Acer Aspire One Blog

I’ve been running Windows 7 for the last couple of months on my AAO with mixed results. At first it seemed to run fast enough, but recently it really seems to be a dog. Windows 7 has been optimized to run on a variety of systems, including netbooks with the Atom processor, however, the small and very slow SSD in my Acer Aspire One just doesn’t seem to cut it to run as well as I’d like.

Of all the operating systems that I’ve run so far, my very n-lite’d Windows XP install was probably the best and what I will likely reinstall soon. The original Linux Linpus was by far the fastest, but too limiting in the applications that I could run. What I would ultimately like to do is replace the SSD with an iPod hard drive and try re-installing Windows 7 on that (a 1.8 PATA HD while having slower read times, would have much faster write times than the AAO SSD) or maybe even just installing XP and have it run like I would expect.

I’ve had my Acer Aspire One netbook now for about 3 months, and while I initially thought I’d rarely use it, it turns out I use it quite often. It’s small enough that I can throw it in just about any bag that I carry and I otherwise just keep it in the car so I have a computer with me anywhere I drive. Being able to tether it with my cellphone means I have internet connectivity anywhere I go, so for long trips when I’m not driving, I can browse the web, or find directions or reviews for restraunts quicker than I could on my mobile browser.

The battery life is decent, and I can bank on about 2 hours of usage per charge. The size and weight are ideal and I can use the keyboard quite effectively. The mouse buttons on the side leave something to be desired, but I usually just use the double click feature of the touchpad, and only use the buttons when i have to right-click. The Aspire One is pretty durable. while I haven’t dropped it from any great height yet, it’s been bounced around in the drunk and thrown in bags that aren’t given the greatest of care. I haven’t had any problems with the hardware.

I have Windows XP on my machine and it runs at an adequate speed. The lags would probably drive me insane if I was using it as a primary computer, but the size, full featured OS and low price are worth the trade off. What I thought would be a novelty has turned out to be a productive (and novel) tool that I use daily.

The folks at PCMag.com took a look at the improved 10″ model of the Acer Aspire One and they seemed to like like. The Aspire One was the top selling netbook over the Christmas holidays, according to DisplaySearch and also confirmed by Amazon.com. They liked the design, the price, and the battery life, but still felt the keyboard and mouse were lacking.

Read the Full Review of the Acer Aspire One 10″ Netbook

While the Acer Aspire One and other netbooks are small enough to take just about anywhere, the problem is that WiFi isn’t usually available unless you’re at a hotel or coffee shop or a place that specifically provides it. Almost 80% of the time that I’m using my AAO, I’m on the web, or at least using something on the network, like chat or FTP, so without wireless access, the netbook is somewhat pointless.

I have an iPhone which is great for looking up directions or checking movie times, but the Safari browser is pretty limited, and it’s inability to render Flash makes so much of the web inaccessable. But now there’s a way to get the most out of your iPhone’s network and your netbook’s power: tether them.

Now this is something that’s frowned upon by mobile carriers, because you can obviously use quite a bit more data if you’re browsing the web on a full-fledged computer. I’ve heard reports that your “unlimited data plan” is actually about 5GB, and I’ve also heard of people staying under the 5GB and still getting a warning from their carrier that they aren’t allowed to tether (not sure how they’d know). In any case use this at your own risk.

Since tethering isn’t officially permitted on the iPhone data plan, there are no official apps to support it. Netshare was available for a little while and was quickly pulled for violating its contract with the carrier. So if you want to tether, you’re going to have to jailbreak your iPhone. I won’t go into detail about the jailbreaking process, but a quick search on the web would leave you with all the info you need. Through Cydia (which will be installed after you’ve jailbroken), download an application called PDAnet. This program will make your iPhone act as a wireless router. You don’t need to install any applications on your netbook, just set up an adhoc wireless network on your netbook and then connect to it on your iPhone through Settings > WiFi. That’s it! You’re surfing the web on your netbook through your iPhone. The PDAnet application also shows how much data you’ve transfered and received so you can keep an eye on your usage. Happy surfing!

