The Acer 5102 Thread

I dont know man, i play WoW with high settings and everything runs ok, except in places like ashenvale where FPS drop a little, but still playable, ive upgraded my laptop with 2 gig PC2-4200 though...

 

nobody answered my 800 mhz questin so i guess i cannot equip my laptop with 800 mhx DDR 2

 

Now you are getting it ! The aspire 5100 series along with most other AMD and Intel notebooks on the market right now cannot use anything other than DDR2 533 and DDR2 667. Only the new Intel santa rosa notebooks can use DDR2 800mhz memory.

 

is there any way of getting the Fn Play/Pause and other media keys to work with itunes and not just windows media player?

 

the guys at acer updated the bios. I have 2.83.

 

has anyone actually tried to install acer's drivers on this thing, or am I the only one?

 

I never had any problems installing acer's drivers no issues what so ever

 

Anyone knows why the laptop locks up randomly at startup??? smetimes it locks up like 7 times in a row and suddenly it works....ive noticed it has something to be with the charge of the battery and the ac plugged in...wtf?

 

i mean on vista, maybe i did not make that clear before. has anyone installed the acer video drivers on vista?

 

Anyone know how to adjust the memory timings on a x200 chipset. I searched online and found that there is no support for tweaking the memory timings on any tweak programs for ATI chipsets, i would really like to adjust the ram timings on this.

 

Hello guys! I have an Acer 5102 which I bought on January. I've received the official Acer Vista upgrade and did a clean install, as an upgrade from XP to Vista wasn't working quite well.
My question is: should I download AMD drivers for the processor or does this CD have all the updated drivers? I wonder if the power plans are working as they should and if the processor is running at variable MHz (medium, high, high performance), so I get maximum battery life from it?

 

Hi.

I Got My Aspire 5102 Wlmi For Last Chritmas And Came With A Free Upgrade To Vista, Does Anyone Know How To Claim This Although Vista Has Been Released Already?...

Also Does Anyone Know How To Return The Laptop Itself To Factory Settings Aka A Full System Restore.?

Anyhelp Is Largely Appreciated

 

Well, if you use the amd drivers and uninstall the acer power management, then yes, the amd drivers should switch between mhz to increase battery life, but if you still have the acer power management then you have to manually switch between them, unless you have the "high" setting enabled, wich switch between 800 mhz to 1.6 Ghz, depending what youre doing (word document- gaming), as for the vista questions, i dont know yet, due to the feedback from users, it seems that theres a lot of bugs out there, so im not planing on getting vista right now, but on the acer official web page, there are drivers for the aspire 5100 (wich includes 5102Wlmi) for windows XP AND windows Vista, so you should try that.

 

To return your laptop to factory setting all you have to do is go to the eRecovery utility (represented with a "gear" icon on the empowering technology tray) maybe itll mark you that no backup files exist, but youll have to keep going, theres a hidden partition on your hdd, so if you didnt make the backup discs you can go back to factory settings anyway, just go there and search for the restore option (its at the bottom) and then click on restore to factory defaults

 

Thanks. Its For A Freind With The Same Laptop.

 

IllReal, you should have claimed your copy of Vista until March 31st. That was the last day of the claiming period, as informed by the upgrading program.

 

i got mine ages ago but i never decided to use it in the end. Not until it becomes the accepted benchmark.

 

Hi,

I bought an Acer 5102wlmi last September and I have always noticed that the hard disk seems to be unusually active even when the laptop is left alone with nothing running. It makes noises as if it is writing or reading to the disk, but it is not "thrashing" because it happpens in small bursts every few seconds. Sometimes the IDE bus LED flashes, at the same time and sometimes it doesn't. I've never known a PC to do this with Windows XP, not even an old machine. I've tried disabling services like indexing, and the task manager does not show anything hogging the CPU. I recently reinstalled Windows XP and it did it again from the start. Could it be that the disk is somehow faulty? It's lasted OK so far, but like I said, I have never know a PC to do this to this extent. My warranty expires in a few months so I don't want it to fail soon after that.

BTW: The drive is a 100GB IDE 5400RPM model but I'm not sure what make.

Thanks,

James

 

jkp2505.....read my laptop specs....mine does the same thing too, but ive had it for 1 year now, and the hdd has never failed so i wouldnt worry about that...

 

For people experiencing slowdowns playing games on the 5102. Turn off the Z buffer depth in the catalist display options as the x1100 seems to respond better with this disabled.

 

When I tried to update the ATI driver for my 5102, which is currently running Vista Ultimate, both Vista drivers on the Acer site failed to install. Not sure why there are two: ATI VGA driver 8.31.100.3c and VGA Driver ATI Ver. 8.352. When Vista installed it found a display driver itself and I didn't check which one, so I'm not sure what version it was.

Anyway I tried the Catalyst™ 7.5 Display Driver for Windows Vista (32 bit) directly from the ATI website at http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html and it works a treat! Installed without any problems.

