The Acer 5102 Thread

EVOLUTION, I guess you are right. I'll have it sent to the local service center. As they say "Prudence(?) is the better part of Valor.. ". I'm really disappointed with Acer with all these major problems I'm experiencing with their unit. Thanks a million anyway. I hope you don't get tired of helping out.

 

If it is very hot (and probebly the reason why it wont boot), let her check if it has a lot of dust in the ventilation openings. Maybe it cant get rid of the warmth from the processor and mobo. Just open the screws at the back and let er look at the opening. Wont take a long time and u maybe see whats wrong with it (luckely the notebook is to flat to fit a mouse in it so its okay)

 

I own an Acer Aspire 5102WLMi with a 120Gb 4200RPM hard drive and 2x512Mb DDR2-4200 RAM modules (Samsung, I believe).
I really want to update its RAM to 2Gb, or maybe 4Gb. The problem is that I am from Argentina, and memory modules are really expensive here. Plus, 2Gb modules aren't available here yet, and the only well known brand modules I can find are Kingston.
A friend of mine is going to the US next month, and offered me to bring me the RAM modules from there.
As you can imagine, the modules I would tell him to bring me MUST be 100% compatible with this laptop! Cause I wouldn't be able to send them back to the store if they don't work.
Apparently, this Acer is very picky with RAM modules. I don't want to spend ~$200-250 for RAM that wouldn't work with my laptop, so my question is: What do you think if we made a list with all the compatible RAM modules for the Aspire 5100 series? It would help me, and lots of other people who are willing to upgrade the RAM of these notebooks.

Thanks in advance!

Pepo

PS: My first post!

 

Hello guys!

I need your help because I have some probs with my 6 months old 5102. Last week I fried my harddrive (Hitachi 5400rpm 100Gig). Even hitachi disk test utility won't complet the check-process: too many bad sectors... Fine, I bought a new one (Samsung, 120Gig 5400rpm).
To the story: since a couple of weeks the harddrive was changing UDMA5 mode to PIO mode. This could happen 3 or 4 times a day, or just once a week.
I installed the new one with XP MCE 2005 (the one that came with the notebook). The harddrive was still changing from UDMA5 to UDMA4 or 3. Event Viewer gave me some alert messages with the disk controller.
I then installed XP PRO SP2. Everything looked fine on begining. Since 2 days I again have the error-messages in Event viewer (*). And the disk is changing from UDMA5 to 3 or 4... I tried to reproduce the error by using different software, going to stand by etc etc... but the error seems to be random.

I would greatly appreciate if someone could help me with this problem! I know, a solution would be to send it to Acer, but this is no alternative because I need the laptop everyday!

Many thanks for your help!


*: here are the 2 error messages:

Type: error / Source: disk / Description: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.

Type: error / Source: atapi / Description: A parity error was detected on \Device\Ide\IdePort0.


The disk error can happen as often as 4 times in a second...

 

I did some searching on google (which I hope you did as well ) and I cannot find any concrete solution to this hard disk problem. Some forums have said buying a new hard drive will solve the problem and others said you need to get a new controller. To me this is all speculation and I know you said you don't want to send the notebook to acer for repairs but you have to admit only the acer techs would really know what is going on as I am sure they would have seen this issue before on the 5102 and know what to do. Remember if need be they can change the whole main board which should get rid of the problem all together. My advice to you is to stop speculating and send that notebook back to acer it is still under warranty why tinker with it and break something when you can send it back to them and have them sort it out for you, remember you paid for the warranty .

You don't need any special type of ram for the 5102 these days most mainstream DDR2-4200 (533mhz) or DDR2-5300(667mhz) modules will work. Look into brands like corsair, crucial, ocz and patriot. I can tell you these brands work well as other members that own 5102's use them.

 

Oh yeah, I searched on google! And I'm still searching!
The problem is that I need my laptop every day for my work... So I'm not very happy with the idea to have it send to Acer... The other point are the costs: priority shipping with insurance... Well... $$$... I'll try to find a solution to this w/o having the notebook send to Acer. I still have 6 months of warranty, or is it 1 year and 6 months? The point is that I never looked on the event viewer before my harddrive crashed. To the point about changing the harddrive: the samsung is a brand new one! Shop-fresh from Friday! And I can't believe that his one is crappy from the beginning...

