Thanks Jesper I have been looking for a solution since SP2 was released for the BT problem.

BTW I reloaded launch manager after setting the BT up and they both work so you can turn the BT on and off with the front button.

I have had my Ferrari 4005 for about 7 months now it has worked perfectly. I have never had it overheat and the only thing that gets hot is the exhaust vent that is supposed to, so i don't know why people have had so many problems. Mine even handles overclocking the CPU and GPU w/o overheating. I think its a great laptop, way better than my friends Dell.

Cons for 4005 Ferrari:

1. Screen.

1680x1050 pixels on a 15.4" screen makes everything look extremely small. It's the most major thing that I overlooked during research. I can't use large fonts because as a web designer, I need to see the average pretty much constantly. I can't use lower resolution because I ablsolutely hate the blur that LCDs produce under non-native resolutions. Acer used a "creative" approach to compensate for this problem by enforcing large fonts.

It's a TN LCD with a below-average picture quality and low contrast ratio.


2. Support.

Took them 3 business days to reply to an email, a result of which was a suggestion to call a phone number: "To better assist you with this matter, please contact our telephone technical support line at 1-800-816-2237. Hours of operation are 7am-9pm CST Monday-Friday and 8am-5pm CST Saturday and Sunday, excluding holidays."

The guy on the phone was completely unhelpful and tried to claim that their version of Windows XP Pro SP2 that they provide on recovery CDs can not be considered the same operating system as generic Windows XP Pro SP2 that I had to install on a new hard drive, therefore they will not support it.

You can install your own copy of XP Pro and download the drivers from the website, but you will have trouble with Bluetooth. Despite the driver installation, windows will continue recognizhing Bluetooth as a "New hardware" "Acer Module" and this is one of the rare cases where "Searching for update on the Internet" solves the problem.

3. Windows XP CDs

Recovery CDs are a bootable and a dumb Ghost image split into 2 CDs. 3 in total (so much for the DVD drive?). You can't go through XP installation options - everything is preconfigured for you. According to phone support, the only way the recovery CDs will work on a new hard drive is if it is pre-formatted as FAT32.

4. Mouse.

Rough, unpredictable, low resolution junk.

5. Hard drive setup.

Default is FAT32 on the hard drive split 50/50 onto two partitions. You can convert it to NTFS manually.

6. Feed-through-a-crack Apple-style CD-ROM drive.

Never tested with mini-sized CDs. Afraid to.

7. External displays

Can't connect third display. Only one external device can run at the same time with the laptop screen, either DVI or D-SUB.

8. Doesn't work with high performance low latency ram.

I tried to upgrade to 2GB of Patriot PEP1G2700SLL (2-2-2-5) and after a week of nice performance the system started to bluescreen. Had to put old memory back in.


Pros:
1. Somewhat unique looks.
2. Overall physical design quality.
3. Loaded with hardware features.
4. AMD 64-bit CPU with a potential to provide 64-bit drivers for Windows XP 64-bit (currently available on 4006 model).

Counclusion:
All the effort they put into styling, they should've put elsewhere. Seems like the laptop was built for a rich underage kid. You should buy this laptop only if two conditions are met:
1. You happen to be young or have perfect vision to deal with the native resolution or don't care about large/blurry fonts.
2. You are a computer dummy and don't mind sticking to the default configuration or a laptop guru who never needs support.
This laptop is not for designers becasue of the low-quality display.

I have the Acer Aspire 1710. I returned my laptop for a failed hard drive, on return the casing was smashed due to poor packing which forced me to again return the item. It was returned to me again finally after many phone calls (getting through was almost impossible as said by a previous poster) and letters (1 was responded to saying they new they had problems). On return (the second time) the USB ports x3 and the card reader still didnt work but I couldnt bring my self to send if off again (at this point it had been away around 2 months and was my main PC) even though it was still under warrenty and so for the past year have put up with the faults. Unfortunatly now the heatsink has failed and im sure this has something to do with the original damage as the laptop has been running very hot since the last incident (I bought a cooling mat which stopped the shutting down due to reaching 90 in some cases!). Im now faced with trying to replace the part or buy a new laptop which will certainly not be an Acer. Be warned if you go near this company the customer support is shockingly bad and the design of the laptops its pretty poor to.

People have posted that they have never had any problems and cant see what we are moaning about. I can only say a company is only as good as its customer service when you really need it and in Acers case they just cant cut it.

