The Acer Iconia Tab W500…Hmmm Upgrades…

Posted by Ratan Phamber on

So for all you slightly more tech savvy dudes…and dudesses…of course, I thought i’d do another blog about upgrading the Acer Iconia Tab W500P. Now there isn’t much you can upgrade, however trust me when i say it makes all the difference. Small number of upgrades and big improvements. I had been wanting to put 64-bit Windows 7 as soon as i saw it online and read all the specs a million times…ok that’s silly, not that much…2 million times. But i thought i’d wait for a new hard drive before doing this and then see a whopping mega improvement whereby it transforms and drives me to work and then flies me to the moon and makes cheese on toast. Yikes! Shouldn’t have said that, now i have to open up a bag of grated cheese to eat while i type this…Ok there ready. Seriously, the improvements aren’t enough to make you kiss a monkey on the butt…except for you monkey reader; but they are BIG improvements. For starters the original 32GB hard drive installed i believe runs at 30 Mbps write speed and 160 Mbps read speed. This upgrades to 500 Mbps write speed and 540 Mbps read speed, apparently the fastest mSata SSD on the market. Trust me once installed, you feel it (the power of the tablet that is). Bare in mind all drivers from Acer’s website work in 64-bit EXCEPT for Wifi drivers and the gyroscope tablet rotate drivers. For Wifi it is perfectly fine because Windows Updater finds it for you and when updated, Wifi is back. However know that currently the screen rotation function is currently not supported in 64-bit. It should be soon…right? Acer?

Upgrading Time

RunCore Pro V T50

RunCore Pro V T50

So first thing was to pre-order the latest “RunCore Pro V T50 6GB mSata III 120GB SSD” After a month from “AsiaTechTrade“, due to the delay of the drive, not the company, my drive came home, with an additional 4GB key shaped USB as a gift for the pre-order delay -Got to say i was pleased of their generosity. After licking the USB several times to see if it was really water resistant, i decided to open up the tablet with only a detail lacking video to go by. The one thing this video mentions but doesn’t show clearly is that the tablet has no screws holding the back cover, but very weak and brittle CLIPS holding it together, and about 20 of them too. So i began by doing the following steps.

NOTE: I am not responsible for any damage caused. It is difficult to do even with confidence. BE VERY CAREFUL. If you still wish to do it, then pretend you are operating on a balloon… a touch screen balloon that runs windows 7.

  1. I removed any additional components e.g. SD Card, and opened the SD card cover.
  2. I used a piece of flat plastic. Mines was a baby sized chip fork like spoon. It’s important to be plastic to caused none or minimal cosmetic damage.
  3. The first one is always a nightmare and in this case it was. I pried the plastic into the SD slot area and in between the cover and front case.
  4. Once the first clip was out i worked my way up to the volume buttons and to the corner. The best i noticed was to pry the plastic in and wobble it up and down firmly but gently, and eventually the clip gave way without breaking. Before i managed to find this easier technique i managed to crack one tiny part of one clip. That’s how easy it happens, but it was a small one so a little glue and it was unnoticeable. And careful not to pry the plastic in too deep. You don’t want to touch anything inside.
  5. With the new technique of wobbling the plastic, it took from 20 minutes on the SD slot area to about 10cm up and then the rest of the tablet with the wobbling technique took 10 minutes…awesome!
  6. And pop, it just popped off.

The inside was amazing, nice and puzzle like. The SSD had a silver foil over it which i peeled off and unscrewed the one single screw holding the drive. I unscrewed it and easily pulled it out and replaced it with the new one, making sure that i put the foil back over it the exact same way. From here i noticed the RAM and i was like “Nooooooooo!” The 2GB RAM is soldered onto the board. Which means for me, if i want to upgrade, which if you want you can, i’ll have to send it to Acer. And you know what that means…Money Money Money! Anyway once the new drive was in i just placed the cover over appropriately and with gentle taps popped the clips back in, which was easy as cheese (which is easier than pie or cake…..or peanuts).

Turned it on and ERROR! Not too worry, the drive has no operating system on it. I connected to an external drive and inserted my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. You may need to check the BIOS settings to read from the Disc Drive or activate F12 for boot options during booting screen. It booted from disc and took about 20-30 minutes to install Windows. Voila! An Acer Iconia Tab W500P with Windows 7 64-bit. And that’s when you notice that the tablet has sped up dramatically. To me it feels like more than double. And when the Windows Experience Rating was checked, originally it was 2.7 due to the processor but now it was 2.8. It actually made the processor think it is faster. Here’s the rest of the Rating, prepare to be amazed, especially the graphics.

