Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi

It's Alcohol's fault. It's a really ****py product & incompatible with the NX/PAE features of newer CPUs. You may try to disable them (DEP in System CP, Advanced, Perfromance Settings, Data Execution Prevention), or try the latest 1.9.5.3823 version, or even better, use a better product.

 

Thanks k3l0. What do you suggest to use instead of Alcohol? I have always liked it.. seems to work well.

How about the installation of Launch Manager etc? I wiped the HD again and reinstalled XP Pro. Launch Manager, ePresentation and GridVista all still will not install. I double click the setup files and nothing happens. Someone else must have had this problem.. I can't see that I am doing anything wrong.

 

Hi all

I was wondering if anyone is using this machine for music production ? using cubase ,logic ,abelton etc .Do you have any problems ? Does it set up ok etc,can you use quite a few plug ins at once ?

 

i use daemon tools for cd eumlation and nero for making/burning images

the acer software installed for me, but I have no interest in them and no longer have them installed

 

I purchased this laptop today from CompUSA and actually had a very pleasant sales experience. I am in sales also so I am always very critical, but the salesman was very down to earth and gave me a hell of a deal -

The laptop, 2 yr warranty, printer, USB cable and wireless router for under $1500. Contrary to other posts, I WOULD recommend the warranty because of what they do cover. I understand this is how they make their money in most cases (considering they sold the computer at cost) but if within 24 months I drop the thing off my desk or spill a beer on it, I am covered - and both scenarios are very likely. Plus, coverage on the battery is key as that has been my achilles heal with laptops.

As far as my review - I think it is great so far. I did a full format with XP Pro and reinstalled the drivers, no problems. I installed WoW and cranked up all of the possible video settings and it runs like a dream. I'll update as I use this more.

 

Hey JohnnyTarr, when u re-installed XP-Pro, how did u reintsall the drivers? Did u download them? or did you dload it earlier and burn it onto a disc? New at this.. pls help.. Havent formatted yet.. Need to start.. but am gathering info. Dnt wanna make any mistakes.

 

dahunk: There was a post on page 12 of this thread where one of the users explained the exact steps he took to reformat his 5672 with XP Pro. He has posted the links to the PanAM and European driver websites where you will find all of the necessary drivers and utilities.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=37507&page=12#112

k3l0: thanks, I will give daemon tools a try. The only piece of acer software that I'm interested in really is the Launch Manager. How else can we get the buttons on the left hand side to work? I have no idea why I can't install it . Is there other software that I can use to make them work? I doubt it as they're probably a proprietary thing.

 

There is more thorough info earlier in this thread, but I just downloaded the wireless driver prior to my key drive and after the format, installed that driver then downloaded/installed the rest.

XP Pro is running great, absolutely no problems thus far.

 

I think Tweakui can accomplish this task. I haven't tried it on my acer but on my old toshiba it worked well.

 

Are you talking about under "Command Keys" under "Explorer" in TweakUI? I'm at work and not on my laptop but I can't see any command keys for next song, play, stop etc.

 

the keys on the left (the "Multimedia Keys") are standard. the volume keys work fine, and the back/forward/stop/play buttons work with any program that supports them. Windows Media Player and iTunes work with them (although they must be the currently focused program in order to use them). Winamp supports them, but might need to be configured to use them first. There are also programs that will allow you to use certain keys as hotkeys.

The email and web buttons work as expected. Is the email button supposed to light up? Almost looks like it... as for the p and e buttons, I bet some software out there can use them as hotkeys....

 

Alright, thanks. I will play around with them when I get home.

 

On the 5672WLMI,

Noone's really given a straight answer on these:

1. "IF" both C: and D: are converted to NTFS, do the recovery CD's or DVD created at startup still work to bring the partitions back to their factory conditions (half FAT32/half FAT32/and the recovery partition)?

