Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

You sometimes cannot shrink a partition because there are some "unmovable" files. The only way to move them seems to be Windows Defragmentator (the default one). Try this- you may be able to squeeze some more GB out of your primary partition.
BTW- since you have a 640GB driver. Would you mind running HD Tune and posting a screenshot with the results? I'd like to know how much faster this HD is compared to 500GB ones.
As for all these installed applications- these are to give you some training in uninstalling applications under Win 7 Really mostly useless but luckily only few are added to startup.

No problem but I'm not looking forward to problem reports. I'd rather keep it the way it is- mostly trouble free. Hope you don't encounter any- I haven't for over a month now.

 

Thanks for that one, i will try this out

The result seems to be rather disappointing as the average figures are way over what you have reported in your first post. 49,7 MB/s and something happened towards the end where it just dropped!
I am not allowed to point to any urls so here is the image:

img217.imageshack.us/img217/2411/hdtunebenchmarkwdcwd640e.png

With second attempt the result was closer to 63,3 MB/s. It was 67,2 MB/s. Here is the picture from imageshack:
img708.imageshack.us/img708/7674/hdtunebenchmarkwdcwd640.png

 

Yeah, something definitely happened but that's probably one time thing.
You should just re-test.

 

I thought so too, here is the second test. i have updated to my previous post aswell

With second attempt the result was closer to 63,3 MB/s. It was 67,2 MB/s. Here is the picture from imageshack:
img708.imageshack.us/img708/7674/hdtunebenchmarkwdcwd640.png

BTW, while defragmenting, its taking some pass1, pass2, pass3 etc, but i dont see any possibility of graphical viewing of the result of defrangmenting. Is this not available in Windows7?

 

I think graphical representation is unavailable.
The HD Tune score is exactly what I expected- I've seen 640GB notebook drive hit 67MB/s average transfer.
That's quite a good speed for a 5400rpm drive but two guys here decided to replace these HDDs with SSD drives

 

Heh, you have the same model that I have I guess. i5 530M, 640Gb HDD?

HD Tune test gave me 66.2Mb/s on average transfer rate.

 

I guess with the same model number there are multiple variants of the machine floating around. I have a i3 330M, 640GB HDD But thanks for sharing your numbers as we can confirm the numbers.

 

I'm looking at getting model 6979 but would really like to get one with a blu-ray player. I know this one just has DVD. Does Acer sell blu-ray players separately so I can upgrade my optical drive?

 

Happy to say that after the latest bios update (1.22) have not had any crashes or pink dots......

 

Hello folks, just registered here to post about this laptop.

I bought the version from Newegg (i5 430m), and I want to update the drivers but I'm not clear on how to do some of them.

For the video drivers, I had some trouble at first because Windows kept reinstalling the drivers that came with the system every time I would restart after uninstalling them. I think I have gotten around the problem, but the new drivers I have installed don't seem to identify my video card as the 5650, just "5600/5700 series," is that okay? It seems to be running fine, but...I do have some small hiccup issues running WoW atm.

I downloaded the newer AHCI SATA drivers, but I have no idea how to install them, could someone run me through it? I have iata_cd and iata_en files...which one should I run? Thanks in advance.

 

The problem stops when I remove the power cord, but this kills performance for games. Is there anything I can do to fix the problem when the laptop is still plugged in?

 

FYI for people still interested there is a 5740g with a I3-330m on ncix for 719

 

Either one- it's the same package but one is English-only and the other one is multi-language.

That may suggest the problem is not the notebook but with power lines in your house (or power outlet itself) just like mk1freak suggested.
Test it connected to another power outlet or through a surge guard.

 

if you don't have a surge guard or another power outlet to test, try finding out which circuit breaker controls that plug among the other ones and remove any other appliance plugged into that same circuit. Then plug one appliance in , check to see if static occurs, then on to the next one till you can find the source, once that is found(if it is the problem) plug it into another socket off the circuit you use for the laptop. When it happened to me it ended up being a fan/heater combo that was causing the interference. There were also instances of either a bookshelf system or TV if i remember correctly which caused interference though not in my situation.

i myself am using a huge monster power outlet/filter made specifically for electronic devices

 

Thank you, got it installed. Any idea about the video driver? Is it supposed to be listed as "5600/5700 series"?

 

Yes. Mobility Radeon HD 5650 and HD5730 is the same card (core) just with different core frequencies hence the driver naming scheme 5600/5700 series.

 

Ok, thanks - the new directions make much more sense and I'll try them when I have time.

