The Acer 5102 Thread

Thank you Klickyhjoe

 

Have you tried to mod the ATI desktop drivers for mobile use? I have and I am seeing no issues but then again I don't do any serious gaming on my 5102 . You can mod them using the mobility mod tool found here (follow the instructions to modify the desktop driver). You can give it a try and see if it helps at all.

 

Does the new catalyst 7.7 drivers work for anyone? At least not for me
You can download it from ati's site.

 

I am running the new ATI 7.7 drivers, modded with mod tools. running ok, using control center. unfortunately the ATI 1100 Xpress is OpenGL broken.

 

I have a Acer Aspire 5102WLMi and recently it started up during the middle of the night after I put it on standby for the night. The message ERROR 0200: Failure Fixed Disk 0? What does that mean? How can I fix this error? Please help me fix this error!! Thanks in advance!!

 

According to Google that error is present in already fault/soon to fail hard drives. I don't wanna scare you but if you can still boot into your system BACK UP all your data.

Joe.

 

Does anyone know if the amd dual-core optimizer is useless or is it needed to get full performance of the laptop? Im using it now but i don't see any different without it...

 

it's for older AMD cpus, not Turion64 x2

 

Actually the AMD dual core optimizer is intended for all AMD dual core processor systems that are running windows XP. You see XP unlike vista wasn't designed with multi-core processors in mind, it was designed however to use multiple processors(which is different).

To counter act this AMD came up with their dual core optimizer to try to fix the problem that XP has with multi-core processors. Microsoft has since released their hotfix for XP. This forum has a section dedicated to this whole matter and you can find it here (you will also find out how to correctly apply the hotfix). Under normal circumstances you won't see much difference on XP as the core itself wasn't initially designed for multi-core use.

 

Thx a lot evolution!

 

I've tried the 7.7's and they work, at least the vista ones do. The downside is that they have the same jerky, but not framerate inhibiting problem that every non-microsoft driver I install in this thing. in other words, I'm running the standard vista driver that came with the OS. Acer tells me that they don't support my Vista upgrade and the drivers that came with it. So, I'm stuck between running Vista or going back to MCE and dealing with that mandatory FAT32 partition that I know will start causing problems. so, I'm basically done with this laptop. The mouse is breaking and that is enough to turn it in for my extended warranty, which will send me a gift card for the price of the machine. So this will probably be my last post on this forum. I can't stand that is laptop and I hope each and everyone one of fixes the problems you guys have with it. I can't wait to get my new machine. Good luck all.

 

My 5102 has just been returned from the Acer factory. Got a new keyboard and motherboard after keys stopped working. Now the problems are worse! I get multiple BSOD under XP (MCE) due to IO errors. Booting is problematic. Get "Failure Fixed Disk 0" randomly. In BIOS the IDE 0 and 1 are on top. When the id string is not there it won't boot. After a couple of times rebooting it will recognize and will boot ok again. After booting no problems under Linux live cd. All hardware seems to be ok. Weird? They changed the motherboard and now I got the latest BIOS 3.0.5. Seems that the old one was more stable (laptop was bought in US in nov 2006, so probably v2.70. Am now doing diagnostics on the Hitachi harddisk with DFT tool. Any ideas? If I send it back, I will be without laptop for a month again...
Update: DFT tool says that the harddisk is fine, no errors. Now checking memory, also looks fine.
Could it be that they replaced with the wrong type motherboard? The system settings say it is a Aspire 3100. I had a 5102!. Serial number changed from LXABH0J009... to LXABK05129...

 

my 5102 sucks to the death, I'm ordering a ThinkPad T61 instead.

I always get blue screens, and this cheap FAT32 Acer insists to use with XP make my laptop always crash.

Don't buy Acer products again at all.

 

Reading all the problems you guys have with your 5102s I must feel fortunate because.

1.- Mine has never failed me (just had to replace the HD but I was gonna replace it anyway for a faster one).
2.- If it fails it is not under warranty anymore because I am living in a different country (not where I purchased it).

Many of you talk about the FAT32 file system as if it were a great problem when it is actually very easy to convert it to NTFS http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984.aspx

 

Mine 5102 has never had any errors. I like this one!

