Acer 5738G bottom vent built closed?

Hi. I bought my Acer Aspire 5738G laptop last november and this month I experienced for the first time my laptop shutting down by itself while playing cs-source.

The laptop is quite hot and upon searching the net found out that it's most likely due to overheating.

My question is about the ventilation at the bottom of 5738G.
Is it supposedly closed? No holes/slots? Cause I think it's the cause of overheating.
The system doesn't have a way to take-in air
It's like it was designed to be a bottom vent for air intake but then forgot to make holes in it.

I also searched for it's manual and confirmed that it is a ventilation slot.
It even says there "do not cover or obstruct the opening of the fan".
(I've got a screen shot attached. I'm talking about part 6. That part of my laptop doesn't have holes/slots but clearly there should be according to the manual.

 

Welcome to NBR m8 ....

actually my laptop which is ur same model has that same slot closed too .... I always thought the ventilation slot was the one under the touchpad ..... but u actually aroused an interesting question .... what on earth where they thinking when they made that solid slot in that place & actually the problem is only Acer can answer that

hmm.... I have a question for you, did u try to use compressed air on ur laptop to remove the dust ? and if so how did u open it without voiding the warranty

 

Hi Dewy, we met at another thread I started about SysInfo tools showing an Inactive 4500 MHD...

So, I can tell you that I am raging out of my skin, because I found out that the HD4570 has a BIOS bug that sets the Memory Clock to 500 MHz instead of 800, regardless of the laptop bein on AC power!!! Check it out HERE.

So it turns out that disabling Power Play does not cancel the stupidass downclocking for me. I installed Riva Tuner only to find out that because of this, I cant even force the MemClk back to 800. The closest to it that would be allowed by RT is 747 MHz. At least I am free to raise the Core Clock.

 

BUT!

When Power Play is off and the memory raised to the maximum 750 allowed by RT, the Hardware monitor suddenly shows 800 MHz memory performance. The problem with this is that it somehow locks the Core Clock and it cant be raised over 680.

Here is a large screenshot of what I am talking about. When Power Play is enabled I can only ovrclk to 747, when disabled both Core and Memory switch to factory defaults 680/800 and you can''t go beyond that for some reason.

Do you experience the same downclocking? Please post some GPU-Z screens with what it shows you when Power Play is on and ypu are operating at default frequency.

And now about the fake fan intake on the bottom. It turns out that when Power Play is off, and the memory operates at default frequency, the core temp of the GPU reaches some scorching 92-93 degrees Celsius!!!

This is why I just started cutting into the plastic with a craft knife to create the intake grate that should have been there! To hell with the damn warranty, sez I!

 

It is possible that some models have holes on the front side. For example 5942g with core i5 has only holes in the front, and the model with core i7 has holes on the bottom and in the front.

Can you take a picture of your laptop from all sides?

 

Yes, exactly. It does have the moronic grated "intake" on the front side, right underneath the touchpad. It blows my mind how they decided that placing the air intake as far as possible from the fan and heatsink is going to provide sufficient airflow...
I can only theorize that the graphics BIOS that is set up do downclock the memory to 500 MHz (when stock oughta be 800) has something to do with this major design flaw. As I said, when bypassing this bug and having the graphics memory run at almost the intended stock speed of 800 MHz, the memory module shows temps of over 93 degrees Celsius. It must have been a general production line error with the plastic casing (having no holes underneath the fan) so they cunningly resorted to downclocking graphics memory to keep temps within acceptable ranges.

 

Hi again de3pkeeper,

Actually the powerplay bug is quite old sometime ago I made a small guide on how to get the best out of the HD4570 (OCing with new cata., a work around that bug to overclock beyond 800 MHz for memory, ... & some other stuff I don't remember )

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...-hd-4570-ocing-guide-acer-driver-bug-fix.html

Check it out & if you need anymore help don't hesitate to ask

As for that design flaw .... all I can say is that you get what you pay for ... I told Acer about that sometime ago & I think their online service is actually a robot or a strange human being because I was asked to book my unit for repair in the nearest Acer repair center which is 5 countries away .. I actually just ignored them because they are hopeless

EDIT: did the cutting with a knife thing reduce temps ????? if it did I will figure a way to dig these holes

 

Halfway through... this is a painstaking job. Actually cutting the plastic isn't such a good idea. The best way proved to be melting throught it with a heated blade. Only problem is that I dont have a constant heat source yet and I don't really intend on buying 20 lighters for the purpose lol.

