The Acer 5102 Thread

Hello all,

I was just wondering:

Has anyone tried Windows Vista on this laptop yet? (5102). Ive been considering downloading the torrent but I hear that it stops working after 30 days, so im just waiting for now until it is properly "adjusted", maybe it just isnt worth it right now, maybe someone can comment on both the 32 and 64 vers... and if we should still wait.

Also

I really do want to upgrade the memory on this awsome laptop to 2 GIGS memory, will you see a significant difference in Gaming with 2 gigs?? , or would I be better off getting a faster RPM HD instead? one predicament I see is that this laptop has 2 512's in it , so Id need to buy 2 1024's but, what the hell do I do with the 2 512 singles? maybe someone can suggest a good deal somewhere that takes these 2 512's and puts in 2 gig's rams , a trade/upgrade dealie. I dont mind even putting in the memory in myself but then I suppose id have to sell the mem stick on craigs, but all stock lappies come with 2 512's im sure so I'd assume having a problem selling them.

So if anyone has some info on the best/cheapest/most efficient way to get my laptop to 2gigs id be more than interested to read and Id also like to hear some takes on Vista experience, particualy experiences with Vistas which were torrented

p.s im in the GTA (Brampton) Canada so local mem solution would be ideal, though, Ill be getting my first creditcard in a week or 2

peace

 

I plan on buying memory on ebay. And you can sell your 2 512's there. Just make sure the person you buy from ships to Canada.

 

anyone else getting random Lockups and freezes where the whole screen turns white or you get some weird vertical lines going down the whole screen, im forced to rebot everytime this happens. I'm assuming this is a video card problem with the laptop or the laptop is always to **** hot

 

Yea, I too am getting random lockup and freezes. Especially when I decide to turn on/off wireless. It would also freeze whenever the computer goes into standby or hibernate mode. Its VERY ANNOYING, especially when the notebook decides to freeze when I'm taking notes in class.

Yea...my computer turns black with weird vertical lines too.

 

yeah to be honest my computer DID Freeze right after I connected to MSN , hmm maybe it is a wireless card problem, everyone keep an eye out if theres a connection between the wireless and the lockups, if there is a connection

 

Vista RC2 works Great on my 5102, it doesn't expire until may 2007

I do however have 2GB of memory. I would not suggest using vista with anything less than 1GB.

 

I have been suffering from random freezes and reboots since buying this laptop a couple of months back from Newegg. I purchased an additional 1GB of Kingston Value RAM from Newegg at the time of purchase. The system recognised the RAM and seemed to run fine. However, I have come to believe the additional RAM is the source of the freeze ups based on several postings on this forum. I took the additional RAM out last night and left the computer running all night with no problem. That is the longest that it has run without a freeze up so I am beginning to believe the RAM is the problem. The original RAM is Hynix. I would love to buy duplicate RAM to the original but am struggling to find a commercial source for Hynix RAM. The RAM that did not work consistently was Kingston KVR533D2S4/1G.

 

Hi,

I just joined this forum and I am seriously considering buying this laptop.

I know this question was asked, did anybody try Xp 64-bit on this laptop?

Thanks.

 

ImpetuousRacer, how long have you had the Crucial RAM? I might have to consider paying an arm to get that ram!

 

hey guys i am seriously considering to buy this laptop, first i heard circuitcity was offering it for 749 $ so decided to buy but by that time it was sold out and now i saw it in walmart site but that site does not mention anything about the webcam , the picture is also not clear http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5280740
can any one help me and tell me whether this has a a integrated webcam and i would be very helpful if any one can post the full specs of this wonderful laptop,
hey treominator how did you get it for 600 man , i envy you ,please suggest whether i should go for this one, i need a webcam because i frequently use video conferencing , plz guys help me out

 

Why the super pi 2M in the Aspire 5102 is too slow when comparison with intel core duo processor? Two minutes is too long for new processor. Bad Configuration?
I think that AMD Turion 64 X2 have performance similar that Intel Core duo but not true.
I very disappointed with notebook

 

256 L2 cache. If it had a 512 or 1MB L2 cache, it would perform alot better.

The 5102 uses 1.6 Ghz/256 L2

 

hey guys please help me out please please tell me whether the acer 5100-5022 has a webcam this is on walmart site and it costs me around 850 after all the taxes( a bit more than all u guys have paid),
their display model has a webcam but the guys from walmart are not saying whether these two(the one in the store and the one available online) are the one and same ,
i am a bit confused,come on guys please help me out, it is out of stock for instore pick up so i am confused to order it online or not, and any of u guys how much time does walmart take for shipping.plz help me plzz plzz

 

Super Pi is a useless benchmark for most people. Sure it shows some strengths of the cpu but most people dont run super pi in everyday use. Plus super pi is not multithreaded, so its usefulness is diminished. The best benchmark is to test it with applications you use and see how it performs. Benchmark scores are important but do not definately show the whole picture. The difference between the Core 2 an the Turion X2 depending on yor uses can range from non existant to pretty decent performance boost. So I wouldnt pass judgement based on a single benchmark.

