Acer Aspire L310 Review
The slim and sleek body of the Aspire L310 looks amazing, but be prepared to sacrifice (hardware) upgrade potential if you opt for one of these compact babies. Well, that’s obvious enough. So, what else did CNET say in their review of one of Acer’s latest desktops:
The Aspire L310 works as a trim, affordable computer that will also serve light home-theater-PC duties. It doesn’t offer as much room for improvement as its competition, but as long as you don’t have plans for upgrading or running Windows Vista full bore, this system will serve you well.
Around US$850 for a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB DDRII RAM (max. 2GB), and a 250GB hard disk seems pretty good (among the big names at least), but note that it doesn’t come with a DVD writer or a dedicated graphics card of any sort. Of course, it is a small-form-factor PC, so I guess we weren’t supposed to expect too much, right?
P.S.: There doesn’t seem to be much stock of it online yet, at least, compared to the HP Pavilion Slimlines.
February 12th, 2007 06:34
It does have a DVD writer.
February 22nd, 2007 12:31
It DOES run Vista Aero! Has a overall Vista experience rating of 3.2.
June 12th, 2007 18:59
I’ve just got an L100 for my daughter (same form factor and not a bad machine, overall rating 3.0 but only let down by the 3D graphics)
If the L310 is anything like the L100 in terms of fan control forget every using it in a quiet room. I’m going to give this thing until the weekend and then take it back if I don’t get any joy from Acer customer support (been waiting 2 days now for a response) – I’m hoping it’s a simple BIOS or driver fix but it’s unworkable noisy when teh CPU gets over about 30% the fans sounds like an aircraft taking off
June 13th, 2007 21:48
I got one and the CPU overheats. They now make the design with TWO fans. They must know it has a problem with heat on the older or one purchased 3 months ago. Mine is in need of repair already!
August 26th, 2007 17:47
mine has vista home basic as on OS, what a bummer it can’t play DVD’s and Aero won’t work…overall, it sucks
March 31st, 2008 08:39
My L310 has two fans and has been in for rrepair three times now (November, January and now). The CPU still over heats and dies, eventually corrupting the hard drive. The tech support replaced the mother board the first time. The second time they replaced the hard drive and a hard drive cable. When I received it back the CD/DVD drive was not connected, I had to reconnect it to install my software. Overall I am not impressed with this model and would NOT recommend one, or purchase another Acer.
July 19th, 2008 06:38
I, too, have one of these L310 models (ASL310-ED630M). At the beginning of the week it froze after an automatic update. It couldn’t be controlled with keyboard or mouse (no access to task manager). I turned it off via power button but not it will not boot up. It does power up but no video signal or beeps of any type. I have taken out all component and reseated them – still no difference. Frankly, I don’t want pay $130 to be told it needs a couple of hundred dollars worth of parts. For that, I’ll just spend couple hundred more and buy a brand new namebrand pc with extended warranty (acer has such poor customer service). Has anyone had an experience similar to mine and would you care to share how you resolved it?
Thank you in advance for your responses.
August 17th, 2008 18:33
I feel your pain Fran. I had that happened to me too. I changed the motherboard after the same symptoms. It is overheating and I believe that heat was the reason it broke last time. I looked inside and there is a major design flaw in it. There are 4 heat sources inside (at least in mine) 2 chips on the motherboard, the hard drive and of course the CPU. Everything being so compact there is not enough room to dissipate the heat and the only possible way to get it out is through the CPU radiator and the 2 fans. Now, those 2 chips on the motherboard are so hot I cannot hold my fingers on them for 1 second.
Obviously all that heat going through the CPU radiators is not good, idle temperatures being around 55 degrees Celsius.
Currently i am using it opened with the hard drive and DVD drive assembly out of the case and I have another fan placed over one of the 2 hot chips.
It is safe to assume that I will never get anything that says ACER on it.
J
October 29th, 2008 18:36
Aye, that must be my problem, then. Mine is also an L310 model (ASL310-UC352B), and it seemed to be having an issue with the video card. A few days ago the screen froze, and now I don’t have any display at boot-up, and no system beep, either. The guys at the linux forums told me it’s probably damage to the video card or the motherboard, but of course the computer isn’t worth the cost to repair it. I’ll need to rescue all my data from the hard drive now, and get another computer. The damn thing only lasted a year.
November 4th, 2008 13:35
Yes we had 2 of the l310 and one lasted about 13 months and the other lasted about 18 months, total crap. all had the exact same problem turn the unit off or reboot and the units will not turn back on fans would run but power button light would not come on or no video output either total junk never buy acer there support sucks seems like a class action here. any could lawyers out there?
November 9th, 2008 21:40
problem:downgrading from VISTA to XP and cant install sound, video, monitor drivers
i bought a l310 last april 2007 (its nov 2008) now and it still running ok. but you see when i bought this in taiwan (im in philippines now) the “cowboy” seller from the shop already pre-installed a vista home premium in it and man it’s hard to talk with them. pipol their cant talk much english. anyway my bad. when i am here i found out that their is no vista CD in the box! all in the box was monitor drivers, the acer installers, but not fucking vista CD. so what happens if the OS get’s bad. it will get bad anyway from the daily usage. this is not LINUX!! hahaha dis is microsoft. so i know it will bug down soon. so oh well, i can’t play my old games with vista. it sucks. this OS (vista) sucks. and actually my Vista is already giving me a lot of problems after more than a year of use. i got stucked with it coz i dont have any licensed copy of Vista, i dont have a vista cd remember? so i cant re-install again my OS. then i cant access some of my files, it requires an administator to go on some folders, etc. heck i am the administrator my foot. CTRL-ALT-DEL doesnt work anymore and i just gave up with this Vista bitch. so I decided to go back to Windows XP. and HERE COMES THE CATCH!!! now, i have been changing OS since i was a kid. in fact i was part of the generation that witnessed the start of microsoft operating system “ouch.” the DOS3.1 until now (vista) so i pretty much know about formatting, partition, etc. anyway, the problem i found out with this ASPIRE L310 slim desktop PC is that after i have installed my XP operating system, the XP OS cant install or detect the built in graphics from intel (and the sound card!!!! OH YEAH. I cant even install my LG monitor!!! trust me. the “Properties” in the control panel was disabled!!! what the f*ck is this! i was surprised. only this time i encountered such problem! so i was just stucked
with the default graphics properties given by XP and so icant play my GAMES again!!!
darn. that is basically i reverted back from vista to XP is that to be able to play my games.
anyway, after 3nights (i know its that long) of trial and error. i was able to solve the problem. and what i did was to FORCE install the driver: INTEL driver (get it from ACER website) once you get the intel driver, you can then install the display adapter and your monitor. with XP you can play more games rather than with Vista. I also notice that the games run faster with XP. if you are having the same problem with me, which is downgrading from VISTA to XP and cant install sound, video, monitor drivers then email me at moileung@hotmail.com i will tell you the play-by-play i did. remember this is free. i wont charge any fee.