ACER TRAVELMATE 8172 11.6" Thread

ok, the Travelmate 8172T-4758 showed up today. I was surprised when i saw that it did not have a fingerprint reader. did anyone from North America (I'm from Canada) get one with a fingerprint reader?

 

I have a TM1872T which came with 32-bit Win7 Pro pre-installed. I also have 32- and 64-bit Win7 DVDs which I installed on my desktop computer.

Can I use the 64-bit Win7 DVD with the Product Key on the sticker on the bottom of my TM8172T? I'm assuming the 32-bit installed now is OEM, so I'm wondering if I can use its Product Key to do a fresh 64-bit Win7 install.

Is there any hardware on the TM8172 that is not 64-bit compatible?

Are the Acer utilities -- Launch Manager in particular -- for the TM8172 64-bit compatible? If not, can the utilities from other similar Acer models, like 1830T, be used instead?

 

Hi,

If your Windows 7 DVD is 7 Pro, then Yes.

Simply check Acer support website if there are 64bit drivers available. This also applies to the Acer utilities like Launch Manager.

Michael

 

I thought every Win7 DVD had every version of Win7 on it, and that only the Product Key determined what it could/would install?

 

That was true with Vista.
With Windows 7, it makes a difference again, but as far as I know, this is only determined by the ei.cfg file on the install DVD. Fixable.

Michael

 

For make a windows pro OEM installation
make a copy with a ei.cfg file with this line

[EditionID]
Professional
[Channel]
OEM
[VL]
0

put the file in the source folder
The best is to do a bootable usb key with this change
you could also intalling win 7 pro 64 bit with the key of the 32 bits
I have doing it with my laptop

 

Woo hooo! I got my Travelmate 8172 last night and wow, it is NICE! I've owned the Acer 1410 (SU2300) and even tried out the AS1830T, but I'm sold on the travelmate edition.

Personally not having HDMI is not a deal breaker for me.

Screen looks to be a Samsung/LG panel. Color rendition and contrast is exactly the same as my Dell's laptop that has the Samsung Panel. Color accuracy is great, no blue or magenta cast at all.

I had a 320gig HD around so I replaced the 250gig. I was really pleased to see that the provided 2 gigs was on a single stick, so I was able to put in an additional 1gb stick totaling 3gb.

Oh and the fingerprint reader is a very nice feature - I use it to launch apps, or automatically log into websites (forums, email, etc) via Firefox.

Pros:
Matte Screen
Synaptics Touchpad (very important for me) (on the 1830T or upcoming 1430, majority of the touchpad are ALPS - terrible)
Front and back of screen's frame is not a fingerprint magnet
Stronger frame
Bluetooth
Fingerprint Reader

Cons:
No HDMI
Slightly smaller battery than the 1830T (approx 1 hour diff in real use)
Broadcom or Atheros wifi card (used to be Intel)

 

I'm *finally* getting around to doing it. Thanks to both of you for the tip about the ei.cfg file. I tried it first with a USB stick formatted from my Win7 Home Premium DVD, and no go. Modified the ei.cfg file as specified above, and voila! It works!

Now, to track down 64-bit drivers and other files to make it look and behave like before...

 

Everything now seems to be downloaded and installed to my satisfaction, except...

Can somebody send me, or direct me to someplace where I can download, the TM1872 default wallpaper? I really kinda liked it, and can't seem to locate a copy.

 

Hi,

the wallpapers are on the application DVD you hopefully created.
In case the factory installation is intact, you should find them on your HDD under C:\OEM\Preload\Autorun\SET
The directory is hidden, and it also contains all drivers and many preinstalled applications of which some are not available on Acer website.

Michael

 

I have the original HDD in an external enclosure, and didn't find the wallpaper image quite where you have yours. I found it in \OEM\WP\ -- Acer01.jpg, along with Acer02.jpg and Acer03.jpg.

Thanks!

