5920G: some issues (overheating + restart, media keys...)

Hey everyone, new user here.
I have a 5920G with the 160GB HDD and the 8600 GT graphics card.
I upgraded the RAM to 3GB which didn't such a big change to be honest, but it did help with my Ubuntu partition.

Anyway I have a few niggles and some bigger issues with it:

1) whenever I play games such as Day of Defeat/Counter Strike Source, the computer shuts down after about 20 minutes. It just overheats, badly. It feels really, really hot at times when I play. I don't play with heavy graphics, more like the opposite in fact.
It ran Modern Warfare 1 but again, for less than 10 minutes before shutting off.
I have it on a wooden desk, so there's not much air circulating under the laptop. I tried propping it higher up with various things but to no avail.
I don't quite understand what I can do... what's the point in getting a decent graphics card in a high powered PC (my PC before was a P Celeron with 256MB RAM ) if it's not going to be able to run it fast due to overheating..? I'm a little at lost.

2) and that's mostly a niggle... I used Media Monkey as my media player, and PlayMovie as my DVD player.
Whenever I have a DVD in the player, and I use MediaMonkey, the play/pause media key brings up the Windows Media Player to start playing the DVD. It's very frustrating as I have something in the DVD player most of the time and I basically play music out of it whenever it's even on. I'd uninstall WMP but that's basically impossible...

So I'd love to be able to use that media key without anything popping up to full screen and making everything else lag, if it's possible...
The irony there is that while Ubuntu didn't see those media keys at first, a little script later with the help of the Ubuntu forum and they now work BETTER with any media player.

Don't know what else... I tried the latest graphics card driver and wouldn't advise it, I rolled back. Otherwise it's a nice laptop for sure.

Thanks everyone!

 

Hey there fellow 5920g owner (I also upgraded to 3gigs of ram so we have the identical lappy ^^)
Our laptop, our better said our gpu is known for its overheating. My laptop gets a black screen freez for a few seconds when gaming, after which I can play again. I used to think this was due to overheating but it also happens on lower temperatures in the cod4 'rainy' map so I guess that theory has been proven incorrect. But i'm not sure.

Do you get purple triangles gathered in lines, or rainbow 'sparks' while you play those games? If you do, it means your gpu is overheating and if your laptop shuts down, I guess its due to this hot gpu.
When I lifted my laptop (2 squares made of paper which I put underneath my laptop on the back) the temperatures improved a lil bit. When I purchased my laptopcooler the problem seems to have stopped entirely, but I'm not sure because its winter now, so the shutting down & weird colours might occur again during summer.

I advice you to install System Information for Windows (siw) and check your temperatures. That program will allow you to see all the temperatures of all your hardware parts. This is usefull in our case because the 5920g not only has a suicidal gpu, but the cpu can get quite hot aswell. Since I don't know anything about cpu temperatures (shouldn't they be 70 celcius max?) I won't explain this further, just check your temperatures and post them here.

Also, since you upgraded your ram, I asume you took a look at your vent? Dust can be a big cause of overheating, so if you dind't clean it, I suggest you do.

My last advice to you is: buy a laptopcooler. I got a weak logitech cooler with 1 fan, but I suggest you go for a big one like the Cryo LX or the Zalman series. They have 3 fans and should help keeping your temperatures under control.

Edit: I almost forgot, if the problem does lay within your gpu, we are blessed with a laptop which has a switchable gpu, so you can upgrade it to an ati hd 4650!
Check this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=396320

 

Cool tips thanks Yep I cleaned out the fan, and no I don't get anything I shouldn't get on the screen. I'm playing, and then it shuts off. No warning, nothing. Just black screen and the fan stopping its spin. Pretty sudden.

I'll look into a cooler... it's the last resort I guess...

 

I'm not familiar with that problem, as I said, post the temperatures you have, i'm sure the other people here can help you out. Since the cooling design of the 5920g isn't too good, I'd be surprised if overheating would not be the cause.

 

I'm a 5920g owner also.
Had al these problems except shutting down issue.
Which bios version do you have ? Because my problems were solved after flashing it to the latest version.

http://global-download.acer.com/GDF...3506&Step1=Notebook&Step2=Aspire&Step3=Aspire 5920G&OS=V10&LC=nl&BC=Acer&SC=EMEA_18

you could try it.

 

I have bios V1.3708. Will check if it's the latest one and see if flashing the newest version improves anything.

EDIT: the latest one appers to be 3813 and it downloaded ok from the Acer website as well, but I have no idea how to flash it...

 

unpack the zip and run the .exe in windows.
simple as that ..

 

Aaand here's my swi file WHILE running DODsource after about 5 minutes, so not even at its hottest:

Temperatures
Core #0 90 °C (193 °F) 68 °C (154 °F) 90 °C (193 °F)
Core #1 89 °C (192 °F) 67 °C (152 °F) 89 °C (192 °F)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Temperatures
GPU Core 84 °C (183 °F) 68 °C (154 °F) 86 °C (186 °F)


Does seem hot...

I'm hesitating flashing the bios... it's always a bit risky. Though I did it with my Acer A1 running Ubuntu Kuki and it worked fine so why not... But there are TWO exe files on the zip folder: winhlp32.exe and WinPhlash.exe. I'd guess it's the second that's correct?

 

Eeks, that is rather hot after 5 minutes of gameplay.
What are your idle temps, then?

*insert standard warning about the riskiness of BIOS flashing here*

If you're a techie kinda guy (or if you know one), you can try replacing the thermal compound on the CPU and GPU to improve the efficiency of the cooling system.

