Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi

it takes me 15 minutes to burn full dvd. thats rated at 4x. i dont care what acer said this is wrong. my 8x in my desktop can burn a dvd in 7 1/2 minutes. my other laptop has a 4x in it from compaq and it can burn a dvd+r in 15. this is how i know its only capable of doing a little more than 4x. besides the dvd burner i love the speed of this laptop. its faster than my p4 2.8 ghz. OBTW, the rip speed for ripping a dvd with dvd decrypter is only 2x. that sucks but dvdshrink shrunk in less than 10 minutes. i wouldnt not buy this laptop just cause of the dvd burner. it does work but slow IMO. THE stuff in the laptop outway the dvd burner. oh and alcohol 120% i dont know what the problem is there but i searched and im not alone. it maybe alcohol. im hopeing it is

 

I've only burned one DVD - the recovery DVD, and had no problems with that. I didn't really pay attention to how long it took.

Remember that different DVD-media have different maximum speeds. I don't know if that is having any effect on the speeds people are seeing...

 

Here are my thoughts on the DVD problem that a few people have noted.

1). If the DVD burner is broken when I buy this notebook, it will be under warranty, and I will get it replaced.

2). I have a desktop for my burning. I burn on my laptop very infrequently. If it takes 15mins instead of 10mins1… I’ll live.

Im ordering this baby just as soon as I recive the gift card from tigerdirect for my old broken one.

The one I am replacing is an emachine for gosh sakes! anything will be an improvment.

 

Can someone please point me to this specific fix. Thank You.

Also, if anyone could help, my friend just purchased this and is on his way over. He leaves out of town in the morning for a month and I want to get a fresh install done without all the bullcrap that comes pre-loaded. Also to eliminate any issues with the shipped versions. The version he bought is in the link following. Can anyone advise which drivers should be installed and which shouldn't or don't need to be based on what you have done.

The computer:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=336978

I see the current drivers listed here:
http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/fo...394&referringwebsite=AcerPanAm.com/us&pupv=pu

Thanks in advance...

 

mine came installed with the fix already applied

 

I bought mine at compusa and the fix was already done. Here's a link to the article about the fix.

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2693

 

What is the brand of DVD burner? may be a new firmware out there???

 

M$ is supposedly working on a real fix for the USB 2.0 power drain problem. http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/14/microsoft_to_release_patch_for_power_drain_bug/index.html

 

Thanks for the link, this one also already had the fix implemented as well. This laptop was such a joy to work on today, the sata/2gb ram/dual core really make it feel like a high end desktop, i've never seen that performance before in a laptop. It also played HDTV movies in the form of .ts (mpeg2) and .mkv (mpeg4) with no sweat or tweaks at all. Quite nice for those who have picked one up, congrats. Now I'm jealous.

 

I also took the jump and got this notebook.

compared to my bro's thinkpad, this thing gets hot, rite at the touchpad. mobilemeter gives temperatures at idle with AC from 46-51. I think the fan comes on at 50. and i think it comes one every 30 sec. or so...which i don't get because I am ideling the PC. ..i need to undervolt.

using battery eater pro, i got 2.5 hrs on the classic test. 100% cpu load, and an OpenGL screen loading the graphics card. mobilemeter clocks it in at aprox 26W, which is correct if u calculate the capacity of the battery. if i turn the screen on to max brightness, then 40W which will bring about 1.5 hrs with everything on max.

i will use batery eater pro without a usb device plugged in tonight to find out what the difference is. as far as i know MS hasnt released the fix yet...so i dunno when ppl are claiming they're system got shipped with the fix.

anyways...on to testing.

 

The fix is not official. It was released to "Microsoft partners," and it was leaked out from there. I have not looked at the details of the leaked fix, so I do not know if everyone is looking at the right thing… from what I read, no one is sure if the fix is stable, but it does work (mostly). It added ~45 mins to the life of the laptop I saw.

