Acer 8371/3810 Owners Thread

Azza · 19 Nov 2010 at 16:36

Just download FM11 and here is a screen shot of game performance score with all English Leagues and large database selected.

e36Adz · 19 Nov 2010 at 17:55

Azza said:
...thankfully ninite exists for this!...

kevpuk said:
Wow - good call ! Not come across this, but looks really useful

+1

Thanks for that, first time I have come across it too!

chrismscotland · 19 Nov 2010 at 18:28

Azza, that looks good, does the 3D Match engine work?

_TubbZ_ · 19 Nov 2010 at 23:05

I got one of these, its great and all - still need to get windows 7 (off my Microsoft mate) But I removed a load of acer stuff and the battery life doesn't seem to be as long as 8 hours more like 4/5

What are others laptops like?

I am tempted to pick up an SSD for this at some point and may get a 9 cell battery too...

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 00:16

RE, ATI drivers and switching cards. I grabbed the W7 64bit ones off the Acer website here. It took an age to download but when installed it installs the ATI display driver and some profiles and other bits for the switchable graphics.

Few things to note:

When it's working/installed correctly the ATI graphics will only be visible in device manager when you're using it, any other time it doesn't even show up as a disabled device.

You should get an extra context menu item when you right click on the desktop for switchable graphics, theres also an extra button in Catalyst Control to switch it. When you plug the mains adapter in, it will automatically switch to the ATI gpu after a prompt. Unplugging it again should default back to the Intel gpu.

Pressing the battery button near the power and Wifi button when running on battery will turn the ATI gpu on (pressing again will turn it off).

When ever it switches it should give you a pop up window stating that the graphics are going to switch in 300 seconds or similar. I have found that if I disabled the ATI CCC and the 3 intel common user interface entries in the startup tab in msconfig then the whole switchable part of the graphics cards stops working and I had to just run the ATI setup again to reinstall. I've also noticed that if I'm running off the mains with the ATI gpu enabled, then shut the laptop down and turn it on but with the mains adapter unplugged then it will continue to run off the ATI gpu and won't switch automatically unless I either press the battery button or manually select which GPU I want to use in the switchable graphics context menu item

Generally I find the switchable graphics works very well in W7

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 00:20

_TubbZ_ said:
I got one of these, its great and all - still need to get windows 7 (off my Microsoft mate) But I removed a load of acer stuff and the battery life doesn't seem to be as long as 8 hours more like 4/5 What are others laptops like?

I am tempted to pick up an SSD for this at some point and may get a 9 cell battery too...

Depending on what I'm doing I've seen it quote upto 9 hours (I do wonder how accurate the windows battery life estimate really is lol). Most of the time it's quoting around 5-6 hours when I have the screen brightness on medium and wifi usually on while I browse the net or just work on some kind of text-based document (usually jQuery or PHP in notepad++)

I am pretty impressed with the battery life of the device so far! I think a 9-cell battery would add a bit too much weight and bulk to it personally

user100monkey · 20 Nov 2010 at 09:05

1st post- signed up just to post in here

Hello to all,
Long time ocuk buyer / lucker first time poster!

I have for a long time been eyeing up the asus 1201pn, duel core atom with ion graphics which is small but allows some gaming. (some gaming = wow).

But i waited for the 1215N, which acording to benchmarks i have seen gets a WIE 3.2 and 3dmark06 2480.

Now this acer 8371 really does seem to of come out of no where and you have got my interest.

I have googled, and unless i am unable to use google i can't find a 3dmark06 score for the acer 8371.

Please could someone post acer 8371 3dmark06 scores?

As i would be buying this laptop for mmo play during evening and lunch (just had our first baby and my office is now the nursery hence the need for a laptop, and hence the need for something cheap).

I am guessing it should score in the 2900 range due to the graphics card?

user100monkey · 20 Nov 2010 at 11:35

Ok i took the plunged after reading all 14 post in "13.3" laptop please"

Now however i find myself a little worried about the horsepower of the ATI HD4330 for playing wow. Has anyone tried wow on it, and sorry to ask again but would really like the 3dmark06 scores whilst i can still cancel the order if its below what i thought the machine was capable of.
Hopefully this is all irrelevant and the machine screems but better safe then sorry!
my thanks again

update - olivier renault has informed me that it should get 2599 3dmark06 scores.

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 11:54

Just ran 3dmark06 on my 8371; seems it scored 1526

kevpuk · 20 Nov 2010 at 12:07

cokecan72 said:
Just ran 3dmark06 on my 8371; seems it scored 1526

Sounds low.....was that definitely with the ATi card running, not the GMA ?

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 12:26

yup, 4330 was enabled.

I'll re-run and see. Gaming performance in the games I've played has been pretty good (granted they are slightly older games)

chrismscotland · 20 Nov 2010 at 12:31

cokecan72 said:
yup, 4330 was enabled.

I'll re-run and see. Gaming performance in the games I've played has been pretty good (granted they are slightly older games)

What have you been playing?

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 12:43

BF2 and BF2142 mainly, bit of C&C tib wars and some much older games (x-wing alliance, tib sun, RA2)

ALD · 20 Nov 2010 at 12:48

I just ran 3Dmark06 and scored 2639.

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 13:49

reinstalled the drivers and im now upto 2602

e36Adz · 20 Nov 2010 at 18:59

Bones said:
Struggling to get the ATI drivers to work with win 7 64bit.

Done a fresh install, updated windows, installed the Acer ATI drivers but it doesn't seem to work.

Ok, not sure if you have sorted this yet but just incase it helps, I downloaded the following ATI drivers from the Acer website for Win 7 Ultimate 64:

VGA ATI v8.652.1
224MB

user100monkey · 20 Nov 2010 at 19:39

OMG cokecan72, thanks for replying quickly with the 3dmark score but my jaw hit the floor and i was looking for the cancel order button for a second @ 1500.

Really glad with the 2600 score, thanks to all that ran and replied.

For comparsion i used to run a XP 2600+ 9800 pro and that was in the 2600 range, so not bad for a £350 laptop!

user100monkey · 20 Nov 2010 at 21:55

Sorry got another question.

As far as i can tell, the 8371 uses the Mobile Intel® GS45 Express Chipset which was released in Q3'08.

Before buying a ssd for this laptop i wanted to make sure that the motherboard supports sataII at 300mbps and AHCI.

If anyone could confirm this that has a 8371 to hand?

Also is there anyway to fit two hd in the laptop?

my thanks again

Azza · 20 Nov 2010 at 22:20

Errr I'm confused...when I first started it up and right clicked and clicking on graphics properties it would load up CCC but now it loads up some Intel GMA thing. :confused:

GPU-Z also reporting that the graphics is on board Intel.

All I've done is run all the windows updates. ATI driver files are still on the laptop.

Should I download and install graphics drivers from Acer or ATI site?

cokecan · 20 Nov 2010 at 22:23

presumably it's in power save mode and just running off the intel GPU. switching the graphics will swap them round. Check my post above (#45) for a bit of info on when and how it switches.

also the drivers on the Acer webby are the only ones that will work right, the ones on the AMD webby won't install properly (doesnt come with the switching profiles etc)

These are the ones you need for W7