 

Hi to all
everybody speaking about the frequences but what about to change the vbios of the 5650 and not using any soft to overclock it .. for example in the idle state will be 100MHz and 150MHz but gaming -> 650 and 800 Mhz ??

for Mobility HD 4570 there is nice aportunity to do that at w...techpowerup.c../vgabios/51557/ATI.MobilityHD4570.0.090219.html

 

I am trying to shrink space on my C: partition using the Disk Management program. I have 280GB of free space in C drive. I would like to allocate the shrunk space to different partition.

I did as advised by downloads, i ran the defrag program and tried to shrink but still the program tells me that "Size of available shrink space in MB = 0".

If anyone can help me fix this, I'll greatly appreciate it

 

Try EASEUS Partition Master it will work where Disk Manager fail.

 

Free version does not support Windows 7 54bit- only the 32 bit version.

 

Took some screenshots to post in another forum, might as well put them here too in case someone has doubts about the i5 520M version!

 

Hi,

I noticed something strange today with my 5740G... I was playing with the Realtek HD Audio Manager, I was merely changing the volume balance between the left and right speakers... I noticed that my Left speaker gives a more prominent treble whereas the Right speaker gives comparatively higher bass effect (What I'm trying to say is that I hear more treble from my Left speaker than the right). Is this normal? Is the Right speaker for the bass purpose only? Or does it have anything to do with the Volume adjustment and Launch Manager buttons being over the Right speaker?

 

Anybody else? I am surprised that not many are faced with this kind of challenge. I am kinda desperate here.

 

@audiphile76

Hi,

I faced the same problem when I bought my laptop... stupid thing had 456GB in one drive...I first used the windows shrink that u did too....200+ GB in one C drive din't quite appeal to me.. I used Partition Wizard to shrink it further to around 100GB.. It's freeware,too..and the process is self explanatory... I din't face any problem...
But it takes a lot of time if you are trying to move partitions along with resizing them...Infact, I would recommend you not to try moving partitions even if you lose a few 100MBs..Just be satisfied with resizing your partitions..

 

ARGH! Some of you may remember me from a few pages ago where my 5740G-6395 has a problem out of the box with the headphone port (plugging any headphones in, yes I tried 5 different one, yields very noticeable static in both left and right channels. I called Acer tech support and the lady did the usual troubleshooting spiel (did you reboot? Did you restore to factory defaults? Try 3+ headphones?). Finally she spoke to her manager and put me on hold for about 7min. She came back and said "sir, that static is normal/standard, nothing we can do about it"..... I change laptops every few months and thus have used tons of different models and never had I had one with such a poor headphone port. I demanded I get it fixed so she finally agreed and issued me an RMA for repair.

This was 2 weeks ago when I sent it in, I got it back today and the repair slip says "hard drive replaced and restored to factory image"...... does that have to do with the headphone port?!?! I plugged in all 7 of my headphones and sure enough, the issue is there! I had a Gateway NV5925u and still have my NV5927u (both are Gateway's cousins to the 5940G-series since Acer owns Gateway) and both sound fine in the headphone port. I'll have to call them back tomorrow and make a huge scene out of this to get it fixed I bet. Heck I'm considering just returning the thing although I really like the model/specs for the price. VERY disappointed with Acer tech support thus far. Anyone happen to have a phone number to some kind of "Escalation" department?

 

hi acer owners

please guide me . i cant decide which to buy?
SONY VPC-EB12 or ACER 5740G

SONY VPC-EB12:
core i3- 3MB-2.13
RAM:4GB DDR3
HDD:320 7200 RPM
VGA:INTEL GMA HD ( 256MB)
15.6 INCH LCD
FEE IN MY COUNTRY: 950 $

ACER ASPIRE 5740G:
core i3 - 3MB- 2.13
RAM:4GB DDR3
HDD: 500 GB 5400 RPM.
VGA: ATI HD5740 ( 512 MB Dedicated)
15.6 inch LCD.
FEE IN MY COUNTRY: 820 $

acer has a 512m graphic card but sony is SONY and i think its better than acer
i have read all of acer 5740g owners in its forum . it MAY has some little problems but they said that the problem is solveable by updating bios.

i cant decide .
i want a laptop just for reading pdf books and for working with " vm virtual machine " software.( vm virtual machine needs more ram and cpu cache and may be faster hard . but it doesnt need graphic card )

what should I select?

which is BETTER . quality of laptop is important for me and I want to use it for about 3 years . ( about 4-5 hours a day . )

have 5740 and eb12 the same quality?

thanks .