 

I also have never had any problems with my 5102 (knock on wood ) but I think my next notebook might just be a HP. I agree the fat32 issue is not a problem as converting is as easy as saying "1,2,3" . My problem is the xpress 1100 and it's poor openGL performance. Oh well I won't be looking for a new notebook for atleast another 2 years so my 5102 should serve me well, my previous acer travelmate is still working to this day no problems either (thinking I will test linux on that )

 

Well for me, my 5102A is still in good shape for 3 months now, i have two os in it namely xp pro and vista home premium(pre-installed). and had no issue at all up to this moment(cross finger hehe). i been using it to play americas army online(3 to 4 hours playing everyday ang using wireless connection) and my frame rate usually from 35 to 50 FPS. I can say i'm happy with it. BTW my 5102a cpu is only single core which 2.2 MK-38 and my gpu is x1300

 

HI guys! How do I get the internal modem back in my laptop? My wife was chatting through dial-up using Yahoo messenger and then suddenly the connection just got cut off and a error message appeared. When the laptop was restarted, she cannot connect to the Internet anymore and the message that appears is "modem is not connected(?) or the modem is busy". The Device Manager is not showing any modem device in the list.

This already happened before and the technician just made some changes in the BIOS setting. Unfortunately my wife cannot remember what he did. I think he was saying something about the Auto Detect setting in the BIOS.

 

I just took a look in the BIOS and I didn't see anything like you explained (i.e auto detect). Try contacting acer tech support and see what they advise you to do. This is almost like what happened to me when windows refused to see my touchpad I got around it for a while using an external mouse but I eventually got tired of that, then all I did from there was reinstall windows and it worked again. I hope you don't have to go to such extremes .

 

ٍSo why does my 5102 hangs and I get blue screen all the time?

 

The RAM can't keep up...thats why, its hard to overclock using clockgen...it sucks, it even happened to mine when i tried to overclock above 2Ghz

 

I know what you mean. My real problem is the Xpress 1100 too. I don't do any gaming but I would love if it supported Beryl + AIXGL in Linux. It is just painful to configure XGL.

Joe.

 

I am glad most of you are happy with the 5102. Mine is back at the Acer factory in Germany for repair (it was on International Travel Warranty). Any advise on what could be wrong? A really weird problem. If I saw in the Acer eSettings program that the new motherboard is a Aspire 3100 , do you think they put a 3102WLMi motherboard back in stead? The cpu's were still reporting as dual core Turion. What do you guys see in the eSettings with your 5102WLMi's , MB and BIOS tab? Any help is appreciated. Am not sure Acer engineers can quickly solve my problem, am thinking of faulty IDE controller, IDE cable or something

 

EVOLUTION,The modem came back again by itself after a few "Restarts". I also don't want my wife to re-install Windos XP as this takes a long time and keeps asking to re-install the other ACer drivers. I have a desktop PC and sometimes I lose the modem also and I repaired this by reinstalling WInXP.

As for the "Auto Detect" Option, I am not sure about it. This was how the technician explained to my wife. Maybe he did not do anything and the MOdem just came up again.

 

heh!

Too bad, my 5102 stopped booting up, and says the hd may have a virus, while I have NAV, and firewall, then I performed a recovery from the dvd, and I still get the same, I took it to Acer SC to take care of it, and I told them about the repeated blue screen I get with XP Home, and sound card noisy cranky sound and it always hanged while MS crash report site says it's hardware problem.

Acer SC which also do maintain HP told me "This is our major problems with Acer, it has no quality hardware at all.

Acer SUCKS big time!

 

My only current issue with my 5102 is that it refuses to boot from time to time. It seems as if it forgets about the hard drive (and does not boot). It takes me several attempts to make it recognize the thing and boot.

The problem appears mostly after I carried the laptop around and sometimes the only solution to make it work again is to carry it around a little bit more.

I think the hard drive is to blame for this because it does strange noises randomly (not due to normal operation). Since I have all my data in a USB HD I am not worried if the drive dies but I will replace it as soon as I can anyway.

 

My 5102 is having some problems for about a month.
The screen streaks and locks up unless I press the hinge which seems to fix the problem.

I'm quite sure the problem is the LCD screen. I'm going to call Acer tomorrow and see what they can do to fix it.

 

I tried the 7.7 Catalyst Suite for XP Home for the last 2 weeks, and it's the only set of drivers (except for the original Acer drivers) that didn't cause the black screen or blue lines (I had more problems when running on battery).

I'm tempting fate, and going to try the 7.8 Catalyst drivers... Hopefully these work, too...

