Comments on: Acer AspireRevo AR1600-U910H Black/White Desktop PC

By: Bryan P. Brentwood

Bryan P. Brentwood — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:09:06 +0000

I gotta tell you, this little pc is about the size of a linksys router.It just blows me away how small this is. Man, what a little power house! I hooked it up via hdmi to my 46 Panasonic for a little media pc. It loads faster than I expected. It has windows XP sp3, SD card reader, audio-mic ports in front, 4 USB ports in back. No optical drive. Were the heck would they put it!! There is a SATA port in the front to do a external, maybe a Blue Ray, or have a tandem hard drive. It is equipped with a 160GB with 1 GB RAM. As far as streaming video on sites like Hulu and Netflix, surprisingly the intel Atom processor doesn’t skip a beat. For $199 this little pc gives a good bang for a buck.

By: latt

latt — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:41:52 +0000

This is a great machine for what it’s designed for. I was looking for a small form factor machine to replace several larger desktops that have reached the end of their life-cycle. I was just about to invest in a Mac Mini when I came across this machine. At 7″ this machine is small, light, and quiet. It’s energy efficient and is perfect for the new user who doesn’t do any tasks that require large amounts of memory or processing speed. We connected the machines to our LCD TVs and added a wireless keyboard and mouse and away we went. I’m glad Acer decided to go with the XP OS because I have a Netbook and the Vista OS is horrible for that form factor. If you’re looking for a high-end machine to do memory intensive tasks then this machine may not be for you. But if you’re looking for a machine to surf the net, sent emails, write papers and prepare presentations, then you should seriously consider this machine. With 6 USB ports you will have plenty of room for expansion prior to adding a USB hub. It has gigabit Ethernet built in so if you have a wired network, you’re all set. The only thing I would have liked this machine to have is wireless built in. I added a USB wireless card and it works well, but at the cost of using a USB port. Again, despite not having wireless, this machine is a “steal” for the price!!!

By: D. Berkowitz

D. Berkowitz — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:33:14 +0000

Was excited to set this machine up with the sole purpose of being an HTPC. Inside the packaging it comes with a supplemental instruction page explaining how to change the AUDIO OUT from realtek to nvidia HD sound.

HOWEVER, this option was not visible when plugged into our Philips 52" Display.

A call to acer was a waste of an hour which resulted in a call routed overseas and was of no help.
A call to nvidia went to level 2 tech support and they had no idea either.

after searching around the internet for "nvidia no HDMI audio support" I learned this was a common problem, especially with Philips TVs.

Then, in the driver release for nvidia's ion LE version 191.07 (page 25) I found this excerpt

Using HDMI/DisplayPort Displays that do not Support Audio
Some HDMI/DisplayPort displays do not support audio, or have issues with current
NVIDIA graphics cards.
The NVIDIA driver attempts to identify such displays and automatically disables the
audio. For example, the NVIDIA driver disables HMDI audio for all Philips HDMI
TVs, as these have been identified as having issues with current NVIDIA graphics
cards.
There may be cases where either the driver disables audio even though there is no
problem, or does not disable the audio when in fact the audio does not work. The
following sections describe these situations and provides guidance for handling them.

Nvidia is aware of this problem enough to print this in a driver release but not enough to know over the phone or find a solution.

It would have been nice for Nvidia not to block philips tv's and let you try it for yourself. This EXACT TV works perfectly with an e-machines using an ATI board so it's 100% not the TV that is not working.

It is with this that I caution anyone looking to purchase this machine to be used as an HTPC to make sure your exact TV will support HDMI Audio Out with the nvidia board.

***UPDATE***
I purchased a Pioneer VSX-819 Receiver to run the audio from the HTPC to the TV and it works. If anyone has an issue with their TV, spending a few hundred extra gets you a work around.

By: Patrick Sprunger

Patrick Sprunger — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:27:31 +0000

This is a steel. So many people buy computers with a lot of extra stuff they dont need. This is priced great and will do any web surfing, Word processing and email for far less money. I watch netflix on demand and it works great. I added 1 gig more memory just for good measure and boosted the internet explorer priority in the processes screen and hulu is very watchable as well as the network tv websites. Add a wireless keyboard like i did and compute from the couch on your big screen tv. Its a great computer for an even better price

By: Denise Cappellano

Denise Cappellano — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:46:03 +0000

I hate to sound nieve but just purchased for my son’s birthday and think I have made a big mistake. Nothing in the Product Details states you have to have a monitor or tv. I thought it was all you need. Am I missing something. Another thing is there are no detailed instructions.