Acer 8371/3810 Owners Thread

johnnyfinlandia · 7 Jan 2011 at 13:12

heh .. I left mine on and they look OK

(I have a 3810 though).

cokecan · 7 Jan 2011 at 13:31

Culinia said:
I just removed those horrible Intel Centrino/Windows/ATI graphics stickers from my machine. Now it's left some horrible sticky residue - does anyone know how to remove this effectively without damaging it!? Thanks

I better see if I can remove it first before I try to remove the massive travelmate stickers on the left lol!

when peeling the stickers off mine I just stuck the sticker back down on top of the residue that was left and it peeled it all off nicely for me. gave it a quick polish with a cloth after and that was it

kevpuk · 7 Jan 2011 at 16:21

How about a dab of WD40 or lighter fluid ?
Dunno how effective vs. safe that will be, but imagine a small quantity could be mighty effective.....

InQ · 7 Jan 2011 at 17:27

Nail varnish remover should be ok, just apply a bit to a cloth and try on a bit of plastic you cant see so much to test first.

Mine turned up today, only ordered yesterday lunchtime to rapid delivery considering i didnt pick the 24hr option.
Impressed up to now, just removing some of the rubbish and installing my usual programs.

jacksonliam · 7 Jan 2011 at 18:00

Got mine, 3810TG-944G50n
Quite impressive looking, quiet and cool laptop.
Performance was great when i got it.

Then took it apart (about 40 screws i recon) to put the SSD (30GB Kingston one) in and re-installed windows from a home premium DVD i downloaded and burned from MDSN.

Performance seemed fine except the acer site wouldnt give me the ATI driver. I eventually got it and applied loads of windows updates and some tweaks meant to speed up SSD performance/give more space and now it hangs a lot

Only turned off system restore, disabled indexing service, disabled defrag service, disabled write catching, disabled hybernate and turned off page file for the SSD (but enabled it on the HDD).

Ive tried re-enabling page file but its not really quicker.

-=EDIT=-
System seems to work fine when Intel graphics are selected. Tried the latest driver from the acer site and one from windows update but no change.

Any ideas?

Also, does anyone know how to stop powersmart from changing the graphics as soon as you unplug the laptop? Annoying if i'm playing a game and need to move room, it crashes the game - LOL!

fraxos · 9 Jan 2011 at 10:18

Guys,

Has anyone actually fitted a SSD as per dragonuk's recommendations in their 8371? I just opened mine and I cannot for the life of me find the connector. is there a chance that our 8371 are actually different internally to the 3810?

jacksonliam · 9 Jan 2011 at 13:50

The connector doesn't give much space next to it, but on my 3810TG its placed horizontally down the right hand side about half way down. I believe yours should be along the bottom edge of the board about 2/3 of the way along. just before the card reader.

I have solved my own problem
with the SSD, fresh windows 7 with a few programs on startup including the overclock i get 35 seconds to desktop from power button and 53 seconds to google from power button on a cold boot!

I have enabled discrete graphics only in the BIOS and downloaded the AMD graphics driver from here http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx (select notebook, radeon series, 4xxx series, YOUR os) and it installed the latest CCC with the 8.801 display driver.

This improved game performance quite a bit.

I STILL get 5hrs 20mins on battery with just browsing.
I got about 2hrs 15mins of Trackmania gaming!

For those still using switchable graphics, 1080p MKV/WMV plays fine even on the intel 4500 graphics, I recommend installing klite and using media player classic to play your videos.
I dont use the intel card so havent done a battery test on that.

Culinia · 10 Jan 2011 at 02:08

Thanks guys for those suggestions -- i tried washing up liquid at the start and it seemed to have solved it although I have not (yet) taken away the specification sticker but when I do I will perhaps use your suggestions.

Furthermore, does anyone have the following problem regarding the wireless LED?
=It is always on!!
When data is transmitted it only then starts to blink -- I could have sworn that it was off and blinked on and off when transmission was in effect.

