Vista Service Pack 1 and XP Service Pack 3 with updated drivers Mini-Note Benchmarks
About a week and a half ago VIA released new drivers for the CN896 chipset and Chrome9 integrated graphics. A lot of users on the forums said that these drivers provided a noticeable boost in Vista, so I decided to put them to the test to see if there really is a difference. I didn’t feel it was necessary to test the all the different clockspeeds as I did in the previous benchmarking because I’ve yet to find a way to throttle the CPU to 1200Mhz in XP. That, and most people are interested in the max values anyways. 
Besides the new drivers I have Vista’s Service Pack 1 and XP’s Service Pack 3 installed.
All the tests are done using their default settings on a stock KX870AT Mini-Note which has a 1.6Ghz VIA C7-M processor, 2 GB DDR2 667 RAM, and a 120GB 7200 RPM HD.
| Comp | Geek Bench | Passmark | 3DMark03 | 3DMark06 | PCMark05 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini-Note #3 (Vista) | 532 | 153.6 | 358 | 91 | 930 |
| Mini-Note #7 (Vista SP1 w/new video drivers) | 544 | 156.6 | 411 | 100 | 1012 |
| Mini-Note #6 (XP) | 547 | 194 | 480 | 113 | 989 |
| Mini-Note #8 (XP SP3 w/new video drivers) | 557 | 211.3 | 478 | 115 | 1026 |
So from the table we can see that the updated Vista is pretty much on par with the old XP setup. Which from my usage I would say is pretty much true. Vista still takes quite a long time to boot though.
Strangely the 3DMark03 scores for the updated XP install were slightly worse and I’m not sure why. I usually only run each test three times and take the best, but I ran this one five times because it kept coming back as lower than the previous testing.
Video Playback
Video playback was improved quite a bit on each OS. In Vista Youtube plays great small or full screen with no dropped frames. If you open another web page it will drop a few then though. Small screen Hulu improved quite a bit and was actually watchable after the first 3 or 4 seconds. Full screen was still pretty bad though. Basically where XP was before its updates is where Vista now is with its updates.
Over on XP, Youtube plays perfect full or small screen and isn’t really affected much by pulling up another site in a new window. Like in Vista, Hulu is much improved as well. Small screen is almost perfect, and full screen is better but not really watchable.
So if you haven’t upgraded yet, get the new Service Pack for whichever OS your on and the current drivers:
Update: Some users are reporting the driver for HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor (or 3D Drive Guard) is getting uninstalled and they can’t re-install it. If have been affected by that please post your model number and OS. Thanks!
For XP
CN896 Chipset Drivers
Chrome9 Drivers
For Vista
CN896 Chipset Drivers
Chrome9 Drivers
If you’re wanting a little more info on the previous tests check these out:
Mini-Note Performance Tests with XP
HP Mini-Note XP Movie Playback
HP 2133 Mini-Note Vista Movie Playback
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
The CN896 update seemed to knock out the HP 3D drive protector software now (it says the drive isn’t supported now?). Any idea how to get it working again?
FDA
June 24th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I had the same issue, and had to re-run the setup.exe file to uninstall it. I have NO idea what the problem was but maybe someone can explain it.
June 24th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Could those of you that end up with the 3D Drive protector uninstalled post your model number and OS? We think it might be related to a specific hd or even model.
June 24th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
my drive guard is not working now after the update i have a 1.6 ghz with a 120 hd 7200 rpms and 2 gb memory
June 24th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I tried to install the display drivers and it reports driver date 5/23/2008 v6.14.10.137.
Shouldnt it say 12/6/2008 v20.04.01n
Thanks
June 24th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
oh and my system is XP
June 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I can’t wait for HP to release HP Mini-Notes with VIA Nano in them instead. For sure they’ll perform noticeably faster, more so with these updated drivers. Does anyone have an idea whether HP is going the VIA Nano + VX800 or the Intel Atom + Intel Chipset route?
June 25th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Mine is the 1.6G w/2G Ram and 120 HD
June 25th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Just for your information , when playing Hulu video if you right click in the window you will have a choice of low , medium , and high quality , set it at low quality and there is a big improvement and rare lag on full screen play when using Vista , I suspect that if you use XP the lag should all be gone , and also the video quality is so close I do not see much difference if any between low and high. I am using a HP 2133 , 1.6 Ghz system and new video drivers . Try it and let me know what you think
June 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
On another note I also installed Kiowa Linux Beta 3 on my computer and it works perfect , right out of the box . Wifi , screen resolution , on first startup , just config network and you are done .
Make sure you use beta 3 not the RC release , the later does not install properly , make a 10 GB partition on your HD and you should be set . It is a very nice and user friendly system . let me know what you think .
