Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

I just checked and it doesn’t happen to me after neither hibernation nor stand by.
That said I have all the drivers updated. Think about the most recent version of ePower Management but it’s really hard to guess provided that the only driver we have in common is Cats 10.4

 

I have had this BEAST of a notebook for about 1 1/2 months now, and i LOVE IT to DEATH...
Couple Questions though,


#1 i was playing games, on med settings, and went into the ATI control center and changed my AA and settings to 16x... respectavely, why would i have to do do this? NOW my games all play mostly at HIGH settings with 8xaa.

Even crysis plays at 4xaa with 1/2 the settings on enthusast.

#2 My pc runs at 68º-80º F This is safe right (i have a targus dual fan chillpad under it)

#3 When shutting down the notebook, if i shut the screen too quick (before the windows shutdown sound) there is a loud HISS like speaker feedback, any way to get rid of this?

#4 What is my graphics card clocked at? the 5750? i hear that its underclocked? and what can i do to make it work properly? (like i said before most games play at med-high settings but only because i changed the ATI control center settings...

Example, Street fighter IV played at LOW settings smooth ONLY, and now, it plays at HIGH-VERY HIGH with 8xaa and all shading on... why? or is the STOCK settings in the notebook on the GPU for POWER SAVING?

#5, is this notebook upgradeable, (the i5-430 in it now,) to a i7 or the faster i5-520?

#6, upgrading the 4gb ddr3, to 8gb ddr3, in anyones HONEST opinion, how much of difference will it make? because it basically FLYS through everything now, something like INSTANT GRATIFICATION apon window opening? i have never had a state of the art notebook before, its always been a hand-me down or older model/processor, so this thing is just a dream-machine for me
(coming from a toshiba p4 with 1gb ram and integrated graphics)

Sorry for kinda being all over with this thread, but just some questions i have been wondering about since i got this awesome Notebook.

By the way i am running the Acer Aspire AS5740G-6979 w/ 1 gb dedicated ati gpu 4gb ddr3 1066

brian

 

If we're talking about the same notebook it's HD5650 not HD5750.
It's not really underclocked- it's 550MHz core and 750MHz memory. In most cases memory on 5650s and similar are clocked at 800MHz for memory- so that's your underclocking. I have no idea why did they set it to this value nor do I really care as I play on overclocked card when I need it.
If you need more juice just OC it, if you don’t just leave it.

Temps are OK BTW

CPU can be upgraded but it wouldn't affect gaming so there's no point in doing so in my opinion

You wouldn't see any difference after upgrading to 6GB either unless you can use up all of the RAM you have now- otherwise it's pointless

 

sweetness, i just read a couple places that forcing the 8xaa through the ati control center effects the performance ( i have mine plugged in 95% of the time as it is so i really dont care) and as for OCing , im not doing that anymore, i OC'd a AMD back in the day ( my custom built desktop) that i built and i fried the whole thing, so overclocking is something i really dont plan on doing anytime soon.


overall, this notebook has been the best purchase i have made in years, next to my car, i mean for 750, being able to play crysis with AA on at all, let alone 4x, and 8x depending on the settings, is in my book anyday of the week.

just found this website by the way, and let me tell you, its the best.....

OH one quick thing, i didnt update my ATI drivers OR my BIOS drivers like suggested throughout this thread, im wondering if i really need to, since i have had it on for about 7-10 days straight now, and have not seen a performance hiccup at all (other than the used ram is at 32% next to the 20% on a fresh boot)

should i worry about updating these 2 things?

Oh its a 5650 by the way 1gb

 

You don't have to update drivers obviously but BIOS at least 1.16 is highly recommended- otherwise you may end up buying a new battery.
If your unit came with 1.16 you can leave it as it is but if BIOS is any older I'd update if I were you.
As for OC- it's pretty safe with this unit as Mobility Radeon HD5730 is in fact ATI factory OCed HD5650 (650/800 instead of 550/800) so the only two things that matter are stability (in terms of voltage) and temperatures (that's not a problem).
Glad to see another happy user.

 

Aside from rebooting and hitting f2 to get directly into the bios, where in windows, can i find the bios version? and AHHH finally home from work, no more dell POS computer, finally back on this BOSS


EDIT - and yah the bios is BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies LTD V1.09, 11/26/2009


which is a little old. i have never updated my bios before (noob question) so here goes nothin...

EDIT-

OK, so, i am going to wait till someone responds to this before i do it, in the bios readme,for the aspire 5740-6979 it says Run "Flash.bat" to flash BIOS in pure DOS or Windows x86/x64 OS environment.

that means that i can run it while i am in windows 64bit, which i am, correct? then just let it do what it needs to do?

