Acer 7720: power settings problem when unplugging please help

Hello,

I really hope someone can help. This is a nasty problem and I can't find an answer anywhere.

I have an Acer 7720-6604 notebook. For Power Settings I usually keep it on "High Performance" when plugged in (I'm usually gaming). I've found that when I unplug it with this setting, it acts like it's on "Power Saver" mode, which equals a big drop in frame rates when I game. I checked out event viewer and it shows this message as associated:

"Event 2, Kernel-Processor-Power

Performance power management features on processor 1 are disabled due to a firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware."


I've looked all over and can't find any way to fix this problem. I really haven't seen anyone else have the problem actually. It's bad though because it really makes games unplayable and shouldn't be happening on a relatively new laptop (bought it only about a year ago). I don't know what firmware I need to update or what I need to do if that's not it.

I did uninstall all of the empowering technology programs, including epower management. I'm not sure if it's related... I thought it was just a power scheming tool and windows has it's own in the control panel anyways.

Someone please help. I don't want to have to format or send it in for repairs if I can help it. Acer has an expensive repair fee (so I hear). I will format if I have to but I don't know that it will fix anything.


Thanks in advance. This forum is the best.



Raegn

EDIT: Here's a link to a screen shot of my event viewer pane. It looks like it's generating two errors every time.

farm4.static.flickr.com/3158/3111687293_4c15f9928f_b.jpg

EDIT2: Also, I'm using Windows Vista 64-bit (came pre-loaded). I'd previously set both the minimum and maximum states for the processor to 100% in the power management section of the control panel.

 

In my Vista installation, I have set my power plan to High Power while plugged in as well. When I unplug it, it switches to the Balanced plan. If , while unplugged, I then change it to the High Power plan, then next time I unplug it, it remains in the High Power plan.

I have the 32 bit installation of Home Premium on my 7720. My laptop came with the v1.44 bios but the v1.43 bios is available on the Acer website. This is the only "firmware" I can think of that the message may be referring to. Uninstalling the eManagement tools shouldn't be an issue.

 

Thanks Paten. I'll try that workaround in the morning and see if it works on mine. I thought the same thing about the BIOS being the firmware it's referring to. Have you tried the rollback? I'm not sure what it will do to the functionality of the notebook, so I'm a little nervous about it.

The acer website is actually being a little wonky for me tonight. Would you happen to have a link I could use to get to the driver you're referring to? If not, I'll cross my fingers that it'll work for me tomorrow.

Does anyone else have any idea(s)?

EDIT: I should also mention that when I click on the battery icon to see what power plan I'm on, it still displays "High Performance" even though the Event Viewer is saying that Processor1 isn't switching.

 

I just updated the system BIOS and nothing. I'm also not seeing any seeing any difference with the workaround. To make sure I'm doing this right though, here's what I did.

Set it to high performance, unplugged and saw the difference, changed the power setting and then changed it back to high performance, plugged it in and unplugged it.

There's a login screen featuring falling snow that works really well for noticing the difference. Every time, even if I did the above, I would see a performance drop in the rendering of the falling snow - lower fps, I mean.

Someone please help :-/ I don't even know if formatting will fix anything but I'd hate to think I have a hardware based processor problem since I'm only just recently out of warranty.

 

Anyone? I tried formatting and it *seemed* to fix the problem before I installed SP1. When I installed it, it happened again. I'm rolling back to check for sure (by uninstalling the update via programs and features). I'll report back with the results.

 

Since there's been no response, I can imagine that no one else has had this problem. I'll post my findings here, just in case someone googles the issue.

I formatted the hard drive and tested it with and without Vista SP1. I also tested it with and without Acer's ePower utility, just to see.

There was no difference. The error is still generated. It seems like it may be an issue with the BIOS not addressing the power management changes when unplugging - even though there's no change.

My best suggestion would be to continually update the BIOS. I'm calling Acer now to see what they say. I'll report back.

To anyone who reads this, would it be a hardware problem? I wouldn't really know but it doesn't seem like it would be considering that it goes right back to normal when plugged back in.

 

Okay, so I just spoke to them.

Since Event Viewer does not generate the message when unplugging the computer directly after a restore, they feel that it is not a hardware issue and that it's caused by the software I'm using (this is actually good in part because it means I won't be sending it in for repairs.)

This may be true but the representative was trying to tell me that the computer may not be up to par for the game I'm trying to play. Since I'm only playing WoW and I know my PC more than exceeds the recommended specs, I thinking it may just something with the game itself. I'm going to test it out with a couple of other games and see if I can isolate it to WoW or whether it's when the GPU is taking a load or not.

 

Raegn, it looks like you are not getting a lot of love or help fixing this problem. I would just like to let you know you are not alone and this is not an Acer notebook specific issue. I just built a new desktop with a new Intel i7 965 processor and while using Windows Ultimate 64-bit I am getting the same problem. I am able to move around in the web and other low processor usage applications but as soon as I enable my folding program (seti@home) the system soon crashes. My event log shows an error on each of the 8 processors in my system.

Source: Kernel-Processor-Power
EventID: 2
"Performance power management features on processor 4 are disabled due to a firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware."

Some research showed a very similar error message related to EventID: 6 it stated:
"Performance power management features on processor 4 are disabled due to known firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware."

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone that has a fix. I'll keep looking and report back here if I find anything.

I was going to try and see if it does the same thing with games but from your notes it seems that I am going to have the same problem.