Anybody knows what changes? Thanks
Follou up: I can't seem to update my BIOS to 3208. I get an error message "failed to create service". Need help!
I only got the "Failed to create service" error when trying to flash while in Safe Mode. I had to run WinPhlash with a normal boot under an admin account. I closed every application I could and disabled the virus scanner. Good luck. I still have doubts as to whether 3208 will fix the lockup problems - I plan on doing this tonight.
Just updated to 3208 with no problems. I ran the single EXE file as administrator (right click on the file to get this option under Vista and Windows 7 RTM). I was a bit hesitant to do this as I have had no freezing issues for almost two weeks, but decided to give it a go. Sorry, but can't tell you why it hasn't frozen lately; not sure if I did anything to the settings that caused the stability. I'll update the post if I get a freeze. FYI, I am running the the stock Hitachi 160GB HD, upgraded the RAM to 2GB with a Kingston DDR2 2GB module and am running Windows 7 RTM with Intel .1006 GMA 500 drivers. I did roll back the webcam driver to the Microsoft version per the FAQ on the Acer web site (see previous post somewhere on this forum), but also experimented with the Creative driver re-enabled using Live Messenger and did not get a freeze during a short (5 min) video call. Finally, did a chat with Acer "Support" before I flashed to 3208 to see if they knew what was addressed, but as expected, the tech had no additional info.
I had to do a restore to factory settings of my OS (Vista) to flash the BIOS to 3208. So it worked and I was able to flash it. I still get the freezing too. The webcam still doesn't work... it will turn on for 2 mins. and then freezes too. One thing I noticed is the battery. I get a pretty decent 7-8 hours now with a full charge. Unlike before I only get 6 hours maximum with the same settings. That's the only thing I noticed when flashing the BIOS to 3208. I hope Acer website put additional info on this new BIOS.
I read somewhere that the new bios was meant to improve battery life. I'd like to see some results from other people I've only got a 3-cell so the 15% gain is pretty small
Do the USB ports stay active when the netbook is suspended with 3208? They do with my 3206 BIOS. UPDATE: I reflashed to 3208 - didn't help.
At least under XP it seems that the 3208 bios also causes the "system"-process to use 10-15% cpu every 30 seconds. I used process explorer to freeze it during spiking, and the stack trace indicated that the battc.sys and compbatt.sys were involved. Disabling the battery device in the device manager stopped the spikes, but this of course leaves battery operation pretty crippled. I'm now back on 3206, where the spiking does not occur. I guess the 3208 saves the battery a bit, but it actually spends a bit CPU to do so
I'm on XP Home, but that should not matter. You have installed the newest chipset drivers from Acer? The spike is only a 15% usage that lasts for a second, and comes every 30 seconds. Should not matter much normally, but it annoys me...I like my process footprint to be completely clean. Plus I guess it could affect video playback when CPU utilization is pushed to the max.
Here is everything I installed : Audio_Realtek_6.0.1.5817_XPx86_A.zip BIOS_Acer_3206_A_AO751h.zip BIOS_Acer_3208_A_A.zip CardReader_Realtek_6.0.6000.84_XPx86_A.zip Chipset_Intel_8.8.0.1011_XPx86_A.zip Lan_Realtek_5.718.323.2009_XPx86_A.zip VGA_Intel_6.14.11.1012_XPx86_A.zip Wireless LAN_Atheros_7.6.1.221_XPx86_A.zip I didn't install the following (although camera & touchpad work just fine): Camera_Suyin_5.8.48.702_XPx86_A.zip TouchPad_Synaptics_12.2.4.1_XPx86_A.zip Other software I installed: HWMonitor_114_setup.exe klcodec500b.exe OCCTPT3.1.0.zip setfsb_2_2_114_86.zip # set to oc to 1.45Ghz in background on startup Microsoft Office Pro 2003 wpsetup.exe (WinPatrol freeware) ESET NOD32 Firefox + most of the critical windows updates including WGA (but not IE8, and I'm using media player 9) I noticed the Windows update found a newer Realtek LAN driver.
