The Acer 5102 Thread

The programs I've been installing since the first usage are Live Messenger, Acrobat Reader, Office 2000, DTM Race Driver 2, iTunes, Quicktime, Skype and Norton Antivirus 2006 (full version).

 

I was having the same problem as you, the acer programs not running and the framework.
The only way I can solve it was uninstaling ePerformance and reinstalling the other acer software you can download it at ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3100_5100_5110/driver

 

Thanks, I will try this tonight at home, I don't think it's a good idea to download tons of MB's here at my office .

 

Hello,

I have been reading this thread, and I purchased a 5102 about two weeks ago. I apologize if this has been brought up several times before, but I read the thread twice and couldn't find this info. My ATI Catalyst program shows that I have the 200m series, and from reading this thread, I have found that many people have downloaded updated drivers from ATI. I went to the ATI website, and looked everywhere, and it is still unclear to me what software I need to download. There are a lot of references to various versions of Catalyst, but I can't find any specific drivers for the Radeon Xpress 1100. I am really not sure what I should be downloading/installing. Could someone who has done this please describe exactly what they downloaded, and where to find it on the ATI website. Thank you very much for your help.

 

I'm in the same situation. I've downloaded the drivers from acer support. It seems they are the same for the 3100. I just haven't figured out how to update the drivers. When I try and install the drivers it gices an error message about the path is wrong and too many letters. Can anyone explain on how to download and install the X1100 graphics drivers. Also everyone is talking about a web cam on the 5102wlmi..I don't see one. I bought mine at Tigerdirect if that matters. also it says that I have a 100 gig 5400 rpm pata HDD. I also installed OCZ 1 gig ddr2. This things is pretty fast with the extra memory compared to my P4 2.66 DeskTop.

 

Enter here
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...00_5110/driver
and download the chipset_ati_v8.251.zip
When installing you'll have some options, I recommend only to install the driver, it should be updated fine

 

Saro1986, I appreciate the help, unfortunately the ftp address is of no use to me since access is denied. I have downloaded the "chipset_ati_v8.251.zip" file and opened it. It won't install and gives various "severe" error messages. I have even removed the present drivers and tried to install the x1100 drivers. and stll no luck. This Laptop is brand new I recieved it 16/09/06 so it's a day old. I have no software loaded on it except the normal MS updates. I have updated graphics drivers before and normally never had a problem. I'm wondering if perhap If I shouldn't just do complete reimage of the HDD. Tech support is closed right now to speak to someone..and the emails are generic at best. So if anyone else had this problem, Please let me know..Thanks

 

here is the address for the X1100 driver..on the Acer site. I don't know about the ATI site.
http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/fo...m/us&siteid=7293&words=all&keywords=&areaid=7

hopefully you'll have better luck then me with the install. Please let me know how it goes for you

 

I had the same problem with too many letters when trying to update the video driver. If you saved the file/folder to your desktop(like I did) then your full path is something like c:\Documents and Settings\(your username)\Desktop\(folder name)\(filename).exe

This is too long a path for Windows to work with. I moved the folder from my desktop to the root of my drive, then tried to launch the executible, and it worked.

I haven't tried to update any other drivers because my notebook has all the same versions of the rest of the drivers. The only other one that is a newer version is the BIOS. I'm hesitant to flash my BIOS though because there isn't any documentation that I can find to explain what updates are included, nor are there any explicit directions other than download this file and run it. If you mess up your BIOS then the notebook is pretty much screwed.

Also, the version Tigerdirect has is the AS5102WLMi-MCE, as opposed to the AS5102WLMi. The -MCE version is the one I purchased from Tigerdirect.com. Click here to see what I'm talking about.

I bought a 512meg RAM stick from Tigerdirect when I got my notebook. It was Corsair Valu-Select. It was messing up my notebook though and causing it to freeze up all the time so I had to remove it. I got advice in another thread that I should get a matched pair of RAM sticks to take advantage of the dual channel ability, but I haven't yet explored that. Soon though.

