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My faulty Travelmate 8104 - Page 2

post #21 of 41
3/15/05 at 10:17am
Thread Starter 
My replacement is supposed get delivered today, i'm at university right now so i'll give you lot a low down of it when I check it out.

Also i'll test out the sound more thoroughly using the higher quality in-ear earbuds from Sony(MDR EX-71) and Apple's equivilent; Apple in -ear headphones.
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post #22 of 41
3/15/05 at 1:16pm
Just to counter balance. My 8104 has no major problems I can see. Sound levels are more than fine on the line out jack, but the built in speakers are pretty bad.

I do have the following issues:

- warm trackpad (seems to be designed in)
- buzzing power brick (replacement on the way)

I did have two odd occurances. When I first got the 8104 I was playing with the audio settings and must have turned the microphone on. Its mounted on the front edge between the speakers and went into a feedback loop. It got so loud it almost rattled the lappy to pieces. Scared my cats to death and all three tried to attack the laptop!

Second, once when booting up the "hidden" acer patition became visible to the OS. Next boot it was gone again. No idea what caused this.

My greatest concern about the 8104 is the thermal solution. The laptop gets hot under load or when idle. There does not seem to be enough airflow allowed by the small vents, but the laptop has survived some 6 hour WoW and EQ sessions at 100% utilization without overheating exhibiting any heat related instability.

All in all its a pretty good laptop and so far I'm not regretting the purchase.
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post #23 of 41
3/15/05 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by katorga
Just to counter balance. My 8104 has no major problems I can see. Sound levels are more than fine on the line out jack, but the built in speakers are pretty bad.

I do have the following issues:

- warm trackpad (seems to be designed in)
- buzzing power brick (replacement on the way)

I did have two odd occurances. When I first got the 8104 I was playing with the audio settings and must have turned the microphone on. Its mounted on the front edge between the speakers and went into a feedback loop. It got so loud it almost rattled the lappy to pieces. Scared my cats to death and all three tried to attack the laptop!

Second, once when booting up the "hidden" acer patition became visible to the OS. Next boot it was gone again. No idea what caused this.

My greatest concern about the 8104 is the thermal solution. The laptop gets hot under load or when idle. There does not seem to be enough airflow allowed by the small vents, but the laptop has survived some 6 hour WoW and EQ sessions at 100% utilization without overheating exhibiting any heat related instability.

All in all its a pretty good laptop and so far I'm not regretting the purchase.
Have you monitored CPU temps with Mobile Meter or anything else? I've been on WOW for 3 days NooB, and I do other gaming sessions. When I shut off the game I immediately start MobMeter to check the temps (or leave it running in the background during the game so I can get a history). I consistently run low to mid 60-64C and have run steady 70C+ (highest I've seen is 74C). I have a Bytecc NC-500 cooler, when I remember to turn it on, blows air ON the bottom, and keeps the "bottom" cold, but the touchpad still gets hot. Someone commented that the touchpad might be a good heat release (cause it's thinner??). I'm not too worried as it's under warranty and obviously warm "by design", but it's rather unfortunate and I think a general turnoff to customers.

I think I need to check that mike. I was getting this little buzzing from the front of my laptop all evening last, had my LCD speakers plugged in, and it was driving me nuts. This morning I unplugged them and the buzzing stopped. Maybe I turned on the mike by mistake.
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post #24 of 41
3/15/05 at 3:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMsyvc
Have you monitored CPU temps with Mobile Meter or anything else? I've been on WOW for 3 days NooB, and I do other gaming sessions. When I shut off the game I immediately start MobMeter to check the temps (or leave it running in the background during the game so I can get a history). I consistently run low to mid 60-64C and have run steady 70C+ (highest I've seen is 74C).
Same here until I run SpeedswitchXP once, configured to always throttle CPU at 80% in Dynamic mode, and now I have CPU fluctuating between 800MHz and 1.60GHz and in WoW temperature never gets over 65*C.