Acer Iconia Tab W500P Windows Experience Rating

Acer Iconia Tab W500P Windows Experience Rating

Gaming graphics on 5.5…that’s wow, and this is only a tablet. Not only do the 120GB mSata SSD and 64-bit OS work together with the Dual Core processor to work faster, but the SSD is so good (running at under 2W) but this also means increased battery life which isn’t like 10 hours more, but you can feel it. One expensive upgrade and everything upgrades with it. Programs like Photoshop, Microsoft Office 2010 and games in general, run way better, open faster and for games settings can even be slightly increased. Even the touch response seems to feel quicker; and with 60 GBs used on the 120 GB SSD, cold boot from Power Off on my tablet now takes about 15-25 seconds, and powering down 5-10 seconds. I could ask for anything more.

Windows 8 on Acer Iconia Tab W500

Picture from Engadget

Now all that’s left is Windows 8. With tested boot times of 5-15 seconds on normal laptops and touch screen friendly interface with both the Metro forefront of the OS and the standard Windows part, Windows 8 is supposed to be designed with touch-in-mind. There are several videos on youtube, including some of Windows 8 Developer Betas installed on this very tablet. I for one cannot wait, and after the Microsoft Windows Vista incident (yep i refer to it as an incident), i somehow feel proud of Microsoft with Windows 7 and now Windows 8. And i’m more a mac person (bet you didn’t know that). As for Apple, i am stil waiting on the rumoured yet Patented, Mac OS Tablet. Thanks for reading.

R

41 responses to “The Acer Iconia Tab W500…Hmmm Upgrades…”

  1. Thank you. I have been considering the effectiveness of upgrading my W500’s SSD. Your blog clinched it for me. With Win 8 installed, StarCraft II barely plays with the default SSD. But with an upgraded drive, I’m hoping it’ll do much better…

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  2. Thanks very much for your blog entry. The video on youtube hadn’t quite given me the confidence to go ahead with the upgrade, but after reading your blog I decided to bit the bullet. Very glad I did. Upgraded to the Intel 80gb SSD. Disassembly was a bit tricky, managed to slightly break a couple of the hinges, but nothing major. Upgrade went very smoothly, installed Win 8 preview, cleaned up the old drive, put everything back together, and seems great so far. After windows installation, still had 60+gb free, which was sufficient for me.

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  3. Also one other note, about opening the case. The youtube video shows what seems to be some sort of homegrown pry tool, with a straight edge and no angle/curvature.

    I used some standard pry tools that I found on ebay for about 5 bucks – I think they are typically used for iPhones/iPads. This set includes a couple of light-blue plastic pry tools, one narrow and one wide, both with a downward-angled tip. After a bit of trial and error, and trying the “wobbling” process described above, I realized that the angled tip is situated perfectly for prying the hinge open directly. This is done by pointing it angled downward, and using the angled tip to sort of pull the bottom edge outward, while pushing the top edge (with the hinges) inward slightly, hence directly releasing the hinge. This may be obvious to anyone who works with these pry tools often – I assume this is exactly what the tools are designed for. Definitely recommend getting the proper tools – after I got past the first couple hinges and realized how it works, I opened the rest of the case in about 30 seconds, as each hinge was opened effortlessly by the tool.

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  5. I was fooled by the Windows Experience score as well. I used K10stat hoping to overclock the apu to 1.6ghz, but even though it says 1.6ghz or 2.0ghz for that matter there was actually no change. The windows experience score changing from 2.7 to 2.8 is just a fluke.

    Also, The C-50 and C-60 APU’s are exactly the same. The only obvious difference in the turbo core on the C-60 but I’m sure that some knowledgeable person could modify a bios to add the extra P state to the C-50 apu…thereby making it a C-60. Too bad asus won’t do this. I’ve read about some people getting C-60 apu with their Iconia’s but I seriously doubt the validity of their claims.

    If you (reader) have an Iconia W500 with a C-60 that you can verify has the extra P state @ 1.333ghz please post pics somewhere as proof.

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  7. I know this article is old but I just wanted to say that the Acer Iconia W 500 RAM is not upgradeable even if you send it in to Acer. I called every acer support number and found this out myself after getting overly excited from your article 😦

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    • I once sent them an email and they said they could but had to call them up and after calling them, they did eventually say that they couldn’t. So you are correct. I had actually forgotten to change that, so I do apologise about that. That’s pretty much the only thing worth upgrading that you actually cannot.

