Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

Downloads, would you please give a link to a video or guide (at least) to apply the arctic silver thermal paste. I have never applied a thermal paste in my life. My ATI 5650 idle temp. is 52-53C and reaches 61-62C while playing 720p videos. I can't play crysis2 as the whole notebook radiates heat while playing, CPU-82C and GPU-86C.

 

Here's an interesting video. You may skip the radiator part of it- just clean the whole thing and apply a thin layer of AS5 on the CPU and spread it with a credit cards or similar piece of plastic.
Do you need a service manual for the notebook disassembly?

 

This video should be considerably more useful on how to apply your thermal paste.

 

thanks downloads and marpenoth for your answers. I already have the service manual. After the laptop's service the seals are broken, so I can open it now.
EDIT: Can I apply it to both CPU and GPU? Is there any other place also where I can apply it like RAM? Sorry if it sounds noobish.

 

Hi lads ... I have a Packard Bell TJ75 which is technically the same as the 5740G ... Specs in the sig ... This dude used to idle at 40~43 for both GPU/CPU but not it idles 47~50 both as well ... I wanted to use a can of compressed air to clean it but it comes as a shock to me that this "does not exist in my country" believe it or not ... I can't believe it myself either ... so the only option I have is to either open it up and manually clean it which is grueling after going through its service manual ... or use a big home vacuum cleaner to try to suck the dirt ... the question is ... is it dangerous to do that & will it cause a static field that may damage the laptop components putting in mind that I will be doing that outside of the vent & I won't let it touch the laptop ... Also the fan will be stabilized with something in order to roll in a abnormal speed or direction

 

As long as the fan doesn't start spinning “backwards” you are safe to use a vacuum cleaner. I did this too on several occasions although not with this notebook.

 

Praise the lord !!! I almost gone crazy because I wanted to clean that laptop & I was running out of options ... the overheating is also hitting the HDD because of the increased temp in the case (HDD temp 45~55) ... & I know how HDDs are sensitive to high temps unlike silicon

another question is it effective to use a vacuum cleaner to clean the vents ?

 

All of the methods in those videos put entirely too much thermal compound on the CPU. You need only an ultra thin layer to fill in the imperfections on the surface of the CPU, not enough to make an actual solid layer between the CPU And heatsink. A pea about 1/4th the size of the one shown in most videos, spread VERY thinly will work far better than the thick goopy layer those videos all show. If it's thick enough to have air bubbles, IT'S TOO THICK.

 

UPDATE: I vacuumed both of my vents & my god I dunno why haven't I done that long time ago ... It pained me to see all the crap coming out of the vents it was ridicules I dunno how the fan was even working with that much dirt and strange stuff inside ... idle temps back to the 40~45 range CPU-GPU wise ... loaded temps 55~65 max for the GPU 60~70 for the CPU ... I can barely hear the fans when they are even on max speed

I recommend that to anyone having temp increase

 

Hello, update the old bios 1.22 to 1.28 on my acer 5740g, before my temperatures were never higher than 73 degrees at full load, but now are around 80 with games like crysis 2 in just 15 minutes, also update the diver to 11.4, Maybe the driver update, bios or dirt? greetings

 

I have Scorpio Blue hdd (WD6400BEVT) in the notebook and was using Quiethdd to prevent the disk from park its heads frequently to parking zone.

I was eager to know what value has been set up by WD at my hdd... It was on 4 seconds!

So I've downloaded the iso image to amend this value from the defult. As per the article needed to set the SATA controller in the BIOS from ACHI to IDE to perform the change, however it did not work at me in IDE mode, but it worked fine in ACHI mode.

You can
- check the setting with command: wdidle3 /R
- modify to 300 sec(5 mins): wdidle3 /S300
- or disable it as i did: wdidle3 /D
(and in the end check the status again with /R)

The whole article can be found here:
Critical Design Flaw Found in WD Caviar Green HDDs


CORRECTION:
-------------
I've just tested it again, but the hdd parks its heads again to the parking zone after 3 mins idle, dispite of the fact that setting is disabled (it's the same at value 300sec/5mins). Also there was a situation when it turned to off the whole hdd after 3-4 mins idle time. So I'm going to use again QuietHDD.

 

Guys, I know that it may sound like an old story but which among these would be better for application on the CPU and GPU:
ARCTIC COOLING MX-2
OCZ OCZTFRZTC Freeze Extreme
Arctic Silver Ceramique
Tuniq TX-2

I would have gone for AS5 but I can't find it at my dealer. He only had those above. Please tell me your opinions. The preferences in an orderly fashion would be better.

 

I've personally used the Artic Silver Ceramique on my desktop computer and I loved it. I'm probably going to be using that again when I change the CPU out on this laptop as well. It works very well. Warning: It's REALLY thick.

