x(perts)64 : Ferrari

Acer Ferrari Repair

Charlie Russel — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:11:00 GMT

I've had my Acer Ferrari 4000 for four years now, and it has been a great laptop. Yes, I wish I had a dual core. Yes, I wish I had a laptop that had 4 GB or even more. But honestly, the Ferrari was still a quite good little laptop, iwth a great display...(read more)

Windows Home Server - Public Beta Includes x64

Charlie Russel — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:18:07 GMT

The public beta of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 is now available on the Microsoft Connect site for download. This is a major update for WHS - not only does it fix the corruption issue that has plagued WHS in certain scenarios, but it also adds full...(read more)

MVP Insider this month

Charlie Russel — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:34:08 GMT

http://blogs.technet.com/canitpro/archive/2007/11/01/mvp-profile-charlie-russel.aspx Too bad I don't think SteveB actually reads these things, so I don't think I'm likely to get an answer to my question for him. ;)...(read more)

BIOS Update Workaround

Charlie Russel — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:20:01 GMT

Several manufacturers have provided 64-bit BIOS flash utilities, but there are still some holdouts. Acer, for one, can't seem to manage to create one for their Ferrari, even though there are a lot of Acer Ferrari owners out there running 64-bit Windows...(read more)

Design a Laptop

Charlie Russel — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:12:00 GMT

So, HP has asked fellow MVP and ExpertZone Columnist Barb Bowman to help them design their next laptop. If you want to have input, post a comment to her blog . I have! This is your chance to help HP out-do the Acer Ferrari, my current favourite laptops...(read more)

Vista x64 Drivers Available for Ferrari 5000

Charlie Russel — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:09:00 GMT

Well, I don't have a Ferrari 5000, I've only got the 4000, and those drivers aren't showing, yet. But for those of you lucky enough to have one of the 5000's, the Vista drivers are at: ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/ferrari_5000/driver/vista...(read more)

vrrrOOOOOOOOmmm

Charlie Russel — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 15:27:00 GMT

I've had my new Acer Ferrari 4000 for 3 days now, and I'm loving it. Not only is this a fast notebook, and good looking, but it's really well built, with all the little touches that can make a difference. I've not been a big fan of Acer products in recent years, but this one they got right. From the carbon fibre case to the slotless DVD drive that can read and write every format I can think of, to the keyboard that is actually useable, to the 4 USB slots. Even has its very own polishing cloth.

My first step on getting it was to rearrange the partitions on the 100 Gb hard drive. It comes with two partitions, each over 45 Gb. I squeezed the C: drive down to 12 Gb and converted to NTFS, using Acronis Disk Director, since that will be left for the existing 32-bit Windows XP Professional, which I don't expect to use very much. Then, 20 Gb or so for a D: drive that gets the install of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, another 20Gb or so for what will be 64-bit Vista, and finally the rest for data and programs. Pull a full image backup while I'm at it, and burn to DVD, and we're ready to begin.

First, basic configuration of the 32-bit pre-installed Windows XP Professional. Just the basic stuff -- AV and Microsoft AntiSpyware, Dave's Quick Search Deskbar (DQSD), and all the current patches. Good. Pull another image backup to DVD, and we've got a solid fallback position. While we're at it, download all the current x64 Edition drivers from Acer and stick them on the DVD too. we'll need them.

Now, stick the x64 Edition CD in and reboot. Walk through the install process, and once we get up, the very first thing we need to do is copy over the Ferrari.WAV file from the 32-bit partition and set it as my Windows Startup sound. Good, now for the rest. Insert the DVD with all the drivers. LAN and WLAN first, so I'm connected, then the others. Do the reboot, and now download all the current patches from Microsoft Update. Install the basics -- DQSD again, but a special alpha 64-bit version that we're working on doing a minimal installer for. MSAS. No AV yet -- I'm hoping Trend gets their act together and releases an x64 version shortly. And for a firewall, we're using ISA 2k4 on the network and Windows Firewall on this machine. Then Nero, Office, OE-QuoteFix (yes, it works just fine with 64-bit OE!), HyperSnap (my screen capture utility of choice). And there we are, a working machine.

Charlie.