- May 7, 2010
- 21
- 0
- 66
Long Time since I havent posted anything (To be honest, Ive lost track of all the new SSDs and GPUs, and my knowledge is not as good as some other people of these forums.)
Ive been following up the Forums for a while now, looking for similar threads relative to a problem of mine.
Its a VERY long story, so thanks a lot to those who will read it to the end and who can help me.
I bought an Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TG on august 25th 2010, and so far, the whole experience has been horrible.
5 weeks after purchasing it, I realized that the case temperature was raising a lot. I wasnt even doing anything with the computer. Even on full idle, the keyboard was extremely hot, and typing started to burn my fingers (Im not kidding about this, although it doesnt seem very plausible).
Its only after a week that I realize the GPU fan isnt spinning, resulting in the extremely hot case and keyboard temperature.
So, I took it back to the shop for repair. They said they couldnt do anything for me, because its still brand new and under warranty.
I had no other choice but to send it back to Acer for repair. I gave them the laptop in its original box, with all the CDs, cables, warranty notices
I even put the keyboard protection foam on the laptop and the laptop itself was put in its original protection case.
2 weeks later, the shop tells me that the laptop is back, so I go and pick it up.
Once Im home again, I was furious to see that many things were missing in my box, as all my protection foams, and the electric cable were missing.
I was also very disappointed with the quality of service, because there were tons of scratches all around the keyboard (its made of some cheap plastic, so it gets scratched easily.)
All of these scratches were definitely not there when I sent them the product in the first place.
I know that the shop didnt touch the laptop, so I know Acer is responsible for the damage. But the GPU fan was working again, and the laptop didnt overheat anymore.
Being at university at the moment, I didnt have the time to reinstall Windows again (Acer had to swipe the drive clean), so my mother lent me her HP ProBook laptop in the meantime.
2 weeks later, I find time to work on the laptop, and then, thats where I find out that none of the USB ports on the right side of the laptop work. They werent even powered, because no USB stick or any other device would even light up.
That was a total of 2 USB ports on 3.
So, for the moment, Ive given a laptop for repair, and it comes back to me with another problem, and with physical damage.
Being at university, I had just spent 2 weeks without a computer. Unfortunately, Im a student in the computer science division, and I need the laptop to work.
Since I was forced to send the laptop back for another 2 weeks of repair, it was a total of 1 month that I couldnt use my laptop, and that the warranty date was expiring for nothing.
I sent an e-mail to Acer directly to see what they had to say, and I requested that they repair my computer and put it back to its original state. I also demanded that they give me back the laptop protection foam, and the power cord.
If all of this was too difficult to do, I had asked Acer to refund me the computer, which they finally did not do.
Today, the computer is in my possession, and it works. Its still scratched everywhere and there still is a dead pixel on the screen, just like the first day I got it.
But Ive decided to abandon this problem for the moment, because Ive got a lot of work, and taking care of this laptop is one of my last problems for the moment.
The USB ports work now, and the GPU fan runs correctly. Theyve returned the power cord and the laptop protection to me.
All went well, until new needs arose from University about our OS environment. Basicaly, I have to run Windows and Linux in Dual boot. VMs are not a viable solution.
I am not going to abandon the 2 problems I have recently encountered.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) The main reason for which I decided to buy this laptop was the excellent GPU in it (HD 5650), as well as for the presumed battery life of 8 hours.
But, the battery life doesnt come anywhere close to the 8 hours Acer announces in its advertisements.
For the moment, my laptop runs for a maximum of 3 hours (actually, its a little less than that, around 2h50min).
To be fair, let me tell you what concessions I had to do to achieve this battery life.
For the moment, Im running a computer with :
- Fresh installation of Windows 7 Home Premium x64
- Core i5 450M
- HD 5650
- 4 GB of Ram
- 5400 RPM Western Digital hard drive
For starters, Ive gotten rid of the HD 5650 and Im running on the Intel chip to save some power.
All the power settings have been set to the bare MINIMUM. I cannot stress this point enough. Im running on the power saver power plan, but with the screen luminosity to the minimum possible, WiFi deactivated, Bluetooth deactivated, hard drive set to off after 1 minute, no USB devices attached.
