The Acer Guy

You want comments? We got comments:

1. Sally wrote, on August 26th, 2008:

   

   Hey! thank you so much for your website..it’s great. I just bought this adorable aspire one today and I am loving it! I have two questions for you, and plz plz try to answer! 1. according to my file manager, i only have 3.7 G space available out of 6.4G…Hm…shoudln’t there be 8 G?? I have defintely not add anything to this brand new laptop! 2. I have a 3 cell battery which will probably last 3 hours? is there anyway or place i can drop a little more money and trade it in for a 6 cell battery? what’s the expected battery life of it.. o yeah one more thing, how can i install a small game from popcap games such as dynamite? lol…please please help..thanks sooo much!!

2. Morris Lee wrote, on August 27th, 2008:

   

   Sally, I would assume that you have eRecovery partition used, not that i am sure of, but most of the acer laptop does come with eRecovery. As for your little game thing, is it a Windows Based game? if it is a windows based game, you need to look into Wine Windows compatibility layer for Linux.

3. Ruud wrote, on August 31st, 2008:

   

   Hi,

   You may also want to have a look at http://macles.blogspot.com/
   Which gives lot’s of info on improving Linpus.

4. filleh wrote, on August 31st, 2008:

   

   Hey!

   I got this Acer 8920g, and I really want to change some of the Cinedash shortcuts. Like open another program instead of Arcade Deluxe, as an example.

   You got any information you want to share about this with me and the big intarnetz?

   Thank you

5. Morris Lee wrote, on August 31st, 2008:

   

   filleh,
   For my Aspire 5920, there was a specific touch pad driver that was modded for 5920 touch media keys to rebind them. for the 8920 I am not to sure if there is one. but that is just a hint to how to search for something like it. the media keys are just another “Synaptics Touchpad device” also known as “Luxpad” where you touch it it lights up.

6. Katey Louise wrote, on September 24th, 2008:

   

   Hi!

   My fiance just bought me a brand new Acer Aspire One. Everything’s great, however, we noticed that both the internal and external microphones are not working. We then checked out forums on the internet about Aspire One and found out that the mics are really defective.

   Is there a fix for this?

   Please help!

   Thank you very much!

7. Morris Lee wrote, on September 25th, 2008:

   

   not really, very obivouse that it is defective, sorry to tell you that. the build in mic attatches to the mainboard directly, but if that AND the external mic does not work, then means that the sound card is not controlling it properly.

   BUT before you do anything, is it XP or Linux? if linux, the mic DOES NOT work on the webcam software it came with, and you have to unmute the mic in the Audio settings anyways.

   For XP, try uninstalling ALL the realtek drivers, reboot, make sure it is not running with any drivers using device manager, then install the driver from Acer site, Google “Acer drivers” and go for the Europ one.

8. Katey Louise wrote, on September 25th, 2008:

   

   My aspire one’s OS is Linux (I think Linpus Lite).

   I checked the settings before recording and the mic is NOT on mute.

   I can play videos with sounds and I can listen to music. Speakers are fine. It’s only the recording with both the internal and external mics we have problems with.

   We saw these online stating that the mics are really not working:

   http://www.viloria.com/secondthoughts/archives/00001588.html
   http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews181896.html

   Thanks for letting me know that the mic does not work on Linux’s webcam software. Thanks for the 411! I was enlightened.

9. Katey Louise wrote, on September 25th, 2008:

   

   Just an additional question:

   Since my Aspire One is on Linux, I have plans of changing the operating system to XP. Will both the external and internal mics work properly if I change the OS to XP?

   Thanks!

10. Morris Lee wrote, on September 26th, 2008:

    

    probably yeah, XP is using entirely different driver ssytem, might work and XD cards works only in XP too(does not work in linux).

    but according to the first source you linked me, it is the identical problem that you can’t record sound with the software for webcam, and I did tested it with skype, my mic works with it fine, and quite nicely too when i was chatting with my friend. I am not sure what he meant by “recognized” by skype, he did not state if it was actually working or not(maybe he didn’t have friends to call aahhah JK)

    then again, I would give you a green on installing XP on your machine, just make sure you know how to restore it back to linpus with tha DVD.