If I need more CPU power (3d rendering) I switch power profile.

That works wonderfully.
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post #25 of 41
3/15/05 at 3:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthAcer
Same here until I run SpeedswitchXP once, configured to always throttle CPU at 80% in Dynamic mode, and now I have CPU fluctuating between 800MHz and 1.60GHz and in WoW temperature never gets over 65*C.

If I need more CPU power (3d rendering) I switch power profile.

That works wonderfully.
THANKS! I'll give it a shot. Just when I thought I was getting tired of retrieving my corpse (in WoW!!!) I think I'm getting sucked into it. Learning to fight (a little) better.
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post #26 of 41
3/15/05 at 7:39pm
Nice to read all the problems people are having, thought i'd add mine!

Delivered from dabs.com about 2weeks ago now, worked fine, excellent benchmarks etc, did notice the power brick getting rediculously hot though it is rated up to 35degC. On unplugging the ac it chose a DC mode with WiFi turned off, this instantly froze my computer needing a power buttun hold restart. Also the WiFi is inconsistent as noted by others, get as low as 1mb/s on 54mb/s, my internet is 2mb/s! Format didnt solve any of this so it is hardware, also after i restart from frozen sometimes the wireless isnt found by windows.

Yesterday in my lecture the table was tapped when a friend sat down and the graphics seem to have failed, causing the screen to corrupt totally. I can get it to show normally by pressing to the right of the touchpad! Not really a solution, looks like a bad connection somewhere.

Dont really want to replace it as it has been going well and gaming is unsurpassed, no dead pixels either.

Not liking the build quility or the problems though!
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post #27 of 41
3/15/05 at 8:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigwelsh
On unplugging the ac it chose a DC mode with WiFi turned off, this instantly froze my computer needing a power buttun hold restart. Also the WiFi is inconsistent as noted by others, get as low as 1mb/s on 54mb/s, my internet is 2mb/s! Format didnt solve any of this so it is hardware, also after i restart from frozen sometimes the wireless isnt found by windows.
To have Wi-Fi on in DC mode you need to modify power profile (actually add new profile based on one of the builtin) in ePowerManagement. If you look through my posts in this thread (I believe), I completely uninstalled ePowerManagement and use Windows Power Management + Launch Manager from different Travelmate version (8000 series) adapted to 8100 series.

Wi-Fi speeds dropping to 1MB/s is a known issue with Intel ProSET Wireless software in version 9. Go back/install version 8.1 to avoid this problem. Or even do not use ProSET at all. I surely don't, and everything works fine, with WPA and all (SP2 installed obviously).

Regarding suspected bad video connection, that would be a shame if it's indeed a bad connection. Although, judging from my experience with complete disassembling of Travelmate 8003 (several times actually), the build quality of Acer laptops is typically very good, and it's hard to unseat video connector.
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post #28 of 41
3/15/05 at 9:26pm
my wirelss starts at 1mb/s when i change any wireless settings on my router and builds back up to 54 over 2 minutes. otherwise, i have a contant of 54mb/s all the time when the wireless goes on.

As for the power modes - i dont use any that turn WLAN off and have created my own for gaming. As for the power brick (the transformer) dont be supprised about it being quite warm - when you compare it to the size of most other ones, its atchaly quite small.

No problems with graphics here so i dont know.

I looked at Dabs as i had orderd from them before, but AcerNotebooks.co.uk was more appealing with the optional pre-deliv inspection and the cheaper price.

Yes - my touchpad gets warm, but barely. Its warmer on the silver section above the touchpad - but it doesnt bother me.
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post #29 of 41
3/16/05 at 9:37am
Yeh,

Its too bad that people get dissapointed to acer because they have faulty laptop, which is completely understandable.. I would do the same thing. But its only one bad apple.

The recovery made when started first time is brilliant idea. If they would send a recovery cds premade, you would have to do the first steps again when recovered from fatal error. Now you have the language chosen, timezone, keyboard, profile.. all those things which much be done at first boot.

