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Copyright © 2008 itsonlysteam.com
| The Valve ... Gadgets in Play March, 2008 |
HACKING the EEE 4G ...
It seems when I buy a brand new, brand name, consumer computing device I am bound
to void the warranty within a matter of days. Apparently, despite the sticker on the back
of the EEE on one of the screws, your warranty is not void when you upgrade the RAM
memory to 1GB supported by Xandos Linux and Windows XP or the 2 GB that is
supported by Windows XP or a hacked Linux ... but I didn't try that. What I tried to do is
perfect my Windows XP installation on my ASUS EEE 4G with 2GB of RAM and a 8GB
SDHC card. My little EEE reviewed earlier was soon to become a computing monster!
Before you can start on this adventure, however; you must download a couple of files.
First is the *iso image of a DOS 7 Boot CD, and second is a file for EEE BIOS upgrades
posted on EEEUser. First, use the 'makeboot' batch file in the BIOS download to
format a SDHC card under Windows XP. Please refer to the discussion on the
associated web page. The batch file under a DOS window will ask you for the drive
letter of your SDHC card and then once given and you press enter will then promptly
'format' and set up your SDHC card as a DOS bootable partition. Following this create
a bootable CD using the *iso image that is linked above. Next download a copy of
XPlite from litepc.com and put it on your configured SDHC card in a directory you will
remember. Purchase a license if you want the full functionality.
Once this is done, then you need to line up a few items besides the objects mentioned
previously. Most important you need an USB DVD or CD drive. I used the guts from an
unused or rarely used IDE USB hard drive enclosure and a DVD ROM drive out of a
desktop unit. Next you have install your RAM upgrade to either 1GB or 2GB SODIMM
of 667 MHz DDR2 DRAM. Also, an unused license of Windows XP is required, or if you
are a newby and can't dig this stuff out of your inventory ... new stuff will have to do.
Windows XP licenses may become scarce soon, so hurry.
Next it is important that you update the bios of your EEE before continuing. Plug your
newly formated SDHC card into the EEE's SC slot. Turn the EEE on. Once the boot
screen comes up, hit the ESC key a number of times to be sure. Soon a screen will
come up asking which drive you would like to boot from and you select the SD card
from the list (arrow keys please). Then hit enter and you will be asked by the batch
program if you would like to upgrade the BIOS. Select Yes. Then a screen will come
up asking which BIOS you would like to upgrade to.
STOP ... if you have never upgraded a BIOS do not attempt this and just go forward to
the XP installation from CD. This BIOS upgrade simply gives you a 900 MHz processor
instead of the default 667 MHz underclocked energy efficient processor.
Select the 8804 BIOS for the most functionality. Once it says the next step is to reboot
you may have to manually restart your computer.
It seems when I buy a brand new, brand name, consumer computing device I am bound
to void the warranty within a matter of days. Apparently, despite the sticker on the back
of the EEE on one of the screws, your warranty is not void when you upgrade the RAM
memory to 1GB supported by Xandos Linux and Windows XP or the 2 GB that is
supported by Windows XP or a hacked Linux ... but I didn't try that. What I tried to do is
perfect my Windows XP installation on my ASUS EEE 4G with 2GB of RAM and a 8GB
SDHC card. My little EEE reviewed earlier was soon to become a computing monster!
Before you can start on this adventure, however; you must download a couple of files.
First is the *iso image of a DOS 7 Boot CD, and second is a file for EEE BIOS upgrades
posted on EEEUser. First, use the 'makeboot' batch file in the BIOS download to
format a SDHC card under Windows XP. Please refer to the discussion on the
associated web page. The batch file under a DOS window will ask you for the drive
letter of your SDHC card and then once given and you press enter will then promptly
'format' and set up your SDHC card as a DOS bootable partition. Following this create
a bootable CD using the *iso image that is linked above. Next download a copy of
XPlite from litepc.com and put it on your configured SDHC card in a directory you will
remember. Purchase a license if you want the full functionality.
Once this is done, then you need to line up a few items besides the objects mentioned
previously. Most important you need an USB DVD or CD drive. I used the guts from an
unused or rarely used IDE USB hard drive enclosure and a DVD ROM drive out of a
desktop unit. Next you have install your RAM upgrade to either 1GB or 2GB SODIMM
of 667 MHz DDR2 DRAM. Also, an unused license of Windows XP is required, or if you
are a newby and can't dig this stuff out of your inventory ... new stuff will have to do.
Windows XP licenses may become scarce soon, so hurry.
