Acer Aspire 1710 Review - Page 15

do you feel that the native resolution is good enough?
its the same res i use on my 19" crt but sometimes i'll up it depending on what im working on

what are you guys getting on benchmarks???

dropouts, when CPU fan rotation speed changes

Hi,

I got an Acer Aspire 1705 SCi with 3GHz P4 CPU, 1,5GB Ram, 120GB HDD, Nvidia Geforce Go 5600. It got the latest BIOS-version.

I know, this is the thread for Aspire 1710 notebooks. But I didn't find any for 1705. Furthermore, I think, that this problem affects 1710 notebooks too.

I set up a multiboot system (w2k & wXP).

On both OSs, I notice the same problem: Exactly at the moment, when the CPU-cooling fan changes it's rotation speed, the system is getting very slow for about a second.
I can watch this in the Task manager. Just start the system and watch at the CPU-Load diagram. When the fan switches to a higher rotation speed, there is a more than noticeable amplitude.

I wanted to use this notebook for audio harddisk recording. Because of the very good performance of the 1705, and the 7200rpm harddisk, recording multiple audiochannels at the same time is no problem.
But .. at the moment when the CPU fan switches, the whole monster-performance of the notebook doesn't help. I got major dropouts, crackling noises and an interruption of timing. That means: I got to tell the band which I am about to record, that they have to play their song again, just because of the notebook-fan switched again.

This problem doesn't only affect audio-engineers. I researched a bit:
1., There are interruptions when playing some Video from DVD and DivX.
2., Warcraft 3 got a network-timeout for about a second.
3., Even the office applications stop working for a moment.
All these phenomen does apear only at the moment when the CPU-fan switches.

I tried some CPU-fan controling programs. I wanted to fix the rotation speed of the fan to it's maximum. (no speed changes, no troubles, I thought)
The only prog which helps a bit is "Speedfan". With this software you can turn the fan-speed to it's maximum for a while. Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the rotation speed, and after a few minutes, the fan switches down to lower speed again.

Acer support told me exactly: "we don't know this problem, so we can't help you. thanks for calling, good bye.". A big f*$%§ to Acer for beeing so incompetent!

Anybody here suffering from the same problem?
Maybe anyone here knows a software which fixes the rotation speed?

Would be great if anybody knows some hint.

Thanks,
Sinusblitz

Someone of you can suggest to me a notebook cooler usable under the Acer 1710 series ??

My is too hot too quickly and I think to buy one that do not goes broken under my beast.

Thanks.

I just got an email from Laura at PCT, and she informed me that the 1712 video is not upgradeable and Acer will not be offering video upgrades. Can anyone verify this? I was leaning towards the acer because of its price and the potential for future video upgrades, especially if NV desides to make the 6800 mobile.

I know that everyone knows how great the LCD is in this machine who owns one, but I thought I would post the harder to find detailed specs for the LCD taken directly from the Aspire 1710 Service Guide.

Vendor & Model Name: QDI (Quanta Display Inc.) - QD17EL07
Contrast Ratio - 450:1
Response Time - 16ms
Luminance Of White - 220 cd/m2 (typical) 270 cd/m2 (max)

Well, from these specs, you can see why Acer describes the LCD as a DT (desktop) caliber LCD. Those specs are very hard to beat, let alone the sheer size of being a 17" standard size aspect ratio (5:4).

The screen sounds great, its the video being upgradeable that I would like to find out. The Go5700 will be outdated soon. not being as good as the 9700 M11 will hurt it in game play with the next gen video games. With such good desktop components it would be great to be able to upgrade the card.

Service Guide?

DW,

I would like to obtain a service guide, were you able to download one off the net in PDF format? On my old Dell I was able to do that.

I also just ordered a 1712 from PCTorque, it is supposed to ship tomorrow, hopefully I will receive it soon. I decided on this because of the 5:4 ratio non-glare screen is more suited for games, CAD, photo editing than the 17" high gloss (glare) 16:10 screens found on most desknotes. This screen also has 11 sq. in. (71 cm^2) or 8.5% more real estate too. Plus it has 120GB (user upgradable) 7200 RPM w/ 8MB cache drive vs 80GB 4200 RPM on other desknotes.

