Acer Timeline Ultra m5?

[vacaloca]

Any thoughts on switching to Intel Rapid Start (IRS) instead of Diskeeper without a re-install from recovery disks? If that's do-able, what about then adding a larger SSD without installing from recovery?

The deep sleep works fine (IRS) to install it after a fresh re-install, you just might have to install the Rapid Storage drivers first and leave the SSD hibernation partition intact, or recreate it if you change the installed RAM. I only used the recovery driver disk to install the needed apps.

What you mentioned is pretty much exactly what I did -- I installed Win 7 slipstreamed with SP1 and update patches and then added the needed drivers/apps from the Acer disks. I didn't even burn the physical recovery disks -- I used a virtual drive emulator to create recovery disk ISOs on the factory hard drive and then moved them to a network share.

That sounds like a pretty sweet setup, how much benefit do you think youd get with the Rapid start hibernation partition? Currently my boot, sleep, wake, shutdown are pretty quick just from the M4 mSata.

I was curious myself, so I just timed boot speeds. From deep sleep using the stock 20GB SSD, it's 16-17 secs from the time I hit power button until I am able to type password. I'm excited to see how much the Crucial M4 mSATA lowers this 16-17 second time.

Back from hibernation is about 25 seconds from power button to typing password. Regular sleep is nearly instant... <2 secs.

And you'd be right -- from power off to windows password screen with Samsung 830 for me is 13-14 seconds. The main benefit of the rapid start partition as I understand it is the deep sleep mode where the battery can last a lot longer than doing regular sleep mode, and that you wouldn't have to shut down any applications running. For an extra 4 seconds, it's pretty solid.

[kimmandy]

Hi I was hoping you could answer a few of my questions

a) Can I replace the ODD with a caddy? (this was asked before but there was no answer)

b) Using the default configuration of 20gb mSATA ssd and 500gb hd can I still access the 20gb SSD and use it like a normal drive? I read your entire thread and I'm not sure if this was mentioned so I just wanted to make sure. I tried one out in a local Acer store and I couldn't access it.

Thanks for your time.

[vacaloca]

Hi I was hoping you could answer a few of my questions

a) Can I replace the ODD with a caddy? (this was asked before but there was no answer)

b) Using the default configuration of 20gb mSATA ssd and 500gb hd can I still access the 20gb SSD and use it like a normal drive? I read your entire thread and I'm not sure if this was mentioned so I just wanted to make sure. I tried one out in a local Acer store and I couldn't access it.

Thanks for your time.

(a) No short answer for this one. I'm assuming you want to put a hard drive in the caddy -- you didn't specify. I've mentioned previously that the ODD case is pretty thin compared to other standard drives of the same 9.5mm height, however this might not matter with a hard drive caddy since there aren't any moving parts. Owners of the previous revision of this laptop (3830/4830TG) note that when putting in a caddy, they could not boot off it from the BIOS, and they had to remove the power management utility because it sent commands to power off the ODD drive, which having a hard drive in the port would not be the greatest idea.

So if you can live with those 2 restrictions assuming the M5-481/581 behaves the same way, a caddy with HDD in the ODD bay should be fine.

(b) Not unless you uninstall Diskkeeper and/or Intel Rapid Start and format/repartition the drive yourself. You'd lose the caching and/or deep sleep modes respectively. You'd be better off replacing it with a bigger mSATA SSD altogether if you want to use it as a storage drive as well.

[kimmandy]

Thanks for your answers, they were exactly what I needed.

If you don't mind how's your experience with the laptop so far? Do you have any regrets? I'm currently deciding between buying this and an MSI GE60 (i5 3610QM, GT 650M, 500GB 5400 RPM, 1366x768 Gloss LED, 3-4 hours battery life, and no OS). I'm siding with the Timeline right now because of its portability and better battery life (despite its weaker specs). That and I get a Win7 Home Premium which I can upgrade to Win8 cheaply once it comes out.

