Eee PC 1215n Performance

When I reformatted my drive on my 1215n and put Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate, I think I made a mistake somewhere. What I did was reformat one of the partions and put Windows 7 on there, and just erased the information on the other one. Now I can only use about a 100BG of the 250Gb drive. When I try and reformat the partition to be used in Windows it says that there isn't enough memory. My thoughts on that are that I should have formated both of the partions when I did an install, and that they would both be useable. My only option I can think of is to just go back and format and lost everything. I don't really like that option at the moment, but will end up doing that anyways when it starts to slow down to Windows crappy corruption issues that happen over time. Anyone have anything they know? Anything that might help?

 

To be fairly honest, I didn't really like the idea of my brother buying the Asus 1215N since the performance isn't too great for now and to be honest the performance in the future won't increase as much or maybe 10fps average.

I however WILL try to convince my brother to not buy it and take the purchase back then instead buying the Acer 1551? Although the graphic is lower (ATI Radeon 4225 5.1/5.2 Graphic WEI Score compared to the Nvidia Ion 2 5.6) the CPU brings that up (AMD K625). Scoring a 40fps - 60fps and 30fps during heavy fights on starcraft.

YouTube - Acer Aspire 1551 RUnning SC2 on Windows 7

So do you think I should really try to convince my brother to buy this or wait for nvidia god blessed drivers?

Asus 1215N
Intel Atom D525 @ 1.8ghz (Dual core 1MB cache, Bus speed ???)
Nvidia Ion 2 512mb Dedicated
2GB Ram (800mhz max)
12.1 inch
Price: £380

Acer 1551
AMD K625 @ 1.5ghz (Dual core, 2MB Cache, bus speed 3200mhz)
ATI Radeon 4225 HD @ 384mb 'Dedicated' or 'Shared' (Too many different sites poking out whatever, however AMD says dedicated)
4GB 1066mhz
11.6inch
Price: £330

 

While I'm not a fan of netbook gaming, the Acer is by far the better choice for SC2; 1215N only does like an unplayable <20fps from what I see from youtube vids. Sure, 1215N scores higher in 3dmark06 but that doesn't expose how anemic Atoms are in games.

 

im looking for a laptop/netbook with good batterylife for less than $600 (preferably less than $500), is this my best choice if i want to game? I saw the AMD E-350, and that wont be out till january(need this by the end of the year for school) and its not much better than the D525 +Ion 2 for gaming anyways(I can get the 1215N for $475), so my question is:"is the best best laptop I can buy in this price range?"

thanks.

 

^Totally agree, if performance is a must then the acer will smoke the asus in its current state. If the asus 1215n were working to the potential of the components then it should be more than able to match those figures for sc2 and other games. But as it stands the 1215n is crippled and the acer will be ready to go out of the box.

The 1215n is for those who want performance (potential performance atm) AND battery life (nvidia optimus). The acers battery life wont be as good but it will be a much better performer atm because the processor is ALOT better than the atom.

To summarise - get the acer for £330

All i can say is that this netbook in its current state is a mixed bag. I can run some games but struggles heavily with others. It's very hit and miss due to poor drivers and pcie bottleneck which limits the amount of data going between the gpu and the rest of the system (thus hurting performance). Having said that the battery life is very good, its very light and easy to transport, it plays hd video with relative ease and it's not as slow as the older sinle core atom processors.

It is potentially the best performing netbook around the $500 mark but it's a question of wether or not you're willing to buy into potential fixes or wether you just want something that's solid as a rock (like the acer mentioned above).

This thing can game well but it needs work still. On a personal note i don't regret buying mine because it's a great little computer, its as snappy as i need for work and the screensize is in the sweetspot of portability vs viewability.

To answer your question; it's potentially one of the best for the price range but there are amd offerings that can come close and not have as many issues with the sacrifice of battery life.

Hope that doesn't confuse you more lol

 

is the power pin issue really bad?

