averatec 3270

hi all. i have a quick ? i hope someone can help me out with.

i just purchased a 3270-eh1 picked it up for $999.99 with $200 mir.($799) [ ]
i want to upgrade the memory from 512MB to 1 gig. however, i am being told that 512 is the MAX. [:0] is this true?
seems kinda wierd that i wouldn't be able to upgrade and that their newest 3200 model computer is maxed out at 512 (which to me is bare minimum. [ !]

any help would be greatly appreciated.

THANKS!!!!!

 

I just got done reading the manual, and it dosen't indacate a memory limit. It also didnt indacate how many memory slots are built onto the board. Follow the instructions in the guide and see if you have 1 or 2 me slots. I'd be willing to bet if you only have 1 slot, you should be able to use a 1 gig mem card...if two, maybe 2 gig.

 

I just got done reading the manual, and it dosen't indacate a memory limit. It also didnt indacate how many memory slots are built onto the board. Follow the instructions in the guide and see if you have 1 or 2 me slots. I'd be willing to bet if you only have 1 slot, you should be able to use a 1 gig mem card...if two, maybe 2 gig.

 

there is a manual to this laptop? i didnt get one. none in the box!.
where can i find that information? i called tech support and they said 512 was the limit but they didnt sound to sure. i was put on hold several times before i was told that.

BTW, thanks for your help.

j

 

The manual I saw on the site has images that look like the case on my 3220.

There are no drivers available for the 3270, either. Averatec support just keeps telling me that they don't support XPpro because it's not what ships with it, there isn't a restore cd available, and that the drivers will be up...soon...but no definite ETA.

I'm also having issues installing XP pro to the 3270. XP w/SP1 in it has trouble finding one of the install files, XP w/SP2 loads fine, but then the post install dialogue comes up (you know, the annoying blue stuff that can you can't get away from and takes like a half hour to finish) and complains that one of the install files is configured incorrectly.

Support also did not send me a list of the devices that are supposed to be in this machine, so I have to guess at stuff when trying to get to the OEMs sites for generic drivers...I did request it, they didn't send. I'm waiting for a response back at this time to my response that I would like an accurate list of what hardware is in the machine so I can seek drivers on my own.

There may also be a bios issue, I've seen that in a few places regarding happy operation with SP1 or SP2. There are actually two sites to find averatec drivers at, and I'm afraid to install what I found on the one because several of the other drivers didn't take. I must have found the old one because it had all the drivers just bundled up under "3200" series...the new site has menus that make you select each thing individually. It's a real hassle than just having them on a page because to download all the drivers I have to go through the thing for each driver.

We're pretty happy with the 3220, but have wanted to upgrade to XP pro for a while because XP home basically sucks and has issues with long-term stability. My wife is a full-time student and can afford NO downtime on her pcomputer, so we were putting it off until we got her a new one. Based on the experience, features, and cost with the 3200 series, we snapped up a 3270 (@ $799, as well) and were going to prep it before she started using it...then upgrading her older one and giving it to my mom.

looks like we're waiting now. It stinks because she's got a brand new laptop that we forked out ~1000 bucks for and she can't use it...and her term started today.

I'm not happy. I support an engineering lab that has about 120 machines in it, notebooks and towers on windows, linux, and solaris, and I know what the hell I'm doing.

I have installed XP pro probably 500x, and about 20% of that on notebooks, and usually the vendors are courteous enough to provide drivers for products that are released. If a driver was lacking on a download site, I would mail support and they would post it immediately and/or email me a zipfile with an apology. IBM, Dell, Toshiba, HP, Compaq, and Gateway...I've installed various OS on all of them and never had anything left over from the install that wasn't fixable by updating bios and/or drivers from the mfr site. Ever.

I have another week or so to return this 3270 and I'm strongly considering it. Not because it's not a great product. I'm sure it is. But because the mfr wasn't professional enough to release or otherwise make available drivers for something that they're already shipping. With the prevalence of internet connections these days, it is completely normal to expect that I should be able to do this.

It's not like I'm trying to install linux on it or anything, which I might add MANY people are having excellent success with.

Sorry, but that's the way I feel about it. I wish I could be of more help than just jumping on your thread and ranting and complaining.

 

Averatec puts their manuals in a document on the hard drive. Or you can read them from their website. I was told by support that the 6100 series could only handle 1 gig, but that was blown clean outta the water by http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11603 . So as much as I would tell you to believe support, you may want to get a second opinion.