June 26th, 2008 at 2:23 am
Mine is a 1.2 G w/1 G RAM and 120 HD running on XP
June 26th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I have the p/n : AN482US#ABC. It is French localized model on sale in Canada with Vista Business with a downgrade option to XP - that I use. The HD is a 160GB, 2G of RAM and CPU at 1.6Ghz. 3D drive guard seems to have the same problem as reported above since I update to the new driver. I did try to install the new driver on a clean install and same problem.
Despite that the design is very hot, the unit tends to be equally hot and I am wondering if I would not be better with one of the upcoming Atom model considering that Skype and Youtube doesn’t work that well on the Mininote. The only thing that keep me for returning pronto the 2133 is the screen and the localized keyboard…
June 26th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I’m really at a loss for what’s knocking out the 3D Drive protector. I uninstalled the video drivers and the chipset drivers (through the installer). Then I installed the old video drivers from Windows Update.
So then I installed the chipset drivers again, restarted, installed the video drivers, and restarted. Everything was still alright.
The video drivers page says that the new chipset drivers must be installed first. Did you install the video drivers first by chance? Maybe that’s the issue?
June 27th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
What’s knocking out the HP DriveGuard is the Hyperion update. It installs a SATA/IDE Driver that i guess is incompatible. When you install this update, just uncheck it. If you already installed it and are stuck, goto the device manager (right-click my computer and hit properties then goto the hardware tab) and uninstall the driver for the hard drive (Expand the hard drives node, right click the internal drive and hit uninstall). Then reboot. The driver should reinstall with the correct version (i think mine came from windows update). This happened to me on XP on the 1.6ghz model. I just wish i had figured that out before getting over anxious and restoring my last back-up image. But oh well.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
my drive guard is not working now after the update
I have a 1.2ghz with a 120HD 5400rpm and 2GB memory
What can I do?
June 30th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Hi mate, thanks for all the help you’ve given so far. I installed TinyXP (for better performance) and have the VIA drivers as instructed. However youtube doesn’t play well fullscreen. Before the sound driver patch, I had clipping and noises, even video artifacts as it’s been commented. Now I can play music in Winamp and browse with Firefox with several tabs at the same time. Haven’t tried MSN Live plus FF, plus Winamp, plus Word, yet.
So if you have any hints regarding youtube (and dailymotion) performance I’d appreciate it. Specs are 1.2ghz 1gb ram, planning to upgrade to 2gb (however I don’t see how it should make a big difference since I check on task manager and usually there are 400 or 500mb free).
PS: Speakers have excellent quality for what they are, I have grown to appreciate them so I don’t complain about the screen not being bigger. Also headphone jack is quite good actually, no hiss nor distortion so far (with good headphones). Very nice to configure the display to turn off and change power mode to max battery to extend music playing performance.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
the model of mine is: FH44PA.
1.6g / 2gb / 160gb / vista oem business etc…
i run windows xp professional sp2 vista look a like.
i also installed the new drivers and i feel like my mini note is performing slower than with the original drivers from hp.
when installing the new chipset driver, it altered the hard drive bus drivers and now idenifities the hdd differently in device manager and now hp driveguard doesnt work for me either.
i tried rolling back the drivers and it didnt work well for me… so i’ll try a couple of things before i do another clean install.
i do like the driveguard working as im constanly on the move and parks the hdd when i start to knock it around.
according to device manager in xp, my hdd is a TOSHIBA MK1646GSX.
it is the oem hdd that came with mine.
enjoy
July 1st, 2008 at 9:19 am
Just to let you know, I finally returned my mininote and bought an Eee PC 4G. Despite the smaller screen and the English keyboard, the experience is much better on the Eee than it was with the mininote. I know that there is some big differences, that I have less disk space and I am running linux. But the price/value point seems better with the Eee. If HP had put a real CPU in the 2133, it would have been a better choice, but with the C7, it is far from able to deliver what the Eee has to offer in term of performance at half the price. I don’t even what to think of the difference it will be with what will deliverer the upcoming models equipped of an ATOM CPU.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I have a 2133 running xp as well. driveguard sais my hard drive is not supported. I would also like a print driver that can use the officejet 7310. I tried to install the software and it said my processor wasn’t supported. Any help would be great. Thanks.
July 11th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
I also cannot enable HP 3D DriveGuard.
My modole number is KX869AT and OS is XP SP2.
Looking forward to the solution.
Thanks a lot!
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 am
Thanks to Geoff H for the fix on the Driveguard - that was starting to annoy me.
Just to rephrase Geoff’s response, as I was a little uncertain, in Vista, go to Control Panel, Hardware & Sound, Device Manager - View hardware and devices, click on the + IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, right-click uninstall the SATA (bottom) - check the delete driver box when it asks and reboot. On reboot it will (should) pickup the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller.
Sorry to make Geoff’s simple solution seem overly programmatic, but I suspect there’s a few like me wondering exactly how to execute and whether it will cause major drama if not exactly clear…