In addition to all of this, I have trimmed down about everything that could be in Windows 7. I am currently running on the Windows 95 Scheme, meaning with Aero off.
I have gone to System -> Advanced system settings -> Performance -> Adjust for best performance, meaning that there is literally NO eye candy whatsoever running for the moment.
Now, I dont know if Ive missed anything here, but I cant trim anything more than what I have currently done to save power.
Ive even set the MAX processor speed to be 50% in the power saver plan, but that doesnt even help.
Ive even used the Acer battery manager, but that doesnt help either.
So here comes the question: Where did the damn 8 hours go ? I never had the occasion to even have 4 hours, let alone 8.
To be honest, I knew from the first second I bought the laptop, that the 8 hours were not feasible. I was expecting something more of like around 4 hours. I was ready to accept 4 hours, because that means that I can go to my morning classes, and charge it at noon, then go to my afternoon classes.
This is currently impossible with the current state of the laptop battery.
Such a level of battery life is completely unacceptable, because I cant even get the half of what the official statements are.
I told Acer that I wanted to know the exact settings they have used to get to these 8 hours. I also told them that I didnt want to hear statements from customers. I wanted to test myself. I was curious, so I looked up for tests on my exact same model, and I found that the max battery life was of 5h32min. Again, Im asking the same question: Where did the 8 hours go ?
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-3820TG-Subnotebook-i5-HD5650.38666.0.html
I told Acer I wanted to know the exact details that they used to implement those times, because I believe that it is my right to have what has been advertised, and if it isnt the case, then I would pursue them for false advertising.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Second big problem :
As I said earlier, Im in the Computer Science division of my University, and I need a Linux distribution on my computer, PARALLEL to Windows 7.
So I needed a dual boot. Not something thats too difficult to do. Or so I thought.
I left a whole 25 GB partition at the end of my hard drive so I could install Ubuntu after I finished with Windows.
First mystery: When I put the Linux USB stick in the computer to install, the installer doesnt see my Windows partition. It keeps thinking that my hard drive is 100% empty, and it only proposes to wipe the drive and install Ubuntu on the whole drive.
I dont want this: I need a dual boot, not a Linux Only or Windows Only environment.
Im a beginner to Linux, so I thought it was a problem with my Image. Maybe it wasnt made correctly, maybe the distribution was downloaded badly ?
So I downloaded Fedora to test.
Here comes the second mystery: Fedora does exactly the same thing as Ubuntu. It doesnt see any damn partitions on the drive. It thinks the hard drive is empty too.
At this stage, I thought I was dumb and was doing something wrong. So I decide to boot off Ultimate Boot CD and make an ext4 partition. I thought that the Linux installer would see its OWN partition ?
Here comes the third mystery: Guess what, well even Ultimate Boot CD doesnt see any of my partitions. Now thats strange.
I try with Parted Magic, and its the exact same issue.
At this point, I start going insane, not knowing what to do anymore, so I do a lot of research, and I find out that there is this wonderful tool that Ubuntu has that allows you to install Linux like a program in Windows.
I know that there is a slight performance hit, but Im desperate at this point.
So I launch this Wubi installer, and
Final mystery of the day folks: Wubi doesnt work either. It gives me the same errors as in the dual boot installation failure.
This was getting weird, so I tried all the different Bios versions that were available on Acers site, and they all show the same problem, dual booting is not possible.
So, Ive finally come to the following conclusion: I believe the BIOS is intentionally bricked to only allow one OS to be installed at the same time.
Before buying this computer, I had checked the spec sheet very carefully, and I knew, from the hardware Id seen, that Linux could be installed.
I have even tested it, and indeed, Linux can be installed. As a matter of fact, you can install Linux alone, or Windows alone, but not both at the same time.
But this does not answer the problem I saw with UBCD. How come even that couldnt see my partitions?
So, to sum up:
Ive sent the laptop for repair 2 times, Ive tolerated a dead pixel, scratches, 1 month of absence, the loss of its protection case, the loss of the power cord, non-functional USB ports and a dead GPU fan.