While the SSD in the Acer Aspire One has very fast read times, it suffers from very slow write times and many of the tweaks that you have to make when installing Windows XP is to reduce the amount that the operating system is writing to the drive. The AAO’s that come shipped with XP have 120GB HD’s that don’t suffer from these slow writing times. While there are many ways to speed up Windows XP on the Acer Aspire one, it may be better to just replace the SSD with an HD if write times become a problem.

This hack, like the Acer Aspire One bluetooth mod, comes from the netbook hacker Tnkgrl. Instead of using the standard 2.5″ laptop drive that most netbooks use, she’s found that a 1.8″ PATA HD, like those found in an iPod or Zune will plug directly into the connector used for the SSD. It requires almost no fabrication to fit, and the BIOS auomatically detects the drive. eBay is filled with used 20GB and larger drives in this format, so this modification can be relatively cheap to perform.

Here is a link to the site, which includes video with step-by-step instructions.

http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/modding-the-acer-aspire-one-hard-drive/

One thing that the Acer Aspire One lacks that most other netbooks include is an internal Bluetooth module. The very handy netbook hacker ‘tnkgrl’ has provided very detailed instruction on how to install an internal Bluetooth chip in your AAO.

The process requires intermediate soldering skills as some of the points are very small. You will definitely need some type of magnifying glass to make sure that your soldering points are strong and accurate. One of the downsides to this mod is that you can’t turn the Bluetooth off, unless you disable it in the control panel. I’ve noticed that I get almost half an hour less now that I’ve installed this mod than I did before, so you may want to consider just using a micro external dongle that you can pull out when you’re not using it. The disadvantage to the external Bluetooth is that it will take up one of the three USB slots, stick out about a quarter of an inch, and isn’t as cool. It really comes down to how frequently you require Bluetooth.

check out the step-by-step instructions here:
http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/modding-the-acer-aspire-one-bluetooth

If you have an earlier version of the Acer Aspire One and are still running the original Linux Linpus operating system, you can use a couple of scripts to quiet it down and still keep your computer cool. The image of having a small, sleek netbook gets a bit ruined when it’s the noisiest machine in the coffee shop.

1. first download the acerfand script here.
2. then download the acer_ec script here.
3. copy both of the files to /usr/local/bin
4. make the acerfand executable using chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/acerfand
5. open /etc/rc.local as root and add /usr/local/bin/acerfand at the end of the file

That should do it. Enjoy the quieter fan.

Thanks to reader, Olivia, who also recommends to turn off the paging file in not only the system properties, but also in the registry. I haven’t noticed any particular difference in performance after editing the registry, but I figure it couldn’t hurt. If anyone notices a difference, please let me know.

You should not disable the paging file if you have not upgraded the RAM to the 1.5G maximum. If the computer does not have enough available real memory and no virtual memory, the system will crash. However, if you have upgraded the RAM, turning off the paging file will make your netbook a bit faster. First turn off the paging file in the system. You can disable it in the control panel:

CONTROL PANEL > SYSTEM > SYSTEM >ADVANCED(tab) > PERFORMANCE(SETTINGS) > ADVANCED(tab) > VIRTUAL MEMORY(CHANGE)

Reader Olivia suggests to also turn off the paging file in the registry:

START > RUN > (type) REGEDIT
Follow the directory structure to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
Double click DisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be “1″
Restart your computer

Larry, a MS MCSA commented advising against doing this and explains in detail why.

BAD ADVICE!
There is a great deal of confusion on the internet regarding the pagefile and the “DisablePagingExecutive” registry entry. This article is as confused as any I have seen.

Disabling the pagefile will most certainly NOT prevent paging. It will probably increase it. Paging of program code, DLL’s etc., can not be prevented and does not use the pagefile. There is no need to copy this code to the pagefile as it can simply be reloaded from the original files. Disabling the pagefile only prevents paging of modified data. This unbalances the memory management system and will probably impair performance. In some cases this impairment can be severe.