I believe temps went down by a degree or two. And that is with the slots where I cut through being really tight and some of them still having strands of plastic blocking the hole. When I finally use something to melt them, I believe there is going to be some, if not significant improvement.

 

"...We will do this for you"
Sincerely,
Acer

 

lol.....

I did a couple of holes myself to see diff. I can notice also a couple of degrees but I did only 4 small holes just for check

 

My 5536 looks as though it has the same casing and general layout, so I'm watching this with interest.

Might the air inlet be at the front to pull in cool air over the memory and hard drive areas first, and the underneath vent be closed to maintain this longer airflow?

It might be worth seeing what happens to the HD temp as well as the processor temp.

 

Hey guys, I know you are all having fun making mouse-holes in your cases but the fact that Acer tooled a hole in the bottom and then spent money re-tooling to close it off suggests they may have thought twice about this?

It is actually not 'moronic' to have the intake far from the exhaust fan. On a desktop PC the main air intake is front bottom and the main exhaust fan is upper rear back. Why? Because the cooling air gets dragged through every part of the case cooling all the bits and boards that dont get a fan or cooler. Just like the Acer you can provide a side air entry over the CPU fan to improve CPU cooling - but if this airflow is too big you lose airflow past the HDD locations near the front and the temp inthe rest of the case rises

In a laptop NOT having a big hole right below the fan therefore means air is sucked in over the HDD, past the Optical drive, over the wireless cards, the RAM modules, the other chipset Circuits, the power and charging regulators etc.

They likely closed it off because intakes on the bottom are unpredictable on a lap or bedcover, and forcing the fan to suck air from the whole interior was a better plan anyway. OK the CPU may get 2c cooler with a direct air supply . . but how are you monitoring your RAM chip or power regulator temperature for example ? Acer may have become aware of a heat problem elsewhere in the case and solved it by closing off the intake they initially thought was a good idea.

 

Very true all that you said, and it is what I thought as well in the months before. BUUUUT...

First and above all: The service manual warns users not to cover the fan opening. Check out the picture. Why put such instructions and not have any opening there? April Fool's?

Then, about 2/3 of the small opening on the front go over the RAM modules. The other 1/3 of its length is not even close to the HDD.

Third, if you remove the RAM and HDD plastic covers, you might be surprised to see that they are, so to speak encased within plastic compartments. Nothing even resembles some sort of fancy air "highway" to the heatsink. The fan itself is designed to suck in air from right underneath. I can only imagine that air travels through whatever tiny spaces are left, after all components were thrown in.

Then, we come to the GPU memory clock issue (a few postst back). Before starting to punch holes in, I managed to get my GPU to run at stock 800 MHz memory clock and the memory diode hit 100 degrees celsius. So much for the fan sucking in sufficient air from the front. It only sucks @$$, but I doubt it is very successful at it too...

The 5738G's case design is totally devoid of efficiency. Hell, even the right speaker is placed underneath a small circuitry plate for the volume level buttons and that green-leaf-battery-button crap that doesn't even work in Win7. The result is that sound from the right is noticeably less louder than on the left.

And I wont even start with the paint wearing out on the palm-resting area.

All in all, nothing points to any significant amount of thought and care taken, when building the case.

 

Yep

User and service manuals rarely get updated as the product evolves, and manual writers always say don't cover the grille, dont walk onthe grass etc. User guide is rarely written by the engineer in my experience.

I agree on the random nature of cooling arrangements . . Maybe some acer service person has a thought. In the past acer have part blocked vents with plastic during assembly too . . would take multi temp-sensor set up to understand what they are trying to do

 

I have the full manual of the laptop .... & as shocking as it will sound .... the opening below the touch pad aint the air intake vent because simply the way between it & the fan with its heat pipes is blocked & by blocked I mean completely blocked

& please don't get me started on the HDD temp on that machine because I don't know who is the re***d who thought that it is so cool putting the HDD exactly above the CPU with such weakling cooling system .... The hard operates with 50-60c which is SOOOOO hot for a HDD

I think what Acer had in mind when they made that laptop is to give laptop users a lesson of how to choose the laptop you buy & especially "Not to listen to online reviews of websites & only listen to the reviews of people who already bought the machine & operated with it for sometime"

But actually a 800 euro lesson is pretty expensive when you think of it

 

If you follow MahmoudDewy description as follows, you shouldnt have a problem...........