That alone, is about enough for a laptops problems, but I will NOT tolerate a bricked PC and false advertising concerning the battery.
I have sent Acer headquarters in Switzerland a formal letter about all these issues, and I gave them until Friday 18th to answer back, but they have not answered back.
Seeing as how slow they respond to all my questions, I decided to give them a call.
I first called their general help department. The lady there told me to send them the device back, but I had explicitly written in my letter that I will refuse to send back any product without having thorough explanations about all these issues. I had already sent the product back twice, and was not going to do it yet one more time, only for them to delay me more and damage the product more than they already have.
She said she couldnt help me, and that I had to send an email to the assistance department.
I sent them an email, and they told me to contact the technical department.
This was getting way too long, so I called the technical department instead of just emailing them.
I explained them all the problems in detail. First of all, I have to say that they did everything that was possible to slow me down and make me look stupid.
They were trying to own me on easy stuff, trying to make me look as if I didnt know how Linux worked.
I did not back off at all, and explained to them that I had checked the spec sheet, and was sure that Linux was supposed to work.
I had insisted so much, that the person I was talking to started having doubts. She put me on hold for 5-10 minutes and went to talk with her manager.
After the hold, she tells me that indeed, my manager tells me that your laptop DOES support Linux.
I say, great, so why doesnt it work in my case ? They turn around telling me that some computers do NOT support dual booting. They may support single booting, but not dual booting.
They claim that I had to buy a computer pre-installed with Windows AND Linux if I wanted to have a dual boot.
I ask them why this stuff isnt written anywhere on their website. Why isnt it written on the spec sheet ? And here comes the answer that makes me go insane. She said that it was Obvious.
Now, that is overstating a lot of things. How could a normal consumer know that the Bios or the motherboard on a computer doesnt support dual booting ?
I sure know that Linux works, but how on earth could I know that dual booting is not possible ?
I push her more and more, and I ask to speak with the manager she spoke to earlier.
She refuses at first, but I keep pushing and finally get to speak with the manager.
The manager keeps telling me that I signed for support for Windows ONLY, and that therefore, they cannot help me install Linux in a dual boot.
I spent a lot of time trying to make them understand that I certainly dont need Acers help to install Linux, as I already know how to do that very well. I wanted to ask them why even bootable tools like UBCD dont see my partitions. Clearly, this isnt a software problem. Its a hardware fault.
What is even more unacceptable is that Acer refuses to acknowledge anything Im saying, because Windows works (quote).
I told them that this is unacceptable from the worlds number 2 computer manufacturer to refuse acknowledging simple problems like mine.
She even had the guts to tell me that if I send in the machine for repair, they will do absolutely nothing because as she said Windows works.
I am not complaining because Windows works. I already know that. The fact is that there IS a hardware or Bios fault that they are refusing to work on.
I asked for a refund, because I have been patient enough with this computer. It already has more problems in the 6 months I have bought it to justify me throwing it out of the window, but I cant because I paid for it, and I refuse to lose my hard earned cash because some company refuses to listen to me.
She told me that they cannot accept my refund, because nothing is wrong with the computer. Nothing is wrong ? I say, how can you even say that nothing is wrong when I just spend 45 minutes on the phone swinging from one department to another explaining all the problems to them ?
This is just being ignorant, and not wanting to listen to the customer.
After our lengthy discussion, she just tells me to take a sheet of paper and write down a number, presumably a RMA number.
I asked her what to do with it, and she said I could put it on my next letter to Acer.
I demanded to know what country this call center was located in, so I could contact the correct Acer department, but she refused to tell me. I couldnt even believe it when she refused.
I was finally able to trick her, and her tongue slipped. I realized she was from a call center in France, so Im going to continue from there.
I am fed up with all of this, and Im going to pull this higher and higher until I get justice.
I already have the name of the manager, as well as the name of the person I spoke with before her.
I wanted to know what you guys would suggest I do other than what I have already tried.
If anyone could help me, I would be extremely grateful, as Im in a pretty bad hole now and dont know what else to do.
If you also have solutions to this battery life problem, Im all ears, because the situation is becoming ridiculous.
