Acer Aspire One 532h netbook

Yesterday I bought one for 349 Australian Dollars (after $38 manufacturer's cashback):



The sticker on the back shows that mine was manufactured in December 2009, quite recent. It has the Intel Atom N450 CPU and 10.1 inch 1024x600 screen. However it only has Windows XP, and it was probably the last batch that Acer built with XP and 160GB hard drive. These reviews are for the same unit but bundled with Windows 7 and 250GB hard drive. My unit also only has a 3-cell battery, whereas the review units are 6-cell:

http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4604/acer-aspire-one-532h-review
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3128/acer_aspire_one_532h_2326_10_1_inch_netbook/index.html
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/acer-aspire-one-532h-review/

I already mentioned in my blog that someone I know who represents an Indian NGO, a charity organisation, will be visiting Perth soon (March I think) and I had purchased two Gecko Edubook laptops with the intention of giving one of them to the NGO. Will still do that, but I'm thinking now that I would like to give them a more "capable" netbook, so I purchased the Acer Aspire One with the thought in the back of my mind that I might donate that too. We'll see. I get the opportunity to play with it for awhile, then I might donate it and buy another.

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Comments

fan speed control
Username: tempestuous
You might be interested in the fan control module, acerhdf: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=346456#346456 This will override the default bios control of fan speed, which is reported as excessively noisy.

Acer Cashback = Scum
Username: cthisbear
" Under no circumstances trust Acer Cashback. Renowned A Grade A.....s http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=49948 Always copy your details. Trust no-one. I bought 2 laptops years ago. Scanned all the paperwork. Took pics...the lot. Because Acer are bastards. Harass ACER on the phone. Direct Cashback Line: (02) 8762 3264 5 Figtree Drive, Australia Centre Sydney Olympic Park NSW 2127 Tel: (02) 8762 3000 Fax: 1300 886 879 http://helpdesk.acer.com.au/ http://www.shopacer.com.au/ecprod/ACA/Projects/CashBack/Loading?entity=0030 HP forced to change cash-back process by ACCC http://www.crn.com.au/News/149159,hp-forced-to-change-cash-back-process-by-accc.aspx Seven ways to make cashback work for you. http://www.choice.com.au/Reviews-and-Tests/Money/Shopping-and-Legal/Shopping/Cashback-capers/Page/Cashback%20schemes.aspx moral of the story? 1) Make sure you take a scanned image of the SNID on the cardboard 2) Make sure you take a scanned image of the invoice. 3) Make sure you send a copy to cashback@acer.com.au before the 14 day deadline (make the subject line your claim number, and the words 'supporting documents'). Then you have Acer by the balls, as you have complied with their requirement to supply documents within 14 days. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/908143.html I got my $200 cashback from HP without a fuzz while, for acer, even I had made numerous phonecalls and so, all I got was my cashback offer was declined as the SNID was not sent to them within 14 days of purchase (though I did). Guess there's one less brand I should bother considering if I need to buy anything next time. I have friends who have worked at Acer and there target for redeption of cashback offers is 30%. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/officeworks-axes-cashback-offers-20090727-dy7h.html Chris.

More Acer
Username: cthisbear
"Please read all that first post and the links as they were too long to fit here. Acer Purchases be well and truly warned. Some from the Whirlpool Forum there. Untrustable...the whole process is a joke. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=49948 Chris.

No problem with Acer.
Username: daftdog
"Sounds like a lot of horror stories from Acer but my experience was reasonably good. Bought a laptop with $149 cashback. Only had a few days left to redeem the offer and was in a remote area with only a local library for internet access. Rang them and did as they instructed with no problems. Got a couple of emails trying to get me to convert the cashback into extra warranty but ignored them. They said it would take a few months. A cheque arrived four months later. I don't know about their 30% target but I have read that only about 30% of customers actually try to redeem the cashback offers. Maybe thats why they offer it.