 

Okay. I thought there was the same folder structure than with my Aspire 1810TZ. But glad you got what you wanted

Michael

 

In the course of reloading software from the Acer web site, I had some doubts about the value/use of some:

Intel Rapid Storage Technology: Since I'm obviously not using RAID, is it necessary to use this software that was loaded with the Intel drivers? Does it serve as a useful real-time monitor of SMART data from the hard drive? Does it have to be loaded to enable AHCI features?

ePower Management: What functionality does it add? I thought it was responsible for the battery/charging icon in the system tray, but I noticed that the icon was there before I loaded ePower Management.

Turbo Boost Technology Driver: My model has i3-380UM, so am I correct that there would be no sense in loading this driver? (I assume there must be TM8172T models with i5 processors?)

Synaptics TouchPad driver: What functionality does it bring to the table?

 

Keep it, useful for the hard drive.

Not needed at all.

Correct, not needed for an i3.

Adds mulituch gestures to the touchpad like Chiral scroll, also allows you to customize scrolling settings, click button settings.

 

Thanks for that feedback. I didn't load the last three, and probably won't. I didn't realize the Synaptics touchpad supports multi-touch gestures. *Maybe,* sometime I'll explore that.

I'll leave the Intel RST installed as is. I have the tray icon installed, assuming it will alert me of any SMART notifications?

 

These are the options available in the RST settings:

 

I saw that, but wondered: If I turn off the notification area icon, would I lose any alerts if SMART started finding errors/discrepancies? Task Manager does show it uses 15MB RAM.

 

Got my 8127 three days ago and I have been working very hard:

1. Thanks to Michael Recycled I have Pofessional 64 installed and it ws accepted bij Microsoft without any trouble

2. I thank Jayajess1190 for his remarques about the Acer software. However I have a question: it says here Review Acer Travelmate 8172T Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews that the TurboBoost betters the intel HD graphics. Could you enlighten me, please?

3. I bought 2G RAM, but fwhen I opened the laptop, there were to little clamps, of which I did not know how tot handle. Upwards, sidewards, leave them and put the RAM underneath? Anyone has any suggestions?

4. But most diappointing is the fact, that I have only 284 minutes on the battery. I reconfigured the Inteloptions as it was described in the beforementioned Notebookcheck-review, but still a third of what was promised. Anybody has an idea?

 

Hello, glad to be part of the club! Been trolling in this thread (as well as others) before making my purchase. I got a travelmate tm8172t-4758. i5 540um (1.2/2ghz turbo), no fingerprint reader, 4gb ram/500gb HDD stock, international keyboard...cant normally be avoided buying an acer in Canada. With everything else as expected for the 8172: great build quality with its aluminum-magnesium alloy chassis, bluetooth 3.0, anti-glare screen (albeit not a true matte screen), the only bits of glossy material are the clear plastic covering the webcam and the scroll/cap locks lights!

it should be clear, i couldnt be happier! i went from an 11.6 netbook (aspire1 751) to a 10" dual core eee for the power and better battery (the acer had only a three cell)...but i couldnt do the reduction in resolution. So i sold the asus and went up in size to a 13" toshiba. Great machine, culv core2duo, 11h battery...but it got handed down to my father after finding it TOO BIG! (what can i say, i got spoiled by the netbook size) and now i find myself with the travelmate. All since OCTOBER!

Been busy getting it to my liking the past couple weeks, and found a program to share for those with the i5/i7um cpus (sry i3 ppl, it tweaks turbo boost): theres a program called throttlestop, discussed in this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/524257-how-supercharge-m11x-core-i5-i7-um-cpus.html

It makes turbo boost on i5/i7s more aggressive. It increased my passmark cpu mark to 1724.5 from 1309.8! it improved my windows experience index to 5.8 for the cpu (im afraid ive done too much tweaking to replicate the stock score...can ppl share their numbers?)...All this and Ive found it doesnt cost me much battery at all! When at low power needs, it doesnt change power drain at all as far as i can see, and when at load, im finishing said load faster, so i break even in battery drain.

