Terribly disapointed with Aspire 1802SWMi

Hello,

I just bought an Aspire 1802SWMi from Acer cause on paper, it was the best value I can get [8D].

Unfortunately, after two weeks playing with it, I am quiet disapointed [V] with the hard drive performance. This is a [ ] disaster !!! I get transfer rate of 300 Kbps where I should have 20 Mbps [xx(]. So when Windows start to swap, it takes minutes [ !]. When I switch from one app to another and Windows refresh the screen, I have time to watch every single line drawing on the screen for long minutes, normaly, it should take a fingers snap! [ !]
My first investigation lead me to the following conclusion :
1802 suffer terrible design flaw [:0]

1st the HD. It's a Toshiba MK-8025GAS that show the following spec : 80Gb, 4200RPM, ATA 2 to 6, UDMA 100, 8Mb cache. Those are correct numbers, even if I was expecting 5400RPM disk. Nevertheless, this is acceptable.

2nd the chipset. It's an Intel 915P. This seems nice but with a closer look, we see the host controler is a 82801FB. The problem with that chipset is that Intel does not offer optimized ATA driver for it. So we are stuck with Windows XP default ATA driver that is so slow [ ] That is a shame to advertise high performance chipset and to implement lowcost variation that finally offer poor performance [} ]

3rd the design. But the worth part is coming. If you take a close look to the device manager, you can see that only the Primary IDE channel is enable. The secondary controller has been disabled and there's no Bios option to change that setting. And finally, the HD that should support UDMA mode 5 is connected as Primary Master and the DVD-RW as Primary slave. The problem with this setup is that DVD-RW only support UDMA mode 2 (that is to say ATA-33) so the HD is also stuck to ATA-33 [} ][} ][} ]

How Acer's ingeneer can think of and even produce so poorly designed notebook [?][?][?]

The whole storage chain is so rotted that the splendid P4 3Ghz is useless. It spends half of its time waiting for data to process.

When trying to burn a DVD-R at 8x, that data rate is so slow on the IDE bus that it keep stoping every 2% to refill the buffer [} ]

I did contact the Acer support about that problem. They answer me to format my HD to fix the problem [ !][ !][ !] Never heard a so stupid thing [V]

Any idea, trick, hack to fix this mess will be very welcome [8D]

Cheers.
Jiminy

 

Hey Jiminy,

Sorry to hear the problems you having with your brand new system. [ ] You're probably one of the first people to have this unit.

Regarding the HDD speed, did you by change read somewhere on Acer's site that it was a 5400rpm HDD or did Acer sales/support they tell you this? If so, you may have a case with them, they may be willing to swap it out to keep you happy.

For the Chipset, you may want to checkout the link below. It's the Intel support page, it has the 915P chipset drivers (INF files) which may help your controller issue.
http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-009247.htm

The IDE channels may not be setup correctly (not using the 915P chipset drivers. Acer may have shipped the unit before these drivers were available (guessing). So upgrading the drivers may have the system report the correct info. I personally have never seen (on a notebook) the 2 drives running off the same channel.

The suggestion of reloading the OS is actually not a stupid suggestion. It's actually one of the basic steps for troubleshooting a problem on any system. Anything could have been loaded incorrectly, either by Acer or yourself (not saying you messed anything up). But any s/w that may have been installed could be causing the problem. If this OS in the system is the stock OS that originally came with it, you may want to try loading your own XP Pro/Home on it from scratch and load the drivers one by one. This would narrow down with could be the cause. Also, stock OS's that come from the manufacturers usually have a whole bunch of crap installed that could slow down the system. Reloading from scratch will eliminate all this garbage and give you a clean OS to work with.

Give these few things a try no matter how stupid it may sound, it may turn out to fix the problem.

1. Contact Acer if your saw on their site or was told by Acer that the HDD was a 5400rpm HDD (false advertising). You may get a replacement free of charge.

