Difference between revisions of "Eee PC"

Revision as of 00:46, 13 December 2007

This is the Asus Eee PC 701 4G releases in the fall 2007. It is the first ultraportable 7" laptop with Solid State Drive (SSD) as the boot drive.

My Eee PC

Pearl white ordered from Qbit Online in Taiwan
Model: 701-W0002 - Chinese/US keyboard
Serial: 7BOAAQXXXX (first 6)
Motherboard rev: 701
Battery: 5200 mAh
No Mini-PCIe connector

Specifications

Dimensions:

Width: 22.5 cm
Depth: 16.5 cm
Height: 2.1-3.5 cm
Weight: 920 grams

Overclocking

CPU frequency (FSB x multiplier): n/a
Front-Side-Bus frequency (quad-pumped bus rate)): n/a
Bus speed: n/a

Benchmarks

Accessories

Logitech Nano Mouse
Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook 5000 / 4000
LG GSA-E50L Slim DVD Writer

Internal Upgrades

USB hub

To install devices internally, more USB-connections are needed. I hooked into one of the regular USB-ports and routed the D+/D- signals from the southbridge/controller to a 4 port USB-hub. To make the port I hooked into work again, one of the 4 ports is connected back to the USB-port (Hub-to-USB-port and USB-port-to-HUB).

I installed 2 hubs this way to get enough ports and load balancing the bandwidth. Having two storage devices on the same upstream connection is not a good idea speed-wise.

The reason I choose to hook into the USB-port and leave the spare Mini-PCIe USB connection alone is that I want to:

Be able to use Mini-PCIe cards based on USB later
Disable the USB-ports in BIOS and disable all the new devices
Not have the devices disabled if I used the webcam or wifi connections

More information about USB hubs over at Wikipedia.

GPS with antenna

Bluetooth 2.0+EDR

SDHC card reader

Pendrive

Power switch

Integrated: Webcam, Wifi PCIe adapter, SD card reader, Sound card, Atheros eithernet, Atheros Mini-PCIe adapter
USB hub: Bluetooth, SD card reader, GPS adapter, FM transmitter

Modem

The modem port on the Eee is stuffed with a piece of black foam and not used. The modem is not installed on any Eee machine but the internal connection points are still there. The modem card connected via a MDC v1.5 connection, and 12 pin header for the card and the 2 pin header to connect to the RJ-11 jack is still in place on all current 4G motherboards.

Asus is still providing the Windows driver for the Conexant 56K modem on their download site, look for Modem_XP.zip

The modem card can be found on various Dell, Acer, and Sony laptops. On Ebay the Conexant card can be found under these model numbers:

RD02-D110
M5804 (Dell part number)

Wifi

The wifi-card on the Eee is only 802.11b/g, not the latest draft-N. The card is can be easily changed by removing two screws and unmounting the card from the Mini-PCI Express socket.

After searching around I found a Intel 4965agn 802.11a/b/g/n Mini-PCIe card for a decent price.

Since 802.11n is MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) it requires 3 antennas for optimal performance and range. I had a dead Nintendo Wii which happens to use the same antenna connectors for it's Broadcom wireless-card. The connector type on the Intel card is Hirose U.FL-R-SMT and on the antenna U.FL-LP-066.

Other Possible Internal Upgrades

USB relay power switch
New keyboard (non-taiwanese) [2]
FM transmitter
CPU/GPU/Chipset voltage mod
Silicon Motion NAND flash replacement
Modemport - Wifi antenna, additional ethernet port
Modemport as a switch - remove to turn off, plug in to power

BIOS Revisions

Official Asus Eee PC ftp directory: USA Taiwan Asus Update Utility Eee PC directory: Asus.com

Newer releases last, sorted chronologically.

Tools:

8804

Download
Bios date 2007-07-25, initial release
Available via Asus Update
Full 100 MHz FSB
Chip report as an Intel I915GM rather than Intel I910GML
Wireless and screen flickering problems reported

0302

Bios date 2007-10-10
FSB lowered to 70 MHz

0204

Download
Bios date 2007-10-05
Fixes USB2 and webcam problems

0401

Download
Bios date 2007-10-17
Fix sometimes password is requested when entering setup

Optimize Windows XP

Linux Hardware Output

Output [3]:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 04)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 04)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5007EG 802.11 b/g Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Technology Corp. L2 100 Mbit Ethernet Adapter (rev a0)

@@ Line 70: / Line 70: @@
 * [http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=RD02-D110 RD02-D110]
 * [http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=M5804 M5804] (Dell part number)
+=== Wifi ===
+The wifi-card on the Eee is only 802.11b/g, not the latest draft-N. The card is can be easily changed by removing two screws and unmounting the card from the Mini-PCI Express socket.
+After searching around I found a Intel 4965agn 802.11a/b/g/n Mini-PCIe card for a decent price.
+Since 802.11n is MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) it requires 3 antennas for optimal performance and range. I had a dead Nintendo Wii which happens to use the same antenna connectors for it's Broadcom wireless-card. The connector type on the Intel card is Hirose U.FL-R-SMT and on the antenna U.FL-LP-066.
 == Other Possible Internal Upgrades ==