The Acer Guy

Just a little something I picked up on my travels for all of you thinking about going the XP route but have an Aspire 2920.

Remember this is not something I recommend as your warranty basically takes a leap off the Golden Gate Bridge but as there are so many of you who ask, I really can’t ignore it.

Hope it helps.

Downgrading Acer Aspire 2920/2920Z to Windows XP SP2

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This is the last video I made of the Aspire One before having to hand it back (sob).

This time I have a look at its word processing abilities, find out (for the Linux / OpenSource illiterate amongst us) whether it’s compatible with Word and also have a check to make sure the webcam isn’t going to give me problems

Can’t think of anything I’d need to add to this machine. Can’t wait till it comes out (and neither can my daughter)!

UPDATE: I managed to totally screw this up and put up a duplicate video. Apologies for the sloppy cut ‘n paste technique… The right one’s up now…

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You want to chat? Can’t think of an easier (and smaller) way of doing it than with the Aspire One.

This is me taking you through the various elements of the interface and setting up a Messenger account and Skype account.

Phew!

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It’s the first thing that came to mind when I first saw the Aspire One.

It’s a pretty smooth process, and all the necessary controls and features are there.

Sweet!

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Obviously I don’t know how to count.

CNET says “it takes approximately 17 seconds to boot the operating system — 3 seconds quicker than an Eee PC 901 — and about 10 seconds to launch common apps like OpenOffice or Firefox”.

Still, whoever’s counting, it’s pretty quick and mighty slick.

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Look what I found…!!!

More coming.

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Just a quick service announcement really.

Simone’s REALLY busy right know prepping his staff for the Gemstone 8920/6920, Predator and Aspire One which means that we’re (he’s) not answering your mails as fast as he’s famous for.

Keep sending them in, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can, or if they’re part of a topic, post them here - there are hundreds (well, three) of people always ready with an answer

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As if proof were needed that you guys ROCK… gronkstergronk has posted a video of his 6920 playing World of Warcraft.

I’ve included his text description here but I’m sure this video is where most of you will stop.

Thanks gronkstergronk!

Hi Guys & Gals,

People have been asking,

Can the New Acer 6920 Gemstone Blue play games?.

Well here is footage of me playing World of Warcraft on it. The sound is awesome coming out of the built-in speakers. My version of the Laptop is only 2.1Ghz with Bluray and 2.1 surround.

But when the laptop is connected to a 32″ Samsung HDTV through HDMI and audio through a Sony Home Cinema Amp from the SPDIF optical output, it’s totally Awesome.

Well Done Acer this Laptop Rocks big time.

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One of the answers to the question I asked in an earlier video was: “I wish Acer would make a much more simplistic webcam program. Something like Mac Os X Photobooth would be nice. SIMPLE to use.”

I’m not sure whether Photo Booth is that much easier to use and in one respect at least, both standard programs lose out to Debut which has virtually everything you could ask for.

Still there’s nothing objective about this. All of them are easy to use, all are free… The choice, as ever, is yours.

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Here’s a interesting article from Sparkion in the Netherlands.

If like me, you’d rather go out on your bike than play around with your computer’s most intricate settings, then you might enjoy this, which also happens to be located in the Netherlands - great country!! Otherwise read on…

In his words this article shows: “how to install the AHCI drivers’ on a XP installation after having installed windows XP in IDE mode. So.. if you have forgotten to streamline an XP installation CD, there is still a way to install the AHCI drivers and startup in AHCI mode.”

As usual, I am duty bound to remind you that if you play with your pre-installed software (change the OS) you basically rip up your warranty but as so many of you out there are doing just that anyway, this might be an extremely useful article.

Kudos to Sparkion.
Look forward to hearing your comments:

————————————————

Hi, I’m new here

I found a way to install the AHCI drivers on a Acer5920g AFTER installing Windows XP on the laptop.

In case you forgot to slipstream (using NLite) the AHCI drivers in the Windows XP CD.
Where for best performance the SATA-HD uses AHCI mode. Which Vista suppports but XP doesn’t.
So this is for the ones who installed Windows XP in IDE-mode on a Vista-PC or Vista-Laptop.

So assuming you installed Windows XP in Ide MODE, but you would like XP be able to run in ACPI mode:

1st) Download the following drivers from the Intel site:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101&lang=eng

Nr. 1. “Intel Matrix Storage Manager iata82_cd.exe” (where 82 is the version nr. at moment from writing this)
Nr. 2. “f6flpy32″ (zip/rarfile) These one are the drivers you normally need for the “F6 mode” when you install
Windows XP.

2nd) Open file NR. 2. and extract the whole folder to wherever you like. Make sure you remember the location.
Copy from this folder file “IaStor.sys” to C:\windows\system32\

3rd) Copy the following registry file to your desktop (copy and paste it into notepad) and save as “ahci.reg” (Only copy-paste what is written in italic)

———————————————-

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2922&cc_0106]
“Service”=”iaStor”
“ClassGUID”=”{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}”
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
“Type”=dword:00000001
“Start”=dword:00000000
“Group”=”SCSI miniport”
“ErrorControl”=dword:00000001
“ImagePath”=”system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys”
“tag”=dword:00000019
“DisplayName”=”Intel AHCI Controller”
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
“queuePriorityEnable”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
“0″=”PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2922&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_02\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA”
“Count”=dword:00000001
“NextInstance”=dword:00000001

———————————————-

4th) Go to This Computer-> Properties -> Hardware -> Device manager.
Under IDE ATA/ATAPI-Controllers, right-click the first INTEL(R) Controller, and update the driver.
Manually install the driver!! Make sure in every step you choose yourself what drivers to install!!
Browse to the folder where you extracted file NR. 2.: “f6flpy32″.
Now choose the “iaAHCI.inf” to install. All the AHCI drivers will be installed now.

5th) Double check you’ve copied the IaStor.sys file as part of step 2. Now do the following:
Run the “ahci.reg ” file to add the entries into the registry.
Reboot the computer and enter the BIOS.
Change the setting for the on board Intel controller to AHCI, save and exit BIOS.
Boot into Windows

6th) Windows will startup because of the manually installed drivers in step 4.
Windows will find new hardware and install drivers automatically
(because you changed the original driver manually in step 4, windows wants to restore this driver).
Just ignore this and go to the Nr. 1. file: ” Intel Matrix Storage Manager iata82_cd.exe “.
This is a setup file. Run this setup and the “Intel Matrix Storage Manager” will install the complete AHCI-SATA driver.

After installation:

Restart!

God bless you all,

Sparkion

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