2. Download the Intel 915P Chipset drivers from the link above. This may resolve the controller problems.

3. Re-install OS from scratch and install the drivers one at a time. This may resolve other performance problems by getting rid of all the garbage apps/settings put in by Acer. Also may fix any compatibility problems with other apps that may be been installed.

Give these a try and let us know what happens. Good luck!

-Vb-

 

Hi Venombite,

In fact, I've already checked Acer web site and the HD is not advertise as 5400RPM. There's no mention of speed. It only says Ultra-ATA/100 [} ] they just forgot to state "operating at ATA/33 speed" [} ]

Regarding Intel, I also look for specific driver this afternoon, but the only info I could get is that Intel is not providing any optimized driver for 915P chipset with 82801FB southbridge. [V]

I'll try reinstall [ ] when I'll have some time.

Thanks for your help.
Cheers.
Jim

 

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-011594.htm

Is the page with a link to the run of the mill chipset sw for the 915p etc.
As far as not being for that sb it doesn't say it's not, just that it doesn't have performance sw. Then again maybe that just refers to the intel app accel as most intel chipsets I've used don't seem to install driver files for ide. Looking at the device manager just shows you the chipset name and software version but the actual files are xp sp files.

I think many ide drivers use use/have used the xp file and just use the chipset software to identify/name the hardware. Reg file tweaking rather than driver files in some cases. I've noticed this with everything from socket a athlons to centrinos.

IDE buses have also been able to use independant rates for each device on the same channel for years now as well so you shouldn't have to worry about the hd slowing down to udma 2. I seem to recall this has been the case since somewhere around the time of the 430tx, vx chipsets - later P1 chipsets - or maybe it was the 440fx.

Of course both devices being on the same channel will cause problems with high speed burning as only one can use the bus at a time.

 

i recently bought one of these machines, i haven't found the HDD speed too much of an issue , how are you measuring disk speed - i'll try it myself. Although I do notice that the CD speed can be a little variable.

What really disappointed me was the fact that the X600 PCI_express graphics card is basically a mobility 9700 and IS NOT upgradeable - i thought the major reason for using PCI express is that you can upgrade , but not so with the way ACER have implemented it.

It's also only got 64mb video RAM and I don't suppose that this is upgradeable either.

I have noticed the odd slow down in doom3 - but i think 1gb of RAM will help here, however that will mean removing both 256mb chips and replacing them with 2 x 512mb.

Also, how do you make the bass speaker work - I haven't noticed it in any games i've played.

BTW - I upgraded the graphics drivers to use the OMEGA drivers - they work just fine and give you a few options to overclock etc (not that i've tried it yet).

 

Hi Markiet,

You didn't notice any performance loss while using HD !? Weird...

Did you try burning a DVD-R at 8x [?]

I guess I will definetly follow Venombite advice and go for a complet re-install [ ]

Cheers.
Jim

 

I had just bought this model as well, take deliver yesterday. I had run the Sisoft Sandra test on the system, the result is really disappointing,I test it on the CPU and Multimedia, the result is only on par with P4 1.2Ghz????? For the CPU Arithmetic Benchmark, ALU 2866Mips, FPU/SSE2 1180/2064MFLOPS.

I obtain this result by using battery power, not A/C. So is it my system having problem or else? Any other benchmarking software that can test the system.

If for a P4 3.0Ghz, with P4 1.2Ghz performance, i would request a refund for my hard earn cash.

Please help, because i had call Acer technician, and their answer was they need to test on it, unfortunately they do not have another system available cause the one they had had sold to me????? So what is my obligation now.. Should i send my notebook back for them or wait until they had the smae system available to test???

 

and what about heating and noise on Aspire 1802?

 

I am one of you (I bought the alleged laptop myself a couple of days ago).
It is still with the originally pre-installed software (winxp home that is)
What i've noticed is that the keys resonate with the sound of the speakers and as a result i get a scratchy sound from the keyboard as if the speakers were faulty.
Before you ask about volume level i have to say that effect is noticeable even if the volume is set below midrange.
Can anyone confirm this?
If that is true, do you think that i might be able to do something about it?