Next it is important that you update the bios of your EEE before continuing. Plug your
newly formated SDHC card into the EEE's SC slot. Turn the EEE on. Once the boot
screen comes up, hit the ESC key a number of times to be sure. Soon a screen will
come up asking which drive you would like to boot from and you select the SD card
from the list (arrow keys please). Then hit enter and you will be asked by the batch
program if you would like to upgrade the BIOS. Select Yes. Then a screen will come
up asking which BIOS you would like to upgrade to.
STOP ... if you have never upgraded a BIOS do not attempt this and just go forward to
the XP installation from CD. This BIOS upgrade simply gives you a 900 MHz processor
instead of the default 667 MHz underclocked energy efficient processor.
Select the 8804 BIOS for the most functionality. Once it says the next step is to reboot
you may have to manually restart your computer.
| Inside the EEE BIOS (version 8804) with 100 MHz FSB |
Once you reboot, you will get a brown background on the post screen instead of the
blue one with the new 8804 BIOS. As above, leave the Active State Management
function disabled as I found this only made the EEE unstable. On the other had, bring
the FSB up to 100 MHz from 70 MHz. With this BIOS, your EEE will run slightly hotter
and the fan will come on when you are using it and charging your battery at the same
time. Other than that, I found no real difference except it was 30% faster and along with
the memory upgrade, this was very noticeable improvement in XP performance.
Also go through the BIOS and enable all the necessary functions like LAN capability,
camera and LCD power saving, and CPU power saving.
Once this is done you can proceed with blowing out your Linux Installation and installing
your version of XP.
At this point a decision must be made. Do you want to get your geekness going and
boot from a DOS partition or go totally NTFS and forget having some capability to
recover from a serious problem. For some people this would be mute point so you
would skip the next few steps and simply boot from your XP CD and install by erasing
the existing partitions. Otherwise ...
1) Boot from your DOS 7 Boot CD using your USB device (Note that boot order may
have to be changed in BIOS to achieve this).
2) Delete all partitions on EEE SSD using 'FDISK' in DOS.
3) Create 510 MB primary partition in FDISK.
4) Reboot from the CD and format your new C Drive.
5) Use the SYS DOS command and transfer system files to C
6) Create a DOS directory on C: and copy files from the CD root and temporary RAM
drive (usually D:) to this directory.
7) Edit (using DOS EDIT function) Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files on C: so that it
refers to just C Drive.
8) Boot from CD and use FDISK to ensure C: is an active partition.
9) Attempt to boot from C: and see if there are any configuration problems with DOS 7
system.
10) Celebrate installing rudimentary OS on EEE. This will be your recovery and
pagefile drive for the XP setup.
blue one with the new 8804 BIOS. As above, leave the Active State Management
function disabled as I found this only made the EEE unstable. On the other had, bring
the FSB up to 100 MHz from 70 MHz. With this BIOS, your EEE will run slightly hotter
and the fan will come on when you are using it and charging your battery at the same
time. Other than that, I found no real difference except it was 30% faster and along with
the memory upgrade, this was very noticeable improvement in XP performance.
Also go through the BIOS and enable all the necessary functions like LAN capability,
camera and LCD power saving, and CPU power saving.
Once this is done you can proceed with blowing out your Linux Installation and installing
your version of XP.
At this point a decision must be made. Do you want to get your geekness going and
boot from a DOS partition or go totally NTFS and forget having some capability to
recover from a serious problem. For some people this would be mute point so you
would skip the next few steps and simply boot from your XP CD and install by erasing
the existing partitions. Otherwise ...
1) Boot from your DOS 7 Boot CD using your USB device (Note that boot order may
have to be changed in BIOS to achieve this).
2) Delete all partitions on EEE SSD using 'FDISK' in DOS.
3) Create 510 MB primary partition in FDISK.
4) Reboot from the CD and format your new C Drive.
5) Use the SYS DOS command and transfer system files to C
6) Create a DOS directory on C: and copy files from the CD root and temporary RAM
drive (usually D:) to this directory.
7) Edit (using DOS EDIT function) Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files on C: so that it
refers to just C Drive.
8) Boot from CD and use FDISK to ensure C: is an active partition.
9) Attempt to boot from C: and see if there are any configuration problems with DOS 7
system.
10) Celebrate installing rudimentary OS on EEE. This will be your recovery and
pagefile drive for the XP setup.
This is where the XP installation begins. If you skipped the DOS setup, then you can
begin here.
1) Boot from Windows XP CD using your USB device (BIOS setting may need to be
changed to boot from CD).