Hope this clears things up a little for you.

 

The exact download link from the Acer site is here.

Like I just mentioned above, you should save that file to your root directly, or c:\. That way you'll avoid the "too many letters" error that both edgexryder and I got. I'm actually surprised no one else got this, or perhaps they did and just figured it out on their own, as I did, without reporting it here. Regardless....make sure you remove the previous ATI drivers. I clicked on the "remove all ATI software" or something like that in the Add/Remove programs box. It left one ATI entry that no matter how many times I clicked remove just wouldn't go away. I then ran the executable and it loaded the new driver perfectly.

If you can't get it working shoot me a PM and I'll see if I can do more to help you figure it out.

 

gtoddh...Many Thanks for the excellent advice! You were right on the money! I followed your instructions and the driver loaded perfectly. and you were right I had downloaded on to the desk top. I am curious though about the locking up. I have had this do exactly that a couple of times. in regards to the matched sticks of DDR2 If I purchase another stick of the OCZ 1 gig ..would that be ok? I'll be using this machine to replace my desk top for awhile since I'm moving to Montreal in a few months and I really can't lug around my desk top. I play games and the such so I need as much speed as I can get.Thanks again for the grat advice

 

gtoddh - thank you very much for the help. That worked perfectly. I would add one additional step, if needed by some. I copied the downloaded zip file to the C:\ root directory as suggested, but still had the 'too many characters' error. So, the additional step I had to take was to simply rename the zip file something shorter, and it worked great.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to help out. I really appreciate it.

 

You're welcome!

I don't know exactly what RAM is good/bad, or even ok, for this notebook. Obviously it didn't like the Corsair. I haven't had the pc lock up once since I took out the extra 512 RAM I had installed myself (approx 1 week ago). It was locking up every day I used it. I removed the RAM upon advice of Acer tech support. They also had me perform a full system restore after removing the RAM. You may want to try removing the extra RAM you installed, perform a full system restore, then use your notebook for a week or so to see if it stops freezing. Sounds to me like these notebooks are pretty picky when it comes to RAM. Maybe we'll need to d/l CPU-Z or a similar program to see what brand of RAM is installed by Acer and match that. If it's not a name brand, or if it can't be identified then maybe even a pair of the same brand will work better together than 2 mismatched brands. I don't know.

I think there is also an easier way to do the video driver install. If we had just renamed the executable to something shorter it probably would have worked without having to move the folders around. Oh well - more than one way to skin a cat, right?

Let me know how it works out with your RAM/freezing issue.

 

Bought this notebook locally at CC, for about $975 after tax, with a $130 MIR. This one came with the 120gb 4200RPM, 1gb (2x512) RAM, and the .3camera. Got this for my girl as she is going to school.

First boot up and install everything takes a very long time, wasn't too happy with the speed at the moment. So I ordered a Seagate 100gb 7200RPM HDD and Mushkin 2gb (2X1gb) Ram. The laptop seemed to work ok with what it had, ran Madden 07 no problem stock, just wasn't happy with load times from the HD.

Received the new RAM and HD, installed the RAM first, random blue screen stop errors. This RAM http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820146440 DOES NOT WORK with this model, some kind of incompatibility with the chipset, neither Mushkin or Acer knows why. Not real sure what RAM works with this model, if someone successfully installs 2gigs of RAM in this model, please link us to the product.

Anyway, got the new 7200RPM HD installed and I tell you that this laptops speed is being held back by the HD! Felt just as fast as my dual core desktop, reinstalled WinXP Pro Sp2, and all the programs needed and it worked great. The load times on windows are great compared to the first HD and OS image.

As for the processor drivers, I did the normal dual core driver install. The hotfix from Microsoft explained here:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81429

This one from amd
www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utlities/amdcpu.exe

You can install the dual core optimizer if you want, I didn't b/c I didn't think there was a reason with the AMD driver installed, I guess either way. Says it gives you a 1-5% increase in performance, but it's more to help Windows understand how to use both cores more efficiently.