2. "IF" C: and D: are converted to NTFS and "merged," will the recovery CD's or DVD bring the partitions back to their factory condition?

3. "IF" the recovery partition is wiped, be it with partition magic or whatever, and the whole hard drive (C:, D:, and the recovery) merged into its glorious 120GB self, will the recovery CD's or DVD restore all 3 partitions to their factory format (including restoring the recovery partition with ALT+F10 recovery capability)?

4. Can D: be screwed with (converting to NTFS and merging) without completely removing recovery capability for all time?

Essentially... what capability as far as restoring the original hard drive configuration and recovery capabilities/the recovery partiton do those 5 CD's have?

Thanks guys, for your collective input!

 

1. Yes, it should. I did this on a Aspire 3003 and the recovery disc were able to reformat C: and reinstall all of the software.

2. I doubt if this could work. but someone who has tried it might be able to help.

3. There was a thread recently where a guy who tried doing the same and the recovery disc's didnt work. So I am assuming that the discs wont work without the recovery partition.

4. Dont know. But I highly doubt that merging the partitions would work without destroying the recovery system.

 

Hey..
I got my 5672 yesterday. I am trying to get a copy of Windows XP to do a clean install. Anyways.. A couple of issues that i had was
1. there seems to be a slight light leakage at the bottom of the screen
2. The bottom panel was not scrwed on properly. One side was kinda sticking out.

Abt the 2nd issue, i just unscrwewed it and scrwewd it back on, but is light leakage a serious issue. Is it worth the hassle of requesting a RMA??

 

When I got my 5672, right out of the box, the large panel on the bottom of the laptop was screwed in wrong. There are two tabs and three or four screws holding it down, and the two tabs were popped out. No idea how that got missed, unless it got bumped out in shipping. I doubt it though.

 

Miner, thanks for your input on the partitions.

Another question for 5672 owners...

On a brand spankin' new, freshly "formatted" (if you can call it that) machine that I just brought home last night, I was up 'till 3AM trying to figure out why the computer does a windows sounds "default beep" (the 'bump-like' noise) on shutdowns, right before the shutdown chimes play ("exit windows"). When I boot up and check my event viewer for errors, it indicates that there was a program still running using the registry (error 1517, I'm currently at work and don't have the exact wording.) Additionally, there's an "exclamation" played at startup (low pitched then high pitched, 'dong-ding' like a doorbell in reverse)

I was up all night trying to narrow it down to a certain startup item, and have maybe 4 that could be causing the shutdown noise (more info later when I get home).

As far as I can tell, the program that allows the little buttons to show "VOLUME" and "BLUETOOTH DISABLED" and whatnot on the LCD screen in green causes the startup dingdong.

Is anyone else having this problem with these obnoxious noises coming from their laptop for no reason? Any way to fix it without having to msconfig the heck out of a brand new computer?

 

Exactly right squiddy. One of the tabs on the lower panel were popped out on mine too. The panel was not screwed in tight either.(which mite b a good thing, cos otherwise the tab mite break).. So i guess i'm nt the only one with the panel probs. How abt ur screen, any leakage?

 

My lappy's screws are fine but I do notice a problem with the battery. Every time I went to place the battery back to it's slot, I had hard time and had to manually fight with the tab to hear the click noise to close the battery in slot.

It gives an impression of a cheap body... as if a slight bump with something will cause the battery to pop out while hand carrying.

Edit: Q. is there any description of the new BIOS as to what fix went in, anywhere posted? I have downloaded from one of their support/download site, but it doesn't describe what fix is it for!

 

My screen seems to be fine, no light leaking out. I did have the same problem with the battery tab though. It took me quite a bit to get the battery in the first time. Had to have the tab set just right. It doesn't seem like it would fall out though. Ah well, it'll stay in there unless I get an extra battery.

 

my 5672 next to a powerbook g4 12"

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=142916

 

Talk about extra battery. Is there some place I can buy a bettery for this for a good deal? Thanks

 

I actually don't know where to get extra batteries and would like to know the same thing.