The only reason i am asking so many questions is that when i have a system that is in 100% working condition, stable, and reliable, and awesome...... i don't like making changes to it, that's all.

thanks guys.

 

bruboo, thank you for the advice...i am with you on this rather than an image backup of the 6378...

i got my 6979 today and have been transferring my documents, music, pictures, and videos from 6378 to external hdd to the 6979...

i can download all my programs again since i don't know of an easier way and i also can't figure out how to import my bookmarks and other settings...if there are easier solutions please everyone let me know or this is going to be a long process....

i bought the 6378 from costco on february 22 so i am getting close to the 90 day return window...

 

What are you using to see those temps? My speedfan says that too, but everest shows different temps. It stays 11x-12x doing nothing and 13x playing games. My gpu gets up to 150 playing games.

 

Running the normal system setup, using speedfan, right now, im looking at it, it says 68º and its moving around from 65º-75º i just installed S.T.A.L.K.E.R and it moved up to 95º when installing, and when playing crysis it gets up to 101ºmax,

i have a TARGUS dual fan Chillmat that runs constantly i got at bestbuy for 29.99, they have it on the website also, dropped my IDLE temps from 85º-95º to the 65º-75º They also have this same fan on newegg, .. its NOT a metal Chillmat, its plastic so i think even if i got a metal chillmat with fans on it, it would even get lower.....

Ooh it just hit 79º oh wait back to 70º oh down to 63º .... it NEVER idle's higher than 80º and when it does, its only for a SECOND....

Oh by the way, i set my ATI graphics, to 24xAA forced settings in the ATI catalyst control center..., and it gets WARM, but Crysis, EVERYTHING on GAMER settings, with 8xAA smooth 30-45FPS, even though i prefer keeping it on 4xAA, which runs at about 75FPS .. BOSS

EDIT.. oh and i downloaded a "gadget" and it stays around the same temps, i also downloaded another program, i think it was called MoO or something, and it was 3-5º higher.. Just to let you know.

 

Hi,
I was in the same position like you and hesitated....I had the 1.09 bios and everything was running good.

I did a lot of BIOS updates in the past on older PC's and remember that the safest way to update the BIOS is in pure DOS. I downloaded the bios update file, unzipped it, and put all the files on a USB stick.
I still have an old boot CD i made in the past and used it to boot into pur DOS. From there I changed to the USB drive (in my case C and loaded the flash.bat file.
You can create your own bootable CD/DVD...just check on google or so...

You have to enter the BIOS setup first and change the boot order to CD drive first. After the flash...the Bios will be set to default automatically again...so, no need to change the boot order after you did the update.

I know it's kinda complicated...but better safe than sorry!

Like to know how others here updated...

 

Realtek 2.29 drivers with the PC Beep volume control

However, you will lose the Dolby Home Theater tab (found in 2.48+ drivers) and have a weaker microphone, but you will still have all the Realtek sound effects, microphone enhancements, virtual surround sound, etc. It's your choice if you want to install this driver to disable the PC Beep.

1. Uninstall Realtek drivers from the Control Panel & restart the computer.
3. Download Realtek HD Audio 2.29 Driver download from Guru3D.com.
4. When you extract the Guru3D.com folder. Install the setup.exe file in the Vista_Win7_R229 folder.
5. Restart the computer.

Screenshots:

 

When I tested it SpeedFan was lying about the temps. Use HWMonitor, Everest or RealTemp to verify it.

You are probably right to be cautious but I'm too lazy for that and I flashed under Windows. Windows is stable enough these days to do that safely IMO.

Thanks for that. It's the best solution so far for those who don't like the beep. Using default Windows driver never was a real solution- this one however lets you keep a lot of things functioning properly plus you are able to use Dolby Digital effects that make the music sound much better.
I'm gonna add this to the second post as a solved one.

 

Hey everyone. I just bough acer 5740g i5-430 model Really happy. Great laptop overall. Stays cool, fast and i like the desigh. However I'm in the same boat as some of you. I'm not sure if I need to update the bios, mine's currently 1.09. But my laptop stays 95% on ac, so do I still need to update bios? I haven't done it in years and I'm not sure. By the way can I connect the spdif to a coaxial in ? Or there's no way of doing it?
P.s My temps idle (browsing internet, music) cpu - 43-55~ Celsius. On prime 95 it was 78~ Celcius. Tho when I tried playing nfs shift on high temps were 70~

 

Look for my posts on anandtech's forum in regard to getting the 5740G to work in XP. I had a really hard time getting it set up, but I finally got it working with sound, wireless, and video drivers.