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    • After I replaced the drive I was still able to boot to BIOS from what I remember, using the keyboard to change boot options to prioritise a portable Blu-Ray drive I had. I then simply installed the OS via disc. There are ways to create bootable USB drives with the OS disc image on the USB drive. I have tested the USB drive install as well for Windows 8 and it works perfectly so should do for Windows 7 too. The simplest way is to just connect a USB Disc Drive to it.

      I’ll be buying Windows 8 soon so will use the same disc drive method for it.

      If you need anymore info, let me know. I’m happy to help.

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      • this was on the amazon website

        23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
        4.0 out of 5 stars Patience with the W500 reaps rewards, 21 Mar 2012
        By R Young (UK) – See all my reviewsThis review is from: Acer Aspire ICONIA TAB W500 10.1 inch LED Tablet (AMD-C50 Dual Core Processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB HDD, Wireless, Bluetooth, Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit) (Personal Computers)
        There is a reason why most online magazine reviews of the Iconia W500 are luke warm, yet the customer reviews here (and at Amazon USA) are almost all positive. Out of the box it can be a shockingly poor experience. The preloaded Windows 7 takes up almost half of the already tiny amount of 32 gb of internal SSD memory. Savvy users will remove all the Acer bloatware, including the pointless Acer games, and all sorts of unnecessary gizmos which add nothing to efficiency or performance. Optimising the graphics for performance and removing Windows Aero sees a glimmer of improvement – but there are still lots of tasks left to optimise this tablet and turn it from a clumsy piece of kit into the slick hardware you wanted it to be:

        On powering up I was immediately disappointed by the cumbersome, laggy, slow-to-react scrolling, zooming and webpage loading that windows 7 inevitably provides, together with its ludicrously bloated 14+ gb standard installation. No wonder many tech websites reviews give this the thumbs down. And no wonder why the ipad, and competing android kit, gets so much more positive website reviews. But the tech website staff don’t get the time to iron things out, and if they could be bothered to get under the W500’s skin, they would perhaps be more glowing in their reviews.

        The potential of the W500 is far greater than it indicates when you first use it. Patience and intelligent tweaking is the key. First and foremost, this is a fully useable windows machine. It has flash, shockwave and you can run any windows programme you wish, just as you do on your desktop computer. For people like me this is why we bypass the ipad, which is a consumer entertainment device and not a very useful gadget for serious computer work. I have one vital business application that contains all our customer databases, and this has to run on Windows – no android or Mac O/S will run it. There will be thousands of other users who are in the same situation, and an ipad, for all its wonderful qualities, doesn’t cut it in this regard.

        Here’s what to do in order to turn the W500 from a lame duck into an impressive tablet:

        1. Get rid of all the bloatware.
        2. Shut down all unnecessary windows services.
        3. Download Google Chrome for much better hand-gesture/swipe experience than Internet Explorer.
        4. Use windows classic interface and disable windows aero.
        5. Save every scrap of RAM you can by booting with minimum preloaded apps.
        6. Right click on computer/properties and choose high performance option but retain smooth screen fonts.
        7. Buy an inexpensive SD card to add 16 gb or preferably 32 or 64 gb external memory.
        8. Open windows control panel and increase the size of the tabs for less fiddly navigation.

        Just doing the above should result in doubling the smoothness of finger gesture based scrolling, zooming, page loading and the whole tablet experience.

        More options for experienced Windows users
        ——————————————-

        Download and install Windows 8 Consumer preview. This free to use Windows 8 beta, which is time limited and will wipe most of your current Windows 7 setup, will give you a taste of what this tablet can really achieve when the final version of Win 8 is released. Windows 8 is geared for tablets. Once installed it is quite stable and will transform your tablet experience to the slick level of an ipad – but you still have all the power and flexibility of Windows 7, including being able to run most standard windows apps: email, office, and most of your own custom software.

        CAUTION – CAUTION !!!!

        The Iconia W500 has one serious flaw that can get you into trouble. The Bios is NOT hard coded onto a motherboard chip, but is located on the internal SSD drive. This is a major potential problem, because the Bios files can get corrupted, and you won’t be able to boot up. There are recovery disks included but some users report that they do not always work. Even if you do not upgrade to Windows 8 there is a danger that the Bios can get corrupted anyway. This is a small risk but a real one. This is a monumentally stupid thing of Acer to do. The BIOS should always reside on an independent chip and NEVER on the hard drive.