 

Guys,

i just ran sisoft sandra 2004 which i just downloaded:

file system test gave me 24mb/sec

CPU tesT:

Benchmark Results
Dhrystone ALU : 8703MIPS
Whetstone FPU : 3584MFLOPS
Whetstone iSSE2 : 6100MFLOPS

Multimedia test

Benchmark Results
Integer x8 iSSE2 : 21104it/s
Float x4 iSSE2 : 28183it/s

 

now i can get the sisoft benchmark by roughly the same as yours when i use a/c power instead of batterry. So does it means that when power by battery the performance is down to P4 1.2GhZ???? Please advise, thanks.

 

Hi there,

I've found some time to reinstall a brand new Windows XP yesterday evening. I didn't use ACER CD but a Windows original instead. Then I setup every necessary driver provide by ACER... [|)]

So guess what... [?] [?] [?] It didn't change things. The HD perfs are still crapy [ ]. I run HD Tune benchmark again. Just after starting, the HD perf drop to 1.1 Mb/s then it rose between 15 and 20 Mb/s.

I didn't find any way to enable the secondary IDE controller so I didn't even open the notebook to check if there was a connector on board for it. Thus, HD that is U-DMA 5 capable is still stuck to U-DMA 2 like the DVD drive it share the IDE channel with [V]

This overall confirm my first judgement that this notebook has been designed by brainless folks.

Does anyone think switching from 4200RPM to 5400 or 7200RPM will enhance the HD perf since it will always be stuck in U-DMA 2 mode [?][?][?]

Regards
Jim

 

Did anyone test the sound of your 1802?
If not please play "ringout.wav" located in c:windowsmedia (press ctrl-T so as to get repeating play)
Do you hear that scratchy noise?
Please post your opinion along with any solution to the problem.
Thank you.

 

next failure i figured out is that the awake from standbymodus doesn´t work.

The hdd-led is still on after you have pushed the power-on button. But the computer doesn´t make anything.

I have tried it with the shipped xp home and also with xp prof.

Same, failure. Also a member of a german notebook board has the same prob.

 

this afternoon i had had the same problem as the screen didn't turn on after awake from standby, can't do anything, but had to press the power button until it shut down. had try the 3Dmark03, it gave a poor result, only 2785 score. doubt it would perform well in 3DMark05. with this score, it is so slow and not worth the money.

Battery can't stand for 1 hour as it claim, just 45min and i just let it on and move the mouse here and there.

It don't sound like any base from the sub-woofer.

I had called the acer service centre regarding the low performance when using battery, they seems had no idea that this could occurred.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by George

 

Jiminy,
When you re-installed the OS from scratch and reloaded the drivers, did you use the chipset drivers from the Intel site or from Acer? From the looks of your comment, it was from Acer. This could be a problem, try using the ones from Intel.

Zchean,
If this system has any kind of Power Management for the CPU, it will drop in performance when swtiching to battery. This is to prolong battery life. This is a normal thing that is expected from notebooks. You may want to check your Power Management settings and change it to ALWAYS ON. This setting should keep your CPU running at max speed even on battery. Also, rated battery life life is approximate, not a guarantee. Depending on what your settings are or what you have running at the time will affect battery life. Leaving your wireless adapter on will drain battery power. Same goes for leaving your screen at max brightness. Try dropping it to the lowest brightness setting. Getting 45mins on a 1hr rated battery is ok. Pentium M's that are rated for 5hrs, usually only get approx 4hrs. So it's within norm.

-Vb-

 

Other that sound i reported in my previous posts, there's the issue of the bluetooth device.
When I press the bluetooth button i get the following reply:
No Bluetooth device, which means that the bluetooth is missing.
Did your laptops come with a bluetooth device or not?
PS: Bluetooth is clearly refered to as standard in the acer brochure regarding the 1800. To be precise the brochure states "Bluetooth (only in 1802WSMi) in the communication section.
Please comment on the issues I reported.
Thank you.