 

Anybody having problems with the dvd drive disappearing? I have reformatted this machine twice already, and I can't seem to figure out why the dvd will just suddenly disappear after a while. I have checked the BIOS and it seems to detect the dvd, but when I go to the system devices, it doesnt show any DVD drives recognized. Any solutions??

 

@miner...
of course, there is always the price factor...try getting a core 2 duo lappy for $700

 

Just an update: I am still trying to figure out why, but I found out that my DVD drive would load up at start up, and will show "E:\PQSERVICE" or something like that before suddenly disappearing. I am thinking that maybe the way the partitions are set up on this notebook might have something to do with this weird error I'm getting. I am considering to delete all my partitions to try a fresh install of winxp. Hopefully this will work

 

Does anyone use the Acer GridVista? Am I missing something - what does it help with?


Secondly, has anyone been able to get upgraded Turion drivers from AMD? While the webpage says 1.3.2.16, the program and installed drivers are 1.3.2.0 which is slightly better than the 1.3.1.0 that came with my laptop! Can anyone else check their "Add/Remove Programs" in Control Panel? Mine says "Windows Driver Package - AmdK8 Processor - 05/27/2006 1.3.2.0"... Seems odd to me for it to be K8... Anyways, any suggestions on getting the latest version?


Lastly, I saw a review of this laptop complaining about a lack of TV-out on the 5102. I bought an "S-Video/RCA Out" video cable on eBay and use it easily with the ATI drivers to view video on the TV while using the computer for other things... for those interested it was $5 including shipping, and similar ones can be found at http://search.ebay.com/NEW-VGA-to-T...ER_W0QQsacatZ41999QQssPageNameZADME-B-EF-US-4

While the composite-out isn't working (it plugs into the RGB port), I only use the S-Video out anyways. Almost all of the cables are under $5.

This is my first, post, BTW. Enjoying all of the posts on here!

 

nobody really cares about the poor OpenGL performance of this laptop's GPU? I checked on many forums and there are bugs in the GPU BIOS that prevent the graphic card from correctly handling OpenGL operations that are then sent to the CPU... If you try to play an OpenGL game you'll get at most 1 or 2 fps, while with directx everything is fine... But Linux is all based on OpenGL... not even an full screen GL screensaver works well here...

Who wants to try to send a petition to ACER to correct this Bios problem? They keep releasing BIOSes but none seemed to solve the problem. Somebody else is already trying to do it with HP and Compaq. The bugged chipsets seem to be 200M and Xpress 1100...

Stefano

 

I use Acer GridVista when I take notes in class. Basically, it helps you organize your screen to show multiple windows in full size. You can also make one screen semi clear so you can see what is underneath, useful when researching and taking notes on webpages.

 

Ill send an email to complain. who should we contact?

 

To anyone experiencing the popular freeze with verticle bars problem: Can you confirm whether or not this happens with the laptop sitting on a flat desk? I have noticed that if the computer is not sitting perfectly still and level, there is a chance for the case to flex and the connection to the hard drive to be lost. This causes Linux to remount the filesystem read-only and then freeze, and I assume it is also the cause of the Windows crashes.

Edit: Almost forgot. An extra side effect of this occasional hard drive disconnection is that sometimes when you turn on th computer, right after the bios screen, it will throw up an error about the Realtek boot agent not having a connection. This is because the hard drive is not connected and there is no other bootable media, so it is trying to network boot through the Realtek NIC. Sound familiar to anybody?

 

I tried to send an email to the technical support but I never got any answer. If you look on google for radeon 200m issues, you'll see the forum about the problem, but to be sincere I don't know where we should send the email, apart from technical support. Ati doesn't get any emails...

 

I was wondering... is it possible to upgrade the CPU? Just curious... I was taking a look at the tech manual and the CPU looks mounted on a socket... but what about changing it? Would BIOS recognize it???

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hey can one any one tell me what is the graphics card in this is it ATI X1100 or ATI X1300 and what is the difference between them,can i play ganmes like age of empires, age of mythylogy etc on this, i just play these games, and i want to know how efficient is this graphic card

 

Link to modded catalyst 6.11 drivers for 5102 chipset. I personally have not tried them yet.

