Some Questions about the Acer 2012

I think that the 9700 bios that is used in the 2012WLMi (I think it is manufactured by Compal) does not seem to have Powerplay enabled, this is why both the stock Acer drivers and the Omega's don't show the setting. I emailed Acer about it, but recieved no reply.

I currently have the laptop on ac power most of the time so I remove the battery, no point in taking any chances considering that they are pretty expensive to replace and have a pretty much fixed lifespan.

I use mobilemeter to monitor cpu speed and hd temps on my 2012WLMi and I have seen speeds of 600mhz, 800mhz, 1200mhz and 1500mhz .... I am not sure how accurate the measurement is. I have only seen it report 1200mhz once.

I hope some of that info helps to answer your questions.

- Odie

Is the BIOS updatable?

Yes, however Acer have not released an updated bios.

I think the Dell 8600 and other models *might* also be made by compal, and I *think* Dell released a 9700 bios update for either the 8600 or one of their other dtr's (I don't know if the 8600 has the powerplay feature or if it was one of the things added/unlocked with the bios upgrade). It is unlikely that the bios will work on the Acer and I don't think it's likely that Acer will release an update themselves.

As far as I can tell, the only real update that Acer have released (bios, drivers, utilities) is the v1.30 motherboard bios update, which doesn't do much.

- Odie

Yep, I've only seem 600 and 1500 too.

Okay I just ordered this Acer 2012, and lots of people seem to have some (well 1-2) pixels messed up on their screen. Is that a big of a deal? And do you guys have the same problems?

As stated in another thread, I also do not have any dead pixels.

- Odie

Some miscelleneous ramblings

I have the Acer 2012 WLMi for about a couple weeks now, so I will share with you some of my experiences:

1. Wireless - I am surprised that NOBODY reports on the WIFI performance. I have the opportunity to test the Acer vs Compaq X1000 vs HP ZD 7000, same set up with same G router, WPA, Max battery power, Max range etc, both Intel Proset and Windows to manage WIFI, and the Acer WIFI performance is dismal, i.e., dropped connections,low upload and download relative to the Compaq and HP.

2. The Mat****a UJ 820S is rated as a 4X DVD-R but can only burn at 2X with Ritek G4 4X. I used the NTI Gold Acer bundled with the 2012. My Nero 5.9 bought last year did not recognize the Matshuta-DVD-RAM. Nero did not allow me to upgrade, guessed my version is too old?

3. Heat - During video encoding, the Banias 1.5 became really hot, about half the speed of the desktop P4 2.2. I actually run both of them simutaneously just for fun. The P4 2.2 is 2X faster than the Banias 1.5 I have no doubt that I got a Banias. The HP ZD 7000, 17" screen, 3.02 HT beat both of them in video encoding. The blocked vents referred to earlier are not near the hot spots, i.e., near the memory, CPU or WIFI card slots. The Compaq X1000, built by Compal has a feature where you can control the fan, on or off. No such control with the Acer.

4. Battery - 4 hours + just web browsing and MS apps, low power usage. The good thing is the AC adapter on the Compaq X1000 is almost the same as the Acer 2012, difference output 18.5 vs 19V at a 3.5A. Tried it, worked great.

5. General observations - There is a great similarity in the layout of the X1000 and the Acer 2012 regarding the location of memory, HD, CPU, WIFI card. Although the MB is identified as Acer it appears to be the same as the Compaq with modifications.

6. Latest News - For those of you who want to upgrade the CPU like Jeff and Odie, I have great news for you , Intel will reduce the price of Dothan 2.0 by up to 34% in October 2004. Expect big reduction for 1.7 and 1.8 also, if you can wait. This was reported by Digitimes this AM.

Husky55 -

My review (link in my sig) does mention wi-fi performance. I have not had any problems at all and get a very good signal all around my house using a Linksys WRT54G router.

My review also mentioned the problem with the burn speed, I was also using Ritek G04 media with Nero v6. Some people have reported that the drive burns at 4x fine using Panasonic media. Apparently this exact drive is being used more and more by other companies including Toshiba and Vodoo, it's a shame that none of them has come out with a firmware upgrade by now. I read on the rpc1.org forums that Panasonic/Matsush*ta may have already cut support for the drive.

I'm not at all interested in upgrading the cpu anytime in the near future. It just seems a little risky to me considering that the laptop currently does all I need and more.

- Odie

1. I read your review and I did not expect any WIFI problem. As such your review really did not report on any WIFI problem and is at best misleading and at worse just wrong for my set up. It could be that I have a bad sample, I don't know. Your review did not contain any comparative data, that's why I reported the HP ZD7000 and the Compaq X1000 performance on my set up. I used the same setting, same distance, same router. I want to find out if anybody else has any WIFI problem.