My gripe at the moment is, being a lesser known model (than the 1810/30), i cant find form fitted accessories. I had a clear plastic hard shell for the 11.6 aspire1. Any1 happen to have spotted one for the travelmate online? Or any other 8172 specific accessories?

another question is if i buy a screen protector, will it ruin my viewability if i put a matte screen protector on the matte screen? any1 trieed this?

anyway, heluva 1st post! Not every day i get to rant in a positive way about an electronic device

thanks for indulging me, those who made it to the end
roldy

 

im sure u figured out the ram by now, but you want to pull the clips apart, to the left and right, away from the ram. to put new ram in, leave the clips be, insert the ram at a 45degree angle and push down. the ram will pass the clips and click into place.

As for the graphics, even tho your i3 has no turboboost, your graphics does. installing the driver allows your graphics to clock from 166mhz, to 500mhz. without it your stuck @166!

Have fun!
roldy

 

Great thread. Because of this thread I decided to purchase one. I got the tm8172-3519, i3 core processor, from Amazon reseller for $485US. Pretty good deal I think.

I was really impressed with how light it is and yet still feels durable/rigid. The matte aesthestics are certainly very functional for reduction of fingerprints and screen reflection. Also, though it may not be as thin or having certain styling cues as other notebooks, I find it still very appealing and sleek. The battery portruding out of the back, rather than adding bulk to the bottom also enhances the sleekness. Touchpad is small, but I can live with it. I use a Bt mouse i carry in my bag anyways.

Battery is good too, though my test have not be formal since i have only had it 2 days. At any rate, i'm seeing about 4-5 hrs for movie watching and 7 hrs of web surfing, document reading, with power saver on. I have only cycled the battery once form 100 to 0, so hopefully a couple more cycles will see better results, but again, my times are more just prelimary averages.

I also got the the Express IV Dock/port replicator. It works good with a few problems i have yet to figure out. When connected it takes about 10secs switch to my 2nd display and for some reason does not do it 1 out of 4 times. I think it might be a loose connection with my DVI cable or a bad cable all together. However, today i am starting to suspect it might not be the cable, and hope it is not something with the Express IV Dock. I connect it to an HP 22" monitor and output is very impressive. I played a 720p movie with no apprent stutter or lag. Auiod, USB, and Dc power work good too. I havent trested ethernet because i just use wifi. The dock's connection cable is very short, about 6 inches, which i do not like and the connection to the Express IV port is very cumbersome. It takes a little fiddling to get it connected. Also, the cable is very thick like a gooseneck and angles 90 degress at the head. One thing i disocvered is if you use a 2nd display only and leave the lid closed you cannot access power button on 8172, so you have to leave lid open to power on/off. i wish dock had a power switch. i previously used an HP xb3000 dock with my HP tx2 which had power switch on dock and connection was much. much, easier. Dock is very small though and was only $70 from the same reseller, so i cannot complain too much. Also, it still very convenient and unique to have a docking connector on a sub 13" notebook for under $500. It is 1 of ht emain reasons i chose the tm8172.

It came with Win 7 x32 Pro and i upgraded to win 7 x64 Ultimate and installed all driver and bios updates. Mostly everything with smoothly, but 1 suggestion I have is for users to google "ACEr 8172t drivers" and use the link you find because it has more recent driver. Here is the link: http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?modelId=2431. Link has drivers dated up to 6/22/10. If you go to main site, then go to "support," then drivers, you only get ones dated 5/27/10. Also, it is not as organized.

I wish i did spend more and got the i5 or i7 though. I read a post on thsi thread stating i5 only gives about 19% in certain multi-processing settings, which i did not think would make that much of a differenc to me, but now feel like it does. Do not get me wrong, it is not bad, i just think the i3 is noticaebly slower than say the Macbook Air. i am probaly stating the obvious, but i just assumed the differnce would not be that noticeable to me, but now i feel it is. Multitasking with Otulook, Onenote, 3 web pages, Pandora playing thru Boxee, does see a noticable lag. Not bad, but noticeable. However, for a 3lb. notebook under $500 with 6-8hrs battery, I can certaintly live with it.

