Acer TravelMate 6592 warranty and Vista issues queries

patwa_2

Hi,

Would anyone happen to know the options available for warranties on Acer Travelmate notebooks? I have a Travelmate 6592 which I bought in October 2007. The warranty expired in October 2008.

For the most part the laptop is working fine and I would envisage continuing to use it for some time. Today I contacted Acer as the Euro and Dollar keys on the keyboard aren't working (they used to work when XP was installed, but since installing Windows Vista they no longer work) and was told I'd need to send it to an assessment centre for which there would be a charge. They didn't even offer any solution re: drivers, or even advise what the problem could be even though I gave all the info I had to them in my e-mail.

I figure it makes more economic sense to buy a warranty for the unit rather than face excessive charges every time there is an issue or I want to ask a question. Can this be done and what would I be entitled to?

Thanks for any help. In addition, has anyone with an Acer Travelmate 6592 or similar had any problems with things not working if they installed Vista as a new installation when the unit was originally shipped with XP? I've installed all the Vista drivers I could download from the Acer website.

ghale

try checking the keyboard options in the control panel and ensure its set to the UK (qwerty) layout befroe you go spending any money, sometimes it can just be down to one of Vista's "quirks"

Baldur

http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/content/AcerAdvantageTerms.htm

Formality of purchase
AcerAdvantage must be activated within 360 days from the Notebook purchase date, this term is reduced to 90 days from date of purchase if the accidental damages are covered.
The purchase date must be documented by an invoice or sales receipt and copy sent to Acer.

patwa_2

Hi,

No go on the keyboard front, all set to UK English. One thing though, the keyboard appears as a standard PS2 keboard which is fairly generic. Is that right or should there be additional information there indicating a driver is missing? The hotkeys work fine though for e-mail, etc.

Ah, looks like I've missed the boat for Acer Advantage then. I take there is therefore no add-on warranty I can purchase now so I'm just left to use it until dead and then buy another laptop?

Thanks again. Any more tips are much appreciated.

Baldur

patwa wrote: »

One thing though, the keyboard appears as a standard PS2 keboard which is fairly generic.

My Acer shows the same under Vista and works correctly.

patwa_2

It's a miracle! After looking through my Acer box this afternoon and not finding a CD, consequently realising the only way to recover the system was using the recovery partition, and after giving serious consideration to ditching Vista and returning to XP even though it'd make my life more miserable than it already is, I decided to have one last bash at trying to solve the problem within Vista.

I copied the entire folder for this laptop off the Acer FTP site, and then reinstalled all the drivers I could find for Vista SP1 over the ones already installed. I also updated the BIOS on a whim using the latest one from the Vista folder (as opposed to the latest one from the XP folder even though I don't know if using the XP or Vista one makes a difference).

Lo and behold, I accidentally pressed one of the keys just now, and it's working! €€$$€€$. Just tried in Word 2007 and notepad, and it's working!

Needless to say both Nicole (the laptop - yes I know I have this odd habit of naming all my things) and I are happy. Now to fix the battery and I'm rolling. Thanks to all your suggestions. I wish I could isolate which one of the reinstallations did it, or maybe it was the BIOS (how odd that the BIOS should fix it when the rest of the keyboard was fine?) but I'm not going to tempt fate by trying to undo anything I did just to find that out.

With regard to the warranty, I've seen some Acer Advantage packs selling through a Froogle search and some say they support Travelmate notebooks. If I bought one of these, could I use this as a warranty?