I bought my Ferrari 3000 in March of 2004. I would like to compliment Acer for a laptop which has outlasted my expectations on longevity. I use the machine 6 to 12 hours daily, weekends included. Light use to mostly heavy duty multitasking. Yes, the computer runs hot which means as a smart user I take this to account. I use it on proper surfaces which dissipate heat and allow it to cool as well as possible. The finnish climate and low room temperature (+18Celsius) aid this. I clean the fan and heatsink once a month. Most laptops have flimsy fans without multispeed and cheap metal heatsinks. My Ferrari 3000 has a fine copper sink and a two speed fan. The lower fan speed setting and the fact that the fan blows to the rear makes the machine very silent. I don't know what settings people use, but I don't allow the machine to use full processor speed if it's not needed. Like any Ferrari, you need to take care of your machine and use it smartly. You don't see a Ferrari covered in mud on the street either. One thing which kills laptops is poor quality electricity and this can be avoided technically if your country or home has fluctuating power. Eventho the last power disruption in my city was over ten years ago, I still use protection for every computer. The Ferrari saves money. I still don't need a replacement, but when the time comes, I'm buying Ferrari again. This huge "thank you to Acer" comes from a programmer who built his first machine in 1978. I only wish for future Ferrari's to have the fan blow to the rear as I alternate on which side I use the mouse and a fan on side is also louder.

Reply to FinnFan:

No disrespect but a programmer who uses XP home??? Try upgrade your computer to XP Pro and you will definitely find out what problems the rest of us are talking about.

If you prefer XP home but just for the sake of it want to experience at least some of the problems I could recommend you to install any Logitech keyboard and its software. Magic magic, ooh so tragic... No more BT.

I believe must of us who bought the “Ferrari 3000” two-three years ago bought it was because it was packed with good stuff. Little did we know that Acer support later on where going to tell us that “the Ferrari 3000 is only aimed to be used with XP Home, it is not compatible with XP Pro”.

Anyway, I hope you stay happy with your computer.

Thanks for asking.

A programmer can be doing many kinds of jobs. Naturally I use a desktop machine with XP Pro side by side with the Ferrari 3000. Knowing too well what Pro is like, why would I want it on my laptop? Everything I need the laptop to do can be achieved with Home. Pro offers no added functionality for me and I have better ways to spend my time than to start tweaking it. There is a limit how much time I'm willing to spend repairing other people's shoddy programs. Besides, buying more Windows licences isn't my idea of a good charity cause. I already payed for the Home. Had I not been satisfied with Home for my work, I would have most likely looked at some other laptop.

It is a separate issue that a lot of people are always willing to pay more to get a product that is labelled as professional, no matter if they need it or if it actually is any better than the regular one. Those people will also buy the Lamborghini laptop which is completely overpriced and underhorsepowered.

Certainly BT has issues, but that was always so. My current PDA and Cell however work well with the BT. Some of the very first BT gear that I got is very picky. It comes down to the Ferrari offering a lot more possibilities than limitations. I have completely dismantled my machine last week and have to say the manufacturing is great. I suppose I miss my Lego blocks too much and do crazy stuff like that. It was fun putting it back together... lol

I wonder when the 5000 series is coming out. My girlfriend is itching to get her hands on my 3000. Has to do with the red color of which there was not enough on the 4000 series. :)

My boyfriend and I bought Acer laptops almost a year ago. They both developed the same problems: freezing and not booting. I must say Acer is a very disappointing brand

The people who bought the 3000 series have my sympathy. I bought a 4005 series back in Oct 2005. Had a few graphics issues but managed to resolve this myself. Acer don't seem to be doing themselves any favours by not solving these problems. Had I read all these comments before I purchased, I probably wouldn't have bought Acer. Having said this the machine is now performing flawlessly. Overheating is common on most manufactures laptops and thats why I read several reviews before settlling on the 4005. I do hope Acer do something for all the people above as it would put me off recommending their Laptops to other people, including the 1000 students I teach.

I would just like to hijack this thread, as I know Acer 4005 owners will be looking at it in the future. I think there's a problem with the Ferrari 4005 video drivers concerning Half-Life 2. This can be corrected by downloading the ATI Omegadrivers version 3.8.231 from www.Omegadrivers.net. Look in the Archive section,

Sorry to hear about the problems the people here have been having, as you can see Acer are still screwing up the Ferrari 4000 series. However, this is fixable as stated above. No laptop manufacturer is perfect. If you're in the business of cramming a lot of technology into a small space then you are going to have problems. What makes you think Acer support is any worse than the others? They are all pretty bad. I hadn't seen this thread before I bought my 4005 (XP Home) a few months ago. Knowing all too well that any laptop with a graphics accelerator on board is probably going to overheat I read at least 10 reviews on the Acer Ferrari 4005. I have 5 of these reviews in my possession. And the upshot of these was as follows. Reviewer's comments first, (My comments in brackets).

Pro's

Excellent design.
(Stylish and practical looking, haven't got bored of it yet.)
Can play any current game.
(Omega equipped, it can now!!!). Far Cry, HL2, Doom 3.
Great Screen. (Can't argue with that.)
Good Battery Life.
(To tell the truth, I haven't used it much on battery.)
The best Wi-Fi you can get.
(You better believe it, and the antenna is all Acer's work!)
The best DVD RW you can get. (No problems so far.)

The Con's (Laughable)

Hard disk is only 5400 rpm.
(So what! Hasn't bothered me so far. Can be upgraded.)
Fan is constantly on.
(Really!!! What happens when you play Far Cry on your Desktop?)
Bluetooth mouse is crap.
(Agreed, it's a real shame I know how to use a touch pad!!!)

