If you have an Acer 9810 and are having problems with slow network transfers over the wireless and/or having problems connecting using the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) this may help you. The big ole laptop in question comes equipped with an Intel 3945abg wireless card. I say card but was told by one of the techs at Acer that this is actually integrated onboard although I haven’t confirmed that for myself. I hope that it is not as it would seriously limit the upgrade path. The only options would be using an external USB adapter or a PC card, both of which are less than stellar options as it involves another piece of equipment to deal with.

While working for Brocade Communications, one of my previous employers, another staff member shipped twenty laptops out to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas with the PC cards installed. During shipment the custom built crate that these units were stored in was dropped on its side causing the cards to be shoved into the socket killing almost all the laptops. I also had a friend’s son pull my $5,500.00 IBM A21p laptop off the coffee table which did the same thing and because of the way the socket is mounted to the main board, the main board had to be replaced.

The Acer 9810 Wireless Fix for Speed and RDP Connectivity

Ok, now on to the fix. It is actually quite simple and I’m surprised I couldn’t fix it. I actually feel a bit sheepish. But in my own defense three Acer support staff members and two Acer support supervisors were unable to correct this issue. I will give you the steps in the order that worked although some such as rebooting into safe mode may not be necessary.

1. Download the Intel Pro 3945abg driver from Intel’s website. The link to this driver can be found here ->  Intel Pro/Wireless 3945abg Driver At the time of this writing this driver has a date of 2/27/2007 and version of 11.1.0.86
2. Run MSCONFIG and disable the Acer eNet management garbage from the startup.
3. Reboot into safe mode. This prevents Vista from reinstalling the same cached driver automatically when removed in the next step.
4. Uninstall the existing driver that ships with the Acer. This driver has a date of 10/2007 and is not the actual cause of the RDP problem but is the cause of slow transfers and dropped connections on the wireless connection.
5. Reboot into standard mode and Vista will install a driver that shipped with the OS dated 6/1/2007. This driver has the same flaw as the Acer shipped driver but by removing in this manner it also removes all the configuration data that must be corrupted as best as I can tell.
6. Update the Vista installed driver to the driver that was downloaded in the first step above.
7. Run MSCONFIG to enable the Acer eNet Management utility if you like although it is not necessary.

For some reason updating or removing the driver in standard mode didn’t work although your luck may be different. I now have 99% signal strength and a system that I can connect to using RDP without lost connections– no thanks to Acer.

Microsoft was actually kind enough to assist me with this issue even though the Windows Vista Ultimate version that I have was installed by Acer and Microsoft had no obligation to provide support assistance. It’s a very simple fix to a long, drawn out problem. Now if Acer’s download servers would stop timing out so I could get the Bluetooth VoIP phone drivers I would be set.