Ordered my 8204 Today!

Ordered my 8204 from cdw.ca today plus extended warranty!

Can't wait!

 

Hmmm... thats where i ordered mine from a month ago. I will be waiting for your feedback.

 

Were you able to find out the manufacture date before ordering? I'm in Canada and I'm planning on ordering one too.

 

I asked an online retailer and they said that they have no way of telling what the build date is. Apparently all the 8204's are stocked in a few distribution centers and the retailers just pick them up from there. Luckily mine is an 06/03 and free of issues.

 

FYI, If you want to know what week your build is, look at your serial number. the 11 and 12th digits are the week.

 

Very impressed with CDW service. Someone called me today just to tell me that the item is shipping and to expect it in 2-3 days. In that case, look for feedback by this friday

 

It arrived today only 2 days after ordering! First impressions are very good, the screen resolution is so high its almost too small

I'll post more later.

 

Alright some more thoughts as it burns the recovery disc:

it is the 06/03 build (haven't checked ram speed yet)
zero dead pixels
little bit of light leakage at the bottom of the screen, but hardly noticeable


Will you guys give me the battery of test and benchmarks i should do? thanks.

hopefully i'll get around to a fresh install this weekend

 

first big complaint: this thing has major screen flex. like i just tap the carbon fibre and i get ripples through the whole screen. the lid is certainly not offering the protection it should. i can push the bottom of the lid away from the hinges with ease.

 

That doesn't sound good. I have some ripples if I push hard, but nothing like the 'whole screen' when 'just tapped'. Perhaps you should consider getting a replacement.

Sorry to hear that...

Best,

Benjamin


----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.neo-fight.tv [The "Techno-Debate" Video Podcast]

 

hey vlad, mine is two days old and i've have one concern so far - the a/c adapter transformer. it gets extremely hot while giving juice to the 8204WLMi. is your like this too?

 

So mine is the 06/03 build, but its got the 533 ram unfortunately.

The screen problem appears to be an issue with the carbon fibre. Even when closed it the lid seems rather flexible when pushed in the middle. Anyone else notice this?

 

Naveg, can you tell me what your 11th and 12 digits or serial are. want to see the build week (im 9th)

 

Apparently it is normal for the power brick to get really hot. I compared my PowerBook G4 adapter to the 8204 and the 8204's is only slightly hotter. So dont worry about it. its ok.

 

Power bricks get hot, every single PC that I've had when powering the PC at high capacity (i.e. playing games, or running the processor 100% for a long time) gets very warm.

For the screen flex, I'd say if a light tap makes the screen ripple, sounds like an issue, mine takes me pushing reasonably hard on the back to make it react but without doing any comparative tests it's really hard to say.

 

thanks Vlad. It's so hot that I can't bare to hold the brick. on another subject, the 11 and 12th digit of the serial number? what information can be garnered by this? By the way, mine says 6090.

 

I have to push reaaaaally hard on the back of mine to barely make a slight ripple. Definitely get it replaced, it should be strong, its carbon fiber!

 

correction
MFG DATE: 0603
Serial 11th and 12th: 60

what do all this mean?

 

I heard the 11th digit is the year (6 = 2006) and the 12th and 13th digits give the week number. Assuming this is correct, if your 12th digit is 0 then your notebook can't have been made later than week 9 (March).

 

Naveg, I've been waiting to hear whether you have any problems with yours since I was planning on ordering in Canada at around the same time. I thought the odds would be good that you wouldn't have any major problems.

I'm very disappointed to hear that you've got the screen rippling problem. I really want this laptop, but every time I'm about to order it I see another post about someone having a problem with the one they just got.

I know that people who are happy generally don't post because they have no problems, and people with problems post a lot because they're looking for help or want to warn people about the problems. But Naveg posted here BEFORE even receiving the laptop, and still the laptop he got has at least one serious problem.

I'm getting the impression that you're more likely to get an 8204 with at least one serious problem than not.

Does anyone know approximately how many people in this forum have an 8204? How many people (if any) received one with no serious problems?

I'm looking for encouragement because I can't find another laptop that compares to the 8204 and I want to order it, but it just seems like playing a lottery with the odds against the buyer.

 

It's really not all that bad. Maybe i exaggerated a little with "slight tap", but it is certainly more flexible than would be optimal.

The pros most definitely outweigh the cons on this thing. it screams!

 

bought an TM8204 in Taiwan on May 4 2006.
15weeks, buid 0604,
upgrade to 2g ram (blue screen appears frequently, even i did nothing to it)
we will see what will happen after i reinstall it (it takes time for me, i have no time to do that recently)

 

I have TM8204 for 2 months now. Mine is 0601. It was a bad batch, that's for sure and I'm gonna send it to get replacement, if I get a chance. It has so many issues, that I'm just tired to list them time after time. I'm waiting for "issue-free" batch and it doesn't seem to come... Isn't it strange, that Acer is unable to eliminate major problems with their current flagship model? If you check Acer forums, there is currently no Acer notebook with greater number of complaints... And even those with no complaints in the beginning, are experiencing more and more problems after couple weeks of using...
I think that the major problem is, that Acer didn't test all the components they used to build this notebook. They just put everything together to impress people with specs, without worrying about compatibility. It's just like homemade desktops sometimes: you want to put the newest, fastest and also the cheapest components and after all it's really hard to make it work stable... They should wait couple of months if they haven't been ready to release TM8204 - they are going to loose a lot of customers because of this...