 

Ah yes, about that... when I unpacked it and saw the "power pin"... for a split of a second, I thought they gave me a mobile phone charger, not a laptop adapter.

It's about 1 milimeter in diameter, give or take. Honestly, my old 6230i Nokia phone has a _thicker_ adapter than this laptop. I'm not making this up, I measured it.

So there are two main issues now, both of them are intertwined.

Not only is the power pin's "thickness" (or should I say slimness? ) really small, but the entire plastic hold is L-shaped. This means that if you accidentally step on the cable when you're moving the laptop, or if it gets lodged somewhere and you don't anticipate it, due to the L-shape it is very, very likely you will break the pin off.

I still can't believe someone came up with that. I mean, just touch the AC adapter. It sometimes gets really hot and I've actually burned myself once after I've been playing NFS:MW on the overclocked GPU while the battery was charging at the same time.

Interestingly enough though, I couldn't sense any heat on the actual pin itself though. It seemed relatively cool... or perhaps it's the fact that it is so small, meaning it cools off in seconds, or almost instantly as I touch it to "sense" the temperature.

So far though, the power pin is the only hardware/build issue I came across. Heck, I actually like the tough one-button-ish touchpad. It really suits my needs.

Anyway, nVidia released new graphic card so I am guessing they have a lot of extra work on their hands. I wouldn't dare to give an estimate so as to when a new, better Next-gen ION driver will come along to save us.

When I was buying this computer though, I knew it was still a netbook. A netbook that can somewhat tackle games. I play League of Legends on it and it works just fine (although, since mine was shipped with the 0503 bios, I cannot really overclock the FSB).

It's a neat little machine although I totally had to seize manual control over the optimus. Had to set a few apps so that they used the GMA instead of the ION GPU.

I don't regret my purchase. I'm happy with what I have now. See, I have a friend with Lenovo S12. He's got the first ION platform. No optimus. He barely lasts 2:40 on a battery, he has a single-core (hyper thread) atom. My netbook is just so much swifter than his. We even played WoW at maximum resolutions (he has 16:10 screen 1280x800, the 1215n has 16:9 1366x768) to compare it. He was in Dalaran on minimum details, shadows off and lowest distance visibility with 9-21FPS, I was there with medium settings for everything and highest settings for textures, going from 17 to 43FPS... the difference is there. I just believe that it will be even better, give or take two months.

 

Hey i saw that link on amazon. they do not ship to uk on things like notebooks unless they changed this. and even then i would guess that shipping would not be free, plus customs would be around 55-81 pounds...if it is parcel force that would be who collects you parcel in the uk. but i doubt amazon woiuld use usps if they did ship. they would use ups likely and they charge at least 100 pound so the total cost of the 1551 would be more than 330 pounds, of around 500 pounds in total. IF they could ship it, going well over mine.

 

I posted twice and it got deleted due to rules.
I won't talk about the buying stuff, but I can talk about the delivery right?

Computers, Electronics $29.99 $2.99/lb
Priority Courier Shipping $10.00

Total will be around £360
This is also a 2-3days to be shipped as well.

 

Hey guys, nice to be here, i'm new in this forum as you can see.
I bought an ASUS 1215N a few days ago, it has (Just in case):

Intel Atom N525 Dual-Core @ 1.80Ghz (+Intel Integrated 3150 256mb)
2x2GB RAM DDR3 @ 1066Mhz
Ion 2 (GT218 512mb with Optimus)


It also has PhysX and DirectX 11 installed (Don't know why it has the Dx11, it should be 10 or 9.0c at most -i think-)

Now, here's the problem, i bougth yesterday the CS 1.6 pack (at Steam website -Original-), with CZ and stuff hoping to get it installed on my netbook.

The first inconvinence appeared when trying to set up the resolution to my native one 1366x768, which i could not, the MAXIMUM resolution accepted by the game (on Widescreen mode in my ASUS) is 1248x764 or something, i mean, can't believe that

The second problem showed up when connecting to a server. Due to the lack of having Windows 7 32-bit, it gets stucked at the OK window at the very beginning after connecting to the server.

