Acer Aspire 1710 Review - Page 6

I believe Adam had it at 400/650 stable

Several people here have had the setting of 400/580 and showed no artifacts after several ours of gaming. I don't have mine yet but those are the settings I am going to try.

You should see about a 15% speed improvement with those settings.

My GPU has never gotten over 50C. It sits at 45C when in windows and hovers around 50 after gaming. You may want to make sure your GPU fan is working properly. It may explain some of your low framerate issues as well.

And I certainly wouldn't overclock it if it is running that hot.

I noticed in my Microcenter flyer that they are advertising the Acer 1712. I went in and they didn't have it in as of yesterday during lunch.

I'm talking about the Microcenter in Virginia.

Just for you folks that are like me and have trouble visualizing this thing. It's going to be nice to see it in person.

Edit:

Oh and can someone please post the memory info using CPU-Z?

Now i am worried...The fan works when I turn it on. I don't think it would just stop during gaming. I don't know what temps are harmful for the graphics card itself. I just assumed since the default setting for the core slowdown threshold is 130 C that everything was fine below it, especially since the temp has never been within 40 degrees of it.

Sadly I tried playing UT2K4 with the GPU overclocked at 400/650 and the game pretty much locked up on me within about 15 seconds and I got the BSOD and it automatically restarted my computer.

It was probably a stupid idea but I tried it again only raising the settings to 365/600. This time it did not freeze but there was what looked to be like a small problem with the refreshing of the screen. I occaisionally saw horizontal lines. I only played with these settings for about 2 minutes before I quit and changed the settings back to default (350/580).

From now on I am just going to leave the settings as they are. Stupid me.

Heres the memory info:

CPU-Z version 1.22
Memory Modules Serial Presence Detect (SPD)

Module #1

General
Memory typeDDR-SDRAM
Manufacturer (ID)Nanya Technology (7F7F7F0B00000000)
Size512 MBytes
Max bandwidthPC2700 (166 MHz)
Part numberNT512D64S8HB1G-6K

Attributes
Number of banks2
Data width64 bits
CorrectionNone
Registeredno
Bufferedno

Timings table
Frequency (MHz)133.......166
CAS#2.0........2.5
RAS# to CAS# delay3...........3
RAS# Precharge3...........3
TRAS#6...........7


Module #2

General
Memory typeDDR-SDRAM
Manufacturer (ID)Nanya Technology (7F7F7F0B00000000)
Size512 MBytes
Max bandwidthPC2700 (166 MHz)
Part numberNT512D64S8HB1G-6K

Attributes
Number of banks2
Data width64 bits
CorrectionNone
Registeredno
Bufferedno

Timings table
Frequency (MHz)133.......166
CAS#2.0........2.5
RAS# to CAS# delay3...........3
RAS# Precharge3...........3
TRAS#6...........7

Your heatsink may not be properly fixed to the GPU.

If the heatsink that the FAN is on isn't making contact properly the fan really isn't going to help.

The 5700 also has that powermiser feature which makes it all the stranger that you would be getting those temps at idle. You may wish to put in a call to Acer support and tell then the temps you are getting.

I will let you know on friday what temps I am getting...

Scott

What are the settings that you play FARCRY ?

does it plays at 128x1024 with all at maximum?

And about the GPU upgrade anyone knows anything about it? It was interesting, have a ATI 9700 to upgrade it.

I have to take a final decision this weekend... i´m not sure to buy the ACER 1714, or the ACER 1623 (P4 3,2, 512 RAM, 60Gb,DVD-rw,ATI 9700 64Mb, 15" TFT, and is much more cheaper than 1714 )
Iknow that 1623 is not comparable to the 1714, but is smaller, and i think is better in 3d acellaration because it haves the 9700.

Plese post some framerates and opinions about the 1712.
With that framerates and opinions, i hope finally decide on what laptop i woul buy.

Thanks

Here are some comparisons I have pieced together rom the forum.

System Specs
ACER12SMI 3.0 128mb G05700
Sager 4780 3.0 Ghz 128mb ATI 9600
Sager 8790 3.4 Ghz 256mb ATI 9700

ACER
GPU Clock(Default) 350/580 400/650
3DMARK01 SE 11,89312,955
3DMARK03 3,0623,463
Aquamark3 21,90625,604
UT2K3 1024X768 128155
UT2K3 1600X12008299




4780
[b]GPU Clock (Default)
3DMARK01 SE N/A
3DMARK03 N/A
Aquamark3 23,025
UT2K3 1024X768 128
UT2K3 1600X1200 55


8790

GPU Clock Default(415/280) 460/290 500/300 515/300
3DMARK01 SE 11,826 12,851 13,309 13,524
3DMARK03 3,381 3,748 3,971 4,033
Aquamark3 27,102 29,751 31,819 32,420
UT2K3 1024X768 146 182 190 192
UT2K3 1600X120062 80 85 86

Well.. That didn't come out as planned but you can maqke sense of it ..

