the Gx series going to upgrade to Mac OS or Linux next? Or are they just going to jump straight to BeOS? Sorry, venting again.

Oh yeah, and the free mouse is a nice bonus. The free backpack is a nice...thought. In terms of functionality, it barely holds the computer mouse and power adapter. There are seriously 2 pockets that just might be big enough to hold 1 pencil, if it was broken in half, maybe. There is no handy place to store CD's or headphones, and there isn't much room to carry non computer related stuff, such as a notebook. I'm using it, but only until I find a really good bag to replace it with.

Oh and the little flashy lights? Erm, what the heck? You know, if they were just On, instead of Flashy, It'd be okay (like the internal lit desktops with clear cases). If it did a heartbeat or something, I might play with it. But if I can only choose between Off and Flashy, I choose Off. Maybe someday the little control program will actually have some control.

All this makes the G1 sound really bad, and it isn't. Seriously, if I had gotten Windows XP to start with, most of my problems would probably be solved. It is a very fast computer, that is also fairly pretty, and the webcam will be fun when I sort that bit out. I just wish I ordered a week earlier.

Glad to hear others are having better luck than me. Maybe I'm just too attached to a desktop. And a semi-functional OS.

 

I recieved my G1 yesterday. I LOVE THIS MACHINE!!! Thank You MILESTONE PC!!! I couldn't be happier with the price and service from Danny!! Ordered on Tuesday evening, arrived Friday afternoon with standard ground delivery!!

I've ordered XP Pro to *upgrade* my OS. I can't believe how little physical memory is available with Vista!! Even after running MSconfig and disabling a few items.
Physical Memory:
Total: 2046
Cached: 1550
Free: 42
This with only IE open!! Nothing Else.

 

This may be a dumb question but, I plan on buying from MilestonePC because of the price friendly upgrade. However, I live in Ohio and they are based in California. I wonder if I have problems with my laptop, I'll have to send it back to them? How long would that take? Also with the whole package you recieve, you get a Vista install disc right and other misc. discs you will need if you wanted to reinstall something?

 

Do I need to burn all the drivers to a disc? As in, when I reformat and load xp will I not be able to access the internet to download them?

 

Thorne,
I'm very interested in getting hold of the "proper" drivers, I'm the proud owner of a new G1! I took a look at Vista, which came preinstalled, and promptly didn't like it. So it's gotten the boot already. What I have done, is swapped out the OEM 160 GB 5400 rpm HD, and clicked in the Seagate Momentus 100 GB 7200 rpm HD I ordered with the G1 from NewEgg.com. Nice, quiet, cool & fast!

I also got a copy of XP Pro 64 bit from CietDirect.com, $87 incl shipping. That's been installed on the new HD. Install went fine, but now I have some driver issues I need to resolve.

I need the following (hope your list of goodies will help!):
In Device Manager, the following have yellow ?'s by them.

Network Adapters/1394 Net Adapter
Other Devices/Base System Device
Ethernet Controller
Modem Device On High Definition Audio Bus
Network Controller
Unknown Device
USB 2.0 Image Capture Controller
USB Device
Sound, Video and Game Controllers/Realtek High Definition Audio (has a ! by it)

That seems to be the things I'm missing. I need to get the ethernet/network going soon, so I can log it on to the web and get the drivers onto it. I can't set up an internet connection without these drivers. Using my desktop PC connection and a USB flash drive to transfer drivers and stuff for now. The clock is ticking on the XP 64 activation, 29 days, but hopefully I'll have this done soon.

I would hate to think I've blown the $$ on XP 64. I didn't like the look or navigation of Vista, and don't think I'd get used to it. I do video editing, and it was one reason I picked the G1 for a portable notebook solution with decent power for rendering video files. I have hit one roadblock with an app, Sony Vegas 7d would not install under XP 64, don't know, hope that gets fixed!

Thanks for your wisdom, please advise about how to do these drivers.

 

I have a lowest of 4.5 and an average of 4.7 with a high of 4.9

Here's the breakdown of the scores.
CATEGORY: SCORE:

Processor; calculations per second 4.9

Memory(RAM): memory operations per second 4.5

Graphics: Desktop Performance for Windows Aero 4.8

Gaming Graphics: 3D business and gaming graphics 4.8
performance

Primary Hard Disk isk data transfer rate 4.9

Base score : (this is overall performance) 4.5

Subscore : (this is general performance) 4.5

-----

That's the break down, if you wanted to know. All that I have on my computer right now is Mozilla, Asus software, and my mouse, and City of Heroes/ City of Villians. I love my computer by the way. Just bought it about 2 weeks ago, no problems at all. Haven't scratched it yet, but I think I need to find some kind of protectant for the case at least. ANybody know of anything for the screen?

