Acer 8104 - Should I ...

I am suppose to get my Acer 8104 tomorrow. [ ][ ][ ]I have two schools of thoughts. I understand it comes with 2 FAT32 partitions and a recovery partition.

Choice one will be run convert to NTFS
Choice two will be nuke it all - Re-install XP from Scratch (I have a licensed CD copy) and then reload drivers / utilities . The get Partition magic to cut up the drive as bit.

What do you all think ? I am leaning towards choice two. Only caveat is I want to make sure all drivers are there .....Have not seen much for downloads on any Acer web sites for this model.

 

I personally like to do a fresh install. I use fdisk to make two partitions. The first one is 10GB for the operating system. The second one for my files. That way if I want to re-install the OS I do not have to reformat the entire drive, which on a 100GB hard drive takes a while. If you go into disk manager, you can also do a quick format on the other partition. Plus if your OS gets corrupted, your files are safe. You should get a disc with the drivers and utilities.





I know things, things that could get me killed


Thinkpad T41:
* 1.6Ghz Pentium M * 768Mb Memory * 40Gb Hitachi 7200RPM * Panasonic UJ-845-B DVD+RW *

 

Thanks I was leaning that way anyway (reinstall) - want to get a good clean baseline then take an Image .

As this is my first ACER got an tips on what utilities that are supplied by Acer that are worth the disk space and resources they consume ?

 

I think they have some power management software that is worth looking at. Most of the stuff on there is not. I would upgrade the hard drive to a 7200RPM drive, especially if there is not a 5400RPM hard drive. It is one of the best upgrades you can make on a laptop. If you need the storage, you can put the old one in an external USB case or if not, sell it on ebay. Good Luck.







I know things, things that could get me killed


Thinkpad T41:
* 1.6Ghz Pentium M * 768Mb Memory * 40Gb Hitachi 7200RPM * Panasonic UJ-845-B DVD+RW *

 

Thanks - I am under the impression the 100gig HD is 5400 rpm so I will give that a chance. I currently have a 4 year old Dell (PIII 850 - Latitude C800) with a 20 gig 4200 so the initial overall performance gain is going to be enough to keep me happy for a few weeks I suspect [ ]

 

Yeah, I thougt I would be happy with the 5400 on my ThinkPad, nope.






I know things, things that could get me killed


Thinkpad T41:
* 1.6Ghz Pentium M * 768Mb Memory * 40Gb Hitachi 7200RPM * Panasonic UJ-845-B DVD+RW *

 

The 7200 will be faster but it may not be noticable unless you are encoding, playing hardcore games, etc. but if you just surf, email, word process, etc. the normal stuff, it's not that much of a difference

 

Well I just picked it up and plugged it in. Take a bit to let it set everything first , I will try it out before I nuke it ......man it is quiet - mind you I am use to my 'Jet Engine" Dell running at 50 Degrees.

And zazonz did you really notice a huge difference between the 7200 and 5400 ? What kind of apps did you run and where did you notice it (being performance gain) the most ? Thought I read some HD benchmarks for the 100g 5400 - 60g 7200 that were pretty close?

Gooing to be a looooooooooooong night (but fun for geek like me - just gotta keep the kids away from it ahahahah)

 

I did not have it in there too long, but it booted slower, apps took longer to open, etc.







I know things, things that could get me killed


Thinkpad T41:
* 1.6Ghz Pentium M * 768Mb Memory * 40Gb Hitachi 7200RPM * Panasonic UJ-845-B DVD+RW *

 

daacon

It is slightly faster. Normally you can indeed see the difference (feel) in delay, until you get used to it. However, i said slightly because the HD in the your ACER has a 16MB memory buffer and that speeds up a lot. The reason is that the disc must not wait after reading its segments to get the next one ready because it stores it in the buffer. Only if your system reads the buffer faster then it gets filled (under-run) then you will notice the difference. And yes, games can do that because they have very optimized code and techniques to process and render data comming from the disk. So they could suddenly have to wait for the next segment and that is where disc speed comes in and the buffer doesn't help anymore.

QC

 

Well the deed is mostly done. With Windows XP-Pro disk SP1 - deleted all partitions - re-installed. No issues so far. at least know I know exactly what is on my machine

For those attempting:
Go into Bios Set up - change boot order - boot from CD first
Insert Windows XP (or OS of choice) CD
Reboot - follow on screen instructions

What I did (your experience may vary [ ] )

Deleted all existing partitions. There will be 3. A word of warning if you delete the unkown (2 -3 gig) partition , this will invalidate the Acer Recovery process - not a big deal for me. You can probably just delete the c: and d: partitions and the Acer recovery may still work -I can't say for sure.

Re-format 100gb drive (comes out to about 95gb)
Install Windows XP (SP1)
With my SP1 Disk allot of the hardware was not reconized. So Initially I had no Lan , No ATI Vidoe, No Sound, No Wireless,No PCMCIA, No Bluetooth, etc ...
Fortunatley Acer does include a Driver / utilities CD (Labeled System CD Rev 3.0 - Disk 1). Use that , go to drivers , install the Intel Chipset first then other as required. My biggest complaint here was having to Install one a time and some required re-boots - just made it slow. Once done all Hardware was working. (at least I have tested - will have to validate others , but Device manager is all good) I re-installed some Applications / Utilities from the "Driver Cd" .The CD appears to have all the Drivers / Utilities / Applications that were set up originally - a decent job.

Download / Install all necesary Windows updates
Install Partition Magic
Divide the Drive up as you Like (I went c: 35 e: 60) and will change later once all is installed.
Download / Install Software (office / Nero , etc ...)
Download / Install all Software updates / patches
Backup / Image / Live on the edge whatever floats your boat so to speak

I would guess the reformat / re-install / get current portion of Windows took about 4 hours.

The Software Install / patches I am still working on. So this time will vary pending on what you have to install of course.

So if you are considering this - have some time on your hands [ ] - but quite do-able.

I am going to re-bench mark after - do not expect much difference if any actually).

 

Umm user error here on that post - will update later

1. Using Intel Pro wirelss instead of Windows - I had no issues before with Windows