I hope everyone reads this

I bought an acer aspire 5100 about a year ago. and all its managed to do is piss me off and check my email. I used to be able to everything with it. I could play videogames watch movies and play music i could do anything! it was an amazing piece of machinery. I was a little worried about having a laptop because i've seen people have so many problems but i figured, hey i'm very experienced in the computer field having built four of my own and never had a problem. Oh but was i wrong. I installed windows vista thinking it would be an amazing new operating system that a 64 bit computer would handle. Turns out this laptop can run it but horribly horribly slow (why even give it to me acer?). Ok. I've dealt with this before. Format c: /s boot from disk, install xp. Fantastic now im back at xp. But what a suprise. it seems after the four months i dealt with vista it destroyed my computer. My comp is running slow. Video skips, cant play any games, music skips (why god?) i cant do anything, YAY! it seems that my 900 dollar laptop has turned into a piece of **** for absolutely no reason. Now it wont do anything everything is slow and i've never seen so many errors. And to think deleting everything and rebirthing my computer just wasnt enough. Now what? Why Does my laptop hate me? Why would you do this acer? is this even legal? Now im really exciting to go out and spend 1000 dollars on putting a computer together better that a multibillion dollar corporation can manage to build. I hate you acer. And i will get my 900 dollars back from your company one day. Probably by catapulting my laptop through one of your corporate buildings. I WILL HAVE MY VENGEANCE !!!

 

Not trying to say your dumb or anything but you did install all the xp drivers right?

When you reinstalled xp did you install it from the Acer restore cd or a xp cd?

 

Vista does not destroy a computer.

Have you got all the latest drivers, updates and patches in place for XP? Support for one year old hardware will not be there by default and while things may just about work, they won't work properly.

Start with the drivers for the chipset (get the latest from the appropriate manufacturer's website) and check the Acer website for their recommended drivers which may be newer than whatever came with the computer (but if it came loaded with Vista then XP drivers might not be provided). Maybe the HDD interface isn't running properly which would slow everything down to a crawl.

John

 

lol, welcome to the club, we got plastic boxes... with the word 'acer' on them?

 

also it sounds spyware/malware to me!

xp and vista slow down over time

xp is prone to malware though

i had it when video was skipping and stuttering and could hardly do anything

 

all acer Aspire models in Asia come with Linux BE or XP pro , how did you get an Acer with Vista installed?

I think TM models come with Vista business.

 

As a general rule of thumb Aspire 5100's are rubbish... the half-decent ones have a x1300 graphics chip which help a little. Also i wouldn't run vista without dual core or less than 2 gigs of RAM.

 

I've installed vista on my computer before, and if actually performed great. However, I liked XP better because it was just that much faster and leaner. I have 2 gigs of upgraded RAM and the computer has never given me an ounce of trouble. I've had it for a year and a half now, and although the laptop heats up like crazy, even after i've cleaned the fan, it is still a decent performer.

 

Acer treats different parts of the world differently. In US it's vista only. I contacted Acer Support with a Linux question and was told Linux is not supported. I believe it's all vista in UK also.

 

yes thats correct, its Vista only in the EMEA and North America regions but in Asia they offer linux, i believe that they use Linpus but they may have changed that recently.

deltafx1942, by the way you decribe the lower performance and extra heat in Vista it sounds like there may be a small underlying issue that may be reducing performance and causing extra heat.

Does your unit have two outlets for the fan or just the one? Cos i saw a nice mod to the thermal module on the 5100 with just one heatpipe/exhaust where some ram sinks had been attatched to the flat part of the thermal module and they mentioned that it helped with temperatures a little. I cant remember the link now though i'm afraid.

 

Sorry i guess i was a little vague. I've been building. fixing. and breaking computers since i was 12. I'm 19 now and definitely a nerd. I tried re-reinstalling all of the drivers, i used a regular xp mce cd i lost my acer one a long time ago. I've been trying to fix it for 6 months. If it was spyware/malware it would have gone away when i wiped the hardrive to get rid of vista and install xp. vista was the upgrade disk they mailed to me for free because i purchased the laptop right before vista came out. I've also had a week to really sit down and try and fix everything seeing as i caught mononucleosis i've still got about three weeks to go . It seems to be getting worse daily. I cant play more that 30 seconds of video without lag. Starcraft lags. everything lags. even when i type it lags. I've decided to either build my own computer with linux on it. Or go mac. Im so tired of pc i don't think i can take it anymore.

