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    Does your Acer make crackling noises? Not performing in Games? Here's the answer!

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by WillieWang, Nov 4, 2005.

  1. WillieWang

    WillieWang Newbie

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    I bought an Aspire 5021 WLMi but this problem occurs across the whole range I've seen, dunno whether this will help anyone but I advise that this laptop is seriously good... but not out of the box.

    When I first received the laptop, i noticed that 3D games performance wasn't up to scratch. With an 128MB x700 3D should be a breeze. Originally I thought that it was the graphics drivers, but the problem was remedied as soon as I changed the file system from FAT32 to NTFS... strange but true.

    Also I noticed that whenever I played any audio tracks or in games using DirectSound, there was always a hissing, popping and crackling noise which did my head in for months! Some games even crashed! Even with the latest Realtek sound drivers (A3.78) this still occured... but this was finally resolved by uninstalling all the codecs I had on my machine and using the K-Lite Codec Pack 2.54! Amazing isn't it?... i spent weeks trying to figure out why I Age of Empires 3 (III) kept crackling and crashing.

    Now my laptop's a dream... apart from the fact that I spilled beer over my keyboard and now some of my keys don't work properly... should've taken out the extended warranty with accidental damage cover... do it. now. for the love of your laptop.

    **** happens ey.

    I hope this post is useful... if anyone had told me this when I first bought my laptop, it would've saved soooooo much headache!

    Willie Wang :cool:
     
  2. darrvid

    darrvid Notebook Enthusiast

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    Can you explain how to uninstall the codecs (and which ones)? Thanks.
     
  3. r0n1n

    r0n1n Notebook Enthusiast

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    I downloaded an older set of audio codecs from RealTek's website for my Ferrari 4005 that elimiates all of the audio issues I was experiencing.

    Here is the link to follow to get the audio drivers that worked for me:
    http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=103369

    Also, you'll want to make sure you are running the latest ATI Catalyst Mobility drivers (you'll need to make sure you're running the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1, too, or you'll get a strange errow when you load up the ATI control panel):

    http://www.ati.com/online/mobilecatalyst/


    Good luck!
     
  4. bmhome1

    bmhome1 Notebook Consultant

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    Acer sells replacement keyboards for extremely reasonable parts prices. Mine sells for under $30 and takes minutes to swap (single screw on bottom labeled KB and 3 tiny tabs at top that slide down with a pen tip).