I installed all drivers from Acers website. All is up and running great, not really sure if she would even need the 2gb RAM now b/c she only uses it for school and it's not worth another $200+ for it.

So in my opinion, with the models with the 4200rpm drives, switch it to a 7200RPM drive if you want a performance increase on all around boot time and normal install and usage. They say it has a bad effect on battery time, but she uses it always on AC adapter, so I can't comment on that.

 

Thanks but I just figured out my problem the system performance was set to low lol. Now every thing looks normal.

This Laptop is awesome by the way.

 

Received the new RAM and HD, installed the RAM first, random blue screen stop errors. This RAM http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820146440 DOES NOT WORK with this model, some kind of incompatibility with the chipset, neither Mushkin or Acer knows why. Not real sure what RAM works with this model, if someone successfully installs 2gigs of RAM in this model, please link us to the product.

I have tried various brands of RAM in the past, everything from the cheapo "no names" to the top of the line brands. I have routinely gone back to the same 2 brands for compability. Those brands being Ultra and OCZ. It seems that I have never had issues with these 2 brands. I have a new 1 GiG stick to add to the one that I installed yesterday. And I'll be happy to post my findings. BTW anyone looking for a 512 stick cheap..

UPDATE: 9/17

I have installed 2, 1 gig Sticks of OCA (UHP) PC4200 DDR2. It appears in my case that, they are not compatible in my 5102wlmi. It initially rebooted and then gave the CKDSK warning. After a reboot, the screen then locked up. Runs fine with just 1 stick.

 

Has anyone been able to install 2 gigs of Ram in this laptop? It seems that OCZ isn't compatible in this as well..The single stick of is now causing screen freezes. so it's back to the stick of 512 ...

 

Getting this nice laptop today. Can anyone tell me which drivers to install and where to get them. Please include step by step (I'm kind of new to updating drivers).

Thanks

 

I bought one stick of this OCZ RAM http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820227110 and it has been running good so far.

 

many Thanks, but thats the same p/n as what i have to return. My screen freezes after a few hours of run time. I spoke to acer support yesterday and they have said that ACER "recommends Crucial and/or Inferion" branded memory. Appearently thats the brands that they use in OEM. I just hate to spend 150 a gig for crucial memory.

 

Acers website has all of the drivers that your looking for. including the X1100 driver. Which will probably the first thing that you'll want to do. The drivers are listed for the 3100 series laptop..this shares the same drivers so don't worry. There are the instructions to install on page 11 of this forum..I also did the microsoft hot fix for the dual cores as well as the Acer optimizer for dual cores.( I was having trouble playing a game) this thing now rocks. Enjoy your new laptop..

 

hi guys,


i just wonder anyone tried 3dmax ,autocad or ps in this notebook(especially 3dmax)i'm about to buy this notebook but that makes me think

thx

 

Okey dokey, I got it done. Thanks a lot. I don't need to install the new ATi Catalyst driver anymore do I (from ATi site)?

 

Hi all, newbie here with a two week old 5102 which has a couple of problems. Glad to find this forum. Running xp pro on an Aspire 5102WLMi.

First, I cannot run epower management. I completely removed all the acer tools then reloaded the framework and epower, and on the main epower panel i can see everything, but no data and i cannot change anything.

When i removed it the AMD utility worked fine, but i wanted to see if the reinstall fixed anything. it did not.

[edited to remove note on display brightness - i was being an idiot and i figured out how to adjust it on the keyboard]

acer support seems pretty useless for this problem, but maybe i am just stupid and missing something obvious??? I fear the lcd panel is bad somehow, but that still does not explain the epower issue.

anyone have any ideas?

i like the 5102, but this is a bit annoying...

 

Hmmm.....so you re-installed the eManagement application from the Acer support website and it doesn't work? I found the problem to be related to installing Betas such as Internet Explorer RC1, Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2, Windows Defender Beta, etc. Try uninstalling any of those (if you have doen so) and see whether it fixes the problem.