 

wow. not a problem rustskull. i really like this notebook. but if there are so many problems with tech support, then i must reconsider. i will wait a little longer and see what happens. i would really love to upgrade to 1 gig of memory and xp pro. although xp pro is not imperative.
i did sense some hesitation from tech support when i asked some questions. i had to tell them what type of memory was in the notebook (pc2700). ans still they put me on hold just to make sure.
THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP RUST AND DAMNAGE!
maybe that old saying is true.......you get what you pay for.
hopefully not because it seems as this little bad boy has tons of potential.

 

WOW Rutskull!!!

What can I say...It's quite obvious you DO in fact know what your talking about, and it is HIGHLY DISTURBING that support did, well...not. Your point is CRYSTAL clear and very well put. If anyone from Averatec reads these posts...SHAME ON YOUR COMPANY!!

Personally, I would return the laptop you bought for your wife (i know she needs it for school, but what if this happens to her machine as well?) and send a offical complaint to Averatecs management and CC the B.B.B.

a) How can a computer manufacture NOT supply drivers for their products? Thats damn near UNHEARD OF! And, no BIOS's either?! Then blow off a promise to send them? Come on!
b) Why does it take SO long for them to post driver updates to their "support /driver download" site? I manage a handful of corperate mission critical domains, and NEVER had issues posting new software releases (if I did, i'd be unemployeed).
c) WHAT manufacuter limits their prodcts OS's to what they think is necassary? Who the heck (not my word of choice) do they think they are? I was seriously considering upgrading to XP Pro (which should be a piece of cake), but have been monitoring other members sucess before I move...damn good thing.

Don't apoligize for ranting. Thats one of the most comprehensive complaints i've seen yet. And completly valid, i'll add. This worthy of some serious high level attention, and if this is how Averatec is going to support the consumer, I think a BBB complaint would definately be in order. Maybe that will get their attention.

 

More information on the Averatec stuff.

email [email protected] with your complaints - I certainly will. I'm also likely to notify the State Attorney General's office for false/misleading documentation.

Hardware I've detected so far (minus the video card - it's a Via chipset something or other)

Network card - Via Technology Rhine 10/100 (realtek) VT82C100A (VT6102)
Wireless card - Ralink RT2500 802.11 (apparently)
PCI Bridge is a VT8237 (K8T800 South)
Hard drive (on mine) is a WtC WD8000E
CD (on mine) is a GCA-480N
sound SEEMS to be a VT8233 (AC97)
Knoppix sees the modem as a Via Tech AC97 (Intel 587 ) But someone else with an older unit says it's a SmartLink in theirs. (when I boot windows, I'll double check. I had to take the first machine back due to their 'recovery system' )

IDE Controller - Via VT82C586A/B (VT82C686? VT823x)
Cardbus is ENE Technology Inc, CB1410

To me, the laptop is good just as is - I'm not so upset about the recovery system - but I think it's misleading, and probably violates a number of FTC regulations.

You're not given a reinstallation media anymore. The installation stuff is supposedly stored on a section of your hard drive, and you restore from that. Their solution if you crater the drive is to let you create 'recovery media'.

This is where they screw you over. You get an 'evaluation' of Phoenix Technologies 'Recover Pro' software - but it's a 15 day evaluation, as I recall. You have to initially create a system backup, which resizes your hard drive, then makes an image of your current data to that new partition. In my case, it rendered the system unable to boot. I swapped it out today for a new one, and I'm making my OWN images. For open source, Knoppix and partimage (I think that's the command) lets you connect to another PC over the network and make a network image - be sure to span at under 2 gigs, however.

In short, they claim you can have 'recovery media' - but it's not actually the programs you're paying for. It's an image of the hard drive - and you have to pay an extra $40 to 'activate' the version so you get USEABLE images past the trial period.

What a wonderful way to screw people over.

Lucky for me, I'm putting Linux on the sucker, so I'll be fine.

I also paid $100 more for it than the guy did at Staples, so I may check into that, and see if Sam's club has a price guarantee.

Once I'm done, I'll post up all the drivers/experiences/and so forth on my personal web site, possibly with links to the drivers needed.

BW

 

Video - Via/S3G Unichrome Pro IGP (It's an VT8237 chipset, if that helps - viaarena.com doesn't give 'exact' drivers for the K8T800, except for XP64) You might have to play with other drivers.
Modem - SmartLink 56k (www.smlink.com) ( http://www.smlink.com/content.aspx?id=53 )
Wireless - Ralink is actually giving away the information to the open source community to develop drivers, so I'm in good shape there. http;//www.ralinktech.com
Network - Via - http;//www.viaarena.com (Rhine II)
Sound - Via Vinyl AC97 - viaarena.com
chipset - Via - Hyperion 4 in 1.

Hopefully that helps you out.

BW

 

Update - SiSoftware's Sandra identifies the chipset as a K8M400.