4- Open RivaTuner and you should see that it identified your HD4570

5- For Acer Users with ATI PowerPlay Bug in order for RivaTuner to see that the Default memory clock is 800 MHz instead of 500 MHz and give you a correct memory OCing range you will need to do the next step

a- Enable Low level OCing and don’t change the values
b- Open power user tab and don’t freak out by the message you receive when you open it
c- Locate (RivaTuner\Overclocking\Current Device) tab and follow the image:
d- Now when you go back to the OCing tab you will have normal memory OCing range

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...-hd-4570-ocing-guide-acer-driver-bug-fix.html

 

hmmm
That temp is just within the operating spec for most HDD's (typ60c operating 65c storage) Won't help reliability unfortunately

 

I have never seen the HDD diode go beyond 47°-48° C. You probably are familiar with the trick, but have you tried undervolting the CPU with RMClock? It helps manage CPU temp and extend battery life. I am getting some 5 hours of battery operating time (no wireless, LCD brightness 1 notch over the min) with it and with Game Booster terminating most of Windows' useless services. That's because I am using it as a typewriter at university and it works nicely...

Anyways, try it out if you haven't done it yet.

 

lol my sig actually says that I undervolted it in an extreme way I am running 0.9375 on the 2 top multipliers & 0.925 on the others, and I don't think I can go below that

My processor reaches up to 72c while undervolted after 30 minutes of playing Dragon Age origins :S

 

Oh yeah, it really is in your sig )

That temp is really high... I am having Orthos stressing the CPU @ 0.100 and it's doing 62-63 C... on my bed cover. Funny though, the GPU temp went up.... and the GPU usage is 0 to 0.63... WTH.

I used what little materials I had to create this stupid@$$ contraption . Check out the pic. There was no change in temperature when the fan was sending more air in, or sucking air out. I proved to myself that this forntal intake is completely useless.

 

I deeply studied that laptop maintenance manual & as I told you that aint an intake vent because simply it is blocked from the inside & it doesn't reach any components

Acer actually achieved the unachievable & that is to create a cooling system with no air intake

KUDDOS!!!

 

Sometimes they stick a piece of plastic behind which is removable.

 

Or lots of little air intakes all over the place . . below keyboard, through Optical drive front, round hinges . .
Put it another way - If you pumped smoke into the fan outlet hole I reckon you would be surprised how many places it popped out. (Dont tryit )

 

Hey, Acer isn't first, remember Apple |||?

 

OK, enough time has passed now since people got to work with their drills, files etc. What are the results? Are the temperatures lower, are the machines still working?

I'm interested in that my 5536 seems to be an AMD-based machine in the same casing

 

To me a couple of cut slots in the lower solid "what-should-have-been-vent" + a 4$ extremely weak cooling pad to blow air in it .... Now im runing 58-62 max on the processor down from 75-78.72-75 on the GPU down from 85-90 .... now you know that im now a happy guy

I think with a good cooling pad u can reach 55 processor max & maybe 65-70 on GPU

with out the cooling pad only 5 degrees down on both the gpu & the processor

I think if that Vent was all open as it should have been that laptop cooling would have been superb compared to the DELLs with same specs

 

It does make me smile . . 'way (waaaay) back when' I used to design military communication gear which on transmit ran extremely hot, had to be waterproof /dust sealed and work in desert/jungle temperatures, for ever . . .
We had no heat pipes, no way to use fans etc and it was still possible !

I am patiently waiting for laptop design to catch up with 30 years ago

 

I have just finished reassembling my laptop. I had to disassemble it in the first place, because while punching holes in form the outside, pieces of plastic started to block the fan and eventually brought it to a complete halt.

So now i have a pretty ugly fan opening and surprise, surprise - I am running 10 degrees cooler than prior to my intervention ))).

I will make a post soon with pictures of the motherboard and plastic casing with the new holes.

 

Okay, so here is the butchered casing
As I mentioned, cooling is much more efficent now. The GPU steadies at around 75-85 while gaming at overclocked speeds (unlike the 102 C before). The GPU temperature in "relaxed" powerstate is 40-43, unlike the 53 before. CPU runs cooler as well with 54 (as opposed to 64-70 before) when under pressure and 35-36 when at peace.
HDD temperature varies within the same range as before - 46 to 50-something.
I have however noticed a slight increase in temperature around the SODIMMs. the palm rest gets a little hotter now. Easily manageable with a simple fan that I took from a useless cooling pad, placed beneath the tiny holes on the RAM cover.