11. Katey Louise wrote, on September 26th, 2008:

    

    Thank you very much! Great help! You rock!

    Thanks, thanks!

12. Katie wrote, on December 28th, 2008:

    

    The built in messenger on my acer one shows my display pic in the main screen, where you see who is online, but not on the convo windows, instead default image of a speech bubble. I dunno how to change it and its buggin me! Any ideas?

    Also it won’t let me open anything I download, I’ve found things on the net that I have to type in, looks like html, but I don’t know how to do it!

    Any ideas would be great!

13. Morris Lee wrote, on December 28th, 2008:

    

    @Katie,

    please refer to the user’s manual, there is a section for the messenger that came with Aspire One.

    The reason that you can’t open anything is because you are using Linux, linux can’t open .exe files meant for windows only.

14. Katie wrote, on December 29th, 2008:

    

    Hi again, I mean it wont let me open things like the amsn download and stuff.

    Thanks

15. Morris Lee wrote, on December 29th, 2008:

    

    amsn has to be installed using Terminal, it is not an installer that you download from the webpage. additionally, you can use the livna repository and try command “yum install amsn” in the terminal

16. zxt wrote, on January 20th, 2009:

    

    I’ve been reading on issues about deaf microphone on Aspire One and some can be solve by installing different realtek (audio) drivers. For some reason, some Aspire One needs previous version of realtek like the ver 1.78 which you can download here -> http://freewarelist.net/realtek-high-definition-audio.html

    About the webcam, I think it’s 99 percent fact that Aspire One webcam can not record sounds. I tried it myself and it won’t record my voice.

    But once again, the audio is good. I can call voip using Onesuite.com voip service on my Aspire One without a problem at all. For those Yahoo Messenger webcam users, try to use the webcam and “call the computer” of the other YM user to be able to see and hear each other.

    HTH.

17. Mem wrote, on January 23rd, 2009:

    

    I have just installed Windows XP on the 8gb Aspire One and i just have to say that it is fantastic. Extremely usable and pretty fast too. I even have a few games like GTA on it which works like a charm. I would advise anyone who is fed up with Linpus Lite (a real boring distro compared to other Linux distro) to install XP as it is much more usable and compatible.

    Good luck!

18. Rach wrote, on January 31st, 2009:

    

    I recently bought the acer aspire one laptop with linux lite. I hate the messenger that is already installed and want to download aMSN. Ive tried downloading it from several links and each time the file installs into my download folder. I then click “Open with install patch” and a pop-up comes up asking me if i want to install the install patch i click ok and the same message keeps appearing – “The patch file does not available”. Can anyone help me install this program!? It seems to be the only msn out there that is compatible for linux and at the same time is ocmpatible with the built in webcam.

19. Morris Lee wrote, on January 31st, 2009:

    

    @Rach,

    install livna repository, then you might be able to find it in the Add/Remove software.

20. Rach wrote, on February 2nd, 2009:

    

    Thanks, i’ve installed aMSN now, but now it is saying it cannot conenct to sever? is there any way i can make it connect!?

21. Morris Lee wrote, on February 3rd, 2009:

    

    @Rach,

    your best bet is to try the messenger provided by acer again.

    there are few out there are experienced with aMSN, but not much

22. Carol wrote, on February 10th, 2009:

    

    I just got an Acer Aspire One and I cannot get it to connect to my wireless network. It doesn’t even recognize that it’s there. I can’t get connected at all. HELP!!

23. Morris Lee wrote, on February 10th, 2009:

    

    @Carol,

    can you check if you have the wireless turned on? try that little switch at the bottom right corner on the side(just below the right palm rest) if you don’t know what I am talking about, please refer to the user’s manual

24. Camille wrote, on April 26th, 2009:

    

    I cannot seem to get my webcam to work with the messenger that came with my acer aspire one (linux)I am using it with yahoo messenger. I can see the other party’s webcam but my webcam is not recognized. I know the webcam itself works though, I was able to open the webcam icon and it works that way but I it isn’t recognized by the messenger or youtube.