The only problem i have encountered so far is with the BT hardware. This model (tm8172t-3519) should have BT 3.0. However, out of the box, windows Device Manager did not show any BT devices listed. This was very confusing to me. I went ahead an upgraded the win x32 to win x64 ultimate and then attempted to download BT drivers. There are 2 listed on the site: Atheros and Broadcom. I did not knwo which one I had, so downloaded both. Well, the Broadcom stated no BT device listed. Also, notebookcheck.com lsits the BT module as Broadcom. Well, even stranger out-of-thebox it had the Atheros BT suite installed, so i went ahead and installed the Atheros BT drivers and BT suite, since Broadcom stated no BT device. Atheros installed, hoever, still no Bt devices listed and i cannot connect BT. However, in device mamager, under "system devices" it does show the "Atheros BT Bus" but shouldnt the device manager show the BT moudle under a branch called Bluetooth Devices? contacted Acer customer service, which was a complete joke. So i am hoping somone might have the smae problem or suggest what i should do? this model should have BT 3.0 but nothin is listed in device manager. Even so, i crossed fingers and hoped by installing BT drivers than maybe magically BT device/module would mgically show up in device manager and yet still nothing. Could it be manufacture defect or am i missing something? Noone seems to be having any problems like this on web, so I am thinking for some reason i am either completely missing something or somehow BT hardware is defective. I sont know, but if i get BT working, I will feel like I got a 10/10 notebook for what my needs are.

 

Thank you for your answer.
Indeed I did find a way to fix the RAM, but the batterylife is still a problem. I tried to install ePowerManagement, because I read that that program does do wonderful things for a longer batterylife.
I did install the x64 version, but unfortunately it won't launch. So now I am looking on the Internet for alternative programs.
Maybe that will help.

 

What is the capacity of your battery?
As for power management, Windows built-in capabilities are good enough, no need for 3rd party software.

Michael

 

62 (whatever watts)

 

Okay. You have the 62 Wh battery. I have a battery with the same capacity in my 1810TZ. Battery life is nearly 8 hours (on light usage and tweaked power plan).

Disable the Aero stuff and select the "power saving" power plan. See how long your battery lasts during light usage (no youtube or other flash sites).
Oh, and uninstall Acer screensaver (in case you run the preinstalled flavour of Windows).

Your hardware is more powerful than mine, so I expect lower battery life - 6 hours should be possible, IMO.

Michael

 

I also changed from 32-bit to 64-bit Win7. ISTR, in order to get Bluetooth devices listed and usable, I needed to use the Fn+F3 keypress to turn Bluetooth on. It seems that by default, it boots up with Bluetooth off (deactivated?), and to enable it, you need to manually turn it on. Does that work for you?

I don't use BT on a regular basis, so was only concerned with initially getting the drivers loaded and working when I installed 64-bit Win7, so I'm a bit hazy on the details.

 

Wow, thanks WPCOE! That was it. Guess that is what I get for not using reading the manual. Still, i have never used a PC that does not allow you to turn on Bt via Windows. At any rate, thanks for the advice. I spent an 1/2 chat with Acer online, and the tech never suggested that. Also, the support pages i check did not mention that either. Again thanks, and now like I said, I feel like i found a notebook that meets 10/10 of my needs

 

Monkey-
I have been using an 1810T for about a year Mar 15; really nice machine. I'm surprised that Acer didn't repeat the wi-fi, bt slide switches again as on the 1810T [under the status lights on the front, lower edge].
Otherwise it looks like a better machine than my 1810T, so I thought I'd purchase one and give my 1810T to my wife.
Well, I placed an order at the Amazon for the same price as you, and the etailer emailed the next day, saying their inventory was at least 2 weeks away. Given the price, I'll probably get back in line.
I think you knowthe etailer- did you have to wait, and if you didn't, did you get the feeling they were being straight up?
Glad you're having a good experience so far; I have only one complaint about my 1810T and thats just about the synaptics mouse: a bit jumpy or delayed response occasionaly and a bit small, but I'm a keyboarder, so I rely on it less than 25% of the time. Other than that, it's been great, but the 8172 looks much better.

