The Acer 5102 Thread

1100 really sucks. I made some test with different drivers and this is my 3dmark05 scores:

Fabric state (Windows XP MC + drivers newer than on acer site): 603
Windows XP Home + original drivers (acer site): 597
Windows XP Home + zer0point drivers ( http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/): 608
Windows XP Home + omega drivers ( http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/): 616

I ran every test at lest 2 times and take the biggest score. In win Xp case it was always clean install with amd processor drivers and optimizer without any other drivers.

Max FPS which I get, was 4

To use newest graphic drivers you could use ATI mobility modder ( http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool).
But you could always install almost any display driver trough:
Control Panel>add hardware or
Control Panel>system>hardware tab>device manager>find you vga>left click update driver
>>
Install from specific location>Don’t search. I will chose the driver to install.>have disk>chose driver location and chose from list 200 series or 1150.

If we speaking of the original drivers from ati.com you must run it, they will extract to directory c:\ or program files, during installation you will take errors and it will end. Now you have catalog drivers (here are drivers to chose). In ACE catalog you have Catalyst Control setup – it’s useful to change some graphics parameters.

Some tips:
Use Symantec Ghost to backup you system and throw away backup cd, ghost take few minutes to restore, cd 1-2 hour. After that you could delete backup partition or I you want backup it with ghost.

Partition magic is good for repartitioning. I suggest one partition for system max 20 gigs and other for software, games, downloads etc, both NTFS. If you have separate partition for sys you could format, change OS etc. without loses of you data.

I bought it with 512ram, I bought additional 512 kingstone ram, and I don’t have any problems.

If you have problem, that you laptop don’t want go out standby mode, use function key and F4 two times.

Remember that this is x64 laptop so you will fill real power under Windows Pro x64 or Vista 64.
Xp x64 120 days free: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/trial.mspx
Vista: search site like www.mininova.org
Linux64: like Ubuntu64

I tried Xp x64 but it’s hard to find proper drivers (acer ftp is offline) and soft, also it often crashes but its pretty fast. I will fight with this and try getting 3dmark05 score or checking fps in some games but it could be problem with running such things I’m downloading Vista 64 so I will also check this and give you info how its works.

You could search p2p for Windows MC OEM and use you original serial key, its legal and you have clean system. But don’t forget that must be “OEM” there is many normal MC (box) which don’t work with serial from OEM (system preinstalled on computers).

I will try some optimization, overclocking and others but I think that card could give max 700 (I wish) points in 3dmark05. Maybe some bios changes in motherboard or GPU will allow to use more memory like 1150 or other tweaks and hack will appear.

And some yoke for end:
“With powerful integrated ATI Radeon™ graphics, this chipset is ideal for digital entertainment and 3D gaming for the home, or perfect for running graphics-intensive commercial or multimedia applications at the Office” http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonxpress1100mobintel/index.html
They writing that it’s ready for Intel technology, maybe this is the reason why its so week with amd.

 

Did you check the BIOS to make sure your using 128mb video? 600 is about the same i get using 3Dmark05 but i only have 512mb so my video memory is maxed at 64mb.

Also a tip i leanred the hard way, if you ever install different video drivers and you get a black screen at startup instead, restart and press F8 and select VGA mode, then you will be able to uninstall the diff drivers there.

 

I have 128mb, I even try 1150 drivers and change in CC to 256mb, but that don’t work.

I also have 2.4 bios.

I notice some strange thing in 3dmark05. There are 5 tests and two of them (“Return to Proxycon” and “Canyon Flight” are running in 2 different resolutions or quality level (I don’t know exactly but I see difference in quality between them) and there is almost no difference between FPS, but I don’t know if there is any other change in engine or other.

And another yoke: in 3dmark06 there is 0 FPS

 

i have a question ... does the x1100 suport Aero interface or not ??
thing is i whant to buy a Aspire 5101AWLMi equiped with a x1100 video chipset and i was wandering if this chipset suports Aero interface and efects

 

Yes, it does...
http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonxpress1100mob/index.html

 

I got 30 fps playing War Rock at highest settings with dynamic lighting enabled using the X1100

 

thx for the info .... can't hardly wait to buy it

 

HL2 is descent only with 800x600 and every graphic parameter on low/disabled, and even then could be 10-13FPS in some places like open space

 

Games with dual core support will play better on this notebook. Theres a thread with games listed in the gaming section.

