Accelerated hardware issues tips[Acer 7520 models]

My Acer Aspire 7520 has from the beginning a very nasty bug in the POST of the notebook. When memory is tested it uses a alternative manner to communicate with memory. Still after the post this isn't fixed by the BIOS and

1. WHEA errors occurs.
These errors are due to BIOS POST issues and I've lot of them in my event viewer, but the notebook works perfect further.

2. Sound clicks and plops:
If you encounter this nasty problem. Install Vista SP1 and the newest driver van the Realtek site and this helps good.
Now put off "mapping through this device" and the problem is gone (I thought, read next post of mine). The realtek chip costs $2.12 out of factory and is not the most expensive superchip. Spare it from Dolby emulation and set the mutex on 16-bit 44.1KHz, not at 24-bit, you won't hear any difference since you don't have real HD audio music in your collection.
Sounds easy, but it took me 5 days to figure it out.

3. The Nvidia card within can handle the newest Nvidia drivers without issues when used the modded inf well.


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Factory assembling and images
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When first turning on the notebook I was surprised over the delivered bloatware caming with it. It save you the bugs, but it tremendously hones down speed to the bottom. Why they make this decission, I don't know.
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Install a clean version of Vista and take over the serial from the COA on the bottom of the book and you can just activate Windows fine. You must enter this serial later on activation himself because it is normally done by the BIOS GUID. Then you have a legally Vista running on it and download the newest drivers from nvidia and the modded NVidia drivers from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ and then the newest Realtek driver from http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/SOUND-CARD/REALTEK/ and follow my rules and the laptop runs like a charm so sweet and nice.

With the factory setup it crashes due to WHEA and teh sound sounds horrible, real horrible.
I've send mail to Acer support and for so far no answer.
The truth of real notebook maintainance is doing it self and don't go down and be anger of Acer supported drivers.

Who needs empowering technoligies?
Vista does this job better and Windows Mobility center is even as good as Acer' sollution.


Just a few tips to let your Acer Aspire 7520 runs smooth without crap and the worst Norton Internet Security.



Have some questions, ask them, just ask

I've flashed the BIOS to the newest one and no hazzle with it.

 

thanks for the tips on the sound settings....

and amen to the ditching the Empowering Tech... crappy bloatware

 

Hi, Rogresalor:
Have you ever tried to install the newest bios: 1.33 edition for 7520?

 

Yes I did

BIOS 1.33 is on it now and I've found the final die-hard tweak for this issue.

It has to do with the Directsound feature most mediaplayers use like WMP. Directsound is not good here and I download VLC media player which has a DirectX out and since then, problem over or very incidentical a click, but not nasty.

In games, I've also no issues with sound, only in WMP11 and in Media Player Classic. VLC sounds and works like a charm Check in the menu start if VLC is set to DirectX out.

I'm now listening at ABBA and I enjoying it so it means it is not dirty with plops and clicks.

Also in combination with Vorbis files, sweet

Who ever talks about DRM?

 

Hello folks

I've had contact with the Acer support site and they assume me to send the notebook RMA. Here in the Hollands this is very secure and fast so it means I'm lost my notebook for 1 or 2 weaks from door out to door in.

Happely I'm repairing a big game machine from a friend of mine and I call him with this problem. We know each other already 25 years so he said "keep my system at home as long you missed the laptop". he is on vacation for 3 weaks and came back within 9 days. I my rent his system for 2 weaks and that's no problem so the payment for the reparation on it is also no problem of course

Nice deal. So I can crank up my skills and when the notebook is back it is fine. They guess my motherboard is not good. It is all warranty of course.

So this sad news cames also with good news.
Never seen a HD3870 is such fast

But to be honest, I'm not happy with the fact. It is just a brandnew notebook and it could be RMA at monday. I hope they fixed it wel and the second harddisk is labeled "DONOTFORMAT". I hope it helps.

Of course I take my precousions and have a good solid back-up now on USB sticks.

 

glad to hear you have backups... you never know what the service techs do... they may not even look at the drive lablel

good luck and a speedy return,

bigO

 

Maybe it sounds strange, but I wait a while before send it RMA.
As long as I can reclaim with tweaking my Vista that I hear almost no clipping sounds with VLC and as long the WHEA errors remains away; I've nothing to prove it is hardware related.

Te be easy: As long the notebook works fine further, I've no reason to gave it away 2 weaks with the risk of a format.

If I send it after 6 months and they replace my mainboard than that mainboard is new and have a longer lifespan than as I send it today.

The notebook won't crash on Windows Vista or program's, so what is my approval to theirs? If I send this notebook after a few month, then I send a letter attached to it with detailed information gathered over these month so they can solve the problem more accurate. Now I'm still unsure what it is, but I think it are all BIOS related problems as far my adknowledge reach as IT manager. I'm still not perfect and I never should be.


add-on remark:
I've done a driver rollback of the soundchip and since then I heard not one plop or what. Problem solved, but these are the Windows Vista SP1 drivers, thus the Windows own driver. The subwoofer on the downside won't work anymore, but in most time I use earphones. Even in games not any issues encountered.

