New Acer Nitro 515-57-54ZA Owner

Alley Cat on 01/12/2021 - 15:32

Hi forum,

Thanks to this deal, I got the laptop to replace my faulty NUC11. This should probably go to whirlpool, but since the deal was on ozb, it might be more relevant here.

The deal from HN has finished, and the unit price has gone back up to $1598.

Just wanting to share that mine is on 2x32g ram, contrary to what's listed on the spec, and it's also pretty easy to open the case: use a physical gift card! Haven't found out how to swap the NVMe without having to reinstall Windows yet, maybe that's not possible.

So far the speakers are poor, can't hear anything with this heavy rain going. Haven't tried any games yet, but very happy that I could reuse all the parts from my NUC, and I'm not sure if it's more mobile than a NUC to be honest. The keyboard is not easy to use, the power adapters are about the same size as the NUC lol But going from Iris XE to 3060 is huge…

Last thing, if you are ever buying stuff from HN, do C&C. Saves at least half an hour you'd otherwise waste with the salesman.

Computing Acer Computer Gaming Laptop Laptop

Comments

  • MS Paint on 01/12/2021 - 15:51
    +2

    Thanks.

    I think.

  • websterp on 01/12/2021 - 17:04

    Ok.

    I guess.

  • OverburdenedWarrior on 01/12/2021 - 17:04

    It's a great laptop, loving mine so far. If you do go the reinstall windows route, you'll need to include the NVMe drivers on the same USB so you can direct the installer to them for it to detect the NVMe drive.

    Edit: If you go with a Windows 11 fresh install and wanted to do a local account (Windows 11 Home doesn't allow it anymore), you can enter these details to trigger an error that allows you to set up a local account:

    Email: [email protected]
    Password: 1

    • Alley Cat on 01/12/2021 - 19:18

      Couldn't find my USB keys to make the Windows image lol… Will have to get one from store tomorrow to do it.

      Huh that's interesting. I had to associate Windows 10 to my old Skype account in case I couldn't activate on a fresh install, it was such a struggle then I realised that's always been the case with Apple so it can't be that bad >_>

      • OverburdenedWarrior on 02/12/2021 - 01:00

        The main reason to set up a local account first would be to set the computer's username (in my case, Mark). If you log straight into a Microsoft account it'll take the first five letters from the email address to function as the username (So, my user folder would show JCJCH instead of Mark).

        Not a major issue, but it drives me crazy that it doesn't ask you to set one after signing into a Microsoft account during the setup. Once installed you can go into Settings > Accounts > Your Info to sign in with your Microsoft account to activate Windows. This signs you in as normal and allows you to keep your assigned username.

        • Alley Cat on 04/12/2021 - 12:21

          well, the MS account has been a fail, I just managed to switch back to a local account. For some reason the PIN fails after waking up from sleep, and then I had to restart the computer just to use the PIN to get in. Tired of doing this so deleted that account and only using a local one with a lot simpler password. It could be because I have very strict firewall rules and it tries to connect to the Internet to authenticate the PIN, which shouldn't be the case, but after 25 years of beta testing MS products, it doesn't really surprise me and I don't have the will to figure it out lol

          • OverburdenedWarrior on 04/12/2021 - 12:33

            @Alley Cat: Did you set it up to auto sign you in with the pin? I had a similar issue. I found that if the laptop was running via wifi it would fail to auto sign-in because it takes place before the wifi connects. I didn't have much more luck direct-connecting it via ethernet either though, so no clue on that one. It doesn't make sense as when you set up the registery tweaks for it you assign it the correct username/password, so it shouldn't need to authenticate via the net, but as you said, it's Microsoft so it doesn't suprise me either.

            You can set it not to require the PIN after waking up from sleep, but I'd only advise that if you don't plan on leaving home with it.

            • Alley Cat on 04/12/2021 - 12:46

              @OverburdenedWarrior: I don't know if that's what it was trying to do, auto sigh in. But it explicitly says the PIN is a local thing somewhere. I use it in the office, just need a password but only minimum security in case random people walks over send emails from my account lol Having the local account resolves this, hopefully. What problem is PIN trying to solve anyway? I can understand it as placeholder for face or finger print authentication, but laptops have full keyboards, having PIN makes it a security risk because people like me like to reuse the same digits on different things…

  • CVonC on 17/12/2021 - 02:23

    I'm also running 2x32gb but not 3200MHz (Corsair Vengeance 2xr8 2666MHz 18-18-18-43). What are you running?

    Also, not sure if you've seen my comment regarding storage issues with a Crucial MX500. But it might be useful to know.

    One more thing, when I select the "High Performance" power profile in Acer Nitro Sense, the laptop would weirdly throttle down to 800MHz after about 10 mins of playing Left 4 Dead 2. CPU temps were only 80C too. If I select "Balanced (Acer Optimised)" as the power profile then it's all good.

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