 

All right, you can d/l all drivers for XP from here:
http://www.abxzone.com/g1/XP/

I recommend that you install UUA & INFupdate files first.

 

For g1 owners: how do you like typing on your g1? Is it comfortable? Im not talking about playing games but say typing a paper.

 

Well I can't speak for everyone else but it's pretty comfortable for me to type papers on this bad boy. All they keys aren't too small and where my palms sit it feels very sturdy. Under the touch pad feels a little warm at times, but nothing to make me feel uncomfortable. So far I love this notebook during the 8 weeks I've had it so far.

 

another thing i noticed that has bothered me is the top part of the screen is pretty thick, i added a pic to show what i mean. Its not a big deal but it was the first thing i noticed when i first looked at the notebook.It just doesnt look right. Does this bother anyone?

 

When I first started researching about the G1, I was a bit concerned about it, but I thought that was not a major dealbreaker for me, so I purchased one, now that I have mine, I can't see nothing wrong with it, I mean, it's not that noticeable at all. At least for me. There are many more things to like about it than the other way around.

 

Many of you talk about installing XP over the current Vista configuration. How much of a performance hit do you get with Vista? I would like to try out the new OS as it seems very nice looking and stuff from the limited use I've had with it, but if it slows me down when I am playing World of Warcraft or Sim City 4 I will be angry .

 

I just got my g1. HAvent really inspected it yet, or turned it on. Its sitting around with nothing on it yet really, but I was amazed at the targas Backpack. That thing fits like a glove around my shoulders and is all padded and mushy and the laptop doesnt feel heavy at all in it. I feel like rock climbing while surfing the net.

I'm a little intimindated what to do with it first, but it will work out everntually.

thanks GentechPC.

 

It's pretty simple to explain...

My G1 came with Vista Home Premium installed and just after a clean Windows restart if I check my available memory I only have left about 800 megs of free ram out of the 2 gigs!!!

Under Windows XP Pro, after a clean windows restart I have more than 1.6 gigs of free ram to play with...

To make matters worse for Vista, our beloved G1 do not perform 100% on games since the Go 7700 drivers are not optimized for Vista yet. So you will see a big hit in performance there also.

Conclussion:

Vista = Good eye candy so so performance
XP = Great performance all around.


It's up to you to decide what you like.

Best regards,
RayanMX

 

I find Vista much better performance wise than XP. Only problem is you need at least 1gb ram for smooth performance.

The fact it caches so much makes the experience great.
For example, when using XP, do you ever notice those split second pauses that XP takes to initially do things.

Take a simple example, right clicking to display the context menu on the desktop. With XP, regardless of how much ram you have, there is a millisecond pause which is noticable, most especially the first time you perform the action. With Vista, everything in Windows performs so smoothly because all that ram is not being used up, like it says, it is being cached, ready for use.

Cached = free for use!

I had 512, and after Vista cached it all, I was left with something ridiculous like 20mb Ram free. But performance was excellent, as long as only 2 windows or less were opened at a time.

 

interesting..

What does vista do with the RAM its using when you play a game?

Does it free it back up for the game to use?

 

I am going to install XP Pro on my G1 in the next couple of days. I have D/L'ed the drivers provided by Nyceis, Thanks Nyceis, and was noticing they are all zipped. Should I unzip them before writing them to a CD? Or should I install winzip on my G1 and unzip them there?

Thanks.

 

I'd personally unzip them and burn them, makes it easier later...

 

I agree with you in what you said about Vista feeling a bit quicker on the OS Interface because of the caching and stuff, but once you start using applications and of course games, the "performance" gain is totally nonexistent!!!

And so you know, my Vista experience is based on my G1 hardware with 2 gigs of RAM which is double the RAM you have or mentioned.

As I said before, Vista takes more than 1 gig just to load up the OS, when XP Pro takes about 300 megs and the rest is your's to keep... For this reason (and the 7700 Video Driver issue) is that I said XP Pro has better REAL performance than Vista specially for games.

Maybe if NVidia releases better video drivers we should see better performance in games, but that remains to be seen.

So, what good does it make to have a quick (even in the millisecond range) menu interface response when once you launch all your apps or games the system is already starving from RAM????

Now if you consider that many MANY apps don't work on Vista yet, then what's the point?

Get the point?

 

A quick question ... who makes the LCD for the G1? Is it the same vendor for the 1680x1050 and the 1280x800 versions?

Is there a big difference in quality between the two panel versions?

 

CMO makes the LCD for the G1, it is an excellent screen. The V1JP also has the same screen. This is of course using the higher resolution screen, 1680x1050.

There are other countries that have the G1 but use a lower screen resolution, of 1280x800, you will have to ask one of those users, or ask the reseller to download Everest and then they will be able to check.