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread181769.html

 

The x1300 is a little faster and probably has 4 pipelines compared to 2 for the X1100.

 

so what does this laptop has as the graphics card, i have not yet recieved my laptop yet, i have ordered it from walmart and waiting for it , the website says it has ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 graphics card, but i doubt it http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5280740, so will it be able to play games like age of mythology, etc

 

i bought my acer 5100 a week back,i downloaded a movie, from the last two days its working wierd, its responding **** slowly, getting hanged up and today the norton scan showed viruses which it was not able to delete, i have no time to sit before it and fix all these as i am a resident doc, so i am going to return it and want to get a new one so what do u guys suggest, again a acer or any other one , so i am waiting guys ( personally i liked this laptop a lot)

 

I bought this laptop for my brother recently, I myself, having an Acer tm 4400 like the way Acer laptops perform, however I am very disappointed on the performance of this laptop, Playing World of Warcraft the FPS constantly drops below 10FPS averaging around 15-20 in cities and 8-10 in certain outside areas making it unplayable in most cases. I have read this forum and I am going to try and update my Bios (if they are not already updated). Here are some of my findings for those having the video driver problems: When I first received this laptop I noticed that the video card specified on the laptop was an ati xpress 200m and not the x1100 as specified on newegg (where I bought it from) I updated the drivers using the ones on Acers site and the computer correctly recognized the vid as x1100, however using tools like ATI Tools, I noticed that the connection type is listed as pci and not pci-e, and the mem clock option is defaulted to 0, I boosted the core clock from stock 300 to 350-375 with no noticeable display/over heating problems. However this does not do anything for the low FPS in WoW, I will update the bios later today and get back to you guys with my findings. I am perplexed why some people with this laptop can get great scores in 3dmark and play high end games like fear and hl2, while others cannot surpass 10 fps in med quality games! I welcome any input into this matter as it affects quite a few of us.

 

Im curious where the good 3DMark scores are for the X1100? Mine only gets around 600 in '05 and i have not seen any better scores. But then I only have 512MB of Ram and the X1100 is integrated. Im curious what 1GB of 667 memory can do.

 

As i told before, this video card is buggy. It doesn't handle OpenGL at all. That's why we are waiting for some BIOS update to solve the problem.

 

It just urks me that there can be a major problem like this and neither Acer nor ATI has any solutions. How long can waiting be acceptable?
The laptop with this problem currently has 2gb of ram, as for 3dmark, I have not run this just yet, I will later today, I just got ahead of myself when I mentioned "great scores".
The difference between the xpress 1100 and the x700 is ridiculous, I run high settings with a steady 50-60 FPS in games like wow on my acer travel mate 1.5 gb of ram and ati x700, while on the xpress 1100 I hardly hit above 15 FPS on lowest possible settings. I never thought that this would be a graphics powerhouse but an average of 4-8 fps is still very disappointing, the card seems like it should be capable of much more than that.

 

Update the BIOS on the acer.de site the make sure your using 128MB in the BIOS video settings. thats the most you can really do on this notebook atm.

The X700 is a much better card. The x1100 is actually just a X200 with added support for dual channel.

 

The current Bios I updated to is ver 2.0, I could not find anything more recient, as for the 128mb setting im not sure I checked that and I slap myself for not thinking of that in the first place. Ill do that as soon as I get home. Thx for the input.

I think the x1100 moniker is very misleading, they should just call it x200.2 or something along those lines, I applaud ATI for being devious, and I guess the price on the laptop tells all, you get what you pay for.

 

Acer.de has the newest BIOS, but im not sure it has any improved video support for the X1100.

 

Thx for the link, im trying not to spam the board with all my comments, lmao.
The newest update on acer.america (panam) is 2.0, I wonder why they havent added this 2.4... And I did notice a chipset for x1100 in specific "ati_c8.251 for x1100 series" don't know if this the current one I have or not seeing as I am not infont of the laptop at the moment. I'll try all this later, and see if i can squeeze anymore power from this little card. lol

 

Im curious what you get with 3DMarks using 128MB. Post the score whenever you have time.

I was also curious about the X1100 because there was hardly anything on the internet except ATI said its 33% improvement over the X200 with added pixel shaders. Of course its not 33% better, the X200 driver on this notebook actually gets better 3DMark scores than the X1100!

 

Hi! About the low performance video card on a few games, have you guys tryed (or already installed) the AMD Dual-Core Optmizer?

Take a look at the first update here at AMD update page.

If I understood correctly, some games won`t use Microsoft`s API (maybe Direct3D??) and uses direct access drivers to graphic card instructions (OpenGL??). I only play CS 1.6 and FEAR Combat (this one with a medium to low res) and they work fine.