2) If you are installing XP alone, delete partitions and install a new one when you get to
that step. If you installed DOS, install XP in empty space. Choose NTFS file system in
either case.
3) Go through the installation process and reboot afterward.
4) Boot to Windows XP.
5) Immediately after your first boot, go into the Control Panel and System Properties
and disable System Restore. I have yet to have this save me from a system crash but it
uses inordinate disk space.
6) In the System Properties change your swap file or page file to C: Drive and limit it to
448 MB minimum and 496 maximum. This will give your system stability, not gobble up
your hard drive and give a little room for DOS. If you didn't install DOS 7, just use the
min and max parameters mentioned to limit hard drive loss.
7) Make sure your SDHC flash drive is still installed. It will be E: drive if you installed
DOS and D: if you installed just XP. Change your Environment variables so that your
TEMP and TMP files are on the SD drive.
8) Move 'My Documents' to your SD Drive.
9) Check and ensure SYSTEM RESTORE is disabled and Environment Variables are
moved to ensure your hard drive isn't swamped.
10) Install Service Pack 2 if your Win XP installation was the original or SP 1. After this
your 4 GB SSD drive will be close to full.
11) Using your USB DVD/CD drive and ASUS driver disk install all the drivers required
for your EEE. Reboot as required and ensure functionality.
12) Go into your internet settings and change the temporary files location to your SD
drive. (For XP to function well, you will end up leaving your SD drive in at all times you
are using XP and a USB SD device will have to be used for other cards).
13) Update your system with Windows Update until you have exhausted them.
14) Move the directory C: or D:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\I386 to your flash drive and
from your XP CD make a copy of your \I386 directory on your flash drive. These will be
needed by XPlite if you want some functionality back.
15) Run XPlite and delete functionality that is not required. Note that at present XPlite
only supports SP2 which I'm sure will change when SP3 is official.
16) Check through cache settings for page file and internet temporary storage and
temp files (environment variables) to ensure no storage loss when running.
17) Install Office 2002 (XP).
18) Install Java and Acrobat.
19) Install Adobe Flash Player.
20) Install Itunes.
After this installation, I was left with over a GB left on my EEE SSD and a smokin' little
laptop.
len
begin here.
1) Boot from Windows XP CD using your USB device (BIOS setting may need to be
changed to boot from CD).
2) If you are installing XP alone, delete partitions and install a new one when you get to
that step. If you installed DOS, install XP in empty space. Choose NTFS file system in
either case.
3) Go through the installation process and reboot afterward.
4) Boot to Windows XP.
5) Immediately after your first boot, go into the Control Panel and System Properties
and disable System Restore. I have yet to have this save me from a system crash but it
uses inordinate disk space.
6) In the System Properties change your swap file or page file to C: Drive and limit it to
448 MB minimum and 496 maximum. This will give your system stability, not gobble up
your hard drive and give a little room for DOS. If you didn't install DOS 7, just use the
min and max parameters mentioned to limit hard drive loss.
7) Make sure your SDHC flash drive is still installed. It will be E: drive if you installed
DOS and D: if you installed just XP. Change your Environment variables so that your
TEMP and TMP files are on the SD drive.
8) Move 'My Documents' to your SD Drive.
9) Check and ensure SYSTEM RESTORE is disabled and Environment Variables are
moved to ensure your hard drive isn't swamped.
10) Install Service Pack 2 if your Win XP installation was the original or SP 1. After this
your 4 GB SSD drive will be close to full.
11) Using your USB DVD/CD drive and ASUS driver disk install all the drivers required
for your EEE. Reboot as required and ensure functionality.
12) Go into your internet settings and change the temporary files location to your SD
drive. (For XP to function well, you will end up leaving your SD drive in at all times you
are using XP and a USB SD device will have to be used for other cards).
13) Update your system with Windows Update until you have exhausted them.
14) Move the directory C: or D:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\I386 to your flash drive and
from your XP CD make a copy of your \I386 directory on your flash drive. These will be
needed by XPlite if you want some functionality back.
15) Run XPlite and delete functionality that is not required. Note that at present XPlite
only supports SP2 which I'm sure will change when SP3 is official.
16) Check through cache settings for page file and internet temporary storage and
temp files (environment variables) to ensure no storage loss when running.
17) Install Office 2002 (XP).
18) Install Java and Acrobat.
19) Install Adobe Flash Player.
20) Install Itunes.
After this installation, I was left with over a GB left on my EEE SSD and a smokin' little
laptop.
len
