eepc waste of money

[The Real Andy]

Just went out and bought an eeepc , eeepc701 for a trial. Bought the
cheapest unit, with linux. First impressions were good. ASUS has done
a great job with the UI. Very easy, very straightfoward. Does not take
long to find you way around.

So next step is to try and get internet connectivity. I am a
consultant, so working on a clients premises makes things a bit tough,
but I have a vista laptop and a 3g wireless modem. First step. try get
the 3g modem working. Its a sierra wireless. Spent a couple of hours
then gave up (for now). Decided to try internet connection sharing via
vista. Set up vista, all good. Connect the EeePC, detects network,
terminal pings google, mozilla does not work. Time to go home.

Get home, try to connect EeePC to wireless. Fail. I use WEP. My wifes
laptop connects ok (netcomm router, vista pc), mates from overseas
connect ok (mac, vista, xp), EeePC does not connect. Plug EeePC into
router with ethernet cable, perfect. I finally have internet. Great,
EeePC downloads updates, I install them with the hope that I may get a
wireless connection. Do all the update stuff, restart, try wireless.
Same shit. This thing will not connect to wireless.

Now I can figure this out no problem if I want to, but I dont want to.
I just want it to work. I paid stuff all for its, so I guess you get
what you pay for. But considering that it cost nothing, but takes a
lot of effort to make it work, I have to question how usefull it is.

Personally, I would not by an EeePC again. I wont recommend it either.
Its only good for the computer nerd (like me).

Next couple of weeks I will go buy the XP version which i think is
about AUD100 more. Will be interesting to see how it performs on the
limited hardware provided.

 

[PIC Hammer]

therealandy cried

Get home, try to connect EeePC to wireless. Fail.

You did not activate wireless, the blue light should be on,
press special key, read manual.

Its only good for the computer nerd (like me).

You are no nerd, a nerd has this working before you can say 'nerd'.

Next couple of weeks I will go buy the XP version which i think is
about AUD100 more.

You are an idiot!

 

[Baron]

OK, confirmed.

I agree ! Very straight forward !

I use a Huawei modem with a Vodafone subscription.
Worked perfectly first time in the native Xandros Linux, the driver
was already there. All it needed was user and password stuff.

I use O2 and the router they supplied ! Ethernet worked out of the box
and wireless too, after putting in my passphrase !

There is your problem, Vista.

? Mmm I Don't use any M$ products. :-(

?? Faulty wireless ??

I connect to my Linksys wireless no problem, all of the encryption
modes work. No need to install anything,
No dropped connections as I had with a Sweex USB modem on an other
computer. Just perfect, I can watch movies on it (mpeg2 5000kbps) all
around the house.


Yes that works too here.



I think you did not configure something right,

I actually sold the Eepc because my XYL didn't like the keyboard. She
now has an "Acer One" and loves it !

There were no connection problems with the "Acer" either ! In fact we
have used it at various hot spots without any issues.

I would not, for any money in the world, including for free, want a
notebook with an MS product.

I got a "Dell Insperon" a couple of years ago ! First thing I did was
to put Linux on it. Its become an every day workhorse !

Maybe this site will help you,
but of course you could go to the shop and ask them to configure
wireless for you, but OK, you are just here to complain it seems,
but you can get the answer to almost any question here:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/

In the mean time I modified my eeePC a lot of over the last few month,
included lots of nice programs, added the gcc compiler, my own audio
apps (the ones I wrote), scripts, and even video subtitling stuff.
I use it every day to get the news and weather wherever I am.
Even installed my newsreader on it, NewsFleX, as you can see if you
look at the headers I am posting this from the eeePC.
Via GPRS atm.

That sounds good Jan !
By the way, did you get your bike fixed ?

 

[[email protected]]

Just went out and bought an eeepc , eeepc701 for a trial. Bought the
cheapest unit, with linux. First impressions were good. ASUS has done
a great job with the UI. Very easy, very straightfoward. Does not take
long to find you way around.

So next step is to try and get internet connectivity. I am a
consultant, so working on a clients premises makes things a bit tough,
but I have a vista laptop and a 3g wireless modem. First step. try get
the 3g modem working. Its a sierra wireless. Spent a couple of hours
then gave up (for now). Decided to try internet connection sharing via
vista. Set up vista, all good. Connect the EeePC, detects network,
terminal pings google, mozilla does not work. Time to go home.

Get home, try to connect EeePC to wireless. Fail. I use WEP.

You really should use WPA.

Michael

 

[MooseFET]

Just went out and bought an eeepc , eeepc701 for a trial. Bought the
cheapest unit, with linux. First impressions were good. ASUS has done
a great job with the UI. Very easy, very straightfoward. Does not take
long to find you way around.

