Acer Mini Notebook -- Any Heat Problems?

[scorecard]

To those members who have the Acer mini notebook. Any overheating experiences?

(My son has a full size Acer notebook, bought about 11 months ago, it does have overheating problems and seems that the overheating is 'normal' for his model.)

Any comments re the Acer mini appreciated.

Regards.

[paulfr]

When you say overheating, could you be more specific ?

Machine behaves erratically ?

Machine seems to operate very slowly ?

You see discoloration on the case ?

Certain spots are too hot to touch ?

Machine turns off ?

You see smoke ?

What exactly do you mean by overheating ?

I'm Curious

[scorecard]

To those members who have the Acer mini notebook. Any overheating experiences?

(My son has a full size Acer notebook, bought about 11 months ago, it does have overheating problems and seems that the overheating is 'normal' for his model.)

Any comments re the Acer mini appreciated.

Regards.

Good question - what do I mean by overheating?

- I mean computer works eratically / works slowly or similar, or

- Machine seems to be hotter than you would normally experience with a notebook.

Perhaps I should expand what I mentioned earlier about son's Acer full size notebook. In fact it has never worked eratically or slowly when it's hot, but it is certainly much hotter than you would normally experience with notebooks.

It got quite hot from the day it was bought, it went back to IT City very quickly and then explained that they had received many complaints / comments about the level of heat of many newer Acer models. They also explained that ACer had issued a statement that the level of heat being experienced was not dangerous in terms of damaging the machine, or dangerous in terms of causing fire. My IT man at my company also checked some review sites and confirmed all that i've mentioned above.

As I said, it's never failed or worked eratically or slowly, but so hot that initially my son put text books just under the edge on either side to create an open space under the machine to allow the heat to escape. The books have since been replaced by a so called air conditioner which does seem to bring the temperature down quite well.

Thanks.

[paulfr]

It is true that reliability and durability of an electronic device is inversely

proportional to operating temperature in general, but the temperature

operating points for optimum lifetime can vary quite a bit.

Excellent move to provide additional cooling and open space for convective

heat flow. I suspect you will have no problems from now on.

What exactly is your "so called air conditioner" ?

Something more sophisticated than a fan ?

[scorecard]

Bought the so called 'air conditioner' at Pantip, just 140Baht. Have also seen several models at tuk.com in Pattaya.

It's a piece of clear plastic, about .5cm thick, and a little bigger (width / depth) than the base of an average notebook. It's on 4 legs, front legs about 1.5cm high, rear legs about 2.5 cm high. Has three fans fitted in the clear plastic sheet, each fan about 8 cm wide. Plugs into USB port.

Any comments about the Acer mini, re heat?

[MaiChai]

Heat is dependant on the processor installed; some get hotter than others. What cpu is it? First dual core AMDs were very hot; current dual core Intels are quite cool.

Regarding keeping notebooks cool in a hot climate: my tip: use four bottle tops off coke, etc, bottles and put these under the rubber feet. This raised the notebook by about 3/4" and allows airflow under the laptop and most importantly to the cpu/hard disk. Then get one of those miniture desktop fans from Big C, Robinsons, etc (about 300 baht) and point this to blow air under your laptop.

[Veazer]

I've got the Aspire One you're talking about, and i've had no heat issues with it, but i'm still in the US at the moment and haven't had the machine back in the hot temps of thailand at all. I can tell you that, under light use, the unit can run with no fan at all if you use a fan control app. I don't like the fan on it, i think it's a bit "buzzy", but i don't think you'll have any overheating issues.

I'm going to add a heatsink inside (like this) someday when i have more time to make the fan less necessary and more effective when it's on, but it's not urgent at all. Right now it idles at about 54° C when just browsing the web with the fan off completely, though it would be much higher in thailand.

Overall, i've been very happy with the aspire one. It's a great deal for the money.

Be aware that heat issues tend to be related to certain processors or graphics chipsets rather than tied to manufacturers.

EDIT: more info

Edited October 29, 2008 by Veazer

[scorecard]

I've got the Aspire One you're talking about, and i've had no heat issues with it, but i'm still in the US at the moment and haven't had the machine back in the hot temps of thailand at all. I can tell you that, under light use, the unit can run with no fan at all if you use a fan control app. I don't like the fan on it, i think it's a bit "buzzy", but i don't think you'll have any overheating issues.

