Looking for an SD extension card for acer aspire one tablet mdl zg8 windows7 starter

Dora1

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Jun 12, 2015
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4,510
Which SD extension card can I use to speed up my acer aspire one tablet mdl zg8 windows 7 starter?
 

mstickler1

Estimable
Oct 29, 2015
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0
4,510
I believe he's referring to using ready boost. Info for enabling it is here https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2442620

Also I believe the default config includes 1 stick of 1GB P2-5300 200pin sodimm. (Unlike the more common zg5 it has no "onboard" ram soldiered on the MB.) You can replace that ram with a 2GB stick which should do more to help performance than readyboost. Also the 2 built in card readers (one SD only the other multi format) are seriously slow. I honestly don't think readyboost would "boost" anything and you are probably better off using these as storage.

I had the same units that were seriously under powered for a clients use. My daughter needed something cheap to play movies and music on so I installed KODI. I don't know how these units run with XP but Windows 7 Starter Edition was laggy enough and in Kodi every mouse click lagged and playback of SD video was horrible and HD even worse.

I downloaded kodibuntu and installed it. It automatically created a partition and installed a stripped down version of ubuntu (lubuntu) configured to run KODI automatically.

Kodi was snappy and responsive and playback of sd and 720P was smooth. 1080P with 5.1 sound had issues but is way beyond the capabilities of the zg8 even if the cpu/gpu could handle it. The lubuntu desktop is honestly too stripped down to do too much more than surf the web and copy files. Things that work by default on a standard ubuntu install (right click to unzip, right click to install deb packages, etc) don't work on lubuntu. Someone with more linux experience could step their way through installing what you need, but if you wanted anything other than a dedicated media player, I would recommend installing a standard Ubuntu install and then installing KODI. I tested a Ubuntu live usb stick and performance was just as good.

At this point I had a system with barely usable Win 7 partition and a barely usable but adequate lubuntu install. Win 7 and the apps with it took up about 2/3 of the 160G. And while Kodibuntu doesn't take up a lot of room there still wasn't a lot of room for media. Luckily I had I had replaced a 640GB 7200 RPM 2.5" HD with an SSD in a different laptop so I had it laying around. I removed the hard drive from the ZG8 (video here). I cloned it to the 640GB HD using macrium reflect and installed the new HD in the ZG8.

The first issue I had with dis-assembly reassembly process is keeping track of which length screws go where and there are a lot of screws. I recommend using your phone to video the dis-assembly and state whether you are removing a 3mm, 5mm, 7mm or 9mm screw. A good magnetic tipped precision screw driver also helps. The second issue I had was re-seating the keyboard ribbon cable. I have fat fingers and the keyboard has to be pretty close to the netbook while you place the ribbon back in place under the keyboard. Tweezers and needle nose pliers didn't help so it was mostly a case of working slowly, being patient, don't re-seat the keyboard until you know the cable is in place and locked down.

While accessing the ntfs partitions is enabled by default in the lubuntu desktop/filemanager, it did not work if I booted directly into kodi. The files were not found unless I booted into the desktop and accessed the file manager and then ran kodi from the desktop. I know I can edit startup scripts and enable and mount the NTFS volumes but haven't tracked down the method to do so and implemented yet. Anyway, after everything was buttoned up, I moved media files from the Windows partition to the lubuntu one and then ran gparted from the ubuntu usb stick to shrink the windows partition to 60GB (usable) and expand the ubuntu partitions. Gparted warned I was moving the boot location and I may have to follow a lengthy process to fix it... The system rebooted fine.

My daughter now has a system that boots directly to KODI and provides a familiar interface for her to play her media files. She can also connect via wifi to the internet and pull up Taylor Swift on youtube if she feels like and pipe all of it through her bluetooth headphones. It all works. I could have removed the windows partition altogether but I wanted a quick way to go back to the default windows setup and apps.

Could I have done all that on a cheap android tablet. Yes, but I hate not using what I have on hand and she had gone through three tablets in two years. Plus no tablet in the "cheap" range was going to have a third the storage this did.

So now I'm turning this over to her and looking at the other ZG8 I have. It's HD is fried but I will install the 160GB HD I pulled from the other unit. The only thing I regret not getting to work on my daughters unit is an android app (taptotalk) to communicate with people who don't know ESL (Elizabeth's version of ASL - She has Down Syndrome and is non verbal). I use bluestacks to run this app on Windows but that isn't an option on the zg8 due to performance issues. I experimented with ACHon but could not get it to run on the chrome dev build I installed on lubuntu.

So my next project will probably be installing android as the only OS on the second unit. I'm looking at the projects at http://www.android-x86.org/ or intel's Android* on Intel Platforms but haven't decided on which one yet. I may or may not install kodi for android as I have only used it as a remote control for my HTPC kodi installs and Elizabeth uses the android media players fairly well. If the android install works well I will probably image it over to the 640GB drive on the other unit and give that to her.