 

The Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi screen is not good as Sony FE series...

 

While the Acer's screen is nice you are correct it is not as nice as the Sonys. Sony has the best screens bar none IMO. Unfortunately there high prices and service keep me away from them.

 

As mentioned above.. bad service.. highprice... and when compared... the specs and price of the 5672 beat it by far. Even when comparing the two lower end models fe550(1500) and the 1gb 5672(1800-1200), the fe loses...
But then sonys design is always nice... but then the 5672 is not bad either.

 

Has anyone found an app or a way to change the touchpad scrolling settings? I hate the way the laptop scrolls it just keeps going and going even when you stop your finger. And the 4 way controller is too jerky and takes too much real estate every click it is not smooth.

 

did you try the mouse control panel? or the trackpad system tray icon?

(this requires the Synaptics touchpad drivers to be installed. if you haven't reinstalled Windows on your own, they should be installed.)

 

Thought that since I relied a lot on the comments of this post for making a decision to buy the 5672 that I'd also add my initial impressions.

I went with the T2300 Duo at 1.66Ghz, 1GB DDR2, 100GB HD, Radeon X1400, U.S. model. It was around $1200 from Newegg. I've had it for about a week now and am very impressed.

Though the price borders it on the budget notebook category range, this is definitely not a budget notebook in terms of quality or features. The wireless has worked great, picking up a good signal just about everywhere. The sound quality is actually quite good for casual listening, though the volume from the headphone output in front is not as loud as I would prefer. I will use this laptop for music and figure that I will have to buy another soundcard for quality reasons. The latency I get in FLStudio is much to high to be usable.

Though I don't see much mention of it, the keyboard is actually quite comfortable to use, despite the "sponginess" some people have mentioned. I am used to using IBM laptops, which have arguably the best keyboards for laptops, and I say that this keyboard, though not as good, is nonetheless quite comfortable to use with a decent key pitch and key springiness.

The touchpad does get quite warm, but since I use an external mouse I don't mind. Definitely not a reason not to buy it. There is a lot of heat coming out the right side, but I have not found this to be uncomfortable at all as I don't find my hand up that far. I do use a trackball, so there is less XY movement being made as well.

The screen is wonderfully clear - I like it a lot more than the traditional matte screens. Yes, there is more glare, but the tradeoff against the clarity is worth it IMO. I wish that the resolution was more than what it is though. With all of this physical real estate, a shame that I can't bump up the rez more to fit tons of stuff onthe creen at one time. I do like the desktop grid feature though which lets you tile apps very neatly by dragging their borders into one of the grid spaces. I can see myself using this a lot at the office.

I don't mind the USB ports off to the side, though I would've preferred at least one or two in the back as well. I don't really like the SD card slot in the front as you have to unwedge the little rubber door closing it and the SD card sticks out once inserted, so you probably wouldn't want to pack the laptop up with an SD card inserted.

The overall size is large, almost as large as a 17" laptop footprint. I bought the Wenger (Swiss Army) backpack which has a padded pocket that supports 15.4" models, but this was too large to fit. It is about as large as the bottom of one of the plastic bins you put things in at the airport. Large.

I kept XP home on it as well as the self-installed apps as the mem overhead is not really all that much and some of the Acer apps are actually quite good. You do not have to backup to a DVD right when you first boot up (some people were questioning this) as it will remind you to do so every time you boot into windows until you disable that reminder. You can still backup to a DVD at anytime though. It took about 20 min. to burn the DVD.

The slot loader does make some interesting noises when you insert a CD/DVD and was a bit frightening to hear at first, but the drive works O.K. I did notice that it was only burning a DVD at 2X the other day with the built-in burning software, but it might just have been a configuration problem since it is listed as capable of 8X burning.

