if you download these from the site, do they automatically replace the ones windows 7 will install ?
Acer 8371/3810 Owners Thread
- Thread starter e36Adz
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if you download these from the site, do they automatically replace the ones windows 7 will install ?
Soldato
yes, as standard the ATI card should either be disabled or have a yellow ! next to it in device manager in W7. It won't be able to use the card until the Acer drivers are installed
Man of Honour
Cheers guys I suspected that the graphics would be the part that needed drivers, especially with the problems I had getting Nvidia Drivers to install right on my HP Mini after installing on that, using Vista this week on my 8371 is the first experience I've had with it, it doesn't seem all that bad..........
Soldato
Man of Honour
Enjoy mate, my Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hybrid Drive that I ordered for my HP Mini 311 has arrived (10 days late due to the weather) and I was going to just return it now that I have the 8371 but I'm tempted to keep it and install it in my new toy....... decisions decisions......
Man of Honour
thanks..
keep it. you know you want to
I was tempted to send it back and spend £50 on a 7200RPM 500GB drive and then do the 30GB SSD install that DragonUK was showing off all for about the same price.
Man of Honour
Oh yes, I've already spent too much, lol thought I would feel a little less guilty if I sent it back!
Man of Honour
I will share my Tips and Tricks Including installing a 3G modem and a 2nd HDD and my modded quiet bios.
Alright I've just found this thread and see a lot of people have this laptop now.
I'm dragonuk from notebookreview.
CPU OVERCLOCK
First thing is the cpu overclock does seem to give a great boost and not effect battery life or have any side effects at all. So most people should use it fine
When using CPU-Z my cpu sometimes shows a x7.5 or x8 multiplier. Don't know why this is as the cpu is only meant to have a x7 multiplier. Anyone else seen this ?
If you want it to run everytime windows starts, open task scheduler and click Create Task. Set it to trigger on startup and on workstation unlock . That means when you return from sleep or power on your laptop it will automatically run the cpu overclock.
GPU INFO
Now the GPU. The GPU does seem to run really hot when playing games 80C etc. One problem here is the fan on the laptop is set to come on at different speeds depending on the CPU Temp. So if the cpu temp is really low and the gpu is really high the fan won't turn on. There is not much you can do here except modify the cooling in the laptop internally.
INSTALLING A 2ND HDD (SSD)
Some people mentioned on this forum about wanting to install a 2nd hdd and gave a negative point to this laptop because you couldn't. Well actually you can. If you open up the laptop (you have to remove the keyboard etc) there is a space inside the laptop for a half slim ssd. Check the picture below (Now this picture is from a 3810. Now our laptop is pretty much the same inside just a few things different.)
In the middle right of the picture there is a space with nothing in it. To the right of the blue board. You can connect an SSD in to that space using the connection from the blue board and then you have a SSD and the original internal hdd in your laptop) On our laptop the space is in the bottom right corner instead but same thing applies.
This is how it fits:
So if anyone wants a 2nd hdd there you go
INSTALLING A 3G MODEM
Also the laptop is ready for a 3g modem. It all ready has a sim card slot in the case. If you remove the battery and then look to the left of the battery connection on the laptop you will see a black sticker covering something. If you remove this black sticker it will reveal a fully functional sim card slot. You can insert a sim and remove. Now this doesnt give you 3g. All you need to add a 3g modem into the laptop is purchase a 3g wwan pcie card like this :
And plug it in to the slot in the top right (you can see the slot in the first picture I posted. Top right of picture). They cost ab
DragonUK, potential stupid questions here, does the installation of the SSD affect battery life or temperatures at all?
Also do you use the SSD just for the Operating System?
Yeah just use the SSD for the OS and maybe a few files etc and the other drive for storage. Just means everything is faster really.
Also SSD don't use much battery power so doesnt really affect battery life or temps.
Also people who just got this laptop. You have to use old ati and intel drivers to be able to switch graphics inside windows. These old drivers dont have hardware accelleration etc.
The way I do it is use my modified bios and change the graphics from the bios. Set it to ati only or intel only. Means the other is disabled in windows and you can install the latest graphics drivers for the graphics you choose. This does mean you have to restart and enter bios settings when you want to switch graphics, but its not like you should need to switch back and forward frequently anyway.
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Man of Honour
Well I'm going to keep the Momentus XT and stick it in my 8371, bought a disc enclosure for the existing 320GB drive as my mum needs an external drive!!!
Think you should be able to find it from here:
http://www.acersupport.com/
Select drivers, notebook, acer 8371, then top right you'll see the list of O/S to choose
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ive got that page already (but thanks anyway)
my question is which drivers should i download from it ?
The only drivers I needed were the ATI, Fingerprint reader and AHCI drivers, all taken directly from the Acer website for Win 7 64 bit.
thanks, i have downlaoded the ati and finger print ones
do i need the ahci ? if not using an SSD ?