 

The best ways i know to maximize your battery life are:

Like others have suggested, turning off intense features like aero (i dont myself, i just turn off transparency on the taskbar...i love aeropeek), and setting the battery profile to "power saver" AND tweaking its advanced power settings. (I just tweak the hell out of balanced for normal use...i have power saver set to 50% cpu max for really aggressive savings!)

I find the most aggressive battery savings with Intels graphics control panel settings. In the power tab, there are a few settings you can change (automatic display brightness, display power saving technology, etc). See what helps, and what you can tolerate. You can CLEARLY see the effects these settings produce, and some ppl find they ruin the quality of display too much.

If theres any background processes, startup programs, or services running that you dont need, turn them off (msconfig is a good tool for that), they may be costing you a watt or 2.

I quite frankly dont know if doing this is saving me battery, but i always set my page file to a fixed amount; about 4gb. I do this on desktops too. I long ago prescribed to the philosophy that this is better than windows calculating and recalculating size it occupies on the HDD. any1 know if this is an outdated school of thought?

Another program suggestion: batterycare (google it). Its free, and is good for tracking details of your battery. If it shows any % in 'wear level', do a battery calibration (pretty much a full discharge/charge) to try and get rid of it.

Let us know what works best for you!
Roldy

 

@wpcoe:

Just noticed that you installed a hybrid hdd in your travelbeast! Ive considered this (or a straight SSD). Im curious, how much has it improved your performance? Does it limit the duration/frequency that the HDD spins up? If so, has it improved battery life too?

-----------------------------


@monkbythesea:

To make absolutely sure what hardware you have, acer has a program called HWVendorDetection.exe available on the 8172 download page on their support site. If im not mistaken i got it in the "applications" tab. It lists several pieces of hardware, and the manufacturer of said hardware to narrow down what drivers to use.

-----------------------------


@the community @large:

While ive seen this on other laptops, any1 find it odd that there are 2 LEDs to indicate on/off (1 next to the power button, 1 is the furthest left on the bottom), and yet no dedicated bluetooth LED!? A waste of resources eh?

To that end, any1 know if theres some way to control the LEDs? whether in the registry, or some 3rd party program?


Roldy

 

I went with the Momentus XT hybrid instead of an SSD because I couldn't afford an SSD big enough to hold all the files I wanted. I essentially use my notebook as a backup of all valuable data (documents, e-mail, financial data, etc) on my desktop. I travel frequently, and I synch the two computers before/after each trip, so it's a pretty viable backup plan.

I don't have the figures any more, but I did repeated timing tests of Win7 Pro boot-up with the standard HDD and then with the Momentus XT. It was a consistent 12 second shorter boot-up after the first couple of boots. (The hybrid takes a few times to "learn" how you use the computer.)

I honestly can't say if it's faster in daily use than the standard HDD, but it definitely is not slower. I'm always irrationally comparing it to my desktop computer which does have an SSD, and of course, it's slower than that.

I no longer use hybernation like I used to on previous notebooks, since the perky boot-up time with the hybrid is about as fast as resuming from hybernation.

 

Roldy: you sure gave some valuable information. My battery is up tot 5,5/6 hours. Thanks.
Monkbythesea: I use LaunchManager to start BT and/or WiFi (<Fn-F3>. Is a very neat program.

 

Ya im familiar with them, i have a milti-pronged dilemma with if to get one. I hear ya with the size of affordable true SSDs, not being quite enough for much more than essential files...even if i can get over that sacrifice and get a 60ishGB SSD for ~$100, ill feel goofy not having got one for my desktop, before my SUBnotebook!

What'll push me over the fence is if the hybrid gets battery improvements on par with true SSDs. Im wondering' does the spindle stay parked in your momentous XD often enough to improve battery life? (in that the only time it needs to spin up is when accessing archives.)

