*HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Hey guys,



Thought I'd start a thread for all models of the HP Mini 311 to share information about this amazing netbook. Most of the 311 threads I see out there include a lot of back and forth of which devices are the best value instead of stuff specific to it.



So I'll start.



My Mini 311 arrived last week and I immediately installed Windows 7 and upgraded the RAM to 3 gigs. Everything is working flawlessly so far and my impressions are very good. My only gripe is 2ch sound through HDMI which I hope will be fixed with a driver update.



The only real issue I had was that hibernate acted funning when resuming and hung indefinitely at a black screen. I prefer sleep anyway because the on/off times are so fast, but the netbook seemed to hibernate when slept overnight. To solve this, I disabled hibernate completely (which also makes the option disappear in Windows) by opening a command prompt and typing: "powercfg -h off" or you can do it through power options.



Played some 720p and 1080p MKVs using Media Player Classic Home Cinema or Splash Player and they played silky smooth. Make sure you enable hardware acceleration to take advantage of the GPU. On a related note, it's gonna be great once Adobe releases the flash 10.1 update so all of that is offloaded to the GPU as well. HULU is gonna rock on this netbook!



I've also been playing a fair amount of WOW on it lately, running the native resolution (1366 x 768) and all settings on low. Actually, I think my view distance is bumped up a notch. Running around in Northrend looks very smooth with frame rates for me around 20-30. Dalaran slows way down, depending on how many players are running around. The Atom processor seems to bog down with lots going on. I ran Ony and it was almost a slideshow when the whelps came out and all the aoe hit the screen. I think its a great machine for soloing and 5 man content where the CPU isn't taxed all that much. I wouldn't use this machine for raiding.



I guess that's all I have, how do you like yours??



-TK

Reply 1 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Hi there, I just bought an HP mini 311

last week with the ION LE/ Win XP SP3. Should

I return this for the Win7/ full Ion netbook coming out

tomorrow? Or, should I just upgrade my current

Mini to Win7 and add RAM? Thx for the info

on Wow btw, anyone run AION on this netbook yet?

Reply 2 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Yes, I like mine, but am a little dissapointed with the game performance. I didn't expect much to begin with and can certainly play old titles fine. But I was hoping it was a tad smoother with LOTRO.



Endurance is great though. Overall the machine is very respectable and head and shoulders above the rest of the netbooks at this point.

Reply 3 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruin1996 Should I return this for the Win7/ full Ion netbook coming out tomorrow? Or, should I just upgrade my current Mini to Win7 and add RAM?

I'm in the same position. I ran the numbers and it would've cost me at least $110 more for the W7 option.



Windows 7 isn't a big deal to me, so I'm sticking with XP and just putting extra ram in myself. It's a much cheaper solution.

Reply 4 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

What's the cheapest reliable memory out there for this netbook by the way?



I picked up a Win7 home premium upgrade for $50 from a Staples deal this morning. Thinking about using that to upgrade my Mini 311 rather than to reorder from HP and have to wait for the netbook. I heard something about only Mini 311's with the N280 CPU can support Windows 7.. does anyone know if there is any truth to this?



Also, I know that the new Mini 311's have the full ION but after reading an article about it on the Internet, the only difference is that DirectX10 is disabled for the ION LE. I don't think I will be playing any taxing DirectX 10 games on this little netbook either as I'll be playing those on my ASUS G51Vx and desktop. Just want something for portability on trips to play a little light WoW or AION in addition to surfing the Net and watching videos. (I figure the Mini 311 will be a huge upgrade to my current netbook, the Dell Mini 9)

Reply 5 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruin1996 What's the cheapest reliable memory out there for this netbook by the way?

I ordered a Crucial 2GB Stick for $36.99 that is working great.



Looks like it's gone up in price though.

Reply 6 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

My parents bought my wife and I a mini, which is still in the box (just arrived a few days ago!).

So thank you for starting this thread!! I ordered mine with the XP, but was able to obtain W7 HP full for 29.99 due to being a student and now know I can add 2GB Ram for 40.00!

Please keep adding to this thread as I am quite the NOOB on netbooks!!



any other tips/tweaks will be appreciated!

Reply 7 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Oh and one question re the fresh install of W7.

Do I need to back up any drivers or just go ahead with the install?

thanks!

Reply 8 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Quote:

Originally Posted by darengibo any other tips/tweaks will be appreciated!

If you already haven't checked out. There is a alot of discussion on this thread about HP 311.

Quote:

Originally Posted by darengibo Oh and one question re the fresh install of W7. Do I need to back up any drivers or just go ahead with the install? thanks!

HP 311 Drivers, for various OS.

Reply 9 : *HP Mini 311 Owners Lounge*

Thanks!

so is it safe to assume the netbooks can only run 32 bit?