Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

Hello all, I bought a 5740G because of the great graphics card for the price. Also after reading this thread and the excellent recommendations/advice within.

Now that I have it on my desk, I have a question. Can it support more than one external monitor? I have a monitor plugged into the hdmi port and another in the VGA. With the laptop screen on, it only lets me extend the desktop to one of the monitors at a time. Is this normal?

Notebookcheck dot net says "Thanks to Eyevision, up to 6 monitors can be used with the HD 5650 in 3D and 2D applications. In most laptops this number will be limited to max. 3 (2 external and the internal display)."

Did I misunderstand or am I just doing it wrong?

Cheers for any help.

 

I got another problem maybe you guys can help me with. When I connect my laptop to my receiver, which is hooked to my lcd 32" 720p I get black bars on the sides and top/bottom. They are only 1/2", but I can't get rid of them. I have gone through all my settings on my picture size, but they won't go away unless part of the picture goes too.

I have tried all picture resolutions.

I have a 5650 ati.

 

Open Catalyst Control Center (advanced). Go to Desktops and Display. Right click on the monitor icon on the bottom for the LCD TV and click "Configure...". There should be a "Scaling Options" setting under your TV (HDMI) connection. Go change it to 0% underscan (slider all the way to the right side).

 

Just disable it from device manager and it will not start automatically until you re enable it. I don't use wifi so I keep it that way.

On the other hand my problem is that bluetooth gets disable on every reboot, any ways to keep it enabled after reboot.

 

Whata about going to services.msc and turning the "Bluetooth support service" to automatic?

And the wifi would be at services.msc also. Change the "WLAN AutoConfig" startup type to manual... Try then?

 

when your wifi is on i mean there is orange colour glowing , go to windows mobility center and turn off from there .

now start windows , it wont start automatically .
even you press the wifi button it wont start .
you will have to start from windows mobility center always .

 

Hey everyone. Well today i got surprised. I was on battery, battery level was 15%, after couple of minutes of browsing, laptop turned off (session was saved to hard drive) after resume and plugging in ac cord, i checked battery wear level, and it is 5% now Could it be because the notebook shut down or battery is acting weird? Any ideas?
b.t.w when i turned it on today with a/c in, it was showing 98% charged.

 

hey guys how well does this machine game will i be able to play everything out there also would this laptop be good for re encoding videos. i live in canada they only offer core i3 for 899.99 is this a good deal i can not buy online also should i get this or the alienware m11xx\

 

You can check the game performance here. Disregard the lowest score as it is Sony Vaio with a HD5650 underclocked by 100MHz.
Few games have been tested and benchmarks are included in the first post of the thread (keep in mind that I did all benchmarks with OCed card)
Gaming performance is very satisfying- HD5650 can be easily OC to make it HD5730 but even without it, it's faster than GT330M and slightly faster than GT335M.
As for m11x- the 5740G is faster in terms of gaming and it has faster CPU so it would also be faster in re-encoding. Furthermore the m11x more expensive.
Still these are very different laptops and I don't think these should be directly compared. That said 5740G is faster and cheaper.

No it's the other way around. Your notebook does hibernate when battery is at 5%. Apparently it's lost 5% of its original capacity- which is gonna happen so there's no reason to be worried about this- meaning your battery was actually at charged at 10% while showing 15%. Then it just took another couple of minutes you mentioned to use up the remaining 5% and at this point automatic hibernation started.
In order to keep the battery meter real you should discharge your battery completely and let it recharge fully once in a while.
My recommendation would be slow continuous discharging- like during web browsing or sth- no actions that use up 100% of the CPU and then doing nothing. This will recalibrate the battery- the chip in the battery will know how much capacity did the battery loose and will take it into account while in battery meter.

I'm not an expert in this field but doesn't the Eyefinity require the DisplayPort to connect the third display?

 

Downloads, thanks a lot m8!! I'll do it next time I'll be using battery.I can recommend this notebook to everyone who's looking for reasonably priced notebook that performs just great Really happy user here.

