ACER TRAVELMATE 8172 11.6" Thread

[monkbythesea]

Great thread. Because of this thread I decided to purchase one. I got the tm8172-3519, i3 core processor, from Amazon reseller for $485US. Pretty good deal I think.

I was really impressed with how light it is and yet still feels durable/rigid. The matte aesthestics are certainly very functional for reduction of fingerprints and screen reflection. Also, though it may not be as thin or having certain styling cues as other notebooks, I find it still very appealing and sleek. The battery portruding out of the back, rather than adding bulk to the bottom also enhances the sleekness. Touchpad is small, but I can live with it. I use a Bt mouse i carry in my bag anyways.

Battery is good too, though my test have not be formal since i have only had it 2 days. At any rate, i'm seeing about 4-5 hrs for movie watching and 7 hrs of web surfing, document reading, with power saver on. I have only cycled the battery once form 100 to 0, so hopefully a couple more cycles will see better results, but again, my times are more just prelimary averages.

I also got the the Express IV Dock/port replicator. It works good with a few problems i have yet to figure out. When connected it takes about 10secs switch to my 2nd display and for some reason does not do it 1 out of 4 times. I think it might be a loose connection with my DVI cable or a bad cable all together. However, today i am starting to suspect it might not be the cable, and hope it is not something with the Express IV Dock. I connect it to an HP 22" monitor and output is very impressive. I played a 720p movie with no apprent stutter or lag. Auiod, USB, and Dc power work good too. I havent trested ethernet because i just use wifi. The dock's connection cable is very short, about 6 inches, which i do not like and the connection to the Express IV port is very cumbersome. It takes a little fiddling to get it connected. Also, the cable is very thick like a gooseneck and angles 90 degress at the head. One thing i disocvered is if you use a 2nd display only and leave the lid closed you cannot access power button on 8172, so you have to leave lid open to power on/off. i wish dock had a power switch. i previously used an HP xb3000 dock with my HP tx2 which had power switch on dock and connection was much. much, easier. Dock is very small though and was only $70 from the same reseller, so i cannot complain too much. Also, it still very convenient and unique to have a docking connector on a sub 13" notebook for under $500. It is 1 of ht emain reasons i chose the tm8172.

It came with Win 7 x32 Pro and i upgraded to win 7 x64 Ultimate and installed all driver and bios updates. Mostly everything with smoothly, but 1 suggestion I have is for users to google "ACEr 8172t drivers" and use the link you find because it has more recent driver. Here is the link: http://support.acer.com/us/en/produc...x?modelId=2431. Link has drivers dated up to 6/22/10. If you go to main site, then go to "support," then drivers, you only get ones dated 5/27/10. Also, it is not as organized.

I wish i did spend more and got the i5 or i7 though. I read a post on thsi thread stating i5 only gives about 19% in certain multi-processing settings, which i did not think would make that much of a differenc to me, but now feel like it does. Do not get me wrong, it is not bad, i just think the i3 is noticaebly slower than say the Macbook Air. i am probaly stating the obvious, but i just assumed the differnce would not be that noticeable to me, but now i feel it is. Multitasking with Otulook, Onenote, 3 web pages, Pandora playing thru Boxee, does see a noticable lag. Not bad, but noticeable. However, for a 3lb. notebook under $500 with 6-8hrs battery, I can certaintly live with it.

The only problem i have encountered so far is with the BT hardware. This model (tm8172t-3519) should have BT 3.0. However, out of the box, windows Device Manager did not show any BT devices listed. This was very confusing to me. I went ahead an upgraded the win x32 to win x64 ultimate and then attempted to download BT drivers. There are 2 listed on the site: Atheros and Broadcom. I did not knwo which one I had, so downloaded both. Well, the Broadcom stated no BT device listed. Also, notebookcheck.com lsits the BT module as Broadcom. Well, even stranger out-of-thebox it had the Atheros BT suite installed, so i went ahead and installed the Atheros BT drivers and BT suite, since Broadcom stated no BT device. Atheros installed, hoever, still no Bt devices listed and i cannot connect BT. However, in device mamager, under "system devices" it does show the "Atheros BT Bus" but shouldnt the device manager show the BT moudle under a branch called Bluetooth Devices? contacted Acer customer service, which was a complete joke. So i am hoping somone might have the smae problem or suggest what i should do? this model should have BT 3.0 but nothin is listed in device manager. Even so, i crossed fingers and hoped by installing BT drivers than maybe magically BT device/module would mgically show up in device manager and yet still nothing. Could it be manufacture defect or am i missing something? Noone seems to be having any problems like this on web, so I am thinking for some reason i am either completely missing something or somehow BT hardware is defective. I sont know, but if i get BT working, I will feel like I got a 10/10 notebook for what my needs are.

[Marezathus]

Thank you for your answer.
Indeed I did find a way to fix the RAM, but the batterylife is still a problem. I tried to install ePowerManagement, because I read that that program does do wonderful things for a longer batterylife.
I did install the x64 version, but unfortunately it won't launch. So now I am looking on the Internet for alternative programs.
Maybe that will help.

[michael_recycled]

What is the capacity of your battery?
As for power management, Windows built-in capabilities are good enough, no need for 3rd party software.

Michael

[Marezathus]

62 (whatever watts)

[michael_recycled]

Okay. You have the 62 Wh battery. I have a battery with the same capacity in my 1810TZ. Battery life is nearly 8 hours (on light usage and tweaked power plan).

