Acer Aspire 1710 Review - Page 16

its like when you call your isp with a problem and no matter what it is they tell you to clear your cookies like your some kind of retard and you don't know what your talking about,
well i guess they must just get a lot of calls from stupid people, not everyone is as smart as us

Can I upgrade the graphics card?

I'm from Singapore, and they only have 1711SC and 1711SCF (with nVidia GeForce FX Go5200, 64Mb) here.

I plan to use the notebook for gaming, and the 5200 card seems inadequate. Since 1712 already uses FX 5700, does anyone know if I could get the better card from Acer and upgrade the graphics card myself?

Thanks! Btw, this thread is awesome!

CarryCase

I need a carry case to my Acer 1712Msi, i didnt find any carry case! Help me for god!!! Great notebook, but big!

thank you!

Vitor

Try to see if you can order it as a spare part, from their repair department. Then flash the bios with the latest one. We all are interested so let us know how it works out.

Angryshoe - can you please post if you hear about an upgrade card. I am especially interested in if they plan on releasing a 9700 or newer NV card when its available.

Okay I fixed my video problems (driver issue), But now I am getting to play around with the insides and I noticed that the processor is a mFCPGA socket 478 3.0 Ghz. I am wondering if I was to buy the P4 3.4 Ghz EE if it would fit in this computer and if so what issues would I most likely run into.

So far I have upgraded the hard drive to 200 GB Western Digital, and the Ram to 2GB PC3200. I have no issues with this laptop except for the speed of the processor and the video card make some games jumpy.

Why'd they have to turn off S.M.A.R.T? & Video Editing

Still worried about the hard drive pauses, and why they had to turn off S.M.A.R.T. to get it to stop pausing. Was SMART (monitoring pgm for hard drives) finding something wrong? I'd buy one today if I knew someone had successfully done video-editing and "printing" movies out to tape using the 1712.

I was wondering if you bought one yet?

Video

starless,

I am purchasing mine predominately for video editing, but I am a total Newbie when it comes to that, upgrading from a Dell 7000 w/ PII-300 that I predominately use for photo editing and some (older) games. It should arrive tomorrow, and I will be hooking up to High Definition Video (see www.usbhdtv.com) & standard video too. I will get back to you guys on Wednesday/Thursday evening if all goes well. I will test it in a few ATSC/NTSB modes including 1080i even though the screen can only show 720p in its native resolution. Is there anything you want me to look for specifically, or any bench mark programs?

I will be creating DVD's, not tapes with this unit.

Some one of you know the name and model of the motherboard used in 171x ??

I want install cpucool or other cpu temp/fans manager but no one recognize the chipset inside our Acer.

Adam or others, can you find it please ??

Better if you install before one of these kind of utility and if you can read the actual temp of cpu without problem, in this case please tell me the name of the program.

Thanks.

I don't know specifics on your S.M.A.R.T. concerns, but my 1712 is dual purpose, office/NLE. It's great. In addition to strict editing, I've taken it out on two conference shoots for direct capture from the camera. One was even before the BIOS change. It was 4 hours, and all went well. I started cutting and titling during the lunch break.

Actually, the pauses were more of a PITA than anything as far editing goes. The spindown was keyed off of 45 seconds of disk inactivity, so capture and "print to tape" playback weren't impacted; the disk stays pretty active. With the BIOS fix, this thing is pretty much perfect for me.

Please tell me if I can put a P4 3.4 EE in my machine! Thanx

Yes you can. The EE has the same socket as the regular northwood. I am sure of it.

LIDL rucksack

For my 1703SM (same dimensions, same weight as far as I know) I got the biggest size from an assortment of laptop rucksacks they had on sale at our local Lidl for under 10 EUR. The 1703 fits snugly inside, and the side pockets are great for power supply, etc. There is even a front compartment for a bicycle helmet, or several packs of CDs and DVDs. Very, very comfortable.
What I have to ask in turn is if anyone has heard of a PCI over USB 2.0 adapter. While my USB 2.0 TV works great, I would like to connect my SkyStar2 satellite PCI card to the ACER 1703SM.
Kumaros

If you have received your Acer Aspire 1710 series notebook recently, you might have an added bonus. I just noticed that my optical drive is a Pioneer DVR-K13RA. The model that seems to be shipped with many systems and is listed as the specifications on Acer's site is Pioneer DVR-K12RA.

