Any other Upgrades or tips?

So I just got an Acer Aspire One AOD250-1955 on Wednesday, since then, I've put 2GB of ram in it, and installed Windows 7 Pro x86. I'm looking for any other tips for increased performance, hardware or software wise. I've been looking into a solid state drive, or maybe an SSD that goes into the mini PCI-E slot. Advice on what you can do with that mini PCI-e slot would be greatly appreciated.

Also, for some reason, Windows 7 is telling me that my Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz single core is really 2 cores that are 1.3GHz, anyone know what is going on there?
Here's a picture of my dxdiag:


EDIT: Also, I'm using GMA Booster

 

Hi Rick 250,
I'm also a proud owner of an AAO D250 (though the 0Bb with the N270). Just upgraded my RAM to 2 Gigs and looked for other things to speed up my little pal.
If you don't mind disabling the Windows 7 aero and the other eye candy you should get a considerable performance increase (see benchmark results below). Just go to "Performance Options" and select "Adjust for best performance".
Anyway, I ran some tests with the benchmark program "PerformanceTest" with Windows set to "max performance" or "good appearance" (chosen by Windows itself). Additionally I set the GPU clock to either 166 MHz or 400 MHz using GMA booster. However, the latter helped only a little in 3D performance:
[img=http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/8290/cpumark.th.jpg]

I heared rumours that NVidia plans a Ion 2 mini-PCIe card for spring 2010. If that were just true... :roll:

 

Those NVIDIA Ions for mini PCI-E would be awesome. I already did GMA booster, and I checked out the performance testing, and the modifications did result in a 25% increase in performance, but I do like the visual effects of Windows 7, so I think I'm going to keep most of them (I did disable a lot of them). Does anyone know what's with the 2 1.3GHz CPU's?

 

Windows shows two virtual processor units because the Atom supports Hyper-Threading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-Threading). It's still just a single-core. You might check out what CPU-Z tells you about your processor (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php).

The only two mini-PCIe cards I found that kind of tune a netbook speedwise are the BCM70010, BCM70012 and BCM70015 from Broadcom that speed up video/and stream playback and enable HD video playback (720 & 1080p).
Check out a test of the BCM70012 here (http://www.terracode.com/AcerAspireMod/ ... ds_P2.html - below the Kingston ssdNow). Looks nice! However, the Broadcom cards are specific for video playback and not for overall performance. I also don't know if the BCM70015 works on a AAO D250 or is just for the new Pine-Trail chipsets.

You could also increase responsiveness (make programs / windows load faster) by using the ReadyBoost function for flash-drives. It basically increases the cache of your system since flash memories have very fast random access rates (much faster than HDs) and can therefore read small files much faster. You would have less HD access and a faster system response under high load (when ur 2 GB Ram are used).
It should work on any USB stick (e.g. NANO USB Flash Drive). I think about using it in my multicard reader (133x SD card). The latter is very cheap (< 10 $) and I wouldn't sacrify any USB port. A 133x 2GB SD card should be sufficient, since they recommend using it 1:1 with your RAM. I don't think the multicard reader of the Aspire one supports the newer generations oof SD cards (SDHC,...), which would be even faster.
If you intend to add a SSD, Readyboost will only work on it if its not your boot device.
There is also some "TurboMemory" from Intel available. However, it received mixed reviews and uses the miniPCIe port (so no SSD disc).

For more details:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutoria ... al136.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive ... 76548.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive ... 15199.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

 

More about the ReadyBoost with SD cards:
http://clubhouse.microsoft.com/public/p ... 97ddb8b0cd
http://jasonkneen.blogspot.com/2009/01/ ... usage.html

Here is a comprehensive list of Flash devices tested for ReadyBoost
http://www.techcrater.com/2007/04/05/re ... peed-list/

Looks like the 2 GB Corsair 133x has good values. However, it's hard to find.

It also seems like ReadyBoost speeds up a system that already has sufficient amounts of RAM :lol: :
http://windowsitpro.com/article/article ... boost.html
and

(from http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthr ... 208&page=2)

Also it seems that ReadyBoost has improved a lot on Windows 7:
http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2009 ... ly-boosts/

I'm definetely gonna try it.
Does anyone know if the card reader of the AA1 (D250) supports SDHC ?

 

I'm also the proud owner of a AAO D250 (0bk). I'm not really ashamed of it's performance.

So far I've thrown in the 2Gb RAM, running Windows 7 Ultimate it's pretty good.

My only planned mods is to include the 3G. I've got the WWAN modem, but trying to source the SIM slot atm. No one will send me any samples

P.S I started a thread elsewhere about the new v1.26 BIOS that Acer released. It fixes the CPU GHz display in Computer properties.

 

Readyboost = Readyslow !!!????

I eventually bought a Sandisc ExtremE II (2 gb) to use it as a W7 Readyboost drive, since it has solid specifications in random read/write traffic and was cheap (11 €).
Before I used it, however, I installed a new update from Microsoft that prevents Windows 7 from damaging SD cards (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=976092) :shock: !!!
Anyway, after that was done I put the card into the card reader and it immediately passed the Readyboost test.
I then dedicated the whole 2 gigs for Readyboost and waited for some "increase in responsiveness".

Indeed, not much happened in the beginning. However, when I was listening to some myspace music parallel to office work/browsing my poor little netbook became very slow (unlike before) and the cpu temp reached up to 75°C (again: never had that before for a extended period of time :? ).

What has happened?

Well, When my system was idle, my cpu load increased from 3%-5% when readyboost was disabled to 30% - 60% when readyboost was activated!! Similar findings for the HD activity!! This was highly reproducible!! :x :x

Example for the cpu load:


For sure, the problem is not the AAO card reader on my D250. In fact the card in there runs very fast (e.g. ~ 18 MB/s sequential read) and is without any damage.

I don't know what's wrong. Maybe I also gonna try it using a USB-stick. Just to be sure.
If the prize I have to pay for a little bit of fast disc chache is +30-50% in cpu load... no thanks. :evil:

Has anyone a idea what's going on?