Acer Aspire One ZG5 120GB netbook only £129

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Just popped in to my local Tesco and spotted the Acer Apire one netbook with 120GB drive for only £129

They had both black and white versions available so I finally jumped onto the netbook bandwaggon.

Now to see what OS I should replace the Linux with?

[Guest mrmond]

Just popped in to my local Tesco and spotted the Acer Apire one netbook with 120GB drive for only £129

They had both black and white versions available so I finally jumped onto the netbook bandwaggon.

Now to see what OS I should replace the Linux with?

If you want to replace the os I would suggest either Fedora 10 or Ubuntu Jaunty netbook remix.

Reaon being they just work.

If you want to put xp on this it works fine but you will need to visit the acer site to download wifi and video drivers etc if you don't have the aspire xp disk.

Vista is just too slow but you can install the vista bricopack from crystalxp.net and xp then looks like vista without the speed suffering.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Cheers for the advice, what I am after is the possibly having some form of media centre as I can plug it in at work on the night shift (when I do get occasionally get a break)

[Guest Paul]

I would drop on the W7 RC, no question!

Failing that, if you want Linux, try Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04.

P

[Guest Paul]

Bargain btw... :D

P

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

I have W7 RC but can not figure out how to make the storage card bootable atm.

Been out of playing with different OS for a while and then it was only with CD/DVDs etc

[Guest Neil5459]

I have W7 RC but can not figure out how to make the storage card bootable atm.

Been out of playing with different OS for a while and then it was only with CD/DVDs etc

There is a good guide Here which may work with an SD card, otherwise it ought to be OK with a USB stick.

The steps here (with good download links) will create a bootable disk. You can then extract the files from the Win7 iso download and overwrite the USB drive with them; this should result in a Win7 bootable USB drive.

Sorry- that may not work for WIN7 :D

Try This one !

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

I'll try that tomorw when I get home from work.

It's fun trying to find video codecs for Linpus so not sure what media format it will play as it certainly will not play anything I have tried so far :D

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

seems to be installing W7 taking a long time though

[Guest Neil5459]

seems to be installing W7 taking a long time though

Did it complete OK? Win7 can take a very long time to install but the OS itself is much faster than Vista on comparable hardware.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Yep all up and running thanks :D

Most of the included drivers installed but I would like to find official drivers that work as such.

I'm not getting any problems it's just me being fussy.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Tesco have now all sold out as far as I am aware.

Makes me think I should have bought a few of them.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

And now it's keeps crashing, Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool is reporting a hardware failure.

So maybe a replacement time already <_<

BSOD on startup shows IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

On trying to repair Windows the BSOD shows MEMORY_MANAGEMENT as the error.

And now BAD_POOL_HEADER

Wonder if the memory/HDD is loose or faulty?

Just my luck I had it running just the way I wanted it to.

[Guest MrJoneswii]

And now it's keeps crashing, Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool is reporting a hardware failure.

So maybe a replacement time already <_<

BSOD on startup shows IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

On trying to repair Windows the BSOD shows MEMORY_MANAGEMENT as the error.

Wonder if the memory is loose or faulty?

£129 is really cheap. I've always admired netbooks, but never really went for it. Might do it soon.

anyway found this online:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL stop errors are caused by software not hardware. When Windows is in the middle of scheduling an execution thread, it puts the processor at an Interrupt ReQuest Level (or IRQL) of ?Dispatch?. This blocks further software interrupts from the scheduler until the process is complete, and no one is allowed to do anything that requires the scheduler. Unfortunately, accessing a memory address in virtual memory is such an activity, because when a process generates a VM page fault, it is usually suspended while the slow hard disk gets around to delivering the requested page. The upshot of this is that drivers (and everything else but especially drivers) are restricted to the contents of physical memory while the IRQL is at dispatch. If anything breaks this rule (say because a corrupted pointer tries to access a random memory address), XP flings up the blue screen of death.

The easy answer is that you have a driver problem somewhere so the easiest way is to download any new drivers for the most likely culprit the Video Card and install them. This Web Site should be listed with the Video Cards Book but failing that you can go the Makers site and then follow the links to get the latest driver from there.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

It's not possible to install any new drivers etc as Windows will not boot, it will not reinstall windows either.

[Guest MrJoneswii]

It's not possible to install any new drivers etc as Windows will not boot, it will not reinstall windows either.

Not even on a fresh install? Does it recognize the bootable windows disk?

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

With WM7 you haev the option to install or repair both options crash with the BSOD.

Acer have arranged to pick it up tomorrow, lets see what happens <_<

They did try and tell me it was a bad install until I pointed out it's been working fine and a bad install would not have worked properly from the start.

The other reported errors I have googled all point to drivers/memory problems. Personally I feel it's more storage unles its one block in the memory picking up when on load.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Acer have confirmed that the onboard memory has failed so it will be replaced under warranty.

I thought I would ask about upgrading the memory to 1Gb making the system into a 1.5gb beast (lol)

they asked for around £12 for the memory which was not bad but then wanted £40+ vat to install it.

They have said that even though you need to take the thing apart I could change it myself and not invalidate

the warranty as long as no damage has taken place.

[Guest Robeon Mew]

Speaking of Linux, can Ubuntu interact with Microsoft and/or Macintosh? I would not care if it doesnt connect to mac, but some of my colleges are diehard windorks