Your Opinions on ASUS laptops? [WARNING: other brands mentioned too ;)]

[nickbot]

EEE PCs seem to be a popular choice at uni, see quite a few around class these days.

Hmm, I'm sorely tempted by an EEE PC (or similar), have heard great things about them and love the size

[Kyo]

<snip> ...and a Sony Vaio which I have yet to find time and take it to SIN (in a place called 'central market' or something like that) where I have been told that in half an hour they can replace its cracked HDD for 100 dollars...

This is actually very possible. In a lot less time. All you need is an idea of what kind of laptop HDD you want and you don't even have to wait til you're in Singapore to do it.

As a matter of fact, I think this is easily done (perhaps cheaper even) by buying a Samsung HDD (let's face it, in Korea, buying Korean is probably quite safe - not to mention Samsung is quite reliable). Other HDDs like Western Digital and Seagate are also fairly inexpensive and you'd expect a very decent-sized HDD (okay, 'decent' depends on how large/fast exactly you're gonna need the HDD to be in the first place).

In Taiwan, electronics (eg HDDs) were also dirt cheap... and cheaper than in Singapore.

[Javaman]

Problem is, the Sony's are invariably hugely difficult to disassemble - well, the A115B is a PITA. I really don't advise tackling that.
V505's - Do-able. But small hands and a light touch essential.
No idea why Sony don't do like the majority of other manufacturers - make their HDDs something the end-user can replace fairly easily.

Anything by HP, IBM, Toshiba, Asus, Twinhead........I can dismantle completely in under 8mins. Personal record of 7mins on a Twinhead H12Y......but with 2 missing screws upon re-assembly.......

laptop surgery not to be attempted by the un-trained.

[N_Architect]

The 100Gb HDD in my Vaio is made by Toshiba, I've been told by a technician who has his own repair shop back home. Was quoted >S$1,200 more than a year ago (IIRC) for him to order a new internal HDD and try it out.

But he was also the one who told me about this thing in Singapore. Apparently in that area there are tens of shops and you can get any repair you may need in a very short time. Pity I almost never get round planning that SIN stopover...

And by no means I would ever open up the Vaio and try to do it myself. Back in '97 when I got my first desktop PC, I played and fiddled with it, I opened it up a few times, added memory, replaced the burned power supply, kept installing & removing software, etc. Linux? Great hobby, for many. Pointless things nowadays... The computer is just a tool, it's there for me to use only when necessary. Breaks down? The company will take care of it. Updates? They keep installing them automatically every week. The two PC's at home? Install Firefox, Thunderbird, McAfee, office suite and photo-processing software, and that's about it... No games (never ever liked them), no nothing. The more stuff you install (or even worse, uninstall), the slower it becomes [basic rule derived from experience]. Don't mess with it and it'll run fine. Time is too precious anyway for me now to spend it on making hardware changes in the PC, especially if it's a notebook/laptop...

[Kyo]

Agreed. Definitely not something to attempt if not familiar with the internal workings.

I can see your point about taking time out to mess around being a waste of your time. However the process for whoever you ask in Singapore (or indeed anywhere) to do this HDD transplant in the shortest time possible would be to dismantle the chassis (or HDD section, depending on the make/model of your laptop), reassemble said chassis (a trained technician can accomplish this relatively quickly, Vaio service tech notwithstanding, anyone who opens up Vaios from time to time will know the equipment/procedure necessary to do this quickly) then finally Ghost the new hard drive, which alone will take up the longest amount of time out of the entire procedure. No downtime for re-installing drivers etc. The time taken remains essentially the same. The cost of the hard drive is all that is necessary.

Wherever you may be in the world, it's a lot faster to do it this way than to do the alternative: re-install from scratch, or use a recovery disc, than to spend time and bandwidth to re-download all the updates.

Anyway, in Korea, there are also IT-focused shopping centres, which is similar to Sim Lim Square and Funan (I believe these are the places in Singapore you refer to in your opening post). They can also handle this, whether or not they are kind enough to run a Ghosting program as part of selling you a hard drive, is a different matter (it will depend on the industry there and if they're desperate enough, I guess).

[N_Architect]

Anyway, in Korea, there are also IT-focused shopping centres, which is similar to Sim Lim Square and Funan (I believe these are the places in Singapore you refer to in your opening post).

Yes, I believe I've heard something similar for Korea, but I would prefer to do it in S'pore, and these should be the places as per your reference. It'll be an opportunity to make a long-awaited SIN stopover as well.

Replacing the hdd will suffice, then I can also do the rest (formatting, setting up XP Pro, scratch discs definition, etc.). Thanks, Kyo.

[up and away]

Urgh.
I helped a friend who wanted to assemble his new pc yesterday. While trying to put the RAM onto it I found that the manufacturer (Gigabyte) had glued a sticker onto the RAM slots and thereby killed the board (the glue of the sticker remained in the slots). Way to annoy your customer- sell him a product that will destroy itself and additional material if you try use it

[nickbot]

A little methanol on a swab should sort that out for you, or failing that use some WD-40 to removed the stickiness then methanol to remove the WD-40 residue. Neither will harm the board

[Greatfox]

wow, it's interesting to look back through this thread on my desktop I built instead of getting a new laptop... I ended up buying RAM and HD at Sim Lim and everything else in Australia cause it was either cheaper or easier than transporting back from Singapore. The biggest upside of this is that my Dell laptop is now bearable to use as a secondary computer for uni and such while otherwise I use my desktop, which hasn't had a single problem with either hardware or software since I first fired it up (staying with Windows XP was a good thing!)

[Kyo]

There are certain hardware parts that are actually extremely competitively priced in Oz... try www.staticice.com.au to find out who sells what, cheapest.

[KeithMEL]

Here's Dell's answer to the EEE, the mini 9:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/articl...121493146.html

[up and away]

Why on earth can't they design towers that standart ATX graphic cards actually fit into?

I've assembled my new pc today and everything fit well except for this bloody thing...

(outch, my poor fingers... )

[nickbot]

I bought myself an Asus eee PC 901 at the weekend and so far I'm extremely impressed,...thanks for the general pointers guys

[SQ LPP]

I bought myself an Asus eee PC 901 at the weekend and so far I'm extremely impressed,...thanks for the general pointers guys

Congratulations for your new possesion!

























No wonder the trip report got delayed!

[kapitan]

I bought myself an Asus eee PC 901 at the weekend and so far I'm extremely impressed,...thanks for the general pointers guys

U have problems typing on the smaller keyboard?? I have a Asus eeePC900.

Saw the 901 in Kuala Lumpur selling at about 700++ Sg dollars... cheaper then in SIN.