I'm on the newer LAN-driver. However, regarding the peak-problem this should not matter. Only the bios and the chipset drivers should be relevant. If you open task manager with no other programs running, are you sure you don't get a graph like the one attached? (The attached one is on battery, on power the peaks are usually only half size, as the CPU is running twice as fast.) Again, most people don't think this is critical, but this did not happen on 3206... EDIT: I just confirmed that this actually does influence video playback. When running on batteries and using the 3208 bios, I'm not able to playback the crysis/monkey island-video without frequent stuttering: http://www.dagbladet.no/spill/blogg/200 ... cryengine/ . However, just by disabling the ACPI-battery device in the device manager, it runs like a charm. I'll downgrade to 3206 (again) unless I'm able to fix it somehow.
I think I see the same behavior. Looks like a downgrade to 3206 for me as well. Update: I went back to 3206 and its seems better. on battery with 3208: [attachment=1:37mi419i]on_batt.jpg[/attachment:37mi419i] on AC with 3208: [attachment=2:37mi419i]on_ac.jpg[/attachment:37mi419i] On battery with 3206: [attachment=0:37mi419i]on_batt_3206.jpg[/attachment:37mi419i]
Thanks, Peter. Good to have it confirmed. Just in case someone from Acer is around (not bloody likely, and I'm not calling them about this), here are a couple of stacktraces showing the bottleneck: ntkrnlpa.exe!KiSwapContext+0x2f ACPI.sys!SyncEvalObject+0xbb ACPI.sys!AMLIEvalNameSpaceObject+0x5f ACPI.sys!ACPIIoctlEvalControlMethod+0x4e ACPI.sys!ACPIIrpDispatchDeviceControl+0x79 ACPI.sys!ACPIDispatchIrp+0x15a ntkrnlpa.exe!IopfCallDriver+0x31 CmBatt.sys!CmBattSendDownStreamIrp+0x51 CmBatt.sys!CmBattGetPsrData+0x36 CmBatt.sys!CmBattGetBatteryStatus+0xc2 CmBatt.sys!CmBattQueryStatus+0x12 BATTC.SYS!BattCCheckStatusQueue+0xc2 BATTC.SYS!BattCWorkerThread+0x125 ntkrnlpa.exe!ExpWorkerThread+0xef ntkrnlpa.exe!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x34 ntkrnlpa.exe!KiThreadStartup+0x16 and ntkrnlpa.exe!KiSwapContext+0x2f ntkrnlpa.exe!KiSwapThread+0x8a ntkrnlpa.exe!KeWaitForSingleObject+0x1c2 ntkrnlpa.exe!KiSuspendThread+0x18 ntkrnlpa.exe!KiDeliverApc+0x124 ntkrnlpa.exe!KiSwapThread+0xa8 ntkrnlpa.exe!KeWaitForSingleObject+0x1c2 compbatt.sys!BatteryIoctl+0x66 compbatt.sys!CompBattGetEstimatedTime+0x9b compbatt.sys!CompBattQueryInformation+0xb0 BATTC.SYS!BattCIoctl+0x8e BATTC.SYS!BattCWorkerThread+0xf2 ntkrnlpa.exe!ExpWorkerThread+0xef ntkrnlpa.exe!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x34 ntkrnlpa.exe!KiThreadStartup+0x16 Looks like ACPI/Battery IOCTL consumes a lot of CPU. Shame. EDIT: I just noticed a better way for people to check whether the 3208 bios affects cpu-usage: just unplug the battery. The regular peaks in the task manager goes away instantly. Obviously not an acceptable fix, though
Could someone with Win7 and 3208 bios check the taskmanager and see if the same problem occurs there?
Hi, here is a screenshot of my black AspireOne 751 (Bios 3208, Corsair 2GB, Hitachi HTS54321L9SA00 160 GB, Avast 4.8 Antivirus, running on battery) and Windows 7 RC1. [attachment=0:29minkly]taskmanager.jpg[/attachment:29minkly] Hope that helps.
It does actually look better. A bit hard to say, as it seems you have a lot of continuous activity even when idle. Does the graph change if you simply unplug the battery?
Here is a screenshot with power adaptor. Battery unplugged. [attachment=0:alewn3la]taskmanager_ohne battery.jpg[/attachment:alewn3la]