        Caution aside, running Windows 8 should not invalidate your warranty, whatever your vendor or Acer claim, since it is a valid microsoft O/S and conforms to this tablet’s requirements. Warranty rules here only refer to hardware, not software, the only exception being if you try to install a non-native O/S like Android.

        Immediately after installing Windows 8, you will experience an amazing transformation, and the W500 will run as slickly and smoothly as any ipad or premium Android tablet. If you do not want to take that risk, Windows 7 is perfectly fine for most functions, and you can wait for the official release of Windows 8 in the autumn of 2012.

        PROS
        —-

        Fantastic screen and image quality
        HD video and photo viewing excellent
        Bezel is chunky and strong
        Once optimised, is a satisfying workhorse when on the move
        You can run all your business and personal windows apps
        Runs flash (Apple please note)

        CONS
        —-
        Should have had 4 gb of RAM – 2 gb is not really enough for Windows 7.
        This tablet only seems to run Windows 32 bit. 64 bit would address larger RAM.
        Standard SSD memory is a woeful 32 gb. You will need added SD card memory.
        BIOS located in the worst place possible: The SSD drive.
        The power and volume buttons are far too small and fiddly.
        It’s a bit too heavy, but you get used to it.
        The SD card and 3g slots and slot covers are awful, small, fiddly and flakey.
        Screen can get dirty very quickly, needing constant wipes to remove finger marks.
        Screen is over-reflective. Stay out of sunlight!

        This tablet is just about the best windows device of its kind for the price. There are better, more powerful tablets, but they are very expensive and will suffer the same clunky performance in Windows 7. I purchased my W500 for a remarkable £329 after a bit of haggling. The average price if you shop around is currently around £360.

        Note on seller: I’ve ordered many times from Amazon and the service is exemplary – not one item has ever arrived late, and most arrived next day, even after ordering 4 pm the day before. But on this occasion I purchased a customer-returned W500 from Comet. The price was good but unfortunately the screen died after the first day. A replacement was ordered but there was a week long delay before it arrived in the shop for pick up. Yet they could have simply ordered another one from their online website, or phoned their own web hotline. But no…”it’s on a different system sir – can’t do it that way”. I can’t help feeling that this is a contributory factor explaining why Comet, and other retail stores, are struggling. They are aware of online competition, but seem unwilling to adapt or be flexible in order to compete. It would have taken no effort to simply order a new one in using their own system, for next day delivery.

        Update
        =======

        After frequent use I have a comment about one significant flaw: The USB ports are on the bottom of the W500. This is not the right place and is a design flaw. It means you cannot attach devices like a mouse or keyboard and still angle this tablet on a surface for easier viewing. The ports should have been placed on the right. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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  9. Hi Rathan, I am looking to this upgrade as well as I like the specs in the SSD of which I have looked a t bunch and did not like what I saw.

    So I have a couple of questions for you:

    1. As the the new SSD shorten the battery life between charges?
    2. Did you need a special bracket or connector for this particular SSD to fit? (I didn’t notice any mention of it throughout ). I just assumed that the SSD is a perfect match, right? (no bracket or adapeter needed).

    Lookingforawrd to getting this done!! 🙂

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  10. Thanks for your questions.

    1. The SSD I purchased stated that it runs on 1 watt of power so reduces power consumption. Therefore I noticed at least 30 mins of extra battery, and at times even more. So it actually extends the battery life which is awesome. So bigger drive and longer lasting battery. It is worth checking how much power the drive you are purchasing consumes. If it is 1 watt or near then it will be better.

    2. As for your second question. The new drive required no brackets or anything extra. Simply unscrew the old drive and screw in the new drive, remembering to place the foil back on top, which you will see on the original drive inside.

    Hope this helped and hope your procedure goes well. If you have anymore questions let me know. Happy to help.

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    • Hi Ratan,

      Thank you for your prompt reply. You’ve answered my questions. I am looking at getting the same SSD drive you upgraded to. Since there are no additional brackets to get, it come out to the best option for the money. I found the drive for $220 USD, but I am still looking to see where I can get it cheaper if possible.

      I have installed Windows 8 x64 and it runs really well on the existing drive, unfortunately there is not much space left and as soon as I do some updates and install a few apps, there you go, the drive is full.

      I thank you for the information and look forward to sharing my experience once I have installed the new drive in the near future.

      PS. Too bad we can’t upgrade the RAM!! 😦

      Regards,

      Sam

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      • Yeah it is rather disappointing about the RAM. I currently have Windows 8 64-bit on mines on this SSD and it is superb. The only downside is that on the 64-bit the rotation drivers are incompatible therefore do not function. On the 32 bit version they are supposed to work. I am going to be testing this with Windows 8 32-bit and see if speed wise, if it is still efficient.