Can anyone help me please ?

Tried a few methods i've read before in other forums such as "Try to set the compatibility mode to Windows XP - Service Pack 2 or 3 to the Steam icon at desktop".
Didn't resolve my situation at all

I had the same problem with my desktop computer, but after a few Windows 7 updates, it got resolved as i'm talking.
Is this something that can be resolved with that as well ? by waiting to a Windows update ? omgsh :S

Can even play CS 1.6 with decent fps with bots/ppl.
CS 1.6 recommended system requirements:

800 mhz processor
128mb ram
32mb+ video card
Windows 2000/XP

ASUS 1215N system:

You already know that...

But, how come i got fps drop-downs with that hardware xD gotta be 100% driver issues!!!
It should be 99fps static at all times with the CS 1.6 :| eventhough im playing against 10 guys at the time.

Just in case:
Desktop: Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit)
Netbook: Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit)

Here's some personal benchmarks and opinions:

Tried to play Portal No steam, couldn't even open a map, gotta be some kind of a problem with the No Steam game, i've seen videos of guys playing portal so smoothly. So, that's not a big deal.
Then, CS Source runs pretty fast i guess.. all in High, average of 50fps. (NO ANTI-ALIASING Activated nor vSync)

Tried to play old games such as Arcanum or Heart of Darkness, its obvious that they run well, but i got some bugs with the Arcanum in the menu, it doesn't display the titles of some options such as "Blood:", "Volume", "Voices", etc inside the Options menu, it only displays the bars.
Heart of Darkness does not even opens, gotta be a crack issue i guess.

Tried to play Unreal Tournament 3, all in low/medium, almost unplayable to me, i mean, i can still play but its horrible to play with 15fps or so

Played Devil May Cry 4, almost all in High, pretty decent imo (15~25fps), lags a lil' when fighting agains mobs, but good tho. You can always change the graphics to be lower so it runs smoother.

I will be posting more benchmarks soon

Thanks in advance,

Cheers from Argentina,

Mariano.

P.D: Sorry for my english hehe.

 

Yea message i sent got deleted too also. it came up late that i broke the rules for discussing.

pm me if you would like to discuss things.

 

silver one is now 423.54$ at amazon, thinking of getting it. probably been asked many times, but it is confusing, some say yeah, some say not. DOES 1215N, with 64 bit OS, see the whole 4GB of ram?

thanks in advance

 

id buy this laptop in a second if it didnt have the plug issue, is it as big as a problem as people say?

 

I already answered that...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/515917-eee-pc-1215n-performance-21.html#post6892906

I guess I could sum it up like this:

"It's a bit of an odd design "oversight", but it doesn't limit me from using my netbook in any way."

I wouldn't call it an issue per se.

Also, League of Legends... I can play it but I get stutters. How can it stutter in Leagues of Legends but not in Half Life 2 ? That makes no sense. Gief drivers.

There are some 263.xx developer drivers, but they're meant for desktops, no optimus driver part in it, so I can't install them but at least they're doing something in nVidia.

 

how long have you had your netbook for? because I have heard of people that have it break around 1 month in.

 

Aha... well I can imagine that happening. Seriously, it's thinner than my Nokia 6230i charger - and that's a mobile phone...

And yeah I've only had my 1215n for a week :X

But if it breaks, that's a warranty issue, not mine. I'll just send it in. I like the performance a lot. I can play NFS Most Wanted without stuttering during my 3-hr train-ride and still have about 40 minutes of battery left to listen to MP3s while I walk home from the station.

Can't do that on another laptop at the moment.

But yeah, I've only had it for a very short period of time. I imagine they'll re-release the 1215n with some fixes later on, including better charger plug.

To quote the Angry Video Game Nerd:

"WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?"

 

does it see 4gb of ram with 64 bit OS?

