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

If you are interested in a more accurate measurement of battery life I recommend Battery Bar(thx, Redline). It 'learns' and is much more accurate than Vista, because Vista just extrapolates the momentary power consumption, which is totally useless.

http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/

 

Is that different from the drivers Phil has linked in his Tweaks thread?

Yes, it is a Belkin sleeve for 12.1'' notebooks. I looked around a lot the last week for a sleeve, but the shops either had 10.2'' ones (which might be too small, since the notebook has to fit tight) or much larger ones.
Other people asked for sleeves here on the thread before, but I don't think
anybody posted a "fits perfectly" one yet. I have never seen a sleeve for the Acer Aspire One 751 in stores, but those should work every well, if you can get one.

 

Maybe you could add this to the Timeline drivers/tweaks thread?

 

The tweaks thread points to the Intel page, where you can download the latest Notebook chipset drivers.
The link I posted points to the latest desktop drivers which are ahead of the notebook versions.


@TrueEco
Which BIOS version are you running on?

 

I posted the quote there You are welcome to post quotes or other stuff you find useful there too. Let's form the best Timeline resource available on the web


@everyone
Please post your experiences with SmartFan so that we can move it to Timeline Tweaks. Does it work correctly in Win7 in AC mode, when you set it to passive like AcerTimelineHunter described?

 

I think you were spot on about the 2nd memory sloth.

Stock SODIMM in sloth 1 (default) -> no problems
Stock SODIMM in sloth 2 -> system freezes every now and then / is unable to boot anymore unless I move the SODIMM to sloth 1.

I haven't ran any memtests yet, but I guess this is pretty obvious.

Not looking forward to warranty procedure.
1) Are you voiding warranty when installing extra RAM?
2) I don't have the Acer recovery partition anymore (first memory errors caused paritioning software to crash and this affected the Acer recovery partition), do you guys think this is an issue in regards to warranty?

 

@Cusem
I'm really no expert in such things. You should google "RAM upgrade voids warranty" or something like that. Off the top of my head I say at least in Europe it doesn't void the warranty because the user is expected to be able to upgrade if the slots are accessible.

In any case I would try to claim your warranty through the retailer you bought it from and not Acer directly.

 

On my 1410 (6-cell 4400mah battery), I'm consistently getting about 4.5 hours max. I have Windows 7 RC 32-bit installed (build 7100).

What's installed:

- Latest drivers (video from Intel, the rest from Acer's site), except the sound driver (which per the tweaks thread uses more CPU)
- max power management is set on wireless and the graphics card
- Acer ePower (Vista) from my application/drivers CD I created from the factory restore partition
- SmartFan w/ der_mali's options.ini

Usage scenario: Typically 3-4 programs open (Firefox, PDF reader, OpenOffice or Microsoft Word, etc). Backlight around 60% brightness. Balanced mode setting for Power Options.

Best discharge rate is 6.5 - 7mW on idle. In normal usage, I get about 9-10mW discharge rate.

Do you think it's just Windows 7? I can try to reboot into Vista again and see what I get - you're using Vista, correct? I know the 6 hour figure (or 8 hour, in your case) is probably optimistic but I'm only getting 75% of that estimate.

Also, I'm not sure how to turn off the fan in SmartFan and what are safe thresholds for this CPU?

 

@leedr
I'm still trying to understand what's going on in Vista.
When the device comes ot of standby the power consumption is higher for a long while before it drops again to around 5W.
I don't know what's causing this. I want to understand what's happening in Vista before I install another OS.

If you want to turn the fan completely off just right click on SmartFan in the tray, select Fan Modes, select Stop. I've included my own scheme in options.ini. If you want to use it, right click on SmartFan in the tray, click Configuration, select Default Scheme 'mali'.

Remember!
If you run in AC mode set Fan Mode to 'Auto'

These settings work on BIOS 3113, other BIOS versions might behave differently.

 

Hopefully, the tz will come to the US.

 

to zwind: regarding red-light in speaker out

I suspect that is just the the optical-out (spdif) signal you are seeing.

ron

 

The 6 hour figure refers to Energy saver profile, not Balanced. How much are you getting with Energy saver?

 

@ der_mali
Thanks for the info on SmartFan. I'm going to hold off on using SmartFan for now because I won't remember to switch between auto and your power profile consistently. If someone figures out the fan values that work on AC power, I'd be glad to test it again. The fan noise on A/C doesn't bother me too much for now.

