no advanced tab in aspire 3100 BIOS

I am trying to activate the infrared sensor, but there is no "advanced" tab in the BIOS. Is there a trick to getting to this tab, or getting it to appear? I have tried pressing the "m" key instead of F2 when the POST screen is on, but nothing happens; it just goes on to boot the OS.
Thanks for any help!
Lewis

 

Usually you don't need to activate the infrared sensor (in the bios) on a notebook you just have to install the driver.

Check the acer FTP page for the infrared driver download install it and see if it works. If not then your model doesn't carry the infrared feature.

 

Thanks for the input. I have the driver installed but it gives an error. One version of the 3100 manual shows a setting under the "advanced" tab in the BIOS to activate or not activate the infrared device. My guess is that infrared is either not installed on this particular model, or not activated in the BIOS, but I can't tell which without getting to the advanced tab.

 

The main reason I'm pursuing this is because of the complete lack of support from Acer. I exchanged half a dozen emails with them (mostly because I mis-typed the serial number), and the bottom line is they won't even tell me whether the infrared is installed on this model! I understand that limited support is one of the reasons Acer is so cheap, but come on! To refuse to tell a user whether a particular feature is installed on a particular notebook? That's just nuts.
Lewis

 

What model number aspire 3100 do you have? If you give me the model I can do some checking.

However I can tell you what to look for so you can identify externally if your notebook has a infrared receiver sensor or not.
I still have my aspire 5102wlmi which uses the same chassis as the aspire 3100 that you have. Now my 5102 doesn't have infrared so the infrared sensor at the front is blocked out. To check yours all you need to do is take a look at the three audio ports (headphone, microphone and line-in jacks) at the very front of the notebook. Now to the left of those audio ports you will see another similar looking circular port.
See the image


That is the infrared sensor on the aspire3100/5100 chassis. If it is a dark "glass" like material then you have the infrared module however if it is blocked out (the same color as the chassis) as in the image then the module is not present on your particular model.

Hope this helps..