 

Yea, i would like to know that as well, and besides,

1) if i do that, will i be getting better perfomance ? i mean, i currently got 4GB RAM DDR3 1066Mhz on my 1215N, but is it a big difference within games from 2,7GB to 4GB ?

2) can you guys play CS 1.6 without having the OK button crash at the beginning of the connection of each map ?
And also is there any way to put the 1366x768 native resolution to the CS 1.6 ?

3) what is the best suitable ion 2 driver with better performance right now ?

4) would you recommend me to overclock the cpu and gpu ?

Thanks!

 

Asus have released some more drivers that support the 1215n. I've briefly tried tham with starcraft 2 (which has been the game with the most performance/stability problems on this machine) and the results are encouraging.

Performance seems improved on native res and low details - around 30fps with 10 of each of 3 types of units on the screen... medium sized battle dips to about 18-19fps.
There are no artifacts with this driver (unlike the newer nvidia ones) making the game very playable.

The link to the driver is below:

v259.64 Windows 7/Vista 32bit | ASUS Mobile - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

v259.64 Windows 7/Vista 64bit | ASUS Mobile - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

 

My little brother didn't cancel the laptop, I was really mad, the laptop arrived today. I was going to send it back, but he didn't care about the performance, even if its less.

So I will be posting more often in the topic.

Few question,

Would upgrading to Window 7 Ultimate 64bit make the 1215n support 4GB ram?

Any improvement yet in the drivers?

Shouldn't they be often update since the Lambo VX6 is basically the same specs?

Thanks
Philo

 

Do i have to unistall the 260.99 drivers in order to install those ? and you say it works better than the 260??

Thx

 

Well personally whenever i swap drivers i always uninstall before so its a clean slate every time so i'd recommend it to avoid problems with leftover bits, and yes its less glitchy than the 260 drivers. It's still far from perfect but it performs better than the stock driver that came with it and hasn't got as many issues as the newer ones.

For the moment it seems to be the best driver available.

 

uhhh the asus 125n charger pin is soooo small O.O!

Im sure my brother should break it less than a week, stupid asus -.-!!!!!!!!

 

Okey, thanks for that. And another thing, as someone says on the links you provided, -which is the place where i can download those drivers-, when trying to install, pops up an error about a nvidia file missing.
Does this happened to you as well ?

 

found an answer to 4GB ram. Even with 64 bit OS, only around 2.7 GB of ram will be visible and usable, because there is intel limitation on the chip to 32 bit. I been thinking about 1215n from month of May. It would of been my first netbook, been following it quite a lot, did quite a lot of research on it. Definitely not buying it. I guess i'll wait for 1218, and see whats the deal with it.

 

http://www.netbooknews.com/13583/12-inch-asus-eee-pc-1218-scrapped-1018p-finished/

1218 = Cancelled. Methinks Asus knows its better to focus on a AMD Zacate netbook than yet another underwhelming Atom + Ion one.

 

Just want to say thanks. That driver gave me a big boost. Doesn't fix all the problems but is a substantial step in the right direction.

Random info for other people's reference.

1. 259.64 (Best driver, need to rename nvinfo -> nvinfo.pb to install on x64.)
2. 257.41 (From windows update, works well but has lowish fps.)
3. 258.96 (Need modified inf to install, has some problems but is ok.)

Stable SC2 Settings:

507 FSB
539/1446/807

Can go much higher with other games/applications.

 

Just registered with this forum to post my observations in this interessting thread.

I have an Asus Lamborghini VX6. Only difference should be USB 3.0, BT 3.0 and icePower speakers...

But strangly I can overclock the GPU to maximum settings (950/948/2184) using v260.99 without any problems, while the GPU has a maxmium temperature from 61°C.

I also use the newest BIOS and realized some strange behaviour when overclocking to 2 GHz. So I just leave it as it is.

I play Mirror's Edge and Need for Speed World. Both games run A LOT better overclocking the GPU instead of CPU. So I think bottle neck is the GPU. Unlike someone posted before, it makes a difference for Mirror's Edge which settings are choosed, because I can cleary see a slow down on his settings.