Extra information - It looks like the max memory that the unit can support is 512 megabytes, which is what it came with. Acceptable for my usage. They also put a nice big sticker saying 'void if tampered' - over the hard drive and memory slots. Yeah, right. Someone's not tracking the lawsuits against manufacturers for trying to play that game. Generally, easily replaceable/upgradeable parts don't apply - but your mileage may vary. I personally think that the 80 gig drive and 512 megs of ram will be plenty.

Here's the text output.

SiSoftware Sandra

System
Host Name : YOUR-9E3B38BE92
User : Troy
Domain : WORKGROUP

Processor
Model : 1x Mobile AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 2800+
Speed : 1.60GHz
Model Number : 2800 (estimated)
Performance Rating : PR2406 (estimated)
Type : Ultra-Low Power
L2 On-board Cache : 256kB ECC Synchronous, Write-Back, 16-way set, 64 byte line size

Mainboard
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI IMB CardBus USB i2c/SMBus
MP Support : 2 CPU(s)
MP APIC : Yes
System BIOS : American Megatrends Inc. 080011
System : AVERATEC 3260 Series
Mainboard : To be filled by O.E.M. To be filled by O.E.M.
Total Memory : 480MB DDR-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model : VIA Technologies Inc K8M400 CPU to PCI Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 804MHz (1608MHz data rate)
Shared Memory : 1MB

Chipset 2
Model : Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 804MHz (1608MHz data rate)
Total Memory : 512MB DDR-SDRAM
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 160MHz (320MHz data rate)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : Default Monitor
Monitor/Panel : Digital Flat Panel (1024x768)
Adapter : VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP

Physical Storage Devices
Hard Disk : WDC WD800UE-00HCT0 (75GB)
CD-ROM/DVD : HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GCA-4080N (CD 24X Rd, 24X Wr) (DVD 3X Rd, 3X Wr)
CD-ROM/DVD : QSI CDRW/DVD SBW242B
CD-ROM/DVD : QSI CDRW/DVD SBW242C
CD-ROM/DVD : QSI DVDRW SDW-042
CD-ROM/DVD : Slimtype COMBO SOSC-2483K

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C : 64GB (60GB, 94% Free Space) (NTFS)
CD-ROM/DVD (D : N/A

Peripherals
Serial/Parallel Port(s) : 1 COM / 0 LPT
USB Controller/Hub : VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
PCMCIA/CardBus Controller : Generic CardBus Controller
Keyboard : Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse : Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad

MultiMedia Device(s)
Device : Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver (WDM)

Communication Device(s)
Device : Smart Link 56K Modem

Power Management
AC Line Status : On-Line
Battery No 1 : 100%

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Home (Win32 x86) 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 2)

Network Services
Adapter : VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter
Adapter : 802.11g MiniPCI Wireless Network Adapter

Performance Tips
Warning 100 : Large memory sizes should be made of Registered/Buffered memory.
Tip 2546 : Large memory modules should be ECC/Parity.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

 

Bookworm -

While I applaude your quality in researching these driver issues, I would like to ask that you please not double post your findings.

DamnageD

 

Part of the problem was that I didn't realize that some of it was going into the wrong forum - and I didn't bother deleting. Other information was useful in both. I don't see a crosspost function anywhere on here, so I can crosslink.

There's more information on the other thread as well.

Apologies for bothering anyone.

(BTW - the laptop seems to be perfect for Linux - every component manufacturer provides at least a sourcecode driver for their product - including the wireless card, modem, video adapter, and audio. )

BW

 

Don't misunderstand me. I bought another one because the hardware, quality, and features cannot be beat. I am not unhappy with the product. Try and find a notebook that weighs less than 2kg for under 1300 USD (even after rebates). I don't dare you because I'm pretty sure there is a deal somewhere...but not where I can just drive to it and pick it up.

I have recommended this line of product to anyone that has sought my advice for a lightweight notebook. I still do, but with some extra advice now...

They are going to sell more than they thought into the LInux market as it is not a cheap thing to be able to buy a laptop off the shelf and have confidence that Linux will just up and fly on it. Out of curiousity, I stuffed a DVD of Fedora Core 2 FInal that I had laying about and it came up well enough to use. It even found the wireless NIC. I was impressed. Once the system is up, it's usually just the investment of a few hours of tuning and customization time to tweak it just so. It came up plenty far enough to just get up and start tweaking. As anyone who works with Linux knows, the biggest bugaboos are usually display and sound. Improvements in the kernel coupled with the luck of having the right hardware allowed sound and vid to work right off.

If this keeps up, my mom may not get to inherit the old 3220.