 

You may want to check your device manager for a Bluetooth device. If you have nothing listed there then that means you don't have Bluetooth hardware. If it does, it means that it's in the system and possibly just needs to be setup.

I checked the specs on the Acer US site and it doesn't indicate Bluetooth as being an option. I also then checked the Acer Canada site, they have 2 models that have Bluetooth. Both are the AS1801WSMi models (LX.A2905.004 & LX.A2905.065). The AS1802WSMi doesn't have Bluetooth, so it's possible your model doesn't come with it. If the brochure actually indicates this for your specific model (the LX#, not the 1802#), then you can take that info back to Acer and get the Bluetooth module it's supposed to come with. It's possible your model will not matchup, in this case, they won't give it to you.

-Vb-

 

Hi Vb,

I did use the Intel Chipset driver provide on the Acer CD. I'll check on Intel web site wether they provide a more up to date version or not.

Any idea if 7200RPM HD will help me even if operating U-DMA 2 mode ?

Cheers.
Jim

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Venombite

 

Hello George,

I've played a DVD on the 1802. I would say that I find the sound "acceptable". Of course this is not THX sound, but I didn't notice any scratchy noise.

Cheers.
Jim


<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by George

 

Thank you guys.
This weekend has been a nightmare but I decided to keep my laptop after all, though there IS a problem with the sound.
To overcome that problem I will buy external speakers...
As for the bluetooth device, the brochure clearly states that there should be a device, but after all acer has it's way with the part numbers so info included in the brochures is vague and general and as so NOT reliable. I've noticed the same thing with TM 4501Wlci. In that case acer site in the UK and Italy report different configuration.
Anyway no pain no gain, so next time i will buy an acer product, i will be extra carefull.
Thanks again.

 

If you look back you will see I already gave you a link for the intel sw and pointed out that chipsets have had independent timings for different devices on the same bus for years. Therefore your hd should run at a different mode from your optical drive. if this isn't the case as reported in dev man it may well be due to incorrect configuration, driver/inf or just one of those things that goes awry from time to time.

 

Ps, by the way George acer having different reported configs for the same model on different countries sites isn't really confusing since they really do release the same model with different components in each country/continent.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by murph

 

hi yall
This week I'll receive my aspire 1802Wsmib
I thought I made the right decision (price/hardware), but after all I've read here, I'm not so confident anymore...

I'm from Belgium and Acer has a quite good reputation here. It's offcourse not like dell, but many people are satisfied.

I'll execute some tests on the system and let yall know what the results were. In that way, we can come a step closer to see if they are making other configurations for different countries, which I don't approve.

G.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by gladi8or

 

Hey George,

I got mine yesterday, it's been working fine so far and i haven't really done any benchmark tests on it yet. Mine is an Aspire 1802WSMi and it came with the bluetooth to my surprise cause it wasn't mentioned on the site i got it from(newegg.com). When you switch it on, try going to your network settings to enable it or the bluetooth icon in the sys tray to see if you can enable it there. Hope this helps.

I did a Halo timedemo benchmark @ 1024 x 768, full detail on everything:

Date / Time: 10/26/2004 7:44:22 AM (2040781ms)
3000MHz, 512MB, 64M ATI (DeviceID=0x3150) Driver=6.14.10.6476 Shader=2.0
C rogram FilesGamesHalohalo.exe -timedemo (Version=1.0.0.564)
Frames=4700
Total Time=209.40s
Average frame rate=22.45fps
Below 5fps= 21% (time) 0% (frames) (44.303s spent in 23 frames)
Below 10fps= 21% (time) 0% (frames)
Below 15fps= 39% (time) 11% (frames)
Below 20fps= 49% (time) 18% (frames)
Below 25fps= 50% (time) 19% (frames)
Below 30fps= 62% (time) 34% (frames)
Below 40fps= 86% (time) 72% (frames)
Below 50fps= 97% (time) 93% (frames)
Below 60fps= 99% (time) 96% (frames)
Memory used Max=225MB, Min=139MB, Ave=200MB

I also ran it at 800x600 and got 6 extra frames improvement, I've had a radeon 8500 for a long time so this might seem good to me but bad to someone else, and it is Halo.