In any case, after researching the new DVR-K13RA drive, it has the following updated specs when compared with the DVR-K12RA drive:

DVR-K13RA DVR-K12RA
DVD-R 4x 2x
DVD-RW 2x 2x
DVD+R 4x 2.4x
DVD+RW 2.4x 2.4x
CD-R 16x 16x
CD-RW 10x 10x
CD-ROM (Read) 24x 24x
DVD-ROM (Read) 8x 8x

I just thought I would pass this information along in case others might have 4x DVD-Dual (DVD +/-) drives and didn't realize it.

Notebook Backpack

Sorry I haven't been here for a while. Stopped getting notifications...Anywho, I ordered my bag from Rushfaster and they charged me in US dollars and shipped it to me. I got the bag a week before I got the laptop. The bag is designed to hold a laptop in a middle compartment. Our monster won't go there. It does go into the compartment nearest to your back. I just make sure the feet are pointing away from my back. The bag is very nice and I'm pleased with it. As for the hard drive pausing, with the new bios it's cured. SMART is not responisble. Neither of my desktops nor my other laptop has SMART enabled and they work fine. I have one stuck pixel (green) that I'm not worried about. Any other questions just ask.

Heat issues versus CPU speed....1714i

Hello

Im considering seriously the 1714 which I can find here in Luxembourg in the price range of 2120- 2300 euros. (DE webshops - local wall and mortar).

I 've seen the thing in various outlets both here and in Belgium (Fnac, Media Markt) and while it was sitted next to a nice 16,1" Vaio I was able to compare the screen quality, my comments are positive, the acer with the contrast set to maximum almost equals the image of the Vaio, very impressing.

Now my only worries are of the 3.4 Ghz Cpu and the heat we all know this monster generates, so my question would be to the owners:

Could you describe or measure the temp of the typing area or CPU (via software) in various conditions
e.g.
a) resting

b) multipage web surfing

c) 3d gaming

d) Heavy batch image processing

And of course the corresponding CPU speed, I dont want to pay 3,4 ghz price to have the performance of a 2.0 ghz 60% of the time (I tend to multitask a lot running several processes most of the time.).

Also from reading this comprehesive post I learned about the bios glitch (hard disk pausing) which was corrected by the latest bios, but I was wondering if it is official and I can find the new bios in acer support site or is it among friends, which to me says something about acers support (which from reading various acer laptop posts isnt much to talk about for serious and widespread issues..).

Anyway I hope I didnt tire you with my mumblings...any help or comment will be appreciated..

Thank you and enjoy your toys

P.S.Question to Dennis Strickland: How much did you pay for this config of yours and what did you do with the spare parts ? Thanks!

The new 3A19 BIOS is official. In fact, on my newest machine, it was shipped with that BIOS already installed. It is also on Acer's North America web site now as well.

As far as my upgrades, I still have all of the original equipment that I replaced at the present time. However, if you were to buy retail, the Corsair 2GB memory costs ~ $550+, Intel 3.4GHz CPU ~ $400, Hitachi 7K250 250GB HDD ~ $200, Warranty Upgrade (3 Year OnSite, 3 Year Total Notebook Protection) ~ $500 (I purchased from TheNerds.net for a great price of $415).

The Corsair memory is strongly recommended because it is PC3200, Dual Channel tested in pairs, and has excellent performance when compared to similar brands of desktop memory.

Hope this answers your questions directed at me.

Thanks

Dennis thanks for the promt response!

So the 1710 on your signature is true! You made your own supped up 1714 version, excellent !!

Any remarks about the heat issues?

The specific model specs are sort of irrelevant considering how upgradeable the machine is. There are no problems with heat whatsoever. When you look at the base panel of the machine, you will see how the CPU and GPU cooling mechanisms are done very well. With these bigger notebooks, there is much more breathing room for ventilation.

LCD seems to be darker near the bottom

I have had my 1712 for about 7 weeks now. Been happy with it. Only thing is that I am starting to notice that the display is very bright at the top and as you work your way down it get gradually darker. Seems to be getting worse, but it is still a very faint darkening. Anyone else notice this? I have played around with the screen setting but I still notice it.