But to polish off the thread properly from my digression, you should be able to put a sodimm in if it will fit (some laptops require lower profile ones) and usually having faster memory than the system requires isn't an issue. The limitation may be hard set or upgradable through the BIOS. It really depends on whether it's tied to the motherboard whether or not they can access more memory. In some cases, you are looking at that upper limit because the wiring doesn't exist on the board to allow for addressing the extra banks of memory...in most cases though, these days, it's something fixable in the bios to actually recognize and allow the processor to map the extended address space. And that of course, depends on whether they have interest in fixing the BIOS to allow it. There's several reasons from an engineering/marketing standpoint why it was not initially done so or why they wouldn't do it later that I won't go into here.

The last thing to say (which probably belongs in my other thread) is that my HP desktop replacement notebook came with a bunch of CD...
1. image with XPhome SP2 with all the stuff preloaded
2. cd with all the drivers, main applications, and extra applications on it (in an interface that loads them all for you sweet!)
3. the hp printer package stuff (so you don't have to make a 300MB download to get the first install set up, they update after that)
4. other full versions of video editors and dvd burning/viewing software
5. full documentation library (whole cd's worth)

Now, I'll grant you...after rebates that system was still $1299 and it's heavier than the original sin...but even emachines come with a restore disk that includes a supplemental driver directory. Yeah, for being a cheapass PC, at least they let you load whatever the devil you want and you ahve recourse if things don't work out...but even if XP doesn't find everything, as long as the CDROM works you can load the drivers.

If they're not going to eat the cost of shipping a CD they should at least put up an FTP site that you can grab the goods from. Now that has no overhead...ust put up the files once and all you're paying for is transfers...it doesn't even have to be high performance, in fact, most manufacturer's sites I've used for that aren't.

I don't think it violates any FTC laws or anything. Nobody promised you a recovery and/or driver disk. Period. You get the warranty, and even that is arguable, regardless of the product.

I also question if your local vendor is going to match the price - after rebate. We paid like 950 or 900 for it @ staples, and the model may have a different size hard drive than yours, also negating the price match.

 

I did want to slightly bump this to say that if anyone has a laptop older than the 3270 that ALL the drivers are available on the averatec website. I have no fear about upgrading the 3220 my wife has, she just needs to keep using it until I get her new one up and going. I'm going down the list tha bookworm posted as we speak. Thanks again BW. You're doing exactly what I should have done and have been kicking myself ever since for not taking the simple precaution. IF I was installing linux you can bet your complete butt that I would ahve wrote down everything before blowing it away. That's just the way you have to approach it. I just had no precident to worry about it. I was going to burn me a knoppix cd if I ran into any severe difficulties. The MEPIS one I hear is very good too, and you can "click to install" from the live cd, which about 7 out of 11 people I've heard try MEPIS lately have told me worked well for them. I just avoid mepis because it's one of those games where you get the old release unless you pay. It better be damn perfect for me to do that. Otherwise, I just stick wtih debian sid at home because it has more kid oriented apps in it (you only get some of the more special stuff using unstable versions, which debian unstable is pretty damn stable..but that's another stump I'm not going to climb on and preach).

and again, I don't think there's enough here, especially with the particular republicans in power, to cause even a single eyebrow hair to raise at any governement office. It still clearly falls under the argument for incompetence and not fraud....

I hate saying it because the product is really good, but it's a value option. You get what you pay for, as always. In this case I made the compromise in support, but definitely not in quality. In fact, I'm typing this on the 3270 right now...so, XPpro took well enough for stuff to get up and running, although I'm currently cabled and not wireless.

I love the way this notebook feels. It is so much more compact and fast to work on than my big HP. The touchpad is smoother and just runs nicer and the keyboard is the perfect size. The HP actually has much bigger keys which require a lot more effor. The only thing I could ask for is a little more radius on the edge of it because when I type for long periods and my wrist sags a little it's uncomfortable pressed against it. But other than that...it's a good sized screen, this 3270 is hella faster than the 3220...night and day...and can run more stuff at once.

time to keep patching...thanks again for the assistance.

 

Hey all. just got off the phone with averatec. while i am not sure to believe them or not, they state that the drivers will be up on their website in 2 weeks. as for the memory, they still say 512MB is max, but i am tempted to open the bad boy up and just try to upgrade. my wife is giving me crap about it though saying it will void the warranty. maybe i'll try it when she is not around! lol.
so i guess i'll wait for the drivers before i try ugrading to pro.
i hate driver searching.

 

Well, I've spent a while monkeying with it. You'll get some strange issues with 2.6.11 - which is necessary to fix the keyboard/network weirdness.

pcmcia controller seems to have issues with 2.6.11 - not sure why.

smartlink drivers seem to function (haven't fully tested), but you have to install them in alsa mode. (

(note, all of this is with the 2.6.11 kernel.)

