IIRC with the newer technology once the battery is charged power goes directlyl to the computer, bypassing the battery and trickle charger so there is no 'wear and tear' on the battery.

[QUOTE=FidalgoRob;11270117]Well, the little Acer One that has been my travel companion since October 2008 is dead. After putting it into sleep mode this afternoon it would not restart -- get a green light on the power button, and the fan sounds like it's running, but there is no indication of hard drive activity (no light), and nothing on the screen.
QUOTE]

Well, Acer tells me that my much-missed netbook is winging its way back to me (after I paid an extra $20 to upgrade from ground shipment, that is). The friendly and competent service desk operator told me that the repair ticket read "replaced [not updated] BIOS, tested and ready for return."

I certainly don't know much about computer hardware, but this doesn't make sense to me. How about you FT geeks out there? How do you flash the BIOS when the machine won't boot at all?

Acer did turn this around pretty quickly -- they received the machine last Thursday afternoon, and it was off their dock and out the door by the following Tuesday morning. Speedy service. :D

Thanks,

Rob

[QUOTE=FidalgoRob;11317284]Acer just received mine today. I hope it makes it out by the end of the week. As for replacing the BIOS, if it is socketed it's easy enough to pop it out and put in a new one. If not, there are sometimes test points on the circuit board that will allow access to different hard-wired functions, such as "flash BIOS."

When were you offered the $20 fast delivery option?

The problem the OP had is not specific to the Acer A1... this happened to my HP Mini 2133 last week and it's in for repairs at HP as we speak.

The problem and recommended solutions were exactly the same as listed in this thread. Before I shipped it back for fixing, they advised me to remove my hard disk anyway. Luckily a couple weeks before I did a complete backup of all my important stuff, so I'm not crapping my pants (unless my HD is gone, which I'm sure it's not, knock on wood!).

In any case, you'll laugh... but I bought an Acer A1 a couple days ago because I couldn't live much longer without internet access. :p

On a similar note... does anyone here have any idea of why this is happening to netbooks? Theories? Conspiracies? :)

Hard to say.
One thought - the BIOS is stored in a flash chip. Infant mortality of the flash chip from one vendor might cause a problem like this.
Again, just speculation on my part.

Got a call from HP vendor support and they said my system board is being replaced... no causes were given other than I'll be receiving my fixed netbook in a couple of weeks.

Let's hope that my new Acer One won't realize the same demise in short time...

The cold flashing interface is called JTAG, in which the chip to be flashed is powered by the host machine doing the flashing through a special header on the motherboard.

I thought the JTAG port was only used during device test to access the boundary scan and internal scan chains? Is this really the interface used for flashing the interface? You'd also have to control the high voltage pins separately, and this would not be under control of the JTAG TDI pin, AFAIK.

Cheers.

I first encountered flashing over JTAG in about 1997, it has caught on as a solution because surface mounted flash can't be practically pre-flashed before installation and giant test-point pads being squeezed off of PCB's

[QUOTE=PTravel;11318059]Sorry for the tardy reply. Acer never offered the expedited return shipping. I asked about that possibility when I called for the SR number. The telephone tech replied "Hmmm...not sure if we can do that. Let me check." A couple of minutes later he got back on the line and offered to send me to another operator who cheerfully took my credit card number and assured me that it would return via overnight express.

They followed through on their promise. It was shipped FedEx overnight. One small problem, however -- they sent it as a Signature Required, which doesn't work well at all when the machine is being shipped to a home address where everyone is away at work on weekdays. Therefore, my overnight express has turned into a three-day wait. Crap. :td:

Just received notification that my Aspire One was repaired and shipped (received on Tuesday -- not bad, I guess). It was shipped FedEx Ground and will be here on Monday. Also not bad, I guess.

Same thing happened to me 2 days ago... After removing the battery, unplugging the charger, plugging it back, trying to reboot with various tricks, it ended up rebooting.

This morning, it kept crashing whatever I did... I couldn't launch Firefox anymore... I tried to restore it from a back-up I had made but it crashed during the restoration process. Then I tried to restore it to its original state using a usb key where I had transfered the re-installation CD. It crashed again.
So I had to bring it in as this is very likely an electronic component issue... Not software related...

Unfortunately I live in France... So having it repaired here is gonna take between 6 to 8 weeks!

My son has a Macbook that he bought when he graduated high school. When home from college his first summer (this past) we went into Apple because the battery life was dropping. They told him not to keep it plugged in do avoid the battery problem. Nice tech replaced the battery under warranty anyway.

I hope your son gets paranoid about saving his work frequently! (a good habit anyway) :)