8.9-inch Acer Aspire One said to have hard drive flaw, distaste for U2
By Donald Melanson 
posted Mar 26th 2009 7:27PM
posted Mar 26th 2009 7:27PM
It looks like any 8.9-inch Aspire One owners out there may want to refrain from playing music full blast through the netbook's speakers for the time being, as some users have found that it can have the unfortunate side effect of completely trashing the hard drive. According to reports on the HardwareCult forum, the problem only affects Aspire One netbooks with standard hard drives, not SSDs, and it arises when the right speaker causes enough vibration and / or magnetic interference to throw the hard drive into a tizzy, leading to a whole host of errors and even some potential data loss. Apparently, the problem was first discovered when someone played U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" at maximum volume, which has since conveniently proven to be an effective tool for reproducing the problem -- not recommended, of course. No word if the new album has any effect.
[Thanks, Tigre]
[Thanks, Tigre]
although that is a pretty sad glitch... but I love how the problem was discovered... :D
people pump integrated speakers up all the way? wtf.
I've got osx running on my aa1 with a cheap set of dell speakers that are like 1000x louder than the integrated crappy speakers. I use it to watch movies on ;D
More proof that U2 must fade. (Or catch fire somehow).
Interesting... my brain usually crashes and fails when I hear U2's overproduced, superficial crap music too.
This clip of Bill Bailey was made just for you my friend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EDuK46ZqFM
If this really is easily reproducible, it seems like an odd thing to overlook during testing...
This is ridiculous... I mean, really, the poor guys back at the Acer Testing Center are probably planning Bono's assassination...
Even at full blast, you can barely hear anything out of the poorly located speaker (underside), especially with all the fan whine noise.
I'm amazed anyone discovered such a flaw at all given how useless the speaker is.
The speakers on my Aspire 1 are muted about 90% of the time, unless I'm using Skype. They're pretty worthless except for the occasional Windows "ding.wav".
Now I know to never listen to music with them!
Bad, bad Acer.
Is this similar to the Apple Wallstreet problem? There was one drive upgrade that would wreak havoc because of magnetic issues.
Actually its more like this shouting problem:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/02/video-shouting-at-disk-drive-causes-high-latency-low-morale/
"No word if the new album has any effect."
It just causes the Acer to print a suicide note and explode.
That song at full blast would throw me into a 'tizzy' too
This happened to me, the computer crashed.
Hmm. And Apple (who has already publicly derided the netbook category) used to make a U2 Special Edition iPod...coincidence?
Apple has already encountered this problem several times before. Some of the older Macintosh case designs put the built-in speaker(s) next to the hard drive, so that when you cranked the volume up a bit, your computer would lock up or crash. Brilliant!
Should ask Bono for a replacement netbook.
My first thought was 'what kind of tin-earred person would actually use the built in speakers to listen to music?
And yes - I do own an Aspire One 9" and I love it - but it's speakers are.. mmm.. well, they redefine mediocre. :)
Well, I won't be listening to much with my One's speakers - the hard drive does sound a tiny bit funny, hopefully it's not related to this.
Any word on if the 10" Acer Aspire does the same thing?
That's my concern as well.
i'm sure Acer will release a 'patch' for this that will simply prevent the sound driver to go beyond a certain level. there is basically no fix for existing models unless they do a complete recall. the speaker is basically so close to the drive and causing the heads to physically move around during loud noises.
That's kind of sad.
i think ill try this...
-walks over to my acer aspire one-
-turns on U2 at full blast-
-error messages, computer explodes-
im back. its a flaw, yes.
The Speaker magnets must be too close to the harddrive. Must be some way to shield it ?
The article says it's a vibration problem. Hard drive magnetic shielding is usually enough to prevent damage from most consumer magnets like the one found on tiny notebook speakers.
Hmm... I wonder if there's a way to add shielding to the drive. I've heard that some 1.8" drives installed in the AAO have leftover clearance that sometimes requires the space around the drive to be padded. Perhaps a thin, plastic-coated foil shield between the drive and the sound system would be enough to prevent this.
It's not a magnetic issue, it's a physical vibration issue. The speaker's driver vibrates as it makes sound, which vibrates back through the case to the hard drive mount, which vibrates the drive's read heads. At best, it'll introduce latency as the disk waits for a lull in vibration to complete a seek, at worst it'll cause a physical head crash due to it impacting the spinning platters. That means data loss or complete drive failure.
Will Weird Al's Cavity Search work as a substitute?
Nope, it's only affected by Bono's wailings, the Aspire One can correctly recognise his voice and commit suicide accordingly.
