Acer Aspire 1410 and 1810T Timeline (single core) 11.6" Thread

wow icant believe this thread hit 1000 posts

will u hear thenoise if u plug in to speakers?

 

Can other users confirm that each unit has problems with the headphone sound?

 

My Acer D250 (with headphones on left near the CPU) has very good audio quality...

It is definitely the left/right signal lengths. DO NOT BUY THIS LAPTOP if you like music through headphones.

 

Let's first establish whether all 1810 are affected before we start giving absolute advice

 

I agree! I hope it is just me so I can get this fixed instead of finding a different model.

I am tempted to dissect the issue... but it looks like the plastic snap together design is hard to open. It might be something obviously wrong (like a ground line not soldered)... or maybe I could add a small ferrite bead or coil wires in a certain spot.

 

@lepton:

thanks for the nice review regarding the HD-Playback

On the audio issues:
Well, if i look at my laptop the headphonejack is on the "wrong side" too, and i don't have any audio problems.

Can the other 1810t/1410 owners verify this audio problem, or is it leptons laptop which might be defective ?

@timelinehunter:

Thank you for this "indepth" view of the exhaust of the laptop, pleeease rescale your images or make a crop of the area of interest before posting - thanks.


Tobi

 

Sorry to hear that, however there is a workaround. An USB soundcard that sticks into an USB socket and gives you a line out and a microphone is fairly cheap and works in most cases without any drivers, just plug-and-play. I got one of those that came with my headset. That would work?
Kind of like this one??

That equals about US $10.

 

@timelinehunter
Thanks for the pic

@lepton
It should most likely be like this:
Unscrew all bottom screws. Turn it around and push in the plastic noses which hold the keyboard. Use two credit cards. Put one credit card under a row of keys to lift the keyboard slightly while pushing in one nose with the other card. Unsecure the keyboard ribbon. Unscrew all the screws under the keyboard. Put a credit card in the gap between upper and lower half of the case and slide it around the whole device carfully starting at one edge to open it.

Just guessing here but it should be a similar procedure.

 

Sorry for the HUGH image!! I'll make them smaller next time.

My 1810T does not seem to have any audio noise. At least not anything excessive. However I'm in an office environment atm. Played a few clips from youtube and the music is nice and clear, with a distinct difference between normal and HD versions...

 

Is this over your headphones?

Because speakers is another story.

 

I use a pair of Sony MDR-XD200 headphones. Pretty decent quality and sensitivity.

 

Here's a pic of the internals below the keyboard. The PCB wraps all the way around where you see the audio jacks on the right. It's a nice design... but I think the audio lines are too long and this is why I have my noise problem. Unfortunately there's nothing to be fixed here.



Boring image of the keyboard support:

 

Err... the PCB does NOT wrap around... you can see the lame ribbon jumpering the two boards. I'll re-seat everything and put it back together...

 

If the source of the problem is indeed badly shielded cables, why not replace them with some better cables? Should be possible, simplest solution would be to solder them onto the existing ones that you cut near the plug. Warranty bye bye though...

 

I ordered the 1410 from J&R for my son entering 3rd grade. It'll be both for school work and play. His favorite thing is this Poptropica online game (yes it's Flash ) Most of the game is in slow-mo playing on an N270 netbook, like on the Dell Latitude 2100 I just got last week.

I'm hoping the Acer 1410 with the SU3500 and namely the 4500MHD will fare much better. If you got couple of minutes to spare, can someone kindly try it for me to see if it runs smoothly on the 1410? www.poptropica.com

If the 1410 still runs this game in slow-mo, I think I'll cancel the order before it's too late and save myself the restocking fee, and just bite it and let him use one of my laptops

 

@lepton
If you don't care about warranty and like hacking around, you could try to locate the sound chip and download the datasheet. You could locate the output and reroute it via shielded cable to the headphone jack. Maybe the problem is the route between soundchip and amplifier chip if there is one.

Another thing: Why don't you try a bluetooth headphone? It has the additional benefit of having no wires hanging around.

 

I couldn't resist "going all the way" and looking at the CPU... and look at what I found!!



There is very poor contact between the G45 chip and the tape!! I was wondering why the fan was running all the time despite the bottom being very cool. This is why!

