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Acer TM 8100 BIOS version...could this be the problem? - Page 2

Poll Results: Which BIOS version do you have on your Acer TM 8103/4 and how does your laptop run?

 
  • 52% (24)
    BIOS version 3c17, and I have had few, if any, problems
  • 10% (5)
    BIOS version 3c17, and this flickering/stuttering/etc. is pissing me off
  • 15% (7)
    BIOS version 3c11, and I have had few, if any, problems
  • 0% (0)
    BIOS version 3c11, and I hate this flickering/stuttering/etc.!
  • 15% (7)
    Some other version with few, if any, problems
  • 6% (3)
    Some other version with problems galore
46 Total Votes  
post #21 of 51
4/23/05 at 12:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by zmatin
Hey Katorga: How did your clean install of XP-pro w/SP2 go? I've been considering doing that b/c I've always liked working from a clean system. However, this is my first laptop, and am worried about whether or note WinXP will have the best/current drivers that my manufacturer had installed.

Also, where did you find the Unian Catalyst drivers, and how much of a difference did they make over the stock setup? I've read that the vid card in my laptop (Travelmate 8104) has its memory underclocked, probably for heat/energy issues, and was wondering if the catalyst drivers would fix that automatically or if i'd have to "overclock" back up to ATI's stock memory speed frequency.

Thanks!

Edit: RE: Ver 3c11 BIOS - The very kind and informative DarthAcer sent me them. His system came with 3c11 stock, and when he tried the 3c17 upgrade, WinPhlash backed up his 3c11 bios and he sent me that file which worked fine for me. I haven't really had any issues with 3c11, but 3c19 was causing random crashes in WoW which have since stopped, as well as my fan not running so erratically.
i'm really frustrated with the noise made by the fan, it seems that the 3c11 bios could cure the problem. but i've finding this version of bios despairingly without success. if any one is kind enough to send it to me, i will thank him or her very much! plz,help me!

my email:lonelyswordsman@21cn.com
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post #22 of 51
4/24/05 at 1:15am

Went OK....

Quote:
Hey Katorga: How did your clean install of XP-pro w/SP2 go?
The clean install went OK. I used a retail XPSP2 CD. There were several issues though.

1.) machine blue screened during the initial boot into the installer, while it was still in text mode. After the reboot everything proceeded normally.

2.) The stock res xp tried to use on first boot repeatedly messed the lcd up...it turned pink and hazy. Doing a safe boot into VGA mode fixed this and allowed me to proceed installing the drivers. First the intel chipset drivers then the Unian ATI drivers.

After that it was a matter of installing all of the drivers for the network, wifi, launchmanager, etc. then doing a windows update to get the latest patches. then I proceeded to harden the installation using the NIST recommended security settings. Also, my ATI x700 is running at 350gpu 300 memory which seems to be the standard speed from acer. performs fine for me so I see no need to overclock it.

BTW, if anyone as the 3C11 BIOS send it my way: taylorww@yahoo.com
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post #23 of 51
4/24/05 at 5:57am
Hi Katorga,

thanx for your input. I would still like to now, what have you done to your hdd. Did you completely repartition and reformat? Before, after or during install? Did you delete that 1st hidden partition? Did you have to repair the mbr? Any other special steps before installing xp?
Thx again
Marek
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post #24 of 51
4/24/05 at 12:24pm

HD prep

As soon as I got my 8104 I used the convert command to change the FAT32 partitions to NTFS.

When I re-installed, the deleted the 2 fat32 partitions and the hidden partition. All of the re-install files that were on the hidden partition appear to be on the cd's shipped with the laptop. I did back up c:\i386 to an external drive just in case. I formatted the new drive as one large C:\ drive with NTFS.

No special tasks were needed to reformat and install, but like I said, when windows tried to adjust my initial resolution to 800x600 from vga, the screen become unreadable. I have to use the F8 advanced boot options to select a vga boot to continue installing the video drivers.
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post #25 of 51
4/25/05 at 5:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by katorga
As soon as I got my 8104 I used the convert command to change the FAT32 partitions to NTFS.

When I re-installed, the deleted the 2 fat32 partitions and the hidden partition. All of the re-install files that were on the hidden partition appear to be on the cd's shipped with the laptop. I did back up c:\i386 to an external drive just in case. I formatted the new drive as one large C:\ drive with NTFS.

No special tasks were needed to reformat and install, but like I said, when windows tried to adjust my initial resolution to 800x600 from vga, the screen become unreadable. I have to use the F8 advanced boot options to select a vga boot to continue installing the video drivers.
Ouch...I had no probs at all clean installing. I did it the first day I got the laptop and haven't looked back since. Actually, I clean installed twice cause something I did royally screwed the Network Stacks in the Registry to the point that system restoring/going back to previous configs and so on did not help. I never did have a BSOD once while installing and never got pink/colored/illegible screens. Anyways, good luck.

