Eee PC 1018PB RAM or SSD upgrade?

[galliondastallion]

Hello--

I recently purchased the Asus Eee PC 1018PB-WH801 and was disappointed in the speed and overall performance of the netbook. I am still going to keep it, but would like to do an upgrade. I don't really want to spend over $100 and am moderately capable at self-installations. I performed the Windows Experience Index and found that (on a scale from 1-7.9) my computer performed fairly low. I originally thought that the lowest performing aspect of my netbook would be the RAM (1GB, DDR2), but it actually came up that the processor got the lowest score--2.3

I would like to upgrade my unit in one of two ways (I'm open to more suggestions though).

1) Upgrade to a SSD. I don't know what kind or size I would need

2) Upgrade to 2GB DDR2 RAM

I use my computer for basic tasks: internet, mild music and photos (stored on external), and some netflix/hulu streaming.

Thanks, and I look forward to posts.

[ThisIsNot]

Hello and welcome to the forums. Unfortunately, there isn't much you will be able to do to your netbook in order to increase performance as everything will be limited by the Atom processor. The Atom processor line is nice in that it runs on less power than a traditional light bulb but is really only capable of bare basic tasks such as surfing the internet, working in Word, using Windows Media Player for non-HD media, etc.

You could spend $1000 upgrading your netbook by adding in liquid cooled RAM and an SSD drive that would make 10,000 RPM hard drives look slow. It would still perform about the same as it does now.

The first thing I would look at upgrading would be the RAM. That should help the Atom processor when it comes to multi-tasking. I think your netbook is limited to a maximum of 2GB and I am pretty sure that the RAM specs are as follows: DDR2 PC2-6400 • CL=6 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR2-800 • 1.8V You will want to research that for yourself though but the results from Asus and a few other websites match up with that. You can even e-mail Asus and they will let you know the RAM specs that you need for upgrading. A 2GB stick of RAM will cost you less than $50.

Now, about SSD. You will need to increase your budget beyond $100. A decent 30/32GB SSD drive is going to cost you around $100 alone while a 64GB drive will set you back by about $150 (that is for a decent one, faster models go up in price).

In all honesty, I don't think it is worth it to add SSD to a netbook these days. You will end up spending almost as much as you did on the netbook itself to get anything above a paltry 64GB of storage and even then the performance is going to be limited by the Atom processor. Hard drives in netbooks feature advanced shock protection anyway and you can always install programs on an SDHC card if you are really worried about the hard drive skipping. You would essentially have to use the netbook while riding out on bumpy terrain in a Jeep in order to benefit from SSD.

There is a rather large misconception that SSD will magically make everything run fast and that it consumes drastically less power when doing so. Well, that isn't the case. SSD can be fast but you have to spend lots of money and even then it isn't necessarily faster than what you already have. Additionally, systems with an SSD drive still get the same battery life as ones with hard drives.

Just to give you an idea: IGN installed a $3000 SSD drive in their PS3. It uses an SATA connection running at 3Gbps. The $3000 drive was supposed to give 10,000 RPM hard drives a run for their money. Well, game installation and loading times were only cut down by 1-2 seconds when compared with the 5400 RPM hard drives that com default with PS3 consoles.

Instead, I recommend that you upgrade the RAM and ditch Windows 7 Starter. Your netbook can run Windows 7 Home Premium just fine, buy that instead and install it. Upgrading the RAM and OS is about the only thing that you will want to do with a netbook anyway. You can always buy more accessories down the line. These include external optical drives (ie external DVD burners), SD cards, external portable hard drives for more storage, wireless keyboard and mouse sets, carrying cases, etc.

I would worry about putting fast SSD in a gaming notebook/desktop running an Intel Core i7 processor but those are systems that start out at $2000 where a $500 upgrade is worth it. Here, we are simply talking about a netbook. I think your biggest problem might be that you are relying on that damned Windows Experience score too much and maybe had too much faith in netbooks to begin with.

Netbooks have and will always be essentially be the bottom basement performers of the computer world. Even budget notebooks running dreaded Intel Pentium Processors outperform netbooks when it comes to raw computing power.

[galliondastallion]

Thanks for the response. That was very helpful.

I believe I will upgrade to 2GB or RAM (DDR2..etc).

Secondly, you mentioned changing the OS. I'm already peeved about the limitations of windows starter. I was told by a friend that Ubuntu Linux runs fine on netbooks. I have used Linux before and thought it ran pretty well. Any thoughts with that?

Thanks again.

[ThisIsNot]

Well, if you can find all the necessary drivers (which can be a pain), I have heard that Ubuntu Linux runs fine on netbooks. I have never installed it on any of my machines simply because it lacks the necessary drivers to do so and I have to run iTunes, MS Office, and AutoCAD from home. My netbook has a card in it allowing it to playback HD videos but there aren't any Ubuntu drivers for that.

Additionally, my nettop has the Nvidia ION graphics card and again, there aren't any drivers for that allowing for the playback of HD videos. I purposelessly set out to buy my netbook and nettop to playback HD videos, I don't see any reason for me to change operating systems and lose that feature entirely.

You can also revert back to Windows XP. It seems to run just fine on netbook and many manufacturers are still offering up XP drivers. However, I still think Windows 7 Home Premium would be a better investment. I really think it is worth the upgrade cost as performance is only slightly off from Windows XP, it offers better visuals, I haven't been experiencing crashing problems like I was with XP, Windows 7 now properly uses RAM, it has better integrated media functionality (it is finally natively compatible with the mpeg-4 container, AAC audio, and h.264 video), and there are a few other things. All-in-all, it is a step up from Windows 7 Starter. That Starter edition just gives Windows 7 a bad name in general.