Has anyone figured how to turn on the bass? or is it already on.

RE: ringout.wav, the sound seemed okay to me and i didn't get any interferance when i typed on the keyboard.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Dee

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by George
Well thanks murph, but you see there that big sticker on my laptop that says bluetooth, among other things.
How am I supposed to interpret that?
What kind of policy is that, to give different configs in each country?
Why is there a model type after?
Does someone have to ask for a american or chinese aspire 1802wmsi to get a certain configuration?
Anyway I think acer is elusive at best.
PS: murph I'm shouting at you, I'm shouting at the things you said, that unfortunately are true.
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

George,

If you're system actually has a BlueTooth sticker stuck to it, you may want to bring this to Acer's attention. It could just be an oversite on their part and didn't put a Bluetooth module into the unit. Similar to what they did with the Acer 3201XCi units. They tell people that it has a 5400rpm HDD in it, but it only ships with a 4200rpm HDD. The specs they're quoting are for the European models or something, which obviously doesn't apply to US or Canada. Customers called Acer's Cusromer Service and got replacement drives shipped to them free of charge. You may want to contact Acer regarding the Bluetooth, maybe you can get a free module. Good luck!

-Vb-

 

Well.

I have an 1802 as well, about a week old. Only modification I've made is swapping one of the 256es to a 512 to get 768 MB of ram.

Bluetooth works flawlessly.
Wifi reception is excellent.
Sound is good, though woofer seems to depend on computer being set on hard surface.
Screen is superb! (Naturally to enjoy it one must set DPI to standard 96 instead of Acers tweaked 120, but... )

Performance... Seems excellent. Have not run any benchmarks, truly. But I will.

Have not burned any discs, nor copied anything to/from CD/DVD. Have played a couple of DVDs and well, super image quality, indeed.

That battery time sucks is true. But hey... I knew this when I got it, no?

Only thing I miss is TV-tuner (seems to me that this might have the form of a battery... Look at the little removable piece of plastic next to the battery, and the mysterious unused extra connector in battery bay... But still waiting for Acer Sweden to confirm this... [^]).

So. I am most pleased with my little beast of a laptop, myself. [ ]

 

I tried the sound thing with ringout - seemed ok to me?

I have an 1802wsmi purchased in the uk - it definately has bluetooth - i'm assuming you have pressed the bluetooth buttonon on the front?

Has anyone figured out how to turn on the bass speaker - or is it really just rubbish?

BTW - has anyone seen the TV card expansion card for sale??

 

Acer 1802
3.06 GHz p4 HT
1GB ddr
dvd-ram/rw
60gb 7200rpm hdd
80gb storage
BlueTooth
xp pro

GEORGE

You will NOT see a bluetooth adapter in the device manager. You have to install drivers first. IF you have a BT card, all you have to do is press the (blue) BT button to enable it. Then you will see the install wizard for the BT card.

This noise you speak of, is it a vibration? I get a little vibration when I did your "ring" test. The vibration is on the right side of the palmrest in between the numberpad and acer sticker. This could be caused by me taking out the battery. A little pressure and it's gone. Speakers work fine and the subwoofer is sweet on doom3 demo.[ ]
/george

I did a 3dmark and got a score of 2804. This score stayed the same before and after the 7k60 hdd upgrade.

Anyone notice how the dvd drive ejects?

My only gripe is that it doesnt have a full size keyboard.

Overall, I'm very happy with it.

 

Hey Guys,

Just to get our mind off all the negativity (though needed), i was wondering if any one has O'clocked their X600 card yet and if any one knows if the fans underneath are near the GPU.