I've actually somehow managed to kill my sound server on KDE, so that's interesting. Haven't gotten the RaLink wireless driver to run yet - that's next, I guess.

I may just try stuffing a Knoppix CD in, load to hard drive, and see if everything starts working. I don't LIKE Debian, but if I need to go that route to have a working diagnostics laptop, I will.

Back to the initial discussion.

Ram - you MIGHT be able to get it up to a gig, but you'll void your warranty 100% - these idiots sealed off the hard drive and memory with "void if tampered" stickers - the tech I talked to basically said that they want the laptops to be shipped back to them for any reason - including repairs, upgrades, and so forth; even out of warranty stuff.

sound in linux - I can't tell if it works or not. I've noticed that it is capable of putting out more sound than comes initially in windows - by fiddling with some extra settings.

If I can't get everything at least working decently in the next few days, I'll take it back and get a less capable laptop - simply because I don't have the time to have to reprogram everything.

FTC issues - simple. The promise you an operating system and a copy of Microsoft Works. They don't deliver. A license is not media. Unless you're like me and you have access to make yourself a media CD, you're up a creek.

BW

 

I went back and installed XPpro SP1 and it said it couldn't load one file but I skipped it and the rest loaded fine. It went through setup and found enough stuff to get the wired NIC up and display going and basic touchpad functionality (no tap available yet, but I'm confident that the generic synaptics or whichever the mfr turns out to be driver will work fine when I get done with the rest of it).

I am in the middle of the update process now. On the second round of updates, WUPD found the wireless NIC, modem, and chipset/audio drivers. On the third round, it wanted to install SP2. I'm in the middle of that now. I'm going to continue to let WUPD install whatever drivers it wants and then clean up afterwards. CLean up will consist of checking installed driver versions against the mfr ones to see what's newer and keep those that are, and tracking down any remaining yellow bangs and any other general system tweaks that need to be installed (like the PowerNow! if WUPD doesn't grab that for me.

So it's looking pretty good at this point. Even half loaded, I still favor the nice semi-compact perfect sized keyboard to the one on my HP that has bigger buttons. It would be perfect if I could get one of the 3270's dimensions on my HP...just because it has a bigger screen and case didn't mean they had to throw a giant keyboard on it...

Spotted a couple threads on the AMD forums I'm going to check out while all SP2 is going on. I've installed SP2 standalone and online many times and the funny thing is that with a braodband connection I've noticed negligible difference in install times...both are DAMN LONG. Make sure you plug your notebook in and turn off power management stuff while SP2 is loading, BTW. I forgot to do this and it went to sleep while SP2 was loading so I had to start over...theoretically it shouldn't have interrupted it, but it was during dinner so it slept for a while and often that borks pretty much any large download youre in the middle of...

 

The edit icon isn't available so I had to repost to make a correction. The touchpad tap feature is working, just not the scrolling. Only the default windows mousie config is available. The full config won't be possible until I install the Synaptics driver/gui package. That's probably going to be one of the last items...

I also wish that my more expensive HP laptop had an honest to god volume dial instead of stupid soft buttons that hook into Windoze. The averatec volume knob directly controls the volume level and the windows volume control isn't affected...I like that.

Just another way the value notebook tromps my desktop replacement...

 

Dang I love that synaptics touchpad so much more than the one on the HP...garrr...Possibly I should have got an averatec higher end mode...but the HP also has great sound onboard. Harmon Kardon...

Anyhow, here is status.

touchpad
Averatec one from the 3255 works fine. It's generic and made everything all happy. I suspected that was a common piece since the driver was generically named.

Video/Chipset
Go to Viaarena.com drivers section. Lots of menu boxes, so here's the short list...

Windows XP->Integrated Graphics->K8M800 integrated graphics
This driver (20MB dl, so on dial up be prepared to let it run overnight) takes care of the whole chipset, or at least appears to. My windows were all jerky and jumpy when dragging them around...as soon as this was installed - NO MORE! YAY! no reboot needed, either...

Wireless
Go to Ralinktech.com and grab the newest 11g-RT2500 driver from the site. It's version 3.0.2.0 dated 3/14/05, the miniPCI version (for the less technically apt...there's a USB one and want to make sure that people know the right one). Installs a very nice monitoring utility and windows correctly identifies the product ID now instead of it being generic. Seems a little snappier, too. The only downside is that windows decided to renumerate the device and so it's called "wireless card #2" even though there's only one. So, you should probably do all these drivers before you run windows update to avoid having windows enumerate it the first time. I can do surgery to get it out (I work in a wireless chipset development group) but the nuisance isn't worth the effort. What do I care what it says, at least you know the method to keep it from happening because windows update *should* (and I say should because I've had it write over current drivers with outdated ones a few times, not often, but it happens...if it happens to you just go to driver update and tell it to roll back and everything is happy again) not attempt to update it becuase the driver it stuck in there was like 2 years old...the time stamp on the drivers should tell it to not do it.