 

Sony has faster hdd, but integrated videographics... So if your priority isn't playing games, then i would choose Sony!

 

I would choose Acer. Bought one Laptop with integrated graphics and...never again lol

 

See this:

social dot technet dot microsoft dot com/Forums/en/w7itprohardware/thread/621e4e3a-b477-4a58-b553-02fd989d9a87



-replace <dot> with actual dot

 

That's interesting but doesn't make too much sense.
First of all Windows does not control the way battery is being charged- battery is going to charge also if you leave the computer with BIOS menu enabled and is going charge in the same way it would in Windows.
Smart batteries have a chip that controls the process and it's the battery that informs Windows about its power state not the other way around, so the theory that Windows didn't "inform" the battery that it's already fully charged so the battery kept charging and cooked itself is bollocks.
It's pretty similar to the theory that Win 7 destroys batteries because it reports high wear level soon after the upgrade from Windows Vista- people don't understand something and confuse the reason with the result.

I'm following three threads (this one included) about this laptop in three countries on two continents with total number of posts is in these exceeding 1500 and it's the second time I see a battery related problem. The first one was battery dead due to pre-1.16 BIOS critical-level problems.
What's more I've drained my battery completely i.e. for the battery eater test and for my real-life test and charged it fully again. I even checked before posting this that battery charges fine to a 100% level (although I started from 90%- still according to that post it would/should stop at 97%)
Anyway- if one gentleman has a problem with three laptops and no one else even heard about it it's hardly something to keep in mind (that's unless the story evolves )

 

Hey
Nice to see a prompt reply.

I want to buy a laptop(my first one).
i am confused between the two models:
1) The Acer with 5650 graphics card(same as above) 45500 Rs
2) Sony E series with same card( i know it is underclocked) but with full HD
50000Rs
(the diff in processors i think is not much)

I dont know how much difference does full HD makes, on the games like COD 6 MF2 and Dirt 2. I am from Faridabad, India and I went to the croma store and saw the two above laptops.

The sony one definitely has a crisp, vibrant, better color contrast screen as i could judge from the sample HD wildlife video put on both.

So the question is:
For gaming and lot of text reading( I read all my books on the computer in pdf format) which screen is better and how much is the difference.

Is it worth the price difference.

Is it possible to upgrade the LCD screen later on when i have sufficient money.

 

Acer is definitely better for gaming because Sony has much higher resolution paired with an underclocked card (you probably will not be able to OC it much as I guess the card is underclocked due to small cooling system and means probably that the card is also undervolted so it won't be stable OCed)
As an example- Vaio with underclocked HD5650 scored an average of 22fps in Dirt 2 in 1366x768 with 2xAA ( source). It's unplayable already- and imagine what would happen in 1920x1080. With Aspire 5740G you are pretty much guaranteed to achieve 650/900 clocks compared to 450/800 (Sony default)- that's almost 50% more power from Acer which would mean smooth framerates in Dirt 2 in 1366x768.
Full HD (Sony) has twice the pixel count of HD ready (Acer) so it requires a lot more juice from the GPU.

As for reading- Acer should be fine- I read a lot of e-books too and I don't complain.

 

Thanks bro.
Will buy the Acer with 5650 graphics finally, tommorow.
Will come back with the reports.
one final question:
Do i need to make the backup(Recovery) Win 7 DVDs at the time of install of windows or later. And which DVD(capacity-Dual or single layer) should I use ideally for that?
Thanks in advance

 

You probably can do it later but I'd recommend doing it right away before you forget or have the time to cause some trouble
Backup requires 3 single layer DVDs + additional one for drivers and apps so there's no point in using DVD DL as Win backup won't fit on one DL anyway.

 

if i had normal brightness and was mainly surfing, could you give me an estimated battery life?

 

Almost three hours according to a review by notebookcheck (they tested HD5740G equipped version but surfing is not GPU intensive and both cards are 40nm and have similar TDP so should be almost the same at idle)

 

so hard to choose...im deciding between this acer laptop and the asus n61jq, any opinions?

