I picked up one of the Acer Aspire 5315-2153 laptops at Walmart Secret
Sale back on November 2nd. It was a great price for the hardware...
or so I thought.

After one week of very minimal use, it started to expectedly shut down
(as if someone pulled the power cord). All my unsaved work was lost.
After inspection I found that the machine was very hot and smelled as
though something was wrong. Immediately after the machine would turn
off, it would not respond to my attempts to turn it on. After waiting
for an hour (to let it cool off) everything seemed back to normal.

Since the first time, I have seen this behavior on several
occassions. I've sent a tech support request to Acer but have yet to
hear back from them. At this point I am considering returning the
laptop back to Walmart.

Has anyone else seen similar issues? Was I just the unlucky one that
got a lemon?

"mks59" <marcus.swenson@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0ef412f0-9d20-4b0f-9886-7a0e46494507@s6g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
get it back tp WallyMart if you still can. If it got hot and smelled there
is no sense in playing around with trying to repair it

In
news:0ef412f0-9d20-4b0f-9886-7a0e46494507@s6g2000prc.googlegroups.com,
mks59 typed on Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:58:07 -0800 (PST):
Take it back ASAP! Before they change their mind. And I haven't heard
too many good things about Acer in the newsgroups. I personally wouldn't
buy one.

--
Bill

BillW50 wrote:
granted does not qualify as a laptop. Still. Worked perfectly until it
started overheating after I updated the Bios with the update available
on Acer's site (which stated such an upgrade should not been unless
advised by an Acer representative). Downgrading back to the original
Bios did not solve the problem and eventually the machine died.

To the credit of Acer which received my machine barely a few days before
the warranty expired, they fixed my machine at no cost to me, within
less than a week. Of course, they (probably) had no way to tell I had
upgraded and downgraded the Bios, but it was obvious the machine had
been opened. I had tried to determine the cause of this overheating.

Although I cannot support this specifically, I am under the impression
that Acer has transitioned from so-so quality to prime quality. I also
have a 17" LCD monitor from Acer which I find extremely satisfying, at a
great price.

A few years ago, I would never have bought a laptop from Acer but now,
inasmuch they would have a "matte" display, I would seriously consider Acer.

Just my two cents.

--
John Doue

When these laptops went on sale at Walmart I
bought 8 of them for x-mas presents. I have
seen no problems with them at all. The one that
I kept for myself has stayed on overnight
several times without any problems. I tend to
keep the power supply plugged in continously
because it only lasts about 2 hours.

I have found it to be the best deal for the
money available. I wish now that I had bought
at least 2 more while they were available.

Hope you get your heat problems sorted.

SB


--
SunnyB

On Nov 25, 4:58 pm, mks59 <marcus.swen...@gmail.com> wrote:
I also bought one of these but returned it for the exact reason. You
better get on the phone with Acer Customer Service in Texas.
Personally, if I were you, I'd take it back to Walmart and ask the
reason the particular model was on sale in the first place. Walmart's
own full-time electronics clerk, this nice kid who should be running
the joint, spent 1 hour+ online to verify what I told him: Acer has NO
link to any physical place in the U.S.

This was the thing that made me take it back. I asked two managers
how Walmart could sell something so expensive as laptops without even
having a U.S.-based plant to refer customers to for tech support or
customer service. Never got an answer.

Go back and make a stink about it. If you charged it, call the credit
card company and tell them you want to file a dispute. Walmart had no
right to put those machines on sale--do you know, when I brought it
back, an older electronics "inspector," who had to make sure I put all
the crappy cables and software back in the box in order to give me a
refund, told me "Well, why did you buy something like this?" I said
"Cause the bargain was so good." He said, "Well, then you only got
yourself to blame." But he meant it in a nice way, like, Walmart
knows there's people who can't afford high-end things--and in this
case, in my opinion, really took advantage of them.

Good luck.

mutefan@yahoo.com wrote:
manage the feat to repair the mini-desktop I sent them in less than a
week? Want to drive here?

Acer America Repair
1394 Eberhardt Rd.
Temple, TX 76504

Please let us know, I am interested.