 

I had the laptop snet to the service center and what they found out is that the hard disk was corrupted or something. It was reformatted and is now with my wife. So far no problem encountered. I am wondering what caused the hard disk to fail. The last unusual activity in th elaptop is that the battery was drained and it went to stand by and then my son booted it up again without recharging it. It started up fine and my wife shut it down in a normal way. The next thing we knew, it won't start the Win XP.

Anyways, thanks for the inputs guys.

 

Well, my hard disk get corrupted last Thursday. Too much bad sectors for any disk checking program I even can't reformat it

 

How are you formatting it? DId you boot the laptop from another disk or from the same disk? If you can get hold of a win98 Installer disk, you can boot from the CD Drive using Win98 and then format the hard disk. This is what I used to do when I get too much bad sectors in my Desktop pc. Of course, you have to make a back up of whatever files you can still recover.


BTW, are you using an anti-virus software?

 

I recovered all files with an external hd-enclosure. Now booting from a new disk Yes, using AV-software, mcafee, up to date. I tried formating the old one with win 2000 and XP: the formating process stop at 3/4 of the disk...

 

Are you sure about this? Cause I've read around this thread that some people had problems with brands like OCZ and Corsair.

Thanks in advance,

Pepo

 

i'm using 2 gigs of corsair right now, and it is problem free. in fact, my graphics performance actually went up after installing it.

 

I just want to give you some feedback about my hd problem. Well, since my last post I only had one disk error. And it occurred as I was carrying my laptop. I read somewhere one his post that some 5100 were pretty picky with contacts and sitting flat. And it seems that it was a contact problem on my laptop. When carefully moving the laptop, even when walking with it, I don't get any error. To be sure, I don't installed anything new on the laptop and used the same programs in the same way I did till now. Even when on for 24 hours, no problem.

 

I have installed vista ultimate on my 5102 and the only real problem I had driver wise was the ATI driver. The ones on acer's site DON'T WORK ! I had to download the desktop drivers and use the mobility modder tool to mod them for use on my 5102 (acer come on!). Other than that I have no further issues to report all is well so far atleast.

 

Hey dudes, sup.

Would anyone here recommend 4 gb of 667mhz ram? I have the option and the money to buy it, but I'm wondering how big of a difference it'll make over if I just upgraded to 2 gb.

I'm not really planning on playing too many games. If I do, it'll be rare and occasional.

Oh, and what's this I heard about being able to get 256mb of memory dedicated to graphics with BIOS?? Could you have it sharing more? Please enlighten me on this.

Thanks in advance everyone,

Alias

 

If you aren't going to be doing any serious gaming then 4Gb is not worth it right now, 2Gb will be fine. You won't notice any difference at all going from 2Gb to 4Gb using your notebook right now. However if you want you can check the ram deals thread to see if there are any good deals on 4Gb kits.

As for using 256mb video on the 5102 it is done inside the BIOS. All you have to do is press F2 at the post screen to enter the BIOS and then set the video memory to 256mb. However because you aren't gaming this is a waste of memory IMHO even so the Xpress 1100 video card in the 5102 isn't really powerful enough to even use that 256mb. My advise leave it @ 128mb and save your memory for use with windows.

 

Vista Video card update: I got the acer drivers to install via the hardware manager...and they do the same jerky behavior as the ATI ones...lovely.

 

i just bought this laptop for around, 250 bucks after rebate.
and i have some problems with it, just seeing if anyone can help maybe...
when i put any CD into the CD drive, it will not run,
it's not in the "my computer"'s either.

other than that, i cannot find the program "acer orbicam" anywhere in the computer... am i supposed to download the program or does it come with it?
super confused...

 

I would take that notebook back and exchange it, the fact that it doesn't recognize a CD when you put it in the drive could mean that there is something wrong with the drive itself (it maybe defective). The price you paid after rebate sounds kind of low for the 5102 are you sure that notebook is brand new? even refurbished 5102s cost more than $250...
Anyway if the CD drive doesn't work take it back and exchange it for another notebook. IMHO you shouldn't have to mess around with a notebook you just bought inorder to get components working.

