Acer Aspire One - Problems

[GTT1]

So Staples delivered the netbook today.

Took about 45 minutes to set up and let it install XP.

Couldn't get it to see my other network machines and vice versa. Finally after rebooting router and shutting down the preinstalled Macafee AV it started seeing my main PC but slow. Set it to transfer a file then went away. Came back and file had transferred. Speed had increased when I went into network again. Turned Macafee back on still worked fine. Have no idea what the wireless problem between my main PC was about.

What are thoughts on Macafee AV? I use Avast on my others and find it fine.

Personally I find the fonts very small and hard to read. Went into display and increased to large but it is still tough on my eyes. Anyone else find the netbooks resolution hard to read when using browsers. Might have to try Google browser as it sucks having the main header and 4 toolbars in Firefox, IE is even worse.

Personally I could only use this while vacationing or travel as the screen is to small for anything except email and simple browsing.

[akbar_k]

Get rid of McAfee and get Nod32, preferably a 2.x version that is lightweight. Hell, don't run an AV on this machine, really no need and it will slow it down too much. Nod32 2.x not so much.

Press F11 to go in full-screen mode in Firefox so you have more room to see the page.

Try using Firefox 3 and hold Control and scroll the mousewheel -- you may find the zoom works better than in Firefox 2.

Netbooks are awesome, but for a very narrow use-case, imho.

[Aske001]

Get rid of McAfee and get Nod32, preferably a 2.x version that is lightweight.

Try Avira Antivir + ZoneAlarm. Lightweight, effective and free.

Netbooks are awesome, but for a very narrow use-case, imho.

I was thinking that, but possibly if you had already had an external monitor and USB keyboard/mouse at home, then it becomes a very portable travel system while still being usable at home. If it really has enough power to run normal WinXP apps.

[GTT1]

Couldn't get it to see my other network machines and vice versa. Finally after rebooting router and shutting down the preinstalled Macafee AV it started seeing my main PC but slow. Set it to transfer a file then went away. Came back and file had transferred. Speed had increased when I went into network again. Turned Macafee back on still worked fine. Have no idea what the wireless problem between my main PC was about.


I think this is the problem. When the network slowdown above occurred I had the netbook on battery near my PC. When I set up the transfer I took it back and plugged it in to power. When I used it later it was plugged in and everything fine.

So today I took it to kitchen table and on battery same problem as earlier slow wireless connect. Took it and plugged it in voila back to speed unplug slow down. Don't know what is causing this problem but I guess it has something to do with the power drain on the battery.

I think it will be going back as I don't want to get a replacement. Was going to use it on an upcoming trip but don't want to take a chance on another lemon while away for over a month. Staples return policy is 15 days.

[GTT1]

Get rid of McAfee and get Nod32, preferably a 2.x version that is lightweight. Hell, don't run an AV on this machine, really no need and it will slow it down too much. Nod32 2.x not so much.

Press F11 to go in full-screen mode in Firefox so you have more room to see the page.

Try using Firefox 3 and hold Control and scroll the mousewheel -- you may find the zoom works better than in Firefox 2.

Netbooks are awesome, but for a very narrow use-case, imho.


Great tips. Someone should post all of firefox tips to a thread. There are probably plenty more I and others haven't heard of. Control /wheel zoom works great. full page is perfect from back and forth with F11.

[Aske001]

Great tips. Someone should post all of firefox tips to a thread. There are probably plenty more I and others haven't heard of. Control /wheel zoom works great. full page is perfect from back and forth with F11.

Most people aren't aware that the Ctrl+wheel up/down to change size is a default which works in Internet Explorer and MS Office apps as well.

[GTT1]

I think I found the solution to the slow wifi

IF you are running XP, see properties for the networkcard in device manager - advanced - set powersaving to off

[GTT1]

Still having wifi problems as are tons of other aa1 owners.

Going to give up and return it to Staples before the 15 days is up. Maybe Acer will get the problems sorted out in future builds, but right now the buyer is having to resort to all kinds of fixes and if you are not real computer savvy beware you will get very frustrated.

Those thinking of buying might want to visit these spots first.

http://www.theacerguy.com/2008/08/09/wireless-problems-with-the-aspire-one/

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=34

Its a shame because it seems like a nice piece for the price.

[goofball]

Still having wifi problems as are tons of other aa1 owners.

Going to give up and return it to Staples before the 15 days is up. Maybe Acer will get the problems sorted out in future builds, but right now the buyer is having to resort to all kinds of fixes and if you are not real computer savvy beware you will get very frustrated.

Those thinking of buying might want to visit these spots first.

http://www.theacerguy.com/2008/08/09/wireless-problems-with-the-aspire-one/

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=34

Its a shame because it seems like a nice piece for the price.

Seems to be more of an issue with those using the 3 cell as opposed to the 6 cell. Mine acted this way when using the 3 cell, but using the 6 cell, no issues anywhere.

[Zertz]

Personally I could only use this while vacationing or travel as the screen is to small for anything except email and simple browsing.

That's exactly the point of a netbook.

[GTT1]

That's exactly the point of a netbook.

Who says? You!!

What about students, while watching TV, in the car.

I actually liked the size for sitting surfing while watching TV. Felt better on my lap than my T40.

