I’ve got a netbook.  So does Mrs Dr Ron:

Mine is the Asus EeePC, which runs like a charm (but could do with a re-load, when I’ve got five minutes to scratch myself).

Mrs Dr Ron’s is the Acer Aspire 1.

A few nights ago Mrs Dr Ron complained that her netbook wouldn’t start.  After some basic investigation (like checking power supply and battery) it appeared that the BIOS had become corrupt.  The computer’s power light came on, but that was about it.  Not good.

The BIOS is the “Basic Input / Output System” and contains a set of instructions which tells the computer, amongst other things, how to access the hard disk and find the operating system when it’s turned on.  It also starts simple devices like the keyboard and the video.  The BIOS is the first set of instructions that the computer loads in order to function.  BIOS instructions are contained on a chip on the motherboard, and the BIOS works independently of the operating system, peripheral devices, and all that sort of stuff.

If the BIOS disappears or becomes corrupted for whatever reason, it’s a big problem.  The computer won’t start.  Thankfully, this doesn’t happen very often, and thankfully, modern computers let you “re-flash” the BIOS, which means writing a new set of instructions to the computer’s BIOS chip.

In this case I had to re-flash the BIOS on the Acer netbook.  This is the second time in 12 months I’ve had to do this.  I’m not sure if it’s a known issue with this model, or if Mrs Dr Ron just has an electric (electromagnetic?) personality which keeps causing this to happen.

How do you re-flash a BIOS? Every computer is different, but follows a similar procedure:

• First identify what type of computer you have. This netbook is an “Acer Aspire One A150″ model.  You’ll need the exact model number, because every type of motherboard will have a unique BIOS;
• Visit the manufacturer’s website to obtain the latest BIOS for your particular system (I went here); or undertake some intelligent Googling, it shouldn’t take long.  Download the latest version of the BIOS for your machine;
• Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for upgrading / flashing the BIOS.  This might involve copying files to a memory stick, and holding a particular combination of keys when you turn the device on.

For the Acer Aspire I followed these instructions from the Macles Blogspot, which worked perfectly:

First format a USB flash drive with FAT. It does not need to be bootable.

Download the latest BIOS, and extract all files from the zip file. Put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file with FD suffix in the root directory of the flash drive. The files must not be in a folder. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD before proceeding. It only works with this exact filename.

Turn the AA1 off, with the flash drive still connected, and make sure both battery and AC adapter are also connected.

Press Fn and Esc simultaneously, keep them pressed and press the power button. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds. The power button starts blinking at this point. Press the power button once. The AA1 will now initiate flashing the BIOS. After a while the button stops blinking, and the AA1 reboots shortly after. Wait patiently.

If it doesn’t reboot by itself, but keeps blinking, wait at least a few minutes before turning it off, and try again.

Mrs Dr Ron’s netbook restarted, and before long was loading Windows XP.  Good as new!  No data was lost in this process, because re-flashing the BIOS doesn’t affect data on the hard disk or storage device.

The procedure is fairly straight-forward, but it’s critical that you don’t interrupt the upgrade in progress. Doing so could damage your computer or put the BIOS chips into a state where they can’t be re-flashed or upgraded. You run the risk of turning your computer into an expensive brick. Don’t turn off the power, don’t pull out the USB stick half-way through, and don’t unplug the power supply (just in case).

If you follow the manufacturer’s instructions, you should be okay.

Good luck.

Acer Aspire 1 · BIOS · flash · netbook · upgrade

Moving parts.  When it comes to computers, they’re the bane of support personnel the world over.

Why?

Because moving parts fail.  They wear out.  Bearings in cooling fans get hot and seize, heads in hard disks seek and search, read and write for only so long, rubber belts perish and contacts in switches wear down over time.  That’s not to say that components like memory sticks and video cards don’t experience failure, but they’re not subject to the same type of failure that you see in mechanically complex components.

The answer?  Enter the latest phenomenon in personal computing: solid state drives, or “SSD” devices designed to replace old-fashioned hard disks in personal computers.

SSD’s have several advantages over hard disks.  They’re robust, and they’re not susceptible to drops, bumps, dust and environmental factors the same way that hard disks are.  They don’t need the same level of cooling.  And because there is no mechanical delay in reading/writing data, they’re noticeably faster than hard disk drives, especially on a heavily fragmented “disk”.

