Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

I'm too lazy to go with a crisis disk. There is an off chance that something is going to go wrong but I've flashed multiple BIOSes and never bricked one.
Also I don't have crisis disk for 1.28 BIOS to re-upload. The only one I have is 1.22.

 

i think my hardrive is failing, which should i buy?
thanks

 

I went and replaced with a samsung 840 evo 250 gb.
Works great and the computer is fassssst

 

Let us see how fast !!!
There was a plan to collect benchmarks from SSD, see page 550, I hope Downloads is still in fore it.
Here is mine,

Diskmark v 3.0.1 x64, 3 passes with 50MB on C:, no cheats.


SSD: Intel 520 120Gb
CPU: i7-640M
O.S.: W7 Ulti-64bit
BIOS: v1.28
Note's: now that 520 Serie is faster from 180Gb and above due to flashnand layout.

Let's see if we got a nice collection.:thumbsup:

 

Mine sucks big time in any benchmarks as it is fully encrypted. I thought that since my CPU supports AES-NI and AES encryption is handled at over 1GB/s that would not matter but apparently it does for a completely different reasons - IOPS are affected to a huge degree (unencrypted drive is several times faster in that regard)

I can provide a benchmark if you want but it's going to be of an encrypted drive - it takes too long to decrypt and fully encrypt even SSD.

Side-note: encrypting a 2TB NAS over Ethernet at 37MB/s takes exactly one million years. And I have two such NASes...

 

No problem, if you drive later turns up with no encryption then it would be a nice compare !
I hope it wil be possible that you can put our incomming benchmarks in a central place.

( Don't understand your 2 million years, if you save the content from your NASes to a non -encrypted drive, then the CPU wil fix it in real time ? )

 

Just wondering if someone can help me. I wrote last week regarding upgrading the BIOS on my Aspire 5740G.

Since then I have gone ahead and the done the upgrade. No apparent problems at the time. But I've since discovered that my laptop will no longer read any USB pen-drives. If I insert a pen-drive, its presence is acknowledged in the notification area of the task bar and the model of the pen-drive disk appears in the Devices and Printers section of the Control Panel. But Windows Explorer doesn't include the disk and the contents do not open.

This is really driving me mad; I've written to a few other forums, but no one has replied. I've be very grateful if one of you know how to fix this problem.

Florio

 

@Florio

It doesn't seem to be BIOS related - USB ports are working on a hardware level so that's a coincidence that it happened after BIOS update.
It's most likely OS related - see if you can launch Ubuntu from a pen-drive. If you can than it's surely a Windows problem - hard to guess what would that be although it might be related to upper/lower filters (sometimes drives vanish when those get messed up)

@Andy53

No wonder you couldn't understand as I wasn't really clear about it. Since NAS doesn't support TrueCrypt it only works as a carrier for TrueCrypt Containers. While encrypting and decrypting is indeed done on the fly, before you can even use them you have to create TrueCrypt containers which means creating 2TB encrypted file at 37MB/s (max speed limited by NAS). That took ages and once I had done this I still had one more 2TB drive to encrypt.

Luckily that's one in a lifetime thing.

 

Thanks downloads. Your reply has slightly reassured me. I cannot try launching Ubutnu for the moment since I can't use USB pen-drives on this laptop! I may be able to put Ubuntu onto a stick by using a computer in the office, but it'll have to wait until I go back to work on Monday.

I'm also pretty sure that this is a Windows issue, especially since I always use a wireless mouse with USB mini drive permanently inserted.

Two things I did not mention earlier. Firstly, I bought a new printer the other day (Epson all-in-one XP 315), and it seemed to have installed an extra drive (Z) on my laptop. I've since hidden this drive as it didn't seem to be doing anything. And the other evening I got a blue screen with a 'Driver_irql_not_less_or_equal' message. First time ever. I was so surprised that I forgot to take down all the details.

For the moment, let's just assume that this is a Windows problem. I know that that my pen-drives are okay, and I can see that Windows does at least acknowledge them when I insert them (and identify the brand). What should I try, do you think?