 

has anyone installed Vista to confirm if Aero works ???couse a friend of mine has a Toshiba Sattelite M70 and it has a Intel GML 910/915 graphic chip with pixel shader 2.0( and in the specs it says that is suports Vista) and when i installed Vista on it guess what surprize surprize .. AERO doesn't work ... that is why i need a confirmation

 

Work with all goodies set to high quality

 

I've had my Acer for a few months now and I have one nagging problem. Whenever you unplug the notebook and put it to battery power, the video quality drops a bit (gradients don't look good, when I'm watching videos, it's almost like I'm watching a really badly encoded version of the clip, it's almost like the system goes to 16-bit colour). I assumed that this was to conserve battery power. When I plug the system back into an outlet, the video quality goes back up. However, the system eventually just kept the video at that mode, even when plugged into power. So I tried installing the new ATI driver, as well as the new BIOS and reinstalling the Acer ePower and ePerformance software. This didn't help it. The other thing I tried was hooking up an external 17" monitor. When I extended my desktop to that monitor, the video was corrected on the monitor and on the laptop. However, when I unplugged the monitor, the video quality went back down.

I formatted the system and ran the recovery discs, and the video was good again. A few days later I shut down the computer by just holding down the power button and when I turned it back on (on external power) the video quality was bad a again. I thought it was because I had inproperly shut down the system so I ran the recovery DVDs again. It was working fine until today I had it on battery power, put it into hibernation and then restarted it later on external power. The video was crap again.

I don't know if the problem is the ATI powerplay, but I disabled it and the problem still persists. I tried e-mailing Acer too but all they said was to reinstall the OS again. I am not doing that again. Before I commit to waiting an hour for phone help I wanted to know if any of you had ran into this problem and if you had fixed it

 

I am running Vista x64 RTM on mine; I like it so far; I still miss few drivers such as Bluetooth and the Camera. Aero does work.

 

thx for the info guys

 

Hello

This is 5102 thread but a think it will be fit causa i got 5101 and there is only few differences between them.

What is your FAN work?
Now I got 800Mhz/0,950V on my turion and the FAN is always on. Its 23C on core. The air from fan system is coold.

I was reading that it should start whet it has 55C. Does your fan always on? Very strange and annoying.

 

How does the XPress 1100 play Dreamfall and Sims 2? Just curious.

 

I have an Aspire 5100 with the X1100 video. I was digging through the settings somewhere and found a setting that drops the color depth when you unplug AC power. I'll try to track it down.


F**k. The setting really doesn't matter anyway. I just confirmed a suspicion: The Acer 5100 series laptops with the Radeon Xpres 1100 video are PCI based. Meaning that the video card is NOT PCIE, it's PCI. You know, that ancient bus technology that was used for video between VESA Local and AGP? Yeah. P.O.S. If Acer wanted to cut corners, they could at LEAST have used AGP video.

Here's how I figured it out:

• The ATI Catalyst Contro Center, under Information Center-->Graphics Hardware-->Bus Type says PCI. PCI Express cards are listed here as PCIe.
• Sisoft Sandra XI Lite, choose the Hardware tab, and start the 'Busses and Devices' module. There are two drop-boxes at the top. Pick the first Adapter listed and then check the Device list to see if your video is listed. If not, continue to the next Adapter and check the Devices again. Do this until you find the listing for your video adapter. My 5100-5022 lists the video under PCI bus 1 and all three PCIe busses enumerate as 'no devices found'.
• The final confirmation: I called Acer and talked with a CS rep. I know that CS isn't usually known for being really tech savvy, but this guy waited for a 100mb .pdf to load to help me out. He checked it out and had this to say:

He then went on to explain that there is a difference between x1-- cards and Xpress x1-- cards. The Xpress cards are integrated and use system ram for video memory, while the x1-- cards (not Xpress) are dedicated GPUs (may or may not be a seperate card) and have at least SOME dedicated video ram.

I'm within my 15 day window to take my laptop back, and I'm going to do it. I think that Acer has misrepresented the video in the laptop enough that the failure to disclose the fact that it uses an antiquated PCI-based video is grounds for a class-action lawsuit. The PCI bus was abandoned by the PC industry nearly ten years ago as a viable video bus. Everything that I have read from ATI and AMD refers to the x1-- cards as PCI Express based. They go so far as to say that the x1100 conforms to the latest PCIe technology, and I have no doubt that it does. However, if a company is going to connect the video to the slowest bus in the computer, they should at least have the balls to tell us.

 

I successfully updated to Bios version 2.40 (from the European site). No crashes since then, but I'm not sure if it's fixed or not.

 

I also successfully upgraded the BIOS too; Surprisingly, Vista x64 detected Bluetooth and installed the proper drivers; the only thing I cannot get to work yet is the OrbiCam.

 

Just tried flashing my bios with the new 2.4 under x64 Vista but it gave me the error of: "Cannot load driver C:\Windows\temp\winplash.phlashnt.sys...Please check you accounts , if you have no administrative privelege, please login again!"

even though i am logged in under admin, any clues?

 

Hi! Been reading about the poor quality of the X1100 GPU...

For those making complains, what would be expected from thie Graphic Card?
I got about 65o on 3DMark05 and 4 fps too... is it really low (remember, it was a cheap laptop!) compared to other similar Graphic Cards???

If the performance is really bellow expectations, why don't we organize some kind of mutual complaim or (legal) action agains Acer? The way I see, if we buy a computer with an advertised GPU, it should work, or it's false advertising... right?

I'm not having issues with this graphic card, but it may be a problem in near future... I don't want to lose a laptop just because of the GPU!

See ya!

 

Turns out that it's the nature of the x1100 and the x200. I loaded up the Control Center on several laptops over at CompUSA, and every machine with the x1100 or x200 listed the bus as PCI, whatever the brand.

I traded up to an HP pavilion dv6113us - same basic specs as the Acer 5100 - Turion 64 X2 TL50, 1GB DDR2, 80GB hdd, DVD-RAM w/ Lightdcribe, quickplay, remote (who cares), but has the nVidia 6150 video. The sticker on the laptop says "up to 128mb shared video RAM" but Sisoft Sandra and dxdiag are reporting 256mb of video ram, which suggests that it also has 128mb dedicated RAM. Dxdiag lists the video as AGP and Sisoft Sandra doesn't say - it's not listed on any of the busses.

By way of comparison, I paid $748 at Walmart for the Acer, and $829 ($629 after $200 main-in rebate) from CompUSA. The Acer ran HalfLife 2 at 1280x800 at max eye-candy at about 5 fps. The HP runs it at 40-50 fps at the same settings.

In Acer's favor, laptop setup was no-nonsense and had no demos, trial-ware, or preinstalled BS while the HP took almost 2 hours to set up and clean out all the extra crap, and it still doesn't run as fast.

BTW, I _did_ send a letter to HP concerning all the crap that comes preinstalled. I'll post it if anyone's interested.

 

Thats interesting, all the 3dmark scores i can find online for the 6150 show simular results to the x1100 which arent very good. If i knew games would play about %500 faster i would trade in my acer too, but i cant find any other info that suggests this. But im not saying i dont believe you.

 

I don't blame you for not taking a stranger's word on it, I don't know that I would. The first time I played HL2 on the Acer, I just ran through the train station to the first loadpoint and had to save it and leave. That was the only time it ever played on the Acer. Every time after that, it would hang when I tried to load a game or start a new one. The hang persisted through three game reinstalls (one from CD and two through Steam) and an OS reinstall. That's when I got fed up and returned it.

As for the 3dMark scores, I know. I originally went for the x1100 because a TomsHardware mobile graphics write-up (not a benchmark) said that the x1100 was 'the pinnacle' of integrated graphics, and because my stepson has a computer that we just built for him that has 6100 video, and we've had performance issues with it - for reasonable framerates we have to set BF2 to low detail, Americas Army to low, and it won't even play Oblivion.

The Acer video issue could have been a software/driver issue or a hardware problem, because everything that I've read suggests that the x1100 has no problem playing HL2 at reasonable detail settings.

Maybe we could get one of the other Acer owners to post HL2 framerates and see if mine was just an odd problem.

My Acer was:
Aspire 5100-5022
AMD Turion X2 TL50 @ 1.6GHz
1024MB DDR2
100GB PATA HDD
Xpress x1100 set at 128mb shared RAM

Game settings:
Resolution 1280x800
all detail to high, water reflection to 'reflect world'
Trilinear filtering
Antialiasing off

 

Also, I was wondering if anyone got their synaptics touchpad working with Vista... If so, how?

 

Mine worked fine on the Aspire 5100, and I didn't do anything other than the standard install for Vista rc1

 

I got a question. I plan on getting a laptop with specs like this, I only ever plan on running CS at anything, buy mainly use it for normal stuff, without games.

Does anyone think this laptop is good without the need to play games?

 

Touch pad works fine under Vista.

BIOS upgrade tool does not work under Vista x64. Since I have dual boot, I used XP to flash mine.