[willmgordon]

[/QUOTE]And you'd be right -- from power off to windows password screen with Samsung 830 for me is 13-14 seconds. The main benefit of the rapid start partition as I understand it is the deep sleep mode where the battery can last a lot longer than doing regular sleep mode, and that you wouldn't have to shut down any applications running. For an extra 4 seconds, it's pretty solid.[/QUOTE]

If you can get rapid start working on your crucial let me know I am interested in partitioning off enough space to do the same if it works for the deep hibernation mode.

[willmgordon]

So far I am liking the laptop quite a bit, I upgraded from an old Lenovo Y510 (core 2, 8600GT).

The stock config was quite a bit faster with the rapid start cache drive, and since I upgraded that to a 128gb mSATA for boot drive this thing flys.

Additionally the GT640mLE is a decent upgrade for me and I have had no trouble with running anything at native Res.

The portability and size coming from a nearly 7 pound 15 incher are great for me, though I could see where someone who has used something like an Air
would be dissapointed.

Battery life is great to, I have been using it during lectures and meetings with no problem making it through the day with the occasional quick charge at my desk.

I have no regrets so far, but I also did not need a high powered Quad processor (I have a workstation for CPU demanding applications) and a graphics card capable of 1920x1080 gaming.

[vacaloca]

Thanks for your answers, they were exactly what I needed.

If you don't mind how's your experience with the laptop so far? Do you have any regrets? I'm currently deciding between buying this and an MSI GE60 (i5 3610QM, GT 650M, 500GB 5400 RPM, 1366x768 Gloss LED, 3-4 hours battery life, and no OS). I'm siding with the Timeline right now because of its portability and better battery life (despite its weaker specs). That and I get a Win7 Home Premium which I can upgrade to Win8 cheaply once it comes out.

No regrets, well maybe a tiny one, but it is very specific, and not relevant to me. I was attempting to help a coworker debug come code written using NVIDIA's OptiX 2.5.0 SDK, and the current version of it is not compatible yet with Kepler based cards -- all the examples throw a "No binary for GPU" error, as did her compiled code. Once I tried it on my desktop with a GT 430 it worked fine under the same configuration. At any rate, that will be fixed once NVIDIA releases the next version of that SDK, so it is just a temporary annoyance.

Edit: For what it's worth, I found a later version of OptiX -- 2.5.1, released on May 2012 that mentions support for CUDA 4.2, but that one still does not seem to support Kepler-based cards.

The only thing I have noticed that's really odd to me is that the area under the LCD (where the acer logo is) tends to capture some sort of sticky dust particles. I noticed that on two different M4-581TG's.. one that I got for a friend and mine. Not sure if it's just some residue from when it's manufactured or what.

So far it's done everything I want it to do, especially with the SSD upgrades and no stability issues resuming from sleep or deep sleep that I've noticed. Overall I like the keyboard layout that mimics my old 4830TG, and while I'm still iffy about the clicker, I've gotten used to the double finger scroll which is very consistent now for me -- that and an Apple user the other day showed me how to 'right click' on her Mac... turns out that also works with mine too... tap with two fingers.... you learn something new everyday!

As far as battery life, it seems to be less than my older 4830TG by about an hour or so... I might end up eventually calling Acer and see if I can request a spare battery as I did with the old 4830TG claiming that it was well below par, haha.

If you can get rapid start working on your crucial let me know I am interested in partitioning off enough space to do the same if it works for the deep hibernation mode.

I will be attempting the install either this weekend if I have time or next week at some point -- already have it in my hands. I will post the results once I'm done. I don't anticipate having any issues, but we'll see, ha. I'm pretty sure I can recreate it as I did when I first deleted it when I first installed Windows from scratch on the Samsung 830, but I'm not sure yet if altering the mSATA MBR with an Ubuntu install will confuse the Rapid Start software.