 

I love you for this liviu009. I suggest adding this to "Solved problems" so people won't overlook it (I almost did).

For instance changing 90x04 to "CA" keeps CPU temperatures at 45°C while browsing (GPU won't go past 49) for me + the fans run without changing noise level and don't annoy me while keeping lower temperature than before.

 

Use Arctic MX-4. I read it's better than AS5.

 

Hi Aylafan,
I've just joined this forum, and am not a computer expert by any means. I've had my Acer Aspire 5740G since October 2010, and am very pleased with it.
The only thing I could complain about is the sound quality, which at times is distorted (when there are loud noises or when the volume is turned up a little). I've seen that you recommend downloading and installing the newer versions of the drivers. Forgive my ignorance, but exactly where should I place these drivers once I've unzipped them? The most obvious place would appear to be C rograms (86)/Realtek/Drivers/ but the only file currently in that folder is RtkUpd64.exe.
I'd be grateful for any advice you can give me.
Thanks,
Florio

 

You can download the newest drivers at Realtek

If you have sound quality issues then you could try unchecking "Audio Enhancer" or "Surround Sound" under the "Advance tab" in the Realtek software to see if that fixes the problem.

***The drivers that I used to disable the PC Beep while unplugging the power adapter; however, does not have the "Advance tab". So, there is a compromise going with an older Realtek driver.***

I believe you can unzip the folder anywhere and you can just run the setup.exe file to install the sound drivers. Once you have the drivers installed; it should then be safe to delete the folder you just extracted from the zip file .

I hope this helps you.

 

Thanks a lot for your reply, Aylafan.

I've upgraded the driver, except now the Realtek folder seems to have vanished from the Programs (x86). Can you think of some logical explanation for this?

I have experimented a little with the advanced settings in Realtek to see if the sound becomes a little less distorted and it can be be slightly improved.

Just out of curiousity, what are your settings? I have noticed that there are three different options for sound reproduction. I appear to have the loudspeakers (High Definition Audio) selected as the default. The driver version is 6.1.7600.16385 13/07/2009, Microsoft Windows. Would you say this driver has to be updated as well?

I'm probably just being pedantic, but I'd like to try and get as clear a sound as possible, especially when watching DVDs. I don't know if you're familiar with Kubrik's The Shining or not, but there is incredible reverberation when the opening music plays, and the same thing happens when watching other movies.

Florio

 

If your current sound driver is 6.1.7600.16385 13/07/2009, than you're not using the most recent driver and most likely not using Realtek driver either.

Check in device manager what's the driver version and who issued the driver for Realtek High Definition Audio.

 

Florio - You probably uninstalled the Realtek drivers instead of updating them. Just run the installation again and make sure Realtek is your default sound driver in Windows Playback Devices.

 

@Florio
If you uninstalled the realtek driver...you probably also removed the ATI HDMI driver with it...check in device manager! In this case you should also download and install the latest ATI HDMI driver from the realtek site.
see attachment!

 

To me, this seems like an awesome piece of kit. Who would highly recommend this?

 

Hey,me again,i wanted to ask something about my beloved acer aspire 5740g...
but its not DIRECTLY about the computer....its my mouse.i have a ps2 port multitouch synaptics touchpad but i have a usb mouse an hid compliant one (its a sweex MI050) the problem is its not working,it all started an hour ago when my acer started making usb device connected and disconected noises...and the mouse was laggier and laggier,i tried to go to manage muoses and deinstalled the driver and rebooted the acer hoping that when i plug it back in it will find the drivers and work! but no it didnt and now when i plug it in it wont recognize it and the optical laser underneath doesnt flash.



HELP PLZZZZ!

guys it was a hardware prob ill probably just buy a new one

 

A new mouse I assume, not a notebook?

 

i need help,it wont work again,it lights up and everything but it wont recognize it...

 

Do other USB devices work with this USB port and does the mouse work with other USB ports in this computer and/or other computers?

 

no it wont work on other ports but they work with other stuff and i tried it on my dads desktop it wont work,i guess its a hardware problem.

 

It looks like it is and luckily for you with a mouse rather than with a motherboard.

 

well anyway thanks for the 'help' i appreciate it..i guess i just fizzle around a bit to much with my computer (and my parents nerves) but nevermind

 

Hello, so I've finally registered here and i want to say I'm proud owner of 5740g too. I've got a one question, what HDD should i take to replace that crap inside? I have WD640gb scorpio blue and it's really slow imo. I've ordered Seagate Momenuts 500GB 7200rpm 16Mb cache
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB Notebook Hard Drive - Seagate Momentus 7200.4 Hard Drives - Legit Reviews .
What do you think abut my choice?

 

All conventional HDDs are slow imo(there may be smal improvement depending on rpm and manufacturer). The better choice is SSD, but they are too expensive for the same or similar capacity.

