Aldi laptop any good ?

[trees a green]

thanks all not got round to burning a dvd yet is nero6 better (got it)still not upgraded bios yet emailed msi see if thay could help ill try keep u posted ta ta

 

[robonz]

latest with my non RW DVD drive. i have been emailing a tech support guy at gericom. it seems like my DVD is faulty. he wanted me to reinstall windows including all drivers and applications to see if that sorted it out. i don't see why i should have to do this and besides my experiences with reinstalling windows tells me it could take ages to get back to where you started and in this case i dont think it will make any difference.

my original post was made by ken for me as i had trouble registering with this forum, all sorted now. ken bought one when it was £999. he was well pissed when i told him it was £799 in sales just weeks later and might buy if he thought he was still very happy with his. he was so i got one. i have been really happy with it aslo. i even worked out for myself it was only the protective peel off cover that was all scratched up! - they really should have put a sticker one it saying so, similar to the sticker indicating where the open lid button was. all is fine except the DVD RW drive will not burn any kind of disk. all my burning software including my own install of nero stated that was no writer drive available. when i attached my external CD-RW drive it was detected it no problems.

as recommended here i uninstalled the driver and let windows redect and install appropriate driver. it installed the same QSI DVD-ROM SDR-083 driver. it should be QSI DVDRW SDW-042

i asked ken if he had burnt any disks, unfortunately he had not yet tried. so i asked him to. he wasn't able. same problem though the driver appeared to be the correct one. he came over to let me have ago. i could not get it to work either. we atached my external CD-RW drive and it worked fine, providing that the built in drive was not being detected as a writer driver.

please any who has bought this laptop please try burning some disks and report your finding here. it should be able to write CD-R, CD-Rw, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW disks.

ken rang tech support last week and they came and took his away for testing/repair. he still has not heard back.

i am wondering whether to get gericom to sort mine out or take it back to aldi for full refund. if i give to gericom, how long will it take and will it come back all sorted. i feel it might be best just to demand my money back from aldi and search for a new laptop? will decide what to in next couple of days.

 

[robonz]

also for those with this laptop do check via Device Manager of doenload everest home edition and find out if you have the correct driver installed.

 

[trees a green]

hi =sorry to here u having trouble my drive says qsi dvd rw.sdw-02 and vobib instant drive cd scsi cdrom device looks like 2 one d drive the other e drive so any one help not got a clue = ta

 

[wavygravy]

take it back get a full refund, thats what i did.
zouls is getting a fj amilo laptop, see what he rekons when he gets one if there ok then thats what ill probably get too.

 

[wavygravy]

zoulz have you got that amilo yet?
whats it like?

 

[trivialelephant]

I have recently bought a Gericom Ego and am pleased with it, but I find that when I plug in the headphoes, the laptop speakers still work. Any ideas as to how I can tun them off when using headphones?

 

[trees a green]

hi =r u using a stereo jack plug+not in the mike socket +doo the ear phones work in the fist place=sorry to b a bit basic

 

[ChristopherP]

Do your speakers have a seperate volume control? if so, try turning that down and seeing if that has any affect on the headphones...

 

[coolchris555k]

I have had my laptop 3 months now and its been fine except having to be returned to have the dvd burner replaced. It was collected and returned in 4 days. I live in Notts and repairs carried out in London. It was sent via East Mids Airport and the Engineer telephoned me whilst fixing it to explain the problem. I spoke with Gericom a couple of days ago and they said it should have a QSI SDW-042 DVD burner.

Q. Does anyone still have the flyer advertising the Gericom Ego Laptop, the reason i ask is it gives the full spec of the dvd burner...which i would like if anyone knows it.....read/write speeds of all the types of media.

 

[trivialelephant]

hi =r u using a stereo jack plug+not in the mike socket +doo the ear phones work in the fist place=sorry to b a bit basic

The headphones are stereo and work fine with a desktop machine and I can hear through them. I only discovered that the laptop speakers were still operating when I took the headphones off to answer the phone.

 

[trivialelephant]

Do your speakers have a seperate volume control? if so, try turning that down and seeing if that has any affect on the headphones...

I have been looking for a separate volume control, or a button to click on to turn off speakers when using a headset, but without success. Someone did suggest that the jackplug may not be long enough to reach the end of the socket and that he thought that that was where the hardware detected that a jack plug was connected. I always thought that those plugs were a standard length.

 

[robonz]

Hi Chris,

I have a flyer for the sale on 27th Dec. All it says is that its a

"Multi Format DVD Burner DVD+-R/RW"

When your laptop got sent to London, have you got a name and phone number for the engineer in London. it would very useful to be able to speak to him.