I too own one. Yes it is very easy to use.

I installed "dosemu" onto it without trouble and can run DOS programs
the use a serial port by plugging a Keyspan into one of the three USB
jacks. Having 3 means that I can have a memory stick, a serial port
and some other thing plugged in.

I also installed the software for downloading the pictures from my
camera so I can transfer them to a USB stick when I'm on the road.
This is handy when you want to give a copy to someone.

So next step is to try and get internet connectivity. I am a
consultant, so working on a clients premises makes things a bit tough,
but I have a vista laptop and a 3g wireless modem. First step. try get
the 3g modem working. Its a sierra wireless. Spent a couple of hours
then gave up (for now). Decided to try internet connection sharing via
vista. Set up vista, all good. Connect the EeePC, detects network,
terminal pings google, mozilla does not work. Time to go home.

The EEPC connects perfect for me at work or at home whether I use the
direct network connection or the wireless with WEP or WPA. On the
road, it connects well in hotels that have networks.

Get home, try to connect EeePC to wireless. Fail. I use WEP. My wifes
laptop connects ok (netcomm router, vista pc), mates from overseas
connect ok (mac, vista, xp), EeePC does not connect. Plug EeePC into
router with ethernet cable, perfect. I finally have internet. Great,
EeePC downloads updates, I install them with the hope that I may get a
wireless connection. Do all the update stuff, restart, try wireless.
Same shit. This thing will not connect to wireless.

I have never installed any updates onto the machine. I have never had
a reason to consider doing such a thing so I won't comment on
updating.

 

[Andy]

OK, confirmed.



I use a Huawei modem with a Vodafone subscription.
Worked perfectly first time in the native Xandros Linux, the driver was
already there. All it needed was user and password stuff.

I have a Huawei as well, but using a sierra wireless. I managed to get it
working after stuffing around with it for half an hour or so this morning.

There is your problem, Vista.

Vista works fine for me, never had a problem

I connect to my Linksys wireless no problem, all of the encryption modes
work. No need to install anything,
No dropped connections as I had with a Sweex USB modem on an other
computer. Just perfect, I can watch movies on it (mpeg2 5000kbps) all
around the house.

Was connectiing to a netgear router. Its possible that its the router, but
like I said everything else conects fine. Seems to have problems getting
and ip address from the dhcp server.

Yes that works too here.



I think you did not configure something right,
possibly.


I would not, for any money in the world, including for free, want a
notebook with an MS product.

90% of my customers use MS, so its not an option for me.

Maybe this site will help you,
but of course you could go to the shop and ask them to configure wireless
for you, but OK, you are just here to complain it seems,
but you can get the answer to almost any question here:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/

I had spent some time there, thanks

In the mean time I modified my eeePC a lot of over the last few month,
included lots of nice programs, added the gcc compiler, my own audio apps
(the ones I wrote), scripts, and even video subtitling stuff.
I use it every day to get the news and weather wherever I am.
Even installed my newsreader on it, NewsFleX, as you can see if you
look at the headers I am posting this from the eeePC.
Via GPRS atm.

this to is coming via the eeepc using the 3g modem. I opted to use knode as
it is already on the eeepc. just got to get used to this little keys on the
keyboard now.

 

[Andy]

therealandy cried

You did not activate wireless, the blue light should be on,
press special key, read manual.

wrong.


You are no nerd, a nerd has this working before you can say 'nerd'.

ok, i am not a nerd.

You are an idiot!

why thank you.

 

[Charlie E.]

I have a Huawei as well, but using a sierra wireless. I managed to get it
working after stuffing around with it for half an hour or so this morning.


Vista works fine for me, never had a problem


Was connectiing to a netgear router. Its possible that its the router, but
like I said everything else conects fine. Seems to have problems getting
and ip address from the dhcp server.



90% of my customers use MS, so its not an option for me.


I had spent some time there, thanks


this to is coming via the eeepc using the 3g modem. I opted to use knode as
it is already on the eeepc. just got to get used to this little keys on the
keyboard now.

If your problem was getting a new IP address, you might have tried
turning off the firewall for a moment. On my laptop, I am always
having to disable the firewall when I log in after a reboot, or want
to print to my network router. the AGW folks say it can be fixed, but
I don't have time to tinker with all the settings for a couple of
hours to try and fix it...

Charlie

 

[Jamie]

Just went out and bought an eeepc , eeepc701 for a trial. Bought the
cheapest unit, with linux. First impressions were good. ASUS has done
a great job with the UI. Very easy, very straightfoward. Does not take
long to find you way around.

So next step is to try and get internet connectivity. I am a
consultant, so working on a clients premises makes things a bit tough,
but I have a vista laptop and a 3g wireless modem. First step. try get
the 3g modem working. Its a sierra wireless. Spent a couple of hours
then gave up (for now). Decided to try internet connection sharing via
vista. Set up vista, all good. Connect the EeePC, detects network,
terminal pings google, mozilla does not work. Time to go home.

Get home, try to connect EeePC to wireless. Fail. I use WEP. My wifes
laptop connects ok (netcomm router, vista pc), mates from overseas
connect ok (mac, vista, xp), EeePC does not connect. Plug EeePC into
router with ethernet cable, perfect. I finally have internet. Great,
EeePC downloads updates, I install them with the hope that I may get a
wireless connection. Do all the update stuff, restart, try wireless.
Same shit. This thing will not connect to wireless.

Which brings to mind. Have you tried the WPA instead?

The reason I say this is, today I was attempting to config my new
Acer mini (8.9) for a in house wireless network that supposedly was
to be on a WEP system how ever, the auto detect found it to be a WPA
system. Also, I noticed that I didn't even have an option in the list
to configure it as a WEP encryption, so I don't know where the IT
department was going with that.

In the end, I successfully connected to the network via WPA and TKIP
and then just needed the certification file transported on my laptop.

Maybe that'll help.

BTW,
My Acer comes with Windows XP home, but I don't see why Linux
wouldn't be able to be just as satisfying.
Infact, we're working on incorporating a Linux UI on some industrial
systems to get away from AB and MS HMI systems.

Now I can figure this out no problem if I want to, but I dont want to.
I just want it to work. I paid stuff all for its, so I guess you get
what you pay for. But considering that it cost nothing, but takes a
lot of effort to make it work, I have to question how usefull it is.

Personally, I would not by an EeePC again. I wont recommend it either.
Its only good for the computer nerd (like me).

Next couple of weeks I will go buy the XP version which i think is
about AUD100 more. Will be interesting to see how it performs on the
limited hardware provided.

http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5"

 

[The Real Andy]

Microsoft does some weird things with their networking. Like using
non-standard ports for DHCP. One Vista system sharing a network
connection with a second one may work with an oddball configuration and
the user will be none the wiser. But bring another type of system into
the picture that expects a standard port number and everyone thinks its
that system that's broken.

There was two issues, one being the Internet Connection Sharing did
not work via ehternet. The second issue was wireless did not work.
Both were unable to lease an address from the DHCP server. In the
latter case its a netcomm router that works fine with everything else.
I also tried it on a linksys router with WPA, same deal. Have not had
time to look into it yet but will get around to it soon.

 

[The Real Andy]

Which brings to mind. Have you tried the WPA instead?

The reason I say this is, today I was attempting to config my new
Acer mini (8.9) for a in house wireless network that supposedly was
to be on a WEP system how ever, the auto detect found it to be a WPA
system. Also, I noticed that I didn't even have an option in the list
to configure it as a WEP encryption, so I don't know where the IT
department was going with that.

In the end, I successfully connected to the network via WPA and TKIP
and then just needed the certification file transported on my laptop.

Maybe that'll help.

Tried WPA as well on a different router, same deal.

BTW,
My Acer comes with Windows XP home, but I don't see why Linux
wouldn't be able to be just as satisfying.

I dont have any problems with linux per se. I think that asus has done
a fantastic job with useability. IMHO, i think they have almost
cracked it with the EeePC. Just a few minor touch ups with things like
networking and they will have that market well and truly stitched up.
At this stage however they are still just a gadget for the tinkerer. I
could not hand one to my mother to use for example.

Infact, we're working on incorporating a Linux UI on some industrial
systems to get away from AB and MS HMI systems.

I am about to start doing something similar, moving a whole bunch of
stuff to Linux for a commercial touch screen application. Will be
using the Atmel AP7 running linux. Be the first embedded programming
work I have done in about 7-8 years!

 

[John Devereux]

Tried WPA as well on a different router, same deal.



I dont have any problems with linux per se. I think that asus has done
a fantastic job with useability. IMHO, i think they have almost
cracked it with the EeePC. Just a few minor touch ups with things like
networking and they will have that market well and truly stitched up.
At this stage however they are still just a gadget for the tinkerer. I
could not hand one to my mother to use for example.

Wireless networking in linux has historically been held back by the
proprietary nature of the wireless chipsets, with specifications only
available under NDA. This does seem to be improving now, but it
remains an area where things can still be a bit flaky in my
experience.

Then again they are flaky in windows too, with every laptop maker
seemingly bypassing the windows wireless infrastructure and providing
their own interface. I had one windows laptop that seemed to have
*three* separate wireless admin interfaces, all trying to control the
same hardware.