I O'clocked mine at 520.56/263.52 (core/mem) and got a lot of improvement in 3dmark03 (3547). When i ran it at the default speeds (405/203) i got
2799. Thats a significant change and i was wondering if anyone else has had any exploits or advice (or is this the right forum).

Thanx

 

Hi Murph,

I did check the link you provide, I've been there even before actually. I've installed the chipset driver downloaded from Intel site. Both device stay locked in U-DMA 2 mode (impossible to change the setting through the dialog box) even if the HD claim to support U-DMA 5 mode... One thing comes to mind : if the IDE was 40 pin instead of 80 ??? I didn't open the beast but I will soon to check thaT.

Cheers.
Jim

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by murph

 

Jiminy,

Notebook drives don't have a 40 or 80 pin layout. There are 44pins (43 actually since 1 pin is missing for the key). The 40/80pin setup is only for desktops. You may want to try getting the unit replaced or checked/repaired, it's a good possibility that the system may be defective from the manufacturer. The system should not be saying the drive is a UDMA 2 when it's supposed to be UDMA 5. It's even possible there's a glitch in the BIOS, see if there's an update available. But overall, I'd get a replacement or contact Acer and send it in for service to see if the problems persist.

-Vb-

 

Hi Vb,

Thanks for your advices.

Just one more question: How are you suppose to achieve a 100 Mb/s transfert rate on a 44 pin cable ? Are all notebook stuck to ATA-33 ?

Jim

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Venombite

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Dee

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Davila

 

It seems like Dee is able to overclock your X600, which driver that u use to overclock it. where do download the driver? I also can't hear the bass from the sub-woofer. I live in Malaysia, i'm not sure whether the hot weather enable me to overclock the X600.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by markiet

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Dee

 

Hi all,
I got the laptop for a month now, and so far I'm quite pleased. True, sometimes the hd is lagging, but other than this everything is ok. Until yesterday, I uninstalled the acer software and installed power dvd, only to find out that dvd movies, original ones, don't play.
any suggestions?
thx

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Jiminy

 

ok just ran hdtune

HD Tune: TOSHIBA MK8025GAS Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 14.5 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 27.5 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 22.8 MB/sec
Access Time : 19.3 ms
Burst Rate : 28.4 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 1.7%

it also reports that UDMA 2 ata/33 is active , even though ata/100 is supported - temp seems to be about 38 deg C - don't know if this is high or not.

 

just tried overclocking mine - currently at 472.5/216 , it was stable running 3dmark2001se (tried a few higher combos and it died during the tests) .

i got a score of 11,107 (it was about 10,300).

does anyone know if there is a relationship between core and memory clock speeds?

 

Hmmm...that's weird. I don't think it should be dropping the HDD interface type to UDMA2. The transfer rates your drive is producing is about the same as my Seagate 5400rpm HDD, but my system is a 3+ year old Toshiba P3-600 system. The Access Time is just faster on mine. I guess at ATA33 speeds, RPM rates don't make a difference. You may want to check with Acer regarding this as it doesn't sound right. ATA33 (UDMA2) is a few years old.and would seem a bit stupid to use it on one of the most advanced notebooks. This possibly could be a design problem with the system.

-Vb-

 

BTW - here is the spec of the disk from the toshiba website ...

Super Slimline
80.0 GB:
MK8025GAS
80GB capacity
Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motor drive
9.5mm High
12ms Average Seek Time
ATA-6 Interface
100MB/sec Transfer Rate
8MB Buffer
300,000 MTTF Hours

 

well as we have an international audience and participation , can we all do this to see if there is a consistent response.

I just rang ACER UK support (got through first time!), it was suggested that these machines have an instant-on process which reduces the disk speed , I was told to disable these features in the power settings and try it again.

I'm at work now so won't get a chance to do this until later tonight.

 

Why not some other owners also run hdtune and post the results here. That will definitely help.