A few questions about the 6920G

Hello everyone.

I have a few question about the Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue 6920G.

1) I recently realized that I've never updated the graphics drivers. So I went on the Nvidia website and dowloded the driver installer. No need to say this proved useless. The installation was got stuck after having rebooted the system, and I had to revert to a restore point I had luckily created beforehand. After having whacked my head on the wall for not having realized that I needed Acer-approved drivers, I went on the Acer website, navigated to the download zone for the 6920g, and found this:

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The first question is rather rhetorical in nature, and it's more a request for an opinion than for technical help. In order to get to that page, I had to navigate through Notebooks -> Aspire -> 6920G. Due to such navigation having been performed, this page is obviously model-specific... then why in the name of heaven does the user have to pick which graphics drivers to download? Wouldn't a specific model only have one specific graphics card? Oh well. Gladly I know that my 6920G has an Nvidia graphics card, but that is an excellent way to confuse less experienced users. Honk if you agree.
The second question is more to the point: fourth December two-thousand-and-eight?? Does Acer expect me to install drivers dating back to two years ago? So, I can't use the Nvidia official drivers, but the Acer-approved drivers are two years old? Which is the proper way to install updated drivers?

2) I'd like to open my notebook to remove the dust which must've been gathering up inside it in the last couple of years. Is there a website with guides on how to open up different models of netbooks?

Thanks for any help

 

Support website has drivers for 6920 (Intel), 6920G (nVidia)- I don't know about ATI though.
You don't need drivers from Acer- just be sure to download mobile drivers from nVidia- not the desktop ones.
As for dust cleaning- it's very easy in 6920G. You just need to open the bottom hatch and remove the fan to be able to clean the inner part of the radiators at the end of the heatpipe.

 

Thanks for the reply!

Indeed! That's exactly what I thought... but the fact is that that screenshot wasn't taken from the page for both 6920 and 6920G... but from a page dedicated to the sole 6920G! Oh well, no harm done. But still kinda ridiculous and counter-intuitive, no?

Yup, the Nvidia website was smart enough to autodetect the need for mobile drivers, as opposed to desktop ones. But when I try to execute the installer for the mobile drivers, during the first part (which I think is the unistallation of the previous driver) it said "unable to find nvcpl.dll" or something to that effect. After having clicked on "ok" the installation seemed to proceed. At the end of this first part it asked for a reboot. After the reboot the installation proceeded to a certain point, stuck at about 40% for something like 10 minutes, and then returned a "installation could not be completed" message leaving me with a low-res desktop (running on generic VGA drivers I presume). At which point I restored a previous restore point and visited the Acer website. Cue dismay.

Cheers, I'll try that. I notice only now that there is a sub-hatch built within the main lower half of the laptop. Thanks

 

Welcome to the forums, ZCochrane! (Zefram, is that you?)

Downloads pretty much covered everything I was going to say: Acer's website is a bit thick when it comes to downloads, especially for older models, they don't update their graphics drivers often enough, there's a main hatch on the bottom of the laptop, yadda yadda etc.

I will add that there is one excellent site out there for grabbing Acer service manuals (which will show you everything you need to know about deconstructing your 6920G), but forum rules prevent me from sharing it.

I'm surprised you're running into problems with the Nvidia installer - which operating system are you using (Vista or 7, 32-bit or 64-bit) and which drivers from Nvidia's site are you trying to install?
I know that if you're using Firefox, the downloads page will select the 32-bit installer, even if you're using a 64-bit operating system; you have to manually select 64-bit from the drop-down menu. Internet Explorer doesn't have this problem, though.

 

Thanks! Nice to see someoene gets the ST reference every now and then

I'm using Vista 32-bit. The file that the autodetection feature links me to is called 260.99_notebook_winvista_win7_32bit_international_whql.exe so I guess it's the installer for version 260.99 of the Mobile (notebook) drivers, for both 32-bit Vista and 7, tested by WHQL. Perhaps I can try installing it again, and give more details on the error message it gives me?

 

You may also try installing manually via device manager if nothing else works.

 

LOL! I am a giddy-goat! I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. I'll try that before trying to run the installer again.

Thanks!