 

Thanks nix. I recall (not with complete assurance, but I am pretty sure) this did not work from the beginning, and since the only software installed before I started playing with the 5102 was Office 2003 and VirusScan, which I really can't do without, I guess I will remove epower and use AMD's sw, unless Acer comes up with a solution. Anyway, I do not have any MS betas installed.

I will post any solution they come up with.

I did have this weird thing happen with the brightness on my monitor - somehow it set itself to the lowest level. I do not see how I could have done this myself by inadvertently hitting both the function and lower brightness keys together, though it is possible. Is there some other way screen brightness gets reset? Maybe some of my video editing stuff, tho I have neither done much with it the last two weeks, other than installing it, nor ever remember it resetting screen brightness on any other system before.

Just sharing - easy enough to deal with when I figured out the keys to use, and for now I am prepared to assume I did something to make it happen.

 

So, umm, is the x16 PCI Express actually working for anyone? Because my Catalyst control center reports the bus type as PCI, which is confirmed by Everest home edition and further supported by a whopping 2 frames per second in 3DMark05 benchmarks. A quick romp through the bios turned up no PCI-E settings, and another little investigation session with Everest reveals that the bios doesn't know what PCI Express is. So I've got this fairly decent graphics card running on a bus that's been obsolete for about 8 years. Anybody else in the same boat?

 

Mine is showing as PCI too.

 

So is the display model at my local Circuit City.

I get great performance out of mine for applications that require small bandwidth and high memory, like SolidWorks, but horrible performance for high bandwidth applications, like games. I've been tinkering and reading for days, and the best I can figure is that the bios provided by Acer doesn't support PCI-E. I'm using the latest (2.0) version from the support site.

Do you have performance problems as well? I get 2 fps in 3DMark05: http://www.majorgeeks.com/3DMark05_d4376.html

 

I installed SuSE 10.1 smp, I have problems with sound system. Not tried wireless and camera. Other works quite well. Sound system cause start problems, newest alsa and SuSE kernel, not solve the problem (my guess SuSE kernel is broken)
I tried knoppix 5.0.1 it started smothly, worked, but the display not use ati driver.

 

Oh yeah, Linux. 64-bit Ubuntu Edgy works great with mine. Sleep even works about 80% of the time, and when it doesn't work it just fails to sleep, not fails to resume, so it isn't a big deal. It also starts up and shuts down very quickly (using upstart and teardown). XGL runs very smoothly, but requires a little tinkering to get the necessary mesa glx extensions working with the fglrx driver.

Sound didn't work for me in Suse either, which is odd because the HD audio is supported by ALSA and worked without any tinkering in Arch Linux.

And in keeping with my PCI-E issue, glxgears runs at about 300fps. Compare that to 500fps on my 32MB x4 AGP Radeon Mobility 7500 in my 4 year old laptop and you have more evidence that the Acer bios is severely flawed.

 

What about Lightscribe on 5102 DVDRW? is supported?, i had tried with Droppix Label Maker and it doesn't found any lightscribe compatible device.
I have bought the Acer 5102 laptop recentry and this are my conclusions:

- Great screen , note:8
- Great wifi perfomance, note:9
- Good quality sound but low noise, note:6
- Usefull web cam, note:7
- Great multi-task, working with Visual Studio, macromedia , Photoshop, note:8
- TOO SLOWLY HD, my unit use 80 gb 5400 Pata drive, slow , too slow, note:5
- Good keyboard, note:7
- Great mouse pad, note 9

I try to buy the bluetooth internal adaptor but Acer Spain don´t sell this item, so...optional? no.

Today i´ll install Suse 10.1 for try XGL but with this simple ati....

Buy i´m happy with this laptop, dear Vista, when you come???

 

What about Lightscribe ?

 

I thought I'd share the info I got from Acer Support about my memory upgrade question. I was asking specifically which modules they are supporting for Acer 5102 WLMi. But they sent me this reply (a week alter):

------

Below are the memory specifications for the Aspire 5100 notebook. I hope this is helpful.