Was the leak laget? Who knows… maybe this is Microsoft’s was of doing wide scale testing…

 

I picked up one of these puppies and its working great for me. I'm getting about 2.5 hours of battery life (75% web surfing, 20% perl programming and compiles, 5% guild wars )

Now I got sick of the pc being filled with the standard acer crap (i had a hellulva time getting stuff off the missus' ferrari 3400), so I went ahead and did a clean install of XP Pro.

NOTE: This is for the Compusa version, I believe the european version comes with a tv tuner and remote.

Pre-install:
--D/L'ed all of the drivers onto D:\temp and extracted them. It took about an hour for me to grab every single one of the drivers.

Panam Site:
http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/fo...ite=AcerPanAm.com&pupv=pu&formid=3394#results
European Site:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5670.html

--Formated the HD to NTFS using the windows cd. This was a big deal for me, FAT32 is great and fast for smaller sized HD's, but with a 50gig partition full of music and video, NTFS is the king. I did a clean format of C: with the SLOW format of NTFS (its executes chkdsk which is decent for finding and HD weaknesses)

Install Process:
--Installed windows xp pro onto C:
--Enabled IR
--Installed the following drivers:
1. Intel Chipset
2. ATI VGA Driver
3. Intel wireless (I got this from the Acer European site)
4. Conexant Audio drivers
5. Conexant Modem drivers
6. Broadcom 5789E LAN drivers
7. Bluetooth drivers (I got this from the Acer PanAm site)
8. CCD Drivers (webcam)
9. FIR (Fast IR, the CIR is for the remote which we don't have )
10. Touchpad drivers
11. 6in1 Card Reader
12. Acer ePower mgmt (VERY IMPORTANT, this puppy is much better than the default windows power mgmt).
13. Acer Launch manager (For the quick launch buttons in the top right hand corners and media buttons on the left side)
--Installed the following OPTIONAL software
1. Acer Empowering Framework (necessary for everything below)
2. Acer ePresentation (easy to use tool for setting up on projectors)
3. Acer GridVista (multi-screen utility)
4. Acer eSettings

Post-install:
--Firefox FTW!

You will lose the *nifty * acer screensaver that uses the webcam.

Hope this helps out! I love my acer lappy, but I do wish it came with a better case colors (I miss the glossy red finish on the ferrari 3400). It runs smoothy and the X1400 video card is about the equiv of the old ATI9700 mobility.

You can't beat it for 1300 bucks after rebates, with a free printer and router and $100 food coupon!

 

can someone try to install alcohol 120% to see if you can use this program. it keeps crashing on me and dont know why. someone let me know if the trial version works on this computer.

 

Speaking of DVD burners. Does anyone know if there is a way to keep the DVD drive region free? Permanently?

Also, anyone considered that maybe the reasons these seem to run warm is the USB 2.0 bug that keeps the processor out of it's lower power states?

 

I don't think theres currently a way to flash the dvd drive region free. You can always run dvdshrink and just put the dvd on your harddrive

Mine runs warm when the ac is plugged in. under the acer power mgmt, theres a setting for cpu speed, if you reduce that to the 50% mark or less, the cpu clocks itself lower. On the lowest setting, the cpu stays at 1ghz constantly. I just left mine as is, it doesn't get too warm unless i'm installing big stuff on the HD or moving a bunch of files or playing 3d games

 

I got this laptop a few days ago. I love it. Plays UT2004 great at native rez. This thing is LOADED.

 

Could you guys, add some photo of this monster pleaseee...

 

Hi arslin, I am also trying to install linux on this machine but not with much success. I tried installing Fedora Core 4 on it, but didn't quite work. Then tried Ubuntu (Some old version), the liveCD didnt work but the install CD went through... only to leave me in the end with no X! I read somewhere that the graphics card (X1400) has no drivers for linux as yet... Also, the ethernet card didnt work.. wondering which driver to install for that.... does anyone know whats the brand of the LAN card?

