Netbook freezes randomly

I'm going for the performance upgrade. A 100% improvement on standing still, though, is still standing still.

Figure if it doesn't help, I can always go for the 1410 and put the drive in there.

 

Forgive me, but I think it's a bit silly to buy one of these things if you are interested in performance. But I digress.

You won't get a big performance increase from the SSD because these computers have limited HDD throughput speed and already seem to perform close to their limit. Why? Because they don't have native SATA support. Rather there is a converter that passes the info from a slower PATA interface to the normally faster SATA interface.

Conclusion: Investing your hard earned money in a SSD drive is a poor return on investment for this particular system. And besides, how often do you actually boot-up your computer? I restart mine once every few days. Otherwise it remains in standby/sleep. You can already recover from standby in a few seconds.

 

Clearly I didn't buy a netbook expecting a gaming system. But when booting takes 2-3 minutes - opening Firefox with modest plugins takes >1 min, I'd hardly say trying to improve should be discouraged.

Is the 751h different that the first gen AAO-150's in that regard?

A colleague inherited my AAO-150 when I bought the 751h. Using it with Outlook and a few other work programs prove too slow. When we switched to the SSD (and bumped RAM to 1.5GB) it really came to life.

I was hoping to get the same differential with the 751h. But, if there is something fundamentally different in how the HDD communicates, and the benefit is capped, then obviously it makes no sense.

I would not have believed that switching to a 200+MB/s SSD drive would have made that much difference. It did, and I want it. If it does not work - i.e. still crashes, or doesn't improve the speed - then I'll get the 1410 which has the dual-core and is a true notebook at the 751h size. This will then become a doorstop. Not my money, so playing around like this is no problem for me.

 

Maximum hard disk speed appears to be capped by the speed of the converter, so you won't be able to make use of the extra speed from a SSD drive. Look on these forums. Folks have reported only marginal performance improvements with the SSD. Throughput is capped. This is very different from other AAO models which use a different chipset with native SATA support. Those machines can make full use of the SSD.

That said, my machine has Windows Vista on it and Symantec Antivirus, which are heavy programs. However, I certainly boot up in a lot less time than you do. I think you probably have some streamlining to do of startup programs and services. And firefox shouldn't take more than a few seconds to load. Maybe start with streamlining your system. Even review sites show the laptop booting in 55 seconds or so with all of the original pre-installed bloatware installed under XP. Probably 20 seconds more under Vista.

 

yeah i find that yahoo messenger with webcam causes the freeze for me too. But my interval between freeze are pretty random, sometimes it will go for 30 minutes then freeze sometimes it will take a few hours. i've done the DEP mod this morning, hopefully it will help. i usually have ym webcam thru the night cuz my parents want to see their babie grand daughter thru ym.

 

Thought I would join the party... I purchased the 0751 back in mid August. It worked great for 4 weeks or so. Last week it froze when scrolling twice in an hour. Worked for another week or so. Then last night froze again when scrolling in a web page. It has never frozen under any load. It seems to freeze just a few seconds after opening the browser after coming back from sleep.

The 'freeze' is just as others describe. Stuck mouse, no response from keyboard. Reboots fine after holding power button down. This is an out of the box 0751 running XP with the extended battery.

 

I found this forum and thread after investigating a problem with my Packard Bell Dot m NCD 70 (6 cell battery). As I understand it, the two laptop models are close to identical on the hardware side.
The problem manifests itself as the number 2 problem as listed up by Nick_in_Wash. It always occurs when when I'm scrolling through web pages. It doesn't seem to be any correlation between browser (Opera 10, IE 8), using the track pad or moving the scroll bar, web cam and/or WLAN active or not in the device manager (haven't been using the web cam though). I'm using Win7 Home Premium RTM with the latest GMA 500 drivers (7.14.10.1006).

EDIT: Might be worth mentioning that my laptop frame seems to be a bit twisted. When I place it on a level plane there's approximately 1 mm gap underneath the right palm rest, meaning that the laptop only rests on three of the four rubber pads.

 

Hi everyone. I've the same problem with freezing, but my mashine is aoa110bd with hdd 80gb mod. It often freezes randomly only then i'm connected tfru wifi router and i think plus then skype is turned on. Skype is enabling web cam so it can be the main problem of freezing... Then one isn't connected to the net tfru wifi everything is ok. i've no problems with heat or ather things. Several times i've been connected to the net tfru nokia's build in modem and i had no problems with freezing. And there is one thing what i should notice: i've acer ferrari 4000 series and some time ago i had the same problem with freezing than i was connected to the net tfru the same wifi router. I solved this problem by connecting cable and now there are no freezings, but i didn't eliminate the problem, becouse i've the same freezings with one... I hope somebody will solve this big problem with freezing.

 

yay, so i have ym on all night and this morning the laptop is still working. ... webcam connected any everything. the dep mod, looks very promising.

 

*UPDATE:

Finally, I got my netbook from Acer Repair. It took approximately 16 days shipped back and forth and repaired.

I read a paper with the request repair and what they have done on my machine.
It just says there they have replaced the HDD. I was a bit disappointed because there weren't any update about my webcam.

So when I turned it on, everything seemed fine. I also checked the BIOS. They also have upgraded it to 3206 without informing me! Oh well, at least they fixed it.
I upgraded the Intel GMA drivers right away from Intel's website. Then I tried watching HQ videos on youtube... everything ran smoothly. No stutters or lags.
I opened a lot of browsers, played a game on facebook while updating windows, had no freeze. Yay!

I still have to test my webcam through skype or yahoo. My sister from another country is still asleep so I have no one to call. Will update this later on.

