New Ferrari 4000 Vista Downloads

Here you go peeps. For those of you that aren't in the "know-how"....

http://secure2.tx.acer.com/VistaDown...cerSeries.aspx

Pick the Ferrari 4000 from the dropdowns and find your Vista downloads. Including a new 3A27 BIOS version.... yep I said it... a new BIOS.

Someone with DDR400 memory try it and tell us if they fixed that issue. Acer saw fit not to include a changelog with this one. Support stated that they made changes on the BIOS to help with Vista specific problems, but no further info was given.

Yeah, I couldn't notice anything different either. Haven't gotten to putting in my Vista drive back in to see if the card reader gets detected as a simple "removable drive" instead of Acer Hardware or whatever it is. And I couldn't do anything about the memory because mine is still 333.

Anyway, from further reading there will probably never be an update to run 400 on this system. That's because apperently the hardware will only run 400 with a single memory chip, but not both slots filled. This is how the MSI notebooks work (which apperently have the same motherboard in them) and they only run 400 on a single chip. Once the BIOS detects 2 chips it drops it back down to 333. It apears that Acer didn't want to mess with this too much and just locked down the clockrate to 333 for either one or two modules.

My system seems to be a little more responsive with the new BIOS though... so that's good.

What kind of memory? Who makes it? I tried some OCZ333 memory and it would bluescreen. Sending it back for some Crucial. I've had nothing but probs with every OCZ chip I've used in the past which is a little surprising. Also, I've noticed that with 3A27 the volume on the laptop is much higher now from both the speakers and the headphones plug... anyone else notice this? I also really want to upgrade the proc to an ML44, but don't know if the BIOS will take it. I know it'll work with an ML42 because the 4006 has that, but I just don't think that small of a bump in speed will do much. I'd rather go all out and do the ML44.

Volume is greatly improved on my laptop with this BIOS. (this is on XP) Where I was previously at 90% volume to listen to music on earbuds, I'm currently at 50%. Also, I've never used the cruddy RealTek drivers that come from Acer. I always run the latest from Realtek's website and update every month as they do. Same thing holds true for the ATI drives... I've always run the ATI Mobility ones and NEVER had any issues. The OCZ was rated at CL2.5, but in my system it wouldn't run at CL2.5, it ran at CL3.0,3,3,7. On cold starts of the system (when the system was off for a while like overnight) the system would blue screen on startup. After that it would be fine. The OCZ I had is 333 memory. I'm not going to tweak the memory timings with software to guarantee stability... if it was a function of the BIOS, sure, but not on this laptop. On desktop systems running OCZ I've had to routinely bump up the memory voltage to guarantee stable memory at the full speeds. If the memory from OCZ was a higher speed rating then what the motherboard would support and was running slower then what it was rated at then it would be stable with no changes to voltage or anything. I think OCZ expects too much from some of it's chips... it's been my experience that if you buy OCZ, buy a step higher in speed then what you currently run "natively" on the board.... it will make for a more stable system.

As for Vista drivers, I still run the Realtek and ATI ones respectively on that setup. There are issues with the Synaptics 9.1.0 drivers at the moment (Vista prompts to run the SynTPEnh.exe on every startup because the drivers are not MS signed so Vista thinks it's not a reliable exe file to run.) Hard unlocking the file to make it safe also does not work. I currently have sent this info to Synaptics to fix the touchpad drivers. I'm still amazed on how many manufacturers are dragging their asses for some reliable drivers for Vista. They have had 4+ months to come up with something reliable.