In one of the pictures you can see the new holes and their position relative to the frontal opening. It isn't hard to imagine how well the path to the heat sink is blocked, when everything is in its place. The positive effect on overall temp from letting the fan breathe as it should, is more than indicative of the mediocrity of the solution originally employed by Acer.
I would advise anyone who owns an Acer laptop cursed with this horrible case design to do the same. The only problem is that taking this SOB apart is time-consuming and a little risky if you are not careful enough.
I have also put a picture of the motherboard FYI

 

Ideas from me:
You might want to get a ultra fine sand paper to sand the rough edges.

 

Hi all. A also have this problem with no holes below cooler, but I aslo notice one more thing. There is no holes below hdd.
Look at this pictures.

This is picture ftom my laptop
[

And this is picture from laptop manual.


This is obviously a reason why the HDD overheating.

 

Putting my old pointy hat on . . .

Randomly drilling holes is not how you do cooling and ventilation design (unless you drill so many that effectively you remove the entire bottom cover)

To date no one has used synthetic smoke to trace airflows, or multiple temperature sensors to monitor every hot component on the MB. This what a professional engineer would do.

Temperature readings have instead been limited to 'easy' onboard sensors (CPU/GPU/HDD) without any clue of what is happening to RAM, Power regulators, charger circuits etc.

I will guess that Acers original design was good at cooling the major components but perhaps due to a lack of proper airflow design left some other key components in 'dead'zones' with little airflow going past. Closing off the major inlets that are close to the fan outlet means air must now be sucked more evenly from all over the MB and case. This was presumably judged to be a necessary compromise at some stage resulting in the design modifications seen

Otherwise why did Acer change the case design to close the holes off ?

 

Yes, but look at these pictures. It is pretty obvious that the HDD is in a kind of housing (number 11 on the last picture) and isolated from the rest of the system, and the only way of cooling is through the holes in the lid.

 

I just took off the lid below the hdd. Hdd-temperature is dropped drastically. With the lid hdd temperature in idle was 47-48C and when I do defragmentation temperature grew up to 56-58C. Now without lid in idle is 38C and in load 48C. Also, other temperatures decreased for the 5-8C. Now just waiting for the warranty expires, and to drill holes in the lid.

 

I am still here to knock the pointy hat off your head
I can report that I am running my now mutilated excuse for a laptop with the expected stability in temperatures.
My longest gaming sessions of 3 to 4 hours at overclocked GPU speeds (Core: 860, Memory: 860) have (so far) not left me with an incinerated laptop. Instead all major components such as CPU and GPU run 15 degrees cooler than prior to opening the fan "opening".
The hard drive has not seen any increase in temperature under load. (one way to manage it is to set your powerplan settings to turn off HDD after 1 min of idling).
As for tEh power components and circuitry, they seem to be doing just fine handling the mighty 19V pushing current through.

The final verdict is that it is safe and useful to make an opening underneath the heat sink-fan module.
Punching holes into the HDD cover, however, will not get you any noticeable results. It will just make the bottom uglier than it would be if you did what I did.

 

What is your HDD temperature in idle and with some demanding job?

 

Because they are dumb?
Seriously before this I thought there had to be some good reason why companies did this and did that...
They have to be smarter than us right?
After some email in and out even with the higher level I found that they are REALLY Dumb and that was the reason nothing else.
1)How can someone turn off DEP? the feature present in every Pre-XP SP2 Laptop?
I had to go over mail make a commotion on the net as some of you might know to get them to notice their own stupidity.
Seriously we have to stop assuming corporate know more than us. It is making an "as" out of us (they are already asses I "as"sume)

Remember SONY refuse to enable VT and said VT was a security implication that was why they didn't enable it?
Since when is VT a security issue? Just proves how smart they actually are, feature crippling their own system and refusing to push out firmware updates making all their customers angry as they paid good money for SONIES, when all along all they had to do is bit switch Vanderpool from 00 to 01 using their BIOS source code as many of the firmware modders have shown.

 

Normally, when not reading or writing it is doing 40-42 C. When the laptop is on my bed cover it can go up as high as 50 just by doing very much nothing.
However, when properly placed in an elevated position relative to a desk surface for gaming or other demanding activities, I have seen a maximum temperature of 58-59C; never 60 or beyond.

 

Isn't it too much for one HDD? I guarantee you that tremperature would not have passed over 50C that there are holes underneath HDD. An additional problem is that the cpu is just above hdd. So drilling a hole in the lid below the hdd is also good for the CPU temperature. Holes can be accurately drill with the drilling machine and to still looks good on the bottom.