This is the first time games have performed well on my laptop. Previously I found that gaming performance under XP was woefully slow, I could never understand how people on these forums got reasonable FPS figures for fairly new games. As a result I didn't try gaming under Vista, so I'm not sure which has led to better performance, the driver or the OS. I was on the most up-to-date VGA driver when using XP: the performance still sucked!

I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else is having a similar problem with the display drivers from the Acer site.

 

I have the same problem you do. The acer drivers will not install. The ati ones suck on this hardware.

 

Hello,
What is the best brand of RAM for this computer? I checked the RAM I have and it is Hynix brand. Does anyone else have Hynix in their computer? I read in an earlier post that ACER "recommends Crucial and/or Inferion" branded memory.

For 2 GB Crucial kit is only $ 81.99 right now.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Aspire+5100

Also, what is the maximum RAM this computer supports, 2 GB or 4 GB? I keep reading conflicting data.

cheers

 

My 5102 uses hynix ram as well. Crucial is a very reliable ram supplier no wonder acer recommends them (so are patriot, corsair, kingston etc). Anyway the maximum ram supported by the 5100 series is 4Gb. Hope this answers your questions.

 

I just updated to Aeneon DDR2 Ram without any problem yet!

 

I have a Question about RAM in this notebook. I am looking at Acer Aspire 5102 AWLMi. It has only 512MB RAM and that is not enough so I must buy 512MB RAM more. But I have a question: Can I upgrade RAM at home? Or do I need service or something like this. Most notebooks have a RAM compartment so you can upgrade RAM at home. Does Acer have this too?

And how many RAM slots has this computer? I think that it has two as most laptops but I can't be sure.

 

Alot of the 5102's you will meet have different specs some only have 512, some have 1Gb some have 2Gb. Yes you can upgrade the memory at home just like any other notebook brand there is nothing special about acers. You won't need any special service tech or anything like that, just unplug the notebook and remove the battery and then take the back memory panel off to access the ram slots. There you will find 2 ram slots 1 should have your 512mb in it. You can then decide from there what you want memory wise .

 

Thanks for this!

I will order my laptop this week I hope!

 

does anyone know how to disable the z buffer on the catalyst 7.5, the option isn't there any more. I would use one of the man tweakers out there, if any of them really worked that is.

 

Just wanted to let the owners of the aspire 5100 series know acer has released a new bios, version 3.05. As usual you can get it at the acer euro site

Also as usual you can read the release notes to decide if the changes made by this new bios fixes any issues you currently have.

 

Another question from me about RAM. I don't know wich to choose. I never bought notebook RAM before.

Woud this be good:
A-DATA SO DDR2 512MB 533 Mhz (I think that 533 Mhz is enough but price is the same for 667 Mhz model)
type: SO DDR2
200 pin

 

yes, but go for 667MHz especially when you have integrated video card.

 

I know that but I think that original is 533 Mhz too. If I have RAM with 533 Mhz and 667 Mhz they will both run at 533 Mhz speed.

And I will just add another 512 MB RAM!

 

Yeah if you have ram modules at 533mhz and 667mhz in your notebook at the same time then both will run at the slower speed of 533mhz.

Update: I have flashed my bios to the latest one for the 5102 version 3.05 and have had no issues so if anyone was waiting to see how the new bios behaves then I can say it is just fine. The new shut down temperature for the aspire 5102 is now 100 degrees, acer also said that they fixed the corrupt display problem(color lines on the screen issue maybe?) but I haven't seen that on my 5102 since last year . You can get the new bios here. As always be careful when flashing a bios shutdown or close any anti virus programs as well as close all other programs and make sure your notebook is plugged in.

 

Just in case you didn't notice -the new 3.05 bios gives the posibility to share 256Mb of sistem memory for the video card.
Nice update !

 

Nice stuff, did you try it out?

 

Actually this change was made with the previous Bios that acer released version 2.83. If you weren't running that Bios then yes it would now be adding the 256Mb share option to your 5102 . The changes with the 3.05 Bios were the ones that I pointed out in my previous post.

 

do i have to execute the OSFLAH.BAT(AS stated in README file) or Flash32.exe in window mode?
Thank's.

 

Shutdown your anti-virus and firewall along with any other programs that are running and make sure your notebook is plugged in. Be very careful when flashing a Bios don't try to do anything once it is flashing otherwise if something goes wrong you got yourself a very expensive paperweight!

Flash32.exe is what I executed (when inside of windows), run that file and sit back and leave the computer alone, once it is finished it will restart. Then go into the Bios and make sure everything is as you want it to be .

 

thanks EVO, btw how long does flashing gonna take?

 

If I had to approximate I'd say about ~5-10mins at the most.

 

I have a couple of questions, are there any kind of mini pci cards that you can add a video card too that fits in this laptop? Is there any way to upgrade the ati 1100 up to x1600?