Would love to hear from someone who has succesfully made linux work on it!

 

Hi guys,

I got this baby from PCNation.com about a week back. Worst thing is that there are no software CDs (unlike Dell). I didnt have a DVD when I started the laptop, so didnt make the recovery CD. Can I still make it? I tried doing so but it didnt accept the DVD (its a sony DVD-R 4.7GB). Does it have to do anything with the 4GB limit on the recovery CD?

Thanks for any help!

 

a question on your full "clean" install of WinXP. when you formatted and repartitioned your HDD with the windows install cd, did you also delete that hidden partition?

Is that thing supposed to contain some recovery data? i'm thinking of doing a clean install to, with NTFS. and i could sure do away with the recovery data if I have all the drivers, and winxp discs myself. I would rather have an extra couple gigs than have it hidden in something useless.

...hey they have the webcam screen saver?? that IS nifty...there has to be a driver/program for it somewhere..wait..howcome i cant find the option to turn the webcam into a screensaver?

is anybody else's webcam really laggy? i thought this thing would be as fast as my Canon's LCD screen.

 

Hello:

I'm new here....and find this forum to be helpful for a newbee laptop user. I recently bought the AS5672 and am pleased so far.

I would like to use the system on my desktop that has a larger CRT that I use for photo editing. When I attach the monitor to the VGA all works with the laptops lid up. When I close the lid the laptop shuts down in standby or hibernate mode? Due to my desk top arrangement, I prefer the laptop to be closed. Is there a way around this?

thanks

 

open the power managment and up and the top right hand corner click on advanced settings. then click on power button and passowrd tab and change it to what u would like it to do.

 

Hi all,
I just picked this laptop up at CompUSA this week. I previously hadn't read through all these posts, but just saw that the 2 partitions of the hard drive are FAT32. Why the heck would they do that!!??

Can I just simply do the old command prompt:
convert C: /fs:ntfs
convert D: /fs:ntfs

...and retain all the data on there (I already have added a ton of software)?

Thanks,
Brian

P.S. has anyone popped off the huge panel on the bottom and scoped out the RAM and CPU? I was wondering if it'd be worth pulling the heatpipe base off and redoing the junk compound that I'm sure they use and spread a nice layer of Artic Silver on in hopes to maybe overclock this a tad.

 

Very helpful info. I'm thinking about to buy one too and will certainly re-format it and install win xp pro. I'll follow your process.

By the way, do you have a way to install the bundled DVD and CDR software?

 

Yep. Thats what it has. Backup of the original factory default installation image. I just did the recovery and its pretty cool (and quick!). I would recommend letting it be there, in case something goes wrong, you can always ask the eRecovery software to recover from that partition back to the factory default installation! But then, thats just a suggestion

Enjoy!

 

Hi, first post to this wonderful forum!
I've just got the aspire 5652 model here in Greece for 1430EUR.
Specs are:
Core Duo 1,66
Go7600 256MB
100GB HD
1GB RAM
Digital - Analog TV tuner
and a lot more...
Thing is that the HD partitions are FAT32 and has XP Home installed.
Does it worth it to install XP Pro?
If not which program is better for converting to NTFS?
Thanx!
..and smthing else, has anyone come across the drivers for this model, 'cause in the european site there are drivers only for 5670.

 

Elas123:

I must have had my eyes closed. Thanks alot!
Works like I wanted now.

nickles

 

DID anyone else have problems with the scolling web pages in firefox. if so i found a fix. download the new drivers from http://www.synaptics.com/. this new driver works in firefox and i think is better than the factory one

 

If the hidden drive contains like 5 gigs of original factory settings as a backup, then what was that recovery DVD i burned at the starting..that incidentally took less than 1/2 the disc?