        I’m guessing on 32-bit you get all the features, and on 64-bit you get a lack of rotation functionality but faster speeds. Glad Windows 8 comes with both versions.

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        • Yesterday I installed Windows 8 Enterprise 32 bit and it works!!
          Here is what I did:

          1. I got the Paragon Image Backup for Windows 8 (FREE) at: http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/image-backup-windows-8/index.html

          2. Backed up an image to a USB drive. (Make sure to backup the System Reserved Partition (350mb) in the process, because when restoring the image it won’t work when you reboot!! By luck it did it without me realizing it did. I got to know this when I restored only the image of the Win8 and it didn’t boot)

          3. Installed Win8Ent x86 (With a few challenges as it dod not want to install in Custom Installation. If you need some help here, let me know and I’ll walk you through it. But I am sure with your experience, you’ll know what to do.

          4. Once installed, dowload the following from Acer.com / Support / Drivers & Downloads and select Tablet, Iconaia Tab then W500(P):

          – In Drivers select: G Sensor Bosch G Sensor Driver 1.0.0.5 96.3 KB 2011/03/11 : Download & Manually Install through Device Manager the Unknown Device.

          Then,

          – In Applications select: Application Dritek Device Control 1.01.3002 54.9 MB 2011/03/14 & install. The rotation feature will not function unless this application is installed!!

          Windows 8 Ent. x86 worked flawlessly and only took 10GB of space after the install. I can not say I really saw a speed difference at all. I didn’t do more benchmark test or even (now thinking of it) looked at the Windows Experience Index. Im sure it was the same in any case.

          By end of day, I restored my backup image I made ealier as I was also testing the Paragon software which worked like a charm! (Created a Recovery Media Tool from the Tools menu on a USB Flash and booted from that and just plugged in the USB Drive containing the image).

          In the end, there are feature in Win 8 Ent N x64 that I like to be using. These features are more important for me personally than the 1 rotation feature. Hopefull Acer will come out with an x64 driver for the G Sensor, right Acer?

          So now there only one thing left for me to do is get the drive and increase to a whopping 120GB witht he addition of my SDXC 64GB!!! 😀

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        • Ratan,

          I will be receiving my Runcore SSD this week and was wondering if you had to upgrade the firmware on the tablets BIOS before you upgraded the drive? What was your bios version before you upgraded and after(if you did update the bios)?

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          • I can’t remember what BIOS version I had before, maybe 1.08 or around there. I remember I found out at the time that these tablets had a touch screen glitch that a lot of people complained about but then Acer released a BIOS update which fixed the problem. So I updated the BIOS before I did my upgrade. My BIOS is currently on 1.14 which I believe is the latest version. It’s probably safer to do the BIOS update before your upgrade, just to be safe.

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  11. Hi All,

    Going for the Runcore SSD today (Amazon- cheap), probably get around to installing around X-mas after I collect tools etc. May even go to Win 8, otherwise stay with Win 7 Pro as installed from Acer.

    Thanks to all for your great posts otherwise would not have known about the Runcore SSD’s. Happy Holidays!

    Bob

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  12. Is it possible to load the new SSD off line with the recovery disks and then place the new SSD in place of the old? This would be much faster if possible. I assume the recovery disks will also load the BIOS.

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  13. All right! I received my SSD last Friday and could not install till today. After reviewing the video on Youtube and having some previous experience in opening some of the electoric devices, it took me 20 minutes to install the new SSD Drive. (I caution anyone doing this for the first time, BE PATIENT AND DON”T GO TOO FAST!)

    However, once done and installed, I ran into some issues. I could not boot, from the USB DVD Drive nor my USB key! 😦

    Unable to accress the BIOS or anything. My screen was showing some really dim small character (very faint) and it was duplicated 4-5 time at the top of the screen.

    After trying several methods, I was unsuccessful in doing anything.

    Good thing I used the Paragon software!

    Restored the image to the new drive using the SSD adapter included with the RunCore Pro V T50 and an external connector (USB -SATA) connected to my desktop.

    For some reason, the first attempt failed in restoring the image and extending drive to the max from the 32GB image as my destop just shut down a few seconds before it completed the restore. (I’m due for a new install on my DT, as it has been quirky for the last month or so.)