Im not going to back off, because the only way these companies will listen to you is to piss them off so much until they acknowledge your demands.
Ive been following up the Forums for a while now, looking for similar threads relative to a problem of mine.
Its a VERY long story, so thanks a lot to those who will read it to the end and who can help me.
I bought an Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TG on august 25th 2010, and so far, the whole experience has been horrible.
5 weeks after purchasing it, I realized that the case temperature was raising a lot. I wasnt even doing anything with the computer. Even on full idle, the keyboard was extremely hot, and typing started to burn my fingers (Im not kidding about this, although it doesnt seem very plausible).
Its only after a week that I realize the GPU fan isnt spinning, resulting in the extremely hot case and keyboard temperature.
So, I took it back to the shop for repair. They said they couldnt do anything for me, because its still brand new and under warranty.
I had no other choice but to send it back to Acer for repair. I gave them the laptop in its original box, with all the CDs, cables, warranty notices
I even put the keyboard protection foam on the laptop and the laptop itself was put in its original protection case.
2 weeks later, the shop tells me that the laptop is back, so I go and pick it up.
Once Im home again, I was furious to see that many things were missing in my box, as all my protection foams, and the electric cable were missing.
I was also very disappointed with the quality of service, because there were tons of scratches all around the keyboard (its made of some cheap plastic, so it gets scratched easily.)
All of these scratches were definitely not there when I sent them the product in the first place.
I know that the shop didnt touch the laptop, so I know Acer is responsible for the damage. But the GPU fan was working again, and the laptop didnt overheat anymore.
Being at university at the moment, I didnt have the time to reinstall Windows again (Acer had to swipe the drive clean), so my mother lent me her HP ProBook laptop in the meantime.
2 weeks later, I find time to work on the laptop, and then, thats where I find out that none of the USB ports on the right side of the laptop work. They werent even powered, because no USB stick or any other device would even light up.
That was a total of 2 USB ports on 3.
So, for the moment, Ive given a laptop for repair, and it comes back to me with another problem, and with physical damage.
Being at university, I had just spent 2 weeks without a computer. Unfortunately, Im a student in the computer science division, and I need the laptop to work.
Since I was forced to send the laptop back for another 2 weeks of repair, it was a total of 1 month that I couldnt use my laptop, and that the warranty date was expiring for nothing.
I sent an e-mail to Acer directly to see what they had to say, and I requested that they repair my computer and put it back to its original state. I also demanded that they give me back the laptop protection foam, and the power cord.
If all of this was too difficult to do, I had asked Acer to refund me the computer, which they finally did not do.
Today, the computer is in my possession, and it works. Its still scratched everywhere and there still is a dead pixel on the screen, just like the first day I got it.
But Ive decided to abandon this problem for the moment, because Ive got a lot of work, and taking care of this laptop is one of my last problems for the moment.
The USB ports work now, and the GPU fan runs correctly. Theyve returned the power cord and the laptop protection to me.
All went well, until new needs arose from University about our OS environment. Basicaly, I have to run Windows and Linux in Dual boot. VMs are not a viable solution.
I am not going to abandon the 2 problems I have recently encountered.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) The main reason for which I decided to buy this laptop was the excellent GPU in it (HD 5650), as well as for the presumed battery life of 8 hours.
But, the battery life doesnt come anywhere close to the 8 hours Acer announces in its advertisements.
For the moment, my laptop runs for a maximum of 3 hours (actually, its a little less than that, around 2h50min).
To be fair, let me tell you what concessions I had to do to achieve this battery life.
For the moment, Im running a computer with :
- Fresh installation of Windows 7 Home Premium x64
- Core i5 450M
- HD 5650
- 4 GB of Ram
- 5400 RPM Western Digital hard drive
For starters, Ive gotten rid of the HD 5650 and Im running on the Intel chip to save some power.
All the power settings have been set to the bare MINIMUM. I cannot stress this point enough. Im running on the power saver power plan, but with the screen luminosity to the minimum possible, WiFi deactivated, Bluetooth deactivated, hard drive set to off after 1 minute, no USB devices attached.