 

I am using Acer aspire 5740G..............i hav aprob tht when i play the games lyk Quake 3....fifa 2001....Freedom fighter...i get a black strips on both sides....i cant change the game resolution also....plss...help...

 

Just because the computer says "alienware" on it, does not mean that it is the best gaming computer out there, in all truth, my computer (the 5740G-6979 with the i5-430 the 5650 1gb ati and the 4gb of ddr3) runs better than my buddy's alienware he paid 1100 for... truth be told, the notebook , the (6979) is a powerful little thing. I have mine on 24/7, run it with the Targus Dual Fan Chillmat, and it runs cool, looks stylish, and does everything i have ever wanted a notebook comptuer to do.... i suggest the ACER, over the Alienware, yeah, it says alienware, but that sometimes, (sub 1000$ notebooks) does not mean its a gaming machine.... look at the ati card, it smokes nvidia cards in the same class.... im just sayin, thats all..... im SURE you can go to alienware forums and hear the EXACT opposite, but stats, and benchmarks, DONT lie,...

 

EDIT - remove post, found answer, thanks though.

 

I am using Acer aspire 5740G..............i hav aprob tht when i play the games lyk Quake 3....fifa 2001....Freedom fighter...i get a black strips on both sides....i cant change the game resolution also....plss...help...

 

I am using Acer aspire 5740G..............i hav aprob tht when i play the games lyk Quake 3....fifa 2001....Freedom fighter...i get a black strips on both sides....i cant change the game resolution also....plss...help...

 

Hey guys,

I am looking for This Configuration

I am in Canada and cannot find any places selling it in the above configuration. Newegg.ca doesn't have it and the US site won't ship it here.

Am I out of luck? Is it available in retail stores in the above configuration in the states? I am not too far from the border and would consider driving down there to purchase it.

 

I am having the same probs as oatmeal occasionally have the dots flick on the screen and every now and then it seizes and needs forced reboot any ideas on a cause yet oatmeal??

see pics for reference...




this happened near the end of a movie only chrome and messenger running

 

Are you guys running the newest available BIOS (v. 1.22 released on 4/6/2010)? It updates the ATI video BIOS.

 

I am a bit confused with the installation and i request help. After downloading the exe file, it installs a folder Guru3D.com and inside there is a folder Setup. Inside there are two folders both having setup.exe files. I couldnt make much difference in the readme files in either of the folders. Which one is the right one?

 

I've had this notebook for a little over a month now and I love it. I updated the BIOS and wiped both partitions and installed the OS from a clean DVD (dual booted with Ubuntu) and I have only run into ONE problem, waking up from sleep mode if it was plugged in when it went to sleep mode and on battery when I woke it up. But I believe that's a driver issue. On a side note: I wonder if/when Acer will enable the Intel HD IGP for switchable graphics and I wonder what kind of battery savings it will net us?

 

You dont have family/friends/anyone you know that lives in the states who can order it/hold it for you???...??? i mean i am in upstate NY, right by canada........... =)

and i am pissed, thats the computer that i currently own, and its , i got mine for 749, and it was the cheapest it got for a whole month, now its 699, , i coulda got myself the 520M instead of the 430 ... grrrrrrrr

 

The reason, and i bet this is really the reason, is that your playing a 9+ year old game.. and when those games came out, Wide screen displays were not so widespread as they are now. So i am betting, that you dont have a choice in this one unless you can change the resolution in the game to reflect a widescreen display............ Why dont you try to play a 2008 or 2009 game, and see if those strips are still there, and honestly, why are you playing fifa2001 and quake3 on that computer? you can easily play the last 5 years fifa games on high settings with high framerates....... ...and quake3, i get it, the game is awesome, i loved it, but quake3 didnt have a widescreen display resolution setting, so i think you are honestly out of luck...

EDIT : and you dont need to post the same question 5 times, if someone knows the answer, they will respond.