Florio

 

Try un-hiding the drive printer created. You might have hidden more that you wanted to. Once you do that see if pen-drives show once inserted.

 

Have another Epson ( SX 510W ) but aim pretty shure that the "drive" is the cardreader in the Epson.
Put an SDcard in it and you wil see.

Uninstall USB drivers and install them again.

 

Problem finally solved!! Many thanks for your input, downloads.

Still cannot understand why hiding the 'z' drive affected the 'f' and 'e' drives, but there you go.

Florio

 

Hey guys.I just reinstalled my Windows and decided to go with Win 8.1 seeing Win 9 is close.I read here before about the problem with brightness control on our laptop.
Is there a workaround or a fix?Right now i can't change the brightness from any of the possible ways to control it that i know of.

 

You should install 13.1 catalyst driver and should work fine, any newer driver will broke the brightness change option .

 

Hi there. I wrote the other day regarding USB pen-drives that were not opening; there were various other related issues including a BSOD which suddenly came up. I managed to solve the problem with the USB drives, but the BSOD has reappeared.

I was using internet about 2 hours ago (actually browsing amazon with the intention of making a purchase) when everything just froze and the BSOD came up. I had several other programs running at the same time, including WORD and Outlook.

I'm pretty sure that the cause is a new Epson all-in-one printer I installed shortly before seeing the first BSOD, but I also updated my BIOS around the same time, and was under the impression that it was giving me no problems.

I am running Windows Home Premium with Firefox as my browser.

I've posted on the Windows 7 forum, but no one has answered. So I'm hoping that someone can make something out of the attached .zip file and give me some instructions on how to resolve my problem. Thanks.

 

Nah.I don't really need the brightness control.I prefer the newer drivers.

 

Hi Florio

The answer is easy, go back to the point where everything work's normal !
In your case I will unstal the printerdriver and see how it's going, but my Epson drivers never give me any problems, did you also have a wireless version ?
Another poin't good be that you came from an old BIOS, don't now if you have a HD 5470 like me, but it did not work good with Catalyst 14.4 and 14.6?, a BIOS update to v1.28 also update the graphic's card.
So if you have HD 5470 and Catalyst 14.x , then go back to Catalyst 13.x.
Never heard from windows problems after BIOS update before, so check the above.
Good luck.

 

New Catalyst 14.9 drivers are out.

 

Anyone check that? Is brightness control works in win8 or any hope it will?

 

Oh i forgot to check that.Sadly still no brightness control.

 

Hello to all, I've switched my cpu from i5 430 to i7 720 according to this thread experiences, now my laptop doesn't turn on, it only blinks power chord led and main led about every two seconds.
My laptop is 5740DG with lastest 1.28 bios
Can anyone help me?

 

No problem, cpu wasn't locked at all in the socket.
Now running smoothly but a little hot with medium usage (50-60).
Maybe I'll buy better thermal paste one of this days...
Thanks to all anyway.

Another question unresolved after scuba diving on the thread was about empty mini pcie port at the bottom, wich uses can be achieved? ssd? 3g? what options have you taken?
Tanks in advance!

 

I have i7 820 with artic mx5 thermal paste and i got 50-55 with normal use, 45-50 on idle . I suggest u a better paste
P.s.: im also interested about mini pcie...

 

Well, I just reinstalled windows7 (accumulated too much crap after 4 years) and the 14.9 ati driver works OK with me. No problem with brightness control. Did not test on win 8 though...

 

I know that, good with win 7 , but ty for the response

 

Brightness control works fine on Win 7, but it does not on Win 8 and 8.1.

 

It's resolved, you can use any minipci-e card you want. There are even some combi cards with Wlan, 3G, and bluetooth at once.
But you have to look that the component's are on the right side if you want to close the cover.
Also some cards needs extra powersupply (5V for USB 2/3).
I have USB 3 in it ( page 514 #5139 and page 522 #5212 ) and have made some tests with SATA 3 in Wlan minipci-e. ( page 542 #5416)
Someone in this thread has put a "minipci-e to pci-express" adapter in it so he can use any desktop pci-express card on it.
Limited by BIOS you can not boot from minipci-e.

