Advent 9315 crappy laptops
About 4 this afternoon, my neighbours knocked on the door for some help with a new laptop they had just picked up from Currys - an Advent 9315.
The guy in the shop had said “just turn it on, it really simple”. This it turns out was utter bollocks.
Firstly, none of the drivers were installed so it needed 9 reboots to install the 6 drivers (no, I don’t know why the supplied CD appeared to install the media slot, modem and lan drivers twice). Once this was done, it still appeared to have no wireless. Windows reported that “no wireless device is installed”. Grrrr.
Turns out that after booting, you have to press fn-F10 to turn on the wireless. Everytime. What a pile of toss. Anyway, after turning it on (which caused it to install drivers and then insist on another reboot …. grrrr, I thought vista was supposed to remove the need for endless reboots?) it came up with a wireless card - woohoo. Except it couldn’t find any networks. None. Bugger all. My powerbook was happily sat there connected to my home network and offering me 5 others. The Advent however told me nothing was available.
After spending ages trying to work out what the hell was going on I took it upstairs and sat it next to the wireless router. Ahha! 1 bar of signal. If it was within a ft or so of the router it worked badly. Any further than that, forget it. The chances of using it downstairs - nill.
A bit of googling suggested others with similar problems so, if you are thinking of buying an Advent 9315 beware - it’s a bit toss 
(yeah, I know, blog slacker etc etc, I’ve been busy with various trips, diy and sorting out grave stones (how much?!!!?11one! For a paving slab???) so whistle for it :))
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
This review is a pile of toss I have one and had none of the problems you have had.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I have one and i’ve never encountered any problems with it. The reviewer is a bit of a toss.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I too have the same problem with having to press Fn + F10 to enable the internal wireless adapter after boot every time. Came across this page looking for a solution. Very peculiar problem. Never seen a laptop that does this before. Have not found an answer yet.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Dear George (haha, such wit) and Steve (or could you be the same person?),
Glad to hear you haven’t had any problems with yours - seems you were lucky. I still maintain it is a cheap, crap laptop with some serious issues and it seems others agree. Still, each to their own eh?
Laptop went back, staff in store admitted they had had several back (so, it’s fine eh?) and it was swapped for a HP that was only 20 quid more. Worked fine in all rooms, no problem with signal strength at all. Wireless works all the time and doesn’t need bloody turning on every time. Much better.
As for “The reviewer is a bit of a toss” who ever claimed this was a review??
May 31st, 2008 at 10:58 am
Have to agree it’s a pile of s**t. I just bought one and I’m not happy with it.
It was supposed to have a cd containing a user manual, don’t know where that is.
I don’t have wireless problems but the build quality is pretty poor.
I agree it’s a pain having to turn antenna on every time you boot up.
I cannot find out how to disable taps on the touchpad, any ideas?
June 4th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Hi, no offence but i put these problems down to people who know nothing about computers… also anyone with a brain gets rid of vista and uses XP because VISTA is basically SHIT. My mum has n advent, my niece has one and i just got the one your on about and havnt had any problems. But the problem you are on about is a VISTA problem and happens to a lot of vista machines.
BUT DO NOT BUY FROM CURRYS
one they over charge, two there is no support. you buy a vista machine with this problem and they can easy turn round and say its not there problem and charge you £60 to fix it.
good luck people
June 20th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I have owned the advent 9315 for about 6 months now and have had no problems with it at all. The only thing i find crap is the short battery life which is only about 1 hour 30 mins with the setting on power saver.
The driver problem you described was more than likely either hardware not being properly supported by vista as someone has mentioned or not being installed properly in the first place. I didn’t have any problems with vista premium and even re-installed vista so i could get rid of the crap pcworld had installed.
If you think about it, wouldnt it be more annoying to continuously have to turn off the wifi in areas you can’t or don’t want to connect to the internet to save your battery power. Either way theres gonna be those that moan. Also my grandad lives across the road from us in a ground floor flat and i can still surf the internet off my wireless bt connection in his house so maybe you just have a crap router or service provider. I have no problems in any part of my house either, whether downstairs or up. I move around my house alot carrying my laptop sometimes from room to room still surfing and no probs.
I use my laptop like my home PC so i will have downloads running while surfing the net with various other programs open at the same time and never experience and freezing problems or anything from this.
So for me, yeah there are things that can be improved like the battery span but all in all a good value laptop that does what i want without any problems
August 1st, 2008 at 4:18 am
“wouldnt it be more annoying to continuously have to turn off the wifi in areas…”
a bios setting that allows “enable/disable wifi on boot” would fix that, but if that is too much to ask then it should at least start in the same state that it shut off in. On the wireless point, it is idiotic. Especially to try to explain to a grandmother/primary teacher why she has to remember to hold down the function key and hit F10 before logging in. It’s hard enough to train them to hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE simultaneously.
Finally, soooo true about VIsta. We wipe it out any chance we get. It stinks.
September 1st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I wish I hadn’t bought this laptop - battery life is pitiful - in this day and age I’d expect at least an hour of battery life, not to mention the 2.5 hour charge-time to get it back up to 100%.
And the graphics card - an SiS Mirage - is the cheapest pile of crap out there. I wish I’d gone for a branded laptop (HP / Toshiba / Compaq) etc.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Hi shell i noticed wha you said about the short battery life lasting 1hr 20mins. You think that is short! Iv had my laptop since jan 08. And in the lst 2 months my battery hasnt been holding the charge! With 2 windows open doing barly anything. On balanced - my battery last 10 mins on power saver it last 20 mins! Dads taking it 2 the tech guys 2day 2 see if it can b fixed
November 16th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I bought my 9315 last january 08 and I am generally quite happy with the computer, it does all the things i need it to, the wireless is great, nice range. it surfs quickly and downloads well. The 2g of ram keeps everything fluid, usually. The screen is nice and doesn’t turn negative at angles (i’m sure there’s a fancy name for that somewhere)The speakers could be better but you get for what you pay for. however, i too am suffering with an extremely short battery life which seems to diminsh more when the wireless is on. Also the compter runs very hot due to the heat sync, so much so it crashes during prolonged (an hour or so) use on fabric surface like a bed or sofa. The compter also crashes when doing too many thing, ie I can’t watch a show while on line and moving folders/files at the same time. But in the end, it’s slick lookin, fast inside, light with a big screen(in proportion) i find it perfect for a mobile, home pc
November 19th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Emily mine does the same. make sure and write back so i know if mine can be fixed too.