 

The same here...699 and FREE shipping is an awesome price...I should get another one...

 

Hi!

Recently got my 5740g-6395.. my question is.. i have windows 7 x64 ultimate but the unit came with win7 home premium is it safe to reformat using my windows ultimate and partition or just upgrade to win7 ultimate?

also, crystal eye webcam application available online or do i just create a driver and app backup and install from there?

hope you can help me!

Thanks in advance!

 

Yes it's safe. You can even repartition your harddrive first and install windows7 professional on the new partition and have a dual boot system.

 

Anyone know the PLL for these laptops? Not sure if they different for each model, but I am looking for the PLL for the 5740G-6979. Or does anyone know any other way to overclock the cpu?

 

Use the setup file in the folder Vista_Win7_R229.

 

ok...thnx a lot dude...

 

Thx a lot. I will do that today evening when i reach home.
I wonder what the other folder is for, readme file had the same desciption

 

The other folder WDM_R229 is for Windows 2000, Windows XP/2003(32/64 bits).

 

If you are using Realtek Audio AL888 Chip I recommend Drivers from MSI much better in sound quality. Just get the Audio drivers for their latest gaming line of laptop.
For a tone deaf guy like me when I say there is a quality difference it means it is real.
I am saying this from using these drivers on my Acer Aspire 4740G using AL888 Realtek Audio Chip.

 

Unfortunately Aspire 5740G uses Realtek ALC272 but thanks for the tip.

 

I managed to install this driver. I however face an issue. After restarting when i check the properties --> Levels, i only find one setting Speakers/Headphone. There is no PC Beep controller. Did i do something wrong? Also the Custom tab is missing in my view.

 

Can you post a link to the audio drivers you are talking about.

Most of the drivers I found on the MSI notebook site are older Realtek drivers. The newest Realtek HD audio driver is 2.48, but the main reason why people want to use the older driver 2.29 is to have the option to disable the PC beep because apparently that option is nonexistent in newer Realtek drivers.

 

Did you uninstall and delete the previous Realtek drivers from device manager before installing 2.29 drivers? If you didn't check the option "Delete the driver software for this device" then it will not install 2.29 drivers and revert back to your previous Realtek drivers or cause a conflict in drivers.

 

Okay I got a problem.

I did not think much of it at first but I'm getting some pretty bad stuttering in EVERY game i play, I'm using a Acer Aspire AS5740G-6979 and I have updated my bios to 1.22 and updated everything on Acer's driver page. I only ever play games plugged in on the high performance battery setting. Any suggestions? have i neglected to update something?

 

The MSI Driver for the AL888 Chip is here
It is not based off the latest greatest realtek OEM released BUT it has superior driver customisation because the MSI laptop that uses this uses the AL888 Audio chip which is the Audio chip in AS4740G
Does the AS5740G uses the AL888 Audio Chip as well?
Sorry now I saw it, it doesn't.

 

Try QuietHDD. This stopped the stuttering in my games.

 

Does this have the option to disable the PC beep? If it doesn't, I'm going back to the Realtek 2.29 drivers.

 

Nope but this driver sounded wonderful
More so than when I installed New Realtek drivers and it sounded bland.

 

Wow this worked, I thought for sure it was a problem with the CPU or GPU, never thougth it was a problem with the crappy HDD, Thanks!

 

Is there anything other than AMD GPU clock tools that can be used to overclock? I am looking to save a OC profile so I can just OC right away at a click of a button.

