Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

Is it possible that my BIOS became corrupted without me trying to modify it? My computer wasn't able to wake up from sleep so I shut it down (long press on the power button) and the bios doesn't load ever since.
I tried an external monitor, checked for a failed ram stick and still every time I try to turn it on the lights and fan turns but nothing on screen.

 

It doesn't seem possible. You could replace CMOS battery as a precaution but even with it dead, it shouldn't act as it does now.
So literally nothing happens when you press power button?

 

The power indicator light turns on, the fan stars spinning, don't know if the hard driver as well and I can actually toggle the Bluetooth on and off (the indicator led turns on and off) but not the wifi.
I would have taken the computer to a repair shop but I think that it's not worth the money because the computer is almost 6 years old and I should just buy a new one if I can't fix the problem myself. How complicated is switching the CMOS battery?
Thank you!

 

No, it's not a hard task. You'll find a Service Manual in the sticky (a link to a website that stores them). In the manual you can see the CMOS battery on page 70.
Did you check if it launches without the battery and running on battery without the power cable connected? If you can check other RAM sticks one by one (it might not be the RAM stick but one of the RAM slots) and disconnect HDD for testing.

If neither of those helps in any way, you might be looking at a motherboard failure. It seems you can bet a mobo for 5740G for some $100 on ebay - it's up to you if you thing it's worth the money or not.

 

I plan on trying to run Fallout 4 ( with 6GB ) and was looking into overclocking my GPU / CPU. The problem is that the old AMD overclock tool I used years ago ( recommended on the first page of this thread ) now glitches the whole display even when I simply start the program up! I get tiny artifacts that resemble dead pixels and thin, horizontal flashes. Only a reboot fixes it.

I tried running MSI afterburner but it won't keep any of my settings and resets back to 550 / 700.

Anybody else still run new games on this laptop? I can run GTA5 on a 1080p monitor - all low settings and Witcher 3 on 1366 all low settings. Any additional fps would help though

 

AMD GPU Clock tool works fine for me on Windows 7. Are you on Win 7 as well?
Well - it works fine-ish. You can OC alright but you can't revert to default settings- that will cause some artifacts. So I stick to OCed clocks until reboot or reboot immediately once I'm done gaming.

Somehow I don't feel like 5740G will be enough for Fallout 4. I am starting to look for a replacement for 5740G because of that, but only because of that - other than gaming performance, it's doing fine.

 

I actually tried the updated recommendation you gave on the first page and yes, it's fine as long as you don't go back, like you say. I must have been using an old version. Using Win7

What about the CPU? I seem to remember there was a turbo utility available. Would that make much of a difference do you think?

Yes, I'm thinking of upgrading too after all these years - just for Fallout 4 as you say, and have even been thinking of a Playstation 4 - gulp! Although if I get it on Steam and test on 5740G then if I have to upgrade PC I still have the same copy . What upgrade are you thinking of? It's annoying because, as you say, everything else is just fine.

I have read on gaming forums that Fallout 4 will only be marginally more demanding than Skyrim, which the 5740G runs fine, so there is still hope! Fallout 4 is a big deal though....

 

TurboBoost utility didn't do anything to make CPU faster, it would just show when CPU used TurboBoost mode on a widget.

As for upgrades - I thought something reasonably priced with a mid-range GPU like Lenovo Y50-70 or a 15" Aspire Nitro Black Edition.
My only problem is that would mean going for a 960M GT which is just a re-branded 860M GT and has been around for some time. I would rather wait for a new series of nVidia cards and buy something then.

I might as well test Fallout 4 as well. If it turns out to be playable it would be great.

 

Is there a way to use Intel WiDi (wireless display) on 5740g? Can changing the wifi card help me?
I guess, i muss have 2nd or above generation intel cpu.

@ downloads i have a question,
Why you change your wifi card?
Which card do you suggest?

 

WiDi won't work on 5740G because it doesn't have an Intel graphics card (well it technically does but not one that works).

As for my card, I have replaced stock Atheros with an Intel 7260 because I use two NASes on my LAN, so I wanted as much throughput as possible (without using an Ethernet cable). That also means a 802.11ac router off course.

 

@awheels68 I briefly tested Fallout 4 on 5740G and with medium-ish details and in 1366x768 the game was visibly stuttering even indoors in spite of OCed GPU.
Not that I expected anything more...

Either way I now have a growing collection of games that are waiting for a new notebook to be played. It would be cheaper to buy them after I will have bought the new notebook but that's another story...

 

You beat me to it. I was just about to post about this as I "played" the game this morning.

I agree. The performance is dreadful, even on lowest details at 1366x768 and it looks terrible at that setting anyway.

Oh well, it's either a budget 750ti desktop or a PS4. I will be waiting a while for a new laptop I think. Now doesn't seem to be the time to buy.