 

HI All

Have acer 7540 (i5)

Originally had 2GB and running WIN7 x86 OK.

Bought 8GB (2 x 4GB Kingston 1333MHz) SODIMM

With WIN7-x86: works perfectly OK but can only access 2.8GB. Works in any module combination including new with old original 2GB (6GB total)

With WIN7-x64: Windows won't boot at at all irrespective of RAM configuration. Gets to WIN7 starting screen, then crashes (Safe mode gets to CLASSPNP.SYS and stops. Sometimes get BSOD with "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL")

x64 works OK with original 2GB module.

Again: 8GB RAM is proven to be OK.

Any ideas?

Thx
Jas

 

Hello again, i have another question, has anyone tried different wlan + bt 4 than intel solution? I'm looking for atheros or IBM ...

 

I'm running an Intel 7260 and I'm going to stick to it but I don't recommend it to anyone without the need for 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

You may be looking at Atheros or Broadcom but not at IBM - partly because it's called Lenovo as far as PCs are concerned, partly because they don't manufacture Wi-Fi chips but mostly because if you buy a card meant for Lenovo notebook, it won't work in your Acer (white-listing works both ways)

 

ok thanks downloads for the reply and the valuable info, I think I'll go on with the atheros wich is very cheap from ebay/amazon and also dual band.

This baby rejects to die
5740DG (3D) i7 720qm 8gb 1333 120gb sata ssd (planing msata addon for swap and windows and posible cpu/mem upgrade if found something on ebay or something )

 

Hey! Does anyone know where can i buy an headphone jack? Because seems like mine is broken - when i insert headphones to the socket, it starts making crackling noises ( gotta find the right postion, so it plays in the headphones ).

Also i know someone fixed the problem with AC power jack falling out easily, anyone knows how to fix it or what page exactly in this thread someone posted it?

Thanks!!


//okay, anyway i'm gonna use line-in as my headphone jack until i can fix the other jack.
If anyone else is in trouble with this and uses ubuntu ( or any other linux distro ) then this is for you:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/429966/output-analogue-audio-via-speakers-through-line-in-jack

 

I put a bit of tape over the power jack. The sort of gaffer tape made of fabric not plastic so it's not smooth. Works for a while until the tape is smoothed out, then you have to replace it. Still works fine and costs nothing.

Audio jacks are usually available on amazon - you just have to make sure that mounting points are as far as on the mobo.

 

Hey guys,

I have a problem with my sound after I did a fresh windows 7 installation: it doesn't work through the speaker, only through the headphone jack. I downloaded the drivers from the official Acer website but to no avail. I've tried searching around but only found threads about problems with HDMI audio. Can anyone please help me? Thanks!

EDIT: I tried installing one from this website http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/realtek-hd-audio-2-75-driver-download.html as well

 

here is the fix for brightness control with newer AMD drivers on Windows 8 and 8.1

go to regedit search for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000" and add there a value: DWORD Value (32-bit). Set the name of the value "KMD_EnableBrightnessInterface2" and set it on "0". and reboot

all credit goes to Guru3D.com Forums - View Single Post - HD 5730 blackscreen on new drivers

 

It works! Thanks mate

 

It works! Thanks mate

 

Hey guys, was planning on upgrading some bits of my laptop to keep it going for another couple of years. HDD upgrade to SSD just had to be done as the HDD is dying also think a RAM upgrade is in order. Looking for some suggestions on the SSD and RAM front. Also what type of RAM 5740G use?think 8gig of RAM would be good. Looking forward to suggestions and also open to suggestions for upgrade of other parts.