I know it is a very cheap chip and the term HD audio it won't deserve it. Glad the sound is now good and I can listen again with pleasure to my music collection

Since the WDM driver is active, the WHEA errors are still gone yet. I'm on the right way

My God, clipping al over the way know. It is enough, the notebook goes RMA tomorrow and I suggest them to take a look at the mainboard.
Maybe the notebook is stable, but the machine I rent for know is a machine with the same chip and this onde has not one clip in the sound, never heard.
The only difference is the electricity usage of this gamerssystem I has made for somebody. This one consumes 522 watt/h during gaming. And electricity is as 4 times more expensive as yours here in Europe.

Don't talk about governments, these are corrupted here and take by example the energyprices. America does it well on that point.
So a gamerssystem absorbs much euro's here. One of the mainpoints I purchase a notebook and for mobility.
Though I'm glad I've a system running up until the notebook is back with a new mainboard

 

Notebook is returned correctly and it even surprises me that they have left my back-up disk intact. Good job and the notebook has been away for 10 days. That is not that long.

What they've done.

Reinstalling the recovery partition for me and setting up Vista to the desktop. The crap delivered with it is on the notebook, but I'm listening to music and this is better.

They've also modified al the IRQ's in Vista and know I don't remove this Vista and rather some crap (Norton goes off the notebook soon) and a good working stable maybe some less speedy notebook.

They've made it satisfactory, no fingerprints on the glossy screen and even as clean as I send it away I've seen another things in the past from other corprorations with personal with dirty fat hands, nice.

Know it is back and the only thing I remove is Norton Internet Security. In normal conditions a restorepoint takes 12 seconds, with NIS it takes double as long.

Not only Norton is slow, most anti-virus slows down systemspeed. I prefer Spybot with TEATimer, most secure and less load. TEATimer rely rather on your wisdom than on very large databases and it won't slowdown anything. Only in the beginning some pop-ups to grand permission

 

congrats on the good experience from the repair depot...

glad it all worked out so good.


bigO

 

Yes, indeed.

When listening to the music when leaving the notebook alone and don't use it I hear no unasabilities.

The support of Acer is not that bad. Email contact whith them results in short answers back, but I attached a letter on the box when send away if they want to leave the second harddisk alone and they did indeed.
Al that movies won't fit om my USB sticks and I've a full back-up of everything except movies, but I have al movies back

I decrapified the notebook on myself and in the beginning the initial RAM usage without prefetcher is 1044 MB in idle use.
Now it is 733 MB in idle use, so I strip 1/4 of the total mem usage without missing any functionality. Just by removing NIS and Office 60 day trail because Worksy is already on it and I prefer OpenOffice.
Further I walk through the 'Tweakhound' guide and Vista is pretty much more responsive. I don't change the graphic drivers nor any drivers so games runs even as good as before or maybe some better.

The image they restored contains newer drivers than the image fitted in the past. I worry less

I should be honest and say the plops in the sound are much less and sometimes total absent.

I fall in love for the LibVorbis AoTuV codec. Even Madonna sounds good on 96 kbps.
This time I can use the Home theator emulation and this sounds not bad (when using the latest K-lite codec pack 3.8.0 with Mediaplayer classic)

VLC continously crashes and before it didn't and normal Direct sound out is good and before is wasn't.

Also this time Windows Update shows me SP1 and it whas installed within 34 minutes. Works good.

I'm still curious what the error is. I'm IT manager and this problems I should know it to solve, why not this time?
That the problems depends on IRQ's I know, but what exacly

 

I have a Acer aspire 7520 (model with AMD Tuiron 1,9 Mhz, 2 GB Ram and nVidia 8400M 256 MB dedicated GPU) and have a few questions and some potencial problems.

First of all, i just wanna say that i don`t know much about computers.

Questions:
1. Can i instal XP instead Vista Home premium? Please can i get link for XP drivers?
2. If i want to reinstal Vista (or XP), is there a even 0,01% need of instaling Acer software (empowering crap that i did not use once in 10 months)?

Potencial problems:
1. When i charge my battery, for some peroid of charging it makes some noise.
Fully charged battery lasts 1 hour and 15 min on balanced use. Is this normal?
2. Only game i play on this laptop is WoW. In the beggining (first few months i played WoW on medium details without any problems (at 20 fps). Now, on low detail (cant go any lower) every few minutes game slows down to a 5 fps and its unplayable. When it does i got some noise from the place where processor is. I think that cooling fan starts to spin at great speed, and on task manager i see that processor usage is at 100%. When i take a look at processes at that time, there is nothing unusal.

Tnx guys for your help.

 

I've exactly the same one
I'm IT manager so I should know something about computers

Whe're here to help not to discuss computeradknowledgement

Link: http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/AcerDrivers/Aspire 7520.pdf

Don't install Windows XP on this machine. Maybe the 64-bit version works smooth, but something stands me by there's an issue with the BIOS and the way XP access S3 state. Not solved yet in 1.33.
Stick with Vista and why, you can read in the special Vista or XP topic where I did my story.

Yes, mine make also some noise when charging. This is due to heavy loaded electronica and some components, won't hurt.

Don'r forget to get the latist Nvidia drivers with modded inf and don't forget to tune high power energy savings and select these.
Gaming goes very well here at 1024x640 (only accessible with the newest Nvidia drivers, it is a lower widescreen resolution)

My notebook has issues with clicks in the sound, but since I hooked on my Dolby Surround receiver, the Ohm is higher and the clicks are completely absent !!!