A minor gripe is that the power button on the upper right is hard to see even with adequate lighting and is almost undistinguishable from the button next to it. Would have been nice to have this button raised or painted in a flourescent color so that it can been seen easily. Once you know that it's there though, no problem.

I had a hard time getting my battery to latch in all the way so that I could lok both tabs on the bottom. After jiggling it a bit, it did work. It that battery isn't locked into place, it sticks out a little and is not flush with the case.

The camera sucks on taking photos, as expected with something this small, but does just fine as a webcam. You need adequate lighting to use it well. Make sure that you have the face tracking feature on as this is a great option to keep your face centered and filling the frame. The avatar overlay feature is cute but doesn't work nearly as well as the Logitech one. Where are the Groucho Marx glasses and mustache? Nice toy, but who would really ever use it...?

All in all, a great laptop and WELL worth the money. If you have any doubts or reservations (as I had), you can be rest assured that this laptop will please!

 

I just came from CompUsa and one very knowledgable rep said to stay away from this build at all cost. He has personally seen two display models crwaapped out and has seen all 12 models sold be brought back to the store to be replaced. Something about it overheating. I can guess that being one of the first laptops out there with DuoCore they might have rushed to get this out in the market. I would wait a few months until other companies get their Duo Core's out.

 

Well, I've had my 5672 for about two months and I've had none of the issues that some keep trying to pin on Acer laptops in general or this one in particular. I've had no overheating problems, no scratches on the case (and it has been moved around almost daily), no crashes (and I'm still using the default XP Home install), the screen looks fantastic and there were no dead pixels, I don't even have the weird hibernation bug that required the BIOS update. My only complaint is that my Backspace key makes a funny squeak every once in a while which I do find annoying.

I guess I have to wonder about the motives and expertise of sales guys suggesting to stay away from the 5672 - maybe they want to push people toward buying the higher margin laptops. I've got a friend who's a huge Mac fan with a Titanium Powerbook and he is impressed by the Acer. We agreed that his Mac is a little more solid and the keyboard's definitely better but he loves the screen and the feature set and he was surprised at how solid the Acer really is.

Just my 2 cents!

 

I am currently an owner of the 5672WLMi and I am extremly pleased with it, no problems, but I do have two complaints.

One being how easy you can detect dust on a glossy screen, granted I have never owned a laptop with a glossy screen but it really bothers me, and when I try to remove the dust, it just gathers up on the monitor, any ideas on how to solve this? I try taking a keyboard dust spray can, but it doesnt do anything, I just need some ideas on how to keep my monitor clean...

Also another issue I am having, this may just be the table I am sitting on but I noticed that when I was on this table the monitor started to wobble a bit when I type, it is a possiblity that this is just because of the table I am on, I have never noticed it before... has anybody noticed it?

 

i have been owner of this laptop for 2 months, and having major problems with the intel wifi card, had to buy a replacement pc card wifi unit, the card simply deactivates after 5-30 mins of use, and i cant reactivate it, have to reboot and then its working for 5-30 mins again, tried drivers, bios upgrade etc, and i tried using the intel proset software, no difference and 3 different access points, anyone else having these problems and maybe a possible solution??

 

the expansion card works fine btw.. no probs at all

 

Sounds like a bad Wifi Mini-PCI card... It gets hot and shuts down after 5-30 minutes of use. This machine is new enough that if you contact Acer they may just ship you a replacement. It should be under warranty.

 

I used a micro-fiber cloth to clean the screen, but dust still collected in the corners. So now I use a soft paint brush to "sweep" the dust out from the corners, followed by a wipe over with a very lightly dampened micro-fiber cloth, and it comes out spotlessly clean and dust free!

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to upgrade the CPU on this laptop?

Right now the core duo is available at speeds up to 2.16GHz and I think it's supposed to top out at 2.33GHz. Currently those faster chips are quite expensive but eventually, especially when Merom arrives, they will come down dramatically in price.