Disable the Aero stuff and select the "power saving" power plan. See how long your battery lasts during light usage (no youtube or other flash sites).
Oh, and uninstall Acer screensaver (in case you run the preinstalled flavour of Windows).

Your hardware is more powerful than mine, so I expect lower battery life - 6 hours should be possible, IMO.

Michael

[wpcoe]

The only problem i have encountered so far is with the BT hardware.

I also changed from 32-bit to 64-bit Win7. ISTR, in order to get Bluetooth devices listed and usable, I needed to use the Fn+F3 keypress to turn Bluetooth on. It seems that by default, it boots up with Bluetooth off (deactivated?), and to enable it, you need to manually turn it on. Does that work for you?

I don't use BT on a regular basis, so was only concerned with initially getting the drivers loaded and working when I installed 64-bit Win7, so I'm a bit hazy on the details.

[monkbythesea]

I also changed from 32-bit to 64-bit Win7. ISTR, in order to get Bluetooth devices listed and usable, I needed to use the Fn+F3 keypress to turn Bluetooth on. It seems that by default, it boots up with Bluetooth off (deactivated?), and to enable it, you need to manually turn it on. Does that work for you?

I don't use BT on a regular basis, so was only concerned with initially getting the drivers loaded and working when I installed 64-bit Win7, so I'm a bit hazy on the details.

Wow, thanks WPCOE! That was it. Guess that is what I get for not using reading the manual. Still, i have never used a PC that does not allow you to turn on Bt via Windows. At any rate, thanks for the advice. I spent an 1/2 chat with Acer online, and the tech never suggested that. Also, the support pages i check did not mention that either. Again thanks, and now like I said, I feel like i found a notebook that meets 10/10 of my needs

[jps10]

Wow, thanks WPCOE! That was it. Guess that is what I get for not using reading the manual. Still, i have never used a PC that does not allow you to turn on Bt via Windows. At any rate, thanks for the advice. I spent an 1/2 chat with Acer online, and the tech never suggested that. Also, the support pages i check did not mention that either. Again thanks, and now like I said, I feel like i found a notebook that meets 10/10 of my needs

Monkey-
I have been using an 1810T for about a year Mar 15; really nice machine. I'm surprised that Acer didn't repeat the wi-fi, bt slide switches again as on the 1810T [under the status lights on the front, lower edge].
Otherwise it looks like a better machine than my 1810T, so I thought I'd purchase one and give my 1810T to my wife.
Well, I placed an order at the Amazon for the same price as you, and the etailer emailed the next day, saying their inventory was at least 2 weeks away. Given the price, I'll probably get back in line.
I think you knowthe etailer- did you have to wait, and if you didn't, did you get the feeling they were being straight up?
Glad you're having a good experience so far; I have only one complaint about my 1810T and thats just about the synaptics mouse: a bit jumpy or delayed response occasionaly and a bit small, but I'm a keyboarder, so I rely on it less than 25% of the time. Other than that, it's been great, but the 8172 looks much better.

[Roldy]

Thank you for your answer.
Indeed I did find a way to fix the RAM, but the batterylife is still a problem. I tried to install ePowerManagement, because I read that that program does do wonderful things for a longer batterylife.
I did install the x64 version, but unfortunately it won't launch. So now I am looking on the Internet for alternative programs.
Maybe that will help.

The best ways i know to maximize your battery life are:

Like others have suggested, turning off intense features like aero (i dont myself, i just turn off transparency on the taskbar...i love aeropeek), and setting the battery profile to "power saver" AND tweaking its advanced power settings. (I just tweak the hell out of balanced for normal use...i have power saver set to 50% cpu max for really aggressive savings!)

I find the most aggressive battery savings with Intels graphics control panel settings. In the power tab, there are a few settings you can change (automatic display brightness, display power saving technology, etc). See what helps, and what you can tolerate. You can CLEARLY see the effects these settings produce, and some ppl find they ruin the quality of display too much.

If theres any background processes, startup programs, or services running that you dont need, turn them off (msconfig is a good tool for that), they may be costing you a watt or 2.

I quite frankly dont know if doing this is saving me battery, but i always set my page file to a fixed amount; about 4gb. I do this on desktops too. I long ago prescribed to the philosophy that this is better than windows calculating and recalculating size it occupies on the HDD. any1 know if this is an outdated school of thought?

Another program suggestion: batterycare (google it). Its free, and is good for tracking details of your battery. If it shows any % in 'wear level', do a battery calibration (pretty much a full discharge/charge) to try and get rid of it.

Let us know what works best for you!
Roldy

[Roldy]

@wpcoe:

Just noticed that you installed a hybrid hdd in your travelbeast! Ive considered this (or a straight SSD). Im curious, how much has it improved your performance? Does it limit the duration/frequency that the HDD spins up? If so, has it improved battery life too?

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@monkbythesea:

To make absolutely sure what hardware you have, acer has a program called HWVendorDetection.exe available on the 8172 download page on their support site. If im not mistaken i got it in the "applications" tab. It lists several pieces of hardware, and the manufacturer of said hardware to narrow down what drivers to use.

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@the community @large:

While ive seen this on other laptops, any1 find it odd that there are 2 LEDs to indicate on/off (1 next to the power button, 1 is the furthest left on the bottom), and yet no dedicated bluetooth LED!? A waste of resources eh?

To that end, any1 know if theres some way to control the LEDs? whether in the registry, or some 3rd party program?


Roldy