Basically at default clocks the 1712 matches or beats the 4780 in all tests but the aquamark where it is about 5% slower.

Compared to the 8790 it is about 10% slower in 3dmark03 23% slower in aqua and 14% slower in the ut2k3 1024 tests but faster in the others. Keep in mind however that the 8790 also has a 3.4 vs the 1712 3.0 which is a 12% clock advantage.

Overall I can't see the 9700 being more then 10% faster in some benches ( DX9 aquamark mostly) with comperable systems. Does anyone have any benches of the 1714 or a 1712 with an upgraded processor ?

in fact i was thinking about buy a 1714, but as i i´m tired of search and don´t find any benchs about it, i´m comparing other models with 1712... The 1714 is better than 1712, so...

About the Removable GPU anyone knows about a new graphic card for 17xx release?

Any updates on the BIOS situation?

i don´t know anything about it.

1711SCi experience

Hi there,

I would like to say something about the 1711SCi I just received. Excuse some spelling errors as I am from Germany.

I ordered the 1711 because the 1712 was not available when I ordered. The difference to the 1712 are the lack of a DVD burner, only 80Gig HD and no extra Graphic card (only the built in Intel graphic) and of course a slower CPU (2,8 GHz).

I run some benchmarks and the 3D benchmarks are really disappointing:

3DMark2001 SE just a little above 3.000

SiSoftware Sandra

CPU Arithmetic Benchmark
Analysing...
Combined Index : 9289 (total)

CPU Multi-Media Benchmark
Analysing...
Combined Index : 39228 (total)

Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
Analysing...
Combined Index : 3894 (total)

File System Benchmark
Analysing...
Combined Index : 43329 (total)


But I do not want to focus on the benchmarks – although my conclusion is to return the 1711 and get the 1712 – more CPU power and a real graphic card – just in case I want to play a game.

Keyboard: I like it and I hate it. It has a good feeling, but some (in my opinion important) keys are simple to small. For example with the German keyboard layout the POINT is a smaller cap and the Return-Key is to small too.But it is better than the keyboard from the 1703 (I tested this in a shop – but as far as I know the 1703 never shipped to the US). So I have to get used to it (and at home I use my big wireless keyboard anyway). The keyboard layout is something you have to get used to anyway with most notebooks.

The touchpad is really good in my opinion. You have a 4-way (how should I name this?) scroll-pad between the left and right button – with this you can scroll left/right and up/down very easy. Nice idea.

Noise: The fan is not hear able when I am surfing or writing or programing (and listening to web radio – thats all the things I am doing at the moment – no fan :-). The only noise you hear is the hard disc (spinning up and down – as some people mentioned already) - but this is no noise, I would say. When running the benchmarks the fan started a little but not very loud. BUT – when I run Linux (more later on) without power management support the fan roared like a hairdryer. I hope during summertime it will not be as loud as this.

Screen: Superb! The main point why I want this beast. But you can not fold open the screen to a degree of more than 120 degreee (my guess). This is bad when you use the notebook on a notebook holder (as I do) and in some special cases. Just a note for some people. You cannot open up the screen to 180 degree (meaning that it is in the same level like the keyboard).

WLAN: I got mine with WLAN – and it worked straight away. No problem at all (I had another notebook recently with built-in WLAN support and could not get it running). Great!

Multimedia: Good sound for a notebook. You have keys for volume and CD keys (like play/stop etc.) which you might even use, when the notebook is closed. The only concern for me is, that when pressing the play-Key the notebook starts to play even when it is off. So it might happen, that you press the play-Key when you do not carry the think around and your battery will be empty when you do not notice it. I could not find a way to disable this feature.

Linux support: I booted with Knoppix (a debian CD based Linux). It booted. Sound card worked. WLAN does not work. No power management (this was the time I realized the fan can be very very loud). Network interface was not recognized. So - without power management you cannot work with this notebook – it is simply to loud. I will do more work on this, when the new Knoppix version is out (I tested with 3.3).

Battery: if tuns at least 90 minutes. When in office mode (just typing, surfing etc.) even more. I got mine to work more than 2 hours when I forgot to plug it in.

Mobility: I am sure you think twice before moving this beast. But you can move it – that's the point. I will get a trolley for mine and than I have the real mobile office. And as someone pointed out already – you might get a insurance for the things this beast will drop on. The power supply once dropped on my feet – I am sure I was lucky that it did not broke my toe

Other: looks great and has a good touch and feeling. Looks more expensive as it is.