Oliver
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post #26 of 51
4/25/05 at 5:08pm
There is version 3C22 on European Acer FTP site, no list of fixes though. I'm not gonna try it anytime soon since I'm away from my TM8104 and will be for a bit under month
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post #27 of 51
4/26/05 at 6:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthAcer
There is version 3C22 on European Acer FTP site, no list of fixes though. I'm not gonna try it anytime soon since I'm away from my TM8104 and will be for a bit under month
yup.. have it installed since yesterday and it seems like they fiddled around with the thermal settings/fan speed again. laptop heats up too 55° as normal then cools donwn to 45°, but with this bios version it seems to take a bit longer (i think the fan is running on lower speed). it also seems to me that the fan comes up a bit more often than before... overall i would consider the notebook to be a bit quieter though.
can anyone confirm this?
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post #28 of 51
4/26/05 at 1:35pm
i'm using the 3c22 bios too, agree with you, the fan issue didn't solved.
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post #29 of 51
4/26/05 at 3:08pm
Quote:
the fan issue didn't solved
As hot as the 8100 runs, I can't see the fan issue being "solved" in any direction except having the fan run more and at higher rpms. The way the laptop is laid out seems to guarantee high temps.

My wife's older Powerbook G4 is like this. One fan, located rather far from the cpu and gpu. The powerbook gets really hot and when the fan comes on you definitely know it.
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post #30 of 51
4/26/05 at 4:04pm
the only thing i would wish for is that i can choos if i want a cool and loud or a hot and quiet notebook. why doesn't acer publish "save" cpu temperatures and let us decide when the fan should kick in and how fast the fan should run. or at least provide a few steps to set. cannot imagine that being so diffcult.
when i am gaming or or working on videos/audio etc i don't care about the laptop being loud.. but when i do office work i do...
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post #31 of 51
4/27/05 at 11:07pm
I think a lot of people with 8100's are using RMClock with great results, myself included. It's a great little program that I use in conjunction with MobileMeter which is a monitoring utility for CPU temp and speed, Charging/Discharging rate and HDD temperature. RMClock allows for dynamic scaling of CPU speed, (CPU clocks on demand sorta idea), which of course lowers the average temperature by quite a bit. Oh yah, it also allows you to adjust the CPU voltages which a lot of people here have done as well. As for the age old arguement about voltage low conditions destroying electronics vs. overvoltage/surges, well, I'm guessing in a 0.xx micron/10's of nanometer scale, electron migration is the problem...In any case, hrm...what was my point? Oh yes, RMClock...get it It's a great little utility and I'm sure some other peeps on the forum will second that statement!

Oliver
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post #32 of 51
4/28/05 at 11:40am
@Oliver
I second that will all my heart.
But say: has RMClock to pop up at every system-start with quite a big window, which you have to hide manually with the mouse - or it can be supressed in any way?
Thanks
Marek

PS Could you post your settings here? I have a 8104 and would very much like to know if my parameters were set correctly...
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post #33 of 51
4/28/05 at 1:23pm
marek07,u just need check 'start minimized to tray'......
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post #34 of 51
4/28/05 at 2:55pm
Thx!
now I found it... Like I said before better late than not at all.
Thx again
Marek
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post #35 of 51
4/28/05 at 6:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marek07
Thx!
now I found it... Like I said before better late than not at all.
Thx again
Marek
Hehe...someone beat me to it. Anyways, for those of you who are interested here are my settings:

P-State Transistions is checked.
Min. FID: 6.0
Min. VID: 0.7V
Max. FID: 15
Max. VID: 1.212V (I can probably go lower...haven't tested yet)
AC Profile: Auto Management
Battery Profile: Auto Management
NOT using On-Demand Clock Modulation
Performance/Power Peference Slider is in the Middle
And of course, Run HLT command when OS is idle is checked.

As for the BIOS version...I'm gonna try 22 out later today. Anyone else using it right now?
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post #36 of 51
4/28/05 at 11:03pm
i'm using it.....seems no significant different to earlier versions.
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post #37 of 51
4/29/05 at 6:36pm
Will RMClock interfere with Acer ePower Management? Because on the whole I do like the latter for its profiles, but I'd like to play with undervolting too...

EDIT: What I was trying to say is, lets say I used ePowerManagement with a profile that has the CPU on the minimum setting. Would RMClock detect that and alter voltage accordingly, or would it simply ignore it till I changed RMClock too?
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post #38 of 51
5/3/05 at 10:18am
i dont think it is necessary to use rmclock and epower at a sametime..
i've used it, i think the epower is totally useless and have many bugs.
and since rmclock and epower is two different software composed by different people,it has a high possibility that rmclock doest not detect the changes made by epower and alter the voltage accordingly.
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post #39 of 51
5/3/05 at 11:51am
Thread Starter 
The two can run together just fine. RMClock completely overrides anything done in ePowerManagement, so don't worry about that. I know it's buggy and pretty much crap, but there is one advantage to keeping the program running: easy control over the cardbus and firewire ports. Otherwise, you have to go through all these menus and everything if you want to turn them back on, but if that's something you have specificially set to change when in AC/Battery mode, you'll never have to worry about it again.
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post #40 of 51
5/3/05 at 11:26pm
i've tried two versions of the epower, none of them could save the profile, each time i restart my pc, the setting back to default. and later, i think that, the difference between you open or close the cardbus or sth are very minor. they are only some ports, aren't they?
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