Help Slow startup Acer a100

[susieque22002]

My tablet is VERY slow to start up.--It takes about 1-1/2 minutes to start, before I can do anything with it. If I decide to take notes on a lecture, by the time it starts up, I can't remember the key point I wanted to add. Any ideas on how to speed this up?

 

[kadimi]

You probably didn't upgrade to ICS, users noticed good impact on performance after performing the upgrade (Want to upgrade your Acer Iconia Tab A500 to ICS? There)

 

[Mrhelper]

My tablet is VERY slow to start up.--It takes about 1-1/2 minutes to start, before I can do anything with it. If I decide to take notes on a lecture, by the time it starts up, I can't remember the key point I wanted to add. Any ideas on how to speed this up?

Are you starting the tablet from a complete power off state, or from sleep mode? That is a very important difference.

If you are powering the tablet off completely by holding the button for a few seconds, and then selecting power off, then that is why it takes so long. Slightly over a minute is normal for a cold boot, and can be a little longer depending on the apps/services you have installed.

If you are just letting the tablet go to sleep, or pressing the power button for less than a second to put the tablet into sleep mode, then that state should take only about 1 second to resume from. Most people prefer to use sleep mode instead of powering down completely, particularly for the purpose you describe.

If it is taking longer than a couple of seconds to resume from sleep, you may have apps that are misbehaving, and you will need to identify and remove those.

The post above this one suggests that an upgrade to ICS improves startup time by a significant measure. There was no significant difference in boot or resume times between HC and ICS, so I don't know what that comment is based on. I suspect that your tablet is already running ICS anyway, unless you intentionally declined it. I still have an a100 running 3.2.1 though (Honeycomb, not ICS... intentionally), and it resumes very quickly from sleep mode... just as fast as my a500 running ICS. The cold boot time (from complete power down) is equivalent between HC and ICS also at slightly over a minute before everything settles down.

If you have not upgraded to ICS, and are now considering it, then read some of the posts about problems with that first. There were several problems with ICS that Acer has not yet resolved for most customers. If your tablet is doing what you want it to do, then there is probably little value in risking the ICS upgrade at this time.

 

[mrpnut]

I recommend to update your acer with ics then flash the custom rom jelly bean 4.1.1 its way faster in my opinon.

Jellybean custom rom
[ROM] Peanut Butter Jellytime A100 V8.5 (AOSP Jellybean) 7-19-12 WDS Base - xda-developers

 

[mrpnut]

I recommend to update your acer with ics then flash the custom rom jelly bean 4.1.1 its way faster in my opinon.

Jellybean custom rom
[ROM] Peanut Butter Jellytime A100 V8.5 (AOSP Jellybean) 7-19-12 WDS Base - xda-developers

 

[Mrhelper]

I recommend to update your acer with ics then flash the custom rom jelly bean 4.1.1 its way faster in my opinon.

Jellybean custom rom
[ROM] Peanut Butter Jellytime A100 V8.5 (AOSP Jellybean) 7-19-12 WDS Base - xda-developers

That's great to hear! Keep in mind though that custom ROMs are not a good choice for everyone. There is typically very little reason or value for most device owners to flash custom ROMs. That's typically for enthusiasts who like to spend more of their time tinkering with their tablets, as opposed to most tablet owners who instead prefer to just use their tablets. It's great that so many options are available, so both the enthusiasts and normal users can be happy with what they have. Just another reason that Android is such a cool OS.

 

[susieque22002]

You probably didn't upgrade to ICS, users noticed good impact on performance after performing the upgrade (Want to upgrade your Acer Iconia Tab A500 to ICS? There)

Have you had any problems with the upgrade? I'm an Android newbie, so I don't want to do anything that will make it harder to understand.

 

[susieque22002]

Are you starting the tablet from a complete power off state, or from sleep mode? That is a very important difference.

If you are powering the tablet off completely by holding the button for a few seconds, and then selecting power off, then that is why it takes so long. Slightly over a minute is normal for a cold boot, and can be a little longer depending on the apps/services you have installed.

If you are just letting the tablet go to sleep, or pressing the power button for less than a second to put the tablet into sleep mode, then that state should take only about 1 second to resume from. Most people prefer to use sleep mode instead of powering down completely, particularly for the purpose you describe.

If it is taking longer than a couple of seconds to resume from sleep, you may have apps that are misbehaving, and you will need to identify and remove those.

The post above this one suggests that an upgrade to ICS improves startup time by a significant measure. There was no significant difference in boot or resume times between HC and ICS, so I don't know what that comment is based on. I suspect that your tablet is already running ICS anyway, unless you intentionally declined it. I still have an a100 running 3.2.1 though (Honeycomb, not ICS... intentionally), and it resumes very quickly from sleep mode... just as fast as my a500 running ICS. The cold boot time (from complete power down) is equivalent between HC and ICS also at slightly over a minute before everything settles down.

If you have not upgraded to ICS, and are now considering it, then read some of the posts about problems with on that first. There were several problems with ICS that Acer has not yet resolved for most customers. If you tablet is doing what you want it to do, then there is probably little value in risking the ICS upgrade at this time.

Maybe that's the problem, since I have been shutting it down completely. Doesn't it drain the battery to have it on sleep mode? How long will it stay in sleep mode, without charging it?

 

[Mrhelper]

Maybe that's the problem, since I have been shutting it down completely. Doesn't it drain the battery to have it on sleep mode? How long will it stay in sleep mode, without charging it?

Most battery use is from the lights (LEDs) on the display. Battery usage also varies depending on what you have turned on and which apps you have installed, but you normally see only a trivial amount of drain over a 16 hour period if the tablet sleeps most of the time. I suggest that you experiment with that to determine the usage for your tablet.

Note that these tablets use Lithium-ion Polymer batteries, which tend to last longer if you charge them every chance you get. It's a good habit to plug the tablet in every night and leave it plugged in until you leave for the day. I try to limit deeper battery discharge/charge cycles to less than once a week if possible. Sometimes that's hard to avoid though.

Full power down is useful if you can't get easy access to AC power for a few days and really need to conserve, or if you don't plan to use the tablet during 12 or more hours, and don't want to plug it in.

The tablet and Android in general was designed to be used for quick access, and to take advantage of that, you need to use sleep mode.

 

[zuben el genub]

If you want to save battery, use airplane mode while screen is on. That turns off the wifi and the tablets stops searching. If you are in an area where you are always on wifi that isn't as bad.

Example - years ago going through mountains or some of the desert southwest there was NO cell service. Battery would actually get hot searching for service. We turned phones off.