Acer 8371/3810 Owners Thread

[dragonuk]

Only thing I would add is to Question 2.

No antenna is installed so you would have to install one. You have 3 options.

1. You can purchase antennas that just sit around the card above or below it so you don't have to route the antenna anyway. Some people say these are all right for signal, I dunno.

2. The wifi card has 2 antennas plugged into it. You can use 1 of these antennas and extend it to connect to the WWAN card. Means you don't have to route a new antenna as it is all ready installed around the screen.

3. Install an antenna and route it round the screen or somewhere.

 

[chrismscotland]

1. Haven't really noticed any weaknesses with it. It does exactly what I was expecting it too and for the price is outstanding! Only thing I can think of that I can use as a complaint is lack of hdmi out and no W7 pre-installed (neither of which are show stoppers by any means)

2. there is a connection and mounting slot for a WWAN card but no antenna's, you will have to fit these yourself

3. Build quality is excellent, mostly metal with some plastic. The chassis is all build around a metal frame and has like a tray running right under the keyboard that everything screws into which makes it feel very rigid.

4. Battery life is pretty much on-par with what Acer have quoted. Obviously it depends what you're doing with what kind of screen brightness etc but you can expect anywhere from 4-5 hours right upto 8+. I quite regularly get around 6-7 hours out of mine with light web browsing and working with Notepad++ with the screen brightness set to half

Cheers mate, metal build sounds excellent, I'm always worried my netbook is going to break as its all plastic. I do a lot of travel so this sounds more like the build on my work Dell Latitude.

W7 isn't an issue as I have a disc ready to install it and I have HDMI on my netbook that I've used once and it wasn't great, VGA seems to work better.

Battery life seems excellent, at least what I'm getting with my Mini 311, what the screen quality like for watching a video?

 

[chrismscotland]

Only thing I would add is to Question 2.

No antenna is installed so you would have to install one. You have 3 options.

1. You can purchase antennas that just sit around the card above or below it so you don't have to route the antenna anyway. Some people say these are all right for signal, I dunno.

2. The wifi card has 2 antennas plugged into it. You can use 1 of these antennas and extend it to connect to the WWAN card. Means you don't have to route a new antenna as it is all ready installed around the screen.

3. Install an antenna and route it round the screen or somewhere.

Dragonuk, thanks for this, I might be willing to give a WWAN card a try, I probably would just use on of the WLAN antennas if it didn't impact the WLAN performance too much.
You seem to be the Overclock King on this mate, have you tried much gaming?

 

[LadFromWales]

Hmmm, WWAN is tempting, if the slot is already there and a SIM slot...only concern for me is routing of an antenna. Would worry something went wrong. How hard is it to dismantle the 8371 Cokecan?

Dragonuk, I've found that sitting my laptop on my desk, doing nothing, it idles at 34c when on battery, the room is 22c right now. Plug in the power, and it slowly rises to 39c. Perhaps the battery charger warms the chassis a little. My CPU isn't scaling in Linux at the moment, always reads 1397MHz...so that can't be the reason. Will see what happens when the battery is fully charged

 

[dragonuk]

Hmmm, WWAN is tempting, if the slot is already there and a SIM slot...only concern for me is routing of an antenna. Would worry something went wrong. How hard is it to dismantle the 8371 Cokecan?

Dragonuk, I've found that sitting my laptop on my desk, doing nothing, it idles at 34c when on battery, the room is 22c right now. Plug in the power, and it slowly rises to 39c. Perhaps the battery charger warms the chassis a little. My CPU isn't scaling in Linux at the moment, always reads 1397MHz...so that can't be the reason. Will see what happens when the battery is fully charged

Is that on stock original acer bios that it hovers at 34c when idle. I'm using my modified fan speed, that doesnt start the fan till it hits 45C and mine hovers around 37-38 C.

It's not that hard to dismantle you dont have to remove that much. Just remove the keyboard, a few screws and the top part of the case comes off then you can access everything.

You can check the service manual for the 8371 here. It shows you how to take it apart - http://www.2shared.com/file/11248109/3ec574e8/Acer_Travelmate_8371_8331_Serv.html

 

[dragonuk]

Dragonuk, thanks for this, I might be willing to give a WWAN card a try, I probably would just use on of the WLAN antennas if it didn't impact the WLAN performance too much.
You seem to be the Overclock King on this mate, have you tried much gaming?

No I haven't tried gaming much yet. I want to know from someone who's overclocked the gpu if the temperatures under load are much different from stock clock speeds on the gpu

 

[chrismscotland]

No I haven't tried gaming much yet. I want to know from someone who's overclocked the gpu if the temperatures under load are much different from stock clock speeds on the gpu

Thanks mate, I'm looking to trade up from my HP Mini 311 so I'm hoping the faster CPU will be a bit stronger for gaming v the Atom.

 

[cokecan]

Hmmm, WWAN is tempting, if the slot is already there and a SIM slot...only concern for me is routing of an antenna. Would worry something went wrong. How hard is it to dismantle the 8371 Cokecan?

