- Mar 19, 2008
- 25
- 0
- 0
i'm really at a loss for what the problem is with my Aspire One netbook. it is the AAO110 model, currently running Ubuntu 10.04. i never expected it to hold up this long, as it was only around $180 new in 2008. however i'm trying to keep it running for as long as possible, because since I don't have a job, I'm trying to keep it from dying until I at least have proper income so that I can spend some money on a new netbook.
anyone familiar with these line of netbooks knows they're not very well built, and definitely not designed to be tinkered with. my woes began with the horrendously slow speed of the netbook, which I remedied in part by adding an extra 1GB of RAM. then the wifi became weaker and weaker until it could not hold a signal next to the wifi router, which I fixed by replacing the junk Atheros wireless card with an Intel 3945. it had overheating issues (which I don't doubt might have caused damage to something else), which I fixed in part by cleaning the laptop's fan and applying thermal paste to the CPU/GPU. the laptop is currently held together with duct tape, but that's a different story.
anyway, onto the point. my most recent woes have found themselves in the inability for an OS to run properly on this. it began with an old Ubuntu install, which strangely started freezing very often (in the area of 4 out of every 5 times) during the early stages of booting. occasionally it would make it all the way, and then the computer would work fine. i couldn't get an installer CD of Windows 7 or Ubuntu to boot at all off a USB drive - I was able to finally boot the Ubuntu CD (and also my Ubuntu installation) by adding acpi=off to the boot options. since ACPI mainly deals with power management and hardware discovery, I'm inclined to say that the problem is with one of those two things. since there is no acpi=off equivalent for Windows 7, I was never able to get the installer to boot without freezing.
first I opened up the computer, and made sure every piece of hardware was secured properly. this netbook travels with me in my backpack on a daily basis, so I assumed something could have been dislodged. however everything looked fine, and even after reseating all hardware and making sure all connections were good, the problems persisted. right now, all hardware seems to be in fine shape and connected properly, but I still can't figure out what the problem is. i've tried using it with the battery out and power plug in, plug out and battery in, and both plugged in, but nothing seems to change. this is definitely not a software issue as no linux distribution installer will boot without acpi turned off, Windows 7 still crashes every time I try to boot from a Windows 7 installer (I know I am making the USB installers properly; I have tested them on other computers and they only crash on the Aspire One). Windows XP works and will install, but it has a tendency to crash once installed.
i'm aware it's a very strange issue and it's very possible that the netbook is beyond repair, but if any of you have any insights on what to do about this, it would be greatly appreciated.
anyone familiar with these line of netbooks knows they're not very well built, and definitely not designed to be tinkered with. my woes began with the horrendously slow speed of the netbook, which I remedied in part by adding an extra 1GB of RAM. then the wifi became weaker and weaker until it could not hold a signal next to the wifi router, which I fixed by replacing the junk Atheros wireless card with an Intel 3945. it had overheating issues (which I don't doubt might have caused damage to something else), which I fixed in part by cleaning the laptop's fan and applying thermal paste to the CPU/GPU. the laptop is currently held together with duct tape, but that's a different story.
anyway, onto the point. my most recent woes have found themselves in the inability for an OS to run properly on this. it began with an old Ubuntu install, which strangely started freezing very often (in the area of 4 out of every 5 times) during the early stages of booting. occasionally it would make it all the way, and then the computer would work fine. i couldn't get an installer CD of Windows 7 or Ubuntu to boot at all off a USB drive - I was able to finally boot the Ubuntu CD (and also my Ubuntu installation) by adding acpi=off to the boot options. since ACPI mainly deals with power management and hardware discovery, I'm inclined to say that the problem is with one of those two things. since there is no acpi=off equivalent for Windows 7, I was never able to get the installer to boot without freezing.
first I opened up the computer, and made sure every piece of hardware was secured properly. this netbook travels with me in my backpack on a daily basis, so I assumed something could have been dislodged. however everything looked fine, and even after reseating all hardware and making sure all connections were good, the problems persisted. right now, all hardware seems to be in fine shape and connected properly, but I still can't figure out what the problem is. i've tried using it with the battery out and power plug in, plug out and battery in, and both plugged in, but nothing seems to change. this is definitely not a software issue as no linux distribution installer will boot without acpi turned off, Windows 7 still crashes every time I try to boot from a Windows 7 installer (I know I am making the USB installers properly; I have tested them on other computers and they only crash on the Aspire One). Windows XP works and will install, but it has a tendency to crash once installed.
i'm aware it's a very strange issue and it's very possible that the netbook is beyond repair, but if any of you have any insights on what to do about this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Facebook
Twitter