 

It's not the same price-range where I live- Asus is one third more expensive.
Asus has the advantage of e-SATA and USB 3.0 (1 port though). HD5650 and HD5730 the same core, different frequencies- you can OC both but in terms of framerates n61jq is not going to justify the price difference. Couldn't find any Crisys benchmarks in n61jq owners lounge but OCed HD5730 scored 33fps in Crysis in the same settings that my OCed 5650 scored 30fps.
Both benchamrks with the same CPU (Core i5) but Core i7 doesn't impress me- 45W TDP and not very useful for gaming (unless possibly for GTA IV)

I don't mean to say that n61jq is not gonna be faster than Aspire 5740G but as I said -the difference in speed is not going to justify the difference in price- it's the same league. I actually considered n61 series but decided against it- with basically the same GPU both are going to play the same games and not-be-able to play the same games. Plus I don't like the 45W CPU compared to 35W Core i5 (35W includes Intel HD Video that's disabled so in practise it's even less)

 

do you think there's also a large gap in battery life between the asus and acer?
oh, for me, they are the same price, i have an offer of $1500 for both (it's expensive in australia)

 

Hey there,
I was trying the Acer 5740g with 5470 card on display in croma store.
It had NFS Most wanted installed on it and when I played it, it started with only half screen(I mean the video was shrunk horizontally from both sides while vertically it was full screen).
What is the problem here?
The game settings i chose was max details and max resolution of 1280 x something may be 720.

 

Yeah I expect the difference to be very noticeable- it may be a bit farfetched but 5740G has a bigger brother 7740G (the same battery and components but bigger screen) while n61jq has a bigger bother in n71jq.
Notebookcheck tested both 7740G and n71jq.
Surfing with Wi-Fi for Acer 2h 22min and for Asus 1h 29min
Idle for Acer 3h 38min and for Asus 2h 53min.

The only difference is that the Aspire 7740G had Mobility Radeon HD5470 instead of HD5650 but these are battery tests for idle and surfing that do not stress the GPU so you can assume that both ATI cards idle pretty low and did not have any significant impact on the score. You cannot expect such scores from 5740G and n61jq but the difference should be similar.

EDIT: Found a review claiming n61jq can battery time for surfing is slightly less than 2 hours. Aspire 5740G will work for slightly less than 3 hours with max brightness and about 3h 20min with minimal brightness.

 

cool, thankyou so much

 

No problem. Although if the price is the same n61jq seems to be a better choice since it's faster- that's unless you need mobility or silence- as I expect Acer to be better in these aspects.
What about n61ja? I heard it's been available in Australia

Probably a driver setting- 1280x720 means it did fit vertically almost perfectly but it lacked some pixels to fill it horizontally. It can be set in drivers either to stretch it or to leave two vertical black stripes on both sides of the screen. That's if I understood you correctly.

 

Probably a driver setting- 1280x720 means it did fit vertically almost perfectly but it lacked some pixels to fill it horizontally. It can be set in drivers either to stretch it or to leave two vertical black stripes on both sides of the screen. That's if I understood you correctly.[/QUOTE]

I will try that and get back to you.
Thanks

 

Hey, I've just recently started reading the forums, but so much useful information in one thread, awesome, keep it up!

I have a question though. I've been searching for a suitable dtr notebook lately, and found the Acer Aspire 5740G-434G50MN in our country (Hungary) for a reasonable price as my main nominee.

What I don't understand is, the pricing of two other notebooks from Acer (namely the 7740G but prominently the 5942G), which have the same features: core i5-430m, 4gb ddr3, ati mobil radeon hd5650 and 500/640GB hdd, with Win7 HomePremium as OS.

The 5740G comes at 191.000HUF ( 722 Euro), and the 5942G comes at 249.000HUF ( 942 Euro). Is it just me, but eSata, Firewire, Bluetooth at a 220 Euro increment in price is just plain stealing? Or there is something else that avoided my attention? Also, it might have been an error in the description, but it said the 5740G comes with a LED display and the 5942G doesn't.

The 7740G comes at 215.000HUF ( 813 Euro). Bigger screen, bigger native resolution, bigger HDD, still cheaper than the 5942G? Another thing somewhere I missed that justifies this?

Thanks for the replies in advance,

hoping to join the 5740G owner's club soon

 

Hey guys,

Can Acer 5740G with Ati HD5470 upgraded to 8Gb Ram and are the windows will detect 8Gb ram???

 

Hi everyone I have a aspire 5740G and yesterday I installed 2 of the three bios updates, but the last update V1.22 does not work, everytime I run it, and the WFlash64 pops up it says Flash Bios fail. (0x4D0) I allready searched the internet for people having similar problems but I found no information about this, I allready emails acer about it, but did not get a reply yet.

Also after the first two bios updates my touchpad button to disable the touchpad does not work all the time :S Any of you having the same problems?

 

I think U should attach your battery first and updates ur bios..

 

According to Microsoft it should work - so long as its the 64 bit version of Win 7.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx