The Acer 5102 Thread

eah ive also tried that....using the empowering technology, switching from medim processor to maximum, ive worked on maximum performance (AC plugged in) and with AC plugged out thru all the settings....ive also tried installing the new catalyst...didnt worked.....what could it be? ive done all sorts of combinations between catalyst, powerplay and the processor speeds...i think is something about the drivers or the hdd i dunno....help

 

BIOS 2.83 is out on the Acer Europe site.

I am running it now with no problems, though it seems to have upped the memory usage for my shared graphics. I have a gig of ram, previously I would be showing 894 megs of system memory in the system properties dialog, now it is showing 766. Fortunately you can change this in the BIOS if you don't like it.

 

Thank you for the info!

I'll try it when I go to home.

I hope they also fixed some ACPI bugs to run resume and suspend in PCBSD and DesktopBSD which based on FreeBSD UNIX OS.

 

guys i m ducked pls hlp me i got this new orchid bluetooth adapter with bluesoil driver mini cd which wen i try installin on ma 5102 with media centre originap sp2 hangs n driver doesnt get instaled beyond bluetooth modem ,it hangs right there n then i cancel it all the time, though same driver gets instaled in a celeron 2.00 ,xp sp2 pirated desktop , i really dont knw wat to do ,tried using other driver but no success pls reply thanks a lot

 

Short report on BIOS 2.83:
-Fan is still running from Startup - Processor at 33°C.
-You can allocate 256MB memory for Graphics now
-Windows XP MCE running stable
-Brightness switch is working as it should do

 

Well...true, BIOS 2.83 fixed some problems, and updated video card memory to 256 wich now works with the new catalyst 7.2 from ati, but it stills freezing every 20 secs, for about 5 secs, then goes to normal, and then repeats after 20 secs and so on.....wuts goin on

 

I am so bummed. I

To make things short: I play many FPS games, and Id get good FPS, around 100-120 on all maps, but every 2 minutes or so, i get a FPS lag spike and drop down to about 5 FPS. this stays for about 10 seconds, and then goes back up to normal.

I have updated all my video drivers, I have used Mcaffee to check for virus/malware and spybot search and destroy along with ad-aware SE and scanned and cleaned my computer. I have also turned off auto-on-access scan and updates because they might be lagging it down.

i have looked everywhere on the interent, and posted in about 12 forums along wtih sending a ticket to AMD ATI.

I have also realized that this isnt only for MOH:SH but for ALL my games. including but not limited to Counterstrike, Battlefield, SWAT. I'm also getting lag on youtube videos and my internet exploerer is becoming slow.

i dont know if this is spyware/adware, but I would really like to fix. Even if it is, anyone have any other good programs to kill this peice of nuts thing thats crappity smacking up my computer?

pardon my langauge, but it really makes me mad.

thanks in advance.
kev

computer specs for the record:

AMD Turion 64 x2 at 1.67 ghz
AIT Radeon Xpress 1100
2 Gb ram
120 Gb harddrive.

Oh, and another question, the BIOS update from europe for this computer 2.83, is it stable, i read before that some people upgraded bios to 2.73 or something and couldnt start computer up again.

i bought this comp in states, if i get europe bios update, will it work? i have back up copies but as i am not in the states right now, i cant have my computer crashing as its going to be a big hassle to send back to states, ship overseas etc. i was just wondering if i should download the 2.83 bios upgrade. thanks guys.

 

Hello I have been viewing these forums now for many years (since 2004) when I got my first notebook(travelmate 2303WLMI). I just thought it was about time to officially join and help out where I can. I Just love my aspire 5102WLMI had it since november 2006, I am very glad I got it with MCE 2002 and not vista that microsoft is now selling ...

I have overclocked and undervolted both the processor and the IGP on this notebook but did not see a reason to keep them that way but I have never had any problems doing this, always rock solid!

The new Bios(2.83) on the european site is stable and works on ALL aspire 5100 series notebooks so all of you out there waiting for testers trust me it works I have no problems with it (as usual becareful when flashing a computer's bios, flash from DOS if you are paranoid about windoze )

 

Sorry I'm a newbie, how do i update my BIOS?
I downladed bios 2.83 extracted and extracted again
i read directions but they dont explain what to run

i have these files

CW51283 MS-DOS batch file
cw51283.wph
phlash16
cw51283.rom
flash32.exe

what is the safest way to update my bios? and what do i do? like evolution said, flash from DOS?
thanks

 

The safest way is to flash from plain DOS with the phlash16.exe. As i write that i did every BIOS Update under Windows with the flash32.exe. If you want to flash under Windows you have to do some precautions. Stop every program you had launched. Stop the Wireless network. Stop Virus and Spybot Scanner. So simply stop all programs. Plug the AC Adapter to your notebook and wall :*). Then hit flash32.exe and relax . After some minutes the notebook want to start and after restart you have a new bios.

 

Actually I think the DOS flash is done by extracting the CW51283.zip then using a boot disk to boot to pure DOS then execute the file CW51283.bat to flash it...however notebooks do not come with floppy drives so you are better off using windows to flash(trust me it is easier), just do as tomtaylor said and close all programs and disable / turn off your anti-virus and plug into the mains and run the flash32.exe. After you have flashed the Bios the computer will restart in 30secs in case the keyboard locked after the flash...

Has anyone noticed that this Bios is better than all other previous ones released?? No ACPI errors occurred in the system event log after the flash was done... Finally acer seems to have put out a decent and proper Bios This Bios also now allows for the stable installation of the latest ATI drivers and NO errors are occurring finally !

 

but what about the video problem anyone find a fix to the FPS spikes?

 

did they take down 2.83? or am i not looking hard enough

edit - found it on the web page! not on the ftp site!

 

will this bios update solve the FPS spike problem? LETS HOPE!

 

No man...it didnt solved them for me.....as you kkc777 im a hard gamer, the thing is that now that i remember....i never noticed this kind of frames per second drops when i first bought my lappy, but now im getting them and trust me, just as you, ive done a lot of research ond the internet, ive spent like 2 weeks looking wut could it be, as long as i can tell:

-its not a virus or malware (tried norton 2006 and mcafee, and some malware/spyware removal tools)
-Its not the BIOS, ive tried 2.00, 2.6, 2.72, 2.83
-Its not the FAT32 to NTFS convertion
-Its not the catalyst (options/parental encoder)
-It aint the ram (ive read some users that have changed their current ram for a new one, and upgrading it from 1gb to 2gb)
-It aint a directx problem...ive manually upgraded the directx from microsoft
-Its not any acer empowering technology issues
-Ive restored my lappy to factory defaults and tried playing the games BEFORE anythign else, b4 windows updates, b4 upgrading anything, ive tried to play games with the lappy from scratch, and i still get the frames drop.
-Current config: Upgraded processor driver from amd (1.3.2.0), catalyst 7.2, BIOS ver 2.83, both partitions on NTFS, done the tunexp tweak, upgraded directx from microsoft, and did the dual core hotfix from microsoft and dual core optimizer from amd

If anyone has the answer on how to stop this pleas...i mean please tell me, i dont want to sell my laptop, but ive just ran out of options...

 

If theres something u guys have tried and worked please share

 

Yes Channels, I agree with you,
1) it didint happen before, just recently it started
2) to add on to your list, its not network problems, i posted in 18 forums and a few other answers that popped up were network related router issues,
I've done all I can and its not router problem.

Therefore, anyone with an answer, please help.

 

Channelz, have You tried http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951 ?


Try to lower pci latancy clocks to 32 (all of them) and check again.

 

In the games that I have played I have never encountered any of these FPS drops that some of you are complaining about, however have you tried updating to the new ATI drivers 7.3 cats are out. Perhaps you could also try omega drivers they give a little bit more boost than the ATI ones...

Failing that you could try to over clock the IGP using ATI WinClk, with that it is fairly easy to turn up the clock when you want to play a game and then turn it back down when you are not playing, it is all done with a few clicks inside the program.

Channelz the AMD dual core optimizer has been known to cause problems with some games so if I were you I would only use the microsoft hotfix alone, besides they both do the same thing therefore there is no need for both to be installed.

 

Hey janek, I installed PCI latency and set my video card latency to 32

The problems continued.

Evolution, I have uninstalled my AMD dual core optimizer and installed hotfix, and also tried installing both, or uninstaling both and problems continued.
as for the drivers, i have catalysit 7.2 I will try to install 7.3 and omega drivers but im not sure if that will help.

will keep posted with updates.

 

Update on the problem: Not only for games

Im an independent film maker, and I have just realized that this slowdown doesnt only affect games, but anything with an FPS involed.
I was editing my videos in windows movie maker, and then the lag started again in te playback. It happens every few minutes at random times.

 

Ive installed the new catalyst with no luck, they have improved the experience a lil bit though, delays are shorter, and good gameplay is longer, but i still have FPS slowdowns, i rode it was a beta version...so maybe theyre trying to solve the problem...

 

could it be that you are overheating your video card? any artifacts?

 

Channelz you installed catalyst 7.3?
and JML how do you check if you're overheating your vid card?

 

yeah ive installed the catalyst 7.3, i think theres a slight difference in performance, its a little better, but does not solve the problem...

 

anyone?
any answers?
please?

 

Hey,

Here is the latest ATI Xpress 1100 chipset driver


http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/integrated-xp.html

I'm installing it right now, and here what got fixed on it.

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_73_release_notes.html

 

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/integrated-xp.html

Just remember folks you cannot install the software suite you must download the individual driver packages because the x1100 will fail installation with the suite but you can update the driver manually in device manager when you get the drivers individually from the above link...

KKc77 I hope you have found some solution to your problem as I have never seen any of these slowdowns what some of you are reporting...but I will keep on thinking

 

The last two updates I made to my catalyst software were installed from the suite - I installed both the Catalyst Suite and Avivo Codec packages. Actually, I think the documentation for the 7.3 suite includes the Xpress 1100 in the list of supported hardware, which I had not noticed before.

 

the fps spike, i hate to say, is a hardware problem. I have tested it with need for speed hot pursuit 2 with a Chillmat under it and got no problems. I held the machine up to an air conditioner and played World of Warcraft, again I recieved no problems. But, this is a real problem as a whole. The video card overheats and I have proof, but acer won't accept it. Well, actually this could be still a bios issue. Everyone says the fan always runs, but mine doesn't. I think the fan is kicks in too late and that's what causes the frame problems. Oh and beware using something powered in the left single USB. It jacks the the temp of the CPU cores up. Basically those that are experiencing the frame rate problems probably have defective machines that will probably break soon. So, let's just hope they break within the year warranty, cause Acer won't admit it's a problem.

 

Hello ! I Don't know if yours is builded as my 9300, but in mine the fan cools a heatpipe covering both GPU & CPU, but the fan is controlled by the temp of the CPU only. So, if the CPU is not heating too much, the fan won't turn, although the GPU can reach high temps and would need some more cooling. I noticed that since I used Arctic Silver 5 on my CPU, its temp rarely passes over 50°C (full long load), but it's generally between 42 - 46°C. It's ~38°C idle (fan off). Since I did this, the idle temp of my GPU passed from 54 to 62°C idle ! Now I wait having the time to unmount my laptop again and check what I can do for that. I'm searching a way to monitor the GPU temp during a game, but I'm sure some temp pikes can appear due to this system of one fan for two chips, controled by only one chip... There is a poor contact beetween GPU & heatpipe (0,5mm) that needs a thermal pad, I don't like pads. Guys have been paid to make this nonsense system, now I prefer searching intelligent modifications to apply to it before playing again. If this can help...

 

How do i cool my computer down?
I already have a targus fanpad beneath the computer,
But true i plug it in the side single USB.

I'll try unplugging and pluggin somewhere else.