Its too bad its based on Ghost 9? which doesnt support ntfs. But you can always convert your hard drive to ntfs... ok, recovery wont work after that.. but hey, you can always do it by yourself

What comes to DVD-burner, you cant blaim Acer. You cannot find any but maybe one brand LG? which makes burners(one?) that support every single type of dvd, -rw -r +r -ram and so on.

And yes, touchpad gets a bit warm, but not hot.. at least not on my tm8103wlmi.

Sounds are very loud and cripsy on my laptop.

No dead pixels, no scratches.

Well... Ill have to see what comes up ...if nothing during my tests.

cheers,
Ouzo
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post #30 of 41
3/16/05 at 12:35pm
Thread Starter 

I finally got my replacement

As you can tell by looking at my new sig, I got it, yesterday afternoon :
Its beautiful... with no flickering screen on this one happy to say. Also no dead pixels on the screen or apparent scratches or damage anywhere on the lappy, this was guaranteed by the supplier after ordering a pre-delivery inspection. The sevice costs £49, it also checks for common hardware faults, sets up windows user account, updates windows and applies patches and installs any antivirus programs ordered with the laptop. If a fault arises within 7 days the laptop will be swaped at no extra cost to me. I think it is well worth it especially with the problems I had with my first one and others are having with the this model. Also the lack of any dead pixels is a great bonus on screen of this size.

I also get a deteriating WLAN connection, its starts at 54Mbs with my Netgear ADSL router and drops to around 24Mbs even though i'm within 10 meters of it. I'm gonna try some of the solutions mentioned on this forum like installing older Intel ProSet drivers, but I never actually get a connection loss

I'm a little dissapointed in the sound level coming from the stereo speakers, it fails to output a full range of frequencies espcially in the lower bands, i know its not supposed be a sub woofer but there is a noticible lack in low sounds, but i'm happy with the positioning of the speakers at the front which means I can listen to music with screen closed. With the headphones in, i'm happy to say, it gets much better, a nice, even level of sound coming from the S/PDIF jack, no noise either which was apparent in my first 8104, although that was probably cos of a setting as I had the same problem on my desktop before I tinkered with it and it finally went away.

Although the touchpad gets warm I wouldn't say it is hot and not unconfortable to use. I used a Sony DVD-R to make the recovery CD at the beginning, It also detects all my other CDRW, CD-R's even my 90min CD-R's which my LG CD-RW doesn't so i'm quite happy with the DVD super drive on that note.

Installed Halflife 2 yesterday and went through the first level with 1680x1050 resoloution and graphics set to high -simply unbelivable graphics, with smooth gameplay, I didn't want to stop at the first level, wanted to complete it all! playing deathmatch was amazing, the speed and qualtity was on par with my All-in-Wonder 9800 pro -Amazing-, next up I gotta install Farcry and Halo. Im also planning to run the 3DMark series tests and some of the PCMark benchmarks soon so i'll have the results posted up soon. Also i'm planning to take some pics which I may also post up.

I'm over the moon with the replacement, its outta this world , Acer obviously absolutely made no compromise on the performance front.
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post #31 of 41
3/16/05 at 12:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr KP
Installed Halflife 2 yesterday and went through the first level with 1680x1050 resoloution and graphics set to high -simply unbelivable graphics, with smooth gameplay, I didn't want to stop at the first level, wanted to complete it all! playing deathmatch was amazing, the speed and qualtity was on par with my All-in-Wonder 9800 pro -Amazing-, next up I gotta install Farcry and Halo. Im also planning to run the 3DMark series tests and some of the PCMark benchmarks soon so i'll have the results posted up soon. Also i'm planning to take some pics which I may also post up.
CONGRATS!!!! Just gotta agree that HL2 and Far Cry are reallllllly awesome on the 8100 graphics front. Highest res, awesome detail, rich colors. You'll enjoy watching 3dMark2001 and 03 too. Whatta trip.
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post #32 of 41
3/16/05 at 12:51pm
I'm proud (and lucky i guess) to say that I received my 8103 yesterday and it runs PERFECTLY. I reformatted and partitioned the hard drive just the way i wanted, reinstalled XP SP2 as well as the acer drivers, and upgraded to 1GB RAM. Also, I gave Sims 2 a run through.... highest possible settings and everything runs incredibly! (no overclocking used)

