Friday March 29, 2024


Issues with Acer Aspire One Wireless Card & More
  Posted by: AceBHound on Jan 31st, 2009 7:30 PM
I bought an Acer Aspire One Netbook over the summer -- and aside from the known issue with the fan being loud (requiring a fan control program like AA1 Fan Control the netbook is pretty darn sweet for the portability factor.

After using it about a week I noticed some odd behavior with the wireless card -- the wireless adapter would randomly disappear from Windows XP! Luckily I found I was not alone with this issue. A very large discussion on this issue can be found at theacerguy.com. I'm not sure if there's a guaranteed solution other than replacing the internal wireless card -- some people have had luck changing the power management settings or updating the driver. I'll update this post if I find anything that works or if I decide to replace the internal card.

I also experienced a problem with the battery not being recognized by Windows XP. The netbook wouldn't hold any charge and I was concerned the battery died after only a few months. Turns out the connection was just loose and popping the battery out & back in did the trick. Hopefully it's not an indication of things to come.. cause these things are really cool!

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Update 1: No luck with setting power management stuff with latest driver downloaded from Windows Update. FYI the setting that Acer and others have recommended changing is in Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager. Expand "Network Adapters" and double-click on the Atheros card. Then go to the advanced tab and turn "Power Save Mode" to off.
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Update 2: I downloaded Atheros AR5007EG 7.6.0.264 from Acer's driver page (found as a possible solution in the comments at theacerguy.com post) and so far so good. I have used the netbook for several hours each day and put it into hibernation mode when done. Usually at some point I would see the wireless drop, but haven't had it happen yet with this driver. I also have the "Power Save Mode" described above turned off. I'll test over the next few weeks and see if this remains true.



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