The Acer 5102 Thread

[Treominator]

Did you try and see if they would match the "no rebate" price of $749 at Staples?
The CC here did it and I tossed in the rebate form in the mail afterwards....... possibly looking at $600 for the unit now

[deltafx1942]

Nope, they wouldn't do that. In fact the customer service guy even called the manager to confirm that i could even get the rebate. It took me 20 min just to get them to give me that rebate.

[vuster]

... It seems like sometimes I can't even get into sleep mode. The screen goes blank, but the hd and wireless keep running.

I'm also having problem with sleep mode. When I closed my laptop (without turning it off) and opened it the next morning, i realized that I can't seem to turn the LCD back on. I can hear the fan still running though. I've tried everything from typing random stuff on the keyboard, CTRL+ALT+DEL, to finally having to turning it off then back on.

...Also it takes it a little while to come out of sleep.

Treominator, how long did it take your system to come out of sleep mode? I must have waited a good 3-5 minutes before resorting to the forced reboot. I just want to know if I had given my system to wake up...

Similar situation have previously occurred. While watching a video clip, the screen turned off on me, but the sound was still going. I later found out it was the power management option, which set the LCD/monitor to turn off ~3 minutes. Changed it to 20 minutes, and it seems to work fine with video clips.

I'm beginning to wonder if this Aspire 5102WLMi has a bug that prevent the user from turning the LCD back on after it has been turned off. Does anyone else notice this?

Other than this issue, I love this lappie Love the keyboard, better than Dell's Inspiron notebooks which share the same crammed keyboard on all of it's 14", 15.4", and 17"; it looks alright on the 14", but it looks very awkward on the 15.4" and the 17" model.

I was a bit disappointed to find out that this 64 x2 was defeated by Intel's Core Duo Darn cache. I'm also sad that this hard drive is only a PATA 4,200rpm... Having an SATA HD would have been nice. Another sucky thing is is the system comes preformatted with FAT32 on both partition; plus darn thing doesn't come with genuine windows CD or System recovery CD. I had to burn the system recovery CD myself

[deltafx1942]

I have been thinking if the sleep issue is caused by bad RAM. I am reluctant to replace them, since i've already spent a load on college, and would like to save some money. I have been having trouble GOING into sleep. Coming out is fine for me, it is fast and works everytime. Going has been troublesome. Also, i have read that Windows XP MCE has a bug with sleep. Seems like a lot of MCE users can't get into/out of sleep. Do you think installing pro would help? Do you want to try installing new RAM?

[vuster]

I have never messed with laptop hardware before, so I don't think i'll upgrade it. I'm too lazy to try installing pro right now. Once the system gets bogged down by too many software, I'll definitely Install a fresh copy of pro and see how it does.

Windows MCE reminds me of Windows ME....
Win2k and XP does the job just fine, but MS just have to go and do something like this...

[Treominator]

I am not sure why you guys are having trouble with the sleep option. I am assuming you mean closing the lid and watching it go hibernate in a few seconds and then when the lid is opened and the power button pressed it resumes after a minute or so.

It does this just fine for me, I haven't changed a lot of settings or anything, maybe you have a buggy unit ??? I would take it back to the store and get another one in exchange if it is <14 days of purchase or call Acer etc.
If you have a warranty from CC like I do, I would let them figure it out.

As far as the paltry HD speed, processor performance etc, etc, dude, you GOTTA look at what you have for the price ($749 for many) and possible $600 for myself.
There is NO way you can get even CLOSE to what you got here w.r.t. specs - I mean 120 GB HD!! A Rotatable Web Cam with a Microphone (imp for me) , fast RAM, Windows MCE in case you have a use for it), a decent graphics card etc.

The build seems just fine but I got the accidental warranty anyways thanks to my 3 yr old

This laptop at this price has GOT to be THE deal of the year. The specs shold be good enough to last you a while too (Vista etc.)

I have a history of getting bored with my laptop after a few days and exchange it for something else but try as I might I can't seem to justify the HD size, webcam, AMD X2 etc and the price I paid for it for a fancier looking laptop.

My motto is that I have to have my toys as CHEAP as possible to enjoy them!

I would have a hard time enjoying an expensive $1500+ machine even though I have the cash.

Thats my rant for the day.

Still two thumbs up after about two weeks for my first ACER (after a slew of HP desktops and laptops).

[Treominator]

Also, I always get one of these from Day One of any laptop to protect the screen.
They are cheap and VERY good if you do it correctly.

Basically make sure that you have some extra mms on each edge etc more than the screen width and then using a thin credit card or fingernails guide the screen protector UNDER the edges of the screen and it will stay put and you will hardly notice it is there.

Dont make it for the exact dimensions of the screen or shorter since only the top edge has a glued portion and you might have the bottom portion flapping when you shut the lid.
http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...pe=rv#moreinfo

[vuster]

Thanks for the link Treominator, after 3 years, my old laptop's lcd was pretty scratchy....

[deltafx1942]

I have uninstalled empowering and everything seems so much faster, load times are better, and the sleep problem has so far not cropped back up. My problem wasn't getting out of it, it was going into it. Sometimes the HD refused to shut off even with the screen blank.

I installed AMD's driver's instead, and i am still getting 4+ batt. Everything is now automatic, as compared to acer's utilities when you had to set your cpu speed. What has your battery life been?

[Treominator]

Can you post some more details as to what files you downloaded with any links etc.

I might give it a try too if you can give me some good step by step info that might be a good way to go about this...

TIA