I could be misunderstanding the process, but I'm assuming it's a lot of work to find those other values. Anyway, thanks for all you've done!

 

I'll try a full discharge tomorrow on Energy Saver and see what I get. I also installed the Battery Bar app so I can monitor battery discharge more accurately.

 

Were you able to find EWF file for Windows 7? Also, do you know a good guide in setting up EWF? Thanks!

 

The problem is, that SmartFan isn't programmed in such a way that it could have separate profiles for AC and battery mode. On Aspire One the fan mode values were identical in AC and battery mode.

I hope someone writes a new fan application for ZH7 one day.

 

@marblekit
This might be a good place to start - guide is for Vista/XP but could probably be adjusted for Windows 7
http://www.theacerguy.com/2008/11/aspire-one-ssd-vista-with-ewf-recommends-15gb-ram-2/

 

ron,

is it normal for it to be on all the time? I will think it only be on if i enable it which i did not intend to do so.

thanks

 

Yep.. Thats normal..

 

Really? Mine is off.

 

I can't say its normal or not. I would guess that if you unintentionally set it as the default, it would match the symptoms you mentioned (perhaps not -- as I would think the headphones wouldn't work either).

I will find out if its normal in a week or so. At one point I said that Flash HD wasn't worth anything to me. Oooopps.. I was wrong. I didn't realize how far YouTube had come. For fun, I hooked up the laptop to my projector and did a few clips and was very surpised at how watcheable it was on a 6-foot wide screen. Not exactly Blu-Ray, but not half-bad

So, I've ordered an 3.5mm optical cable and cheap HDMI switch so I can use the laptop with the projector + amplifier when I want to watch music videos on the big screen (I don't have TV) with big sound. Too bad they won't be 100% smooth but oh well.

As a complete aside .. rather than use Gaga, I've been testing usings the Eurovision 2009 HD clips. Cheeeeessssy performances, but good video quality.

ron

 

I had/have 2 laptops with spdif and the red light was always on.

And I do not think that this is something to mention referring the Power consumption!

Greet kama

 

Battery Bar is great, I can really tell which action takes all the juices (naughty USB 3G). Thanks Redline too.

 

Thanks, but I already had installed this driver and also configured the gpu energy setting to best power save.

Thanks, thats one thing i haven't done yet.

The latest (v0.3113), why?

 

There is no changelog available but it's not unusual that power consumption decreases with a newer more optimized BIOS.

 

True. But i would prefer a fix of the fan behaviour in ac-mode.

Btw., now i get around 6W with minimum brightness and without battery (i've measured with installed (full) battery before). Seems that Vista is a bit better in this case but perhaps that will change with optimized drivers and ePower Management Software for Win7.

 

Review of the Gateway clone of the 1410:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Gateway_EC1803h_notebook

Some of the results:

Battery Life vs. 1005HA:
Web Browsing: 6:09 / 8:18
Xvid Playback: 4:24 / 6:34
x264 Playback: 3:31 / N/A

Benchmarks vs. C2D 1.4Ghz:
NOD32: 11:14 / 9:50
WinRAR: 5:38 / 5:14
iTunes: 8:46 / 7:36
TMPGEnc: 20:01 / 11:46

 

Wow!!!
Easily the best review I've seen.
Clean not-too-technical charts and comparisons.
Nicely written and presented.

 

Struggles some on HD flash.
Watching HD Thursday Night Football perfectly using the more efficient Silverlight.

 

Looks like the Acer Ferrari One will be better than the 1810tz.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/10/acers-11-6-inch-ferrari-one-finally-a-netbook-with-speed/

 

In this shop, there is an image where they show a comparison between SU2700 / SU3500 / SU4100.

I don't know what kind of benchmark they use, but here are the scores:

SU2700 = 57
SU3500 = 65
SU4100 = 78​

That's +20% for the SU4100 over the SU3500...

 

That is a very good review indeed. It get's interesting on page 6 with videoplayback.

And the SU3500 wipes the floor with the Atom in iTunes:
8:46 vs. 21:17

 

they are listing 1810tz with su4100 in bulgaria too for 560 euros in black, red and blue

 

I'll continue to wait for extensive tests of the TZ version. i am especially interested in the additional battery drain due to the second core. (+ more heat, more fan activity...)
That might even be counterproductive...