They are, however, still expensive when compared with traditional hard disks.  The current Wikipedia article on SSD’s suggests that they may be 10 times dearer than hard disks, on a cost per storage unit basis.

The Asus Eee PC 900A Netbook

This is one of the new-model Asus netbooks, designed for easy net access and mobile computing.  It was time to retire my old Acer TravelMate, and I’d been looking around for a replacement for some time.  I had been using an Acer Aspire 1 at Tech Talk for a few months, which has been graciously loaned to me on an ongoing weekly basis by my wife.

The main feature that appealed to me about the Asus Eee PC 900A was the 16 GB SSD.  Now 16 GB might not seem like much, with many personal computers being shipped these days with 320 GB or even 540 GB hard drives.  However, I considered my needs for the Asus: internet access on-the-go; web browsing, email, social networking; and maybe even video-streaming for the TTR webcam.  I don’t need heaps of data storage to do any of these things.  More and more these days I’m relying on online data storage through services like adrive.com, Zoho and Google’s Gmail.

Let me point out that this is not a replacement for my desktop computer, and wouldn’t be suitable for grunty applications like video editing, audio editing, Photoshopping (is that a word?) and other activities that do require plenty of disk space.

First impressions

The Asus Eee PC 900A is small.  It’s certainly much smaller than the boat-anchor TravelMate.  The Asus is equipped with a sharp 8.9″ LCD, a QWERTY keyboard to match and a track pad with a nice feel.  The left / right “mouse buttons” feel a bit plasticky but do the trick.  It has a built-in 300 kilopixel webcam, yep that’s just 0.3 megapixels, which is probably good for Skype video calling, or Yahoo Messenger, and that’s about it.  Actually it sounds worse than it is.

The 0.3 megapixel camera sounds worse than it actually is.

There are also 3 x USB ports, a VGA port, a 100BaseT ethernet port and audio in/out jacks on the left-hand side.  Connection to an 802.11b/g wireless network was quick and easy thanks to the inbuilt Atheros wireless adapter.

Four bright LEDs on the front-right of the Asus show power status, battery status, SSD access and wireless networking status.

What the Asus doesn’t have is Bluetooth connectivity, which may be an issue for some people with Bluetooth peripherals.  It’s not an issue for me however.

Also the Asus doesn’t have a DVD drive or mass-storage interface like a firewire port.  To install software, the current trend with these smaller netbooks is to install “over  the network”, via ethernet or wireless, or use installation packages on a USB memory stick or external hard disk.

Four bright LEDs show power status, battery status, SSD access and wireless networking status.

Performance

The Asus is equipped with an Intel Atom 1.6 GHz processor.  With 1GB of RAM, and the nice fast 16 GB solid state disk drive, performance is very good.  It feels like a fast notebook, not a sluggish under-perforrming laptop.  The Windows XP operating system is responsive, quick to switch between applications and tasks and quick to start programs.  Booting from cold-start to a usable desktop takes about 30 seconds.  Windows shutdown with no applications running is faster still.

Shipping & Installation

I purchased the Asus from a home-electrical retailer in Melbourne.  It came pre-installed with Windows XP Home edition, pre-validated with Microsoft.  So if I wanted to save my XP Home licence and load an alternative operating system, too bad.  Hmmm.

The installation also shipped with an ASUS edition of Star Office 8, and the latest version of Skype.

Wireless networking was activated out-of-the-box and connected easily to my home wireless network.

The Asus is shipped with a power supply, a protective pouch, cleaning cloth, support CD and the usual Owner’s Manual and warranty information.

Conclusion

I’ve only been using the Asus for a few days.  But so far, I like what I see.

Many technology bloggers (like this one) have been critical of Asus and the seemingly confusing range of netbooks currently on the market.

My opinion is that the Asus Eee PC 900A fills a niche product hole and should sell well.  It’s a fast, light-weight performer utlising modern SSD technology and is ideal for professionals on-the-go.

Once it’s combined with a USB-style mobile broadband adapter on a competitive data plan, the Asus Eee PC 900A will be a useful tool for the modern-day “mobiley connected” professional.

900a · asus · eee pc · netbook