[kimmandy]

@willmgordon Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately I don't have my own desktop so I'm torn between portability and power right now. I'm currently thinking about the Acer V3 as well, which has an i7 3610QM and a GT 640M. It has much less battery life though and isn't as slim a M5 ... but that's another story Thanks for you feedback

@vacaloca I'm not in to programming so I won't probably run in to your "regret" ) I like the clicker as well. I've been using the two finger thing on my old netbook and to be honest I'm more used to it than click on physical buttons. I think you will too Anyway thanks for the replies. Your answers are more objective than what's being said in other forums so kudos to that.

[kimmandy]

I have another question. Let's say I have no plans of buying a large capacity SSD yet as it's too expensive for me (my country sells tech stuff at a premium and shipping from the US costs too much) however I do want to eventually have an mSATA SSD with around 60gb along with my stock HDD just so I can place the OS and programs on the 60gb. This is actually one of the reason I like the Acer M5. However I'm also eyeing another laptop, the Acer V3. While it doesn't come with an mSATA SSD like the M5 it does have the same motherboard. Will the fact that the V3 have the same motherboard as M5 mean that I can also install an mSATA SSD in the future? Or will it depend on how the parts inside are arranged meaning other parts might block the mSATA SSD slot?

By the way here's the specs of the V3 just in case you need it

Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM processor (6 MB L3 cache, 2.60 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.60 GHz, DDR3 1600 MHz, 45 W)
Mobile Intel® HM77 Express Chipset
8GB (4GBX2 DDRIII)
750GB
8X DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive
14" HD 1366 x 768 resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal™ LED-backlit TFT LCD
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M with 2 GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM, supporting NVIDIA® CUDA™, PhysX™, PureVideo® HD technology, OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft® DirectX® 11, OpenGL® 4.1, OpenCL™ 1.1
Optimized Dolby® Home Theater® v4 audio enhancement, featuring Audio Optimizer, Audio Regulator, Volume Leveler, Volume Maximizer, Intelligent EQ, Dialogue Enhancer, Surround Virtualizer (for headphones and built-in speakers), and Dolby® Digital Output technologies7
LAN: Gigabit Ethernet, Wake-on-LAN ready
Bluetooth® 4.0
Acer InviLink™ Nplify™ 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED
2.30 kg (5.08 lbs.)11 with 6-cell battery pack
342 (W) x 245 (D) x 27.2/33.4 (H) mm (13.5 x 9.6 x 1.07/1.31 inches)
48 Wh 4400 mAh 6-cell Li-ion standard battery pack
Up to 4.5 hours
Multi-in-1 card reader
Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam with:
1280 x 1024 resolution
720p HD audio/video recording
Multi-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD)
USB 3.0 port with Power-off Charging
Two USB 2.0 ports
HDMI® port with HDCP support
External display (VGA) port
Headphone/speaker jack, supporting 3.5 mm headset with built-in microphone for Acer smart handhelds
Microphone-in jack
Ethernet (RJ-45) port
DC-in jack for AC adapter
Multi-gesture touchpad, supporting two-finger scroll, pinch, rotate, flip
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
1 Year Limited Local Warranty - Parts and Labor

[vacaloca]

I'm also eyeing another laptop, the Acer V3. While it doesn't come with an mSATA SSD like the M5 it does have the same motherboard.

Assuming you're referring to the V3-471G. Not sure where you get the claim that it has the same motherboard as the M5-481TG, though. The service guide for the V3-471G does not show any other slots to fit mSATA SSD and the motherboard design looks nothing like mine -- mine has a soldered CPU, the V3-471G does not, it has a socket. That being said, you could probably still do the extra HDD via a caddy in the future with the disclaimers I mentioned previously. The benefits to the V3-471G are 16GB RAM max (2 slots) and the 2GB VRAM on the GPU. Otherwise, they seem pretty comparable minus the high-end CPU on the model you mentioned. In fact, that V3-471G model is probably more of a direct TimeLineX 4830TG upgrade with the plus of the removable battery. It's up to you do decide what benefits between the models outweigh which.