One complaint I’ve had about my Acer Aspire One 8.9 inch netbook is that it is slow to boot and the sound quality is shitty. I finally decided to see if there was a fix available since I’ve had it almost a year now.

I found the answer at Aspireoneuser.com because one of their users had done their research and found a fix at SoftwareTipsandTricks.com -great site btw I’ve use them before.

To summarize what they say:

The issue:
After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check (CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode).

In more basic terms:
The drive data transfer rate has been decreased! so everytime it needs to load data quickly, e.g. logging in, or starting an app, it stutters I/O devices, including mouse and sound!


If this matches your issue, try this fix:

1. go to device manager — (right click My Computer, and click properties, hardware, device manager)
2. expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS
3. double click the controller for your HDD, will be PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL for most people.
4. Go to the advanced settings tab, if the CURRENT TRANSFER MODE is “PIO Mode", proceed to the next step.
5. Go to the driver tab of the same window, click uninstall, and uninstall the driver.
6. Restart your computer
Windows will reinstall the driver, and reset the count, therefore giving you a high DMA mode.

This was specific for my netbook but it work for other Acer Aspire users and it did work for me. Angelina books much faster and the sound is great now.