Conclusion: I like this notebook. But it has its drawbacks (which I focused a little in this writing – I hope not too much – this is the best machine I ever had!!!). If you are looking for a real desktop replacement and you are not a train worker, but like me a freelancer who works from time to time in a foreign office – this is the PC to get. I am replacing the 1711 for the 1712 – for the plus $300,- I will get a DVD burner, a bigger harddisc and a real graphic card.

Marcus

PS: hope some find this helpful. I am writing this, because here at notebookforums.com I found the only review for the 17xx and this helped me a lot. Thanks to the forum.

ransaak

is there any consistincy to the maddness of the hard drive pause ? It seems as if it is a random event ? Or does the HD spin down after several seconds of HD inactivity. ? It wouldn't be bad to have a 2 minute spin down if the timer were reset by the mouse or keyboard activity but it seems that the hard driveg oing to sleep has a mind of its own. Is this the same for you or do you have a consistant delay ? Sometimes I have seen pauses withing a minute ?....


Scott

I'd estimate the spin down happens every 5-10 minutes regardless of what I'm doing. But I haven't actually timed it to see if it's consistent. It doesn't matter if I'm middle of typing, mousing, or anything for that matter. The disk decides to spin down.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe using the desktop hard drive was a bad idea. Maybe the drive just can't get enough power from the notebook power supply. If it's not a consistent spin down, the problem may be much deeper than the BIOS. I'll give them a little while to see if it can be fixed.

What is your opinion of the lack of widescreen?

It's MUCH better than widescreen

The screen is easily as big as a 19" CRT. It's amazing. It's as wide as any widescreen out there but still keeps the 4:3 ratio. Why would you want a widescreen when you could have a screen just as wide and also gain another 2 vertical inches?

You guys are getting me excited.

Q1:
So its as good(wide) as the 17" widescreens and taller?
What about the aspect ratio, what are you losing having 4:3 instead of 6:9 or whatever the widescreen has?

Q2:
Can you give me a bulleted list of the + and - compared to the zd7000 and the 8790?

Q3:
What do these scores mean, I have no idea. Are they bad, ok, great?

Q4:
Regarding the graphics, that card doesn't look standard. Its not soldered into the motherboard, its not modified to be upgraded like the Alienwares, and its not a desktop card(wish it was), so how will it be upgradable? What kind of port is it using?

A friend of mine has the zd7000 with the 1440x900 17" screen and I have the 1712.

The width of 1712 is about an inch less than the zd and the height of the 1712 is a about an 1 1/2" more. Both are really 17" and regardless of the shape they have the same total viewing area. But to my eyes the acer screen looks as wide. For widescreen movies you'll get about the same viewable area as a 15" widescreen. The extra brightness of the 1712 really makes a signifcant difference to video quality for me and the acer seems to have a little less delay in the lcd refresh. If you're really serious about having a lot of work space for programs like photoshop or programming tools then the zd7000 17.0" WVA WSXGA+ BrightView (1680x1050) might be the better choice. Both have enough room for a small mouse on the laptop in the area below the keyboard which is good if you don't like touchpads.


pros acer
For games, I like the acer better because of the screen brightness and less delay.
The acer seems to stay cooler than the zd but that's probably because of the size is spreading out the heat a little more.
The price works out better for the same specs.
It's nice having more harddrive space and the option to put a much larger harddrive in later.
The separate video card is something that might be good depending on if they make upgrades for it.
This laptop is built very sturdy. The screen doesn't even bend if you close it by holding only one side.

Cons acer
The weight is probably the biggest con with this because it can be the deciding factor to a lot of people.
The other thing that might be a problem to a lot of people is the screwed in battery. You have to unscrew the bottom of the computer and then unscrew the battery which totals to around 10 screws. so getting extra batteries is kinda pointless unless your battery dies.
The sound quality is ok, not quite as good as the zd. But I didn't get the laptop for it's speakers. Also, it's not quite as loud as the zd.
The touchpad is really good, but the left and right buttons are loud and harder than usual to click. The scroll button is easy to click and quiet.
The fan noise seems to be a little more than the zd, but not much.

pros zd7000
Less weight
good sound, plenty loud
The keyboard is a little more spread out
There is a button to turn off the touchpad instead of just software.

cons zd7000
Harddrive benchmarks at about half the speed of the acer's
Nonupgradable video
More expensive for the same specs
There is no compact flash reader.
The grill on the speakers tends to get dented.
The touchpad is kinda buggy and you can double click when just moving the cursor.

Hope that helps some people with questions about these laptops.

Mine is pausing very very often...

I have messed cache etc.. The card drive just loves spinning down a few seconds after I am done woing something.

If I am downloading a file I can do what I want and the system never pauses. Other then that It can be 30 seconds to a few minutes.

So it is spinning down but for no reason. Download an insainy large file and it never pauses so power can not be an issue.