However, I am still looking for a bag to lug it around with. Does anyone have any suggestions, ideally I would like a back-pack case due to its weight, all the ones I've come across have been too small?

Suggestion for a notebook cooler I use a six-ply piece of cardboard that I sit on my lap for my old machine, it is comfortable, and the price was right.

Upragades are not confirmed yet, but the GPU IS removeable. If you look at the first few pages of thi artical it talks about it.

I saw that it was upgradeable, but I emailed pctorque and Laura said acer has no plans to do upgrades to the video which kinda bummed me out.

If Acer ever upgrades to a new, future release of a NVidia mobile video card for this series (1700,1710, etc), then you should be able to install it no problem by obtaining one through Acer's spare parts and getting the latest system BIOS. If you look at the history of this model, Acer has always offered removable NVidia mobile cards in this series. The 1700 model (not sold in US any longer, but still sold in Canada/Europe) contains the GeForce 4 440 and FX 5600 Go.

I can say that the GeForce FX Go 5700 has performed flawlessly at 1280x1024 with high detail settings on all games I have thrown at it. It is a much improved card in regards to shader performance when compared with the previous fastest GeForce FX Go 5600 Go.

notebook backpack

I have a 1712 on order and expect it to be here this week. It took two weeks for them to ship it. While waiting for the laptop I started searching for a bag to carry it in. I came across the STM Large Loop. Emailed the company and they said my laptop would fit with the dimensions given them. I have the bag already and it's pretty nice. Lots of room for a laptop and two other good size compartments. Nice design on the shoulder straps and the padding that will go on your back. But I cannot say for sure that this laptop will fit into the opening that they provide for it. Once my laptop arrives and I've verified the screen, then I'll post again about weather it fits or not. Also, earlier in this thread, several other bags were mentioned, but not backpack types. Hope this helps.

Hey, are you seeking the secret pdf that describes our beautiful lcd ??

Ok, if qd17el07 of QDI is the name, so the pdf is this :

http://www.ipctechnology.com/ftp/ipc...reliminary.pdf

Do not post it a lot ..... it is secret ....

Actually, I simply pulled the information from the Acer Aspire 1710 Service Guide. It is a nice manual that explains how to replace parts, etc. It also shows detailed specs for componenents in the machine, including the LCD. It looks like you have a nice big Quanta manual there though that probably has the information on the LCD in there somewhere.

wow, i think im gonna order one of these babies in the next 2 weeks
and please, lcd photos :-)

This is the email acer sent me:
Dear Mr. Delaporte,

Thank you for contacting Acer America. Unlike desktop computers, the internal components of the Acer notebook computers are not upgradeable or modifiable. This would include sound, video card/video ram, motherboard, CPU, etc. I'm sorry I am unable to assist with this issue.

Regards,
Mary Boggs
Acer America Online Technical Support


Name: Robert Delaporte
E-Mail: robertdelaporte@18889chrome.com
Phone Number: 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx
Serial Number:
Part Number:
DS Number:
Date Purchased:
Subject: Upgrade Information
Operating System:
Question / Problem:

I was wondering if acer was going to offer any video card upgrades for the
1712 model. I want to buy a laptop but was hoping the video would be more future proof.

I figured they would know. Apparently not.

hey terry is that bag available in the states? i did a search on google and all australian sites came up

you know whats funny, when you go on ebay and see people selling these things at outrages prices, i just saw the 1711 for $2500

Hey take this only at face value. The people they have working on tech support ARE NOT TECH's. They only trouble shoot by using a flow chart out of a book. Most of them don't understand what they are working on. When i called them, they said that there is no laptop w/ a full size hard drive It is very possible that there will be an upgrade later on. But it might take some work to get it, i.e. going through their repair department. If you want to speak to someone who knows what they are talking about, try to get their enginering department, or posibly their actual repair technitions.

Angryshoe's post is entirely correct. With a bigger company like Acer, the tech support agents you get are actually scripted puppets who have no real knowledge of the machine other than is what is listed in a script given to them to troubleshoot common problems.