Acer Aspire 8942G Core i7 Owners Lounge

[triturbo]

Clevo It's around the forum from quite some time. I don't know why is that confidence.

[dimitrij]

I placed an order for 8942 please pm me as well on what you will get.

[aleicgrant]

really quiet in this thread. did the 8942 ever come out ???

[Umbreon1960]

Hi Everyone!

I am new to the forum, and I joined as I am the happy owner of an 8942G and will provide my first impressions and experiences in this post.

First, I am in Canada, and bought my unit at Staples. They seem to have an exclusive configuration arrangement with Acer, and so far, other then a couple of small independent dealers; I have not seen the 8942G available anywhere else in Canada at this date of posting.

Here is my config, as it is not an i7, I am wondering if I should start a new thread - perhaps the mods or participants can advise - in the interim I will post here.

Model = Acer AS8942G - 5679

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Intel Core i3 330M @2.13 GHz, HM55 Express Chipset
18.4" Acer Cinecrystal LCD 1080P 16 x 9 aspect ratio (max resolution 1920 x 1080)
4 GB DDR 3 1066 MHz Memory (2 x 2), max 8GB
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 w 1 GB of DDR3 Ram
500 GB HD (5400rpm)
Blue Ray Disc (read only)/Super Multi DL combo drive
WLAN Acer Nplify 802.1b/g/n
Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam (up to 720p) with dual microphones
Multi Card Reader
8 cell Li-Ion Battery (71 watt max output 4800 mAh battery)
Ports = 5 USB, HDMI, Esata, VGA, Ethernet, Display, 1394, Line in, Mic, Speakers, Expresscard 54 (also accepts 34 cards), CIR Receiver, RF port.
Fingerprint Reader
120 Watt AC adaptor


Retail Price = $1060 CAD (I actually paid $100 less on an in store one day special)

I knew from researching that the 8942G was released in Europe first, and that I was getting the base config in respect of processor and vid card. But the i7 w/5850 is selling for 1450 pounds in the UK, which is $1500 CAD more then what I paid. Furthermore, I judged I did not need that extra processing power. I did look at the 8940G, but its only availability here was at $1400 without the blue ray, and the 240M video card is not as good as the 5650.

So I was satisfied with the configuration for the price I paid.

First Impressions:

I should have done an unboxing video. However initial bootup and config was quite fast, I would say less then 15 minutes and only 1 reboot.

The display is fantastic. I had an Acer 8735G with the max 945 resolution which I returned as the display was simply not adequate. The 8942G display is lovely, and I watched a blue ray movie, and it I think it was better then my flat screen tv.

Windows Experience Scores after finish of windows config with scale for this machine 1.0 - 7.9.

Processor = 6.2
Memory = 5.9
Graphics = 6.7
Game Graphics = 6.7
Primary Disk = 5.7

I put in an 8 gb Lexar drive into the Expresscard slot and dedicated 4GB to Readyboost (you can only dedicate half the drive max) and reran the experience scores. The Primary Disk Drive score bumped up slightly to 5.8.

It seems to me the only easy paths to improving the scores further would be to get a 7200 rpm drive, and bump up the ram to 6 or 8 GB.

System properties indicate that of my 4GB ram - 3.86 is usable (which also confirms the 64 bit mode).

I am currently conditioning the battery - very important. For those that don't know, it means that after you have charged up the unit, you pull the power plug and let the unit run on battery power until you get the low battery warning, then you charge it up again and repeat 2 more times.

Battery life seems to be very good. I am at over 3 hours and still have 30% of my battery life left and I am running in normal mode, not power saver. BTW, the unit has both a touch button on the LCD panel to turn it off, and the Acer PowerSmart button. I have not used either other then to briefly turn them on and of to confirm they work (they do).

The Acer Media Touch system on this unit with the dial for volume, and touch sensitive controls for the media functions works 1000% better then the system on the 8730 and 8735 models.

The sound is great. No it does not get super super loud, but it is clean all the way to the top volume. I am listening to a whole range of trance/electronic music while typing this and sound is fine (at this exact sec, on deck is Sexy People Mashup by DJ Clive from Mashup International). I may hook up later my Creative Gigaworks T40s and will give some feedback once I have done so and fiddled around with the soundcard features. I thought the bass was fine - the bass tubes at the back of the unit are definitely audible to me.

The touchpad supports all those multi gestures that can be found in Windows 7, which of course I have yet to learn! The touchpad can also be turned off via a small button to the right of the pad.

I love the backlit keyboard, but my one gripe is these new flat key chicklet style keyboards. Honestly they are a real step backwards compared to the normal keys where each key is slightly rounded internally to help catch your fingers when touch-typing.

I am hoping some aftermarket company will soon release a keyboard protector, otherwise I can see lots of dust and junk soon collecting underneath the keys of the keyboard.

The vidcam also works well. Seeing oneself in HD resolution is pretty scary! I made a couple of skype calls, and was told the video and audio quality for the party on the other end was excellent, as good as were I on a headset.

The big oversight on my unit is the lack of bluetooth and also perhaps for some, the omission of the tv tuner. The omission of the bluetooth option is my big gripe, since it only costs the manufacturer about 5 bucks to add it to a unit.

So I will end up getting either a usb or expresscard bluetooth module and tv tuner. They are cheap on Ebay (a mini usb bluetooth can be bought for about $10) and with 5 USB 2.0 ports, there is certainly the room on the 8942G to load up with these peripherals.