In addition to all of this, I have trimmed down about everything that could be in Windows 7. I am currently running on the Windows 95 Scheme, meaning with Aero off.
I have gone to System -> Advanced system settings -> Performance -> Adjust for best performance, meaning that there is literally NO eye candy whatsoever running for the moment.
Now, I dont know if Ive missed anything here, but I cant trim anything more than what I have currently done to save power.
Ive even set the MAX processor speed to be 50% in the power saver plan, but that doesnt even help.
Ive even used the Acer battery manager, but that doesnt help either.
So here comes the question: Where did the damn 8 hours go ? I never had the occasion to even have 4 hours, let alone 8.
To be honest, I knew from the first second I bought the laptop, that the 8 hours were not feasible. I was expecting something more of like around 4 hours. I was ready to accept 4 hours, because that means that I can go to my morning classes, and charge it at noon, then go to my afternoon classes.
This is currently impossible with the current state of the laptop battery.
Such a level of battery life is completely unacceptable, because I cant even get the half of what the official statements are.
I told Acer that I wanted to know the exact settings they have used to get to these 8 hours. I also told them that I didnt want to hear statements from customers. I wanted to test myself. I was curious, so I looked up for tests on my exact same model, and I found that the max battery life was of 5h32min. Again, Im asking the same question: Where did the 8 hours go ?
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-3820TG-Subnotebook-i5-HD5650.38666.0.html
I told Acer I wanted to know the exact details that they used to implement those times, because I believe that it is my right to have what has been advertised, and if it isnt the case, then I would pursue them for false advertising.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Second big problem :
As I said earlier, Im in the Computer Science division of my University, and I need a Linux distribution on my computer, PARALLEL to Windows 7.
So I needed a dual boot. Not something thats too difficult to do. Or so I thought.
I left a whole 25 GB partition at the end of my hard drive so I could install Ubuntu after I finished with Windows.
First mystery: When I put the Linux USB stick in the computer to install, the installer doesnt see my Windows partition. It keeps thinking that my hard drive is 100% empty, and it only proposes to wipe the drive and install Ubuntu on the whole drive.
I dont want this: I need a dual boot, not a Linux Only or Windows Only environment.
Im a beginner to Linux, so I thought it was a problem with my Image. Maybe it wasnt made correctly, maybe the distribution was downloaded badly ?
So I downloaded Fedora to test.
Here comes the second mystery: Fedora does exactly the same thing as Ubuntu. It doesnt see any damn partitions on the drive. It thinks the hard drive is empty too.
At this stage, I thought I was dumb and was doing something wrong. So I decide to boot off Ultimate Boot CD and make an ext4 partition. I thought that the Linux installer would see its OWN partition ?
Here comes the third mystery: Guess what, well even Ultimate Boot CD doesnt see any of my partitions. Now thats strange.
I try with Parted Magic, and its the exact same issue.
At this point, I start going insane, not knowing what to do anymore, so I do a lot of research, and I find out that there is this wonderful tool that Ubuntu has that allows you to install Linux like a program in Windows.
I know that there is a slight performance hit, but Im desperate at this point.
So I launch this Wubi installer, and
Final mystery of the day folks: Wubi doesnt work either. It gives me the same errors as in the dual boot installation failure.
This was getting weird, so I tried all the different Bios versions that were available on Acers site, and they all show the same problem, dual booting is not possible.
So, Ive finally come to the following conclusion: I believe the BIOS is intentionally bricked to only allow one OS to be installed at the same time.
Before buying this computer, I had checked the spec sheet very carefully, and I knew, from the hardware Id seen, that Linux could be installed.
I have even tested it, and indeed, Linux can be installed. As a matter of fact, you can install Linux alone, or Windows alone, but not both at the same time.
But this does not answer the problem I saw with UBCD. How come even that couldnt see my partitions?
So, to sum up:
Ive sent the laptop for repair 2 times, Ive tolerated a dead pixel, scratches, 1 month of absence, the loss of its protection case, the loss of the power cord, non-functional USB ports and a dead GPU fan.
That alone, is about enough for a laptops problems, but I will NOT tolerate a bricked PC and false advertising concerning the battery.