The “DisablePagingExecutive” registry entry actually has nothing to do with the pagefile. This setting only effects paging of a small portion of the Kernel and this does not use the pagefile. By default Windows will keep frequently accessed portions of the kernel in RAM whenever possible. Only in the event of heavy memory load would it be paged out. Enabling the setting will force portions of the Kernel to remain in RAM at all times, even if they are rarely used. It is generally best to allow Windows to page as necessary and not impose arbitrary restrictions.

I would strongly urge all who read this not to make any changes in system settings unless you understand what they do. Doing this can cause serious problems as well as impairing performance. The internet is notorious for spreading misinformation. The descriptions of these settings is rarely adequate and is often wrong.

Unless you really understand a system setting and have a specific reason to change it – LEAVE IT ALONE.

Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA

Thanks Larry for taking the time to write and explain.

I’ve been carrying my netbook around with me a lot and decided to get a case for it. I didn’t want to get anything that was too big and take away from the sleekness of the device so I went with a tight-fitting neoprene case. It makes it a little less slippery so I’m not as afraid it will slip out of my hand, and in the frightening even that it does, will add at least a little bit of cushion to the fall. Having the case on it also allows me to put it in the trunk of my car without worrying about it getting scratched up.

The case was only about $10 shipped and there’s lots of them available in multiple colors on ebay. The one I got is also reversible so it’s red on one side and inside-out it’s all black.

The SSD HD that comes in the Linux version of the Acer Aspire One has very fast read times, but very slow write times and because of this, some adjustments need to be made to speed up the system under Windows XP. All of these tweaks are very easy to make, and make a huge difference in performance. The key is to keep the system accessing the SSD as infrequently as possible.

As mentioned in a previous post, make sure you formatted the HD with the FAT32 file system and not NTFS. NTFS will be painfully slow on the SSD.

BIOS

The first thing you can do to speed up the system is to disable the “D2D recovery” system in the BIOS (Press F2 at startup to access the BIOS). This feature keeps an extra partition for recovery and takes up drive space and usage. Simply disable it, save and exit to boot back into Windows.

Turn off Paging File

If you’ve upgraded your memory (see below post) to the maximum 1.5GB, then you can turn off the paging file, which will greatly reduce startup time and speed up general usage. I do not recommend doing this though if you have less than 1GB of RAM. To disable the paging file, go to System Properties > Settings (under performance), select the “advanced” tab, then click the Change (under virtual memory) button. Click on the “No paging file” radio button and then click “set” and “apply”. You will have to restart your machine for the changes to take effect.

Turn off visual effects

Windows XP is pretty, but a lot of the shadowing and fading in and out that the system uses takes up a good deal of memory and resources. Turning off all or most of these effects will speed up the system. To adjust the effects, go to System Properties > Settings (under performance) and select the “Adjust for best performance” radio button. This will untick all of the visual effects. Personally, I like the blue bar at the bottom with the green start button, so I indulged and instead selected “custom” and ticked the last box, “Use visual styles on windows and buttons.”

Turn off Unnecessary Programs and Services

A lot of programs like to startup as soon as Windows loads so that they can be accessed more quickly. The problem is that these background programs are taking up memory and other resources, and unless you use these programs often, are usually best turned off to boost overall performance. Check the “Startup” folder in your programs list to make sure that nothing is loading that you don’t need started when Windows starts.

Similarly, you can turn off services that you don’t need. To access the services menu, go to Start > Run and type in “services.msc”. To disable a service, double click the service, and change the drop down menu under “startup type” to “disable.”

Here is a list of services that I’ve disabled on my Acer Aspire One that has increased the speed and doesn’t seem necessary in my instance of Windows:

Alerter
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Error Reporting Service
Help and Support
Human Interface Device Access
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Performance Logs and Alerts
Portable Media Serial Number Service
Qos RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Uninterruptible Power Supply
WebClient
Windows Time
WMI Performance Adapter

All of these services have a detailed description in the window so you can choose to disable more, or less services depending on how you use your machine. If you happen to disable a service that a program needs, it will just fail to load and usually mention that it needs a particular service that you can just re-enable in the services program.

With all of these tweaks, my cold-start time to ready-to-use time went from 65 seconds to 35 seconds which I’m more than happy with. General usage is also noticably improved and makes this a very nice Windows XP machine even with the slower SSD.