So far~

 

Theres no way that you're actually overcloking to those clocks because it simply doesn't have the voltage to run at those clocks. I did notice myself that i could put the sliders wherever i want like you said however when i go above a certain clock it always locks the clocks to 400/400/800.
If you load up gpuz and watch the current clocks on the sensors page you will see it downclocks drastically at those settings. Your max stable overclock will be around 600/800/1500 (probably more but this is a ballpark figure).

When overclocking keep testing if it downclocks during use by having gpuz in the background and monitoring the current and max clocks. This gpu doesn't behave like normal ones do under overclocking (crashing etc) probably due to optimus so identifying the max clocks can be a bit fiddly. Just keep going until it downclocks... then you've found it.

 

yes that happened with me too.. you just have to rename the file "nvinfo" to "nvinfo.pb" and the problem is fixed. Hope it helps.

 

Using GPU-Z 0.4.8 I get the following:

Core Clock
SET: 950 MHz
ACTUAL: 952.9 MHz

Memory Clock
SET: 948 MHz
ACTUAL: 945.0 MHz

Shader Clock
SET: 2184 MHz
ACTUAL: 2187.0 MHz

BTW: There is one down side. It seems the data flow of the HDD gets sometimes on a hold, like an IRQ kicking in and the HDD can't push data into the RAM for a few seconds. Result is some short hang ups. Almost didn't noticed at the beginning. This also leads to jthe system boot up takes an eternity. So for now I just load the Profil only if I need it and turn it off otherwise.

 

Yes that's what it will say on the first tab of gpuz... im talking about the sensors tab (the second tab) where it shows current readouts and graphs of the clocks. When i set mine to those clocks it allows it in system tools but the actual clocks are set at 400/400/800. Yours should show that in the sensors tab.

There is just no way that the ion can do those clocks, even the 310m which is the highest clocked varient of this chip isnt anywhere near overclockable that high even with a much better system built around it (motherboard, chipset, more power available).

In regards to the system lockups i get the same thing unfortunately... no idea what's happening there.

But yes anyway, play a game with gpuz in the background on the sensors tab with it set to update when offscreen by clicking one of the tickboxes and play the game a bit. Then alt-tab out of it and check your CURRENT CLOCKS in the sensors tab. This will tell you whats going on.

 

That was the sensors tab reading...

I will try it with a game though.

EDIT: That's odd, I just wanted to do a screenshot but now it shows down clocked numbers. Have to look further into it...

EDIT 2: OK, seems like I can't reproduce what I've done a few hours ago. While trying I discovered something else: When I save your Nvidia Profil and load it through the Control Panel, GPU-Z tells me that the chip was tuned down. BUT, when I set the Control Panle to load your Profil on Windows start and reboot, GPU-Z shows me your numbers. Strange...

EDIT 3: The GPU has three states: max/max/max, 405/405/810 and 135/135/270. It falls back if there's no work or if max is too high. So far the best I can get is using the factor 1.32 (627/948/1441). Factor 1.325 already doesn't work anymore. So an increase of 32% is the best so far.

 

I returned my 1215n for RMA three weeks ago because of the clicking hard drive. I just got an email from Asus saying they will refund the money, because it was not possible to fix my 1215n.

Now scouting the market for a new machine - if anyone can recommend a <15 inch laptop with a strong CPU and reasonable dedicated graphics then feel free to contribute

 

The alienware m11x is the best you're gonna get in the small category. If you like the way it looks that is... and are willing to pay for it. However i've read that some sales are coming soon.

 

I would, if it wasn't for the weak CPU.
Anyway, this is what I'm looking for exactly:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...631-15-6-powerful-cpu-dedicated-graphics.html

Back to the topic though - I know that the issue with the clicking drive has affected quite a few owners of the 1215n. Keep in mind you are entitled to return the unit and you will most likely get a refund!

