Test methodology – Acer 3810T User Manual
Page 3

3
Principled Technologies, Inc.: Battery life performance ratings
of two Acer Aspire Timeline 13.3” notebook systems
Because screen brightness can affect the amount of energy a system consumes, we check the brightness of
every system we test and adjust it when necessary. We set the levels of brightness to match as closely as
possible and to meet MobileMark’s required minimum brightness of 60 nits. The brightness at which we tested
each system, in nits, appears in parentheses in Figure 4.
Test methodology
This section details the methodologies we followed in testing the systems.
Initial setup
When the systems arrived, we unpacked and set up each one. We went through the following process with the
Windows Vista Home Premium systems the first time we booted it:
1. At the Set up Windows screen, select United States, English and U.S. keyboard, and click Next.
2. At the Microsoft and Manufacturer End User License Agreements, select Yes, I accept them, and click
Next.
3. Enter a user name.
4. Leave the password blank, and click Next.
5. Name the computer with its model, and click Next.
6. At the Help protect Windows automatically screen, click Ask me later (because our goal is to test each PC
as it came directly out of the box).
7. At the Review your time and date settings, select Eastern Time, and click Next.
8. At the Thank you screen, click Start.
9. At the MyWinLocker Initialization dialog, click Start.
10. Type confirm a master password Password1, and click Next.
11. Click Ok to exit MyWinLocker.
12. At the registration screen, select No, from the reseller question, and click Next.
13. Fill out the registration information, uncheck the box for services and updates, and click Next.
14. Select Personal use and Place of Purchase, and click Register.
Capturing an image of the hard drive
We used Symantec’s Ghost product to capture an exact image of the hard disk. We followed this process to
capture the image:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Insert a bootable network CD.
3. At the Current Configuration dialog screen, press the Escape key to accept the automatic network
options.
4. At the DOS command prompt, use the net use command to map a network drive to the dedicated Ghost
image server: type net use z: \\ghostserver\ghost and press Enter.
5. Type
z:
to change to the mapped drive.
6. Type
ghost
and press Enter.
7. At the Symantec Ghost screen, click OK.
8. Select
LocalÆDiskÆTo Image.
9. Click
OK.
10. Select the Primary disk, and click OK.
11. Click Save.
12. At the Compress Image dialog, select Fast.
13. At the Proceed dialog, select Yes.
14. When the ghost image is complete, click OK, and exit Ghost.
15. Reboot the computer.
MobileMark 2007
Antivirus software conflicts
MobileMark 2007 is not compatible with any virus-scanning software, so we uninstalled any such software that is
present on the notebook PCs before we installed the benchmark.