Acer 3810T User Manual

Page 4

Principled Technologies, Inc.: Battery life performance ratings
of two Acer Aspire Timeline 13.3” notebook systems

Pre-installed software conflicts

MobileMark 2007 installs the following applications, which its test scripts employ:

Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1

InterVideo WinDVD 6.0

Macromedia Flash 5.0

Microsoft Excel 2002

Microsoft Outlook 2002

Microsoft PowerPoint 2002

Microsoft Word 2002

Netscape Communicator 6.01

Network Associates McAfee VirusScan 5.13

WinZip Computing WinZip 8.0

If any of these applications are already on the system under test, they could cause problems with the benchmark
due to software conflicts. To avoid any such issues, before we installed the benchmark, we uninstalled all
conflicting pre-installed software applications, including different versions of any of the programs MobileMark
uses.

Displaying brightness and power settings

Because the brightness of a notebook’s display affects its battery life, BAPCo requires that, before you test with
MobileMark 2007, you make sure the brightness of the notebook’s monitor is greater than or equal to 60 nits on a
completely white screen while the notebook is unplugged and running on battery power. The measurement
follows the standards from the Video Electronics Standards Association
(www.vesa.org/Standards/summary/2001_6a.htm).

We complied with this standard for all the tests we ran by setting each notebook PC’s brightness as close to 60
nits as we could without going below that brightness level. We used the following procedure, which assumes we
began with the notebook plugged into the power supply, to meet this requirement before we started each test:

1. To create a completely blank, white screen, open Microsoft Paint by clicking StartÆAll

ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆPaint.

2. Open the Attributes by pressing Ctrl+E.
3. Enter dimensions that are larger than the current screen resolution. For example, if the screen resolution

is 1280 x 800, type 1600 for Width and 1200 for Height.

4. Click

OK.

5. Press Ctrl+F to view the bitmap image and render the screen totally white.
6. Wait 45 minutes to allow the screen to warm.
7. Unplug the notebook from the power supply, and measure the display’s brightness using a luminance

meter in the center of the screen. (We use the Gossen Mavolux5032C.)

8. If the reading is below or significantly greater than 60 nits, use the notebook’s keyboard screen-

brightness-adjustment keys to bring the display as close to 60 nits as possible, then retest.

9. Allow the notebook to run on battery power for 10 minutes, re-measure the display, and adjust the

brightness up or down as necessary.

10. Verify that the notebook saved the brightness setting by plugging in the system, unplugging it, and taking

another reading. If the notebook did not save this setting, use its power-management application(s) to set
the brightness appropriately, and save that setting.

MobileMark 2007 Auto-configuration Tool

This tool supports three levels of configuration:

1 . Only make changes that are REQUIRED in order for the benchmark to run.
2 . Additionally, make changes that are RECOMMENDED for repeatable results.
3 . Additionally, make changes that help ensure best results.

We choose Level 3 in the Auto-configuration tool unless the client specifically asks us to choose a different level
or to manually set the power options.