AMD Power NOW!
My proc (sempron mobile 2800+)was running at full-bore when idle (just looking at system properties). Should be throttled back to about 600MHz or so when just sitting there (verified this on my other laptop, it was idling at about 640 (athong 64 3200+)and I fied up a movie and it went to about 780...).
Go to amd.com and select the "processors" tab.
Go to the sempron mobile family
on the right hand side of the page there's a link to download the powernow driver...careful, there's a exe and a zipfile (both the same file, just packaged differently for whatever your need is) but the one for win2k and earlier is at the top of the page...take the second or third one. The driver provider is updated from microsoft to AMD, however, at idle, I'm still looking @ 1.6 GHZ. Hmmm...well, at least it's the right driver now.

DOn't know if the memory slot works yet, but I have a feeling that it's related to those two remaining mystery bangs in device manager. Not sure what they are yet, but when Averatec comes out with the drivers I will see what is on the list that I didn't cover yet and see what that will do. Or I'll just blow ALL the drivers away with the averatec ones and selectively upgrade them back to goodness.

I'm spent. G'night.

 

Related to a prior post, those two mystery bangs are the SD/MMC Winbond controller - I grabbed the SD installer from a 7000 series controller (no clue what it originally came from) off of driversguide.com

I can email them to you if you drop me a note.

Definitely have to do the PowerNow - now that was a nuisance to get.

Update on Linux. I now have the modem functioning, the sound card functioning (well, I didn't actually finish dialing up, I just made sure it dialed at all), the wireless card functioning (I'm on it now - requires an extra step for me because they call it ra0 rather than an eth* number)

I don't have full Unichrome framebuffer support, but then, I'm not too concerned. I don't intend to be watching much in the way of movies on it. There is a driver for the memory stick reader in Linux, but I don't think i'll bother. I don't see myself trying to use it much - I have XD for my main camera, my fiancee's uses the Sony memory stick, and we have an external reader for that.

Caution - what I had to do to make everything seem to work right with Linux is recompile the 2.6.11 kernel with the ALSA stuff all built in - that allowed the modem to shift to device 1, and the sound card be device 0 - which lets them both function.

rustskull - go ahead and email me through the system, I've got some stuff you might want.

BW

 

I was sort of assuming that it was the memory card slot as those things weren't listed in the HWmgr. When Averatec comes out with the drivers, I'll tak ethe approach that I mentioned before...

Until then, it's good enough to use now. everything that's going to be used right away is functional, and I only made a 15GB partition for the system. I'm going to probably set her up with a "home" partition and switch her profile directory to there so that we can whack the system iwth complete disregard and still have her data/settings be okay.

I don't trust people in my neighborhood, you've been helpful but I inherently distrust people on the net even more. I'm pretty cautious about our computing environment because we rely on it so heavily right now. I can wait. I want to do other stuff than play with the drivers...if I wanted to do that, I'd boot into linux.

 

I have the averatec 3270-eh1 with the 80 gig hard drive. A sweet buy form sam's club at $899. However, i have installed xp pro and updated the drivers where I saw approriate. This was before averatec decided the 3200 series drivers arn't all compatiable with every laptop in the 3200 series. Now I am experiencing 2 blue screens of death a day. Is this normal? I think it might be since the drivers and windows may be confilicting with the hardware. Is anybody else experiencing this problem? When will Averatec release drivers for the 3270???

 

nobody knows when they are going to put the drivers up on the support site for the 3270. I've been asking that for weeks.

Our 3270 is fully functional now except for the memory card slot. If I knew with a fair amount of confidence which driver to use for that, I'd go hunt it down. But that can wait for the real ones to be released. They have the drivers or they wouldn't be able to configure the things to be shipped anyhow; why don't they just f*&$^##&g put them up already? I completely do not understand what the hell they are thinking on this one.

Other than that, I have no complaints. Search back the threads here and you'll find how I ended up going about setting up and patching the system the hard way.

My wife is already using it as her main machine now for school, so it's been very reliable once it's brain was reassembled far enough.

My advice would be to install XP, either the base or SP1, and update repeatedly until you get past SP2. Install AV software as soon as the system is up far enough to take the install so you don't pick up any nasties while your system is idling online for hours while the windows updates are happening. After you get SP2 installed, then go after the OEM drivers for all the stuff you can find. The HW OEMs are testing to SP2 now, so to make sure you stay as consistent as you can wait until that point to start laying the drivers in manually. If you find a win32 driver that takes care of your memory card bangs, post up where you found it. Don't use drivers from driverguide or any sites like that...those are avenues of last resort and usually don't work real well anyhow for several reasons even if you manage to get them to install.