 

My machine has an Xpress 1100 in the Aspire 5102WLMI. I can't tell how hot it's running cause the Xpress has no heat sensors and no fan control, so I have no way to tell if it really is the fan's fault. As for the usb issue I mentioned, I may have not been clear which port I was talking about. I am speaking of the usb port on the left side of the machine, which is next to the ethernet port. When I plug in a usb device, according to CoreTemp, the temp on the two cores jumps by 10 C. that just isn't right. I've found the ChillMat only works with very low end games. The only way to get newer games to run okay, if you have this overheating issue, is to have cool air blowing directly into the machine. I've called Acer several times on the issue and they basically tell me I can send the machine back to them but that doesn't guarantee that they will actually fix it. Of course, the tech said that they can't fix airflow issues, but if this was really an airflow issue then everyone would have this problem, not just a select few.

 

Well, i agree that it could be an airflow issue, but then how come we didnt had this kind of problems when the lappy was brnad new? i me, i dont rememeber having this kind of problems when i first used my laptop, i played a lot of games, for a long time, i mean A LONG time, games like WoW, me n some friends used to play all night, and never had this kind of problems back then..

 

Oh, mine was having problems from day one. I loaded up NeverWinter Nights (the original, not 2) and noticed the problem immediately. Then I tried Q3 Arena and saw the problem there too. So, maybe some of machines are defective flat out and with others the degree of defect becomes more over time. I've noticed this thing runs hotter and hotter longer I have it. I'm just waiting for the video card to fail. I just hope it isnt before this semester is over.

 

I haven't had any overheating issues, I also haven't been playing games. I have however ran a video compression utility that kept both cores at 100% utilization for several hours with no problems. The fan was going at top speed and the table under the laptop was warm, but it was fine.

Also, you guys should be aware that this particular model was never intended to be a gaming machine, there are much more suitable laptops if thats what you like to do. That being said the gpu should be able to run at 100% with no issues. If you are having overheating issues and you weren't previously the heatsink is probably clogged with dust. Take out the heatsink and fan and clean them out real good.

Another trick is to check the interface between the gpu and the heatsink, often they use a thermal interface pad that might not provide the best possible contact. You can scrape it off and replace it with a high quality thermal grease and you should see temps drop by a few degrees. Be warned that this could likely void your warranty.

Lastly, and this should be common sense, there should be nothing blocking airflow into or out of your laptop. Nothing should be underneath it and nothing should be next to it near any of the vents.

If you're still having problems after that I would send it back to Acer.

 

Yup, actually my laptop is getting A LOT hotter than before, i mean a lot, before it was always like a little warmy, but now is plain hot, sometimes it burns, specially on the left side, just where the hdd drive is, i wonder if i can install an additional fan, besides the one it already has....
And kkc777...did the fan solved your problem or not?? was it an overheating issue?

 

wowow.
cleaning the fan and whatnot really did the trick.
prior, when gaming, the temp would spike up to 62*.
so i opened it up, took some cutips, and cleaned the fan and the area the air comes out.
now when i game, the tempature stays at a 47* and idles at 32*

 

Of course ! I'm unhappy on mine you must dismantle the whole laptop to reach the heatpipe and clean it, but it did it also with something like 5 °C less after only 3 monthes I bought it... Next step : Arctic Silver Ceramic and better pads for vga and chipset, sure it will work fine... Don't know if you can find this in USA but here in France we can find those ones : http://www.materiel.net/ctl/Divers3/2380-Thermattach_412.html
And it makes it when space between chip & cooler is too high to use paste ! I already used 2 sheets to fill the space on a graphic card, it was quite more efficient than original thermal pads...

 

Hey people,

I've got an Aspire 5100-5328 and I am experiencing the same problems with the FPS drop, I was figuring it was loading troubles when lotsa stuff going on onscreen while playing things like Jade Empire. Until I started noticing it happening to games like Dungeon seige 2, Joint Operations....then I was kind of baffled. Tried many different versions of catalyst then best driver that seems to be working is the 200M, when I went to update (by the way I've the X1100) now it just says ATI Radeon express series, thats with the 7.3. I was having serious issues when installing the software part as well so went the driver route only and that's what I got...It did improve performance slightly but still no need to be that low for such minimal requirement pc games....also, I've the heat issues of the lower left side as well, gets fairly warm, at least the battery isn't melting I suppose So yeah and ideas are welcome, this puppy isn't even a month old yet!! Not impressed, oh yeah using vista X64 as well, upgraded from x32 and problems still remains.