Unfortunately HWMonitor doesn't show the G45 temperature... just the CPU... so I didn't see this problem earlier. I'll take better non-iphone pics when my camera is done charging...

I hope Acer/Quanta are watching... they are slipping on QA.

 

These are good ideas! I could fix this that way... but it sucks though just because Acer wants to save a few cents on smaller PCBs. MSI and Asus PCBs are the full size of the unit with cutouts... and don't use jumper ribbons (at least from what I can see on Google image search).

I'll put my Intel SSD in there to see if that lowers the noise once this is back together.

 

I tried just a couple of screens on the shark island, the game runs smooth and fast.

 

Ugh, have you ever used one of those? The sound quality is beyond bad.

If the analog jacks are not up to your standards you should consider doing what I did: get a high quality USB headset. Then you'll get the same clear quality on every system you plug it into.

 

Wow, that would be great
Please locate the clock generator and make a pic of the surrounding resistor/capacitors. I'd like to know if there are empty solderpads around. If we are lucky, Quanta has designed in a possibility to disable TME by moving a resistor like they did on the AOA1x0 series.

From the blurry pic it looks like the chip near the battery connector could be the clock generator.

Regarding bad heatsink contact: How is the heatsink secured at the bolt under the 'g' of 'Ugh' in that pic? Is there a spring missing, perhaps?

 

Will do! I'll take lots of pics and upload them in a few hours.

There isn't any direct heatsink assembly spring/fastener under the "g"... only 5 screws hold the heatsink down: 2 for fan, 3 in a triangle around the CPU. The pad for the G45 is soft like they wanted it to flex... strange.

 

I see now. The screw hole under the 'g' is used from the other side of the PCB to secure the upper half of the case. Maybe you could find a short screw plus spring to secure the heatsink at that screw hole.

 

Thank you very very much for testing this for me. My MBP also thanks you for saving it from a certain early doom

 

Here's the pics! imgur downsampled/compressed them more (no 12 megapixels... aww)...

hope the chip etchings are readable...

I can provide closeups of any section if anyone needs it.

http://imgur.com/B5b1p.jpg

http://imgur.com/jW2qZ.jpg

http://imgur.com/aIHNu.jpg

No markings on either chip:
http://imgur.com/6Iifv.jpg

Floating corner for G45:

http://imgur.com/bYRzR.jpg


Heatsink shots:

http://imgur.com/po1C6.jpg

http://imgur.com/Qx9CA.jpg

http://imgur.com/xE7QR.jpg

 

Sorry Lepton but that is too much bandwith intensive. I've removed the IMG tags.

Please use thumbnails or use the upload function if you click Go Advanced.

 

@lepton
What a great resource these pics are

So far it seems that there are no empty solder pads around pin 11 of slg8sp513v.

Edit:
@floating corner
It really looks like there is missing something.
You could check if there goes a screw through the bottom part of the case to this screw hole. If it does, it might help to bend the fins of the heatsink slightly upwards. Maybe the bottom part of the case is supposed to push the heatsink onto GS45

 

Okay, mine is supposed to ship today. I will give them hell if they don't. They know I will....Ah well, since I'm going to be out of town until next Wednesday anyways, it's not a big deal.

 

LOL.... yup... my bad. I forgot people with Atom N270 processors would be loading for an hour.

Glad to help... I love looking at PCB layouts up close. I take apart everything.

I'm investigating how this is supposed to apply force to the GS45. It isn't obvious though... they cannot use the backside of the keyboard tray since tolerance stackups would be way off. The thing just "floats"... I dunno what to say.

 

Thanks for the info, from the looks of it, looks like HD might peg the processor sometimes, but with less process running might be ok. And if you Download it and run it from a media player it looks to be fine. Based on these results I will be ordering one from JR tonight. Dont want to wait for the rumored dual core version.

BTW, is the CPU soldered on? or is it swappable? maybe a dual core proc could be dropped in eventually.

 

CPU is soldered on:
http://imgur.com/6Iifv.jpg

 

I don't mean the backside of the keyboard, I mean the bottom part of the case.

I wish I had an 1810t, it will be a pain to watch this community grow while I wait for my imaginary dual core....

 

@lepton:

great pics

I am no expert, but the contact of the cpu and gpu look just the same, except the additional white paste (dunno the english name ) on the cpu is missing on the gpu - or am i wrong ?