 

Yes, it's a very solid machine, but if you're planning on purchasing an extended warranty or don't mind speding a little bit more, check this out:

I bought my Acer Aspire 5100-5022 at Walmart for $749. The two year extended warranty with accidental damage was $68. You'll pay $250 for the same warranty through Circuit City (wife bought a laptop there) and about $150 through BestBuy and CompUSA.

The 5100-5022 has the Turion X2 TL50 dual-core processor, 1024mb DDR2 memory, and a 100GB hard drive, so you get way more computer for another $50.

Aside from the video, I really liked the laptop. I especially liked that there wasn't anything installed except Windows and Acer's own utilities. There's no trial crap, AOL, or other preinstalled BS, which makes it a nice bare platfor to load what you want.

 

win xp does'nt support pci graphic cards all the chips are using pci-e bus

 

So far, I`m loving this computer! Of course, if you got a few more bucks, buy a laptop with Radeon X1600 (dedicated memory and, as I read, much better then X1100). I use this laptop most at college... at work this laptop runs at reasonable speed Adobe CS2 (desktop publish with images at 300dpi) and some small 3D with 3DS Max 7 and POV-Ray. If you`re going to use it to surf the web, compile a few Java, C++ and use MS Office (as I do at college), this computer will be perfect. A cheaper one will do fine too! You must think about your needs!

I read that some people got issues with this computer, like errors on standby and random system freezes. Mine never freezed (Windows XP, 2GB RAM, released on April with ROM 1.90). But the standby acts strange... if it sleeps (unplugged from the wallplug), at wake up the screen doesn`t come back until I press the rubber button on the left side from the Power Button... but it puts the computer to sleep again! Then it wakes up... very strange!

I play CS with no problems. The game runs very nice with 45-60 fps (I limited the fps to 60).

[]

 

Hi.
There is a new bios 2.60 at acer europe
Bye.

 

New BIOS

v2.60-
01. Disable USB Power on S4/S5 by EC bios.

v2.50-
01. Fix DDR2-667 512MBx1 DOS Reboot Failure
02. Fix s3/s4/cold boot/warm boot long run test black screen issue.
03. Add UVC CCD Bison/Suyin support in int15 for vista.
04. Disable hot-buttons when lid-switch is closed (EC bios).
05. Modify SMBIOS for Vista DTM Failure
06. Modify Brightness Levels to 16.
07. Remove Auto Change FIR PNPID for Vista OS since Driver Cover FIR SMC1036 PNPID.
08. Reconfigure HD verb table after s3 resume for audio no sounds issue on vista.
09. Modify HD codec pin configuration CD IN(1C) & PCBeep(1D).
10. Speed Up S3 Resume Time for Vista OS
11. Disable Un-Used PCI Clock Sources of South Bridge for EMI.

I believe CS has dual core support that takes advantage of processors. Not many games have that but some do.

 

Can this BIOS be applied to US Versions of the Acer 5102?

 

To adjust brightness, etc:
Right click desktop
slide down to properties and click
Left click on ATI icon
It is all there

Also, the ATI icon is usually on the right side of the task bar.

Hope this helps and have a nice day

 

I am having problems trying to get my monitor to power off, but leave the computer running (not standby or hibernate). I would like to do this so my virus scans and backups will be able to run in the wee morning hours. If it goes into hibernate, these schedules will not run.

I setup a power management scheme that says power off monitor after 1 hour, hibernate never, standby never, power off harddrive never. I apply this, but the screen never powers off (screensaver kicks in, but screen stays lit indefinitely).

Does anyone know how I can get the above desired results?

I read somewhere earlier in this thread that you could uninstall the Acer Power Mgt and use XP power management. How is this done and will XP power management let me do what I want?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

i am using a acer 5102 , when i am using my orbicam it is very dark although there is enough light , can anybody tell me how i can change the settings of the orbicam , thank you.
and also when i am using windows media player while playing my dvd's i cant set them to widescreen please help me how i can set widescreen settings by default

 

everyone keeps telling me that it is possible to install the newest drivers for the video on the acer 5102, i have not been able to do so and was wondering if anyone on these forums could offer advise, i think the current drivers suck because i can't even get need for speed carbon to run remotely smooth on medium settings. help anyone?

 

ok, no help. so, i'm replying to myself

i googled it and someone had a detailed enough way of updating the drivers to 8.31 (original link: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread181769.html), here's how i did it:

1. download the .inf files here: http://rapidshare.com/files/8656615/catalyst611-xpress1100-inf.rar.html

2. download catalyst software suite here: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonx-xp.html

3. open up catalyst install so that it may extract the install files and drivers, usually to C:\ati\support\....