 

[trivialelephant]

I have been looking for a separate volume control, or a button to click on to turn off speakers when using a headset, but without success. Someone did suggest that the jackplug may not be long enough to reach the end of the socket and that he thought that that was where the hardware detected that a jack plug was connected. I always thought that those plugs were a standard length.

11/01/05 I tried a different set of headphones and the laptop speakers switched off! Perhapse there is a difference in the jack plugs - though they look the same.

 

[Adywebb]

I have had my laptop 3 months now and its been fine except having to be returned to have the dvd burner replaced. It was collected and returned in 4 days. I live in Notts and repairs carried out in London. It was sent via East Mids Airport and the Engineer telephoned me whilst fixing it to explain the problem. I spoke with Gericom a couple of days ago and they said it should have a QSI SDW-042 DVD burner.

Q. Does anyone still have the flyer advertising the Gericom Ego Laptop, the reason i ask is it gives the full spec of the dvd burner...which i would like if anyone knows it.....read/write speeds of all the types of media.

Have a look at this link to ths QSI websit regarding the SDW-042 - it gives all the relevent speeds and info about it: http://www.qsinc.com.tw/qsi/Official_Product_en.

For info I have been using various makes of 4 x DVD-Rs with the Ritek G04 dye (Only writes at 2x but its what I already use for my desktop), and various make multispeed CD-Rs (TDK, Verbatim, FWS) so far with no problem.
Also this drive is an 'Ultra Speed' CD-RW so make sure you use the correct type, I would suggest Verbatim, although I should mention I have had success with some Verbatim 'High Speed' CD-RW's I already had for use on my desktop burner.

 

[coolchris555k]

Hi Chris,

I have a flyer for the sale on 27th Dec. All it says is that its a

"Multi Format DVD Burner DVD+-R/RW"

When your laptop got sent to London, have you got a name and phone number for the engineer in London. it would very useful to be able to speak to him.

Sorry I do not have the number as I have changed mobiles recently and it would have been in my recent calls last. The reason I was asking about the flyer was to assure myself the correct drive was fitted. I just had it in my head it was an 8x writer but it appears I probably misread it and it turns out to be 8x dvd-rom and only 2x dvd-r/4x dvd+r. Also which dvd-r do you use? I have tried some 8x dvd-r from CD-RMedie.co.uk, their own brand (green top), but have had mixed results, the dvd writes ok but my Pioneer stand alone says it cannot play!

 

[coolchris555k]

Have a look at this link to ths QSI websit regarding the SDW-042 - it gives all the relevent speeds and info about it: http://www.qsinc.com.tw/qsi/Official_Product_en.

For info I have been using various makes of 4 x DVD-Rs with the Ritek G04 dye (Only writes at 2x but its what I already use for my desktop), and various make multispeed CD-Rs (TDK, Verbatim, FWS) so far with no problem.
Also this drive is an 'Ultra Speed' CD-RW so make sure you use the correct type, I would suggest Verbatim, although I should mention I have had success with some Verbatim 'High Speed' CD-RW's I already had for use on my desktop burner.

Where do you get your media from and which software do you use. I have been using CD-R Media.co.uk's own brand 8x dvd-r using DVD Shrink3.2 in conjunction with Nero 6. I have mixed results so far but it is still early days.

 

[Adywebb]

Where do you get your media from and which software do you use. I have been using CD-R Media.co.uk's own brand 8x dvd-r using DVD Shrink3.2 in conjunction with Nero 6. I have mixed results so far but it is still early days.

I get my media from either CD-R Media like yourself, or SVP Communications ( www.blankdiscshop.co.uk ) - it all depends on availability and price. I don't know what type of dye the CD-R Media own brand uses, but I have found that DVDs with the Ritek dye (G04/G05) seem to have good compatability with most makes of DVD players. Also I don't know how compatible using 8x dvd-r on a 2x burner would be. I use Nero 6 together with DVD Region-Free.
I should mention that when I got the laptop I immediately re-formatted the hard drive to get rid of all the pre-loaded software and re-loaded with Windows XP Pro and the software I wanted. That way I know I'm getting a nice clean start with no deleted program remnants lying around.
At the moment all is well and I seem to be getting good fast performance.

 

[Zoulz]

Hey Wavy

i got the amilo a 1630 the basic version from laptopsdirect.
And its working a treat, not sure what exactly you would like to know, but my msn is (e-mail address removed) if you have some questions at all.

Mike

 

[Shuya]

Anybody know if Aldi will have a new laptop in any time soon? I might get this one, but I don't want a new/better version comming out the day after. Thanks