The deciding factor is Flash HD videos. Looks like you get it done with the T version too, so i might stick to that release...

Asus UL20 is interesting too, but i guess it will be much pricier...

 

Exactly, I think the SU3500 plays every flash video, except one.

 

What about the Win7 offer. Isn't the Vista that comes with the 1410/1810 32 bit only? And since the upgrade offer includes an equal win7 upgrade only, that means an 32 bit Win7.

Is it possible to upgrade (i.e purchase) an win7 32 to 64 bit upgrade afterwards?
Or do I have to buy a x64 bit Win7 separately?

This page from M$ seems to indicate that the x64 version is a free choice once you have a valid license key. I.e the license key should be valid for both 32 and 64 bit versions of the OS. Is this correct?

 

I'm curious about the same question too. Cause we have 32 bit Vista on it. But I wanna upgrade it into 4GB so 64bit Win7 is an obligation for me

 

I've found the answer on Acer's partner website, Mentor Media. And here are some useful answers...

for some more questions...

 

Thanks, BlueSilence

It's nice to have a real DVD instead of having to create it. I'd stay at 32bit anyway because of SmartFan.

Btw, some Half-Life 2 results:
I've downloaded HardwareOC benchmark application and ran the first demo @1024x768 max quality and got 21fps
latest drivers, 3GB 667MHz RAM
With 4GB 800MHz dual channel I expect around 25fps
Btw, AA has very little impact on frame rate

Very nice for casual gaming

 

Well, that does not answer the question wether a win 7 32 bit upgrade that I can get free of charge also covers the x64 version of the OS. The answer in that quote is similar to that I linked to in my previous post.
It is clear that neither Vista or Win 7 install media cannot upgrade the OS from a 32 bit installation to a 64 bit. That is of no concern however since I would do a reformat and clean install anyway.

 

Someone who can answer?

 

Are you going to use your notebook/netbook outside in bright sunlight? If not, you will not have any problems with the 1810/1410 glare display, because its bright enough to flash all reflections away.

To be serious, the reflection discussion with glare displays is generally overvalued in my opinion. I've worked with glare displays for years, and except for outside work, reflections are no problem at all.
And colors are subjectively better on glare displays than on dim ones.

 

It sounds so clear to me if I have any 32 bit, I take W7 32 bit only. Also it's all the same about versions.



But if you mean whether we can get free upgrade from Microsoft, I don't know. Those I wrote before was about Acer side only.

 

From this extensive article...
Installing, Upgrading, and Migrating System 7
at Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

"It is impossible to perform an in-place upgrade of any 32-bit version of Windows to any 64-bit version of Windows (and vice versa). So if you have a 32-bit version of Windows Vista but are ready to take the plunge into 64-bit for Windows 7, you will need to do a clean install and then migrate your settings and data over with Windows Easy Transfer. (This is possible with the Upgrade versions, though the details of the process are unknown."

See the detailed chart half-way down the page.

 

Seeing as the 1810tz version is avaible in Sweden I'll be ordering it this weekend. It's quite funny, the price tag is the same one as the 1810 with SU3500 at €600 so the choice isn't that difficult for us Swedes.

 

The price differences around the globe make me speechless everytime...
600€ = 875$. Now look what some US guys paid. Not even half of that!

 

If you work a great deal with text, any glare at all will result in more eye fatigue. Plus, a bright matte screen has crisper text outlines (no extra layer to provide the gloss). Unfortunately, adding a non-reflective film will also add another layer, so I haven't decided whether I will go that route.

I actually find the high gloss screen surround much more of a problem, since it isn't itself a light source and it has all those beveled edges to make sure it picks up reflections. I'm planning to spraypaint it flat black. Does anyone know if it can be removed without separating the whole screen assembly from the computer?

 

now im really getting confused!

1810tz have just been released here in sweden and some shops say ddr3 and some ddr2?

Please say it´s ddr3 in the 1810tz??

i think it´s ddr2 in 1810t and ddr3 in 1810tz i hope!

Please can someone confirm this?

 

DDR2.

And there is no performance difference between DDR2 and DDR3 as main memory. So if you should be hoping for something it should be DDR2 because it's cheaper

 

okok..
NO!
i wan´t ddr3 cause it´s more power saving =lover voltage.

hmm. terribly news for me. didn´t like that at all..

Well..

ok thx for fast reply