AOD250 BIOS 1.06

I see BIOS 1.06 was just released for the D250. Does anyone know what it addresses?

I really don't like that Acer doesn't seem to post a readme that states what is addressed by the updates.

 

Rolled the dice and my AOD250 is now on BIOS 1.6, nothing adverse, and nothing clearly beneficial, I suspect the usual compatibility/performance, battery life & screen brightness levels

System BIOS V1.06
VGA BIOS 1585
N280 1.66Ghz
160Gb drive
Bluetooth
3G slot

10 levels of screen brightness, last setting retained on both battery & mains power, not independent, last setting on mains power will be the same when restarted on battery & vice versa.

Windows XP standard soft load, junk uninstalled, Office 2007 Pro plus, Visio Pro, VLC, Paint.NeET, JKdefrag, CCleaner, Page Dfg, 7-Zip, Chrome

On the desktop in 41 seconds including password, running ESet NOD32, Ghostwall & windows search 4

Q-6

 

Yes, I have updated now and can confirm it has addressed some of the weirdness of screen brightness retention and works as you have pointed out - with one addition: It still drops 2 levels from it's current state whenever you pull the AC plug out while it is running.

So, for example, if you booted to battery and it was on level 7 and you plug in the AC cord, it will stay at level 7, but when you pull out the AC cord again, it drops to level 5 and will then toggle between 7 and 5 if you continue to plug/unplug the AC cord. Odd, but that's how it is.

I have found no other differences so far after the BIOS update.

 

I see the same switching between mains and battery power

off topic;
Have you seen any difference in battery life since upgrading to 2Gb Ram or any increase performance? I am considering going to 2Gb, although I expect the battery life to reduce to some extent as the larger memory will consume more power, at the moment I am just observing how much physical ram versus paged the D250 is using with the page file locked at 2048Mb. So far it is well within the 1Gb of physical ram, although as more software is installed this will clearly rise.

 

I honestly can't tell because I installed my 2Gb within 1 day of getting the D250 (I couldn't pass up the $22 price on Amazon, so why not upgrade).

At first I thought RAM was my issue - boot time and applications seemed very sluggish and slow to start. That's why I ordered the RAM upgrade. But then, I realized that McAffee was sucking up all system resources and I removed all remnants of it, and guess what: fast boot up and fast applications. And that was right before I installed the extra 1GB of RAM.

So... I don't know if the added RAM has really affected performance, but for the price it certainly hasn't hurt. To me though the biggest single performance enhancement is getting rid of the pre-installed McAffee.

As for battery performance, again I have no initial data (with the 1GB) to compare and haven't yet done any real rundown test to see what kind of time I'm getting. It does appear in general use though that my time (using general internet and Word usage) will be between 5-6 hours, with screen brightness at level 6-7, depending on where I am.

-N

 

I am seeing +6 hours on battery at present (mixed usage Bluetooth off) and unless the D250 starts paging too much data to the hard drive, I plan on sticking with the stock 1Gb, as battery life is one of the priorities, and extra ram is going to burn more watt`s to some extent.

McAfee was the first thing I uninstalled...; I am using Eset Nod32 V4 for antivirus combined with Ghostwall to keep the system safe & clean

Nod32 has a small memory footprint and is super fast on manual scans. GhostWall is a firewall which allows you to restrict the communications between your computer and others. Unlike other firewalls which have forgotten their main role, GhostWall is simply a firewall, mainly designed to replace the standard Microsoft firewall with better features and performance, the firewall has no impact on network speed making it perfect for Netbook`s, it`s free, and works.

Performance is pretty snappy on the D250 for the 1.66Ghz CPU and 667 MHz FSB certainly visibly faster than my original AOD150 (1.6Ghz, 533 MHz FSB 8.9 screen). After startup the D250 generally has 700Mb - 720Mb of free ram. Just installed Paint.NET 3.36 which is also optimized for scaled down systems, and manipulates a 10Mb picture with ease. The interface also is perfect for Netbook platform.

Q-6

 

Unfortunately the D250 with 1.66Ghz CPU and 667 MHz FSB isn't available here, so I'll live with the 533 version. But, it's still a very nice little machine. I'll have to do a full battery test and see what my real runtime is. I could always throw my old 1GB back in and compare as well. But I may not have time for awhile to do that.

I'm not familiar with Paint.NET, I'll have to take a look. Thanks.

 

The N280 is not a massive difference, say 8 seconds faster on startup a 5% increase in performance overall, from what I have read. The N280 is also a little more energy efficient and runs cooler. On minimum brightness the D250 N280 reports it will run for 9 hours 20 min, I am getting a real world 6 hours plus; browsing, Word, Excel, VLC for music & video, brightness set to 75%. this is by far the most impressive performance factor, my AOD150 N270 was pretty limited on it`s 3 cell battery, generally not seeing much past 2-1/2 hours. I eventually got an external Promate battery which pumped it up to 8-1/2 hours, combine this battery with the D250 and you would be looking at 14 hours easy.

I have not measured the D250 battery run time exactly, mainly as it does run so long and is not my primary system, all the same very impressive for the $$$, and the 10.1 screen makes all the difference in usability.

Promate 6600mAh external battery

 

I agree that overall the D250 (either N270 or N280 configuration) is very impressive for the price. I had some Amazon $ built up so mine was really quite cheap

Do you find VLC to be significantly different in performance vs Media Player or iTunes?

 

I find that VLC has a greater versatility and uses smaller resources for audio & video playback than many others, it is well developed and mature, I don`t run the Beta`s, generally upgrading every 6-12 months

Some other good freeware:
Pagedefrag
JKDefrag
Ghostwall
7-Zip
Desktops (up to 4 virtual desktops, very easy on resources. you can get other packages that almost perfectly emulate OS X`s spaces, however the trade off is using hundreds of Meg`s of ram, Desktops only uses a few hundred K and helps maximize productivity)

I was lucky, I picked up my D250 in a one hour special sale here in the Middle East for $274, they are normally $438, I had originally intended on waiting until my next trip to the US or EU to get one. Normally anything new here is never discounted or not imported and you are forced to pay for the latest technology, anyway one more year and it will be time to move again.