Regards

--
John Doue

On Dec 18, 9:53 am, John Doue <notw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Don't take my word for it. Heck, even *I* didn't take my word for it,
which is why I went to Walmart and asked a kid twenty years younger,
"Is it my imagination or is there NO phone number, physical address,
or U.S. based contact for this company on the site in their product
manual?" The polite kid went into the customer service area, searched
the same sites I searched, and came out an *hour* later. He said,
exact words, "There's absolutely no place I found on this site or
links that tell how to contact Acer about a defective laptop."

I asked the Walmart store manager for help but got a blank stare. I
kept calling Walmart because it came almost like a game; and I did
have fifteen days to return the laptop. I also found the place in
Texas you cite but only after a merchandising manager at Walmart
helped me find it. Acer's "tech support" is closed more hours than
it's open.

As the return-checker at Walmart said, "You get what you pay for."
But millionaires don't have to stand in Black Friday-special lines,
and for Walmart to sell these laptops without a plan in place
regarding customer service was inexcusable. I am positive not every
consumer would have had the time to do the bit*%ing and moaning I did.

mutefan@yahoo.com wrote:
The bottom line is, if you are looking for support information, research
the Internet and go to Acer US site. It is not perfect but once you have
registered your product, you can ask a repair online. It worked
perfectly for me.

I agree, the Acer's manuals are far from perfect, but they save money by
editing the same for various countries.

And how did you expect any solid information from Walmart's people? They
certain do their best and I would not criticise them. But the fact that
they are 20 years younger or older than you is irrelevant: they just
cannot have the training to deal with this kind of situation.

And as for the line: "you get what you pay for" from the return checker,
what value does this have? This is usually true, but not always, so much
more is involved than the basic value of an item.

I think you were right to return the machine but you might have decided
to have fixed under warranty. Your experience, then, would have been a
better foundation for your opinion.

I am not particularly supporting Acer, but my experience with their
products has been good and my only experience with their support (I did
cause the malfunction, to be honest), has been excellent.

Regards



--
John Doue

i have an acer laptop 5315-2153and wanted to know does anyone know how
to open the sd slot there is no button or anything.???? please
respond

THANKS

gamerdudex420@aim.com wrote:

--
Return address is VALID!

On Dec 31 2007, 6:29*pm, mike <spam...@gmail.com> wrote:
thanks, cause i saw another laptop and it had a button. THANK YOU FOR
THE INFO!!!

I bought two of these in November and have been experiencing a similar
issue. Mine seems to shut down intermittently, I thought it was a issue
with overheating because I could feel heat coming from the touchpad
before it shutdown, also whatever I was doing on the laptop started
running really slow and choppy right before the shut down. I didn't
smell anything out of the ordinary though. That being said, when I use
this laptop at work, I have it running for 10 hours straight and it
NEVER shuts down.. so now I'm confused as what it could be.

The second one I bought was for my wife, and she never had a problem
with it, she would even use it in bed and sometimes the vent on the
back was blocked by a blanket or something and it never had a problem.
That is until tonight, her computer shutdown and now will not boot back
up. It gets to the Acer splash screen and then shuts back down.

Anyone have any thoughts on what could be causing this?

Thanks


--
sinteres

*Please, if you still have this laptop, don't return it. The overheatin
issue is a problem caused by the fan stopping and not working after th
computer has been in hibernation or sleep mode. The problem can b
fixed with one of Acer's new BIOS updates. Here's the link to th
update page

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...315/vista/Bios

Click and download the very bottom one. Open the Zip, open the folde
labeled ICL50134_winflash.zip. Then open ICL50134.exe. The program wil
open. Just click the Start button and it will update your BIOS. You
computer will automatically restart

Congratulations! You now have a compy with it's latest BIOS and th
overheating will no longer be an issue. And yes, I had this issue, to
and not anymore


--
ashgfu

ashgfu;1038197 Wrote:
Thanks, I did notice it was the fan that would stop running and causin
it to overheat. I also read somewhere that a bios update would fix it.
updated the bios and it seemed to fix it, however after a few weeks i
started overheating again. I just updated it to the latest bios, I wil
let you know if the overheating has stopped

Thanks again

--
sinteres

There were very many rumors that earlier BIOS updates fixed the fan
issue, but only 1.34 fixes it.


--
ashgfu