I have sent Acer headquarters in Switzerland a formal letter about all these issues, and I gave them until Friday 18th to answer back, but they have not answered back.
Seeing as how slow they respond to all my questions, I decided to give them a call.
I first called their general help department. The lady there told me to send them the device back, but I had explicitly written in my letter that I will refuse to send back any product without having thorough explanations about all these issues. I had already sent the product back twice, and was not going to do it yet one more time, only for them to delay me more and damage the product more than they already have.
She said she couldnt help me, and that I had to send an email to the assistance department.
I sent them an email, and they told me to contact the technical department.
This was getting way too long, so I called the technical department instead of just emailing them.
I explained them all the problems in detail. First of all, I have to say that they did everything that was possible to slow me down and make me look stupid.
They were trying to own me on easy stuff, trying to make me look as if I didnt know how Linux worked.
I did not back off at all, and explained to them that I had checked the spec sheet, and was sure that Linux was supposed to work.
I had insisted so much, that the person I was talking to started having doubts. She put me on hold for 5-10 minutes and went to talk with her manager.
After the hold, she tells me that indeed, my manager tells me that your laptop DOES support Linux.
I say, great, so why doesnt it work in my case ? They turn around telling me that some computers do NOT support dual booting. They may support single booting, but not dual booting.
They claim that I had to buy a computer pre-installed with Windows AND Linux if I wanted to have a dual boot.
I ask them why this stuff isnt written anywhere on their website. Why isnt it written on the spec sheet ? And here comes the answer that makes me go insane. She said that it was Obvious.
Now, that is overstating a lot of things. How could a normal consumer know that the Bios or the motherboard on a computer doesnt support dual booting ?
I sure know that Linux works, but how on earth could I know that dual booting is not possible ?
I push her more and more, and I ask to speak with the manager she spoke to earlier.
She refuses at first, but I keep pushing and finally get to speak with the manager.
The manager keeps telling me that I signed for support for Windows ONLY, and that therefore, they cannot help me install Linux in a dual boot.
I spent a lot of time trying to make them understand that I certainly dont need Acers help to install Linux, as I already know how to do that very well. I wanted to ask them why even bootable tools like UBCD dont see my partitions. Clearly, this isnt a software problem. Its a hardware fault.
What is even more unacceptable is that Acer refuses to acknowledge anything Im saying, because Windows works (quote).
I told them that this is unacceptable from the worlds number 2 computer manufacturer to refuse acknowledging simple problems like mine.
She even had the guts to tell me that if I send in the machine for repair, they will do absolutely nothing because as she said Windows works.
I am not complaining because Windows works. I already know that. The fact is that there IS a hardware or Bios fault that they are refusing to work on.
I asked for a refund, because I have been patient enough with this computer. It already has more problems in the 6 months I have bought it to justify me throwing it out of the window, but I cant because I paid for it, and I refuse to lose my hard earned cash because some company refuses to listen to me.
She told me that they cannot accept my refund, because nothing is wrong with the computer. Nothing is wrong ? I say, how can you even say that nothing is wrong when I just spend 45 minutes on the phone swinging from one department to another explaining all the problems to them ?
This is just being ignorant, and not wanting to listen to the customer.
After our lengthy discussion, she just tells me to take a sheet of paper and write down a number, presumably a RMA number.
I asked her what to do with it, and she said I could put it on my next letter to Acer.
I demanded to know what country this call center was located in, so I could contact the correct Acer department, but she refused to tell me. I couldnt even believe it when she refused.
I was finally able to trick her, and her tongue slipped. I realized she was from a call center in France, so Im going to continue from there.
I am fed up with all of this, and Im going to pull this higher and higher until I get justice.
I already have the name of the manager, as well as the name of the person I spoke with before her.
I wanted to know what you guys would suggest I do other than what I have already tried.
If anyone could help me, I would be extremely grateful, as Im in a pretty bad hole now and dont know what else to do.
If you also have solutions to this battery life problem, Im all ears, because the situation is becoming ridiculous.
Im not going to back off, because the only way these companies will listen to you is to piss them off so much until they acknowledge your demands.
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