I've got an EEEPC too and I like it a lot. There is official support
in the latest Debian, so I will try that out soon (it's my desktop
OS).

I am about to start doing something similar, moving a whole bunch of
stuff to Linux for a commercial touch screen application. Will be
using the Atmel AP7 running linux. Be the first embedded programming
work I have done in about 7-8 years!

I really must get into this too, the hardware overhead is becoming
negligible for many of my applications.

 

[MooseFET]

Microsoft does some weird things with their networking. Like using
non-standard ports for DHCP. One Vista system sharing a network
connection with a second one may work with an oddball configuration and
the user will be none the wiser. But bring another type of system into
the picture that expects a standard port number and everyone thinks its
that system that's broken.

Where I work, the most of the servers are Windows and almost all of
the work stations are. My EEPC had no trouble with the network.
Strangely enough lots of the XP machines do have trouble.

If you make a network of random Windows machines, the "most modern" OS
wins the election to become the master browser. This can be trouble
because although Vista (without service packs) wins over XP, the Vista
machines master browser function doesn't work right.

At home, my network is a mixed system with XP and Linux on it. I set
up the Linux to be the master browser. I have never had any network
troubles with the EEPC or the XP machine.

 

[Eeyore]

I am a consultant, so working on a clients premises makes things a bit
tough

Isn't that the whole point of being a consultant ?

Graham

 

[MooseFET]

Internet connection sharing is MS specific.

Not being able to lease DHCP addresses is a unit/machine specific
configuration issue.

It can also be a DHCP server configuration issue.

 

[MooseFET]

I get real suspicious about your knowledge when you use restart in
conjunction with Linux updates.  I haven't needed them, even with
kernel updates.






If i use one and can mess with it a bit i may buy one.  Till then the
screen is too small.

I have mine at work right now, plugged into a large monitor. It makes
for a lot less eye strain.

 

[Nobody]

It can be client OS dependent as well, if the DHCP server is a skosh buggy.

Also, the client needs a direct connection to the DHCP server. DHCP
requests won't normally propagate through a router (or a PC running
Internet Connection Sharing).

 

[Nobody]

The DHCP requests propagate just fine through my routers and switches.

DHCP will propagate fine through a hub or switch, but it can't be routed
as the client lacks an IP address (that's why it's issuing a DHCP
address).

DHCP requests are broadcast, typically with 0.0.0.0 as the source address.
The server uses the source MAC address to choose an IP address. Replies
are sent back to the MAC address from which the request originated. All of
this operates at the link layer (ethernet, WiFi) rather than the IP layer.

You can, however, run a DHCP relay on a router. This is essentially a
proxy server for DHCP. It will work regardless of whether the "router" is
actually a router or just a multi-homed host. Even if it is a router, it
isn't *routing* DHCP requests.

 

[MooseFET]

What grade of large?  17 inch? larger?  What resolution?

Its about that big
(holds out hands)

It really is just a 15 inch. I'm not sure what resolution the monitor
can to but I am only feeding it 800x480 because I left the display
geometry at the LCD numbers instead of pushing it up.

It makes for great big characters that I can even read without
glasses.

 

[The Real Andy]

DHCP will propagate fine through a hub or switch, but it can't be routed
as the client lacks an IP address (that's why it's issuing a DHCP
address).

DHCP requests are broadcast, typically with 0.0.0.0 as the source address.
The server uses the source MAC address to choose an IP address. Replies
are sent back to the MAC address from which the request originated. All of
this operates at the link layer (ethernet, WiFi) rather than the IP layer.

You can, however, run a DHCP relay on a router. This is essentially a
proxy server for DHCP. It will work regardless of whether the "router" is
actually a router or just a multi-homed host. Even if it is a router, it
isn't *routing* DHCP requests.

With ICS, ICS is the DHCP server. With my wireless setup, my adsl
router is the DHCP server. I am fairly sure that the Netcomm router is
linux based. My mates dlink router is linux based. I could not obtain
and IP address from either. So that is 2 routers, so I am guessing
that the problem is with the EeePC. As for ICS, well an ethernet
connection to my router worked fine so I would suggest that ICS was
the problem. I have used ICS plenty before with and without problems,
so if I had spent more than 5 minutes on it I could probably have got
it working. Same goes for the wireless

All of this has nothing to do with the fact that I could probably get
it working if I really tried (just like the 3g modem) but the point
was that it failed out of the box. If you handed the device to someone
without technical experience then it would be a total waste of money.
IF I take a MS laptop, it almost always works, MS or linux host, and
certainly takes less effort.