 

Yes you do need to update your BIOS unless you want to risk your battery dying.
It shows 95% and it will work until...well until it stops working

 

That may sound like a completely noob'ish question. But how do I update bios? All I need to do to is unzip the bios on a usb flash, pop it in, and run flash.bat - wait till restart and done? Or there are other precautions like lacienega pointed out (tho it sounds complicated).
P.s I've download the latest 1.22AA bios from first post I may sound paranoid, but I don't want to foodge things up.

 

The "safe way" includes preparing a bootable drive, rebooting and typing in the flash command in pure DOS environment.
The normal way requires you to unzip the ZIP file and to double-click "flash.bat" and do nothing until notebook restarts on its own.

It's said that the DOS-way is safer. I will not comment on that as it's possible but I have always flashed from Windows and I will still do it.
If you decide to flash from Win- remember to disable AV software, firewall and Wi-Fi/LAN.
Regardless of whether you flash in Win or DOS you need to have the battery inside the notebook (fully charged) and the power cord connected.

 

So I even don't need an usb drive? Well gonna give it a go. Hope everything works out fine.
p.s I'm all set ready to press the flash button lol. So do I need a usb drive, or I simply unzip to desktop and run flash.bat?

 

If you wanna do it under Windows you don't need a USB drive.

 

Downloads thanks for your help m8! Everything went smooth, and took couple of minutes. Love this laptop

 

No problem. This update was important- now you don't have to worry about using it on battery or recharging anymore.

 

Agree that windows flashing is not going to be any riskier than DOS in principle. What makes windows flashing riskier is the other stuff going on.

To give yourself the very best chance of success
* Note separately the current BIOS version and the new one you are flashing in case of upsets.
* Remember the Supervisor /User bios password. If currently set to be only needed for bios access it may return to the default of needed every access.
* This is a very good time to do that full backup you have been meaning to do.
* Disconnect all USB sticks, peripherals, external screens, foot warmers, mice etc
* Reboot before flashing
* Disable your anitvirus/security suite for at the duration of the flash
* Disconnect from WiFi, bluetooth the internet etc before flashing
* Use both a full Battery and AC power (some flashing utilities insist on this BTW)
* Run the winflash application using right-click 'run as administrator'

It should take a couple of minutes, typically going through a process of reading the current bios (often makes a temporary copy), validating the proposed new one, writing the new one and verifying it.

The laptop will then reboot. . often it takes you to the BIOS screen where you may have to load default settings then make any tweaks you like.

For stability it is then useful to shut down completely, remove all power then restart once again.

If the Flashing hangs LEAVE IT. Abandoning or powering off is the worst thing you can do once the flashing stage starts. If it hangs it may self recover over time. Ask for help on the forum. Only power off if other alternatives have been considered / exhausted as you then probably need to find the BIOS recovery thread

I will say that ignoring all the above has a 95% success rate still. So many people will rightly say they flashed in the middle of watching a video and playing COD and it is fine and what am I on about.

What I will say is that Bios flashing is one of those rare opportunites to disable your system completely at the click of a mouse button. I see enough of the 5% cases to know that problems can happen, but I have never seen a BIOS failure through windows flashing where all the above was done.

So 95% is 1 in 20 odds . . Do you feel lucky ?

 

Realtek HD Audio Drivers 2.29 is the last driver to have the PC BEEP option.

Drivers 2.30 and above will have the DOLBY HOME THEATER option, but without the PC BEEP option.

I just tested all sound drivers from 2.26 through 2.48.

 

Didn't seem to take... still have no driver for "Simple PCI Communications Controller"

Considering how hard it seem to be to find a driver to fix, I think "Simple" might be a bit misleading.

 

Why don't you install all the most recent drivers I posted in the second post (you can skip the apps). Hard to guess which one is it that you're missing but I can guarantee all the drivers from the second post of the thread work fine.
I'm your guinea pig for this - tested them all before posting.

 

LOL! That's what I was going to do before you sent me the link...

 

um, i went through and did everything you said, right clicked and ran as administrator, and a CMD prompt flashed up on the screen, and just dissappeared, nothing happend... um... now im scared to reboot

 

Have you seen something like this? Not for a second or two so you couldn't have missed it.
If you haven't you that means no flashing took place. Just reboot and try again.

 

BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies LTD V1.16, 12/29/2009


sweet.. thanks alot guys, worked like a charm awesome stuff.

 

I can't get mine to pass sound via hdmi to my receiver. I have disabled powerplay, but it still does not work.

have cat. 10.4

Hooked it straight to tv via hdmi. Sound and picture. Hooked the hdmi to receiver and got sound. Ran hdmi from receiver to tv and nothing. Unplug, plug back in and have picture, but no sound.

 

Had the same problem, you have to go to your REALTEK HD AUDIO manager, and on the top of the screen, you will see the different outputs for your sound, and the enabled one will have a checkmark in it, just go to the one that says HDMI and anable it, there will be a button that says ""SET DEFAULT DEVICE"" click that button, and your all set!