Dragonuk, I've found that sitting my laptop on my desk, doing nothing, it idles at 34c when on battery, the room is 22c right now. Plug in the power, and it slowly rises to 39c. Perhaps the battery charger warms the chassis a little. My CPU isn't scaling in Linux at the moment, always reads 1397MHz...so that can't be the reason. Will see what happens when the battery is fully charged

As Dragonuk said, it doesnt take much to dismantle. The keyboard is held in place with some small clips, just need to be careful not to scratch anything when pushing them back, once that's off you have a few screws to take off and you pretty much have full access to the whole inside. There is a nice gap and mounting point to drop a WWAN card straight in, the sim slot is hidden behind the battery.

I originally took a lot more apart the first time before I knew how little I had to actually remove to get into it when I was fitting my 5300 a,b,g,n wifi card and routing the 3rd antenna for it. The service manual should make things easier though

 

[chrismscotland]

I've got one quick final query about the SU9400 processor, obviously for most things is being a Dual core 1.4ghz cpu is going to outclass the 1.6GHz Atom N270 I currently use, but if a program uses only one core does this mean its only going to be 1.4GHz and so potentially less powerful than the single 1.6GHz Atom chip I have in my current netbook?

 

[tbz_ck]

I've got one quick final query about the SU9400 processor, obviously for most things is being a Dual core 1.4ghz cpu is going to outclass the 1.6GHz Atom N270 I currently use, but if a program uses only one core does this mean its only going to be 1.4GHz and so potentially less powerful than the single 1.6GHz Atom chip I have in my current netbook?

You are assuming they are the same architecture. They most certainly are not, so clock for clock the ULV processor smashes the Atom anyway. I think it's on one of the notebook review sites, but there is a good chip to chip comparison out there. I can't find it though!!

Here we go:

Notebookcheck is the name of the site.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

You can compare processors by ticking the boxes.

 

[chrismscotland]

Thanks for that mate, it seems the Su9400 does indeed spank the Atom, oh well my 8371 is ordered and hopefully will come tommorrow!

 

[kevpuk]

Thanks for that mate, it seems the Su9400 does indeed spank the Atom, oh well my 8371 is ordered and hopefully will come tommorrow!

Spank indeed !

Good stuff, sure you will be as pleased with the 8371 as the rest of us are

 

[e36Adz]

No I haven't tried gaming much yet. I want to know from someone who's overclocked the gpu if the temperatures under load are much different from stock clock speeds on the gpu

Will test this for you tonight mate.

 

[chrismscotland]

Spank indeed !

Good stuff, sure you will be as pleased with the 8371 as the rest of us are

I hope so!

 

[dragonuk]

Will test this for you tonight mate.

Cool . thanks

 

[e36Adz]

Cool . thanks

Ok here are the results then, I only did a short test while I was in a very warm room running off the battery.

Test 1 Furmark (5 mins):

Gpu @ default

Idle Cpu Temps 44C-45C
Load Cpu Temps 58C-59C

Idle Gpu Temps 59C-60C
Load Gpu Temps 88-89C

Test 2 Furmark (5 mins):

Gpu @ 550/750

Idle Cpu Temps 47C-48C
Load Cpu Temps 56C-57C

Idle Gpu Temps 66C-67C
Load Gpu Temps 91C-92C

 

[fraxos]

The drive needs to be a half slim SSD and you remove the case.

For example this SSD is compatible (maybe others too) they sell it here - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-011-KS . You have to open the case and then you get the half slim ssd.

Look at the picture below. This is what its like when you open the kingston ssd that is sold above and remove the case. The ssd you buy has to be this size when you open it to fit.

You just unplug the board and plug it in directly to the laptop inside.

Does anyone know if there are any other SSDs which could fit? The reason I am asking is because the Toshiba controller used for the one above has not been receiving good reviews...

 

[chrismscotland]

Has anyone tried playing back HD video on their 8371 and if so how well does it run?

 

[e36Adz]

Both 720p and 1080p run fine, iv tested quite afew films on it.

 

[dragonuk]

Ok here are the results then, I only did a short test while I was in a very warm room running off the battery.

Test 1 Furmark (5 mins):

Gpu @ default

Idle Cpu Temps 44C-45C
Load Cpu Temps 58C-59C

Idle Gpu Temps 59C-60C
Load Gpu Temps 88-89C

Test 2 Furmark (5 mins):

Gpu @ 550/750

Idle Cpu Temps 47C-48C
Load Cpu Temps 56C-57C

Idle Gpu Temps 66C-67C
Load Gpu Temps 91C-92C

Hmmm so a GPU overclock doesnt really increase the temperatures. Only about 2-3C under load which is nothing.

The idle GPU temp should be the same as when idle the gpu runs at an underclocked speed and this underclocked speed would be the same on the stock gpu clocks and when overclocked, as you only overclock the top gpu speed. So not sure why there is such a difference.

What software did you use for gpu overclock ?