eepc waste of money

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.

Reply to
The Real Andy
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On a sunny day (Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:29:59 +1000) it happened The Real Andy wrote in :

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.

There is your problem, Vista.

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

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:

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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.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

therealandy cried

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

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

You are an idiot!

Reply to
PIC Hammer

I agree ! Very straight forward !

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

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

?? Faulty wireless ??

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 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 !

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

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

On a sunny day (Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:33:50 +0000) it happened Baron wrote in :

Yes, it went to the dealer, let him do the valve adjustment, and a new air filter. I have no tools here to do the valve adjustment,did not want to risk blowing it up, and it was time for some maintenance anyways.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

You really should use WPA.

Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett

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.

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.

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.

Reply to
MooseFET

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.

possibly.

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.

Reply to
Andy

wrong.

ok, i am not a nerd.

why thank you.

Reply to
Andy

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

Reply to
Charlie E.

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.

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Reply to
Jamie

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.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

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.

Reply to
The Real Andy

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.

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!

Reply to
The Real Andy

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

--

John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

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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.

Reply to
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.

Reply to
JosephKK

Internet connection sharing is MS specific.

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

Reply to
JosephKK

I actually have both MS and Linux on my machines. I only use MS when it is requuired for compatability (not very frequent any more).

Cool. High 4 figures base and low 4 figures per seat over a well standardized infrastructure is a bit ugly.

Reply to
JosephKK

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It can also be a DHCP server configuration issue.

Reply to
MooseFET

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