Acer Aspire 1710 Review - Page 22

Post the pictures please, thank you!

I may notice a performance difference with the DDR400 memory.

I say may because I play Dark Age of Camelot and I run 2 accounts on my 1712. Before I was getting some lag with the second account and now I don't seem to be getting as much (but it may be coincidental since there may be other factors in play such as internet lag, server lag, software issues associated with recent patches, etc.)

If it wasn't for the fact that not having a 1:1 ratio between the FSB and memory was getting to be an almost obsessive annoyance, I'd probably have kept the DDR333 in. But since Newegg had a deal for 1 gig at $154, I just bit the bullet and bought it. I plan to Ebay the old memory and hopfully end up with about only an 80ish dollar "upgrade".

To anyone with an Acer Aspire 1710 series notebook and an interest in having the internal Bluetooth:

Well, once again, the ease and upgradeability of this notebook comes through. I really wanted to have the Bluetooth enabled internally for my HP DeskJet 995c printer and potential Bluetooth mouse. When you click the Lauch Manager, you can see that Bluetooth support is there but just does not come standard on any Aspire 1710 model offered by Acer. After looking through the service manuals for both the Aspire 1710 and Ferrari 3200, I was able to determine that they both utilize the same part numbers for modem and modem/bluetooth combo cards.

To have internal bluetooth, you simply have to remove the modem daughtercard (located underneath the Mini-PCI wireless card) and replace it with the modem/bluetooth combo daughtercard from Acer. You can purchase them from most service providers or from Acer directly. The part numbers are as follows:

MODEM BD.BLUETOOTH 54.T23V7.002
ANTENNA.BLUETOOTH 50.T23V7.004

The antenna is very short and simply snaps onto the card just as the 2 antennaes do on the wireless card. Overall, it will cost about $75 - $100, but this is well worth it if you have a desire for the internal bluetooth.

The drivers/software for the modem and bluetooth are on the system recovery CD. Once installed, the wireless LAN light will blink blue intermittently if you make Bluetooth Always On in the Acer Launch Manager.

Anyways, I just thought I would share this information for anyone interested in having internal Bluetooth in the Aspire 1710 notebook.

1710/1712 Upgradeability - This notebook seems to offer great features with the use of many desktop parts. I am considering purchasing this unit or a AMD notebook. AMD perhaps because of the future of 64 bit processing. Question I have surrounds the future possibility of an upgrade to say the LGA 775 pin Prescott. I understand the Prescott will ship with EM64T (but not enabled) which would allow for 64 bit processing. I realize this would mean at least a motherboard as well as chip upgrade. However, is this even a remote possibility with the ACER 1712 ? Or, just wishful thinking? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this. By the way this is my first post on this forum.

if people are going to be making upgrades as soon as they get this beast they should just get the 1711 with the stand alone video card that way you dont pay more for hardware your not gonna use and it'll save you money in the upgrade process

Has anyone had any success with checking the ATI 9700 compatibility with this system? Specifically has anyone tried to install the Acer 3200 graphics card into the Acer 1712? I realize this maybe a pipe dream to be able to upgrade so easily but it would be an excellent benifit if it fit correctly or with a easy small mod. Obviously drivers would be a small issue but I think it would be possible. I wish I could test it but I haven't got that kind of money to buy the 3200. Just curious if anyone has friends who have the other system and have tried this.

1711 upgrade

i am intrigued by this idea, but what do you mean by stand alone video card..
do i buy a new one? what's compatible..

i mean get the AS1711SCi-V64MB
it has a nvidia video card which you can upgrade in the future if you want
the 1711 has intergrated video with shared memory

so if you have plans to upgrade or need to save money and upgrade later the 1711SCi-V64MB is the one to go with, the only down side is that you would need to upgrade to a dvd burner if you wanted one, it just has a cd-rw/dvd-rom combo drive

thanks for the tip, something to think about.. do you or anyone else know where to get a video card upgrade.. it has to be from acer dont it? do they sell it as a spare part? if so does anyone know how much...

i actually just spoke to acer and they said they will not sell the video card from the 1712 as a spare part until the unit is out of warranty, presumably a year...

so is there any other way to upgrade the video card on the 1711 v64mb.....
otherwise i would have to go with the 1712 even if im going to upgrade it.

