Incomprehensible Acer stupidity

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richms

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#1654802 19-Oct-2016 22:32

MikeB4:
richms:

MikeB4:

You should use lead free.

Why?

Google health and environmental affects of lead

Other than leeching into the groundwater when things are tossed into landfill, what problems do you see that would make it worth binning electronics rather than repairing them?

Remember that there are many types of lead free solder, not compatible so its normal for repairers to just use leaded stuff since that doesnt have the nasty reactions that you get with the different amalgums not fusing together.

Richard rich.ms

gzt

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#1654804 19-Oct-2016 22:33

Rikkitic:
yitz: I'm sure the manufacturers will have investigated alternatives and concluded the conductive adhesive stuff works. They aren't allowed to use leaded solder because of RoHS directives.

I hadn't thought of that but the adhesive clearly doesn't work well enough in view of all the complaints. There are screws everywhere so why not a couple of extra ones to screw down an earthing wire? It's not rocket science.

Depends. May have been a bad batch or incorrectly specified adhesive. Hard to know.

ScuL

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#1655995 21-Oct-2016 22:21

Hmm, I have an Acer Nitro VN7-571G. It came with Windows 8 but as I hate that as the plague I downgraded it to Windows 7, soon after the touch pad refused to work. No matter what I do (and I have tried 40 different Synaptics drivers) I can't get the touch pad to work.

Maybe my problem is similar to yours

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Rikkitic

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#1655999 21-Oct-2016 22:49

It could be. This seems to be a widespread problem with different Acer models. My issue was always intermittent. Whenever it froze I could get it back for longer or shorter time by rebooting or pressing Fn-F7 twice, which toggles the cursor off and on. It never stopped working completely so I can't say for certain that you have the same issue. When I added the new ground wire, though, it was like magic. The problem immediately cleared up completely and it hasn't returned.

If you want to try this fix but aren't confident to do it yourself, it shouldn't cost much to have it done by a computer repair shop. It is extremely easy and quick to do, unless the layout of your laptop is radically different. In any case, adding an extra ground wire won't make it any worse.

Good luck with it.

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BlinkyBill

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#1656052 22-Oct-2016 06:59

So, you bought a computer knowing it to be of poor quality. A component failed, but you didn't contact the seller to remediate. Then you waited for a year for the warranty to expire, then made a fix using environmentally unsafe materials.

And NOW you are complaining?

Rikkitic

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#1656106 22-Oct-2016 09:53

I fail to see the point of this comment. Are you just bored or something?

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robjg63

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#1656123 22-Oct-2016 11:55

BlinkyBill: So, you bought a computer knowing it to be of poor quality. A component failed, but you didn't contact the seller to remediate. Then you waited for a year for the warranty to expire, then made a fix using environmentally unsafe materials.

And NOW you are complaining?

I think the point he was making is that this is a shonky assembly method - His comments sounds fair to me.

Even a cheap product should be fit for purpose.

There are many products blown together without the slightest thought of their ongoing durability - the actual cost of making them 'solid' at build stage is about zero.

The planned obsolescence of a product does not help of course. Look at the capacitor rot issue from a few years ago. Seems it still hasnt gone away. A 10c part can break your $2000 TV!

I saw a video of someone fixing an old valve radio a while back - the capacitors still worked and it was about 70 years old!

Its not reasonable to expect a laptop to last 70 years - but you would hope 5 years at least. In fact the hardware could last 20 years but OS updates etc would make it unusable after a few years anyway.

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Rikkitic

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#1656146 22-Oct-2016 13:12

I don’t need to justify myself to BlinkyBill or anyone else, but for the sake of clarity I will answer the points raised. First, I did not buy a computer ‘knowing it to be of poor quality’. I bought a computer that met my specifications. Acer is a well-known budget brand. It is not top of the line and I did not expect that. I did expect that it would meet minimum quality standards. It did not and I had every right to feel angry and disappointed.

Second, I did in fact contact Acer about the problem, more than once. I did not contact the seller because I bought the computer in America, which made that impractical. No doubt someone will think that gives them a right to comment on the wisdom of my decision, but many do it, and I did it because this was the only model that met my requirements and it is not available in New Zealand or at least was not when I bought it. It is not unreasonable to expect that a new product will function correctly for more than a couple of months, and that was what I expected.

In the end I did not have the computer looked at by the Acer service centre. I would have had to send it away for that, and after researching the issue on-line, I did not have confidence that Acer would properly fix it. The problem was irritating, but it did not make the computer completely unusable. If it had been worse, I would have had no choice but in this case I felt that putting up with it for a time was the lesser of evils.

