Travel Technology - Asus 1000HE Failing on Airplanes

Once we reach cruise I have fired up this net book only to get the blue screen of death after using it for 10 to 20 minutes. It has happened on three separate occasions on commercial jetliner aircraft (ie. 737s A30s). After I reboot it says it can not find a drive to boot from.
Miraculously once on the ground again it boots just find and everything works perfect. Any suggestions? I am thinking of installing a new hard drive.

Thanks for the advice!

The only thing I can think of would be altitude/pressure related - like a connector inside your netbook that makes a connection at "sea level" but once it's at 8000 feet or so (the equivalent of most planes at cruise altitude), a poor connection separates due to shrinkage or something.

Most likely the installed hard drive can't work in the high altitude environment of a pressurized cabin. Mechanical hard drives need a layer of air for the head to fly over the platters. While most of them are specced to work up to 10,000 feet, yours might be on the lower end of that spec due to the variance in manufacturing.

Changing the hard drive should help. If that fails, there is always solid state drive.

This sure looks like a warranty issue -- I have flown repeatedly with my 1000HE in the four months I have owned it, including ORD-SIN and HKG-ORD, (as well as shorter, lower-altitude routes), used the machine for several hours en route, and had no problems. Asus should replace the defective part.

While I did not read the entire thread linked below, you are not alone

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=69219

It is likely the cooling. Does this computer has a fan? Try setting it to low power next time you fly.

This sure looks like a warranty issue -- I have flown repeatedly with my 1000HE in the four months I have owned it, including ORD-SIN and HKG-ORD, (as well as shorter, lower-altitude routes), used the machine for several hours en route, and had no problems. Asus should replace the defective part.

That's been my experience also. I've used mine on probably twenty flights ranging from hour-long short hauls to MAD-IAD. It's always behaved no different then on the ground.

Switched out the Hard Drive. Flew BOS-STL this morning worked just like on the ground. It must have been a defect in the Seagate HD the EEE shipped with.

Hmmm...

Mrs. Swede took it today in hopes to entertain Miss Swede and Baby Swede on their ORD-ARN flight. Hopefully, since we live at 5400ft, the hard drive is already acclimated. :p

Hmmm...

Mrs. Swede took it today in hopes to entertain Miss Swede and Baby Swede on their ORD-ARN flight. Hopefully, since we live at 5400ft, the hard drive is already acclimated. :p

It seems like an isolated problem it's highly likely that their machine will be fine. If it isn't I would recommend you install a WESTERN DIGITAL WD3200BEKT (http://www.axiontech.com/prdt.php?item=85717) doing so was painless using this (http://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-EZ-UP-UNIVERSAL-Upgrade-Universal-Drive/dp/B00009WQS1/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246310023&sr=8-1).

Even if you don't encouter a problem it's a pretty sweet HD. ;)

I thought I might have to upgrade the HD, but I was able to fit in 15 kids movies, about 75 Dora the Explorer episodes, and quite a few flash games downloaded off the 'net--in addition to a few GBs of digital photos... and I still have lots of space to spare.

I just hope I don't hear from Mrs. Swede tomorrow complaining about how the computer didn't work during the flight...

I just bought one, and I like it a lot. I do have the Seagate hard drive in it (checked to be sure) and I hope it doesn't have this problem. It has its maiden flight this weekend, so we'll see.

I'm happy to report that my kids were entertained by the 1000HE on their TATL flight, although it appears the more basic crayons and stickers were even more entertaining. :p

I had the same problem as the OP recently on a EWR-HNL flight. Out of nowhere I got blue screen and same error message as the OP. After a few minutes of rebooting with no success I gave it a wack and it started up. The return flight had no problems and it has worked fine ever since. HMMMMM...

Keba

My PC1000HA works fine in airplanes. In the air or not.

My PC1000HA works fine in airplanes. In the air or not.

What model HD do you have? I will post my old one on Thursday so we can all compare. It could be a model specific problem.

I haven't been much above sea level yet with my four-day old 1000HE. I did check the drive and have found that it's a Hitachi. I'll post if any in-flight anomalies are noted, but as of the moment I'm not scheduled to be back in the air until late August (after making CO Plat in mid-June, time for a rest).

You could use this as an excuse to get an SSHD!

I have also had a lot of success with Seagate EE25.2 Extreme HDD's. They are not cheap but they are very rugged (18K feet, 85C, amazing shock & vibe etc.), the only downside is that they only go to 80GB. I have one of these in a tablet PC I use on my own plane, where I routinely fly at 10-12K ft. The other day the Toshiba tablet was working fine on the ramp at the airport where the OAT on the ramp was 42C(107F) and hotter than that in the plane (yes me and my passenger were melting, ah I love TX summers). It helps that the tablet has 4GB of high temp memory, a very low power Core 2 Duo and the EE25.2 (yes it was pimped for the purpose). CPU temps were in the mid 90's C, which is under max spec.

Data sheet here (http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_ee25_2.pdf)

- Tim

Seagate Momentus 5400.5 160GB

ST9160310AS

Me too with the ST916031AS. No failure yet, but no flights with it either.

You could use this as an excuse to get an SSHD!

I've got an X25-M in my laptop, and loved it since I put it in.

I just swapped in my "clean" drive for international travel, and miss the speed, silence and lack of a warm front left corner that I got with the SSD :)

OTOH, it costs about as much as the cheaper netbooks ($325 on Amazon when I got it a month or two ago, don't think it's dropped much if any sense) and for those netbooks that need a 1.8" model the X18-M is slightly pricier.

What model HD do you have? I will post my old one on Thursday so we can all compare. It could be a model specific problem.

Seagate 160GB - but different model # than the one already listed - ST9160827AS

I've been running the eee with the Seagate HD on many flights, long and short. No problem at all, but I gotta say you guys are making me nervous.:p