I ran into a situation yesterday when I was forced to go into safe mode and recover to a point from 2 days ago. I'm not entirely sure as to where WinXP got the information for the recovery from, but my desktop that does not have such a hidden partition also has this option. Apparently you can set how much space on each HDD is dedicated to this recovery option.

if the first recovery DVD i burned can get me back to the factory settings, then I'm not really sure what the use of the hidden partition is.

This is my first laptop ever. so, I have no clue how to access it or anything. I'm totally going to do a fresh XP Pro install, so I'm still thinking i don't need any factory settings, if of course i'm going to have all the drivers.

i'm sure there are people out there asking the same questions. somebody please enlighten us!!

 

I have come to the concussion that this lappy may not work in Linux... **SNIFF** ... at least not right away. I will buy this ... with the hopes that support for Linux will be better in to future. I will leave 20 gigs free to play will. Who knows, maybe good old gentoo will work. I have some guys at my work that know Linux better than anything... still waiting on the replacement... than Ill let you all know how my install goes.

 

Guys, I have had this notebook for 1 week. It's my first Acer, and I was worried a little bit (even because i have read some bad review about this computer). This notebook rocks.
It's a great notebook. I got it at the compusa for $1616. It's the best price on the market (even if today I have found it at the newegg for $1599 (no taxes no shipping. That's the real price). But for $16 more...better at compusa...it's close to my house!
Good thing. I have worked with pinnacle studio 9 on other computer. I had a lot of problem...the rendering was long and gave me a lot of problem (if too many transitions). On this computer was great. It took (1 hour when usually on my brother desktop took 5 hours). I don't know if it depends on double processor. Probably more because of 2 gb memory.
Great grafic, great webcam, easy to use. Other important thing.
I read that a lot of people had problem with installing their bluetooth headset on their bluetooth dongles. It took 10 minutes on this computer. And....it was so easy!
Tell me if you have more question and I can help you.

 

I formatted the pre-existing C:\, I didn't want to fool with the system partition just in case I needed to return the lappy.

hehe, the laggy webcam is caused by turning on "Low Light Boost", turn that off and its fast and dark as heck

 

I don't see a way (seeing as how we didn't get any CD's or DVD's); I'm using an oem copy of nero and that works great with the burner.

Thanks!!! I thought it was something with firefox that didn't allow me to scroll with the touchpad.

Yah, I've been doing some reading on the linux boards, and it looks like theres no available drivers for the x1400 video card having some problems getting the wireless and ethernet working too. i'm hoping that the new distro of ubuntu (due out in april) will recognize this. It looks like it might support bluetooth too!

 

If you install the eRecovery program (find it under another notebook model), you can use that to install the applications that came with the computer.

I figured this out on my own since e-mailing Acer customer support wasn't very helpful...

 

When i said that somethings will not work in linux ... the 3D of the x1400 is a given (in 3D that is). The network card, and other things like it should work. To quote my coworker "ATI + Linux = Satain." ATI has not embraced Linux like nvidia... The problem is that 95% of the cards in laptops on the market run ATI. When you guys say "I could not get the video card working." Do you mean that you could not get the 3dlfx (3d rendering) running, or could you not get anything to work?

 

You're so rite...now the picture is so fast...but so dark...turn on a table lamp and its almost as good as Low Light Boost.

I really dont want to screw-up the partitions too much. Maybe I'll just leave it there until i really need the space.

Has anybody deleted the partition? Isn't using the recovery DVD i burned at the first boot the same thing?

 

I couldnt get the X-server working (meaning no graphics AT ALL, just plain dump black and white text terminal) with Ubuntu. Also, didnt try to do much with ethernet and wireless. They might work with some effort, but didnt work on the fly.

 

Although I didnt delete the partition, but I think the recovery DVD that you burned should be good enough. Read the about eRecovery program from the User Guide that came with the laptop (its also in pdf in your C: drive).. that should give a better pointers than just guessing!

 

Thanks dude! The webcam works so much better now!