 

Idle temperatures right now, after about 5 minutes of having the PC on after a night being off:

Temperatures
Core #0 52 °C (125 °F) 52 °C (125 °F) 60 °C (139 °F)
Core #1 54 °C (129 °F) 54 °C (129 °F) 63 °C (145 °F)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Temperatures
GPU Core 55 °C (130 °F) 54 °C (129 °F) 55 °C (130 °F)

 

Well its hot but when my gpu and cpu were 92-94 celcius the laptop did not shut down, so I'm wondering why yours shuts down at lower temperatures.

 

No clue either...
Right now my CPU is idling after a long session under Ubuntu at about 75C, which seems high too.

 

Even those idle temps are rather high - no way a P-series CPU (which is medium-voltage compared to the T-series) should be running in the 50s on idle.
I'd honestly contact Acer Support at this point (I know, I know, it's garbage) and see what they have to say. Might be able to get a warranty repair or something.

 

When your AC adapter is plugged in you don't have to worry, trust me it will work.
Acer changed something in this bios release what has to do with the overheating 8600m gt gpu. ( cpu/gpu fan throttle changed and some other stuff )

 

Yep... new bios flashed and nothing went wrong, I then played DOD for about 30 minutes without issues. I'll try the same with Modern Warfare1 when I can borrow it from a buddy. I'm hoping this is it...

 

Could you give me the name of that new bios release or a link?

 

My CPU's a T series, as far as I can tell (Core 2 Duo T7300).
Did some more measurements. Basically it stagnates around 58C to 60C whenever the PC's not doing anything or under light use.

 

http://www.acer.nl/acer/service.do?...ryISOCtxParam=NL&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=2939325947

If this doesn't work just got to the Acer website, support, download drivers etc...

 

Whoops - getting confused between topics. Apologies!
And that's still running a little warm. Have you looked into undervolting? There are a few good guides here on NBR, and they can really help drop your CPU temperatures.

EDIT: For comparison, my laptop's CPU is idling (on battery power, mind you) at 28 degrees Celsius.

 

Well I NEVER use the laptop on battery power... I don't think the battery even works anymore these days... last few times I tried it just shut down as soon as I disconnected...

EDIT: wait, seems to work these days... awesome. I'll let the battery discharge some, just to keep it going.

 

Nope. Tried again playing Call of Duty Source, medium to low graphics settings. Held on for about 30 minutes, then just shut down while in play.

 

check this link every-nvidia-graphics-card-with-g84-or-g86-chipset-is-ready-to-die and everything is clear now - you can try to prolong the disaster by trying to put extra thermopaste between chipset and heat sink or install stronger fan. If you not gonna buy extra cooling pad for laptop, like mentioned before, you can always improvise: I started with simple marker pen under the back edge of my Acer, then assembled primitive construction from plexi which is raising laptop above the desk surface to make circulation better

 

The G84/G86 core malfunctioning would NOT cause the system to shut down - the CPU overheating would.
In previous results, the CPU was hotter than the GPU and thus closer to its critical temperature.

 

I was just thinking about CPU and GPU using same heatsink and fan - I experienced high temperatures while playing games. But only while playing, never when watching movies or just surfing internet.

 

Yeah it's the same here. It only happens while I'm playing games, but it happened for every game except, as far as I remember, Down of War Soulstorm.
DOW2 caused it to shut down, Half life2/Episode 1 caused it to shut down, Modern Warfare 1, DOD/CS source... so every game I tried but one caused it to shut.
Cooling's definitely not enough it seems... The fan is clean though but I will clean it up further with compressed air if we have any.

 

If someone can help..
It is posted somewhere in a thread here some modded drivers for the synaptics touchpad.
Because of a new installation of windows i lost them.
I tried to find them without result.
The drivers from acer for windows 7 do not work.


edit: Fnally found them.

 

Your CPU temp is too high!!

I used to have an ACER 5920G with T8100/8600m GT, During gaming temps were around 60c for CPU and 85c for GPU.

Undervolt that processor.

 

I'll be honest, I've not got the slightest clue as to how to do that.

 

There are guides here on NBR that will help.
Otherwise, Google it.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824 this one's pretty clear and easy to follow, I'll get on it today..

 

WOOOOW something a bit worrying:
This guy who wrote the test gets 79C max after 10 minutes. After 2 minutes of stressing I'm already at 90C and raising...

EDIT: I undervolted it by .100V and ran the test. After 5 minutes I'm still at 91C.

EDIT2: well undevolting didn't seem to help, it just kept on rising.
I just got back from the store with some compressed air and a cooling pad. I cleaned up the laptop's guts and installed the pad, running a CPU stress test now with the fan on full, see how hot it gets... Then I'll try DOD again.

EDIT3 (I'll stop now, promise): SCORE! Reached 87 at the most after a 10 minutes CPU stress test. Before it was at 90C after two minutes and rising pretty quickly.
Since I was able to run my PC at 93 without it shutting down, I'm guessing my games get the CPU at higher temps than that. So I'm hoping the extra cooling will work.
Cost me 40 euros though...

 

Yes that's well above normal, I suspect that your CPU fan doesn't spin as fast as it should.

 

Yeah no idea why it does this... Anyway the cooling pad seems to have solved this issue and it actually propped my PC at a more comfortable angle. Win-win.

 

Sounds like it.
Hope everything works out for ya!

 

You spend 40 euros, but you could have lost way more by letting your laptop fry.
I also fixed my problems with a coolpad, or atleast I think I did, i'll inform you about how my laptop will handle itself this summer.

 

That was exactly my reasoning when I bought it. I'm unemployed and losing my laptop right now would be very bad... better to spend 40 euros than have to spend 800 I don't have.
I also am lucky I seem to have come across the only decent PC store in the whole of the Netherlands.

 

Lucky you, I'm still looking for a decent pc store in Belgium (A.K.A. the southern netherlands xD).
Its hard to find a store with good service, since big stores make competitive prices impossible for smaller retailers.