At the risk of being banned from these forums - how much do you think I would I get for the 5740G 6GB 120SSD ?

 

I have no idea. I don't think you'd get enough to warrant selling it to be honest - it's probably better to keep it a a backup machine than to get the equivalent of what you spend on Friday night in a pub.

 

Hey Downloads how have u been? I installed the Samsung EVO SSD in the still mighty 5740G Its awesome. I m installing Fallout 4 as we speak.
PS. get GTX965M in your new gaming notebook

 

Hi therre @commanderkaran . I'm afraid you will be disappointed by Fallout 4. Looking at your sig you have 5650 clocked at 660/945 - I tested it with 660/900 although with Core i5 560M - I didn't go past the inside of the house, if was so jerky that I gave up quickly.

As for the card - I don't see anything to buy. New nVidia cards should be on the market in 6 months or so and according to their road-map should stay with us for another 2 years, so it makes sense to wait. Current offers include 960M which is pretty much a re-badged 860M (initially launched in March of 2014) - so it's not a spring chicken, or 970M which is available in very few reasonably priced notebooks - mostly MSI with terrible cooling.

I'm gonna try to stick to 5740G until June 2016 or so and buy a new mid-range notebook based on the most recent nVidia offering or hopefully AMD offering (I wish AMD upped their game - we need more competition)

 

No GTX 965M is a desktop GTX 960 (1024 Maxwell cores).I mean yes new lineup comes every 10 months almost. Thats minimum level of performance required if u want to play current AAA titles and later too. Ya 970M is pretty decent and also its price will drop when the new lineup comes.
Ya so true AMD needs to come up.
Or buy an awesome gaming Desktop

 

Never! That's treason I've had only one desktop in my life and still mostly used my notebook (admittedly these were similar in performance - Radeon 9800 Pro in a desktop and Radeon X700 in the notebook). Apart from this short episode somewhere around 2005-2006 I've never owned a desktop.

The only problem with the likes of 965M or 970M is there are very few notebooks with them and not necessarily good ones. Mostly MSI Apache which are famous for having an extremely loud cooling system that somehow is exceptionally bad at cooling components.

 

Awesome ATI from the start
Ya just saw 970M notebooks they heat up a lot and everything throttles and whats the point of spending 2K and then they perform even worse than our 5740G
@msi Apache they have to sound like Apaches doesn't matter they cool the laptop or not

 

Tried fallout 4 it was okay i ll say. When the area is buffered its playable but when u start running then the new area buffers and so it stutters for a second or two.
Also Downloads can you see this if this compatible with our laptop
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-...-Socket-G1-988pin-Laptop-CPU/32424750232.html
same socket : Socket G1 (rPGA988A)
820qm(45W TDP) or 740qm(45W) or 640qm(35W)
Will the Bios support the 820qm?

 

Core i7 820QM should work fine although the one you mentioned is an engineering sample, not a retail CPU which is not ideal.

 

I saw an engineering sample i7 720qm without thermal fan control. Thats the worst thing I saw atleast for Laptop CPUs. But since intel gives the ES to various notebook manufacturers for testing they should give almost the end product atleast for notebooks ,case for desktops is different.
I am actually considering buying one as we can manually control the Fan speed. What do say Downloads is it worth it @ $60 ??

 

It sounds like a good price especially if you plan on using 5740G for some time.

 

@downloads yes I will be using it for mostly a year and a half
On Second thought maybe this
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orig...r-8M-Cache-1-73-GHz-to-3-06G/32525382433.html

 

A friend of mine has a 5740G with a i7-840QM, 16GB of 1333MHz ram, and the 5650 clocked @ 700/950 stable. Also just got a 256GB 840 Pro SSD. He plays smoothly GTA V, MGS V and Witcher 3 @ the native resolution pretty damn smoothly all of the time. I will ask him if he can test how it runs Fallout 4. I think there is a good chance that it will also be playable @ the native resolution.

 

@ deepfreeze12 thanks a lot man and GTA V, MgS V and Witcher 3 is running smoothly is seriously epic. If possible can he also mention what are max temps of CPU while gaming with full fan speed.
I saw the laptops with the default i7 840QM they all throttle. But our awesome laptop has manual fan control and good cooling system it should cool the powerful 840QM

 

@commanderkaran
If you want to update to quadcore, look at http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...t-G1-Mobile-CPU-Processor-SLBMP-/271961117151
Or http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...-Socket-G1-Laptop-CPU-processor-/171867044966
There's also a 820qm for $45

 

@Andy53 Thanks a ton for checking out but unfortunately both the sellers don't ship to India. I see you have the i7 640M, what is the RAM frequency its operating @1333(666MHz) or 1066(533MHz)? I was thinking between the 640M or 840QM. About the 840QM I m skeptical whether it will throttle because of the TDP limit or Thermal limit (Since GPU is also overclocked) so in that scenario i7 640M seems pretty good
Also with a little bit of throttling on the 840QM will it still perform better in Games (leave stress tests prime95 and Furmark aside) ?
PS. @downloads u can reply too

 

@commanderkaran I doubt there will be a power issue related to your GPU being overclocked or TDP issue for that matter.
I would expect 840QM to be hotter (obviously) but not to the point where it would cause trouble.