 

Hi there. Just wondering if someone can help me.
I went to play a DVD on my Acer 5740G a few minutes ago, only to find that it wasn't possible; Windows Media Center has always worked perfectly before. Something seems to have happened to my screen resolution, but I don't know what. I only notice it when Media Center opens since the screen is much narrower and centered, whereas it seems normal when I use other programmes. I checked the screen resolution, and it is the recommended 1366 by 768 pixels. What can possibly have happened, and how can I put it right?
Thanks.

 

Re: Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

@kthien

Did you checked the mixer or "configurationsscreen / sound" settings for muted speaker or closed slider ?

SSD upgrade is a good option, don't now which type is the best, after we trying to make a kind of "what is the best for our laptop" there was not much respond, search the internet for some tests, price and size you need.
The will working on SATA2 speeds, about 250Mb/s max.

Other upgrades depends on your needs, if you use more ram than you have, it's usefull, otherwise buying more ram than you need is waiste of money.
Ram type is sodim ddr3 1333 or higher, 8Gb max. for dualcore, 16Gb max. for quadcore.
Cpu update is also possible if you need it.

What I will say is, don't update becourse it's possible, only if you need it.

 

Hi, sorry for bringing this up again. Watching videos had been a casual use for this laptop, but now I would need to do it more often, and I just can't stand the gamma shifting... Looking straight at the screen the upper half of the picture looks radically darker than the lower half, when not black. It's unbearable. Is it possible to install a better screen (no matter keeping the same resolution)?

Thanks

 

Well I found up this
15.6" screen full hd ips | eBay

But i'm not sure if this works on our laptop.

 

Thanks for your answer! I'll find out if the connectors in those screens match the one in our laptop. I suppose even if they don't match, something could be arranged, some adaptation... It'll be funny that you can attach any monitor to the VGA or HDMI outputs and not being able to connect any screen to the internal connector. Anyways, it would be a dream, this laptop has a very good lifespan ahead!

 

No problem mate. Tell us if it works

 

Is there any way to change fan start speed? (rweverything - at auto fan mod)

Value of "F8" good for surfing(quiet)
But on auto mod, fan speed is noisy when started for cooling and that continued until stop. I want to change my fan speed to "F8" for auto mod.
Because at auto mod controller didn't work very well i think. If degree increase to 48°, fan start with higher speed for cooling and it stop at 44°. I don't want that. If it won't stop and working with value of "F8", it will be very good and so quiet.

My second question is about stop 2nd hdd,
Is there a way to stop second internal HDD from spininng until I need it?
I use that way Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Advance power settings -> Hard disk -> Turn Off hard disk after. But it didnt work. (Disk, Seagate ST9500325AS)

 

About the second question I can tell you that my 2nd HDD (WD Scorpio Blue 640GB) shuts down instantly when I'm no longer using it.
My power options are like yours but maybe you have some program using the hard drive (i.e AV...)

 

Hi , i read a lot with cpu ugrade in the forum and i decide to upgrade it. I have also upgrade our laptop with ssd (120gb) and ram (8gb).
I have i5 -430 (4core cpu) . I read about i7-720qm and i5-560m. (i5 - 560 is a lot cheaper than i7!)
Do we have something newer than these with good value-price? Thank you

 

Not really - we are limited to first generation of Core i5/i7 meaning you can't get above Core i7 740QM and Core i5 580M. Core i7 720QM and Core i5 560M are a both below Core i7 720QM ans Core i5 580M respectively but the difference isn't significant.

 

Thank you very much for your answer. So what do you suggest between those?
What other have u upgrade for our laptop?

 

I bought Core i5 560M when a user of this forum directed us to a batch of cheap ones.

Core i7 is a real 4 quad CPU while Core i5 is a dual core, but at the same time Core i7 has a higher TDP so it will heat up the notebook more than Core i5 will.

Ultimately I think it's the matter of price - unless you find both priced very similarly. I doubt that will happen and that's why I think a cheaper one will be a better one.

As for the SSD - I put 256GB Samsung 830 in mine - works fine but remember that you will be limited to SATA II speeds.
I also upgraded the battery to one twice the size and capacity and I replaced Atheros card with Intel 7260 when I bought a 802.11ac router.