Good luck. Follow the process I used and you'll probably get at least as far as I did. Dont' go through the pain of rediscovery on your own unless you really want to. When Averatec ever decides to let us have their drivers, I'll go back through them and plug whatever gaps are left and update any of the OEM ones that they supercede...I would not advise regressing to an averatec supplied driver if it is an older version of an OEM one or unless there is great compelling reason to do so. Averatec looks like part of their cost savings plan is to not spend a whole lot on custom driver tweaking for their platroms, which is fine with me. If the OEMs are going to update and make available updated releases more often, that's fine with me.

It's just not representative of what I've come to expect from most notebook manufacturers, but then again, no other notebook mfr offers the value and quality of hardware that averatec does.

If you are looking for bang for the buck, you've found it.

HTH and good luck. Let us konw how it goes! The community only gets stronger and more useful with open sharing...

 

I have been living the saga and following this page silently. I thought you guys might want to know that 3270 appear to have been posted to Averatec's site.

I'm going to be loading them on my friend's machine tonight or tomorrow. She's in the same boat as the rest of you. She has what appears to be a great machine from what I have learned is a lousy company.

The information sharing has really helped here, as Averatec's tech support just isn't supportive. Their reply to everything is, "let's do a system restore."

I'll post my results.

 

Yes, I see that they've been posted. I usually check there before I come post here with any updates.

Since my wife is already using her new system, I'm not going to blow it away and restart from scratch even though that is what I'd tend to do just to make sure everithing is totally clean as far as registry and all. windows systems tend to destabilize over time once you've mucke dwith the registry, no matter how careful you are...

I'm going to go check and see what solves the remaining yellow bangs and what the driver mix is...sometimes they're packaged all together, sometimes some are mixed in with other chipset drivers; some times they're all separate. I haven't had a good look at em yet; I just wanted to pop in and let people know if someone already hadn't that htey're up.

bb later with the whole rundown on freshness of drivers etc etc.

 

I just read this thread and I am having a problem with my new 3270 laptop. The 60gig version. Anyway, I am trying to use a 1gig SD card in the SD slot and it only works 1 out of 10 times. Is this becasue it is not supposed to take a 1gig card or is it my drive? I really need some help with this. One of the main reasons i got this system was the card reader built in but if it does not work with my 1gig card then its gonna be a real bummer. Thanks for any help i can get guys/girls.

 

1. are you using the eject in the system tray to eject your card? You may have corrupted the filesystem on it. Make sure you wait until windows tells you it's okay to yank it out before you pull it.
2. make sure you give it time to be discovered before accessiong it and wait some seconds before you try to reinsert it after ejecting it. Windows has a bit of a lag on connect/disconnects.
3. on a time when the card is recognized, try and format it (after taking any data off it that you might need). If you're using it in a portable device, there may be a format option on your device. Sometimes there is a device specific thing going on and you need to format the card in the target device before trying to use it. Usually this means that it wipes it and sets up a file or two or possibly a directory tree that the devic eneeds to run whatever it's doing properly...I haven't seen a case yet where a device will format it in to something that windows can't read. NEarly all removable device formats are some sort of MS compatible FAT system (Fat12 or Fat16, in most if not all cases).
4. your card could have bad blocks or a blown or otherwise sketchy memory bank or eeprom on it. Find a buddy with a linux box and have it try and set up a filesystem on it. Linux will feed you out all sorts of good low-level info and will tell you outright if something is wrong with the hardware itself. I've salvaged flash drives this way...last time one of the banks of memory on a 256MB stick was blown, so I rewrote the blocks to only address the good bank and formatted it to fat16. 2k and XP havfe thought since that I got a 128MB flash drive...slick...windows wouldn't even recognize the flash before I tore into it with LInux....

/digression

 

Installed the posted memory care reader driver and yellow bang gone.

The RALink driver from the OEM site is a newer rev than the one that they posted on support, so I'm keepin this one unless there appears a compelling reason to try and roll it back.

I haven't checked up on the other driver versions to compare, but I did download all the drivers they had there in case something comes up and I cannot get on the net (I don't expect it to happen, but doens't hurt to play the boy scout). I have a feeling that most of the drivers on Averatec's site will be older than the ones that I am using now. Everything's working and I'm tired of playing iwht it, so I'm turning it over to my wife so I can absorb the 3220...and I can play with it all I want as there's nobody waiting on it. As long as it's done in time for mother's day (gonna give it to my mom who's still using a k6/2 350 AT system...yikes!) no worries.