 

Hello.

I am an overall happy 5102 user.

Could that switch between modes you are speaking about account for the only problem I have with this baby?

The problem is as follows. I am working at home, then I turn off the machine, put it in my Targus backpack (for notebook) and go to school. After an hour in the bus I get to school and then to the library. When I try to start the laptop it won't boot, I have to Ctrl+Alt+Del and try again. If I get in to the BIOS I find that neither the HD nor the DVD are recognized! However after some reboots they get recognized I have my system back.

This is specially annoying when working on batteries for obvious reasons.

Joe.

 

Another question, is it possible to change the graphics card in this laptop? I would love to have an NVIDIA.

 

No you can't. The video card is part of the motherboard. If you want another video card you pretty much have to get a different laptop. Sucks huh.

 

Yes it does. It is a pain in the $$$ to configure that ATI card to make it work with Beryl. Perhaps I get a budget laptop with NVIDIA and AMD processor and just change the processor (I like my Turion 64 X2 and I believe it is not part of the motherboard).

Joe.

 

It is possible to upgrade my amd turion 64 mk-38 single core to amd turion 64 x2

 

It depends on the specific model because the first Turions out there had one type of socket (754) and the Turion X2 have a different one. If the machine with the processor you want to replace supports DDR2 RAM then almost for sure you can replace it. Not sure about the cooling solutions though but retail processors should come with its own fan.

 

I am assuming you have an aspire 5101...
Yes you can upgrade your turion mk-38 to a turion x2 as both these processors use socket s1, the ram isn't important as DDR2 is common between them . You won't even have to flash the BIOS as the 5101's BIOS is identical to the 5102's. Just know that if your notebook is still under warranty swapping processors will void the warranty.

 

thank's for the reply guys, btw i have an aspire 5102A, what is the fastest turion x2 available that i can use

 

Theoretically any Turion 64 X2 would do (the fastest I read of is the TL62, you can check in www.amd.com) however I would check the laptop's manual to make sure which processors are supported. Take in mind that a faster processor is a hotter one too and the machine is designed to bear a given amount of heat.
An email to Acer could help you too.

Joe.

 

Currently the fastest Turion X2 is the TL-66. It runs at 2.3 GHz with 512 KB of cache per core. Heat would not be an issue I don't believe; Turion X2s range from 31 to 35 W TDP. Acer has stated that the aspire 5102 supports Turion X2s "up to the TL-60 and beyond", considering variants of the TL-60 run at 35 W TDP I would presume the 5102 has been designed to handle the higher 35 W TDP. Of course based on the overheating problems some are having with even the lower wattage models perhaps they didn't do a very good job (personally I have had zero overheating issues).

In any case good luck getting your hands on one of these top of the line Turions, as far as I know they are only available to OEMs at the moment, and even if you do manage to find one it's going to cost you several hundred dollars. If you do put a faster processor in it (say a TL-60 or faster), I would be interested to hear how it goes as I have not seen any information on that from other end users.

Wikipedia has a good rundown on the various models of X2 processors here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turion_64_X2

 

thank's everyone

 

just got a question about the aspire 5102 a freind of mine is getting random bluescreens with lines going across it then it reboots her computer.??? any help please!!!!!!!!! thanks in advance

 

When I bought my Acer 5102WLMi at Circuit City last Black Friday that had Windows XP Media Center Edition, it did not include a Windows XP Media Center Edition Setup CD-ROM. Is it supposed to include a Windows XP Media Center Edition Setup CD-ROM?

 

nope, most laptops don't come with a clean install disk.

 

Alright, thank you deltafx1942. I just started up my Acer Aspire 5102 WLMi and got the message: "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM. You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM. Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair." How am I supposed to fix this problem because when I bought the laptop, it did not include the original Setup CD-ROM? Please help me!! Thank you!!

 

assuming this is not the very first time you've started up the laptop, you were suppose to burn recovery disks during initial setup. or you can do a disk to disk repair using, i think F12 during bootup. the pqservice partition of your harddrive is suppose to contain an image of acer's factory conditions, so if you recover from there, you should be good.