As for gaming performance this would depend on a game - in most cases GPU will be limiting factor but it's possible that in some games quad core would do considerably better i.e. when there is a lot of AI but not that much graphics (strategic games for example).

 

@downloads thanks, ya given most recent titles take quad core advantage the 840QM should be pretty good i suppose

 

It would be, but the GPU will be such a bottleneck that you won't be able to capitalize on it very much.

 

Yes of course our GPU will be the bottleneck, I wanted CPU upgrade as even chrome and vlc have started eating old CPUs for breakfast
Chrome is becoming a mini OS in itself. Its not that far when u start your PC it will ask you whether you want to boot Windows or Chrome

AMD Crimson Beta is out just now.
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

 

i7-640M works at 1066 (533Mhz), as you live in India you also have to considering domestic temp if you take quad core ?

 

Could someone share the latest drives for Win 10 for my atheros ar5009. I changed the router with brand new Gigabit TP-LINK TL-WR1043N and the speed is ok, but the ping istoo slow - between 11 and 16.

 

Did you ping the router as well or just something on the Internet?

This driver should do - http://station-drivers.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=352&func=fileinfo&id=1895&lang=en

 

.These are not working for me
I bought 2x4gb 1333mhz
I don't understand why.
PC stuck at black screen at startup.

aliexpress.com/item/DDR3-1066Mhz-1333Mhz-1600Mhz-2GB-4GB-8GB-204-Pin-Brand-New-Sealed-SODIMM-Memory-Ram-Memoria/32396509064.html

 

If you have a chance check them in other machine or try just one of them at the time or mix with old one. They might be faulty ( you newer know ), or could be problem with timing. That's why sometimes mixing work as mobo pick up timing from one dimm and use it for all. If mixng try both positions as I cannot say which slot will be primary one.


Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

I think for our model laptop must be double sided Ram. I had problems with one module Kingston Ram, but found this Samsung and It's work fine.

 

In our laptop both SPD's are reading out.
Problems with Kingston are mentioned at page 565.
So if anyone try to update RAM take the time to look some page's back
or ask questions before buying, maybe someone can advice.

 

Yes both speeds are read but if two different are present both dimms need to work on same speed and timing. This problem persist especially with desktop core duo CPUs. Where find ram that's is working I desired speed sometimes is real challenge.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

Acer 5740G Creative X-Fi Titanium Mod v2 Update:

So as i already presented on page 508 of this thread i just updated my Acer 5740G soundcard mod, the last problem of it was that the Creative X-Fi Titanium soundcard required an additional 12V Supply, since laptops themselves do not provide 12V at any point, i had to provide the 12V externally either through an additonal PSU or LiPO powerbank with 12V output.

But then magically i just got the idea why not take 5V from the MoBo (thanks to Andy53 for showing pictures of the 5V Supply point D19 on page 514, soldering cables to it was a bit tricky for me since my solder iron was not hot enough at first) and use a Step Up DC Converter ($1) to make 12V out of it?

Well so far it works very fine with the new method of 12V supply! i only gotta get rid of using the standby mode, since this will also cut off the 5V supply, and when reactivating the laptop, the soundcard will not ouput sound until the next reboot anymore. Well the Creative X-Fi Titanium uses quite alot power, around 11W where 3W is used by the 12V rail for the D/A section and 8W over 3.3V rail for the X-Fi Chip itself, but with a 100Wh 12cell liion battery this shouldnt be a big problem.

However with this mod incl. 5V/12V Supply i am also able to plugin any other desktop pcie x1 like sata600 cards, usb3 cards, pcie ssds, even graphics cards, the possibilities are just unlimited!






So why do this "ugly" pcie soundcard mod where an external USB soundcard would be the better solution?

Well the special advantage of the Creative EMU soundcards (audigy 2zs, xfi titanium, xfi xtreme music etc) against other internal/external consumer soundcards is their integrated hardware DSP, allowing distortion free real-time equalizing, while (most) software based real-time equalizer often deliver poor, distorted results, especially if its about (extreme) bass boosting. Unluckily there is as far as i know no USB soundcard with integrated hardware DSP and equalizing capabilities like the xfi titanium on the consumer market.