Now I will tell you what the real cons are. The rubber keyboard surround attracts dust and grime but this is easily solved with a damp cloth (water only). Yes, the multi-speed fan is constantly on when doing any task. This does not bother me, but I can see it might bother some people. I might say at this point that if I had the choice of a laptop that stays silent and gets blazing hot on your lap, I'd still go with the fan noise every time. If the fan is working the computer is not going to overheat, it's not going to crash, it's not going to damage the internal circuit boards, and it's not going to burn you.

I will say that with the Omegadrivers installed, my machine has never crashed no matter what I am doing with it (This is more than I can say for my desktop at work).
For the last month and a half, I have had nothing but ‘blissful computing', something I though I would never experience under any Windows operating system (laptop or desktop, it's a miracle!). Maybe they've ironed out the bugs in XP as well.

Now you're probably thinking ‘something's got to go wrong'. Don't care if it does, and do you know why? A week ago I was over at the Windows update site and I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and I clicked on the wrong update and accidentally installed an update for Office 2003 when I'm using Office 2000. So every time I switch the computer on Windows keeps bugging me to install the update, and I try, and it doesn't work (because I've got the wrong version), and I've got the same problem every time I start Windows. Because the update has been downloaded but not actually installed I couldn't remove the thing. I also installed Directx 9c which didn't do as well as the original version that came with the machine (and to my knowledge you cannot return to a previous version of Directx). So in the space of one day I have gone from computing bliss to the brink of a nightmare. But it isn't a nightmare, because Acer included a copy of Symantic Ghost with the machine and I was smart enough to realise when my machine was performing well, and made a Backup of everything to the D:\ drive a week before. In fact, all credit to Acer, their recovery system really is top class. So I recalled the backup and in less than 30 minutes everything was reinstalled back to my ‘blissful computing' world.

Now, I want to give everyone a warning and this is probably the best place to do it. You may or may not know that Microsoft is about to sell us the same product twice. It's called Windows Vista and it's coming to a 64bit processor near you. So desperate are they for you to buy this, they are releasing one of their top games (Halo 2) exclusively on Windows Vista. Prepare for your children to run up to you and ask you for Vista.

Microsoft, we've seen your upgrade packages before and it is the public that has to pay dearly for them. There is absolutely no way on earth I am installing an operating system that could possibly screw up my computer when it works fine with the operating system I already have. I am not buying Windows Vista, I am not buying Halo 2. I am going to stay in my ‘blissful computing' world.

I am so happy with the system I currently have that I am confidently turning off the Windows automatic update system so that no future updates can screw it up.

Now Ferrari 4000 owners pay attention. Yes, you have a 64bit processor and Windows Vista is designed for you. If you really want to install Vista, make sure you use the backup facility to ghost an image of your XP system over to your D:\ drive. That way, should the worst happen you could go back to your former XP set-up that you know worked. If any Ferrari 4005 owners install Vista, maybe you would like to report back to this thread and tell us what experience you have.

Now for the bit that you may not want to hear, and the point that Hooks (Reply#17) could have put with slightly more sympathy. Given the fact that the 3000 series was released at the end of 2003 (and the vast majority of posts here concern that particular model), doesn't it strike you as odd that there should have been more complaints here if Acer were so bad at making laptops. This thread has been going for 14 months and we have all found each other so easily. When you realise that Acer are the third or fourth largest laptop manufacturer in the world there are not many complaints here given the number of machines they must have sold over the past 5 years. I actually know two people whose Acer laptops have gone on for more than five years to this day without a problem (and these machines have been used practically every day). I am not Acer obsessed, my other laptop is a 6-year-old NEC, a bit out of date, but I still use it for general office tasks.

Don't get me wrong here. The 3000 series obviously has a design problem and the SP2 upgrade probably didn't help any. I think there may also be a software control issue with this model; see Dirk (Reply#34). This thread has served its purpose to warn people about these issues.

We have all bought products that have let us down at some point in our lives, but the test for the manufacturer is to not make the same mistake in the future. If the 4000 series is anything to go by, there has been a significant improvement especially as far as the heat dispersal is concerned. So maybe what is said on this thread is being listened to down at Acer. Based on my current computer and those old ones owned by my friends I would buy Acer again. People buy Dell because of the advertising, not because their computers are anything special. But if you actually ask people ‘What laptop should I buy?' the answer usually comes back ‘Acer'. I hate saying this kind of thing without proof, so I'm going to give you some.

I suggest you go over to Google and type what's below; if you include the speech marks it will find the exact phrase. Where xxxx represents the name of the manufacturer.

“problem with my xxxx laptop”

These are the search results I get with Google safe search turned off. 3rd June 2006.

Toshiba 83 pages
Dell 79 pages
Hp 48 pages
Sony 20 pages
IBM 17 pages
Acer 12 pages

If you want to buy another manufacturer, be my guest. The proof is staring you in the face. Interestingly, ‘Hooks' had trouble with the first three on the list. Enough said!