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

@Kevin
No flaws/wear found after 7 weeks of daily use so far.

 

Nice, and what sort of battery life have you been pulling down on average?

 

For those having trouble watching HD youtube videos, have you got Flash 10 installed?

I'm on my 1410 with SU3500 and I have no trouble watching HD videos.

 

What about Hulu Hd?

 

I just tried testing Hulu, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to because Hulu only allows their videos to be streamed within the U.S.

 

Right now Battery Bar shows 6:27h. I had a battery life of 7:30h for a while but I've been gaming a bit while on battery in the last week. This is on a 5600mAh battery.

 

Have you tried booting Acronis (full version) through F11 or USB flash? It doesn't work. Also, I think you are booting Acronis (safe version, not full version) via USB CD-ROM right?

If anyone got Acronis to work through F11 or USB flash, please let us know. Thanks.

 

Acronis 2010 certainly didn't work via USB for me.

 

Mine is holding up fine so far. I'm mostly using Ubuntu and usually get a solid 4-4.5hrs out of the 4400mAh battery ( maybe slightly more from Vista). I'm not having any luck with video in full screen in Firefox or Chrome under Linux. I've tried a few different codecs and am using the latest flash player. I think I got a little better playback in Vista, but I hardly use Windows so I can't say for sure.

 

Shields Up ("UKiVPN") mate, and try again

 

Well, well, well! I updated to the latest version of Ubuntu last night and I can now watch HQ Youtube videos in full screen!!!! (Finally!)

 

Latest Firefox (3.6)?

 

Al, is your problem creating the Acronis bootable media on the USB drive? Or is it that you can't get the computer to attempt booting from the USB drive in the first place?

To make the USB stick bootable to Acronis, follow these instructions. To make your Acer computer attempt to boot from a USB port, go into the BIOS and enable "F12 boot". When you restart and press F12 you then can pick the boot source from a list.

I formatted the USB stick per those instructions, then used Acronis to create the rescue media image on that USB stick. I then enabled F12 boot on the Acer 1410. It happily booted from the Acronis image, but partway through the Acronis boot process it gives up, no matter what I try. I'm using the latest Acronis 2010 product.

I put in a service request to Acronis on Oct. 19 but have received no help yet. Please post if you (or anybody!) figures out how to successfully complete the Acronis boot process on a 1410/1810.

BTW I returned the 1410 to J&R and exchanged it for the 1810T, which should arrive tomorrow. I will see if I have better luck booting to Acronis then. I got great service from J&R.

 

You just get the flashing caps lock light?

Don't worry, it doesn't work on the 1810T either.

It's not just Acronis that doesn't like them either. A gparted LiveCD doesn't work either. I suspect it has something to do with the EFI and Linux.

 

I didn't explain that well. The return was not due to the Acronis issue, but because I decided I wanted the extra features of the 1810. Sorry for the confusion!

I am hopeful about Acronis developing a build that will work with the Acers. When I first started using Acronis years ago it didn't work with my Dell 8400 desktop but they quickly fixed that. Back then Acronis was a smaller outfit, though, and their customer service was more nimble and responsive.

 

No, it's Firefox 3.5.4 on Ubuntu NBR 9.10. (I think I might have had version 3.5.3 in 9.04.)

All of the flash player packages are the same, so I'm not sure what they changed. Playback is improved in both Firefox and Chrome. Just a touch of trailing with fast action shots and not as crisp as the playback on my 14" Dell Vostro with an NVIDIA card, but completely acceptable in my opinion. I think it's maybe better than what I was getting in Vista, but I use Windows so little I can't say for sure. (If I weren't so lazy I would reboot to Vista and find out. )

 

I think this is what solved the problem:

Also, on 9.04 if you set Visual Effects to "None" it would be very laggy on 1410. On 9.10 it doesn't lag with the same setting.
Also, back in 9.04 I couldn't even play a 720p with both VLC and totem. And now it plays the same video perfectly fine with no lag whatsoever. I still have problems playing 1080p lag free though (plays fine on Win7)

 

I'm using an old Acronis.True.Image.Home.v11.0.8053 CD that I burned myself and it works perfectly well with external USB DVD-drive. I'm booting to a Full version.
It DOES NOT work from the first try. You have to press Ctl+Alt+Del after it fails and try to boot from it again using F12 menu. It does work the second time.

Here is a screenshot:

 

It will work via safe version.

 

I ran into same problems as you guys with Acronis. Only "Safe Version" booting from USB external CDROM drive works.

 

Are you able to boot from USB Flash Drive successfully?