    On the second attempt it worked flawlessly. Is the BIOS being on SSD the culprit? Based on what I read above?? …mmm…

    As I reinstalled the drive on the Acer, it booted and all was well!

    Now we have some breathing room to install the rest of the Apps I need!!!

    Thanks Rathan and all others that have contributed their comments, as they certainly help!!

    Cheers,

    Sam

    PS. In reference to Tony Costanza’s question above:

    You can not load the OS outside of the Acer unit. While the installation would be faster, it will not see the actual hardware of the tablet, but rather the desktop it self (which is not Acer W500). The installation may complete itself, but you will receive plenty of conflicts, erros and missing drivers once transfered over to the tablet. This may complicated the install and create somewhat an unstable OS in the long run. In theory is sounds good and yes it would speed up the process, but I do not belive that this process would work overall. If you succeed, please let us know how it went and the final results.

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    • Yes, I started reading further and I realized that it would not work. Anyhow I purchased a 120GB RunCore and cloned it through the USB. I was able to boot from the RunCore externally with no problem. I have not had time to open the Acer and will probably do so this weekend. Not looking forward to trying to open the tablet.

      Tony

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      • Well today I took the back off and installed the RunCore. Computer booted with no problem. The was a minor fix by Windows and from there is was smooth sailing.
        Tony

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      • Excellent Tony, can you give me more details on how you cloned through the USB, assume you cloned the original W500 SSD?

        Thanks much,

        Bob

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    • Now that I think about it, I remember something with the BIOS not appearing. But I figured out that on a normal power up, the BIOS would not appear or give me the message to load, but when I force powered down the device by holding the power button, the next time I powered up, it displayed the Function request to go into the BIOS. I think that’s how I managed to go into the BIOS to boot from an external drive. Worth a try. It still works now that way. Bizarro.

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  14. I’m planning on doing an upgrade tomorrow on my W500, and this has given me great confidence, the rumours that the BIOS is stored on the SSD, still worry me. But since a lot of other bloggers have had great success without this being a problem, I’m reassured.

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    • I just did the upgrade last week. I put an unformatted Runcore SSD in the slot. When I booted up the BIOS appeared, after doing the keystroke drill. There is no way there was a BIOS on the SSD.

      Good luck! Enjoy the upgrade.

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      • Yeah when I did mines it ran smoothly too. Thanks for clarifying this. Glad your installation went well. The only issue I came across was not being able to do the keystroke drill at boot but if you have had a similar issue, I have put a resolution for this a few posts up.

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  15. I have installed the larger SSD recommended, and I was able to upgrade from Windows 7 (32) to Windows 8 (32). My question is how do I install Windows 8 (64)? I have tried three times to install the 64 bit O.S. and each time I am informed that the installer will only install the 32 bit O.S. Any assistance in resolving this little bug will be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Bill Holmes

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    • To install a 64 bit installation you have to install the OS from an external source e.g. USB or Disc installation and have it boot to that device on Start-up. This may require you to boot into the BIOS and prioritise the USB or external DVD Drive. I installed mines using an external Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Drive and with the W500 docked into it’s keyboard.

      This does however mean that you will need to install it fresh, wiping out all of your data, so do backup before you do this. Also note that installing 64 bit means that the rotation drivers will not work as they only work on 32 bit.

      I had a 64 Windows 8 but wiped everything out and installed a 32 bit on my W500. This was mostly because I wanted the rotation drivers to work and Windows 8 is already really fast on this tablet in 32 bit mode and with the upgraded SSD. But on my main computer I will definitely be going 64 bit.

      Hope this helped. Feel free to reply if you need further assistance.

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      • Thanks for the info. I will try this as soon as I figure out which button does the F2 or F12 function. The unit boots so much faster now one has to be quick like a rabbit I guess to get to the BIOS.

        Bill H.

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        • The Acer website says to hold the Windows button while you power on the tablet and a black screen with a cursor will appear and at this moment you press F2. This didn’t always work for me so I connected the tablet to the keyboard and powered on the device. Then I force powered off the tablet and on the next boot, the F2 or F12 gap appears for about 3-5 seconds which is a good time to mash that button haha.

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  16. I am having trouble with Bluetooth. I have downloaded the drive indicated on the ACER support Windows 8 upgrade page several times and there still isn’t a Bluetooth listed in the device manager nor am I able to link to any of my Bluetooth devices that worked correctly under Windows 7.

    Anyone out there have any suggestions?

    Bill H.

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  17. Just a note I am running windows 10 64 bit on mine and it works well. Just wish there was a way to get to at least 4 gigs of ram.

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