 

The 'PC' platform is not your problem, its acer, they are just not very good quality computers.

 

ever since vista came out i've been very upset with microsoft. that was a very big money hungry mistake.

 

Your problem, from your description, is obviously NOT ACER OR MICROSOFT.

If it seems to be getting worse daily, either you are doing something wrong or you have a virus or malware of some kind. YOU modified the computer to be different than shipped. Then YOU wiped the disc and started reinstalling OS and drivers and software. It didn't work so it's ACER'S fault???

I have 2 Acers and my daughter and her family have 3. We've never had problems. Acers are very good, inexpensive, computers. If you want bleeding edge computer performance, buy it. But don't blame a manufacturer for something they quite obviously do not have control over.

 

So, let me get this straight, you've reinstalled your OS to XP MCE right? If i'm not mistaken your GPU must be ATI Radeon Xpress 1100?
how about doing a clean install of this driver and see how it works out, you're still using XP MCE right?
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=mce/integrated-mce

 

I love my Acer. I have had it over a year now, I just upgraded the cpu and memory. I am running Vista 64 bit and it is so fast, and no problems so far.
I have a 3050-1594, but basically turned into a 5050 for under 200 bucks. I put a turion tl-52 in it and 4G of memory. I have no problems playing GuildWars. runs smmoth.

 

i wouldnt have any virus' or malware after wiping my hard drive.

back on topic, i believe its because of my memory drivers, i have three of those little yellow question marks in my devise list, says "pci flash memory" and my lag mostly occurs when im running a few things at once. Yes i have the radeon 1100 and i installed all the correct drivers for everything directly from the acer website. I cant think of anything else that would be doing this. I've always wanted my own little personal mini-arcade though. I was thinking about getting a stand for this bad boy, throw some old nintendo emulators on it and rig some nintendo controllers to the front. put a touch screen on it cover the keyboard and have a totally sween little setup, i saw it earlier on the internet. I was planning on building a new computer anyways, this couldnt run any games made past 2000 anyways. thanks for the help guys if anyone thinks of anything else that could be causing this feel free. And i dont mean to rag on acer, but when i call the hotline and they tell me im s.o.l. after i've spent a grand to have a fantastic computer. And having almost five years of experience and not being able to figure it out. It gets a little upsetting.

 

ballinator I would seiously advise you listen to and take note of the advice given by Glass. I requested that your previous post be removed. Why?

1. Behave yourself. (You think) it's to funny to post pictures with swear words that escape the language filter. The Acer forum consists of good folks who genuinely try and help each other.

2. There is absolutely no way Acer can be blamed for you doing this: and I quote you ballinator:"I bought an acer aspire 5100 about a year ago. I used to be able to everything with it. I could play videogames watch movies and play music i could do anything! it was an amazing piece of machinery. I was a little worried about having a laptop because i've seen people have so many problems but i figured, hey i'm very experienced in the computer field having built four of my own and never had a problem. Oh but was i wrong. I installed windows vista thinking it would be an amazing new operating system that a 64 bit computer would handle. Turns out this laptop can run it but horribly horribly slow (why even give it to me acer?). Ok. I've dealt with this before. Format c: /s boot from disk, install xp. Fantastic now im back at xp. But what a suprise. it seems after the four months i dealt with vista it destroyed my computer. My comp is running slow. Video skips, cant play any games, music skips (why god?) i cant do anything, YAY! it seems that my 900 dollar laptop has turned into a piece of **** for absolutely no reason. Now it wont do anything everything is slow and i've never seen so many errors. And to think deleting everything and rebirthing my computer just wasnt enough. Now what? Why Does my laptop hate me? Why would you do this acer? is this even legal? Now im really exciting to go out and spend 1000 dollars on putting a computer together better that a multibillion dollar corporation can manage to build. I hate you acer. And i will get my 900 dollars back from your company one day. Probably by catapulting my laptop through one of your corporate buildings. I WILL HAVE MY VENGEANCE !!!". Unquote

You hate Acer, you hate Vista and probably hate yourself. You screwed up your computer period. Now everyone is to blame.. I don't think that you have a clue about computers. Period. You don't know what you are doing.