25. Michael Walsh wrote, on April 27th, 2009:

    

    @Camille,

    The Aspire One comes with a Linux-based Messenger program that has problems with some Messenger services as they want their clients to use their software.

    Yahoo is problematic but in theory it’s the audio that doesn’t work, not the video (unless things have changed since I received this):

    http://www.theacerguy.com/2009/01/live-update-service-update/

    You’ve updated your Aspire One right?

    In any case, the bottom line is that the messenger programs have “issues” once you go beyond chatting. Skype on the other hand…

26. gworf wrote, on July 19th, 2009:

    

    I too had the deaf mic problem. A mic connected to side port worked, while the mic next to the webcam was very weak. I know it worked before as I used it to make VOIP calls when i first bought the netbook. However, something happened, perhaps an application tampered with a BIOS setting(?) and the mic went unusable (very weak). I tried adjusting XP’s settings with no luck. I was going to download a new driver, but the 50Mbyte file gave me pause. I decided to check if there was a BIOS setting by rebooting and pressing F2. I discovered there was no setting for the microphone. However, when I finished my reboot, I discovered that I got my microphone back (as good as a plug-in mic). Hmmm.. next time I have in-built microphone problem, I will go through this procedure again. Can ACER explain this? Do they need to update their BIOS? Mine is 3304.

27. Tiffany Womack wrote, on September 8th, 2009:

    

    Hi I just purchased an Acer Aspire One with Windows XP and I tend to notice that most sites that I go to have the Acer netbook with a weird looking OS. I can’t seem to find any helpful Acer sites that focus on Acer Netbooks that are like mine. These are my specs if it helps:

    2GB RAM
    160GB Hard Drive
    Windows XP: Home Edition SP3

    I just want to know if there are helpful hints and tricks for Acer Netbooks with these specs.

    Thanks a ton guys! Glad to be an Acer owner so far!

28. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 8th, 2009:

    

    @Tiffany
    Sounds like what you’re seeing onine is a screen shot of the LINUX OS (if what you’re seeing looks like this).

    Don’t panic. That’s no longer in production (sadly for some) and what you’ve got on your A1 is a good old Microsoft Windows XP that runs like 99% of all other computers on the planet.

    Of course, now you’re part of the Acer community, if you run into problems with it, you know where to find us.

29. Tiffany Womack wrote, on September 9th, 2009:

    

    @Michael

    Thanks for the warm welcome Michael. I work for Apple so I’m bouncing between PC and Mac. I enjoy my Acer a lot though. It really gets the job done without you feeling like you are settling for an inferior machine. I hope I don’t run into any problems, but if I do I will be on the forefront saving other users the headache by stopping here first.

30. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 9th, 2009:

    

    @Tiffany You’re more than welcome.

31. Tiffany Womack wrote, on October 21st, 2009:

    

    Hi Michael I had a quick question about the Acer Aspire One D250. Mine is running dual boot XP and Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. Under Ubuntu my microphone does not work. Any hints on how I can get the Ubuntu OS working just as smoothly as the XP OS?

32. Morris Lee wrote, on October 23rd, 2009:

    

    @Tiffany Womack,

    Try troubleshooting from here

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne

33. indy wrote, on January 7th, 2010:

    

    hi
    great site by the way

    problem I have is that my sound is so quiet I really cannot hear music or you tube etc.
    I am aware that there is a minimal amount of audio but even when holding aa1 up to my ear I still cannot hear enough to know what is being said/ played.
    in settings audio is up full
    when we got the aa1 about a year ago the audio was working but has over time faded away
    its a 120 gig aai running linux lite
    any advice greatfully appreciated as this driving me nuts

34. Ehsan wrote, on November 12th, 2010:

    

    Hello my acer aspire 6930 wireless lan switch ( the touch one) stopped working is a there any other way to activate wireless since this button no longer works mainly after the ribbon that connects all those touch buttons shorted out. my wireless is turned off now and i have no idea how to get around that button to re activate it.
    any help is greatly appreciated

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