Registered my claim
Username: BarryK
"Actually, it's $39 cashback, not $38. I registered my cashback claim online, which must be done within 14 days. The actual claim that is sent in the mail must reach Acer within 30 days. The cheque will be sent 8 weeks after the claim is received. I'll post my claim documentation on Monday, 15 feb., so we'll see how long it actually takes...

Booted Quirky 006
Username: BarryK
"I have decided definitely I'll give this to the Indian NGO. I am going to leave XP installed, but enhancing with free apps -- so far Firefox and OpenOffice. I booted Quirky 006 from a USB stick. Everything works except for the wireless -- it's that same "rfkill" problem with the ath5k/ath9k modules. Last time I compiled the kernel, I looked to see if I could disable that rfkill support, but don't seem able to, the Atheros modules depend on it. Curses, these drivers are broken and I do hope the developers are doing something about it. One other thing -- Quirky does not power-off. This problem comes up often enough to lead me to think about it... and I have an interesting thought about a possible fix for when I next compile the kernel for Quirky. ...this looks like my next Quirky idea!

hmpf, pretentious snobby notebooks
Username: x
"and just what is wrong with eeepc 701?

It works with Puppy
Username: JustGreg
"I pick up a similar one from the local pawn shop at reasonable price. The word cash helps greatly. It is a model AOA50 made in March 2009. I found to get Puppy 4.3.1 to work that I had to set acpi=noirq in the kernel parameters. Puppy does work nicely. Thanks, Tempestuous for the fan control module. I suspect the fan noise may have been the reason for the original owner selling it.

Broadcom WIFI
Username: Gepard
"Hopefully there is a Broadcom wifi in that notebook. So it would be possible to have next Puppy to work with Broadcom wifi out-of-the-box. I just got my first notebook, HP Mini 5101. I installed Puppy 431 to USB-stick. Wifi (Broadcom) doesn't work. There are fixes and fixes for fixes in Puppy-forum. Hey guys, LAN and WIFI are BASIC things to get to work before many other things. Broadcom wifi is installed in many notebooks. Please, someone, try to do something to this. There is a Linux driver in Broadcom web page. I'am not able to program Broadcom to work. So what I did? I installed small XPUD Linux. Wery small, limited of course, but my Broadcom works like an engel. It even comes with Windows installer. When using installer, it makes my notebook dualboot, I can select to boot to XP or to XPUD. Something to learn for You all.

Broadcom mess
Username: tempestuous
"Gepard, no, most Aspire ONE's have an Atheros wifi device, which is far more reliable and far more Linux-friendly than Broadcom wifi devices. Why "hope" for a Broadcom wifi device? Good riddance! Don't blame Puppy and Linux for a problem that is 100% the fault of Broadcom. The Broadcom problem has been discussed at length on the forum before. Hardware vendors (such as Dell and HP) mess with the Broadcom firmware to the point where the opensource driver (b43) won't work. Then the proprietary driver (wl) must be used, which conflicts with an underlying Broadcom interface driver called "ssb". There is a single fix, not multiples as you claim, and this fix has been fully implemented in a special Puppy 4.31 release by forum member jrb http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=50570 This fix is non-standard, and since it suits only Linux-unfriendly Broadcom hardware, should NOT be considered in any standard release.

fan speed continued
Username: tempestuous
"I see that JustGreg's Aspire ONE is an old model. the fanspeed control driver I compiled is quite old, and I suspect that ACER has recognised the problem of noisy fans, and they have probably improved the bios control of fan speed on recent models.

fan noise
Username: BarryK
"tempestuous, Yes, my Aspire One 532h is very quiet. In fact, I didn't hear the fan at all. It must have run sometimes, as it didn't melt. The more I'm using it, the more I like it. I already told the Indian NGO person that I'm giving it to her ...drat :happy:

More Broadcom
Username: Gepard
"Still I wonder, why XPUD got it work? Working WIFI and LAN are STANDARD features. They should work before You can connect somewhere.

Tags: general