 

You are right. It isn't really optimal, but since it runs okay now, and it has run without problems @ higher temps before making the grate for the fan, I don't think there is much to worry about.
But I might just drill some holes too. I just don't think there will be any cooling happening through a few holes, because there is no force to circulate air around the HDD (it's in a separate compartment as we noticed).
But since I have four fans from a disassembled cooling pad, I can easily stick one under the HDD.

 

In fact front part of the section in which is the HDD is open to the interior of the laptop. It is a small hole but sufficient for cooler to intake air from the hdd compartment. But the real problem is that there are no holes in the hdd lid so there is no airflow.

 

My friend has given me the same ACER laptop but with Nvidia G105M GPU, to do anything with shutting down when playing CS:Source. It shuts down when GPU temp is nearly 110C. I've disassembled the laptop but I'm not sure in what way make the holes. Have anyone tried to use sand paper from inside the bottom case with good results? I think using knife is to rough... It will look very ugly

Edit:

I've done it by using "knife to wallpapers" (I dont know how it's named in english, but you know what I mean ;] ), and sand paper. Also I've replaced the sh*tty thermal tape, that was between nVidia GPU and heatsink, with good thermal paste stolen from shi*ty MACintosh service ;] Now on GPU on CS:Source i have max 85C

 

This is a mighty good job you've done here. Looks much prettier than my molten holes. All my four thumbs up.

 

thanks btw laptop still works fine after this "mod".

 

Please explain how you made the vent holes so perfect

 

I know it's an old thread but I just wanted to comment on the vent at the front. My 5536 seems to suffer from the same blocked unopened bottom vent too. I think the front vent is just to keep the palm rest/touch pad cool (perfectly centered under touch pad). Seems silly to vent the touch pad and not the CPU (but we all make mistakes). Now to take apart this baby and get busy with my Dremel. I think I'll open vents for the fan and the HDD cover. I might as well do thermal paste on the CPU and GPU while I'm in there.

 

I think that this is "must do" because the standard thermal paste is really bad(it's not a thermal paste at all), and I recomend to try this first.

 

OK, so I took my laptop completely apart and was happy/disappointed at what I found. The 5536 is built with poor cooling. The palmrest vent at the front is the only intake. Some foam boarders make a very shallow track accross the back of the motherboard. It then goes through a half circle hole above the fan before exiting accross the cooling fins and out the back. The volume of airflow is very small through this congested maze. Crappy thermal pads were also used for the GPU and sloppy thermal paste on the CPU.

First I cleaned and removed the dust, the old thermal paste, and the crappy thermal pad. I put new Arctic Silver paste on the CPU and replaced the thermal pad on the GPU with Arctic Silver on both sides of a copper shim. Then I cut holes through the bottom closed vent (as others have previously posted here).

I don't have screen shots but my temperatures are roughly as follows:
Old idle/load of roughly 50 C / 85 C;
New idle/load 40 C/ 60 C.
I haven't noticed any change in the HDD temperature.

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I am very pleased with how well this went.

 

all thumbs, fingers and toes up for you guys

on orthos and furmark parallel stress test, my aspire 5738pg cpu temp used to reach as high as 94'C in about 7mins and automatically shuts itself down.

now, undervolted to .9375V with good thermal paste and shiny new holes on where the air intake vent actually should be...

same stress test, been running for over an hour, the temp is stable @ 87'C,

it may not be as cool as other laptops but i'm happy as long as it didn't reach 94 and kill itself

and the idle temp is at 53, i've never seen 5 anything temp on my laptop, the lowest it temp it ever used to get is around 62 that's with a big noisy laptop cooler under and a bigger table fan on its side

 

Acer...Acer...Acer...


Following to forums discutions, i took the decision that i need to cut the holes / open the grill.

Guess what? From an ambulant stove now i have a laptop back to cool.

Boys and girls ....drums please...DRILL THE HOLES

I modified a gas soldering iron with a 4 mm nail attached and after i took all components apart, I cut open the grill with the RED iron.

When the smoke cleared out, I use a scapel with changeable blades to cut in the melted plastic.

Presto! the laptop is back and the stove is gone.

Sorry for not having a pic but i'm proud of the result, as i use a needle file to smooth the edges and took me only 2 hours for the opperation and 3 hours to clean the mess in the dinning room.

LOL im tired.

But happy