2. How is this different from what I reported? A 4X burner only burns at 2X? Not a problem? I found out it is definitely a hardware non performance, as I have several medias and burners of different brands

3. So? I might want to do it if it makes sense to me. I thought you are a tinkerer or an upgrader. Sorry I was mistaken.

Husky55 -

I think you may have taken my post in the wrong way, and if you did, then I am sorry.

My post was meant to add some extra info about the points you mentioned in case anyone else wanted to compare and comment.

I also must add that the WRT54G that I bought quite recently has a Centrino certified label on the box, so it is possible that this is why I have not had any problems.

- Odie

1. Wifi - I wanted to find out if my wifii problem is local, i.e. specific to my machine or global, i.e. in other Acers as well.

Now that Odie and Alienwar (?) both said that they have no problem with their wifi, then I have to assume that as strange as it seems it is just my machine.

Fortunately, I know quite a bit about wifi having gone through the b and now g equipment and configuration of WEP and WAP and Broadcom and Atheros chips. I do not know what the Intel Wireless Pro 2200 GB uses but I think Intel might use the Altheros chip having problem with their own wifi chip. Anyway to make a long story short, after a few days of experimenting, I have diagnosed the problem to be a hardware problem and had fixed it. I am still surprised that it happened to me. My router does not have a Centrino label on it but I doubt it makes any difference.

2. Jeff of this forum posted a picture of the CPU location. From the picture I assume that the CPU is not under he square blocked vents on the right hand side of the laptop, assuming you are looking at the laptop. Anyway when we open our laptop we willl know don't we?

A few of the people who got this laptop in the same time frame from the Egg, reported that they got a Dothan. Mine is a Banias. Dothan are manufactured with a 90 micron process, and although Dothan have 2MB of level 2 cache, they consume less power than Banias.Something about 25w vs 35w if I remember correctly. The 90 and 130 micron refer to the design ground rules for the chips i.e. the spacing and linewidth of the conductors and insulators on the chips.

As I reported earlier, when doing heavy duty work, the Banias got very hot. Hot enough so I would not want to do video encoding on it, not to mention it's also slow. I had mobile meter but did not use it.

Bottomline, a Dothan at 1.7 or 1.8 cannot be any hotter than a Banias a 1.5 MHz. This is pure speculation in my part and not based on any measurements.

Has any of you seen the Aspire 1681WLMI yet? I found it on newegg today for $1365. To me it looks very similar to the 2012WLMI, just $30 cheaper plus it also has built in Bluetooth. I am worried about the speakers though. They look awfully small. As I see this one comes with the Dothan.

I had a question about formatting and stuff..

I just bought the computer and I'm sure it's like other company computers--bundled with lots of software and stuff. Is it okay to boot off of a WinXP Pro CD and just format and convert to NTFS right off the bat? Or does Acer have this "recovery" CD that I <u>HAVE</u> to use when formatting? I usually built my computers so I wouldn' tknow, and this is my first laptop.

Becuase on my girlfriend's HP computer, I couldn't format by itself, it needed some file FROM the HP Recovery CD. And I'm not sure about this (sorry I'm n00b).

Just wondering...

Thanks!

WIFI Help

I just received the 2012 from Newegg without the Dothan.

I am having a terrible time getting decent download speeds.

I am getting 4000k down on an old computer with a d-link usb DL-120 wireless nic and the same on another computer wired from a regular nic into a router. The router is an old D-link 713P which operates in the b mode.

With everything I have tried on the acer I can only get 300-400 down wireless. If I plug directly into the d-link router it kills the connection to the other machine that is wired into it. The only way to get a connection is to only have the Acer plugged into the router.

I have tried setting it up for a b connection only rather than a b/g.

I had updated all the service packs from Microsoft.

My next step is to restore everything back using the system restore disks and start over.

HUSKY reported "1. Wireless - I am surprised that NOBODY reports on the WIFI performance. I have the opportunity to test the Acer vs Compaq X1000 vs HP ZD 7000, same set up with same G router, WPA, Max battery power, Max range etc, both Intel Proset and Windows to manage WIFI, and the Acer WIFI performance is dismal, i.e., dropped connections,low upload and download relative to the Compaq and HP."

Then Husky reported: "Anyway to make a long story short, after a few days of experimenting, I have diagnosed the problem to be a hardware problem and had fixed it."

My request, please give me some clues to help me fix mine