I guess i'm fortunate to not have any problems like some others... in case anyone wanted to know, I ordered from www.techonweb.com for $1880. The lappy came triple boxed a week after I ordered from them, I highly recommend that company.
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post #33 of 41
3/16/05 at 12:56pm
OK, MEGA Congrats to the next 300 8103\04 owners! Ya'll keep us posted on how it goes, and I'll quit wasting space!
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post #34 of 41
3/16/05 at 1:27pm
KP, go to the Realtek system and set your EQ mode as powerfull. You will notice a differerence. If you look at thephysical size of the speekers - its not suprising they dont have alot of output. And for anyone who talks before they think, dont say "headphones are smaller and louder on my MP3 Player etc" because you will notice that unless you rest your head on your notebook, you are some distance away. I expect the sound has been kept down by acer due to the small physical size of the speekers to prevent damage.

Told you pre deliv was good didint I KP :P

BTW im using a belkin wireless ADSL modem router and i get 54mbs all the time. :P

oh yeh, and the onboard sound its atchaly very good when you hook the headphone port out to a speeker system such as the Creative I-Trigue 3400 :P

Reccomend you get a microsoft wireless optical notebook mouse - i have got one for this system, very responsive, smooth and small. its just under £20 and i use it on my desktop systems now since it is a much better size.
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post #35 of 41
3/16/05 at 6:47pm
I couldn't resist posting a pic...



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post #36 of 41
3/17/05 at 11:50am
heh nice. What theme are you using?. I still using the default acer background although i made an alright HL2 one its a bit pixalated
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post #37 of 41
3/17/05 at 3:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthAcer
Same here until I run SpeedswitchXP once, configured to always throttle CPU at 80% in Dynamic mode, and now I have CPU fluctuating between 800MHz and 1.60GHz and in WoW temperature never gets over 65*C.

If I need more CPU power (3d rendering) I switch power profile.

That works wonderfully.
I got the cpu running at 800-1600 (changed SSxp User AC Forced Throttle to 80%) and did a short Wow session (about 45 minutes). My temps were 68-70C instead of the usual 72-74C. Doesn't seem like much of a drop. As usual when I shut the game off the temp drops 10+C in seconds.

I'm still of the philosophy that the lappie should function (and function a lonnng time) at max settings. I like the convenience of throttling, mostly for battery life, but I shouldn't have to baby it on AC, IMO. I may set it to max again as I'd rather it burn up early in the warranty that near the end or after. I did a little surfing on average temps but it's a jungle out there. Mebbe I'll send Acer support an email inquiry. I'm not a whiner about performance but I want it to run well "and" have a decent life doing so.

I guess cleaning these things (blowing out dust) is a no-go unless you get into a bit of disassembly. I had practically no dust collection in my 8887 whereas many people reported cotten balls, but at least the heat sink was easy to get to. It's all part of fun with lappies.
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post #38 of 41
3/17/05 at 4:57pm
So, at what temp is you CPU and all that other fun stuff inside going to fry at? I mean how hot can the CPU get with out perm. damage?
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post #39 of 41
3/17/05 at 7:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadEnd0
So, at what temp is you CPU and all that other fun stuff inside going to fry at? I mean how hot can the CPU get with out perm. damage?
Just what I'd like to know. The Mobile Meter, Options, ACPI Temperature tab says Critical Temperature 97C, Passive Cooling Temperature 93C, but I don't know what that means. If I find out I'll be sure to let you know. (Looks like time for a Google.)
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post #40 of 41
3/17/05 at 8:17pm
Maybe this will help.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/info.htm
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