 

I have already installed the 7.8 Catalyst drivers and I have no problems at all. Of course I am not using the "standard" drivers as I have modded them for notebook use using driver heaven's mobility mod tool.

 

Well, I spoke too soon. I needed to run off battery, and the same thing started happening.

I don't remember the specifics on modifying the drivers - was it posted here?

 

Does this work for Aspire 5102?

 

Hello guys,

Just joined the Forum, but I´ve been looking into it for some time now.

I´ve bought an 5102WLMi in last december 2006. Worked just fine, for almost exactly three months, when, after a very strange system crash - the screen went light blue with horizontal stripes and wouldn´t turn on again for a while - the keys and the touchpad were dead. The notebook turned on just normal, but there were no way to make the keys and the touchpad to work - or a USB mouse, for that matter.

Took it to authorized service and had to pay for a new motherboard - it is a refurbished notebook, and the MoBo was almost half the original price... Since I live in Brazil, the MoBo took almost four long months to arrive. Well, it´s not a month since I´ve got it back, and the exactly same problem happened. The system crashed - the screen didn´t turned blue with horizontal lines this time - after that it didn´t turn on and, when it did, the keys and the mouse were dead again.

Had someone experienced some problem like that? Any suggestions or information that might help me?

In both occasions, after the crash, I´ve noticed a very strong heat in the area just bellow the keyboard, on the left side. Is there a chance for my notebook to ever work just fine? So far, the authorized service had it around more than I did...

I´ve read in the thread that someone had problems using it in a position that is not perfectly horizontal. I use my notebook over a CoolerMaster NotePal W1 cooler, which has a light inclination to it - in order to improve the ergonomy. Could that be the cause of my problem?

Any info that might help me, I´ll be thankfull.

 

I got this problem before the only solution was to change the mobo, this is a 5100 specific problem in france since that you describe these symptom they change your mobo, but a french tech let us know that all the mobo go to repair and after they use them as spare part, then its maybe possible to repair her...
And also remember to take guaranty for your spare parts.

 

Help! I don't know if this started with the last Catalyst installation, but my ePower Management program is driving me up the wall. Every 2-3 days, the program keeps changing it's own settings! (?) I'll leave my computer for a few minutes and find it hibernating.

I restart the computer and check the settings, and the computer is set to hibernate at 3 minutes, and to hibernate if I close the lid. For the 300th time, I turn off hibernation, and set 'do nothing' for closing the lid, but within 3 days the settings are back to those settings. The first time it was extremely annoying to have my computer hibernate with the lid closed or just for no reason, but now after a couple of weeks I'm going nuts.

Please help!!!!

 

Are you using windows vista or XP? Check the power settings in the control panel and see what it is set to in there. I don't use any of those acer utilities as to me they are redundant software. I just use a combination of Rmclock and windows power management as my main power management and I don't have any of the issues you described. I know acer's empowering software can be a little buggy therefore I never use it...

 

Similarly, I dumped most of the Acer utilities from my laptop. ePower Management kept setting the brightness to 0, despite being plugged in and me having changed the setting back, and the windows power management features being disabled.

In the end I gave up with all of the Acer stuff (apart from drivers and Launch Manager, which makes the special keys/buttons work) and have a much happier lappy now.

 

OK, well I've been without the ePower Management for a few days, now, but still have the same problem. After 2-3 hours, my power settings change into something ridiculous - 5 minutes for monitor and hard-drive turn-off, standby in 20 minutes (!), 'Close Lid' is always on standby... I'm used to just closing the lid and leaving the computer to download or burn discs, but the computer always goes to standby if I leave it for any amount of time.

Virus Scan is clear, no spyware found. I'm starting to remove software to see if one of them is triggering this. Anyone with ideas before I end up removing all of my software?

 

Have you checked the Windows power settings as suggested by Evolution?

 

Hello I have a Apire 5102 with the xpress x1100, I have been searching all day through this forum but have not found anyone with a similar problem.

I used to play WOW fine before, on low settings and it ran great.
I than tried to update my drivers to play Guild wars, and this is when the nightmare began. Every game I play now including WOW runs fine than starts legging severely for afew seconds than runs smooth again and repeats.
I have tried the omega drivers, the newest catalyst drivers and even reverted back to my original drivers supplies with my laptop. Still all do the same thing.

I;m don't know that much about computers but to me if WOW worked fine before it should work fine now.