I'll still keep on lovin' my AA1. The speakers, are there really TWO in there?, suck and I knew this before I bought it but since I use my ear buds 99% of the time with my netbook there's no problem for me. If I want to listen to music on the go I use my digital player or, *gasp*, when at home actually listen to CDs & vinyl on my big system. Oh, and yes, the term music is subjective....I don't call U2's output music myself but to each his own.
Output - what a delightful euphemism for poorly produced pop.
Stolen!
And now to suggest capping output bandwidth for carefully chosen sources.
Ok thats why it jitter. Was trying to figure out why on a clients system... Along with its stuck at full volume!
Dang, I just told my sister to get one of these.
U2 sucks anyways
That is a VERY interesting hardware glitch!
I just had to try this.
I turned on my (rebranded) MSI wind on max vol and let the Joshua Tree" spin , but nothing happened (beside me getting bored of the music).
So now I plugged into the Wind also my Harman Kardon Transparent 2.1 rig (not full vol) but nothing happens even with Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog", and "Immigration Song".
I always knew that my MSI was vastly superior to the Acer ,specially after installing a serious battery, doubling its DDR2 up to 2 gigs, changing the 500rpm hd with a 7500rpm (yes it gets a bit warm but nothing frightening) and inbulding a better WIFI card with Bluetooth and IR.
Even in the looks department my shiny firetruck red MSI Wind clone is far better looking than anything Acer and Asus have been able to push until now, and don't you get me started about the 10" screen or the renown Wind's K-board and trackpad.
Even though I 've got a Vaio TT (that I'm far too scared to mess with) I like so much my pimped up Wind clone that I often carry it to biz trips instead of the TT.
No Acer can even kiss its battery.
And besides bragging about your MSI Wind, what was the point of this post?
@ Midnightblade
The pointS are pretty obvious but if you really need to have them pointed out to you they are:
warn anyone on the market for a netbook that a) The wind will play any music you throw at it without questioning your taste, b) The Wind is easily upgradeable while the Acer is not (it's too small), c) Many rebranded Wind exist offering better specs and/or better looks than the original (even if sadly not better prices), d) The MSI wind has obtained Kilgore Trout's approval and therefore any competent PC user should aspire to own one.
AA1's speaker is so bad, I didn't think it even vibrated!!! LOLz...
so far so good on mine!!! hmmm, knock on wood!!!
i prefer the 10.1 inch model...
that's all.
It makes me sad that Muse is going to be touring with U2. I'm psyched they're coming to the U.S., but sad they're doing shows with U2
from our unbiased test bed ......
SET A:
1. Acer Aspire One (8Gb SSD)
2. Asus 701 (4Gb SSD)
SET B:
1. Acer Aspire One N270 (160Gb SATA)
2. Asus EEEPC N270 (160Gb SATA)
3. Acer Aspire One N280 (160Gb SATA)
4. MSI U100+ N280 (160Gb SATA)
5. Neo V1196 N270 (320Gb)
running the same high volumed video generally causes some error and static output .....we have come to attribute this not only to the acer alone but rather the WHOLE UMPC with SATA config ....
anyway to start with ...who'd want to play high volume with a UMPC .......jargon goes shallow river makes a lot of noise ......deep sea almost none ....
why find little issues and compound it to the max though as if it is something REALLY REALLY unworthy .....
in our years of marketing ....people like this come in and out .......there are certain breed of people TRYING TO EARN EGO POINTS by speaking something relatively "SMART" just to have a few inches of chin ups ...
anyway ....peace in advance
I know why I love Acer. They always come up with the funniest, crappiest laptops. Falling apart, overheating while idling, ...
(The screens however are decent and affordable.)
Think i just experience the same thing with mine, only with me it was Freebird.
Oh great. Now I'm going to hard-lock the audio output to keep smartasses from breaking my netbook.
If it U2's new album the poor thing would die of depression.
funny thing this happened to me night before last --- i was in birmingham alabama recording the indy trials at barber motorsports last weekend ( recorded on a canon s3is digital camera in video mode) -- i compiled all the video shots in adobe premier converted it to ipod high quality and uploaded it to you tube and was playing it back for my neighbor on my aa1 ( 160gb hd ) within a min and 1/2 the computer crashed blue screen hard drive errors
i guess the loud engine sounds from indy cars will make this happen too!!!!
i was just going to look this up to see if there was any problems like this
hope acer will fix this -- even though like most people i dont usually listen to the speaker that are built in
Okay. I tried some tracks from U2's new Vertigo album....
The poor thing keeps falling asleep a before the 2nd verse.
It's on AC so i know it's not a battery issue.
So what, precisely, is the problem? Is it the shake, the rattle or the hum?