Rather go away, think and try again. With a different attitude. Then we will try and help sort out your problem. Until then good bye.

Cheers,
Theo

 

only five years experience, well in five years the pc/laptop has become a different beast.you seem to have been fiddling about with the OS and knackered you laptop. thats not acers fault.
i have a four year old acer travelmate 230 running xp home and never had a virus it runs like a dream and is used every day and i mean every day.
you need to sit down and read Blackvipers web site.you could learn something about "if its not broken don't try and fix it".and more speed is not always the best answer.just keep your hard drive clean

best of luck son. and no more pointless rants.

 

No I would have to disagree. Ballinator has a good complaint, but he my he may not have handled it so well. I had some of the same symptoms with my Aspire 5100. Here's the rest of my story and yes i have told this story in other posts because I think it should be told:

Original purchase date was Sept 2006. Last week, feb 11, 2008, I just sent my Aspire 5100 in for the 5th ....count it....5th time and they cannot fix it. Initial problem started jan 2007 was the DVD player went weeds, they replaced that. then the machine completely locked up so They replaced a bad mother board, then the DVD player failed, they replaced that again. Still didn't work. then it started freezing up again, like it did with the first issue I had...blue screen of death on microcrap media yes the same problem. And during one of my returns, the acer tech's just re-installed my Operating system, that was it, when the problem was a faulty DVD player. I got it back and it still didn't work right. THe bonus to acer repairs are that they give you an additional 90 day repair warranty, but they will not give out new machines....even after 5 repairs. This machine has been out of the year warranty for about 6 months. But with the repair warranty and the ignorance of Acer to repair it correctly, they pay for everything, shipping by fed-ex. Their Dime, but my Time. The best part is talking to the tech support. Once I asked to talk to a supervisor and they told me they didn't have a supervisor, my response was...what do you run Acer...your the main Acer top Boss....Wow. I told one tech that I installed all the latest Microsoft updates and he told me that was the problem and that he never installs any updates from Microsoft including SP 2. I even got so mad that one of them hung up on me. I have called so many times that I have talked to the same tech people a couple of times. Tuesday, feb 19, 2008 I called to check on it and they said they replaced the LCD screen. I said what, I didn't have a problem with that, but they found a problem with it...... I'm at they point where I laugh. Now when I get it back, I'm just going to call them and say I have a problem, that way they will take it back under warranty. My goal is to have this machine cost them 5 times the price of it.

I'm feeling much better today because I bought a dell. I know you can have problems with any machine, but I'm hoping that other machine has more competent tech support.

My 2 cents on acer Tech support.

 

try asking for a new machine after or during the process of calling in for the 7th repair... thats usually the threshold for replacements, you may not get one considering the unit is out of warranty but its worth a shot

 

Or just oder set of recovery disk and restore the machine back to oringal

it cound be something simply failing hard disk

 

Well i'm hoping 6 is the lucky number and yes I am multi-posting this because I think its important:

here's an update and You said you want more funny stuff. Got the Acer back again, this is the 6th time I think. the repair notes said they replaced the LCD screen and the motherboard. this is the 3rd motherboard in this machine from them. They said the DVD works fine. I got it out of the box, turned it on and played a DVD.....yeah. Left the machine on for about 3 hours to see if it would lock up and yippeeeee it did. what a joke the Acer support is. Well off it goes again back to Acer. i love the 90 day warranty period. Maybe the dumb sh*ts will finally give me a new one. Although that would take an intelligent decision and I don't think they can manage that. Got my new Dell in the mail and I'm feeling a little better that i spent another $1000.

Bill

 

I second that! It sounds like bad hdd. Have you checked the Event Viewer for hdd errors or any other errors?

 

Sounds like you could be an Acer Support Technician because I don't think they checked that. I mentioned that it might be that, but they failed to look there. Now I just want to see how long I can keep sending it in on their dime.

Bill