 

Hey elas123, great job!
I was pretty sad about exactly the same problem in Netscape (Firefox), but simply didn't try to solve it before getting a mouse. But the driver update was a snap and the new driver works flaulessly; even didn't ruin my custom setting on the touchpad.
Thanks!!

 

OK guys, the lag of webcam is not just about the Low Light Boost. It is all about it's settings.
It's unbelievable, but that thing has many controls of a real camera (shutter speed, sensitivity, sharpness, white balance), combined with standard computer adjustment as brightness, contrast or gamma.
The Low Light Boost is simply slowing down the webcam because it forces it to the slowest possible shutter speed - 1/3s so the refresh rate of the cam can't be more than 3Hz! Just go into settings and driver settings and with standard photo knowledge, you can get bright picture without any lag. (turn off the Auto Gain Control, set speed at least 1/20, boost the gain and gamma and adjust sharpness, brightness and contrast as you like; auto white balance works just perfect). In low light you get quite a much of noise with acceptably visible picture, but in such condition at given sutter speed and without flash wouldn't even DSLR do any better.
It is still just a (poor) camera (no Star Trek gadget) = it needs plenty of light!
Good luck.

 

Great news folks! SimplyMEPIS works with our baby

I am writing this post on my 5672 from SimplyMEPIS 3.4-3 ( http://www.mepis.org/node/1462). It detected the ethernet card by itself. The X (graphics) is working fine. Will try out ndiswrapper for the wireless soon and report back.

 

That makes me very happy.now if i can just get my laptop replaced...

 

Sweet! Does MEPIS display properly at the native resolution (1280X800)? If so, I've gotta give it a shot

I was having the same problem as Dr. Strangelove earlier, x-server wouldn't come up

 

Yes, no problems in display whatsoever. I had some problems booting up today, it used to just hang in the process. But used the 'noauto' option in the boot command (from http://www.mepis.org/node/1386) and it works now.

Display, Audio, USB mouse, ethernet working till now. Tried wireless with ndiswrapper (with w39n51.inf), but it didnt load.

 

wow..some of the stuff in here should be in a 5672WLMi Tips Sticky

like that thing about the webcam!

 

THANK YOU TYTO! That helped a LOT in tweaking the camera. I was thinking the camera was useless until tweaking according to your specs. Again thanks!

One other thing, make sure you turn the camera out before you close your laptop or else you'll end up with a round imprint just below your touchpad...

How do I know this? I made the mistake of doing it myself. I thought it was a defect (camera sticking out too far), so I took it back to CompUSA and they swapped me out. Someone there also told me to flip it out when you close the notebook.

JD

 

All,

I'm new to this forum here but I had a few questions I'd like answered if at all possible.

1) Well, i did go and buy this laptop a week ago from CompUSA but the sales dude was pressuring me to get the in store warranty.. which I politely kept refusing. Was I wrong to have done this? The last Acer I owned was back in '97 and I didnt have a single issue with it. But I was wondering if the build quality is anything to be concerned about nowadays.

2) Also regarding the warranty, should I buy the acer warranty available on the Acer website? They do however say I have to buy it within 15 days of purchase of the laptop but I was wondering if this is true. Does anyone have any experiences or otherwise with regards to this?

3) This puppy gets real hot, bu hot I mean my finger tips getting close to being singed!! I cant have this thing on my lap for more than 15 mins without my legs getting burnt. Is this typical in the units you own?

I know there are alot more than 3 questions above but I'd appreciate anyone sharing what they know with me.

Oh and btw, this is truly a kick a$$ laptop!!!

Regards,
Nik

 

Yes, it happens with me too. Someone here suggested changing the ePower settings to reduce the processor speed to lowest (when you are not really playing games etc). That helped alot to reduce the heat.

 

Thanks for sugestion but I already tried that and it still runs pretty hot. I just wanted to know if this was "normal" behaviour for this laptop or was I seeing something out of the ordinary. The heat issue worries me since I have no warranty on the laptop apart from the usual 1 yr manufacturers warranty.