Chip ATi SB460
Feature 256/512/1024MB + two 1.8V JEDEC standard 200-pin DDRII SODIMM memory module connectors
Adjustable 128MB UMA VGA memory share from system memory
Supports memory size per socket 1024MB
Supports maximum memory size 2G (by two 1024MB SO-DIMM module)
Supports DIMM package 200-pin soDIMM
Memory module combinations You can install memory modules in any combinations as long as they match the above specifications.


Regards,
Acer Online Support Team

 

I've got an onboard video, which normally is understood by windows as being a PCI. Is there an version of this laptop with a stand alone video card?

 

I tried 2Gig G.Skill Ram 667, open box from newegg. It freezes if it just sits for a while, or Ill get random reboot. Returned. Got 2 brand new 1gig sticks of OCZ ram. Same problem?! I havent even used the stock ram yet, going to test. What compatible 2gig 667 is everyone using?

 

I am assuming you were referring to 3d Studio Max. I am running 3ds max 7 right now as we speak on my 5102wlmi. Other than taking a little longer to load (probably due to the slower hard drive....definitely because of the slower hard drive).

Once the program finally loads, everything runs smoothly. I have not rendered any large animations yet, but I am guessing these will take a while too...again due to the hard drive. I would recommend getting a faster hard drive as long as you can always run off of ac power.

 

hi,
i have this laptop with ubuntu 32 bit and xgl : all is ok.
the only problem is webcam and card reader : anyone has found a solution for this ?

thanks

 

I wish I knew!

Thanks for taking the time and $$ to try different brands of RAM. If you find some that works please share the info!

 

MEMORY:
People from Newegg (Where I got this from) didnt seem to have problems with adding 512MB or a Gig. But anyone wanting to run 2GIG Dual Channel seem to have problems.

INCOMPATIBLE MEMORY:
"two different 1G/DDR2-667 memory sticks made by Patriot Memory because it causes random reboots and lock-ups. Probably an incompatibility problem that I thought I share, to possible save someone else a restocking fee"


"IF YOU WANT COMPATIBLE MEMORY, I RECOMMEND THE KINGSTON KAC-MEME/1G as it is known compatible with this laptop. I have 2gb up and running with no problems. This after trying the mushkin 2gb kit, and 2 1gb sticks of corsair value select which neither worked properly."

I've read a couple places the Kingston KAC-MEME/1G sticks work, but they are only the 533, not the 677

 

Found this post by googling - I've had the notebook for a couple of days and have exactly the same brightness problem. I'm able to set the brightness through keyboard Fn + right arrow or through ePower tray icon, but the ePower (or some other program, don't know, but at least it is visible on the ePower) keeps on automatically changing it back to the minimum, zero. Acer web site didn't have any never components for the Emp. Tech than the ones on my notebook.

Did also experience the problem with closing the lid and then awakening from the sleep...

Otherwise it's nice.

 

I've had my 5102 for about a month now. I have never had a DVD burner before, but the DVD drive on this machine just 'seemed' really slow. It was taking about 1 hour, 45 minutes to rip a 2 hour movie using DVDShrink. That's really slow. On the status screen of DVDShrink, I saw that the transfer rate was about 1000 KB/s.

So, I was browsing through the forums today, and I came across a post that talked about slow DVD drives on another model Acer. Below is just a partial quote b/c I only grabbed the portion of the post that I thought was relevant to me at the time:

Another thing I noticed was that one of the machine DVD writing was a lot slower. I tracked it down to the secondary IDE controller (the one thats connected to the DVD) was set as PIO mode and not DMA mode 2. I deleted the secondary controller and hey presto, the drive was much faster. Funny how 2 identical machines can be so different!