 

Channelz, the overheating thing might be it, i dont know, my problem is still here. I don't know how to clean the fan so im still working on it.

 

Gotta go at the system from the bottom amigo. Once you find it, might I suggest a Q-tip. (not really a fan of compressed air, especially if the dust is caked, plus it likes to shoot out liquid oxygen once it a while, that can't be good )

 

I wish there was a fix for mine, no amount of cleaning is going to help. Mine is defective...but I have reason to believe alot of these things are defective...just some of them don't show it right away. If anyone can find a way to control the fan, please let me know.

 

Like I said before I have never seen any of these problems that you guys are reporting with the 5102, heck yesterday I was playing flight simulator X demo on my 5102 and guess what no sticks ups or FPS drop offs although I could use more memory (i.e stolen RAM)! Mind you the x1100 isn't exactly that powerful but with some of the graphics settings on medium to high everything ran smoothly. I locked the processor at 1400mhz and undervolted to 0.950v while I played it to prevent the inevitable overheating (notebook cooling is rubbished compared to desktops as you know).

Therefore the problems that I am hearing about here lead me to believe that there maybe some defective 5102s out there on the market.
My harddrive heats up the left palm rest after a while but it becomes warm not hot, this is the only problem I have, but this probably isn't avoidable since a working harddrive produces heat...

I will clean out my fan tomorrow with some compressed air and maybe I will try that Q-tip idea suggested here.

 

Fan control you ask? I remember a program I used to use that you could control fans and everything, for a desktop mind you not sure if it would work for a notebook. It was called "Motherboard Monitor" anyone ever used that? Lotsa of options on that one, I'll take a look around and see if I can find anything on it.

 

I might have found a solution

IF you set the acer EPOWER CPU speed to HIGH instead of Maximum, the FPS problem seems to stop.

Can anyone verify this for me?

 

Nop kkc77, it didnt solved for me

 

nvm doesnt solve for me either
didnt come for a while thought it was fixed but i guess now

im guessings its an over heating problem.

 

Recently i'm experiencing problems with my 5102.
I've upgraded the Hard-disk with a Seagate 7200RPM 100GB disk and since 2 weeks i'm having issue's with booting.

Almost every time when i power up the notebook i get an errormessage about issue's with my HD
Error 200: Failure Fixed Disk 0
And when i check in the bios if its recognised correctly it isnt and i get a few ``` marks where the numbers and digits of the hard disk need to be.

I already looked up google and it seems that it can occur with bad Harddrives.

But i dont think that is the case since sometimes (after retrying it for about 6 or 8 times) it just boots up and "almost" nothing seems to be wrong.
Notice the "almost". Because sometimes my notebook just hangs and if i wait long enough i get some weird blue screen with no text on it. (i'll try to get a screen but i think its clear now).

When i check the place where i've put the HD in, i see that this HD is about 2 millimeters shorter. So what i did is putting something in between the harddisk and the notebooks inside. Now its just stuck and cant move. Also i've opened the notebook and didn't seem to find anything wrong with it.

I've already updated to anything that i can find. Bios, drivers, windows (Vista that is). And i think it could have something to do with the new bios.
I'll try to reformat the hard disk but doubt that it will help. Also i'm considering to downgrade the bios.
If that fails and nobody has any idea, i'm going to the acer service, but i'm afraid that i will lose all my data (will backup today). Also, i need the notebook for just a few days so if anybody knows something, please let me know.

 

My Acer is have major problems. Yesterday I had four bsod. Each time it said either "Dumping Physical Memory" or "Kernel Stack In-Page Error". Each time when it restarted it would say "Fixed Disk Error". After 5 minutes it would work again. Then about 2 hours later I would get the BSOD. I ran multiple spy ware and anti-virus. Nothing popped up. I did a check disk in command prompt and it came back with 32kb of bad sectors. I don't think that much makes a difference, but who knows? Does anyone have any ideas? Lastly, does anyone know of a good online diagnostic program?