Acer 7720 Upgrade adventure.

I'm sure that this may not be news to evryone here as others have done this; but I figured I would post my experiences in a 7720 specific thread to help other 7720 owners who may be unaware of their laptop's potential.

My 7720 model (6395) came with a T5250 (1.5Ghz), 2GB Ram, 250GB HD (5400 RPM), Blu-Ray, & 8400M GS (256MB).

The first thing I did was go out and get 4GB or ram from ebay for about $80 and replace the 2GB in the laptop (the laptop takes the same ram in the Mac does PC-5400 DDR2).

Then I went out and purchased a T9300 processor for about $360. This took me to 2.5Ghz with a 6MB cache. I had to upgrade the bios from 1.19 to 1.29b in order for this to work.

Finally, I went out and got an 8600M GT with 512MB to replace the 8400m. I chose the one by Asus for their C90S. I looked at the DDR3 version, but was unable to find one that had been verified to work on an Acer.

The video was the trickiest to do because I had to install the card into the laptop and then flash the bios on the card with an Acer version even though the screen wouldn't work while I was doing this (this pleasant experience is known as a blind flash). The card cost me about $127.

So you may be surprised at how upgradable you laptop is.

 

Wow, impressive. If you could write a guide or post a link to how to go about doing a blind flash, I'm sure that would be helpful.

 

Very Nice did you benmark before and after? For Comparsion

 

Neato! It looks like these are available on fleabay for $399 or so. Do you have a better source of (dare I hope) warranteed CPU's?

Have you had any trouble with your Asus C90s version of the card? I get worried when I see web sites saying "only works with Brand X Model Y"... And also: What's the perf difference between the 8600m and the 8400m? What's the perf difference between the X3100 integrated graphics that I have, and the 8400m?

By the way, I second the plea about an upgrade guide for the graphics card. How did you determine what the keyboard sequence was for the blind update?

Sigh, I'm the proud owner of a T5250-based 7720, I haven't owned it for 6 hours yet, and I'm already investigating upgrades. (Well, if you could have gotten an AS7720 with T5250/2gb/160gb for $539, you'd have done it too, and then immediately started figuring out how you could use the money you saved to make it even better, wouldn't you?)

It's also running Vista. Are there any reasons not to, ahem, upgrade, ahem, to XP? It looked like the Acer site had all the drivers, but it's a question of how buggy they are vs. their Vista counterparts.

And even if I don't upgrade it at all, wow, I'm happy with all the laptop I got for under $600.

 

A few more questions:

1. What, besides removing two screws, does one have to do to get the HDD area door off? I tried prying at that little indent along the edge of the door, and it felt like something else was holding it in place. There is a latch in the bottom of the notebook that seemed to have a lock and unlock position, which I moved to unlock, but saw no difference. Well, at least it won't be falling off like my old Dell's slide-into-place memory and graphics card doors did with great frequency....

2. I'm blown away with how quiet the notebook runs, and how cool it is after 2 hours of use (compared to my HP at work, which gets actually physically HOT, not just warm, to the touch after 45 minutes or so of use). What will upgrading the graphics and the CPU do, to how cool it runs? Oh great upgrader above, have you seen much difference in temperature?

3. Great upgrader, did you do your upgrades with the aid of the service manual? If so, could you share a link to it?

Thanks!

 

T9300
http://www.lagoom.com/INTEL_CPU_CORE_2_DUO_T9300_2.50GHZ/BX80576T9300/partinfo-id-579832.html#

 

Is that the correct socket type? (It's listed both as Socket P and Socket 478... I'll admit that I'm more of a desktop person, so I don't know if the two are different, and if they are, how you know it's the right one...)

Thanks!

 

Because socket P does have 478 pins so does socket M. But, they are not compatible!

 

I actually tried a few benchmarks, but after installing a couple (Sandra, etc) I found they didn't do the whole system and when I went to grab 3dMark and the like they were 500mb downloads. So I simply got impatient and did the upgrades first.

I have also since replaced my 250GB internal hd with a 200GB 7200RPM drive as weel (kept 250 as secondary drive - i will attempt to RAID the two together as well).

Right now, my Vista experience scores are as follows:

Processor : 5.4
Memory: 5.1
Graphics: 4.5
Gaming Graphics: 5.2
Primary Hard Disk: 5.4

Sorry that's all I have at the moment; but I figure you guys can compare it to your own.

I can tell you that when I replaced the processor, not only did the Processor score rise, but the memory score did as well (about 10%). I figure this is due to the larger cache and faster cpu.

 

I got mine from www.costcentral.com; it was $357 including 2 day fed ex shipping. They are in PA, but the retail box was drop shipped from Memphis, TN.

I'm not sure about the warrenty. But to be honest I figured this entire ordeal would render all associated warrenties useless if I ran into problems.

No unexpected trouble. I knew I would have to flash the bios on the card (they put a vendor specific bios on the card - that's why they say it will work only on their brand).

Model Shaders Core speed Memory speed Memory Bus DirectX 3DMark01 3DMark03 3DMark05 3DMark06

8600M GT 32 475 700 128 10 21694 10261 5997 3296

8400M GS 16 400 600 64 10 12477 4685 2658 1363

X3100 8 500 ? ? 10 5121
1720 835 502

Your milage may vary (benchmark info from www.notebookcheck.com).

I know exactly where you are coming from. I got mine from Best Buy brand new in the box for $688. For some strange reason, BB discontinued it within a month or two of Acer introducing it.

I think I've collected all the XP drivers; but for now I am happy with how stable Vista is on this machine. I run XP within a VMWare box. I will add some linux installs someday soon.

 

Just the two screws. The door is then held in place by plastic clips. Pull firmly (but gently) and it will pop off. This is even more true for the processor/ram/video door as well.

No difference noticable for me. I expected the video to run hotter; but the new CPU runs much cooler - so I think it is an even washout.

I have the service manual (don't remeber which of the hundreds of places I searched actually had it). I will try to post some rapidshare links with it and all the needed video files and such.

 

Yep. It's correct. The easiest way to shop for another processor is to stick to searches for a specific number.... The T9300 only comes one way, so there is no way to get the wrong one.

 

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17040

This was where I found my info on how to do the upgrade. It was pretty straightforward - but the problem I had with the automatic execution was unexpected (read through that thread and you'll hear my story).

 

paynej, I was just curious as to where one would purchase a 8600M GT for the acer. I was looking in to upgrade all of the same components that you have: 4 GB of RAM, 2.5 Ghz proc and the gpu. My Acer 7720 came with integrated Intel graphics. Would it still have the necessary connection to upgrade the gpu?

 

sorry to toss SALT on your GAME....

but you can't upgrade video on a laptop that came w/ intergrated graphics..

the original poster had a 7720 GS which shipped with an Nvidia 8400 which he upgraded to a 8600..
but the X3100 intergrated video is not upgradable

 

I have to echo bigozone's thoughts. I have yet to see a motherboard with Intel's graphics that was upgradable.

Although I have to admit that every service manual I could find on the 7720 showed the same motherboard; so I would suggest you open the case and see if you have the mxm II connector.

 

the MB is the same... but it will be missing the MXM connector if it came w/ intergrated graphics ... the location for the connector will be there.. but no socket will be soldered to the MB

 

Okay, thx a lot guys. I will definitely take a look at the mobo and see what's up. I can deal with the integrated graphics, as I'm not looking to upgrade and utilize it for gaming of any sorts. I was just curious to see if it was an option to have. Any little bit helps. Thx again.

EDIT:
Where would I be able to get my hands on a service manual for this particular laptop?