It would be nice to upgrade from the stock 1.66 to 2GHz or faster at some point in the future.

Is the CPU accessible? Can it be removed?

- Mark

 

Not so say that what he said isn't true, but I doubt it. If they were really overheating that much, we would have heard about it here or elsewhere. I mean, 12 people in one store sounds like quite a lot. When you look at the bang for the buck on this thing, it's easy to suspect that profit margins aren't that large.

Now having said that, it does indeed get quite warm. If people are running it with all the ventilation holes covered and whatnot, I imagine that it could shut down.

Creosote.

 

Hulk,

There is another post about someone changing the CPU.

Creosote.

 

Bear in mind that the next series release of Yonah will be the D series, replacing the current C series, and is expected in May. These new chips will require a bios upgrade to allow a processor upgrade according to Intel.

 

Hey

I've had my 5672 for a about a month now. It did get really hot, specially the touchpad. But now I use Notebook Harwdware Control, and I have underclocked it. Using it on my lap is not a problem now. Thats great. No other complaints. The graphics card is good enough for me cos i dont play a lot of games. My wi-fi has been workin fine, the screen is awesome, and the dvd burner is goin fine too. There is some obvious flex on the screen, if u press down on it, but build quality seems to b better than before. Overall I'm happy. Lets see how it works out over long term.

 

What settings do you use in Hardware Control? I tried it (undervolting at 1.000v @ 10x multiplier) and it wouldn't switch speeds correctly between min and max. Currently I use RMClock, which works for me at these settings. So, I would be grateful to know your set-up.
Thanks.

 

Sure it gets warm....I expect it to. I picked up coolermaster's aluminum laptop cooler from newegg and sit it on there when I need to for extended periods. Works great.

 

how do i boot from the cd rom with this laptop?
i'm trying to do a clean winxp pro install but can't seem to boot from the cd
i went to the bios n moved the cd drive up to #1 in boot order but it still doesn't work

 

So, I've had this laptop for a little more then 2 days now. So far, I'm loving it. It's taking a bit to get used to the glossy screen, and the keyboard kind of sucks. I'm just used to Dell keyboards. Anyway, the one issue I'm having is with the video card. WHen playing games (Sims 2, CS, RTCW, NFSU/2/MW) there seems to be A LOT of video lag. The game will play for 2 seconds, then freeze for a second, then play again for 2 seconds, then freeze for another, so on and so forth. Any else have this issue? I've tried using the stock drivers from the Acer site, and I've tried using the Omega Drivers. Anyone know of a fix?

 

I've been using mine for a month. Due to careless mistakes I ended up messing up Windows like 3 times. You can blame all of that on me, I just can't stop tinkering with mine. I have Windows, Mac OS X and K-Ubuntu installed and right now they all run PERFECTLY.Ubuntu does have some compatibility problems,and I think a kernel upgrade will fix it. I don't know how to do it,so I'll bother about it later on.

 

i think OS X running perfectly is a bit of an ovestatement, as drivers aren't available for all of the hardware right now.

 

Are you sure OS X ran cause if it did that would be a huge buying point, but I think k3lo is right they don't hav edrivers for it.

 

I don't know how to edit, but I also wanted to know if it's possible to OVERCLOCK the CPU with something like CPU Rightmark or is it for just undervolting, and is it possible to put ARCTIC SILVER on the CPU to cool it down more.

Thanks,
Paul

 

.zoXan. any links or howto's on setting up OSX on the 5672?

I too would like to know if applying artic silver can help reduce heat.


I have had my 5672 for a few months now. Love it, works great. Only problem is heat, but I don't use the touchpad much.
As for games: I play multiplayer games, so to me graphics don't matter much. I have played q4 and CS:Source on this machine. I have graphics turned down all the way (along with some tweak commands) and am able to get 60+ fps when playing multiplayer games.
If you are looking to play latest games and enjoy the graphics, this is not the notebook for you.