**DEAD AGAIN**Loaded Quadcore system was $735.00 A"E"R, NEW INSTORE PRICE now makeing it $750.00 out the door, NO REBATE

[dclive]

Yep - true - the Dell is a better system for $609, but you lose Vista Premium (I think it's only Basic, but most people shouldn't care unless they need Media Center), and the HDD is 80GB rather than 500GB (but that's only worth $100). So yes, I'd probably go for the Dell if I had it to do over again. (Included video in most cases is pretty similar - 8300GS vs. 1650SE.)

I don't think most people could build a system this good for $609 and stay legal with Vista. In any case, I'd rather have a warranty and someone to go to in case of problems; building your own PC, unless you have a very specific need or must overclock, in this day and age, just doesn't seem like a good use of my time.

 

[bgudu]

I was wondering that as well,
here are some of the differences
? Acer E700 vs Dell 9200
? 2GB memory, 500GB hard drive2 vs 2GB/80GB (sometimes 1GB/160GB)
? ATI Radeon X1650 256MB video card vs 128MB nVidia GeForce 8300 GS
? Windows Vista? Home Premium3 vs XP or Vista Basic
? Power supply 300 W vs 375 W

 

[dxpaap]

So anyone have the Dell link for $609 - do you have to deconfigure to get that price?

thanks

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: dxpaap
So anyone have the Dell link for $609 - do you have to deconfigure to get that price?

thanks

AFAIK, that Dell deal is already dead...

 

[jalaram]

The Dell deal now is coming up with $729.

 

[Callipygian]

Hi I'm hoping to get some advice from you guys-

I recently went ahead and bought the Acer Quadcore computer you guys are talking about,
and I was researching what I have to do to this new computer to make it functional for my own purposes when I stumbled across this great and informative thread.

I will be using it for recording music. Unfortunately, the soundcard I have will certainly not work with the pre-installed Vista- the company went out of business and the last available driver is for XP. The music production program I use will also not work with Vista unless I pay several hundred dollars to upgrade to the newer version the company is pushing.

I'm hoping that I can buy and install the cheapest version of XP pro and use this rather than spending probably octuple the price to both upgrade the recording program and get a new soundcard.

I found Xp Pro OEM version with SP2 for $149
If I bought this then went ahead with the slipstream install using nlite following the instructions in the link given way back in this thread - what drivers will I have to install manually afterwards, other than my soundcard? There was mention of having to find a Realtec driver and a driver for some unknown device that seemed to have no affect... can someone please elaborate?

What else do I need to know?

thank you!

layman

 

[alienhunter]

Originally posted by: Callipygian
Hi I'm hoping to get some advice from you guys-

I recently went ahead and bought the Acer Quadcore computer you guys are talking about,
and I was researching what I have to do to this new computer to make it functional for my own purposes when I stumbled across this great and informative thread.

I will be using it for recording music. Unfortunately, the soundcard I have will certainly not work with the pre-installed Vista- the company went out of business and the last available driver is for XP. The music production program I use will also not work with Vista unless I pay several hundred dollars to upgrade to the newer version the company is pushing.

I'm hoping that I can buy and install the cheapest version of XP pro and use this rather than spending probably octuple the price to both upgrade the recording program and get a new soundcard.

I found Xp Pro OEM version with SP2 for $149
If I bought this then went ahead with the slipstream install using nlite following the instructions in the link given way back in this thread - what drivers will I have to install manually afterwards, other than my soundcard? There was mention of having to find a Realtec driver and a driver for some unknown device that seemed to have no affect... can someone please elaborate?

What else do I need to know?

thank you!

layman

Lucky for you I have been saving the drivers I have been using to install XP, these include

1. ethernet driver (intel)
2. USB driver (intel)
3. Realtek driver
4. SATA drivers (intel)

download from sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/1wh5t1

I still have the two unknown devices as mention early in this thread, that don't seem to do anything. check this thread for the audio stuff: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

I had no issue when I installed the above audio drivers but this person did. Dclive said install the Microsoft HD Audio Update 1.0a before installing the realtek drivers. (I don't remember doing that). Maybe in came in through windows updated I just don't know.

hope this helps

 

[Callipygian]

Well It'll probably be a little while until I get all this in motion but I understand
that making the e700 xp drivers available to me on sendspace is quite a noble gift.
I imagine this saves me a lot of work and I thank you immensely!

I'm sure it will help..

 

[trexpesto]

I read a review of it that said it comes with PC5200. That is 667 MHz right? so that's why they dont say the speed except of the FSB. Dell does that too, the losers.

 

[Callipygian]

Okay something went wrong.

Since the Acer didn't come with a floppy drive, I tried to do the slipstream with nLite.

Of the four driver packages alienhunter made available to me, I only managed to integrate the .INF file for the Intel chipset driver into nLite. But the chipset driver covers the SATA drive, and XP recognizing the SATA drive is the whole problem anyways, right?

So I managed to integrate autorun.inf for the intel chipset driver, but I could not find txtsetup.oem, which is the file that the slipstreaming guide says needs to be in the same folder as this .INF file....perhaps that is a problem?

But I burnt this slipstream DVD as it was and set my Acer to boot from the DVD drive.

Now, I get "Problem Detected, Windows Shut Down" after the initialization sequence.

It asks me to do Checkdsk f/, whatever that is.

I've found one other forum chat about this and the guy who was in this exact same position as me mentions he gets over this 'problem detected' by changing the Drive description from SATA to RAID in the config.

