Aspire V5-573PG needs BIOS and Acer Launcher upgrades

kirkers

I have had my V5-573PG (P=touch-screen, G=discrete graphics) for about 10 days.

 

Overall, a pleasing machine especially considering the relatively low price point (I paid $800 including shipping at Amazon.com). Upgrading from standard Windows 8.0 to my Pro 8.1 license has been a bear – but this is about Microsoft, not Acer, so I have no hard feelings toward Acer on that score.

 

There are three things for which I believe Acer has responsibility that need immediate improvement, to make my experience of this model a complete success.  My suggestions could well apply to any affected Acer laptop model as well.

 

FIRST – Change the policy on service manuals to reflect what Dell and HP have done for years: provide service manuals for every model online in PDF format, right along with the usual “user guide” and similar documentation.  Perhaps in earlier times when the most likely items requiring upgrade or replacement (RAM memory, disk drives) had easy-access doors or slots on the bottom or side of a laptop, service manuals were likely not to be needed except by professional repair people and the mechanically inclined do-it-yourself (DIY) lot. 

 

But things are very different now, if the latest V5 models are any indicator of future trends.  My V5 has no accessible bays or doors of any kind!  It reminds me a bit of my smartphone in that respect, although with my smartphone all I need do is gently pry off the back plastic cover to do things like change out the battery and access the micro SD card slot.  With the V5, I need to remove something like 20 screws to gain the same sort of access.  I have not actually done this yet, since I do not want to void the warranty at this early stage, but thanks to photographs provided by other owners of similar models such as the V7-582G who have been willing to take this step, I have a good idea of what I would see once the cover was off.  All signs point to my being confronted with a very tightly packed array of boards, sockets, wires, and ports – and all this without so much as a schematic sketch from Acer!   

 

The other point to remember is that despite the lack of bays and access doors, there are still a number of parts that can be upgraded.  The 4GB RAM module can be swapped for an 8GB to max out the machine at 12GB, a very respectable total and one well worth having for resource intensive programmes and heavy multitasking. There is by all accounts an mSATA slot awaiting a solid state drive (SSD) chip that could at least boost key performance features.  The mechanical hard disk drive (HDD) could be swapped for a fully functional SSD drive.  The wireless LAN (WiFi WLAN) could be swapped for a different or better chip. My machine came with a Qualcomm Atheros, but I am used to having an Intel chip that gives me access to Intel proprietary software that lets me set up my laptop as a mobile WiFi hotspot. It is quite possible I could take the module out of my old Dell laptop and put it in my V5, or purchase a newer Intel module, possibly a multi-antenna MIMO model if the V5 is set to receive it.

 

In any of these scenarios, a service manual is a great tool, even an essential one for avoiding mistakes that could damage or even brick the machine.  That is why Dell and HP provide such manuals on a regular basis.  Acer should follow their lead and do it, too.

 

SECOND – The Acer Launch Manager proprietary software has evidently supported a wide range of Acer computers that lack physical on-key indicators for Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys.  This may seem like a minor matter, but not knowing the current status of these lock keys can lead to some errors that range from the merely time-wasting to the all but disastrous.  From all I can tell, the Launch Manager is unreliable for Windows 8.0, and no longer works at all on Windows 8.1.  Acer needs to figure this out so users do not have to struggle with this handicap.

 

In the meantime, there are some free workarounds to approximate what Launch Manager does.  One of these is “TrayStatus”, which places icons for all three lock keys in the Windows Task Tray. Whenever a lock key is initiated, a green box appears around the appropriate icon.  Windows tends to hide task tray icons whenever possible, but users can customize any tray icon to appear in the Task Tray all the time.  The one feature of TrayStatus I could not get to work properly was the drive activity indicator.  Since my V5 lacks a physical drive activity LED light, something I have had on every computer (desktop or laptop) I have ever owned, this is an important bonus.  Oftentimes the drive activity indicator has been the only way to determine at a glance whether the system is frozen or hanging.  Whatever Acer may think, it is not a useless feature!  Fortunately, another free applet, “DriveGLEAM”, successfully provides a Task Tray icon that dynamically shows reads and writes as they happen, nicely emulating the blinking LED so common on computers up to this point.

 

THIRD – Give us the kind of control over the Fn "action keys" that Dell and HP do. I am very accustomed on my last two Dell laptops to take control of what the Fn (blue key) does.  I have a one-click option of pushing the Fn key in combination with another key to activate the function listed in blue text on a key (i.e. the default behaviour), or  skipping the Fn key and activating the blue-text function simply by pressing the key containing the blue text.  This is very handy when I want to adjust special functions like screen brightness, WiFi connectivity, and  media play & pause.  The white text on the affected keys can still be activated by holding down the Fn key and then pressing the desired key.

 

All this was accomplished in an enhanced version of Windows Mobility Centre.  The Acer version of WMC contains no such Fn key toggle, probably because the underlying UEFA (“BIOS”) does not have an option to manipulate the Action Keys in this way.

 

At the very least, Acer should upgrade the UEFA/BIOS to allow control of the Fn/Action keys by that means.  Upgrading its implementation of Windows Mobility Centre would be a welcome enhancement that would allow rapid changes within Windows without a reboot.

 

Some Acer laptop models appear to have an “Fn lock/unlock” keyboard shortcut that makes it unnecessary to press the Fn key to activate the Action Key functions.  The shortcut appears to be  Fn+numlock, Fn+shift+numlock, or Fn+F11 depending on the model.  None of these worked for me. Acer Support Chat reports no such for my V5.  If anyone knows better how to do this, please post here!

 

There is no easy workaround to the Fn key issue.  AutoHotKey free software requires “scan codes” for each key, but action keys controlled by the Fn key do not apparently generate such codes. KeyTweak freeware handles volume control (up, down, mute) and multimedia (play/pause, stop, next track, previous track) but not display brightness, keyboard or display lighting on/off, or other special features (wifi on/off, touchpad on/off).  For $30  (and no free upgrades) HotKeyControl adds just one additional feature, brightness control, to KeyTweak’s feature set, but the other special features remain out of reach.  If anyone has figured out a way to use AutoHotKey or other free software to control these features, please post your info and links here!

Cory-Acer

Hi Kirkers,

 

Thanks for taking the time to provide this level of feedback. I see that you've also submitted most of these ideas into our Idea's platform and that's where they'll get the true attention they deserve.

 

As far as the BIOS for the V3-573PG, I can confirm a new BIOS is in the works for the system and will be released within 1-2 weeks. I'll keep the thread, http://community.acer.com/t5/Ultra-Thin/Acer-Aspire-V5-573G-BIOS-Update-Problem/td-p/236338 updated of any changes.