If its not an appreciable improvement, i might have to splurge on two SSDs as to not make 1 of my computers jealous

---------------------------

,

*Blushes slightly, *takes bow Glad i could help! Did u stagger them enough to see what had the greatest impact?

I use launch manager too, i miss how wireless radios would toggle on my EEE pc, where I would cycle between wifi-bluetooth-both-none by holding fn and clicking f3. Any workaround to get ours to behave like this?

Roldy

 

I didn't notice any difference in battery life, but didn't do any close watch, either.

FWIW, at this point in its life, with all the crap that's accumulated on the system and with my settings (medium LCD brightness, WiFi off, etc), when I boot up with a fully charged battery, BatteryBar shows about 5:05 of battery life.

 

Ya i get roughly that with an i5-um cpu...but with my stock, 5400rpm 500gb HDD. My best guess is thats the trade off here, faster cpu, or faster spindle for a 5h runtime.

I think i could add 30min with a true SSD (not to mention added productivity)! If i take that plunge ill be sure to post results. thanks for answering nevertheless

Roldy

 

Still waiting for my 8172 to arrive; meanwhile, can anyone suggest a portable dvd drive that is known to be fully compatible with the 8172.
Have read a few reviews asserting that some of the portables need 2 usb inputs or that some have trouble with win7.

 

hi guys, great discussion. i am about to migrate from timeline 4810tg mainly because of it's god-awful keyboard and because i can't set the screen brightness LOW enough in dark settings to be comfortable.

previously i had acer aspire one 751z and i LOVED that keyboard, the keys were light and fast to quicktype (coding) on, vs timeline's slow and clunky keys.

i'm also thinking about running linux as primary operating system on this 8172. does anyone have experience with hardware compatibility? my primary concern is perfect operation of sleep/hibernate, i've had some bad experiences in the past where it was simply impossible to get any kind of configuration work stable with the hardware.

 

The 8172 arrived the next day after my last post.

Since this forum is conducting a poll on user preference of the [1830 I don't know of] 1810T vs. the new 8172, for anyone interested in some physical differences between the last two from a general perspective, read on.

My initial impression of the 8172 cosmetic/facsia/physical design, compared to the 1810T is mostly neutral, having used the 1810T for over a year now, but zero time w/ the 8172, its hard to favor one form-design over the other at this point.

KEY DECALS
Having arranged the 8172 and 1810T [zh7] side by side, the most notable difference, besides the AR surface of the display and the power-on button, would be the individual key designation decals. While the overall size of keys and kb are identical, the 8172 has slightly smaller decals on the keys; I measured the alphabetic characters at 4 mm tall, vs. the 1810T of +/- 4.8 mm tall. That's about 16%, which doesn't sound like much, but when placed side by side, it's noticeable. As well, the 15% reduction affects character weight as well, so the combined effect may put some people off. I see it as the price of portability and low cost. Of course, it might just be a production variation in the particular run of US kb's I wound up with. I prefer the larger size decals, but that wouldn't otherwise stop me from purchase had I known the difference in advance.

DISPLAY ROTATION RANGE
Another obvious difference is the display opening limit; the 8172 reaches a near 160-170 degrees vs. about 135 for the 1810T. Corners are little more square on the 8172 and it's front edge is about 3-5mm taller than the 1810T.
The rubber feet of the 8172 are a bit larger than the 1810T.

POWER ON SWITCH
The other relatively obvious differences are in the 'Power On' button of the 8172 vs. the 1810T. The 8172 uses a larger, slide to the right switch vs. the illuminated, rectangular button of the 1810T. The 8172 has an 'On' LED indicator to the right of its slider switch.

TOUCHPAD
The 8172 has a slight vertical recess, about 2 mm, from the palm rest surface. The touchpads appear the same, except for a difference of the depth dimension, with the 8172 measuring about 31 mm vs. 36mm for the 1810T. How much of either of these is functional throughout their depth dimension is something I never really examined, so they could be otherwise the identical in form and function.
The 8172 has the fingerprint reader separating the touchpad buttons; I'm not a big fan of these readers; instead a 'Power On' Password method has always worked for me.

