Top 10 Acer Aspire 5100 Notebook Questions & Answers

There is a utility bar that you can install that lets you change the default application folder:

** Note ** When the My Pictures or Pictures folder gets full, camera will not work - Cut and Paste all pictures in that
folder to another folder and restart Orbicam program.

If that does not work then do this:

Start - Programs - look for Acer Empowering Technology then Acer E-Recovery - The look at the bottom and you will
"Backup", "Burn disk" and Restore" choose Restore - choose Apps and Drivers at the bottom of Restore tab (it will say
extracting) - once extracted - click Install - click Vista or (XP) on the left - click Drivers - click Camera or CCD - on the
right side of the screen, then look for Bison driver or (or your model which can be found in device manager - control panel - system - device manager - Imaging devices) you have then click a phrase that has something like "Install now", follow on screen instructions. Then repeat steps above and instead of driver choose Bison (or your model which can be found in device manager - control panel - system - device manager - Imaging devices) Utility

From Acer customer support:

1 Ensure all Data is backed up, all data will be deleted.
2 Restart machine
3 When your unit switches back on hold down alt & tap f10 repeatedly...(on Acer icon)
4 Please wait a moment until prompted, -How would you like to restore?-
5 Please select –Restore system to factory default-
6 Enter your defined password or enter six zeros ‘000000’
7 Click ok
8 Please wait until process completed, this will take 45min – 1hour

I just fixed this problem by doing the following:

Hard power-off (hold the power button until the laptop turns off)
Unplug the AC adaptor
Remove the battery
Plug in the AC adaptor
Hold ctrl and turn the power on. You should arrive at a black screen.
Hard power-off again, then turn the power on.

To reset the bios in an acer 5100 you need to remove your DDR2 memory sticks, below you can see "j2", make contact in this jumper turn on your laptop and your bios would be reset

Make sure you have all the latest updates found in the Acer site and Windows Update. Windows Update has the hardware update for the Realtek hardware in question. Also, make sure your BIOS has been updated. Make sure you are also running under a Verified XP OS. Aspire 5100 usually comes with Windows XP Media Edition with all the "bells and whistles" Acer has to offer. Unfortunately, most companies that sell "Refurbished" laptops, fail to include an installation disk. So, you'll have to create a Recovery disk via Acer Recovery Disk maker. Folks forget this process and end up with an expensive manila folder.

Ultimately, this is a common problem for a lot of Laptop/Notebook users, and it really just takes constant care and caution to make things work. Most problems arise when you stop caring.

Finally, do a Complete system Audit by using a very useful program called WinAudit. It will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about your notebook/PC. It will also help your knowledge of what is running on your computer and how to fix them.

Also...

(Make sure you have Admin rights for this one.)
Check your Device Manager by holding the Windows button and pressing the Pause Break button (close to the DEL button on the upper right hand corner) Click the Hardware tab. Then the Device Manager button. When the window pops up, click View> Show Hidden Devices.

You will notice that a few devices with a "Caution" mark on them. These are the devices that end up causing problems with startup and system failure. If you feel adventurous, you could disable the devices with little or no problems. Unless you have a Parallel and Serial Port on your Aspire 5100, get rid of them for good.

But, it's not the ONLY problem. If you have no Device errors pop up, and the same problem occurs, then the best thing to do is to take it to a "Trusted Certified Professional."

Good Luck

There is a button to the left of the ON button above the keyboard that turns the touchpad on and off. The light next to that button should be off for the touchpad to work.

Hi akwasi,

Try pressing F2 and look in the bios for a setting that says "Load Bios defaults". If you have any PCMCI cards inserted please remove them first and try a re-boot.

Have you added any new components on the PCI bus? If you have you need to make sure that the BIOS is allowed to reconfigure the interrupts. The device in slot 03 is conflicting with the integrated network controller hosted on the PCI bus. Remove the device in slot 3 and all should be well.

Most BIOS manufacturers allow the PC/Laptop to manage it's own interrupts, so ensure the device you've inserted allows for this. If it uses fixed interrupts this might be your problem.

A good manual should details the BIOS setting you can adjust in order to get the PCI controller happy again and allow the machine to POST correctly.

Regards,

Spare head 2

I have an Acer 5420 which had a persistent disconnection problem after startup, with either the wireless or LAN connection. It appears that the Microsoft network application would startup and make the connection, but seconds later the Acer Enet Management application would start, and its first act would be to disconnect from the Internet. Since the Microsoft network application provides every feature that I want, I choose to disable the Acer Enet Management.

1. Following up on a hint from on of the posts, I went to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt.
2. At the command prompt window, I typed msconfig
3. About a minute later (after Vista confirmed that it was OK to run this program, the System Configuration window comes up, where I selected the "services" tab
4. Scrolling down the numerous services, I found "eNet service" and clicked the check mark to disable the service. Hit apply and OK, and restarted my laptop.
5. The problem went away after that.

Bottom of the laptop, the big cover that comes off. Below the wlan card

I had similar problem with a Dell Optiplex 760 desktop . I went to BIOS disable external SATA and all additional ports which is not used like parallel and serial ports and it worked. I think its with SATA settings only .