Asus Aspire One Netbook One careful owner, never raced or rallied, needs some attention.
Here’s a fact: Netbooks suck. They don’t do anything well. The displays are awful, battery life is abysmal and if I had to evaluate the amount of pleasure it gave me to use one, I would say “none at all”.
But, in flush of consumerism for which I am prone, I did buy one a couple of years ago. It was 10k baht, which seemed like a bargain at the time, and I had visions of taking it everywhere as my friendly computer. I soon realised that my iPhone makes for a much quicker and more convenient computing companion, so the netbook saw little action and then eventually decided not to work at all.
That was six months ago, and since then it has sat, glowering, on the shelf; giving out “fix me” vibes every time I passed. Today was she who must be obeyed’s day off, which she seemed keen to spend playing Farmville, Fishville, Pornville etc., so I thought I would have a go.
The beast had a power light that came on, but nothing else seemed to happen. If it was a hardware fault, there was not a lot I could do; but maybe I could inject some software life into it.
Some quality time with Mr. Google revealed that many people had suffered from Acer Aspire One death. For some it was terminal, for others there was a hope of resurrection via a BIOS re-install. So I spent about an hour gathering all the necessary files, preparing a USB stick and reading the instructions over and over to ensure I was doing the right thing. Then I held down a couple of keys, turned the thing on and waited for it to spring to life, at which point I intended to shoot “Hallelujah” very loudly, if only to annoy she who must be obeyed who was busy feeding her digital fish. Instead, all I could do was mutter “bastard” very quietly, because nothing happened. I spent two more hours fiddling with options in an attempt to breath life into the dormant machine, but it refused to respond. I pronounced it dead.
In such instances there is nothing to lose in disassembling the machine. There is a 0.00006% chance that you will discover a loose connection, and a 100% chance that the act of deconstruction will render the device beyond hope of future repair. But it is fun to do and sometimes interesting.
Here are some more facts: Netbooks do not come to pieces as easily as a desktop computer. A hammer is never a good idea (this applies to almost everything, especially delivering babies). If you have to prise it open with a screwdriver, there is probably a screw you should have removed first. If you have to prise it open with a screwdriver and something snaps, there is definitely a screw you should have removed first. Once you have taken a netbook to pieces, you can’t put it together again.
Or at least, I can’t. But maybe you could! No reasonable offer refused.
Comments 🔗
2010-03-08| todd saysSSD drive?
2010-03-08| roman169 saysHad one - used it about one hour in my life and sold it for 5k half a year ago. Need a tablet pc now….
2010-03-08| Savoy Brown says@Spike: “A hammer is never a good idea”
I beg to differ… 30 seconds of up close and personal with a hammer provides a rush of endorphins, along with self-satisfaction that the POS will never aggravate you again…
2010-03-08| Billy saysMrs Billy loves her Toshiba Netbook, not least because it a rather cool white, fits snugly in her not so capacious Luis Vuitton and will hook up to just about any wi-fi without complaint. Neither of these qualities are available in my highly advanced company laptop so I get to use it occasionally in restaurants, when I find the keyboard a little challenging but light years ahead of that available on an iPhone of course. Oh, and it just keeps working
2010-03-08| Spike saysTodd, yes.
Roman, sorry about the lost hour of your life.
Savoy Brown, still not sure it is a good idea when delivering babies.
Billy, so she’ll not be wanting one of those Ipad thingies which is currently splashed all over your website?
2010-03-10| todd saysi’ll take the ssd ;)
2010-03-11| Spike saysIt has already departed to the big computer graveyard in the sky. Sorry.