5820TG (5470) Powersmart problem

First of all, I'd like to thank the community which has helped me tremendously in choosing a laptop. I've mainly gotten my info from this site.

A few days after I got my laptop, the stock hard drive died. I didn't feel like sending it in for a repair, as it would take quite a while and I wasn't very happy with it's performance anyway, so I decided to go with a 500gb Momentus XT (Really snappy HDD!). I did a fresh Windows 7 x64 install and installed all the required drivers from Acer.

I now have a problem with the powersmart button. When I'm on the battery and press the button, it switches to the discrete GPU as it should. However, when I press it again, it doesn't switch back to the integrated GPU. I manually have to switch back to get the awesome battery life again. The brightness goes down, the blue LED lights up and the optical drive loses power, so it definitely is doing something, but it stays in discrete GPU mode. I'd be eternally grateful if someone could help me out with this slight annoyance.

Thanks!

 

The same problem seems to happen when switching from AC power to battery power. Optical drive disappears, backlight dims, but it continues to operate on the discrete GPU. Switching back to the integrated GPU via CCC and then plugging it back for AC power, and powersmart works fine: It automatically switches back to the discrete GPU. I'm really at a loss here.

 

I have the exact same Powersmart button problem as you and I'm using Acer's default Windows 7 Home Premium. So I am guessing that the Powersmart button wasn't designed to switch between graphics on battery, but to give you the option to switch only to the discrete graphics card. I'm not exactly sure about this.

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If you unplugged your power adapter before you close your lid then leave it unplugged when you turn on your laptop.

If you left your power adapter plugged in before you close your lid then leave your power adapter plugged in when you turn on your laptop.

When you close your lid and the computer goes to sleep, it only remembers its previous graphics setting. This would be a reason why graphics switching is not working correctly. I figured this out after awhile. I hope this makes sense.

 

Thanks for your answer! You're making perfect sense. My laptop isn't closed when I switch between AC power and battery and is turned on. I know it isn't working properly, because when I used the stock Windows 7 installation from Acer, it would automatically switch between the GPUs just fine. I could also use the powersmart button to switch between the two GPUs. Now I can only switch from the intel GPU to the ATI GPU, but not the other way around

 

When you did a clean install, did you reload ePower app? I did becuase some early owners were noting problems with the switching as you describe. ePower did not have that problem but had a lot of others, including the constant shutting down of my wifi card. As soon as I disabled it, I noticed the same problem you have. I don't think it's correctable ATM.

 

Yes, I reloaded ePower. I don't have any issues with the wifi card shutting down, or the backlight dimming as I've read in other threads. It's really strange it works properly from the Intel GPU to ATI GPU, but not the other way around.
By the way, how is ePower supposed to work? I can see it loads with startup and I can see it running from task manager, but I can't do anything with it. Is it all automated? Or are you supposed to be able to change settings, etc? I see a bunch of .exe files in the ePower folder, but running them does absolutely nothing.

 

Maybe we are missing a software component that needs to be installed for it to function properly? I just saw a few screenshots of Acer's ePower utility and it included profiles and such, something which I do not have.

Could someone with the default windows installation please check the following folder?: C:\Program Files\Acer
Please list which utilities are installed by default. It might be something as simple as a missing utility. (Or so I hope!)

Thanks!

 

I found out that it is probably not caused by ePower/Powersmart, but by ATI's CCC. I found a screenshot that describes an option with exactly the thing I want (automated GPU switching), but I cannot seem to find the option. Here are two screenshots to describe the difference between what it should look like, and how my CCC looks like. Does anyone have the option that you can see in the first screenshot? And more importantly, does anyone know how I can get that as well? Thanks!

 

It's normal to have the middle portion empty in ATI's CCC on the TimelineX series. I'm using Acer's Windows 7 Home Premium with Acer's ATI Catalyst drivers with the same results.

 

Thanks for the confirmation! So it is ePower/Powersmart's fault after all. Would anyone be so kind to please list which utilities are installed in the following folder? I'm looking for a TimelineX owner with a discrete GPU with the stock Acer Windows 7 installation.

C:\Program Files\Acer

Thanks!