AOA150 Windows 7 Crashes, BSODs and Lost Connection

Just to add to this im getting random BSOD with Windows 7. I sent away the laptop due to overheating issues along with crashes in windows 7, i had to put the laptop back to linpus for them. Got it back, reinstalled win7 and kept getting random wifi drop outs etc etc, BSOD messages. The laptop is pretty unusable using Wifi, slow download speeds, firefox crashes constantly even with nothing extra running on it (add ons etc). I installed Win7 using Ultra ISO to create a USB drive installer, im thinking of buying an external DVD drive just to rule out any issues with the installation I've got.

This machine ran Win XP perfectly and really sold the idea of the mini pc to me, when Win7 works, it works super well. But these crashes are ridiculous, the onlyreal message i got from one BSOD was " BAD_POOL_CALLER", but it doesnt really tell me much about whats going on. Memory seems good with the built in Win 7 memory checker. Anyone got any other ideas?? I havent tried running the machine without wifi, this seems to be the only other thing to try :/

 

I just installed 7.6.0.154 on my wife's aoa150. She was having a couple BSODs a day and apps were crashing. So far things have been "more stable" with the 7.6.0.154 driver, but I loose connection constantly, and windows seems to be acting strangely. I wish there would be a compatible atheros windows 7 driver. It has made my wife's netbook unusable.

Anyone else have any other driver versions they recommend?

 

ok well i had ran xp sp3 and got bsod every now and than and than i switched up to linux mint and had kernnel lock ups and now im running tiny7 and it runs great it fast and look great but i do get crashes and bsod i have the 160hdd with 1.5 gig ram other than the crashes and the every noe and than bsod tiny7 works great but i think alot of aoa 8.9s have problems as there are the acers first netbook

 

Hi everyone,

Just to post a follow-up note on BSoD issues after my own experience and subsequent experiments.

I've got Windows 7 running reliably on my machine (not a single BSoD in 20 days when before it would be multiple times a day) doing two things:

- Running Atheros 5007EG drivers from Windows XP, version 7.6.0.224.
- Downgraded my BIOS from 3310 to the stock 3114.

Since I did both at the same time, I couldn't isolate exactly which action made my random BSoDs go away. This is of course unfortunate, but I'm too happy with the state of my netbook now to intentionally break it to perform further troubleshooting.

I still get random disconnects from the Atheros adaptor, but that was the same behavior in Windows XP as well as other laptops of mine, so I suspect it is the wireless environment and not necessarily the fault of the Atheros card or drivers.

For the BIOS downgrade, I went through the emergency BIOS restore routine, hoping to wipe out any trace of changes from the newer BIOS. I'm not sure if this actually accomplished anything different than just plain overwriting the existing BIOS, but so you are aware.

 

Thanks for the tip shards, I think the driver for XP did the trick. I installed W7 two days ago on my AAO150 and it was completely useless, in a matter of hours I got 2 BSOD's and like 20 occurences of "windows explorer" dying and restarting. In fact it was so bad that I thought it had to be more than just the wifi adapter. I had pretty much decided to install XP again, but gave it one last chance with a wired internet connection. This ran flawlessly for a couple of hours, then I saw your post and installed the mentioned driver (which can be found on acer's homepage under support) and I have experienced ZERO problems so far.

I obviously have only been able to test this for 6-7 hours now, but I have been using the wifi heavy in that time (watched like 50 youtube videos plus more lol), so I can already say it's a HUGE improvement. I haven't even experienced any disconnects from the Atheros adaptor like you mentioned, but then again I didn't experience that in XP neither. I know I might be jumping the gun here, as further testing is needed to conclude whether or not this has solved the issues. I will try to keep you guys updated...

BTW I see people have had problems with XP as well, I haven't experienced that at all though. If anything I have been amazed at how few issues I have had in a year and a half now, only problems have been random restarts maybe 5 times all in all, that's it. And I have been using it as my main computer throughout, I think that's pretty impressive, for a netbook...

 

Hi Melo,

I'm glad that the XP driver did the trick for you.

I too have been using the netbook as my main machine for the past year or so since I've owned it, and it was as steady as a rock when running in WinXP, except in the first few months when I accidentally installed the updated Atheros driver from the Windows Update site.

Now that I think back, regardless of Windows XP or Windows 7, if I was using any version of the driver other than the one that Acer shipped, the OS would randomly lock up or, in the case of Win7, BSoD.

I hope our findings here will help other AOA150 users with Windows 7, because prior to reverting to an XP driver in Windows 7, I searched in many corners of the internet and wasn't really able to find any helpful advice regarding those BSoDs.

Windows 7 runs fairly well on this little netbook and the few new UI features enhances the Windows experience much more so than XP. Enjoy it, and let us know how stable your system is with the XP Atheros driver.

Oh, and before I forget, next time you post back, please also include your BIOS version so I know if reverting back to 3114 was even necessary.

--Shards

 

W7 is still running smooth after another day of heavy usage, if anything it seems faster than XP, starts faster, reacts faster etc. The only minor incident worth mentioning is that Firefox crashed once, but I could restart it instantly at the location where the problem occured without any further incidents...

My AAO150 is the one that came with XP and a 160 GB harddisk and 1 GB ram (still the case). I'm currently using BIOS version: Acer v0.3114, so since this didn't seem to help along with Windows 7's stock driver, I'm guessing the driver for XP is the main reason for the improvement.

 

Ok just to go over my issues. I bought an external dvd drive, used the DISC to install windows XP and have not had a problem for over a week now. It may of been a flawed XP/Windows 7 USB stick that was causing my problems.