However, this is my current personal Acer 5740G Tuning Checklist:

- Creative X-Fi Soundcard with mini pcie/pcie adapter and 5V/12V Step UP dc converter
- mobility Radeon 5650 oc to 700/900mhz making it as fast as mobility radeon 5770
- 12cell 100Wh Li-ion battery
- 120GB OCZ Vertex2 SSD, moving 640GB WD Blue 5400rpm into hdd/drive caddy and the bluray drive into an external USB 2.0 case
- Intel WLAN AC 7260 Wifi card, allowing practical 18 MB/s speed in 2,4GHz Wlan N 2x2MIMO, and 33 MB/s 5Ghz AC (router in the same room) vs 11 MB/s 2,4GHz with the original Atheros Card.

This is my current ToDo list:

- CPU upgrade i5 520m to i7 640m (the quadcore ones like i7 840qm imo make no sense at all since they are still based on the old 45nm lithography and have a too high TDP of 45w)
- Installing Modded BIOS with unlocked intel/advanced tab
- Solar Powered Laptop with 10W Epoxy poly crystalline solar panel ($15) and 5A Step Down MPPT dc converter ($10):





Well the 10W Epoxy Solar Panel magically just fits almost perfectly on the backside of the 15" screen, the only problem is, 10W is never enough to power a laptop... thats where the step down MPPT converter is doing a great job so far, while the laptop is running, the solar panel will support the battery, extending its runtime, when setting the mppt converter to 19V output voltage and current limitation, the output voltage just magically drops to 11V liion battery voltage, the laptop itself just shows that obviously no PSU is connected at all.

Much more interesting is the laptop behavior at battery charging with the laptop itself turned off. At first the laptop seems to try initiate a common charging process which would actually need at least 30W power, but since the MPPT converter/solar panel can only provide a maximum of 10W, the converter begins to limit the output voltage and it begins to vary between 15V and 18V, after a few seconds the laptop seems to "realize" that the "connected PSU" does not deliver enough power so it cancels the charging process. A few seconds later it magically begins to start a new charging process, but this time with an exact charging current of 300ma at 19V which is actually just 5,7W, i dont know why it exactly does this, and why exactly 300ma, since the solar panel could provide 10W under ideal conditions, this is actually not the most efficient charging, but well at least it seems to work somehow.

 

Well done, I like this kind of "Creative" modding !

I've don something similar crazy with an old ISA-card, which I liked very much,
see

About the Wake up issue, You can try to solder a 10k pull up resistor between pin 1 and 2 (3.3V) at the minipcie slot or
at the outside slot if it is passed true, see chapter 3.2.4.4. " WAKE# Signal" from PCI_Express_Mini_CEM_12.pdf (Google it).

"the output voltage just magically drops to 11V liion battery voltage", a battery under load always works as an voltage stabilizer,
nothing to say about current limitation, maybe not real specs from 10W or a hidden resistant ?
Good luck with your project and to all of you, a good 2016 !

 

with the latest 1.28 bios it is not possible to boot from a hdd installed in a hddcaddy in the disc drive slot of the acer 5740g. it seems to have still been possible at older bios versions like 1.16. is there any bios mod for the 1.28 bios to make booting from hdd caddy possible again?

 

@phoenix222 I think BIOS 1.22 still allowed that but 1.28 indeed did not. If I remember correctly 1.28 added support for new CPUs so unless you've upgraded a CPU you might as well drop back to 1.22.

 

yeah im using i7 640m so i think im forced to use v1.28, is there really no bios mod out that allows it again?

 

@phoenix222 Not that I remember.

 

Finaly ending up comparing i7-640M vs i7-740QM

i7-740 did it very well, better as I expected, overall the same as i7-640.
But it's too hot, make my fan too much noisy, kicks in at about 11% cpu load, and stay on all the time.
i7-740QM 43C Idle, with prime95 84C
vs
i7-640QM 37C Idle, with prime95 73C

Going back to i7-640M, i7-740QM for sale !

 

Installing W10 last week.

Registerentry "KMD_EnableBrightnessInterface2" according to control brightness is already there, value "1"
Making it "0" has no effect, anyone can help ?

 

I did have my W10 tryout and in all respect don't do it. W10 will revert all changes in registry when it will like. That's why I'm back on W7Pro.

Sent from my Redmi Note 2 using Tapatalk

 

well all those 4core i7 from 1.st gen are bad choice over the dual cores just because they are still 45nm while the dual cores 32nm, that just makes them too inefficient and bad choice in all cases.

btw. my i7 640m clocks to 3,2ghz with like 60% load on all 4 threads, but when starting prime95 it clocks down to 2,93ghz, though they temperature wont go over 65°C, does yours also clock to 2,93ghz under prime load? if yes, any idea why? my old i5 520m always stayed at stable 2,66ghz with load on all 4threads or prime95.

 

What kind of wifi ac I can install on AS5740G ?