By the way, have you guys tryed the other stuff from AMD, like AMD Power Monitor? Is it better than Acer`s Empowering Tools (ePower Management)? I think Acer`s tools draw too much resources from the laptop.

[]

 

DirectX just works fine. OpenGL doesn't work. When I load a GL screensaver in Linux, the CPU temperature goes to 52 C instead of 31, meaning that all the graphic operations are handled by the processor and not the GPU...

Since it does not make any difference being in Windows and Linux, there is a hardware problem. I hope ATI is going to remove this limitation soon, even if I'm not that sure anything will happen.

 

Hi everyone,

I just bought this laptop. I have been reading some of your posts and have decided that before I can enjoy this notebook I need to tweak it. I know that I have to change the drive formats to NTFS, upgrade to xp but still keep the partition for the recovery, update some drivers. Can someone give me detailed instructions on how to do this and whatever else there is needed to be done. It would be greatly apperiacted. I am a whiz at hardware but software isn't my thing. Thank you,

Shamir

 

Go to Acer.de they have the most recent drivers for the 5102 series. then burn them to CD or DVD so you can install them later. Formatting or deleting partitions is always tricky and rarely goes right when people try to keep one partition but delete another. So i recommend leaving the partitions alone unless you plan on deleting all of them. and starting over. You can also make backups of the Acer software like it asks, then you wont need the backup partition anyway.

 

This is good stuff. I was wondering why we cannot find anyone from ACER to give us a part number to order the bluetooth module. It has to have a number and a way to order it?! I'd really, really like to get the BT on my machine so I can use my headphones, iPAQ and RAZR with it! If not, I'll have to do the procedure above.

How hard was the soldering?

 

It`s somewhere on this thread...

BLUETOOTH MODULE FOXCONN T60H928.01 (Broadcom BCM2045) Acer Part number: 54.ABHV5.002

BLUETOOTH CABLE Acer Part number: 50.ABHV5.003

Couldn`t find it here in Brazil...
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it turns out that im typing this post withe an acer 5102 hehe

i relised on this pc when i got it that the computer was using only 512Mo of its ram when it had 1Gb of ram
how ever keeping in mind that the grafic card used up 128Mo of the ram
it turns out that after tacking in to consideration all the parameters the pc has
896 Mo of ram but u cant use it
so i rerot the reg file that tels the pc how mouch ram it has and now it works great hehe

im corently looking to put it on a site for all to DL but as u probably know thats a bit hard in france since its agenst the law ;-S

first look up ur L2 cash ither 256K or 512K

second go into the file conserning u chouse the right reg fille

therd keep in mind that the acer 5102 exsistes withe 1Gb ram 2Gb ram and 4Gb ram (for thos withe lots of cash )

ill post the link chortly

 

By the way the bluetooth is not instaled on all verchans of this pc kep that in mind

 

I did go thru all the pages here in 5102 and didn't see anyone comment on the graphics for the 5102.

My 4 yr old gateway laptop 450rog ( also 450xl ) has better graphics than this laptop.
every image is slightly fuzzy on the edges. even the flashplayer movies or videos are fuzzy, not as crystal clear as the older Gateway which has 64MB AGP Integrated 4X Video

it has the ATI radeon 1100
OR am I missing something to tweak ?
is it the screen?
screen resolution is set at 1280 x 800
any recommendations on changing to a different compatible graphics card ?
because this does not look good

I like the fact one can upgrade the hard-drive to a 5400 or 7200 and get somewhere close to Intel core duo processor's specs.

 

Quick Question Folks: I just purchased the 5102 from circuit city for $599 after $100 rebate my question is, Is it possible to use a program like Partition Magic to merge both partitions into one and also change over to the NTFS storage system and 4k cluster that is so highly recommended? What I already did was change over to the NTFS system using the DOS prompt but I still have two partitions and a 512 cluster which I have read is not the best size to have. Second part of the question is If i do all of that will I still be able to just boot up and have my Windows Media Center OS still on my system or will I need to find an operating system to Install? What I really want to have is a system with one partition, 4k cluster size,NTFS storage, and all my original software installed including Windows Media Center but of course the WMC is a big question because the wonderful folks at ACEr did not include it on CD.

 

I have been talking about the graphic card a lot. And it sucks.

 

Check out Ebay. I found someone who is selling .pdf versions of the service manuals for about $5. They tell you how to take everything apart, their parts numbers, and how to replace them. It is much more indepth than the owner's manual.

Removal of the HDD should be two screws holding the cover (to the right of the battery compartment). Remove the cover. It should pull out up and away from the battery compartment (unplugs).

I hope this helps.