If your having trouble finding the realtek HD audio control panel, click your start menu, and on the bottom in the search box, just type "REALTEK".. it will be the only one in the list. I have attached a picture ((disregard the red square around the 5.1 surround section as this is just a image i found on the web to show you what it looks like)), to give you a better idea. Hope this works for you, like i said, i had the same problem with mine, but then when i changed it 1 time, whenever i hook in the HDMI, it auto selects that as the audio output.

Good luck buddy.

 

I was playing Bad Company 2 and suddenly esc,a,1 and caps lock keys stopped working. Rebooted and no luck. Is it time to send my acer to repair?

 

thanks a lot

 

Could you downnload gpuz and monitor your gpu temps while playing a game? It records the avg, high, low and current temp. I am hitting around 150 while playing games.

 

Does anyone know where HHD is placed on this laptop? cause my laptop is making weird noices and i am worried.

 

If you meant HDD look at this
Also take a look at the SMART status of your drive.

 

GPU LOAD -
MAX -80%
Min - 20%
AVG - 40%

Max Gpu - 149º F
Avg Gpu -132º F (could be cuz of the Dual Fan Targus Chill-mat i have running 24/7)
Min Gpu - 125º F

Min CPU temp - 62º F
Max CPU temp - 107º F
Avg CPU temp 86º F

Playing Streetfighter IV with everything MAXED, Ati control centers AA is on "WIDE TENT" setting 8x on the card, Samples @ 16x (EDIT) oh and its averaged at 60 FPS constant.

so, there you go, processor stays good, card gets a little hot, but thats normal, initially i wasn't talking about the GPU temp, just the CPU temps.

Now that ihave the game minimized in the background, my CPU temp is at 95º and the GPU temp is at 125º

hOpe this helps

Brian

 

okay guys, i am returning the 5740-6378 to costco and i want to make sure any sensitive information is erased from the hdd...any recommendation on how to do this?...

i did some researched on some erase programs (dban, eraser, active@killdisk) and they are too complicated for a noob like me...

what is the easiest way?...doesn't have to be super secure from the average hacker...

thanks again...

 

my laptop : acer aspire 5740g :
core i3 330m 2.16GHz
ati mobility radeon hd 5470 512 Mb vram
and my problem is : can'nt update ati cataliyst 10.4
it's always stuck in microsoft visual C++ 2008 sp1 redistributeable .
help me please.thanks!

 

That should help.

 

i haven't tried it yet , but thank for your help !

 

My HHD makes weird acts, It spins up and then slows down, does it after ever 5...10 seconds. I think it's bad and how can i stop it from doing it? It mostly happends when i play one java based mmorpg.

 

Runescape is bad...bad..

Tried quietHDD?

 

I just bot and later sell the acc but anyway thanks for the program i try it out and let you know

Edit: OMG thank you so much, this problem have annoyed me for weeks and now it's solved thanks to you . +rep

 

Wow, this is a really great thread! I've had this laptop for a few days now, and I'm really impressed. I have the slightly lower spec GPU than most people, with the HD 5470, but still have the i5-430m. 'Tis lovely! And even better, I managed to pick it up for £420! I am, however, having problems with the web cam. I have tried to install all sorts of drivers, including the ones from the start of this thread, but its like it isn't plugged in! Nothing works! Any ideas?

Also, I may as well try and get it as stable as possible, so I was planning on doing the BIOS update. Can I jump from 1.09 to 1.22 or do I have to go 1.09 to 1.16 to 1.22? Planning on doing it from 64x 7, hoping it will go OK! :S

 

You can go straight to 1.22- no need to do it one by one.
Does the device manager show the video camera?
The apps for the video camera that are linked in this thread are not drivers per se. The webcam uses Win 7 driver- the app just adds few things that you can use to change settings (brightness, contrast etc.)

 

Ahh that's good, I'll have a go soon. The webcam does not show up anywhere in the device manager, looked through every list. This is leading me to think it is a hardware fault.

 

Have you tried system restore?

 

thats what? about 625$? thats about right, seeing as i have the i5430 with the 5650 1gb, 500gbhdd, and 4gb ddr3, win7x64 for 749$ you pay the extra 100+ dollars for the video card, i bet, cus my vid card/pc is ..... i dont play games on my pc, i never really did, till i got this one....

=)

 

hey peagreen

im having the same problem as you buddy

i think i know what the problem is but I dont know how to fix it

my trackpad will automatically turn off when i start to type, so if I press any of the keys on the keypad, it makes the trackpad completely unresposive

ive tried going into the mouse setting but cant find a tab to 'enable trackpad while typing'

does any1 have a possible solution to this problem?

thanks a lot

jub