someone had posted above that you can get it as a spare part from acer
there must be some way to order it
my main concern for upgrade would be the memory, i might be able to deal with the 64mb being that im not a gammer, i would be doing programming and some graphic stuff

i just spoke to acer and the guy i spoke to said it was not for sale.. so i dont know..
personally i am more concerned with the video card, as i am an architectural student and need it.. the memory is upgradable so im not so worried about it..but i guess unless i could deal with the video card i would go with the 1712.... but for people who dont need the extra video kick i think your suggestion was an excellent one...

im gonna see how i manage without the 128mb
anyone know where he can order the card?
i want to just upgrade the dvd-rom to a burner and memory, any suggestions for those parts? the dvd burner specifically

damm, i called acer spare parts and the burner cost $300

You may have talked to a support person who did not know what he was talking about. However, there is a great place in the UK called Electronic Repair Solutions that sells and stocks new spare parts for most items. This is where I got my Bluetooth/Modem daughtercard and Bluetooth Antenna. I can't remember the general e-mail to contact, but if you need a specific e-mail address of the representative who helped me, feel free to e-mail me at dwstrickland@earthlink.net.

However, when I spoke with Acer Spare Parts after ordering from this place, I was told that I could order any part I wanted as long as it was listed in their system with stock (no backorders).

The part number you would need to ask for in regards to the 128MB NVidia GeForce FX 5700 Go is VG.A1509.007 (VGA BD.128MB.FX5700.NV36M).

Also, as far as the DVD-Dual drive, you have to remember there are 2 versions shipping in the Aspire 1710: Pioneer DVR-K12RA, DVR-K13RA. The K13RA is a 4x burner for both DVD-R and DVD+R whereas K12RA is a 2x burner for DVD-R and 2.4x for DVD+R.

Those part numbers are as follows:

6M.A15V7.002 MODULE.DVD-DUAL.DVR-K12RA
6M.A15V7.004 MODULE.DVD-DUAL.DVR-K13RA

Hope this information helps.

Uh oh.. Just received my 1712 SMi and boy is this a nice piece of heavy duty kickass machinery. (I wonder if the foundations are to hold under the extra weight) Im totally in love with this lappy. Absolutely looks like a keeper to me. Cons are that it has 2 dead pixels, but other than that - a superb notebook.

Im going to use it mainly for CG, CG and CG. Ah, and for playing some groovy music. No games what so ever. (Hard one, eh? Dunno if I can hold on to that..)

I think I'll wipe all out some day and install XPpro, but before that I'll test this baby with XPhome. Disabled the touchpad (hated it!!) and istalled a microsoft trackball explorer (..I know, Insane isnt it) Couldn't keep both. For painting (photoshop) I use wacom tablet. The trackball is mainly for modelling (studiotools, 3dmax and maybe maya) and goofing around in windows.

Dunno what crits I could give about this notebook. It fits nicely to my needs and only thing I could use is 128Mb craphics card and 512 extra memory (ships with only 512Mb.. hmm, I start waiting for christmas now)

I want to thank all you guys, for all your posts. This thread has proven VERY useful in my search for this kind of godly notebook. I own you my gratitude.

acer spare parts told me the dual drive wasnt in stock but they could order it for me
if its really gonna cost that much i'll just wait till i have enough money for the 1712, by then the price might go down too

anyone buy theft insurance?

Electronic Repair Solutions

Thanks for the heads up.

Do these people have an online catalogue - or even an interactive website.

Thanks

Power Supply

The 4 prong power plug on the 1714Smi seems unique - any third party suppliers of power units - particularly smaller (+lighter) units for travel. Also car and air adapters.

I am loathe to use an inverter in case the car stops!

Thanks

I just got a 1712. It's totally stock, p4 3ghz ht, 1 gig ram, 120 gig hd, fx 5700 128mb. I downloaded the latest driver from the nvidia site, installed it, (so i thought) but nothing changed. I'm still stuck with driver version 5.3.5.1. Any suggestions as what to do mto ake this video card work faster/ I create 3d model and use max, maya, etc. thanks in advance.
ds

hmm, if I may be of a bit advice; modeling using max and maya, should not acquire a geforcefx card, rather look for a good modeling card

here you can find the qualified hardware for maya6: http://www.alias.com/eng/support/may...win.html#cards

as you can see, none of the geforce cards are qualified, which doesn't mean it won't work but not adviced to work with

i'ld check the 3dlabs.com website for one of their wildcards, but if they'll fit in your notebook is highly unlikely, maybe check for a mobile ati viper or a mobile quadro...

-former alias|wavefront employee-