Asus EEE 1000HE Netbook - The Noisy Fan From Hell
April 15th, 2009
The Asus 1000HE Netbook is receiving rave reviews because of it’s 9.5 hour battery life. As a result, I recommended that my daughter buy one as her “tote to school” laptop for taking notes, checking email and whatnot. When I took her to Staples to pick it up, they weren’t even out on the shelves, and the clerk had no idea what I was talking about. He insisted that every netbook in the store had a 3-cell battery, despite my assurance that both the older 1000HA and the new 1000HE had 6-cell batteries. He had to go into the back to poke around, and seemed surprised when he found some 1000HE’s. I had been thinking of buying one myself, so when Kate took hers, I took one, too, fearing they might disappear quickly once the word was out.
When we got the machines home, the problems started. My machine ran beautifully. The fan was quiet, seemed to be running at a very low speed, and only when the processor was taxed. Kate’s 1000HE, however, had the fan blowing at top speed from the moment she turned it on, and it never shut off. Ever. Even in extreme power-saver mode.

A little research online showed that a number of people had experienced the same problem. There’s a small third-party utility called eeectl that can be used to control the processor speed, backlight intensity, and fan-speed. I downloaded that. It worked beautifully on my machine, even allowing my to shut the fan off completely, but had zero effect on Kate’s machine. Her fan continued to blow at 100%, no matter what. It was noisy and frustrating.
I tried updating the BIOS to the latest offerings from Asus, but this had no effect at all. Eventually, I gave Kate my machine and I took the noisy one. I’d only purchased mine mine on impulse because I wanted a new toy, so it didn’t really matter.
I debated taking the noisy machine back to Staples, but opted instead to explore its insides. This, of course, invalidated the warranty, but I didn’t really care. I found instructions for tearing the machine apart and soon had it spread out on my kitchen table, keyboard removed, touch-pad unplugged, fan unplugged, etc. As a test, I put the machine back together without the fan. It was, as expected, silent as the grave.
I kept the machine running for hours, surfing, writing, reading, and monitored the CPU and hard disk temperatures. The CPU never got above 37 Celsius, and the hard disk never got above 39 Celsius, well within optimal operating temperatures for each according to their respective manufacturers, so I decided to keep the fan out of the picture. So far, so good. I have a dead silent machine that runs upwards of 10 hours on a single charge. To be safe, I stepped back the processor from 1.66 GHz to 1.2 Ghz. I’ll continue to monitor the CPU and HD temps, but I’m not too concerned.
The problem with the fan is bothersome, of course. Two machines, picked up the same day, from the same retailer. One ran perfectly, the other sounded like a 10-year-old refrigerator. Worse, on the noisy machine, the fan could not be controlled at all, even with a utility that worked perfectly on the quiet machine.
Given that this seems to be a fairly common problem with the 1000HE (check out the EEE forums), what does this suggest? Well, it suggests to me that Asus’s manufacturing process is a little out of whack. I hadn’t actually realized the 1000HE’s were so new. I’ve seen a number of machines (mostly Macs)) suffer from first-wave issues, and I guess this is one of them. Perhaps the wrinkles will smooth out over time, but if you’re considering one of these things, be warned: you may end up with one of the noisy versions where the fan simply cannot be controlled, no matter what you try. Based on my experience of buying two, I’d say your chances of getting a noisy machine could be as high as 50/50.
You may be better served taking a hit on battery life and going with a more established machine. The Asus 1000HA, for example, offers 7.5 hours on a single charge, compared to the 1000HE’s promised 9.5 hours… but 7.5 quiet hours is worth the hit, if you ask me. Besides, with the fan running all the time, it looked like I might be lucky to get 5 hours out of the 1000HE’s battery.
On the other hand, if you’re willing to tear the 1000HE apart and work without a fan, having a netbook that runs for 10+ hours on a single charge is a pretty cool thing.
Other than the fan issue, it’s a very nice machine. It’s pre-loaded with Windows XP, and Sun’s Star Office (yeah, the commercial version of OpenOffice). It also has a built-in Webcam, and Bluetooth. All in all, everything you need to live a productive, mobile life.
Earplugs might be a nice accessory, depending on your luck.