4. exit out the installer once it actually gets to the next screen and you can hit cancel

5. copy the inf files to \Driver\2KXP_INF within the extracted ati folder

6. uninstall all ati software on your computer

7. reboot

8. right click my computer--> properties--> hardware (tab)--> device manager and update the display adapter drivers by right clicking and selecting Update Drivers... (windows may also detect the hardware automatically and bring this screen to you on startup)

9. install from a list or specific location and click next

10. uncheck search removable media and check include this location in the search, browse to the \driver\2kxp_inf folder

11. if it asks for ati***.mag you can direct it to \Driver\2KXP_INF\B_39230

12. reboot

13. install Catalyst control center from the ACE folder

14. install ati wdm from \WDM_ALL folder, now you're done

 

Still no support for the ATI X1100 with the new Bios...

 

this last bios is one big **** better not upgrade

- stil my FAN always on
- after start the screen is very dark and have to correct it every time by Fn+< same thing after stanbay
- Fn+> doesn't work

**** I never see someone make such a bad bios maybe they want my notebook to breake ?

 

It works OK for me, the only difference I've noticed is that light for scroll in my mouse is off when I shut down the laptop (before was always on when plugged in)

No problems like in Your case.

 

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I also find than my wifi card athereos often brake disconnect, now i back to 2.40 bios and every thing work like it should wayting for 2.80

I have 5101 but it has the same **** inside like 5102 except processor

 

Since so many folks appear to be having issues with increasing
memory size on this machine, I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth:

I have been running 4 gB of memory in this laptop for some time time now ( I do linux kernel development and I bought this laptop specifically because of the 4 gB support and some work I needed to do with memory management )

I am using Samsung memory ( I beleive its ddr2 667 , 2 pieces of 2 gB) which I got off E-bay for about $400 for each stick ( as much as the laptop cost , I also upgraded to a faster 120 gB disk... all in all it works fairly well.

obvously windows only sees about 2.6 gB, but linux sees pretty much all of it ( different kernels vary on how it deal with it , rhel update 3 needs you to state 3gb max on the kernel boot comand line or it has issues ( a kernel mapping issue ) but rhel update 4 works fine with all 4 gB )...

The next thing I'd like to do is possibly upgrade the cpu to a tl-52 or up to tl-60 ( IE: I'd like to increase the cache to 512k per core, and a speed increase would be nice also )

I am running the stock bios, so it may need to be upgraded I am not sure... if anyone else has done this let me know, else I'll do it in a few weeks

 

I get hibernation issues, and random crashes again with the 2.6 bios.
Just like the 2.0 bios.

 

I have a question around windows vista 64. how much of a difference will this make to performance on my system? Will i be able to install over the RC2 relase with the final retail verion?

I only have problems when i am in battery mode. Will Vista fix this?

 

I'm getting frustrated with these same issues as well.

Also, recently, my computer has developed a problems with the built in webcam. At first, it would at random times drop the connect then find it again. I.E., I'd hear the Windows disconnected USB tone followed a minute or so by the found USB connection tone and "Found new hardware" balloons. I would then have to reinstall the drivers and then my webcam could work for about a day or so.

After dealing with that for a couple weeks, the webcam disconnected and now is not recognised at all. There seems to be nothing I can do to reinstall the camera. Any one else have this problems? Any ideas how to fix it?

thx.

 

My laptop won't go into hibernate or sleep, keeps popping up with 'insufficient memory' error. Any suggestions? I have bios 2.4

 

I don't own Acer 5102 but I have a question about upgradeing BIOS.
Should you upgrade BIOS only if you are having problems with your lappy or you should upgrade anyway and does upgradeing BIOS improve performances??

I use BIOS v.2.0 and there is BIOS v.2.6 available for my Aspire 5112 but I am not shure should I upgrade because I had huge problems with my lappy before upgradeing to BIOS 2.0 and I am afraid for those problems to come back....

 

max_0401 - looking at all the problems people are having with different bios on the SAME laptop, i would say that it is sort of "shoot and miss." i try to do like the saying goes: if it's not broken, don't fix it. however, bios upgrades do include the change logs, which describe the changes that were made to the bios, so read through the change log and see if the upgrade is worth it to you, if anything, find the current bios that you are running in case a bios upgrade brakes something, or decreases performance.

on another note, to the 5102wlmi, i remember on the original install there were controls that appeared (widget-like controls) when using the acer orbicam in the windows explorer (my computer-> acer orbicam). since then i deleted that hidden partition and did a clean install of windows xp mce and installed the software and drivers for the orbicam but i can't get these controls to appear anymore any help?