This video card is supposed to be able to support multiple monitors, and I know from exploring already, Acer Gridvista allows you to take at least 2 monitors (the display and 1 external) and manipulate the displays so it is as if you have multiple screens. A nice feature for presentations, and it is driving the 2nd monitor at 1080p resolution as well.

I got rid of most of the bloatware and went into MSConfig and confirmed my startup items (unchecking some which I did not want). A cold boot without adjusting anything other then the aforementioned takes approx 75 seconds. I suppose this could be further refined down in MSConfig Boot options but I am happy with that for now.

Well, I think that is enough for this initial posting. Upon thought, I suggest this thread should simply be renamed Acer 8942 eliminating all the processor info, and this post should be left in this thread.

Look forward to everyone's comments and suggestions.

[Umbreon1960]

I am thinking about going to 6 or 8 gig of memory. I checked out the memory, and it is Samsung chips: 2GB PC3-8500s 07-10-F2

My questions are:

1) I can find the occassional 4GB PC3-8500E or ER ram, but none with "s". I would like some help on understanding the difference and if it is important.
2) I have never seen F2 in the timing before. What does that stand for?

Do I need to find a 4 gig chip that matches the "s" in the transfer rate and F2 in the memory timing clock cycle or are these not issues.

Would it be an issue to have mismatched memory, by brand and GB (ie going to 6 GB of ram with a 1x4 and 1x2 chips)?

Finally, the NVidia vid card has 1GB of DDR3 memory, and apparently the system has the ability to share up to 2717MB, but I don't see a way to control the sharing, and perhaps deliberately always dedicate more memory to the video function. Is there a way to specify the video memory shared?

Anyone's help on these matters would be appreciated.

I might add btw that otherwise I have been very happy with this unit over the last couple of days. I have owned 8 notebook computers over the years (maybe even more that was what I could remember) and this unit is by far the best to date. I also much prefer the black finish of this unit to the gray color of the 8730G I returned. However, it is a fingerprint magnet.

I have been unable to find a keyboard protector, a couple of vendors I contacted indicated no one yet makes one for the 8940 series. If anyone knows of one please provide the link.

[dc_stoica@yahoo.ca]

Everything looks fine; the only quirk I found for now is the net conenction button (bottom-left corner). Does anyone have knowledge of a fix/hack to disable the feature - while typing sometimes I touch it and I am getting offline. This is a windows question; under linux I fixed it since we have the sources; under win7 is the stupid old close-source issue! Maybe their is a configuration tool to control the ACER extended keyboard! ...

[dc_stoica@yahoo.ca]

I am thinking about going to 6 or 8 gig of memory. I checked out the memory, and it is Samsung chips: 2GB PC3-8500s 07-10-F2

My questions are:

1) I can find the occassional 4GB PC3-8500E or ER ram, but none with "s". I would like some help on understanding the difference and if it is important.
2) I have never seen F2 in the timing before. What does that stand for?

Do I need to find a 4 gig chip that matches the "s" in the transfer rate and F2 in the memory timing clock cycle or are these not issues.

Would it be an issue to have mismatched memory, by brand and GB (ie going to 6 GB of ram with a 1x4 and 1x2 chips)?

Finally, the NVidia vid card has 1GB of DDR3 memory, and apparently the system has the ability to share up to 2717MB, but I don't see a way to control the sharing, and perhaps deliberately always dedicate more memory to the video function. Is there a way to specify the video memory shared?

Anyone's help on these matters would be appreciated.

I might add btw that otherwise I have been very happy with this unit over the last couple of days. I have owned 8 notebook computers over the years (maybe even more that was what I could remember) and this unit is by far the best to date. I also much prefer the black finish of this unit to the gray color of the 8730G I returned. However, it is a fingerprint magnet.

I have been unable to find a keyboard protector, a couple of vendors I contacted indicated no one yet makes one for the 8940 series. If anyone knows of one please provide the link.

The problem is that we don`t have NVidia, with professional drivers but the stupid ATI (I even know the managers, here in Toronto) with drivers/utilities for dummies ;-(

[Umbreon1960]

Everything looks fine; the only quirk I found for now is the net conenction button (bottom-left corner). Does anyone have knowledge of a fix/hack to disable the feature - while typing sometimes I touch it and I am getting offline. This is a windows question; under linux I fixed it since we have the sources; under win7 is the stupid old close-source issue! Maybe their is a configuration tool to control the ACER extended keyboard! ...

Wow, on mine, it takes some continued deliberate pressure, for at least a second or more, in order to trigger the net connection button, just casually touching it does nothing. I can see hitting it due to the fact it is beside the left shift key (which is a regulare sized key rather then a larger shift key, and thus a nuisance to find when touch typing due to its small size) but even if I press it as if I had hit it during touch typing, that is not enough on my unit to trigger it.

I looked around for a hack but could not find one. I bet there is a way to disable the key but I have not found it yet.

[Umbreon1960]

By the way, anyone with answers to my questios earlier about memory? Thanks.

[ErikO]

Hello all.

got my 8942G, with HD5850 gpu.

Ignoring the bloatware etc, I installed my Intel SSD & Win 7 ultimate x64, backing up my drivers first with Driver Magician.

After install I could not restore my GPU driver.

I downloaded a new one from ACER, and that doesn't work either.

What to do?