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I finally plucked up the courage to fix my 8104

post #1 of 10
4/14/05 at 12:36pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I've had an 8104 for about a month now. I've lived with intermittent powering-up for the last couple of weeks and occasional crashing in games (about once per 2 hours).

Finally I got brave and took it to bits. Easy if you're careful. Found a loose connector near the power switch. That fixed the power-on issue.

Since then I've got brave and...
installed cat 5.4 drivers
flashed to the latest bios (3C19)
converted to ntfs and dumped the recovery option
gone to the latest realtek driver

and I've had a trouble free 3 days of working, gaming etc. since. Thanks to the crappy support for making me brave enough to DIY. How can a company that make such a great laptop have such poor support?
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post #2 of 10
4/14/05 at 1:10pm
Good for you!
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post #3 of 10
4/14/05 at 2:49pm
do you have any pics of the computer taken apart? Where did you start? Post some helpful steps for other users.
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post #4 of 10
4/14/05 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by steveking1000
Hi,

I've had an 8104 for about a month now. I've lived with intermittent powering-up for the last couple of weeks and occasional crashing in games (about once per 2 hours).

Finally I got brave and took it to bits. Easy if you're careful. Found a loose connector near the power switch. That fixed the power-on issue.

Since then I've got brave and...
installed cat 5.4 drivers
flashed to the latest bios (3C19)
converted to ntfs and dumped the recovery option
gone to the latest realtek driver

and I've had a trouble free 3 days of working, gaming etc. since. Thanks to the crappy support for making me brave enough to DIY. How can a company that make such a great laptop have such poor support?

Where can I find 3C19 bios upgrade? Do you know what it fixes?
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post #5 of 10
4/14/05 at 3:55pm
Where can I find 3C19 bios upgrade? Do you know what it fixes?

do you have any pics of the computer taken apart?
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post #6 of 10
4/14/05 at 5:56pm
Do you have any instructions as to how to take this thing apart?
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post #7 of 10
4/14/05 at 6:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by katorga
Do you have any instructions as to how to take this thing apart?
If you're talking to me, no I don't have instructions, but you're probably addressing the thread starter.

If you've looked at the disassembly pix, DON'T take it apart, and why would you want to? I don't see the Acer as being as easily "exposable" as was my old Sager, nor does it seem it is intended to be. To me it's a "mass-consumer" oriented laptop not made for extensive geek fiddling.

If you're intent on disassembly, geek fiddling, et al, who needs instructions and hand-holding? Have a ball!
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post #8 of 10
4/15/05 at 12:50pm
Right, my laptop is not charging one bit. I think its my adapter. As the green light on the adapter is on before I plug it into the laptop. As soon as I do put the adapter into the laptop, the green light goes off.

I tryed fiddeling with the adapter while it was inside the laptop, and heard some sparks fly (could also smell somthing sparked). So quickly took it out and aint bothering to play around to fix it.

Im suppose to have anew adapter by now, but their supplies are short so they said next week.

For the past 2 weeks with no working notebook.
LoL, since I bougth this laptop, I had problems, so I returned my 1st one cause left speaker didnt work. I had to wait 3 weeks for the new one, and now this new one aint charging and 1 weeks already past just for a new adapter LOL
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post #9 of 10
4/16/05 at 11:59am
Thread Starter 

sorry, been travelling

sorry for the delay, didn't know people would be so interested!

I didn't take any photo's, but here's how I did it....

First, I make a picture of the underside and each screw I took out I put into the same place on the picture. This was admirable but all the screws (apart from the 3 little back ones) were the same size so I guess I didn't need to do it.

Then I took the covers for the ram, the cd, the disk and the wireless off.

Once all the underneath screw were undone, you need to remove the keyboard. The keyboard is secured by two little lugs at the top left and top right. Poke those in and the keyboard can be lifted.

There's a few little screw from the top, under where the keyboard is. I disconnected the keyboard ribbon but it is a bit fiddly to get back.

Once the screw underneath the keyboard are off, the top can be lifted.

Take it slow, there are a couple of connector cables.

Once the silver top is off, that was an dismantled as I wanted to go!

All went back OK. Laptop has been great for the last few days.

Cheers
Steve
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post #10 of 10
4/16/05 at 12:18pm
Thanks, the part about removing the keyboard and the screw beneath it is the gem of information I was looking for!
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