Is this an Acer issue or Microsft W500 Windows 8 Up-grade

westonr
westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

My upgrade was quite eventful with a lot of work searching to resolve  several issues, and a complete reinstalling  I did expected some difficulties considering the difference in the operating system from 7 to Windows 8 also installing windows as an upgrade and on a Tablet that has been on the market for almost two years. See my previous posts Acer Support Web Site.

 

  I am very impressed with the performance of the Acer W500 and Windows 8 not so the support from Acer it is very much a suck it and see approach in windows 8  I know the release version has only been out less than a month or so and Acer have really not responded to issues people have raised after the up grade to Windows 8 on W500.

 

Firstly it seems very much a hit and miss if you can get your Rotation and Blue tooth, to work on the W500 (I have installed the G-Sensor) there have been fixes for this on the net, Upgrade AMD Drivers , install device controller, HD monitor, rotation lock and the list goes on, all reported with varying degrees of success. I used the scan tool from Acer to see what driver I should install and it gave me three :- Blue tooth, VGA ATI/AMD and Wireless LAN,  which I have installed some posts say that it is essential that you upgrade the AMD drivers as the Screen rotation will not work without upgrading them ? But still no screen rotation and I have lost my Blue tooth after installing the new software which was recommended by the Acer scan tool.

 

So I have a Tablet that works extremely well with Windows 8 I must say that I cannot believe the transformation in it's performance this up grade has made to the W500, but I would like to have the rotation working as well so you would think that Acer would have informed us that to get the rotation working after the Windows 8 Up-grade you do X, Y  and  Z  and some might also say you did not purchase a windows 8 tablet ? so what do you expect.

 

After doing a little bit of research I am lead to believe that the consumer preview  of Windows 8 when installed on this machine, that all the functions worked rotation as well, but that this issue is only with the final release version of windows 8 ? So is this an issue that Windows needs to address or is it Acer  ?..

 

Anybody have any opinion or a fix for this.

Answers

  • westonr
    westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

    After again doing my own searches there are two
    other important down loads from the Applications section that need to be
    installed the Device Control and the Auto Screen Rotation Blocker according to
    other post. After installing the two Applications I was able to turn the blue tooth back on in the device control  application each time I launched this a lock appeared but I could not turn this off so the rotation was locked ? The next issue was that the tablet became unstable in Google Chrome flashing on and off ?

    I next installed Chrome then several of the programs that I had recently in stalled Photoshop CS2 and all the Applications Device control, Auto Screen rotation, Wireless Lan, Blue tooth but not the ADM driver and manage to get the tablet stable and working again.

     

    So where do I go from here other people report that they have the screen ration working without any problems start again ? Come on Acer I want some support you still have not replied to my request for HELP. A step by step of what actually needs to be installed to get this tablet to function in Windows 8.

  • westonr
    westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

    Sorry for the typing errors it should read  I next un-installed Chrome then several of the programs that I had recently installed.

     

    I think I will post this on the Microsoft site maybe they will be able to help as I have seen some post to them about the W500. Probably more helpful than Acer

  • westonr
    westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

    I have had a reply :-  Please try to install the latest version of the driver.

     

     

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  • DigitalWarlord
    DigitalWarlord Member Posts: 1 New User

    Hey Westonr... did you have any luck with this problem? I'm having the same issue... everything is working except the auto rotate. I can't find the '[ ] allow screen to rotate' check box where people say it should found. I'll look around some more and hopefully I come across something.

  • westonr
    westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

     Yes I did resolve the issue with the roation if you have not found a solution I will give you a step by step guide, sorry you do know that there is a roation lock switch at the base of the unit ?

     

    All my efforts fail to  resolve the stability issue I came to the conclusion that there was a Hardware problem (After seeing the same problem on u-tube) either the Screen or Video card so sent the unit back for repair to Acer they were very quick they undertook the following :-

     

    Re seated main board. Updated the Bios, LCD panel firmware and VGA driver, Customer is advised to update all relevant drivers for windows 8 which are available on the Acer web site,  Which I had already undertaken anyway. the unit is stable now and working well, very pleased about it's performance.

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