 

Some folks might want to try the free
EASEUS Disk Copy or EASEUS Todo Backup
instead of Acronis.

Clean simple interface and works great!

 

Thanks for your recommendation. Just two questions:
1) Can you boot the program from USB Flash Key?
2) How fast for the partition backup in comparison to Acronis?

 

What do you mean "safe" version. I didn't try a USB optical drive, only a USB flash drive.

 

1) I created a CD from the Easeus ISO download, and booted from my external CD unit.
Others have successfully booted from their USB.
Search Google "easeus bootable usb" for info.

2) Can't compare the speed of Easeus. But it took at least 3 hours to clone
an internal 160 5400 HD onto an external 320 7200 HD via USB.

Let us know if you try it out!

 

Based on the FAQ on that website, it won't work from USB Flash Drive as that ISO is only bootable from the CDROM. That's too bad! :-(

 

There's a safe version or full version of Acronis. You are out of luck for now on booting from the USB flash drive.

 

I have been using Remix, so visual effects has been set to none. I don't need perfect video, but I like to have a little fun now and again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPE7bOmdP9w&feature=related

 

Yea, I can boot without problems. However, I did not follow the official Acronis guides, but used this guide (Step 1 & 3).
Perhaps, you should try this with Acronis 2010?

On a side note, you can also use the guide above to boot from a Windows 7 ISO. Can't use it for Ubuntu ISOs though. Needs some extra tweaking beyond the guide.

 

Is this RAM good/compatible as aditional 2Gb (A-Data - 2GB - DDR2 667 SO-DIMM - DDR2 667MHz | 2GB | SPD 5-5-5-15 | AD2S667B2G5) ? Thanks.

 

Wow, I'm going for 9.10 tonight.

 

I tried it with UltraISO, and it didn't work. Will try it with Grub4DOS. If anyone has tried the Acronis 2010 with Grub4DOS, please reply here. Thanks.

 

Over the last couple days I have been reading more and more negative stuff on Acronis 2010. Guess I should have done that research before paying for it, instead of relying on the good work Acronis had done in the past. My mistake, and now I'm unsure of which imaging tool to use.

I'm expecting delivery of the 1810T today. Can you guys give me a little guidance:

1) I understand that there is some kind of "restore to Day 0" section installed on the hard drive that will restore the drive (if functioning!) to its out-of-the-box state. How do I access that feature if I need it?

2) If the hard drive fails completely and is inaccessible, and I don't have some kind of backup image, how do I reload Windows 7 onto a new, replacement hard drive, since Acer doesn't send Win7 on a CD/DVD? In other words, how do I restore from scratch the OS that I paid for onto a new, replacement hard drive?

 

Just get a Windows 7 OEM DVD from where ever you can and do a normal install using the key that on the laptop sticker.

 

When you install Acronis, it also installs a program called "Bootable Rescue Media Builder". You run that and select it to create a bootable ISO. And then use the guide in my previous post to boot it with Grub4DOS.
If all else fails, you can always google for Acronis Image Home v11 bootable ISO and use it instead.

 

There's a utility on the system to have you burn DVDs from the data stored in the recovery partition.

You would need to use the Recovery Disks that you burned earlier.

Alternatively you could get a copy of a generic Windows 7 x64 Home Premium OEM DVD (not that easy) and use that if you want a clean install.

 

But... didn't I already pay for that OEM software & key since I paid for the brand-new computer?

How to access this utility? Are the discs it creates bootable?

I realize I'm getting off topic here, I just knew that this group of folks would know the answers. If you can direct me to a "how to maintain your laptop and stuff" FAQ or something that would be great.

 

You paid for a license with the computer, but they didn't give you a Windows 7 DVD.

It's in the start menu (Acer eRecovery), and it also nags you to use it until you use it to burn the disks. I'm not sure if they're bootable. I haven't tried booting from any of them, but I sure hope at least the first one is bootable.

Personally, I made an image of my 1810T's HD (using Acronis) by pulling the HD from the machine before I even booted into Windows 7 for the first time so I can return it to that condition if I want. I also burned the recovery disks. Lastly, I made myself a Windows 7 OEM x64 Home Premium DVD.

 

Great info, thanks StereoDude.

Can you detail how this went for you? Which version of Acronis did you use? How did you connect the Acer's HD to another machine?

What's the procedure for this?

After getting the heebie-jeebies about Acronis 2010, I've been reading good things about DriveImageXML, which is free for individual noncommercial use. Anybody tried it?