 

I would say 7200rpm drives are a decent improvement over 5400rpm in terms of read/write speed. You got from roughly 60MB/s to some 80MB/s of average linear read (I know it's just one value and it doesn't determine overall performance).

As for SSDs in my opinion prices are totally unacceptable and capacities of these drives that are somewhat affordable are pathetic.
I would have to pay over two and a half times what I paid for the whole notebook to get a 480GB SSD.
And if we go to prices that I can live with I end up with 120GB SSD. I used to have a drive that of that capacity in 2005 and I struggled...

I suppose in some two years 320-500GB SSDs will be available at acceptable prices but for now I call it quits.

 

Hm,.. then i hope its worth to take that disk because my WD inside is like playing slideshow ingame and its really but Really slow when I want to copy something from disk to disk... About SSD's i don't think it's worth paying double or even multiple times higher price for the same Capacity, maybe in a few years when it will be standard.
I'll test a new disk next week and inform you about the result.

 

Hey, have you tried muting the microphone. I used to have very bad distortion earlier which i tracked down to the microphone audio being routed to the audio out(speakers and headphones both). I muted it and the distortion disappeared.

 

yesterday i flashed my bios to 1.28 in windows environment... there was no problem!

Intel Rapid Storage driver update to 10.5.0.1026

 

I’ve left Rapid Storage 10.5 out for the time being. It’s not available for download it you choose mobile chipsets and although the desktop pack is supposed to support mobile ones too I’m not gonna update the link until it gets to the mobile section on the Intel website.

The reason for this- a while ago a user here wrote that while some mobile chipsets are supported in desktop-packs these packs have no power-saving features enabled so it would work but consume more energy while doing do. I haven’t bothered to test it myself but I’ll hold it as it is for now- don’t want to get anyone in trouble.

 

New inf files for intel chipset 9.2.0.1030
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?ProductID=816&DwnldID=20019&lang=eng&iid=dc_rss

 

AMD drank way too much coffee this month.

Catalysts 10.5 are already here:

Win 7 32bit and Win 7 64bit

 

Ugh not again...it's such a pain in the butt to upgrade video drivers. Think I'm gonna wait for a more substantial update this time.

 

I've read that SSDs have a limited number of writes before they fail, is this true? if yes thats pretty bad if you want something for long term use.

 

I just read today in a site about a new SSD model and it has 2 million hours Mean Time Between Failures(which i think is the same for all/most SSDs). That is 234 years.So there shouldn't be a problem.I even read somewhere that it would take years before a nonstop running SSD fails.

 

hello people. i have something that is bothering me. i bought my aspire 5740g on 24th august 2010. and i got a warranty of one year. but when i checked online it says my warranty expired on 14/4/11 i.e a month ago. what should i do??

 

hey!


just wanted to ask...i downloaded amd gpu clock tool bcz i wanted a faster (even a little bit) gpu and when i opened it it showed like 156 mhz or something and i reved it up to 899...is that too much?,if it is what is the maximum?if its low how much more can i rev it? plz answer




thx,myself

 

It was 150 because the ATI powerplay underclock it when the load is low.And about max you can set depends.Every unit has different max(stable) threshold.So try and see.If the video driver doesent crash and there are no artifacts increase it again and so on.

 

Ask the customer care at earliest. This might affect your extended warranty also. The same kind of thing happened with me when I purchased my nokia N82. The nokia care database showed that my warranty expired 14 months earlier .

 

well thnks for quick reply. i called acer people and they told me that my warranty had not expired. they said the site which you gave me shows warranty from the day my laptop was manufactured.he asked me to ignore it as my bill shows purchase date of 24/08/10.



On another note ccc11.5 has greatly improved fragon age performance

 

^ I purchased mine on 8 june/10 & that same online system shows my warranty getting expired on 7 june/13 (with 2 yrs WE).

 

Hello!
There is sth i need to ask...i opened the HWiNFO32 to see the temps of my notebook,and then i also checked the summary and saw sth weird.when on idle the memory clock of the gpu is at 148.5 and not at 150, and when watching HD video it's at 742,5 and not 750. the gpu clocks are stable at 100 when on idle and 550 on high load. is this normal and happening to you too?or my gpu is taking the down road??
thanx in advance

 

It's dependent on how the program reads the clocks. You may use GPU-Z for reference.
In my case AMD GPU Clock shows 99/149 but GPU-Z 100/150
Full clocks also differ slightly.

Nothing's wrong with your card- if it was to go down it wouldn't lower frequencies or anything like that.

 

Why can I still not find a MLAA option in CCC? I have never seen the morphological filtering option, and I am running 11.4 now...doesn't make any sense right?

EDIT: Hmm CCC says I am running Catalyst 11.2...odd, I swear I updated recently.

EDIT 2: Okay, even supposing I am running 11.2, I should see an option for MLAA right? What gives?