I can also verify that it is not a virus -- because the program 'NetMeter' shows no data transmission when the LED is lit but it does when the LED turns on and off -- I thought this was strange and thought I would share it with you to see if it happens to you and to see if there is a solution.
Thanks for any help.

e36Adz · 10 Jan 2011 at 13:21

fraxos said:
Guys,

Has anyone actually fitted a SSD as per dragonuk's recommendations in their 8371? I just opened mine and I cannot for the life of me find the connector. is there a chance that our 8371 are actually different internally to the 3810?

Can you please take a picture of the inside of the 8371 mate and let us know if you manage to fit the SSD and also where it goes!?

I fitted a normal SSD in mine by removing the hdd, but I also want 2 hdds in there!

tbz_ck · 10 Jan 2011 at 14:01

Just ordered a 8471 for the wife. Daft women wanted to wait and wait to see if the price would go down but I told her it would go up as they disappear from the channel. Really wanted a 4810TZG for her (she wants the internal DVD so 13 inch is out of the question) but we missed out on that. She now has (coming tomorrow) an 8471 with the same chip as the 3810 but without the dedicated graphics. 3GB RAM, 250GB disk, but Vista.....

I'll get to see what the matte screen is like

Got both the machine and the bag + delivery for £389

jacksonliam · 10 Jan 2011 at 14:47

Culinia said:
Thanks guys for those suggestions -- i tried washing up liquid at the start and it seemed to have solved it although I have not (yet) taken away the specification sticker but when I do I will perhaps use your suggestions.

Furthermore, does anyone have the following problem regarding the wireless LED?
=It is always on!!
When data is transmitted it only then starts to blink -- I could have sworn that it was off and blinked on and off when transmission was in effect.

I can also verify that it is not a virus -- because the program 'NetMeter' shows no data transmission when the LED is lit but it does when the LED turns on and off -- I thought this was strange and thought I would share it with you to see if it happens to you and to see if there is a solution.
Thanks for any help.

My wireless light is always on (orange) and blinks slowly off/on when active

johnnyfinlandia · 10 Jan 2011 at 18:25

Yeah my Orange Wifi is normally on but sometimes flashes .. not a clue ..

fraxos · 10 Jan 2011 at 20:48

e36Adz said:
Can you please take a picture of the inside of the 8371 mate and let us know if you manage to fit the SSD and also where it goes!?

I fitted a normal SSD in mine by removing the hdd, but I also want 2 hdds in there!

I found the SATA port. It is, as mentioned in the bottom right and the SSD just managed to fit in there. However, I am now having another problem in that my laptop does not recognise it, when it is connected in this SATA port. I know the SSD is working because when I connected to to the main port used by the HDD it is showing up on the bios. Any ideas anyone?

e36Adz · 10 Jan 2011 at 20:57

Absolutely no idea mate

Only things I can really think of in that situation would be make sure it is firmly connected, make sure you have the latest bios. Is it not appearing in the bios?

fraxos · 10 Jan 2011 at 21:03

Firmly in place and using the latest bios available but to no avail. It is as if that SATA port is not functioning...

e36Adz · 10 Jan 2011 at 21:47

Was nothing at all connected to that particular SATA port? Maybe it needs to be enabled in the bios?

fraxos · 10 Jan 2011 at 21:56

Nothing whatsoever. I have tried to enable it but have been unable to do so. Rather frustrating...Am I the only who has actually tried this?

e36Adz · 10 Jan 2011 at 22:06

fraxos said:
Nothing whatsoever. I have tried to enable it but have been unable to do so. Rather frustrating...Am I the only who has actually tried this?

Yes, no one else has tried it yet.

Seriously though, most of us on here didn't even know it was possible to fit 2 hdds in the 8371. BTW did you buy a normal SSD or was it a smaller one? I am sure dragonuk will be along shortly with some suggestions. If the SATA port is there, un-used, and you have plugged the SSD in, it surely has to work. Is there no option in the bios to enable the SATA port?

fraxos · 10 Jan 2011 at 22:14

I bought one of the small ones, which just fits. Als, whilst the SATA is there and the SSD is plugged in, it does not. Oh, dragonuk, where art thou?

e36Adz · 10 Jan 2011 at 22:17

I am absolutely positive (and probably totally wrong) that you need to find and enable it in the bios. It's in there, keep looking. BTW is there an option for HDD SMART in there?