 

I removed the HD and plugged it into a desktop machine. All 2.5" SATA HD's have the same connectors as 3.5" desktop HD's, so that's pretty easy. I used V11 of Acronis.

You need to obtain (ie: download from somewhere) the RTM image for Windows 7 x64 OEM Ultimate (since that's the only OEM version there's an official RTM image for) and then follow the guide here to convert that OEM Ultimate ISO so it can install Home Premium (or any other flavor).

 

So you don't need to do the "upgrade to win7" thing with Acer? Can the vista home premium (32bit) key always be used for a win7 home premimium (64bit) install?

 

No, a Vista Home Premium key can't be used for Windows 7 Home Premium. What I posted only works if you have a Windows 7 Home Premium key already (on the bottom of the machine), which means the system shipped with Windows 7 pre-installed, but you don't have a Windows 7 disk to re-install from. If your machine shipped with Windows Vista you still need to do the upgrade though Acer (or perhaps MS).

 

Ah, right... So I got to give 15 euro for it, or just buy the 1810TZ which has win7 64bit.

Is there any reason why Acer is not providing a 64bit OS on the single core version? They will probably also not give a "upgrade" to win7 64bit if you got a 1810T with vista 32bit, do they?

 

You might want to check out Legally installing Windows 7 Home Premium on Acer Aspire 1410/1810T (passes OEM activation). Using this guide you can install Windows 7 Home Premium 32/64-bit on 1410/1810t/1810tz/other-Timelines without a problem.

On a side note, 32-bit key works on 64-bit version. So if you have a Windows 7 OEM key from Acer then you can just get 64-bit version DVD off torrents and use 32-bit key to install it! It is legal too.

Cheers!

 

Still waiting on my Windows 7 CD from Acer, but I'm pretty impressed with the latest Ubuntu Remix so far.

Here it is on the AS1410:

 

Not on my bootable rescue disk (2010 build 5055). Interestingly enough the bootable rescue disk from True Image Home V11 works fine as does Symantec Ghost Solution Suite v2.5.

 

Today Acronis released build #6029 for the True Image 2010 product, including a BartPE plug-in. Maybe that will do the trick. In the meantime, I've decided to use a dual approach. I've made a functional BartPE boot CD which I'll use to make DriveImageXML backups (great tutorial here), plus I'll try both Acronis 2010 #6029 and one of my older Acronis True Image installs to make my initial backup images.

 

I did some benchmarking also. The modules I used were:
2x2gb DDR2-667 5-5-5-15
2x2gb DDR2-800 5-5-5-18

For the 3dMark06 runs I did 3 runs per setup. Each run went through the exact same setup as outlined:
Shut down computer for at least 30s.
Turn on computer and allow it to wait at Win7 logon screen for 1+ minutes.
Login and allow to sit for 3+ minutes.
Open 3dmark06 and immediately close the "daily hints" window then wait 1+ minutes.
Start 3dmark and allow it to change off of aero interface automatically.
Repeat entire process for each run.

3dMark06 with DDR2-667 gives on a 3-run average 601

From AS1410 Benchmarks

3dMark06 with DDR2-800 gives on a 3-run average 585

From AS1410 Benchmarks

I then did SuperPi testing. The process was:
Shut down computer and wait 30s-1min.
Turn on computer, wait at logon screen, login to windows and wait 3+ minutes.
Open superpi (windows+E, left click on downloads, double click superpi folder, double click superpi, close explorer window)
Wait 1+ minutes
Click Calculate and click on 1M using mouse clicks
Click OK, Wait 1+minutes
Click start.
<write time down on paper>
Calculate, 1M, wait....., start
<write on paper>
repeat for 4 runs.

SuperPi results are:
DDR2-667:
44.133
43.836
44.054
43.820

DDR2-800
43.774
43.400
43.306
43.478

It appears for graphics, the latency of your RAM matters more than the bus speed. SuperPi makes it seem like the bus speed of the ram makes at least a small difference.

If someone would be interested in paying a little bit of USPS shipping to send me 2x2gb of ram with CL4 latency, I would be happy to repeat all testing and include the CL4 latency RAM and then of course send the memory back in the next day or two. PM me if you're interested, I'm not actually expecting anyone to trust me, but if you are really interested we could talk via email, google chat, or telephone to legitimize things

 

I got stuck at step 1 with Grub4DOS. The USB flashdrive has no option for "Whole disk (MBR)", but "Whole disk (other)". The install to USB flashdrive didn't work unfortunately.

 

Before Step 1 I formatted the USB stick to FAT32. It was completely clean when I ran GRUB4DOS-Gui installer. I was running XP.