Ideally what you want, is a screen with good brightness, wide horizontal viewing angles and good vertical viewing angles.

 

I've installed XP Pro on my G1. I D/L'ed and installed the drivers provided by Nyceis. I have a couple of issues. Modem_XP failed to install repeatedly and in Device Manager I see the following error:
"Modem Device on High Definition Audio Bus"
Also the icon for my Local Area Conection shows that a cable is unplugged even though I am hooked up and D/L from the internet, and no I am not hooked up wirelesly yet so it can't be that.
The "Asus Probe" is not working either.

Any help please?

Thanks

 

Hmm...I actually have 512MB Ram, and I find it impossible for Windows to take 1gb for booting. I find it hard to believe you are disappointed that the RAM you purchased is actually being used. Simply put, Vista will take as much Ram as is possible to give you the best experience under Vista.

When you launch a game, obviously Vista does not keep it, it gives it to the game.

When I installed CS:S on Vista, with default vista graphics drivers, the game ran excellently. I could not tell the difference from playing it under XP, except for some minor graphic glitches.
Now, unless the game can run on 20mb of Ram, Im pretty sure it is freed up and given to applications that need for.

Like I said, I only ran into problems with Vista, as you call it "starving for Ram" because the quantity of Ram I had was not nearly enough to experience Vista in all its glory. I doubt a 2gb system would be starved of Ram, but uses it most efficiently.

For most people, Windows Performance is the most important aspect of purchasing a system, because bar from games and a few programs, everything runs natively from the desktop.

That's just my opinion. I hope people don't think Vista takes Ram un-neccessarily. I believe it uses it more efficiently than XP.

I mean if you had a business with a load of workers not being productive just doing nothing, they are hardly worth your money. This is an abstract viewpoint of how XP handles Ram.

However, if the people you hired are all working and productive, you see the benefits immedietely.

That said, I will be getting Vista with 2gb of Ram. That seems to be the sweet spot.

The G1 looks great. Hope all you lucky owners are having fun with it.

 

I agree with all you just said about how Vista handles ram more efficiently and in fact you are totally correct on how vista releases resources when needed. (I noticed that on my other Vista PC).

Maybe it all comes down to the poor Nvidia Go 7700 driver implementation under Vista and since Aero and games are directly related to the GPU and that's why I noted not-so-great performance on my G1.

If Nvidia releases new drivers for the G1 and Vista, I'll probably give it another shot.

 

I have an odd question: Can one of you guys measure the width of the laptop, the frame around the screen and the screen itself? It seems that the specifications on teh interweb claims that the A8js is wider than a G1, which is ludicrous in my eyes.

 

Hi, guys. I've been researching notebooks for a while (my very first one), and I ended up going for the G1. I ordered it from Newegg.com one week ago, and I received mine Friday of last week. I gotta say, "whoa!!" I was amazed with the display on this monitor. The design is wonderful. You can't go wrong with the rest of the specs, either. No major issues, either. My only complaints are the keys on the left side can be a bit noisy, but it's not a big deal. Also, the fingerprints pick up easily -- again, not a big deal. Overall, I'm quite happy with this computer right now. Love the backpack and mouse, too.

 

Hi!!!, I Bought my G1 next week and already having a problem. When I insert PCMCIA ( I have a PCTV Pinnacle Hybrid Pro Card ) wi-fi and Internet turn off...
I'm running Vista Home Premium 32 bit...
Thanks for your help...

Best Regards

 

I have a question regaurding the USB 2.0 ports on the back right side. I have no problem with the mouse that came with the computer. But each time I plug in my iPod USB chord and my computer shuts off instantly, and the only way to revive it is to take out the battery pack and wait a couple of minutes. Can I not charge my iPod off my laptop?

 

Ehy, I am wondering if there's a way I can get another copy of the accessories CD that came with my computer. I think that's where the Microsoft Office is, and quite frankly, I am just finding out that I really need that disk but it's no where to be found. Any help is apreciated.

 

Can someone please tell me what kind of FPS they get in Counter-strike: Source

I don't want to know the average, but the minimum on lowest settings because i am pretty competitive and IMO anything under 50FPS is unplayable. I am just a bit confused thats all, some people say the G1 runs Oblivion max resolution and it runs Flawlessly.

All i play is RTS games and CS1.6 and CSS

So i just wanna know before i make my decision on ordering one.

 

Depending on the settings, you can average 30fps to 70/80fps.

720x480 averaged 100fps idle, 60/80fps when in-game, minimum of about 50-56fps.
1680x1050 averaged about 50/60fps when in-game, 60/80 when idle, minimum of 40fps.

Both of these were at the lowest possible settings. At full, recommended settings, the game tapered off to about 30/50fps in-game with 1680x1050, and I forgot to test at 720x480.