OVERALL APPEARANCE
Otherwise it's seems to be an identical footprint and form of the 1810T.

If my pics succesfully posted, the 1810T shown for comparison has a 'skin' applied to offset the original supergloss surface. Also attached is a leftover piece of the skin along the front edge of the display, since the joined edge felt sort of sharp where my thumb would leverage it to open, so I softened it a little with the 'skin' material. It's not a latch, for those who aren't aware.


Sorry for the quality; photography is not my strength.
There are a couple more, but the site has messaged me that I've reached my limit for this reply.

 

also bought the machine yesterday, i3-330 version, 400€ new condition (aftermarket deal). it's got exactly the keyboard i loved on the aspire one! while the 4810tz ended up being a bit of a letdown for my specific purpose, i find it curious how acer always seems to have the right combination of parameters for me incl. price. aside for a 17" macbook pro, this is now my 4th acer ever since 2003.

will be putting a gentoo setup on it in a few days.

 

Another couple of shots of bottom and front edge profile.

Looking again at the pics posted earlier, I concluded that if these were performance cars, the 1810T would have a lower drag coefficient, by 0.5, if you get the implied humor? Given that the corners of the 8172 are much sharper and it's rubber feet a little larger, that could slow it down when slipping into or out of a neoprene sleeve, unless it's a full zipper type.

Besides the matte finish on the screen and the overall case, there's not a lot to say about the 8172 being better than the 1810T, from a cosmetic perspective. The ACER aluminum plaque should have been left off; it's going to snag something eventually or just get knocked off. Not sure what's up with the inscription decal "Signals Up" at the opposite corner of the Acer plaque. I guess it's an advertisement that they're using their own brand of wireless card?

I just loaded win7 [32bit] for the first time into the 8172; took lees than 10 minutes to enter n/w pw's, set sys id, pw's, and associate w/home wireless n/w, network shared storage and printer. I immediately switched the appearance group to Win Classic and disabled all win sys sounds [can't stand those audio prompts] to otherwise equalize it with my 4mb ram 1810T; it's noticeably faster at moving around in windows and executing individual commands.
Not sure it will need another 2mb ram I had originally considered.
I do notice a bit more heat out of the exhaust port and a bit more fan noise than the 1810T. Not sure if they have the same fan/exhaust design, but I remember reading a review that disclosed the 1810T design being a departure from the usual methods, and better for it.
Wierd: Ran WE Index for a 2.3, then changed system performance settings and it got the same result. ?? My last run on the 1810T was a 3.2.

Other than IE & WinE, I haven't run much else.

BTW: anyone have any comments or suggestions for a known compatible portable dvd drive. Posted the query a few days ago- maybe most owners are too new for it to be priority.

Thanks for any comments, suggestions. I'll update later of any remarkable performance differences overall from the 1810T.

 

Another difference between the TM8172 and its brethren is that the ports are on the opposite sides, and the RJ45 port is "upside down" on the TM1872. That means that to release an RJ45 cable from the TM1872 you need to lift the computer from a desk/table top in order to depress the clip which is on the bottom of the TM1872.

I'm sure Acer had valid reasons to reverse all that stuff?

 

Well, I was sort of going macro and the cosmetics, but since you've pointed that out, we should also point out that the 1810T has dedicated slider switches to turn on/off BT & WiFi, below the front left edge LED status lights.
What's strange however, the 1810T also uses F3 to turn on/off BT. So, it has 2 separate ways of turning BT on/off? I don't get it.
The 8172, as someone noted back a ways in this thread, only has a single Fn key enabled for BT-WiFi n/off via an on-screen graphic dialogue.

Excuse the emoticon- no idea how it got in there.

 

I'll be buying a lap for uni soon and am looking at the canadian TM8172-4758 as well. One thing im worried about is a short left-shift key on bilingual keyboards. I can live with weird symbols and a deformed enter key but I have difficulties with a squarific left shift to accommodate an accent key in between the 'z' and shift. Does the TM8172 sold in canada feature a short shift key?

thanks!

