One issue resolved: Sudden system slowdown

Hi all,
I bought my Aspire One [1/120/6cell/Xp] two weeks ago and it has worked great, until yesterday when there was a SUDDEN system slowdown. I noticed it as it was booting up[taking longer] and as it got into Windows, the Windows Xp wav file was playing choppy. I knew something wasn't right, so I checked to see what was booting/loading up, looking at the processes and verifying that wasn't anything out of the ordinary going on....there wasn't.
I immediately got thinking of bad ram or HD etc, so I got a local computer store tech to check it out and he immediately found my problem....
The Harddrive somehow switched itself over from Ultra DMA mode 5 to PIO....which was causing the slowness.
You can check this setting in Device Manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, Primary IDE channel, Advanced settings tab... current transfer mode displays the current setting.
He basically deleted the primary ide channel in device manager, rebooted and it changed itself back to ULTRA DMA Mode 5.
If any of you experience a sudden slowdown, see if your HD is running in PIO mode.

/shout out to the guys at mcxtronix.

 

Hey that's good to know. I had that exact same problem, but I just reloaded windows. Thanks.

 

Did he explain what caused the switch? Is this something we have to do periodically?

 

He said basically when some machines run on battery mode, certain drivers try to go in energy efficient modes, such as display, wireless etc and that it was likely that the machine somehow went into PIO mode[as it is much slower than UDm5]. :?:

 

that's not really an accurate description of why windows will revert to PIO from DMA mode. Windows puts it into PIO mode if during bootup, the controller does not respond in a timely manner, and it doesn't respond over several bootups. PIO is a fallback mode for a controller that doesn't appear to "work" or "respond" as expected according to Windows.

 

Well if that is the case, then that is what must of put my AoA150 in PIO mode then.
Either way, that was how he fixed the issue.

 

Oh my! I've been getting angry about this darn issue! THANK YOU! (I even tried calling Acer... but wouldn't you know it, they don't seem to really care about support by telephone! i.e. it was closed!)

I think I had several BSOD caused by ftdisk and a whole pile of timeout errors in the event log before I think Windows said 'screw it, PIO time"! When I ran Windows it would work great but slowly the performance would degrade. Finally the stutter that would get worse over time, then a BSOD. Recently it kept PIO mode on all the time...

Very interesting... I wonder if there's a larger issue here. I ran some disk diagnostics that show the disk is fine. If the explanation here as to why windows uses PIO (plus my logs) are any indication, this is a disk controller issue and we need some new drivers or something to correct the issue for the long term.

Anyhow... great! Slingbox will play again!

 

First of all... DMA mode (Direct Memory Access) is more efficient than PIO mode thus when AAO is on battery, it should cause Windows to switch to PIO. PIO is only switched if the DMA mode fail to load some how like the users above said.

I believe this problem is caused by errors and hardware failure caused by AAO's powersupply.
While on battery mode and high power drain situations, these symptoms always appear:
wifi mess up
screen goes blank or solid color (black, green, yellow, orange blue...etc )
screen flickering
screen brightness unstable
system slow down
system hang
audio lagging
BSOD
or a combination of the above symptoms

These symptoms do not appear when the AAO is pluged in.

 

really?

I wonder if it's simply a matter of providing a better power input (higher rated AC adapter). Can anybody reliably demonstrate this power issue?

 

sure...loop a mp3 at max volume ( through speaker) for like half an hour on battery when the battery is less than half full. Then browse the internet for some time.

If i do that, my AAO will lock up or lag about 50% of the time. E.G. the audio will lag and internet will get disconnected

 

Eeek... I misread the original claim. I get these problems when plugged in.

Anyhow have you talked to acer at all? What do they have to say? (I was not impressed when I found out support is not available during reasonable hours!)

 

This is an old XP problem but maybe it is back on the AA1 version.

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472

There are some registry changes near the bottom of the article which help prevent this problem.

 

New user here. I had an identical issue with my daughter's Aspire One, and this fix solved it. Well done - Props to the OP!

 

I just wanted to send a Thank You to Ranold and the folks at mcxtronix.

Just when I was ready to have someone else look at my computer, here is the answer! If you come to Vegas, I owe you a beverage of of your choice!

-Ken

 

Windows will fall back to PIO whenever it's experiencing alot of drive access errors.... here's the most common reason, this based on my experience setting up and installing windows on literally hundreds of PC's/Laptops.... a faulty(ex dirty or lots of scratches) CD/DVD disk. Whether it's while installing software, watching movies or copying files. Repeated read errors will cause the AAO's controller to fall back to PIO. The solution given by the OP is the best way to fix the problem. I hope this sheds a bit of light on the subject. Cheers.