Tobi

edit: well i think i have missinterpreted the pictures, the white tape seems to be the origin of the "paste" - sorry

 

It makes sense... the raised, U-shaped part of sheet metal is supposed to sit flush on the bottom of the case (I didn't mean to say keyboard). But it doesn't provide enough force to get a good bond with the GS45. I'd could put a couple shims in there to help it... meh.

Go ahead and get one of these... just watch out for headphone quality.

 

For those that have the North American model, the 1410, what is the mah of the battery? The European 1810's are confirmed by Phil's unit to have 5600mah batteries whereas our 1410's are to have 4400mah batteries, I just wanted confirmation.

 

I can confirm the American Aspire 1410 has a 6-cell, 4400mAh battery.

 

@lepton:

Isn't there a official acer forum where you could post your pics with the floating corner and ask if this is meant to bis this way or if you should add a shim - i would really love to hear the answer ... especially about the shim

Tobi

 

Ah, its a real shame we are stuck with the lower capacity battery.
I hope Acer will fix this mistake and bundle future models with the 5600mah battery.

 

I have no problem at all with the headphones. ipod standard ears tested fine. 2nd step plugged the audio into my homecinema system. Very well. And yes the most important thing apart from the sounds, silence is silence. No alien sounds detected while Wifi on, disk activity, and hoovering with the mouse...

 

That makes two people with well functioning head phone sound.

Maybe you should return yours Lepton.

We're paying $670 for the 5600 mAh model in Europe, you pay $450 for the model with 4400mAh.

Acer picked the lower capacity to be more competitive. Smart move if you ask me. 6 hours is enough for me.

Anyway, I expect 1810T will be available later in US, and larger batteries will be available soon.

 

Hehe! I wonder if they'd notice I tore it apart and put it back together.

I bent the sheet metal up (just slightly) and am using a healthy amount of thermal compound. It is much more snug. I hope it cools better than before (I don't like the fan on when the CPU is idle).

The fan had a little rattle at certain speeds so I added some silicone pads between the bottom chassis and the fan housing... there isn't anything in there to keep rattles down. The hard drive has tons of pads, not sure why not the fan.

Hopefully my electrical noise was a loose ground on a ribbon or something that would be fixed by reassembling it more carefully. I cross my fingers.

 

I'm in the same boat. I just canceled my 1410 order and will wait for this mystery dual core.

 

I don't think so. If you didn't break something that is

You should have a look at SmartFan. Cusem is fiddling with the settings, I haven't heard of him since yesterday, though. With SmartFan you can create your own cooling profile and define several fan speeds for several temperatures. It's pretty cool to be able to control the fan, because Acer is very conservative with the cooling scheme.

Good luck

 

Thanks Phil, I had forgotten the premium Europeans pay for notebooks compared to the U.S. With that $220 price difference, I can easily purchase an additional battery.

I knew there had to be a catch regarding its low $450 price especially compared to lower specification netbooks, especially the $499 Vaio W, and it looks like the internal build quality has suffered judging by the tear-down pictures.

 

I dunno, it still looks interesting to me. The LCD quality being a downer is not surprising, and the internal cost shavings sound potentially deal-breaking, but still, spec-wise, for the price, it simply cannot be topped. Plus, it looks like it does 720p and 1080p through HDMI perfectly well, so I'm set as far as that goes. If the quality is really, really bad, I'll just return mine.

It shipped today, should come to my house at the same time I get back from vacation.

 

Maybe he got a lemon. It also had problems with fan noise and headphones.

My 1810T was one of the more quiet I've worked with.

 

Sorry, my post made it sound like I wasn't interested in it anymore, I still am, the price still makes it very attractive to me. I was just wondering these past couple of days how it could be so cheap compared to netbooks but that mystery has been solved. These slight faults like electrical noise are not a dealbreaker for me by any means though.

 

Keep in mind it was only one person who had electrical noise. It seems to be an exception.

 

Or he has better hearing or much more sensitive earphones. Some of the in ear monitors from Shure and other companies are very sensitive (>110dB/mW) and they will reveal all sorts of background noises.

 

will any retail stores, such as bestbuy, frys, etc, cqarry the 1410