Thanks

 

All i ever do is open Winflash.exe and the BIOS flashes by itself in Windows. I wont do it at home because the power turns off or blips at random times and I never know when. At work this never happens so i always flash the BIOS there. You do not want a power outage while flashing the BIOS>

 

sorry ajc1616, that kind of functionality barely exists (if it does at all) in the world of laptops. They talked about that kind of stuff and I think Alienware may have experimented with it, but no, there is no way to get a new video card for this, or just about any other laptop, at least without removing the motherboard and putting a new one in, but that is high level tech stuff that even most tech junkies don't want to bother with. In other words, if you want a gaming laptop, this is definently not the model for you.

 

oh and by the way all that are having problems with vista and the ATI drivers, catalyst 7.6 does not fix them. It's still as jerky as ever. I wish acer would hurry up and release some drivers that actually install on this machine with Vista. the worst part is that the techs can't even test this because they dont have access to a machine with vista on it.

 

Hi guys! I am a newbie here. I am not sure if this is the right thread to post my inquiries.

1. To cut the story short, I bought an Aspire 5101 last year (Oct 2006) and had a problem with it after a few months. Originally, the processor was Turion Mk-36 2.0Ghz. After I got it back (it took the service center 3 months) the processor is now TL-60. I am wondering whether my laptop is now 5102 model or still 5101, The rest of the hardware are the same. The MB(?) serial number is LXABH05202 xxxxxxx.

2. I upgraded the RAM size from 512 to 1 GB ( 2 X 512 MB DDR2 533 PC4200) and after a few months, the WinXP started acting up. It would restart by itself randomly ( 20 mins and above). I took out one of the 512 MB out and it became OK. I am not sure whether the RAM I took out is the original one or the additional one because they have the same specs. Is there a proper way of installing a RAM upgrade or is it just the ram is defective? I did not swap the RAMs to check because I'm afraid I might cause some problems with the laptop if one of the RAM is indeed defective and then I have to send it back again to the service center .

3, After problem #2, I wanted to get a single 1GB RAM PC2-5300 (DDR2 667) instead of of DDR2 533 PC4200 but when I asked the local ACER Service Center rep she said .. "Your unit is not compatible to ddr2 667 pc5300, it can only be ddr2 533 pc4200. ". Is it correct?

BTW, EVOLUTION, I got the Service Manual. Thanks a lot!

 

To answer your questions...

1) I guess you could say you have a 5102 now as the 5101 only differed from the 5102 in that the 5101 used the single core turion Mk-xx series while the 5102 used the dual core turion TL-xx series. But it is more like you have a 5102+

2) It might be possible that 1 of your ram modules is defective, the main fact that when you took out one of them windows behaved normally again. If you want to see information about what ram you currently have installed as well as your CPU type you can download CPU-Z and run it.

3) Don't pay any attention to what that service rep told you the acer aspire 5100 series (which all use the same mainboard and thus same processor socket) are compatible with both DDR2 533mhz and DDR2 667Mhz ram modules (see specs here). They all use AMD processors which can accept either memory type. My 5102 came with 1GB (2 x 512MB 533Mhz) of hynix ram and now as you can see I have updated that to 2GB(2x1GB 667Mhz) crucial ram with no problems what so ever. However do note that if you get 1 module that runs @ 667Mhz and keep in one of the old 533Mhz modules at the same time, the notebook will clock the faster 667Mhz back down to 533Mhz as a the notebook will not allow the memory to run at to different speeds at the same time. This is why most people upgrade to the same speed modules.

Don't bother to buy ram from acer they will rip you off, take a look at the ram deals thread to find good deals on ram, but move fast as ram prices appear to be on their way back up after many months of decline.

 

Evolution, thanks for the info. BUt now I have a problem with the start-up (I didn't do anything with my laptop). My son was playing with it and he said it went on "stand by" (I believe the battery was drained, I set it at 10% to give an alarm) and when I turned it on, the start-up will not continue. The ACER logo came up and the status bar but afterwards the screen became blank! It is still powered on. What's wrong with it?

 

Guys, I really need your help. My unit is actually not with me but with my wife who is in the pHillipines. I am out of the country so I am troubleshooting the unit for my wife. She is not that into computers to do troubleshooting by herself. Sending it to the service center is my last resort. She told me that she noticed that the palm rest at the left side is getting hot (Windows is still not booting up) and the air coming out of ventilation holes are really warm. If ever the microprocessor gets too hot, will it get damaged completely? I read somewhere that there is thermal protection for the microprocessor. I am sure once I send the unit to the service center, I will be charged too much for the parts to be replaced.

EVOLUTION, it's just my luck. I received the Service Manual at the same time the unit bogged down. Good thing I have it now so I can study it and do the repair myself once I get back home.

 

From what you are describing it sounds like something is really wrong with your notebook (possible overheating somewhere). If the temperatures get too high the BIOS will automatically shut the notebook off so the processor doesn't get damaged. It would be very difficult for us to speculate what could possibly be wrong with your notebook but the heat your wife is reporting is very concerning! If I were you I would stop using a possibly overheating notebook immediately and contact acer, because it sounds like you will need service. Contact acer support and see what they tell you.