I have no idea how to do that. I'm thinking that by 'config' he means hitting f12 to get into BIOS- but then what.. CMOS?..... I can't touch a thing in CMOS.... please enlighten me!

oh and I also tried to press f6 when it says to press f6 to install a scsi/raid something or other but the computer seemed to ignore that...

slipstreaming guide:
http://icrontic.com/articles/slipstreaming_windows_easy

abovementioned forum discussion: http://audioforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18089

 

[dclive]

I'd start over, and grab nLite and my XP SP2 CD. (You DO have an XP *SP2* CD, right?)
Then download the Intel SATA RAID drivers. They are NOT in the chipset drivers. They're called Matrix something or other. Explode them (use WinRar) to a directory.
Run nLite (1.35 - skip the beta...) and add the drivers from what you exploded. Do a text-mode add (you have a choice of txt or pnp) and ensure you CTRL-click the bottom four entries.

Also smart to download are the sound drivers, the Intel NIC drivers, ATI or nVidia graphics drivers (grab the latest as appropriate for you) and the quick resume drivers (see Intel's website). And toss in the G965 INF drivers too. Note that you need to run the chipset drivers with the -A switch to explode the INFs to your hard drive (c:\program files\intelsomething...)

All done...

 

[Callipygian]

Hi thanks for the quick response!

1) Yes I have a legitimate XP Pro OEM with Sp2 CD.

2)I just found out that the chipset drivers I was trying to load were PNP and thank you for telling me that they were also not the SATA drivers themselves.

3)SATA RAID drivers - are they not for setups with more than one hard drive? I suppose one could setup RAID to work on a single hard drive but would I really want to do that..?

4)Okay I was using the nLite version 1.4 beta but if you say so I will try to do the new burn in 1.35

5)Can you explain what you meant by control clicking the bottom four entries...? What bottom four entries..?
Also I don't know what running the chipset drivers with the -A switch means.

6)I'm looking around Intel's site right now but honestly I'm not so sure what I'm doing...

Sound drivers - have them. NIC drivers I thought alienhunter gave me them, chipset drivers too... I'll have to look into the graphics card...

thanks for your help

 

[dclive]

Go to Intel's site. Go to the G965 page. Look at the driver categories offered - Matrix, chipset inf, etc. You need the Intel Matrix SATA drivers; explode them, and then add them to nLite. As I said, when you do so you'll pick the bottom 4 entires.

Where exactly are you hung up?

Yes, you'll need the Matrix drivers, regardless of anything else.

 

[Callipygian]

hehe well I guess I was hung up with some of your lingo. And you probably assume that I know more than I do. For example up until just now I didn't know that my Acer E700 comes with an Intel G965 chipset group. I have no idea what my motherboard is... or half this other stuff.. but I did go to the G965 page and download the matrix storage manager.

Now for these other two drivers on the page, Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility - says its for developers and advanced users (not me) - is that the "G965 INF drivers" you just mentioned I should get too? And there's also some G965 link to a graphics driver, but it's not the ATI Radeon x1650 driver (which I did find and download).

So in nlite I integrate the Ethernet (NIC) driver, the ATI Radeon driver, the matrix storage manager (SATA RAID), Realtek soundcard and my other soundcard, USB driver...

what else do I need? A 'quick resume' driver and a chipset driver. Correct? Anything else?

(much thanks)

 

[Callipygian]

okay i can't 'explode' the matrix .exe using winrar. can't get at the .inf files so easily. what do i do..!

 

[dclive]

The overall objective is to gain access to those files. You might need to read a few readme's along the way. To get to the Intel drivers, run with a -A switch, and that will put the files into c:\program files\intel\drivers....integrate in nLite from there.

 

[Callipygian]

Alright - so I managed to get XP installed onto the computer. thanks for your help mister clive.

Now I put my soundcard into the PCI slot, I'm sure it's in there properly...
and the computer won't start. I take the card out and XP boots just fine.

even if the soundcard wasn't working/recognized shouldn't the computer still work??

motherboard conflict.? this sucks.

 

[dclive]

Built-in sound is excellent - is it not working for you?

 

[bklynrickel]

turned on the computer this a.m. and got this really loud motorcycle noise with, i think, the fan. some reboots subsequent to this with no similar noise. i honestly thought at first that it was a vehicle outside before realizing it was coming from the box. any idea as to why that revving of the fan would have occurred? thanks.

 

[bklynrickel]

i figure it was just dust. blew it out. i think that's it.

 

[MattSibley]

Anyone interested in buying this system from me? I've decided to build my own...
I have it loaded with Office 2007 Professional and Symantec AntiVirus corporate edition. I'd like to get 800 shipped. E-mail me if you're interested: hotshot2003@cox.net

 

[Silex]

this deal dead?

 

[bklynrickel]

any real benefit to upgrading ram to 3 gigs from 2?

by the way, i'm still waiting for my rebate from compusa. they keep saying it's been sent, but to where i don't know.

 

[dclive]

Are you running out of RAM? That's the only way there'd be a benefit. Just look on your own system.

I got my rebate about a month ago, no issues with it at all.

 

[bklynrickel]

nope. newegg's got a sale on kingston ram for $30 a stick. that's the only reason i asked.

i got my rebate on my monitor pronto, but the $165 i have yet to see. had to call compusa to get a re issue and still no reissued check - maybe this week.

thanks.