 

if i grap the screen on left and right with fingers direction in the back of it and flex it, there is significant ripples. also notice ripple is more noticeable when screen color is dark than when it's light. just a casual observation. is this an issue? don't know. what's everyone's opinion?

 

11th 12th 13th = 609
so does this mean week nine in year 2006 (March 2006)?

 

i get no ripples when i touch the back and/or flex the screen. and flex it prolly an inch

 

i have precisely the same thing. but it doesnt really bother me. if it starts causing damage i'll send it in to acer.

 

As the joke goes: "Doctor, it hurts when i do this. Then don't do that."

I've had my 0601 8204 since Feb 2nd. Sure it had some initial problems. All have been ironed out for some time. My heavily customized system is working swimmingly. I'm betting that there are a lot of silent, very satisfied customers like myself, who you don't hear from on these forums. They're buzy just using it every day.

Y

 

Yellow11, I'm hoping to get where youre at now. What have you customized? Better yet, what was your issue that got ironed out? I like to learn how to customize mine so I can start gaming and surfing. thanks.

 

I'm with yellow on this. I have a few small issues, but most have been dealt with, and I am very happy with my 8204 system, screen and all..

Best,

Benjamin


----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.neo-fight.tv [The "Techno-Debate" Video Podcast]

 

It occured to me as I was writing the last post, that I should have toned down the heavily customized part. No hardware customization, just software. Using a different windows theme, replaced the normal desktop Windows interface (which I never liked) with multiple docks and widgets. Taskbar, tray and desktop icons are gone. Running lots of little apps in the background, all the Acer apps. The widgets can chew up a little bit of CPU and memory, but this thing has it to spare. (I only noticed this by actually looking at how everything is running with Process Explorer.) I still get really high 3DMark scores with all this going. For mission critical situations I have set up a different user account with minimal software loaded, that I can use in those situations.

Oh, I did try NHC (notebook hardware control) but found it to be buggy. It actually shortened my battery life and would rarley operate in the mode that I wanted. Despite my settings it would switch back on its own to low performance settings. I just went back to ePower mgmt.

Screen is great compared to other laptops I have seen. Had the original NIC card issue of not being able to connect, that was fixed with the EEPROM update. Have applied the new driver and Acer software updates as they have come out, and only some of the BIOS updates. Applied the Windows hotfix that addressed the problems with hibernation. Right now I can't think of anything that I would have changed. This is still one of the most powerful and fastest laptops out there, so I just enjoy it.

Y

 

yup that means week 9

 

Thanks Yellow11. My 8204 hasn't experienced the connection NIC issue. What I've noticed is while connected performance is not as fast as expected. The progress indicator bar (GUI) does not increase smoothly (linearly). For example, download progress indicates 12% and it stays there momentarily, then linearly increase to 25% then stay there again for a few seconds. I don't see this behavior with my Dell laptop. The eeprom fix is not listed on the Acer download website as mentioned by others

Would you recommend upgrading my BIOS version 1.3311? What is the latest BIOS, where can I get it, and what will it fix?

 

Connection performance has nothing to do with progress bars. How fast that bar changes or advances is a product of how the software you are using refreshes it as well as how your system is loaded with other apps. The download data rate is the real measure of performance. Progress bars on various programs on my machine all progress at different discontinuous rates. However i am downloading at up to 600k/sec on my DSL. Pretty fast and indeed continuous.

 

I too have finally got my 8204. I don't seem to have the screen problem nor the noise coming out from it which most people have complained about. Yes, it does get hot on the right side but that's due to the big vent on that side. Mine is actually as quiet as a mouse when it's on. I have to say though that my screen actually say 8200 although it's a 8204 specification and perhaps that's the reason for the quietness, etc.
One thing I found when I had to do the back up CDs; when the driver is in used, it makes a lot of noise like a rattling sound. When I press my finger upwards to it, the rattling sound stops and I think that it's a bit loose hence the rattling sound. Do any of you have this kind of problem at all?? Please let me know if you have this problem too and how you solved it. If there's something I can do, let me know as I heard from so many people that their service support is really bad. So if I can avoid going to them, I rather do so.
Apart from this problem, I'm very happy with this machine.

Best,
Knownuts

 

knownuts,

Can you use Everest and get the model of LCD you have. Curious as some seem to think QDI model is better.

Thanks

 

It's 3315, you can download it from Acer's European FTP. Everything else is in Readme.txt and it's up to you if you want to upgrade or not. I prefer to have the latest BIOS. The most recent versions are always on Asian websites.

 

Sonicdivx,
As you can see I'm a newbie unlike you who is a guru and have very little knowledge on these things. So, can you tell me about Everest please?
Thanks.

 

You can download Everest Home Edition on :

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

The utility shows a lot of information of the laptop, including the LCD manufacture.