This is so frustrating, can anyone please help me

 

I checked and I have a bluetooth sticker on bottom of my laptop,when I turn on the button it is enabled,even in my device manager it apears,and it says broadcom blah USB device? I installed driver that was given with laptop,but it still doesn't recognize mobile phone? When I open bluetooth devices and turn the discovery on,error pops out-bluetooth service error. Why?Please help!

 

I barely know anything in computers and im wondering what is a driver that everyone is talking about. I just bought this notebook and i got no idea what im doing :S

Habs all the way

 

Ctipz.....theres a lot of people that has had this problem b4...strange u didnt noticed it, i myself had it, with some other people back in the day....believe me....all you need to do is grab a can of compressed air, disarm the bottom of ur laptop, identify the fan, and get a load of that compressed air in there, get the airflow conduncts clean, specially near the left USB-broadband connections, just where the air comes out, and believe me....you should be fine....thats the ultimate solution, its nothing wrong with drivers or games....just overheating problem...bet your left side of the lappy gets very warm, and that few seconds lag is well known among us....just do that dude...

P.D: im a WoW playa too!! zomgroflmaobbq!! leeroy jenkins

 

hi ctipz,
try to open your notebook and clear the cooler system, mine was droping the fps when i play Guild Wars, and, after i clean up the cooler system, everything becomes normal again.
Just open the back lift, remove the fan, and clean the cooler and reasembly it again.

 

hi, i have a 5102, and im trying to get my use my phones blue tooth, but when i flick the blue tooth switch, the light doesnt turn on, and nothing is displayed on my screen.. any ideas?

 

Does your 5102 actually have the bluetooth module installed? For instance when you hit the switch on the front of the notebook do you see "no device" show up on the screen? If so then don't bother trying to connect to your phone because your notebook doesn't have bluetooth. If bluetooth were working when you hit the switch a blue light should come on. On my 5102 I don't have bluetooth so when I hit the switch I get nothing no lights nothing.

You see acer builds a universal chassis for a particular series so even if the component is missing the button is still on the chassis. I know this situation is very frustrating and confusing to many acer users, but that is they way they make it.

 

oh dear god thats simply stupid....in that case the option for the switch should be standerd....BAH.. Anyway thanks alot evo

 

ok. I was having the coloured stripes crash for at least a month. I have try everything, from cleaning to undervolting. Finally, I'm pretty sure it's a problem with synaptics touchpad drivers. I've made a clean install of a new xp pro sp2, install all drivers from acer, BUT NOT synaptics one. All was perfect for a week or so, but I was missing synaptics features like scrolling, etc. So I install synaptics drivers from acer website, reboot and the "colorful screen of death" appeared in 5 minutes. So I restored windows generic driver for touchpad and now is running fine again.

do you think this might be the problem?

and forgive my poor english

 

I can say from my observations that it probably wasn't the synaptics drivers. If they were the cause of this I would think that a number of other notebook manufacturers would have suffered the same issues as many notebooks use synaptic touchpads. What I suspected that was causing those "colorful line crashes" was nothing but a poorly written BIOS.

Acer has released many BIOS updates for the 5100 series since last year with each one fixing a number of issues. One of those BIOS updates seems to have sorted out whatever error was causing those colorful lines as I haven't seen them now in almost a year. I use the synaptics drivers for my touchpad with no issues...

 

Hi Indeterminate I have face this problem, and here are my observation symptoms :

The touchpad and keyboard not responding and or the sreen coloured stripes crash,



I found 2 possibillity for this issue :


the first one, a south bridge problem due to bad quality component I have had this problem and when it was hapening the right part of the keyboard was hot near from the palm rest, by studying the service manual I find that this was the place of the south bridge and when I send my lappy for repairing to Acer they directly change the motherboard.


The second : I saw on the scheme that the touchpad and keyboard depend of a ship named ENE KB910 and maybe the fault come from it.


Sure that it's a hardware problem, resulting of the failure of low price component...

block diagram

 

Hi,
I noticed problems playing openGL based games. I reinstaled the drivers and updated them to the last one (7.9) but the problem persists, my SO is WinXP MCE. the problem apears when i tried to play call of dutty with friends and it shows 4 fps. I use to play guild wars and another games DX based and i noticed no problems with them.

I've already tried a lot of desperate solutions, but none worked for me, like wrappers opengl.

Do you have any idea how can i fix it?

Thanks in advance.