It's official, I hate Acer.

digitalwanderer

Ok, so me friend Pete picked up his computer Saturday morning just in time for my father to drop off his Saturday afternoon.

It's an old Acer, PII333 w/64MB (now 80MB, I had an old dimm lying around.), that I just upgraded from 95 to 98se and threw a network card in so I can actually WORK on it.

Only problem is, now what? I don't think there's a real hell of a lot I can do with it. It has a cheap ATI 4MB Rage PCI card, no AGP slot, and 4.5Gb free on the HD.

He had trouble 'cause it wouldn't turn on, it seems the "power swtch" connector to the pin-out was loose so I just snugged it up a bit and all was better. But I thought the PS was bad so I was going to swap it out first, but the damned box is built like a tank that was never meant to be worked on and to get the stinking PS out I'll have to disassemble the whole thing!

Then I noticed the connector was loose, and it got a LOT easier.

Just thought I'd whine since it's such an ugly box for me to work on. What a crappy mobo, anyone know how to access the Acer bios?

JavaFox

F2? That's how it was on their laptops.

And, yes, in my experience, their laptops are piss poor as well.

ivan300

i also hate them. i bought a computer made by them a few years back i all got from it was probles pritty much replacs all the hardware from it. then i bought a cd rom by acer it was really cheep so i bought it and problems after problems....Acer never again ....

digitalwanderer

Yeah, that's about where I'm at with it. I'm gonna build him a new one, but a 333Mhz is far from scrap....I'm gonna beat this one into a decent web-cruiser for his wife so she don't break the good one.

UberLord

Know exactly what you mean there Digi - I had to remove a HDD from an origonal IBM PC/AT 286 and destroy it. My Dad finally deciced to clear it out of the loft, and he was concerned that any info on it maybe sensitive to his old company (ex bean-counter director for a large fashion retail group) even though I cleaned the disk when it became "my pc" about 15 years or so ago.

Damn thing took about 15 mins to remove due to needing a custom driver - I used a hacksaw - and the sheer ammount of metalwork just surrounding the unit!

digitalwanderer

Yeah, and that metal ain't the "grap your tinsnips and go to town!" kind of metal either! It's THICK and damned strong.

Actually kind of nice, if it wasn't designed so gad awful badly.

dipstick

Hehe, I feel your pain but it sounds like you have a good plan going with it. Better keep your buddies PC away from n00b wives Anyways I had found a suitcase-like portable Ibm that was about 60 pounds in my attick, but I ended up throwing it from 3 floors up, so atleast it put a big smile one my face. Boy did it hit hard

UberLord

Another thing is you could stand on the thing for extra height, accidently knock your foot into it, etc and it wouldn't matter! With these modern, air brushed, sleek & sexy cases you do any of that and it's DISASTER!!!!

craig5320

To be fair most of these are pre-built systems, from many generations ago, before the whole custom pc/upgrading had taken off like it had today, But i totally know what you mean, I had an Apricot computer to work on, geez it was mingin'!

digitalwanderer

So I upgrade it to 98se, replace the mobo battery so it can hold it's bios, and then it just totally refuses to power up for any reason.

It's a total dead-stick, nada, renid.

So at LEAST the power supply is shot, the mobo ain't really all that worth salvaging either. It isn't worth my time/trouble/expense to find replacements for either of 'em or determine which is bad...I'm just gonna buy a barebones and transfer his hard-drive and such. MUCH easier, probably about the same price after all the monkeying around, I'll know what the hell I'm dealing with, and he'll end up with a much better rig.

Anyone have any suggestion for the cheapest route to go? I figure ANYTHING is a step up for him, so I'll just get something cheap with something cheap in it.

digitalwanderer

My Dad "got it"! He gets what I'm telling him and taking me advice!

He ALMOST ran out to BestBuy to pick himself up a new POS rig so he could answer his e-mails, but I talked him into coming over here and just using one of my 'puters to do that to take the urgency off it and then order himself something decent.

Long/short, he's going to be picking up a half-way decent laptop and I'm gonna rebuild his desktop by buying a barebones. (I LOVE it when they actually take my advice!)

So as soon as I get Vladd out of here today, I gots me a new project...

UberLord

Hopefully it involves using the razor every day

digitalwanderer

How weird, my Dad is jonesing for his net connection back. I never thought I'd see the day, this is the man who has been telling me for the last 25 years or so that "computers are just a fade, you wait and see!". He needed me to do some paypalling for him, and pushed me a bit on his PC....so I told him to give me a budget and cut loose. I got permission to blow $300 on his paypal account, and I gotta get him a working rig out of it as soon as possible. Hmmm...I'm leaning more towards "fun" the more I think about it, it don't have to be a gamer..just a webcruiser...

braddyck

Follows is correspondence from Acer. I think they hose people and have false claims for hardware.

Bluetooth


Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Jason) - 03/29/2008 11:44 PM
Dear Brad Dyck,

Thank you for contacting Acer America. I'll be happy to assist you. If a notebook has BluetoothT installed, there will be a white label on the bottom of the notebook with the word "BluetoothT" on it. To enable the BluetoothT, there will be 1 of 2 different types of switches. Once BluetoothT is enabled, the button or slide switch will light up blue. When BluetoothT is enabled, an icon in the system tray will appear, and green text at the bottom of the screen that says Bluetooth Enabled. If the system tray does not show a BluetoothT device the tex will say No Device. This means that the computer does not have a BluetoothT device installed. In this case, although there is a button on the notebook for BluetoothT, these models that ship in the US and Canada do not ship
with a BluetoothT module on the motherboard, therefore it does not support BluetoothT as it ships. In order to get BluetoothT, you will need to purchase a third party device such as a USB to BluetoothT transceiver, or other external device that provides BluetoothT capabilities. These types of devices are available at most computer shops that sell options and accessories for notebook products. Acer America does not offer an update to BluetoothTon systems that did not ship with it from the factory.


In addition, please refer to the link below for more information:

AcerPanAm.com


Respectfully,
Acer America
Online Technical Support

Customer (Brad Dyck) - 03/29/2008 11:06 PM
The manual for this machine says it has bluetooth communication. I have attempted to install drivers and get this feature operational, but no luck. According to forums apparently this is an option, why is it clearly stated in the manual as not being an option, and therefore standard. Please enlighten me

Brad Dyck


Question Reference #080329-000461
---------------------------------------------------------------
Product Level 1: Notebook
Product Level 2: Aspire
Product Level 3: Aspire 5610Z
Date Created: 03/29/2008 11:06 PM
Last Updated: 03/29/2008 11:44 PM
Status: Solved
Operating System: Windows Vista
Serial Number: LXAXL0X032650206971601

kris23

random.......

temeteus82

Ok.. First this thread is old and that's why it's get closed now..