Benifits of a fresh install (8204)

Ok, i just did a fresh install of Windows XP on my 8204...
There is an incredible performance increase. Before the clean install, BF2 and some other games ran utilizing only 4/5 of the screen leaving black bars on the sides... like watching a widescreen movie with the black lines on the sides... it was annoying. now thats gone, the whole screen is used. while playing, i am able to play on high settings at the top resolution and stay above 25fps AT ALL TIMES. windows loads 100x faster. everything just works much smoother. I now use only around 300 MB of RAM while in windows. Instead of like 600 MB previously. The orbicam software that i got from the european FTP site made the video much smoother and the overall quality of the webcam higher.
I really think its worth to do a clean install. Just download all the drivers ahead of time and get a copy of XP...

 

Glad all went well for you!

Just a few questions regarding how you did it...

Did you use a normal retail xp disk?

You know when you did a fresh install of windows did you keep the acer recovery and does that still function or did you just wipe everything whilst installing windows?

Once you burnt the drivers and stuff onto disk when did you actually install them all? Once you got into windows?

did your touchpad work again?

Im actually thinking of doing the same...

 

Yeah the touchpad started working again. Wierd... perhaps some kind of driver/software conflict.

I did a fresh install using an XP SP2 disk that i bought in russia two years ago for about $3 US... dont ask... Used the key that was attached to the bottom of my computer though.

Yeah i got rid of the recovery partition. Wiped everything clean... and then fiddled a bit after i installed everything using partition magic... that was also bought in russia for $3 two years ago...

The drivers and everything was installed after the Windows installation was complete. The drivers needed were as follows: chipset, graphics card, web-cam, bluetooth, lan, wireless, touchpad, 5in1 card reader, Acer infra-red, Acer gravi-sense, Intel AMT driver, Platinum Secret card driver... and there might have been some more but the most important ones are mentioned.

Feel free to ask any questions... Thats part of the reason why i did this re-install... to know what happens.

 

It's a matter of setting in Catalyst . BTW, it's better to set not to strech the picture, cause' only that way you can play in native resolution! If you choose to strech to full screen (and until you don't set game resolution to 1600x1050) you're going to loose quality because of interpolation (blurred picture). So if you want pixel to pixel quality don't strech to full screen!

 

It really doesnt look that bad. I enjoy the picture... everything is set to high so its fine. I guess you could tell the minor difference when you look at perfect circles... they look a bit like an oval. but its really not a problem. Although i see where you are coming from with your point...

 

I'm not talking about widescreen streching and obvious distortions related. The real problem is that if you set resolution (let's say vertical resolution to be sure that there will be no misunderstanding) different than your LCD native resolution the picture will always be slightly blured because of interpolation. If you set e.g. 1280x1024 and turn the streching on, 1024 pixels is going to be interpolated to 1050 pixels so you'll loose the quality. If you turn the streching off you will see perfectly sharp (native resolution) centred picture and 13 pixels stripes over and below. Only way to get perfect picture with stretching turned on is to set a game to your screen native resolution (1600x1050) if your notebook can handle it. Most of games don't allow you to set widescreen resolution without geometrical distortion anyway, so it's better to set 1400x1050 and turn the streching off.

 

I will be buying one of these laptops next monday and I have one simple question:

Which of the Acer "e" applications do you continue to use after a fresh install and why?

 

Are you sure? Think twice. TM8204 is not free of issues yet...

 

He should be sure because mine is free of issues. Don't worry just get the good warranty and it'll work great. I use the ePower Management, and ePerformance Management most.

 

I just returned mine to compusa.com, I was interested in getting a nice fast machine that could do it all and in particular editing with Photoshop...well, got to tell you that like so many before me have said, the screen is much too dark to be of any use for serious editing (or simple viewing) imho! It really is way to dark even with all of the tweaking possible. I would not recommend this computer at this time in it's current configuration.

Hope this helps save at least 1 other person the infamous restocking fee!!

 

I have thought twice, and I believe I am making a good decision. Certainly there appeared to be some minor kinks with the first few releases, but now the vast majority of voices seem to praise this machine. I am going to go ahead with it, and if it doesnt turn out well I'll simply return it, big deal.

 

Hmmm i really dont see anything wrong with the screen. Its brighter than the PowerBook G4 i have...
the only Acer applications that i use are Acer GraviSense for my harddrive to stay safe and i think the acer infra-red... thats where it ends. oh yeah, and the web cam drivers. thats it. no management or any other garbage. windows has its own utilities for that.
there was a bad batch of these laptops but they are now free from issues.

 

You know you can use Logitechs Orbit Camera drivers also, Since the Orbicam is a logitech device.

Vlad_I interesting on the fresh install. Might have to look into that later.

 

Do you have to load a SATA driver at the start of the windows install?

Also from the Euro ftp site do you use VGA or ATI_8.231?

Thanks

 

Vald, how could you say that it is free of issues if you have just confirmed that you're experiencing one of the bigest problem with this notebook: background noise??? It may not bother you (it's hard to belive, but ok. it's your bussiness) but it excludes this notebook for quite big group of users! Excludes completely - until we find a solution... or a reason at least...
Everybody with or without this issue: go to the thread linked below and share your experience and opinion - you can really help to understand the problem and possibly find the solution. Together we can press Acer to do something! But we need to know if it is hardware or software related. We need more samples. Post your opinion and info especially if you don't have this issue!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=51897
EOT.

 

Just did a fresh install of everything... even flashed the bios. The first fresh install was unsuccesfull... i had to re-do everything. Now it is perfect --------->>>>>>>> background noise is GONE!!! I put the most recent omega drivers on my system. Black is now BLACK. Looks like it might be a software complication...

 

@ Vlad I
From the Euro ftp site do you use VGA or ATI_8.231?

 

Neither. I use Omega Radeon drivers.
However if you do want to use regular drivers, its the 8.2.... that you are looking for. NOT THE VGA!!! lolz.
The thing is that there are newer drivers out. i think they are 8.3
but they arent compatible with mobile X1600 ((
the process of making them compatible is somewhat simple but i dont know it. ask someone else. sry

 

ok im probably retarded but i just did a fresh install and everything works fine. except for one thing: how do i install Intel Giga LAN Driver v9.2.24.0 and Intel AMT Driver v1.1.24.0? theres no setup included in the zip downloads and no exe file either. what am i doing wrong?

edit: im retarded! just needed to use device manager to install driver. this laptop rules!!!!

 

Please, tell me how you did install Intel AMT driver. I can not find out which hardware needs this driver.

 

go to your device manager. ie right click my computer->properties->hardware->device manager. there it should list everything on your comp. there should be a ? section where hardware nissing drivers is listed. the amt driver happens to be for the smart card reader. this should be listed under the ? just click on it and then install the driver.

 

Very strange adrock2021. From http://www.intel.com/technology/manage/iamt/index.htm:
"Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) stores hardware & software information in non-volatile memory. With built-in manageability, Intel AMT allows IT to discover the assets, even while PCs are powered off**. With Intel® AMT, remote consoles do not rely on local software agents, helping to avoid accidental data loss."

I can not install AMT driver as driver for smart card reader, it is already installed as O2Micro.