[kleptodathief]

these netbooks getting cheaper and cheaper...i'll wait till they hit 200bux :D

[GTT1]

these netbooks getting cheaper and cheaper...i'll wait till they hit 200bux :D

IMO not going to happen, my guess lowest price point we will see on sale will be $299. for basic entry stuff. They will just keep upping the specs more memory, faster processors, better batteries trying to keep the price at the $4-500 range with XP or vista and a little cheaper with linux.

Personally I wish staples or FS would get in the Asus eee 1000 so I could give a 10" screen a try so I could return if not suitable.

[Zertz]

Personally I wish staples or FS would get in the Asus eee 1000 so I could give a 10" screen a try so I could return if not suitable.

I have a 1000H and honestly it's not about the bigger screen.. resolution is the same, but it has a bigger chassis, keyboard.. I like it

[Narci]

There should be an option somewhere, probably in the power option in the control panel, to adjust the power of the wifi transmitter/reciever based on batter or pluged in.

Have you tried that?

[GTT1]

There should be an option somewhere, probably in the power option in the control panel, to adjust the power of the wifi transmitter/reciever based on batter or pluged in.

Have you tried that?

That was the first problem and an easy fix. Just have to go into the wifi card in device manager and change the powersave to off. That solved the problem of slowwww connection under battery power. The big problem which a lot are experiencing is the IP gets dropped and you have to go into internet connection and click repair so it gets the IP again. This happens sporadically. I have read some fixed it by updating the bios (Not sure I buy that) other fixes are switching out the Atheus card and putting in another wireless card. I guess if you are past the return stage you try to fix it but I prefer something to work properly out of the box.

[trixstar]

my sister just bought an aa1 the other day from bestbuy. preloaded with xp and mcaffee. I uninstalled mcaffee for her and installed symantec antivirus from her u of t account. I also uninstalled all the unecessary trial software. The wifi on her unit works like a charm. There hasn't been any signal drops or hiccups in the connection. Perhaps you may have a defective unit? I love the aa1. imo it looks better then the asus netbooks.

[GTT1]

my sister just bought an aa1 the other day from bestbuy. preloaded with xp and mcaffee. I uninstalled mcaffee for her and installed symantec antivirus from her u of t account. I also uninstalled all the unecessary trial software. The wifi on her unit works like a charm. There hasn't been any signal drops or hiccups in the connection. Perhaps you may have a defective unit? I love the aa1. imo it looks better then the asus netbooks.

Hopefully it continues to work like a charm. Lots of units are having problems as anyone can verify by doing a search. There are a number of different models. I would just really give the wifi a solid workout before your 15 days refund are up.

Terrific little unit if no problems with wifi.

[trixstar]

Hopefully it continues to work like a charm. Lots of units are having problems as anyone can verify by doing a search. There are a number of different models. I would just really give the wifi a solid workout before your 15 days refund are up.

Terrific little unit if no problems with wifi.

well she's using her wifi for a couple of days now.. approx 4 hours a day with her netbook thats connected to the wireless network at home. All seems to go well so far. I have not yet asked if she has used the wifi with her university yet. Maybe she can tell me how the signal quality is. So far she hasn't been complaining about signal degradation or any other problems with her wifi. We purchased this one at Best Buy at the eaton centre. It was the last one they had in stock too! i believe best buy only carries the blue model instores. 1.6ghz atom, 120gb hdd, 1gb ram.

[GTT1]

Thats the model I had. Maybe some are lemons or even different build dates. Heres hoping it continues to work well for her. Fact is I could have lived with the problem (just had to right click wireless connection click repair and it would be back in about 30 seconds) but I can wait for newer models.

[toalan]

Just got my AA1 today. Feels like great quality and performs like my old centrino 1 laptop. No problems encountered, the only issue I have is that my battery seems to only charge to 95%.

Screen is a tad small but usable, I kind of regret not getting a netbook with a 10" screen.

I can touch type most things on my normal laptop, but for the AA1, I find it hard to get to the backspace and enter without looking.

The mouse buttons really suck, I need 2 hands, one to move the mouse and the other to click the button.

Performance is good, with 1 gb I can run a vmware guest OS and do the same development work on it as I did on my Dell 640m.

Overall it is a good machine, it looks very cute and is very light.

[goofball]

Just got my AA1 today. Feels like great quality and performs like my old centrino 1 laptop. No problems encountered, the only issue I have is that my battery seems to only charge to 95%.

Screen is a tad small but usable, I kind of regret not getting a netbook with a 10" screen.

I can touch type most things on my normal laptop, but for the AA1, I find it hard to get to the backspace and enter without looking.

The mouse buttons really suck, I need 2 hands, one to move the mouse and the other to click the button.

Performance is good, with 1 gb I can run a vmware guest OS and do the same development work on it as I did on my Dell 640m.

Overall it is a good machine, it looks very cute and is very light.

that's weird, you may have a bad battery, it should charge to 100%.

I ordered a US keyboard, it is much nicer than the bilingual (though I am used to the bilingual one).

[toalan]

I will drain the battery and charge it up, hopefully this will fix the problem. I opened up my AA1 and put in more ram, now it has 1.5gb. It was really easy to take it apart, not as easy as opening an actual door on the chassis. I have just one left over screw, which is much better than what I usually manage.

[toalan]

I do not feel too bad about the 1 screw missing, I know it is a screw that secures the mobo to the chassis, there are about 10 screws already holding the mobo to the chassis. There aren't any movable parts inside the case such as dvd rom or pcmcia slot, so I figure if the mobo feels secure then it probably is secure.