 

How do you load the XP driver in Windows 7? I have a AOA150 and need to get the driver installed.

 

Problem solved. Purchased a wireless Linksys usb stick. Don't load XP drivers on a WIN7 machine. It causes problems. The OS's are completely different from one another inside and out.

 

Hello all, I would like to thank you for all the very useful information in this thread, I have had my AOA150 for a while now, absolutely loved it...until we decided to change the entire household over to Windows 7, in the past two weeks I learned to hate the machine. First we tried the Atheros roll back... it seemed to help at first, fewer BSODs, but they were still quite frequent throughout the day. Then we tried to roll back the BIOS as you all had discussed to 3114, (factory settings was at 3309) but Acer wouldn't give us the BIOS, my DH was on tech support with them for a few hours just going in circles... We became so incredibly frustrated with it that we said to hell with the machine and took a trip to the store to purchase a new netbook for myself. We came home and DH was going to just re install XP and use the Acer as a secondary, but everytime we tried it was an instantaneous BSOD, so getting very frustrated and looking for ways to just recover back to factory settings I googled BIOS 3114 and low and behold there it was. (btw, if anyone else is having this issue you can find the file here: http://www.netbookfiles.com/2528/acer-a ... bios-3114/ ) So now we successfully rolled back the BIOS using the instructions on the Acer website for updating the BIOS to include renaming the .fd to whatever it was they said to rename it to... It has only been about five minutes, so we shall see, but I have a feeling that my DH wishes we could have figured this all out earlier before the trip to the store.

Anyways, sorry for the long winded post, and again, thank you!

P.S. - - DH wishes me to include that Acer tech support (during our conversation) adamantly refused that there was a tech support number to call until DH provided it to them, they also repeatedly said that there was no way to have Windows 7 function on the AOA150 and that since we replaced the OS our only option was to purchase the recovery disk from them to revert to factory settings. They also denied that BIOS 3114 even existed, and we not exactly thrilled at the Atheros roll back either because of course what they put out must be right .... Yeah okay, whatever.

 

I experience the same problem. I get BSODs on windows 7and corrupt downloads. Even after the install of win7 when I want to download firefox or microsoft security essentials the download is corrupt.
So I decided to try to fix it. I think I tried all available drivers I could think of. I opened the AAO and changed the memory, I changed the wireless card to another one (but with the same chipset). Still the same problems.
Then I sent it to Acer. They changed hard drive and upgraded bios. Still the same problems.
I sent it back to Acer. They changed the motherboard, memory and wireless card. Still the same problems.

My friend has the same laptop and he claims he has none of the problems.

I think my next step is to extract the driver from my XP installation and manually add it to Win7. I think my last resort before buying a new wireless card (n-card of course)

 

Maybe I was a little bit to fast to yell that my AAO still had the same problems after sending it back the second time. My first downloads (firefox, live messenger and security essentials) were corrupt the first try. Eventualy I succeeded in the installs and then I downloaded the XP driver from Acer. Now the AAO seems to be very stable (it has been 2 weeks or so)

Maybe there is still a problem, but for now it's solved. The minute I see a BSOD though I will buy a n-card

 

How is it going now? Everything works ok, no BSOD ?

 

Nope, I bought another wireless card

 

I know it's been a long time since this thread was posted on, but I think it still has a lot of relevant back-and-forth for people who still have a wireless problem with their AAO's and Windows 7.

I have read all of the previous posts from beginning to end, and then systematically tested all of the drivers listed as possible candidates. I have an Aspire One AOA-150 with an Atheros 5007EG wireless card and am running the full release of Windows 7 Pro 32-bit.

I have found two versions of the drivers that don't work or crash the computer, two versions that somewhat work but if under a lot of load the network gets flaky and may drop. I also found one version that works just under the bar so-to-speak where it presents all of the warning signs but never fully drops. My router has indicator lights that flash if a computer connected to it is malfunctioning. The wireless status light it has can and has been used by me to identify when a driver I installed is about to fail. The light flashes orange for a duration before the connection drops, the computer BSODs/freezes or the wifi card disappears.

Some versions don't illuminate the connection status light on the Aspire One itself, but still make the connection. Others show the light blinking at a much faster rate than a properly working install of XP ever allowed (my AAO worked fine with XP and the Acer provided drivers). Some versions also cause the adapter to get quite warm (noticible by a warm or hot right palm rest). Each of these are also signs of whether the drivers are functioning properly.

I have a theory that the "proper" drivers, those being the Acer provided XP drivers, throttle back the adapter and that's why the light blinks slower and the card doesn't overheat. Just a thought, does anyone know how to manually cap the maximum speed a certain network card can connect at?

The under-the-bar version of the drivers don't illuminate the on-computer status light, and do cause my router's status light to flash orange when my netbook is downloading or other network intensive tasks (like downloading with Steam for example). That's 2 strikes against it, but the really positive thing is that under light, medium, and limited heavy network loads these drivers work better, that being no dropped, than any I tested thus far. The card also does not get hot like some of the others. The version is 7.6.1.204 of Atheros wifi adapter. Just google for "Atheros 7.6.1.204". I am noticing some things like streaming music shows the connection is not perfect by stopping the music from time to time, but Steam and Windows Live Mesh never even stalled on their downloads. This seems to get worse the longer you stay connected with these drivers, and eventually I did get a droppage of the connection, but this is still the most promising result so far.

Just letting people know that this is still an issue for some people and that some people are still looking for an answer. Either that or I missed a breakthrough result somewhere?