 

so been gentooing (2.6.38.x-zen+) on the 8172 for about 2 months now. overall a decent experience, but not without a couple of annoyances.

there are some issues with recent acer-wmi ( https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34682 and couple related bugs), and this includes screwing with being able to enable bluetooth in a sane way.

another issue is that the cpu fan seems to switch on earlier than i'd like, i'm not sure if win7 was any better. feels like it was as i killed off win7, i don't have a good way to test it. when the machine is completely quiet, which it is at all temperatures below 45C, im liking it quite a bit. but as soon as temp jumps even just a little bit over 45, fan starts blowing and its ruining my experience. thermal module gives some crap info:

Code:

Apr 12 11:33:10 localhost kernel: [    1.045349] thermal LNXTHERM:00: registered as thermal_zone0
Apr 12 11:33:10 localhost kernel: [    1.045353] ACPI: Thermal Zone [TZ00] (7 C)
Apr 12 11:33:10 localhost kernel: [    1.045524] PM: Adding info for No Bus:thermal_zone1
Apr 12 11:33:10 localhost kernel: [    1.045624] thermal LNXTHERM:01: registered as thermal_zone1
Apr 12 11:33:10 localhost kernel: [    1.045628] ACPI: Thermal Zone [TZ01] (6 C)

what the 7C and 6C temperatures stand for, i have no idea. only coretemp gets the correct CPU temperatures. that reminds me, i should file a bug on bko about that too.

haven't figured out a way to do better throttling yet, or modifying trip points in DSDT. tips welcome if there are any linux hackers out there.

 

Has anyone here "upgraded" their TM8172's Broadcom WiFi adapter card with an Intel one?

Over in the 1830T thread, there were folks talking about improved reception/throughput with an Intel 6200 card, and I *assume* it would also work in a TM8172, but would feel reassurance if anybody here has actually done it.

And, if so, which Intel WiFi card did you use? The 1830T thread refers to the Centrino 6200, but I also see:

Centrino 6205,
Centrino 6230 (adds Bluetooth ... would that be a problem since the TM8172 already has Bluetooth?) and
Centrino 6300

as well, and wonder about those.

The Centrino 6300 uses three antennae, so I suspect that would not be a good choice, since the TM8172 only has two antenna leads, right?

 

I'm considering 8172, can the owners (with core i5) comment on the noise level of it, especially in quiet environment with some load (browsing, office etc.)

can anyone compare the noise levels of 1830t and 8172 ?
(and ubuntu compatibility of both)

1830T is thinner so I assume it should emit more noise.

thanks.

 

i'm on i3-330um and since my last post here (look upwards by a couple) still not liking the noise levels. at the same time, i guess i could be considered picky, because im judging this thing by its performance in a totally quiet room. if there's almost any other background noise, tv or whatnot, this thing isn't audible almost at all.

but i like my quiet in a quiet room. i really do. still havent had time to figure out how to modify DSDT or if that even helps or creates some consequent related issues.

 

Does anybody knows the interface in this machine, SATA I or SATA II ?
thanks.

 

Hi,

I have this machine about a week.
It has a HDD clicking issue. I believe this is a feature of this model not a defect. WD hardisk is parking its head frequently. (possibly BIOS sets APM_level parameter to some aggresive power management level). Then operating system tries to write disk every 30 seconds or so. Noise is not a problem but this is HDD killer.

Can someone please check this. Let notebook be idle (no HDD operation). 1 minute later the HDD starts to make very quite clicks (head park/unpark) every 30 seconds or so.

I contact Acer support they claim that this model doesn't have this issue. I may send for a replacement if someone verifies this.

Thank you.
ilker.

PS. By the way this parking issue can be solved by overriding APM_level by a package called (hdparm).

 

It's not notebook-related it's caused by Western Digital's "green" power management and it's a known issue.
If you got one with WD you can only do what you did (effectively disabling APM) or return it in hop it gets replaced with a unit that had HDD made by someone else.