Fixing an Acer Aspire One D250-1821 with Broken Screen (In Vancouver)

This Acer Apire One D250-1821 netbook was listed as below:

_{acer one 10.1 all is wrong with the machine is the screen is broke and has no power cord. looking to sell for 75 bucks as hardly been use}

I picked it up on 17Mar2012. It could be powered on. The LCD sceen did not show any image but is showing on external monitor. The right hinge cover was missing. To fix this netbook, I need a LCD screen, a power adapter and a right hinge cover.

I first looked for buying LCD screen locally but they are too expansive. From internet, I found new LCD screen for Acer 10.1" netbook. I asked whether the screen fits the D250-1281 model. The seller confirmed that it can be used for it before I placed an order. It arrived in 3 weeks by surface mail from the US. I installed it and found that it did not have image but two adjacent white spots on it when powered on. I contacted the seller and he offered return and exchange. For the 2nd screen, it had no bright spot but still did not have image when powered on. After another round of return and exchange, the third screen with lower resolution still had no image. I got the refund.

I went to another seller and ordered a screen with an exact model no. on the listing. When it arrived, the screen does not have the model no. on it. It worried me but it works. Although it is a new screen, it has a white spot. I contacted the seller who said that it was within the specification which I cannot find on the listing.

I also ordered a used hinge cover and a new power adapter for this netbook. The two plastic holder for screwing the right hinge were broken. I drilled through the base and have longer screws to secure the right hinge.

I have a set of Acer Aspire One netbook Windows 7 Starter recovery disc from home netbook. I tested them on this netbook. The Windows 7 Starter works well on it. Since the COA label of this netbook is a Windows XP Home version, I reinstalled Windows XP Home to it which had been challenging. First, the installation failed with error on hard drive / hard drive controller. I changed the BIOS SATA Mode from AHCI to IDE to complete the installation. At the end of installation, the Windows XP Home asked for activiation before I could log on to connect to internet for activation online. For phone activitation, the product numbers were blanks on the screen. I rebooted with F8 key to the Safe Mode with Command Prompt and tested the solution below:

1. Type the command "explorer.exe" to go to the desktop.
2. Click the Start button and open up the Run box
3. Type the command "rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk" and waited a few seconds.

When I restarted the netbook, it still prompted me the activiation before logon. I clicked No and it looped again. I clicked Yes to the activition windows and quited. After this, I could logon with the 30 day activation period. I installed the network driver and connected to internet which allowed me to activate online. I upgraded the XP Home to SP3 so that it can be upgraded further to Windows 8 if the new user wants. I updated the BIOS to 1.29 and installed the drivers without difficulties except the SM Bus Controller which I had Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) at re-boot. I needed to restore back to the last working configuration and installed the driver from Device Manager manually.

I tested the WiFi connection and ran YouTube video on it. The audio was not playing smoothly. It played slowly sometime and normal again. I reloaded the audio driver, it had no help. I rolled back the BIOS from 1.29 to 1.07. The audio is normal. I timed the battery. It ran for 1 hour and 50 minutes.

This netbook is fully working again. On 12Nov2012, it was picked up by man living near to me who said that he will use it for watchng videos from internet and likes it small size to carry around.