Thanks for all the assistance and hope our discussions helped a few other people out...

 

I saw this notebook at Cicuit City for $799 (after MIR), so I was going to get it (especially seeing as how the driver "situation" seems to have been resolved by Avaeratec) to take to school. (Gateway 7422GX (8.5 lbs) + huge English and Calc books = not fun.) I have a question though: Does it not come preloaded with an OS or what? It says on both Averatec and CC's websites that is has WinXP Home SP2 - I assume all the talk of installing XP Pro is kind of a "because I (think I) can" type thing? I just need it to run for a couple of years with basic functionality, so XP home is fine for me.

I guess when Gateway bought eMachines, I should have run away, eh?

 

hey all. just out of curiosity, has anyone tried to upgrade the memory? is it still maxed out at 512mb? i would REALLY love to put 1 gig in it. my old box had 1 gig pc 2700 mem. and i really miss it.
other than that... love the book!

BTW, yes it comes pre-installed with win xp home (and a whole lot of other junk! lol).

THANKS!

 

1. are you using the eject in the system tray to eject your card?

I have tried this as well as just pushing the button to eject the disk. Does not make any difference.


2. make sure you give it time to be discovered before accessiong it and wait some seconds before you try to reinsert it after ejecting it.

Yes I have done this also and it does not make a difference.


3. on a time when the card is recognized, try and format it (after taking any data off it that you might need).

I have done this also, but it also does not make a difference.


4. your card could have bad blocks or a blown or otherwise sketchy memory bank or eeprom on it.

The card works fine in my camera and in my usb card reader.


I have tried a 1q gig Memory Stick Duo in my drive in an adapter and it works fine, so I am wondering if its just the Secure Digital card reader that will not take the 1 gig.

 

The next thing I was going to suggest was using another card reader to check the card.

1. see if there is a newer OEM driver
2. pester Averatec about a BIOS (or driver) update; pester them about it working, at the least.
3. There was also a change between XP and 2k with regards to the filesystem and formatting on some cards...there may be a discrepancy with the way the USB reader works and the onboard one.
4. hate to suggest this but there may be a marginal mismatch between your controller and card. Try some other 1GB cards if possible. Even other cards that are teh same mfr and model may work where this one didn't.

 

Rustskull,

I'm on a Averatec 6240 w/ XP SP2 and I get a very poor to zilch signal with the Ralink card. I downloaded their 3/14/05 driver, and it didn't help. My older Averatec 3235 uses a Broadcom card, and it works perfectly with my Linksys router. Don't know why I can't get a decent signal with Ralink, but it looks like lots of other people are having this problem, as well. I haven't found a solution. (It *does* work if I hold the laptop right next to the router, but that's impractical for my home network setup.)

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

I'm not a geek, so please talk humanese.

 

dvori, see my reply to your other post about this.

 

Got it, thanks. I meant my older Averatec is a 3225, and it works perfectly. I was hoping the fancy new 6240 would be even better.

 

rustskull,

Have you hhad any further luck in installing XP Pro on the 3270? I want the long term stability with XP Pro, but I don't want to deal with the blue screens and driver problems that you seemed to be having earlier. Since they posted the drivers online, have you had more luck and less trouble? I hope the answer is yes... XP Pro is much better than Home...

 

I've read several places that the only difference between Home and Pro is that Pro lets you setup more security for your system.

 

hey all. i upgraded to xp pro (by force not by choice) and i have had some minor problems with memory dumps and generic hosts not loading. they seem quite frequent but no major problems.
i used all the drivers posted online.
on a side note, i called averatec to find out about my memory issue. they said this laptop holds up to 2 gigs of memory and has two memory slots. however she did not sound sure of it. she said we would not void out the warranty installing it ourselves because we would not break the tamper seal. she said the memory is not located there. but i dont see anywhere else it coud be.
any ideas?

 

FYI, as a point of clarification, Averatec installation media is put up in a partition of the hard drive. The Phoenix trial version that comes preinstalled with windows is a trial version but the version that is connected to the BIOS (that you press I believe F4 to enter) is seperate and not a trial version. I applaud them for their efforts to create such a wonderful program and not require CD media to reinstall the OS. It's a nice, revolutionary way to do it.


<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Bookworm

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Kronos

 

I called Averatec Tech Support. A Rep by the name of Frank told me that the Averatec 3270 is upgradeable to 1 Gig memory. I went to Fry's and purchased the 1 Gig Corsair memory (PC2700 / DDR333 / 200 Pin SODIMM) for $140 with a $15 mail in rebate and installed the memory on my 3 week old Averatec 3270. All works well. The 3270 seems like it is twice as fast as the it was with the standard 512 Meg. Hope this helps all of you.