Now, I'm not a very technical person, but I know just enough to be dangerous. So I decided to check this out. On my 5102, I noticed that on my Primary IDE Channel (in Device Manager) that Device 0 (the hard drive, I was assuming) was set to Transfer Mode: DMA if available, and Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5. Device 1 (I was assuming the DVD drive) was set to Transfer Mode: PIO Only, and Current Transfer Mode: PIO. So, I changed the Transfer Mode on Device 1 to DMA if available. Unfortunately, the Current Transfer Mode remained as PIO even after a reset.

So, after taking another look at the post I saw, I decided to take a chance, and uninstall the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller (after creating a system restore point, just in case), and then restarted the computer. After the restart, the system "found new hardware" - the DVD drive, and re-installed the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller and the Primary IDE Channel. After restarting again, as directed, I checked the Primary IDE Channel again to find that Device 1 was now set to Transfer Mode: DMA if available, and Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2.

What a difference! After making this change, the DVD drive performed about 4 TIMES FASTER!! On the status screen for DVDShrink, instead of 1000 KB/s, it was not about 4500 KB/s. Instead of taking an hour and 45 minutes to rip a movie, it took about 25 minutes!

Now, I don't know why Acer would send out machines that are performing so far below their capabilities, but that's rediculous. First, the video drivers. Then, the FAT32 files system, now using a much slower Transfer mode on the DVD drive. What gives?

 

I haven't ripped/burned any DVDs other than the system restore DVDs.

Just checked my IDE settings and they're both DMA. I have no idea why your one was set to PIO and that it couldn't be changed without a reinstall. Strange indeed.

As for the video drivers, I don't know why Acer sent out these notebooks with the wrong drivers. Maybe the chipset didn't have a driver that was specific to it prior to the time these notebooks were released.

As for FAT32, who the F knows why Acer uses it. I'm not fully versed in the pros/cons of FAT32 vs NTFS, but from what I do understand FAT32 has limitations and there really is no advantage by sticking with it. I haven't yet done a conversion because FAT32 works for me. Until a need arises I'm sticking with it, only because I can continue to use the built-in restore if needed.

 

The reason for the FAT32 is the recovery system, it is kind of based on some Linux core.
My 5102 was extremely slow when i booted it up at first, but after installing a Windows XP without all the Acer software, installing the Omega drivers, and using NHC, it is just fine.

The battery is, for some reason, underrated, I read that it was about two hours of battery time in the webshop i bought it at, but it can easily take about three hours watching movies in Winamp.

Not to mention it does look pretty cool.

 

I just bought this NB 4 days ago, I like it.

I install XP 64bit and Ubuntu 6.06 AMD64 SMP on it, runs smooth.
Ubuntu seems work, but not using ATI driver, after install ATI driver and aticonfig, X crash when start. Don't know how to fix it so use the default setting again.
64bit XP runs ok, but can't find drivers for some device(modem), webcam does have driver, but seems doesn't work.

I think recorvy system is windowsXP core.

Does anyone upgrade the HardDrive?? Does this NB support SATA HDD??
I know Xpress 1100 do support SATA, but did Acer leave the connector there?

 

Hi guys, can u tell me how can I see whether its really PCI-Express. Ive checked system info but it shows PCI bus.

 

Hi everyone, this is a great forum and with lots of info!

I am planning to buy a 7200rpm hard drive to upgrade but does anyone know how to remove the hard drive from the compuer?

I removed the outer covering of where the hard drive is and I can't find a way to take out the hard drive...

Also, are there any pc-5300 RAM that are known to work?

Thanks!

 

I test this NB with memtest86+ V1.6
And I found out that it shows error on address 00000000
But during using this NB, it seems no broblem with ram.
I run prime92 and superPI and got no error.
I guess the error in memtest is because the share memory for VGA.
Hope it's not the bad memory problem.....

 

hi, does anyone know if its possible to replace the cmos battery on the acer aspire 5102WLMi notebook?

Thanks

 

Hi, I am having constant crashes and reboots on my notebook in the last few days, specially with AC cable plugged off.
Does anyone knows why?? Do you think is a battery problem?
Thanks for your responses