 

Yea, this isn't the first time I started up the laptop. I forgot to burn recovery disks during the initial setup. What are the steps to repairing that error? I'm totally confused. Thanks in advance!!

 

most new laptops have a partition that is reserved in case of emergencies like yours. it allows the user to do a disk to disk (partition to partition) repair by restoring your computer to factory conditions, similar to what the disks would have done had you burned them.

the exact steps to get to the D2D boot page, i'm not quite sure, as I wiped that drive a long time ago. maybe some other people on this thread knows. i believe it is F12 when you first boot and see the acer logo. i'd suggest you search around on google and see what the steps are.

good luck

 

I got the laptop to boot and went into the Setup by pushing the F2 button. Can anybody tell me the steps to get to the disk to disk (partition to partition) boot page?

 

ichiro998 Unfortunately the only way to repair that error is going to be a full windows recovery. The classic windows "repair" option isn't available with notebooks these days that come with recovery disks as what is on the disk are nothing but image files which are used to restore windows. But you didn't burn these DVDs so either way they couldn't help you. Remember when you get back into windows to burn them because if your hard drive were to go so would windows.

Well here is what you will need to do to get windows working again. NOTE all of your data on drive c will be erased using D2D recovery but since you cannot get back into windows then I hope what is on partition c wasn't important to you or some kind of irreplaceable data. This is why the data or D partition is there so you can back up important stuff to that partition, as it isn't touched during the recovery process. Anyway here is what you will need to do step by step

1) At the post screen (the one that says acer) press F2 this will put you into the BIOS. You need to do this to make sure that the disk 2 disk(D2D) recovery option is enabled in the BIOS. If it isn't enable it and exit the BIOS of course saving the new settings.

2) Once the notebook restarts at the same POST screen press ALT+F10 to activate the disk 2 disk recovery console. If you don't catch the recovery console then restart and try again.

3) Once the recovery console has started follow the on screen instructions to recover windows. Doing this will return windows to the exact setup it had when it left the factory. The recovery process for XP media center edition should only take about ~10mins vs the 1hr+ it would take for the DVDs (hard drives are faster ) trust me on this I have done this several times with my 5102.

4) After recovery is complete the notebook will restart and it will start windows again. The prompts you will see after this are exactly what you saw when you first turned on the notebook i.e user account name password etc.

5) After you have successfully restored windows don't forget erecovery will prompt you to burn your back up disks I suggest you don't forget this time.

I hope all of the above steps were helpful to you.

 

that's right! alt-f10. now I remember.
During installation of XP Pro, I decided to wipe the PQSERVICE partition, so I can no longer do a D2D restore.

good luck ichiro998

 

Thanks so much Evolution, those steps made my laptop get backup and running once again. I learned that I should always backup everything.

 

I am happy I was able help you Remember in future you should use the data partition and offline backups (i.e cds dvds etc), so you don't lose data when windows has to be restored.

 

can anyone help me out?

 

Thanks again Evolution, I made a couple backups and I'll remember those steps that you mentioned.

 

You could try to use any other Windows XP installation CD (even a non legitimate one), all of them manage to fix systems quite well (provided it is fixable), for they don't check WGA.

Joe.

 

That could be caused by faulty RAM modules? Perhaps it he runs memtest in the machine shows something up.

In my case my machine RAM modules show errors in memtest, but I have not changed them for three reasons.

1.- I am waiting to raise more funds.
2.- I am also waiting for 2GB SODIMMS to become available in my country.
3.- It does not matter for me because Windows seems to be the only one who cares about the issue (BSOD sometimes), and I use Linux only

Joe.

 

Alright, thats a good method to use to recover my laptop. I'll attempt that solution in the future. Thank you Joe!!

 

My pleasure.
Joe.

 

has anyone found a solution to the jerky behavior caused by the vista ati drivers. I mean, the only drivers that don't cause this behavior is the ones that come with vista and even acers (when you can get them to install) do the the same as the all of the ati drivers (and yes i checked 7.7, they do it too). any help would be great.

 

Perhaps uninstalling Vista is the best solution there , that would get rid of the DRM stuff as well.

Joe.