I'm going to add a heatsink inside (like this) someday when i have more time to make the fan less necessary and more effective when it's on, but it's not urgent at all. Right now it idles at about 54° C when just browsing the web with the fan off completely, though it would be much higher in thailand.

Overall, i've been very happy with the aspire one. It's a great deal for the money.

Be aware that heat issues tend to be related to certain processors or graphics chipsets rather than tied to manufacturers.

EDIT: more info

Dear Veazer,

Thanks for your comments re heat. Also glad to hear your happy with the machine.

Last Sunday I was at Pantip Plaza here in Bangkok, both the DATA IT shop and IT CITY both had the model with 160G HDD. Both of these shops, plus a coupe of shops in TUK.com in pattaya, had earlier (one week ago) told me that it would be a month or more before the 160G model would be available in Thailand.

Both shops say, in Thailand, the bigger battery remains an option, whereas I've read on various review sites that the 160G model would have the bigger battery as standard. However I'm not too concerned about this, I don't use battery operation often or for long periods.

But more to the point, in both shops they mentioned that the fan has been changed to a different less noisy model.

I'm buying mine this afternoon.

Regards.

[MaiChai]

Sometimes the cooling fins get blocked with dust, etc. Basically if you open up a laptop you will typically see heat conducting pipes from very hot chips to where the cpu fan is. These heat pipes have a fin arrangement where the air flow exits from the cpu fan. You can blow into this or use some compressed air from a can to blow out the dust blocking the fins.

My tip in hot Thailand when buying a laptop: check the heat coming from the display models in Pantip, etc, and go with a model that is cool (and matches the spec you are looking to buy). I recently found the dual core Intels much cooler than the AMDs. Heat is your worst enemy here, so it should be high on your list when shopping for a new laptop.

[Veazer]

... However I'm not too concerned about this, I don't use battery operation often or for long periods.

But more to the point, in both shops they mentioned that the fan has been changed to a different less noisy model.

I'm buying mine this afternoon.

Regards.

I would opt for the 6-cell, myself. it's more than double the capacity, and makes a nice rest for the screen when in use. remember that these batteries lose life over time, so that 3-cell will quickly reach a point of having a very short life. It might look like a strange extension out the back, but it doesn't get in the way at all when the machine's in use and actually makes it a bit easier to carry around one-handed. the standard 6-cell is 5200 mAH, but there's a 6600 mAH version starting to be sold in the UK now.

Interesting news on the fan, i wonder if that's true... i'd be interested in replacing my fan at some point.

The forums at aspireoneuser.com are decent, check them out. they're broken into far too many sub categories unfortunately.

I highly recommend a fresh install of XP with SP3 streamlined in, i used nLite to do this easily. If you have access to a usb cd-rom, go for that otherwise try "WinSetupFromUSB". The stock image has a bit too much crap included.

[JetsetBkk]

Re. overheating: try raising the laptop (is that what you mean by a 'notebook'?) off the desk/table by sticking something (double-sided sticky pads) on the four corners underneath.

[MaiChai]

Plastic bottle tops are great

[JetsetBkk]

Plastic bottle tops are great

Or up-turned plastic jelly-moulds!

[Veazer]

Thing just took a sad turn for me... While using my Aspire One last night the fan suddenly slowed, loudly grinding to nearly a halt. It restarted again but now has a horrid buzzing noise that won't go away. I've talked to Acer and i must re-ship the unit back to them in Texas (i'm in Seattle)... all at my cost. I liked this little machine but having this happen in the first few weeks of use is very discouraging.

[JetsetBkk]

Thing just took a sad turn for me... While using my Aspire One last night the fan suddenly slowed, loudly grinding to nearly a halt. It restarted again but now has a horrid buzzing noise that won't go away. I've talked to Acer and i must re-ship the unit back to them in Texas (i'm in Seattle)... all at my cost. I liked this little machine but having this happen in the first few weeks of use is very discouraging.

That's a shame. I suppose that as it's still under warranty you can't start opening it up and seeing what the problem is.

A few weeks ago one of the keys on my keyboard stopped working. Then it started working again and another one stopped. Very frustrating.

I then used my brain and turned the thing upside down and gave it a good shake. A grain of uncooked rice fell out and all was well again.