 

The clicking sound is actual a "feature". Western Digital is not allowed to use the APM feature (patent violation), so they've invented a quick head parking feature. To deactivate this, you only had to schedule quietHDD with elevated priviledges on login. ;-)

 

I did this - but it didn't make the slightest difference unfortunately. I don't know, maybe my hard drive was really somehow damaged?

 

Does anyone know how to fix resetting after turning the computer from Hibernate/Sleep mode while the CPU is being overclocked?
With stock clocks both modes works fine.

I'm using setfsb for OC, Win 7 x64 etc.

also - are those fine? I've heard that it's possible to achieve 3.3 index number. I think the biggest bottleneck in my case in in graphics and hdd. Any clues?

 

I was wondering about the hdd clicking. It drove me nuts the first few days until I got used to it. You said I can try to disable it scheduling a quiet HDD boot?

Also, about the index, I managed to get 3.4 out of mine, the limiting factor being the "Graphics" score.

3.5 - Processor
4.9 - Memory
3.4 - Graphics <--
3.8 - Gaming
5.8 - HDD

Mine actually came as 3.3 stock and showed 3.4 stock after my install of Windows 7 x64. After that I overclocked a bit to get the gaming score up all of 0.1 points.

Edit:

I got curious having not run the index after my latest driver install. Got the following..

3.5 - Processor
4.9 - Memory
3.2 - Graphics
5.0 - Gaming
5.8 - HDD

I think this gives us a pretty clear picture of how much better 259.64 is than 257.41. I can definitely live with a 0.2 drop in Aero Graphics for a 1.2 gain in Gaming.

 

Just download the small program "quietHDD" and schedule it for log-ons with elevated rights.

 

can i get some feedback on this game?
assassin's creed 1 and 2

im concerned does the eee pc 1201n lacks drivers as well?
right now im on edge "IF" the eee pc 1201n is better than the 1215n
get back to me pronto fellow netbook users!! "black friday" is tomorrow >.<

 

what i dont get is that the ati 4225 in the acer 1551 gets 4.2 for graphics and 5.3 for gaming dispite it been a lower card.

 

In the world of benchmarking the WEI scores are laughable because they aren't consistant and dont accurately reflect the performance of the system in most cases so i wouldn't get caught up in it.
To compare actual performance look at one of the widely used benchmarks like 3dmark etc.

 

hey folks, I have a new problem - how can it be, that my netbook loses network after I overclock to 2000 mhz?
as most of you said, the d525 should be stable until At Least 2200, shouldn't it?

 

yes true but even that is just as inconsistent. favouring certain cards.
the ati is not that bad. ive tried mw2 on it and it was quite good at 720p wih everything low. just not able to cope as fluid at moments throught hte entire game tho.

 

how hard is it to get 1080p movies working on this laptop? i read a post where
someone had installed a bunch of codecs and movie players and still couldn't
get it to play smoothly.

 

I hope anyone could help me understand some things that i observed about my vx6.

I understand the 1215n and the VX6 both use the same motherboard, processor and gpu. It was mentioned in the first page that the temperature monitoring software used was HWMonitor. But i'm getting odd readings. Without changing anything in setfsb, i get an average temperature of 50C. But when i change the slider in setfsb, it drops to around 30 - 40C. I don't get it... I only got to know of it not being able to use the 4gb ram in 64bit which is sad. Another issue i had was with the usb 3 ports. It would just die after some time. The issue is intermittent, i don't know if this is a power saving feature, but when i restart it, it would be fine again.

 

The temperature falls because the fan starts up.

How much of the 4 GB can you access?

Never had any problems with the two USB 3.0-Ports, except the Microsoft IR-receiver, which only works on the USB 2.0-Port.

 

guys, what can be the root of the problem that i can't overclock the d525 in my 1215n to more than 2 ghz? i used the overclocking guide including setfsb.exe and so on, but after 2 ghz, my laptop loses his networks - everytime!

can you please help me?