 

I don't know anything piece of software that works apart from AMD GPU Clock Tool. ATI Tray Tools didn't work last time I checked and I guess that would be the most convenient one for using preset profiles and combos for enabling/disabling OC


------------------------------------

Mobile Catalyst 10.5 drivers are here

32bit version

64bit version

Apparently these do not include a fix for BF BC2 loading times that was introduced with 10.4 so if you play this game do not update. There's a hotfix on the way- ETA 2 days (hopefully 10.5 mobility will get a hotfix too)

Catalyst 10.5 Performance Test

All tests performed with 670/900 overclocking (the same as initial tests in the original post)

3DMark06
1280x768



Catalyst 10.4 8395
Catalyst 10.3 preview 8365

STALKER Call Of Pripyat
1280x720 DX11



No changes compared to Cats 10.4 (see here)

GTA IV Liberty City Stories

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1366 x 768 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Off
Reflection Resolution: Medium
Water Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Tri-Linear
Night Shadows: Off
View Distance: 24
Detail Distance: 36

The lost and Damned

Catalyst 10.5 WHQL on average 41fps
Catalyst 10.4 WHQL on average 41fps
Catalyst 10.3 WHQL on average 37fps

Ballad of Gay Tony

Catalyst 10.5 WHQL on average 33fps
Catalyst 10.4 WHQL on average 33fps
Catalyst 10.3 WHQL on average 32fps

Heaven Benchmark 2.1
DX11, 1366x768, shaders high, anizo x4, AA off

Catalyst 10.5
Tessellation ON: 13.1fps
Tessellation OFF: 19.5fps

Catalyst 10.4
Tessellation ON: 13.2fps
Tessellation OFF: 19.4fps

Do not compare scores of different versions of Heaven Benchmark. Version 2.1 has just been released and as usual the performance is even lower than in previous one.

 

So does this laptop have 5.1 sound card? It doesn't have enough audio ports for logitech z5500

 

No and yes

No because the main audio codec Realtek ALC272 is just 2 channel codec (although total number of channels is 4- look here for details)
That said you can have 5.1 audio via HDMI which has a different audio codec included in ATI card but also provided by Realtek
Can you use 5.1 sound for gaming if you connect your notebook via HDMI to a HDTV set with appropriate audio setup? I honestly don't know.

 

Re 10.5

I have noticed that ATI tend to panic if they haven't got their once a month driver release out by the 25th and that releases after that are on occasions either minor, tweaks of previous versions that may have got WHQL in a previous month (but not been released) or need bugs fixed by a near instant non WHQL patch.

Still at least they maintain a commitment to update older cards that is admirable

 

I agree but then again you would be probably pretty pissed if you had to wait several months until they finally decide to fix your problems with PowerDVD or other technically minor bugs that are-in the end- annoying.
I like the fact that they update drivers every month- at least you know that if you encounter any problems the solution is most likely around the corner.

 

congrats for the 100 page .

the keyboard is crappy , i find sometimes the keys like sticked , hard to press .
but after sometime get fine again .

rest , this is the ultimate laptop till date in its price .

Cheers !

 

Is this machine still pretty much the best bang for your buck laptop? I am thinking about pulling the trigger but I am wondering if I should wait to see if something happens in the near future that will produce a better deal.

 

ok its up to you buddy, right now on newegg.com this 5740G-6979 is 699........... you would be making a TERRIBLE mistake if you did not pick it up at this price.. you can even spend about 100 more and get the step up processor, but honestly, with the powerboost option in the i5's your not even really going to see much of a difference.

BUY IT ... i have had mine 1 1/2 months now, and let me tell you, it was the best 800$(i bought it at 800, went down to 749 2 days after and i got the difference back in my account) i could have spent.. I went into buying this notebook knowing it was going to be 800$ + the extended 1+ year warranty.. so... its 699 now...... JUMP ON IT...

but then again, i just got done playing splinter cell conviction for about 2 1/2 hours, on maximum graphics settings, with 4xaa on... or you can waste your money on a dell or alienware, for the same specs and spend 850-900-1000+

EDIT : OH and steve, the i5, is a 2010 processor, ddr3 is the latest/fastest ram till 2011 with ddr4 comes out, windows 7, .. oh and the 1gb ATI 5650 graphics card.. its a 2010 graphics card too.. top of the line stuff here buddy... i see you say your not sure if you should pull the trigger... the only trigger pulled will be the gun pointed at your temple when you realize that you passed up this notebook.......