So I'm trying to find a service manual for this laptop, an Acer Aspire V3-771G. In my search, I find what purports itself to be a forum site, which seems promising!
Right from the start, something seems off:
I don't think I've heard of a forum just named "Forum" before, but maybe the design hasn't been updated yet? Although, wait—the original post is supposedly from a week ago.
And then I read the actual post.
Hi,
I need a service manual for my Acer V3-731G V3-771G VA70 VG70 to replace some parts but can not find any free one online, only the basic owners manual which is regular maintenance and useless for the kind of job I'd like to do (piston rings replacement and some other repairs).
I only know about Alldata pro but it is a paid tool and moreover they restrict you to one vehicle per subscription which is not interesting for me since I have one bike and 3 cars...
Thank you all for any suggestion.
Emphasis is the original poster's. Although, I'm not sure a "NealGamons" exists in the form shown on this site. Or maybe they're confusing their 2012 laptop with their 2012 four-door sedan, which I'm sure is an easy thing to mix up.
But good news, because someone comes to the rescue with the service manual from some random person on Reddit! And all you have to do is fill out a survey! (NB: If anybody asks you to fill out "a quick survey" to get something, it's almost certainly a scam. I have never seen a situation where it is not.)
The thing that caught me off-guard was that the thread continued past this post, with someone else mentioning their Hayne's manual they got from Autozone (again, for a laptop):
And yet, the thread continues on as the purported users discuss the semantics of an owner's manual vs. a service manual.
And none of that even comes to the level of this absurd keyword soup of a "post," the thing that made me actually double-take at the whole page and realize I'd been duped:
And with that, the final post on this thread, from a user named "Kuffel," who easily feels like the most real user on this site.
I don't know how this was created. Maybe this was the product of an LLM spouting out a theoretical forum thread about cars, eventually adapted as a template to any form of device with a service manual. Maybe it was mashed together from multiple real forum threads? I'd love to believe somebody painstakingly put together this forum thread template, though.
Bonus Stuff
There's a link to a YouTube video at one point which is marginally related to laptops. The only comments on it are something:
Also, there's a side discussion about how to resolve the check engine light... on an Acer laptop. I know, it's obvious this was written for vehicles, but I don't think the dissonance will stop being funny to me.
And lastly, for anyone wondering if it's possible to sign up for the forum, use the search, or even where the links actually lead to: none of them work. The login page leads you to a form with... no login button. The form doesn't even have a submit button!
There is an index page, though. It's filled with the same stuff. For over a hundred pages, supposedly.