After this issue, I lost confidence in Acer quality. I waited a year to do anything because the computer was still usable and I did not want to void the warranty in case something more serious also went wrong.

The comment about using environmentally unsafe materials is just frivolous trolling. This was already discussed. Leaded solder may be an issue on an industrial scale. It is hardly relevant for occasional home use. With all the massive real environmental and ecological damage being done to the world today, a throw-away remark like this is both silly and insulting. If you are so worried about protecting the environment, try starting with giving up your car, meat and plastic bags, spend some time in Asia and Africa combating poaching, then you can talk to me about using leaded solder.

I am only complaining NOW because I only just made the fix so only now could verify that this was indeed the problem. That validates my complaint, as well as the lack of proper support by Acer. To have published this any sooner would have been as foolish as the post by BlinkyBill.

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richms

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#1656155 22-Oct-2016 13:43

robjg63:

The planned obsolescence of a product does not help of course. Look at the capacitor rot issue from a few years ago. Seems it still hasnt gone away. A 10c part can break your $2000 TV!

I saw a video of someone fixing an old valve radio a while back - the capacitors still worked and it was about 70 years old!

Its not reasonable to expect a laptop to last 70 years - but you would hope 5 years at least. In fact the hardware could last 20 years but OS updates etc would make it unusable after a few years anyway.

Look at the size of those capacitors for the capacticance they achieve - something the size of a D battery from back then will be a tiny surface mount device now. If you want your flatscreen tv to be as big as an old CRT, then yeah perhaps they could make them last 70 years, but I would rather it lasts its useful lifespan an no more. I will not want a light leaking low refresh rate LCD in 20 years time when hopefully we are able to get an oled 8k massive Hz panel for peanuts from the warehouse.

Richard rich.ms

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#1657281 25-Oct-2016 10:45

Some people want ridiculously cheap products . Compromises have to be made

Want quality , then dont buy the cheap product. Just basic common sense.
Its like complaining your Lada/Yugo is badly made.

Want quality caps , then buy the more expensive product that uses the more expensive quality caps.
most 70 year old caps will be well below original spec, just because old out of spec caps still work in old valve radios doesnt mean they
would work in modern equipment.
Caps do get replaced when overhauling old valve amps :-) and old radios

http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm
http://www.justradios.com/captips.html
"Second only to power cords, capacitors are the most failure-prone components in old radios and televisions. "
History repeating itself ?

robjg63

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#1657355 25-Oct-2016 11:51

1101:

Some people want ridiculously cheap products . Compromises have to be made

Want quality , then dont buy the cheap product. Just basic common sense.
Its like complaining your Lada/Yugo is badly made.

Want quality caps , then buy the more expensive product that uses the more expensive quality caps.
most 70 year old caps will be well below original spec, just because old out of spec caps still work in old valve radios doesnt mean they
would work in modern equipment.
Caps do get replaced when overhauling old valve amps :-) and old radios

http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm
http://www.justradios.com/captips.html
"Second only to power cords, capacitors are the most failure-prone components in old radios and televisions. "
History repeating itself ?

That was not my point and you were taking my example far too literally.

If I was in the market for an appliance - say a TV that was $1000 and had a stated life expectancy of 3 years, or there was another model that cost $1200 and had a stated life of 10 years, I would happily pay the extra money.

I know what you are saying - how could you guarantee that it would actually last 10 years - and its just hypothetical. But its not like the consumer has a real choice in this.

A manufacturer *could* ensure that a device has the best quality components and therefore have a longer life span and it would probably cost more.

There is no absolute guarantee that a more expensive device actually will last longer - you can only hope so. I usually purchase 'reputable' brands - but many of these things are now badge engineered anyway.

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1101

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#1657423 25-Oct-2016 13:05

Perhaps a better eg would be a $400 40" warehouse TV compared to say a $1500 Panasonic
The cheapies are made with cost in mind; quality, not so much. I have both, a $200 cheapy TV & a $2000 TV
The cheapy I bought knowing its a cheapy & may not last (it got a stuck pixel just out of warranty)

Agreed that price is no guarantee of quality, but one can only hope.
I say look at the manufacturers warranty, that will give an idea of what the manufacturer thinks the quality is .

The issue with all the faulty caps should have been a 1 off (once known about), but lessons werent learnt & the leaky cap issue never really went away, just for the sake of saving a few $ per unit made.

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