My netbook has been turned on for 4 hours now and no freeze.... YET. I hope it goes on like this forever.
As soon as my netbook freezes I will post again here but for now.... so far so good!! =)

 

Is the HDD that comes with your netbook a Seagate and Acer replaced it with a Toshiba?
Mine has a Seagate HDD and it freezes, while my friend's netbook has a Toshiba HDD and it never freezes
However, unlike mine, his netbook came out of the box with BIOS 3206 and the latest drivers for GMA500 and Atheros Wireless.
I had already update to the latest BIOS and drivers but it still freezes
We ordered our netbooks the same day (about two weeks ago) from newegg.com, mine is blue, his is black

 

I, too, tend to use hibernate or standby more than rebooting. But, if something doesn't cooperate (i.e. lockup) and a reboot is required, by the time the thing is ready for input, I've forgotten what it is I wanted to do.

After restoring the image of my drive (Seagate 160GB) to the 32GB Super Talent SSD, I can say there is most definitely a performance increase. Booting from cold takes about 10 seconds to get to the login screen - and less than 10 to be fully function and complete with the boot-up sequence (this used to be at least 2-3 minutes). Starting Firefox 3.5.3 for the first time after a boot (w/all my plug-ins) takes less than 5 seconds (used to take upwards of a minute - usually resulting in several open copies because I clicked more than once - forgetting I'd already clicked it).

This is using an Acronis back-up image that I made just minutes before installing the SSD.

On an aside, I can now watch full screen YouTube (SD). The frame rate is maybe 10-12/sec, but WAY better than it had been. HD still does not play adequately.

Also, the "pinch" gesture to zoom in/out on Firefox now works real-time. Before there was such a lag, it was unusable.

Have yet to have a lock-up.

For $160 (incl shipping) I changed to SSD and bumped to 2GB ram. A worthy investment... I may still jump to the AS1410... even with the stock HD and memory, it runs faster than the 751h with the upgrades.

 

I forgot what HDD came with the 3 netbooks I've had the past few weeks but Acer Repair Depot changed mine to a TOSHIBA.
It says in the paper : HDD 250GB SATA 2 2.5" TOSHIBA LIBRA LF F/W:FG001J

It is still running smoothly as I type. My machine is performing very well even if I have a lot going on.

I'm getting interested here. Is there a possibility that the seagate HDD is defective?
How come the others here had their BIOS flashed only? What do you guys think?
its only been 8 hours and no freeze at all. I also did all the windows updates, installed google chrome.
I will try the webcam now, I'll see if it is working properly.

 

Thank c921 for your fast response
I think that the freeze problem is probably related to the Seagate ST9250315AS HDD. The Toshiba is a better one

 

I think so too.
I just tested skype. Is is now FULLY FUNCTIONAL!
Before, when I use the webcam, the video will freeze within less than 2 minutes.
I just used it and it ran smoothly, no hangs or lockups.

Can you guys check your HDD's if you have the SEAGATE and experiencing the freezing?
I'm so happy and I'm beginning to enjoy my netbook now. After 3 machines, and a repair... I HOPE it is finally solved. *crosses my fingers*

 

I received mine back a few days ago. It too has had the seagate drive replaced with a toshiba. I have tested it for 3 days so far with no lock ups.

 

I've always had the toshiba HDD and never experienced any problems with the laptop freezing

 

I just got the blue one with 250GB Hitachi HD and 2GB RAM.
I always run my screen at lowest power so I think if it was a power issue that would prevent the lockup.
Funny it ran perfect the first day then the day following that I started getting the lockups.
I've updated the bios and drivers when it had vista basic on it which now has Windows 7 Enterprise hoping something would be different that would fix the issue. Still no go. One thing that got me thinking was the post where the color differences were noted. How many blue ones do we have in here? I know it's crazy but by this time what else do we have to go on?
I originally wanted the 1410 but nobody had the damn thing. Seems I can't just go out and buy one. I'm ready to return this gd thing before my 15 days are up at wal-mart and go for that one if I could get ahold of one. I'm not dropping $450 on something I can't go pickup. If I wanted a laptop I'd have bought one. I don't want a laptop I WANT THIS ONE! Everything is perfect and I stayed up a whole night reading reviews on it and it's the only thing that was just want I wanted. Full size KB and a 1366 res screen! And of course the one device that met everything I wanted size wise and price is a POS! Speed is not a problem once all the preloaded crap is gone and you split the drive to have a partition just for virtual mem and dfrag the primary. Went from almost 2 min boot time to 40 seconds and a Windows score of 1.9 - 2.7. Damnit why couldn't they have made something that just worked? What a tease.

 

RETURN IT! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! I also have the blue one from Walmart with the 250GB HDD. I didn't realize the freezing problem was a hardware issue until it was too late to return it. Don't make the same mistake!!!

By the way, the Acer 1410 also has a problem right-out-of-the-box. You have to do some updates to avoid a 100% CPU usage problem. So Acer obviously doesn't do extensive testing before sending these things out into the market.

And seriously, return it. If it's freezing now, it will almost certainly be freezing later. There seems to be only a partial chance of success when you send it in for repair. Not worth the risk. Especially now that so many 11.6" and 12" systems are about to flood the market from the Asus 1101HA to the MSI Wind 210 to Samsung to Lenovo. And of course the Acer 1410 is an option, if you still trust Acer...

 

I am so glad you have guys have figured it out. I just order my 751h on amazon. I really hope that it doesn't have the Seagate hard drive, and comes with the toshiba, when you guys sent in your laptops did they come back in perfect condition, or did Acer scratch them a little bit. I am curious in case I have to send mine into the repair center ; ;