Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

Hey!

I was in the middle of disassembling this laptop with the goal of changing thermal paste but i got stuck in the stage where there was 2 wires (black+white) that connect screen with MoBo.

Can anyone comment how did he reattach them?
Following ths video: Acer Aspire 5740 laptop disassembly - YouTube

2:33 Removes them by pulling them and possibly breaking the solder?
7:08 Suddenly they are attatched

Thanks!

 

These are Wi-Fi antennas. You need to disconnect them from the Wi-Fi card first- then you can pull them out.

 

Plz update the Graphic driver link for 64bit Win7, At present, link is the driver for 32 bit.

 

Link corrected, sorry for that

 

Thanks, i totally didn't notice them.

Long story short: changed thermal paste to MX-4, idle temp dropped by 5 Celsius and while gaming it never went above 65 Celsius.

 

Hello everyone,

do you know if is possible to install Windows 8 on this notebook. I'm getting BSOD on the first boot. What I can do?

 

I purchased Windows 8 pro through the windows upgrade program. It downloaded the os as an iso and I burned it to a DVD and chose to install over windows 7 as an upgrade. I kept all files and programs and it runs well now. Installation was slow and first boots of windows 8 and its apps take a while but once loaded it runs smoothly and I really enjoy it.

My only complaint is battlefield 3 doesn't run as well anymore. It runs similarly to how it did prior to over clocking the GPU in windows 7. Thus I'm guessing the GPU tool doesn't work in windows 8. I'm pretty bummed and thinking of upgrading to 8gb of ram to boost performance. Does anyone think this will improve my experience?

 

No it won't. Having more unused RAM adds nothing- you'd have to be running out of RAM for this upgrade to make sense.

 

Gotcha, I have had the program force close on me once saying windows ran out of memory but it seems to be a one time thing. While gaming in windows 8 task manager shows ~80% memory usage. Would upping to 8 gbs make windows/gaming faster since it'd be at 40% utilization? If not what can I do to up the performance of windows 8 and this aspire? Thanks for the quick reply dexter!

 

Considering RAM is cheap there's no harm in adding more. Overall Windows 8 is supposed to be faster than Win 7 and less demanding so I doubt that's the problem.
That said I don't use Win 8 so I hope someone who does is willing to chime in to share his ideas in Win 8-specific issues.

 

so guys, no problem with drivers? I've tried to upgrade several times but no good result. I also formatted. Any suggestion?

 

Personally no issues yet for me. It is a tad slow when booting but didn't have compatibility issues when upgrading from the DVD while in windows 7

 

recently install windows 8 on a samsung ssd 830, is amazing how fast it works ...
there is a new option in the task manager, you can choose the programs that start with windows and the time it takes to boot
unfortunately the gaming performance is worse than the 7 and the wifi drivers are bad, very bad ...

 

Hello I need your help, the atheros wireless driver for windows 8 does not work on acer 5740g, sometimes works well, but usually they do not open the pages, just gives 200kb down, my samsung galaxy s3 reaches 10mb ...
I've tried everything, but the wifi still does not work ...
Thanks

 

Try these Atheros wireless driver v10.0.0.216

 

Yep, not working...

 

Ahh I guess that's what happens with new OS.

If you really want a set of decent drivers replace Atheros with an Intel card- fra less likely to be an issue (although Intel also had their far share of issues)

 

is a problem of Windows 8, the same thing happens to many people.
Lenovo and HP released new drivers compatible with Windows 8 for old laptops, but unfortunately atheros not supported...

 

I did dual boot Win 7 & Win 8 for some time and Win 8 found and installed its own drivers.When i tried to update them with the atheros ones it said it already had up to date drivers and i don't remember having problems with the Wi-Fi with the default Win 8 drivers.

 

Thanks, i tried to connect the laptop to three different router, the first reaches 10mb, the same result in the second but the third (orange libebox) is too slow 0.2 mb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (10mb with my smartphone)

I repeat the test with windows 7 and all router operating at 10mb ...
Im confused...

Solved, I change the router cannel and everything worked perfectly, the funny thing is that, in windows 7 works perfect in all channels...

 

I always get a BSOD during updating graphic card driver, and I thought that the same thing happened when I try to install Windows 8. How can I fix that problem?

 

Hi. Can I upgrade to Windows8 proffesional and install all the drivers from acer?
Acer Support: Downloads & Support Documents - Notebook / Aspire / Aspire 5740G

Thanks!

 

I am dual booting Win7+Win8Pro and had no problems with the drivers.Win8 has drivers for most of the stuff(except some more special drivers like the one tho show the animations for the sound increase/decrease buttons and such).So no problem with drivers + Win8.AMD has mobility drivers for win8 too so i think there is no problem to move to win8.But personally im going to wait for a while before i move to win8 as my main OS.For now im just dual booting.

 

Hi Guys..

My Webcam is not working.. it says "camera is not installed or is occupied by another user" . I have been using it in the past , not sure what happened and all of the sudden it stopped working.. please let me know how to fix it ..?

 

Hi all. I recently got a 720QM for my 5740, I do a lot of work in VMware and need the full set of VT extensions that are missing from most i5 cpus. I was about to retire the laptop when a very cheap (basically free) 720QM showed up, hopefully it will buy me another 6 months till I can move to a laptop with AES & AVX sets.

(What's up with Intel's mobile CPU naming system anyway? Most i5s have incomplete VT while i7 have the full set. Then it gets odd; 52x+ have AES , 7/8xx quad cores don't, but 6xx dual i7s do. i5 4xx have neither and are just i3s with turbo; a pretty useless feature in a dual core, most modern os are multi-threaded enough to peg both cores and make the chip drop back to base clocks. Bizarrely, some sandy bridge chips have XD disabled like it's 1999 or something, stack overflow attacks -here we come... Till you get to IVY bridge, suddenly, some i7 quadcores are missing the VT-d extensions, the one thing that distinguished all i7s from previous chips, but they do put the features in top end ivy bridge i5s. Do they just gather in a room and decide what cpu gets which feature by pulling them out of a hat?)

Anyway, rant over... My question is, does anyone know of any 3rd party fans that offer better cooling performance to cope with the higher TDP, and would fit in our chassis? Or, more powerful fans from other laptops? I've got decent thermal paste, but if there's an economical way to increase cooking it'd be awesome.

tia

P.S. Sorry if this has been answered somewhere in the ~500 page thread, search didn't throw up any results.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

No unfortunately you'll have to live with the stock fan.

On a related matter- don't Core i5 560M and 580M support what you wanted in terms of VMs?

 

Yeah they do... but a free 720QM beats paying for them. The laptop is getting bit long in the tooth now, don't want to invest too much in it.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hello,

I've updated the bios of my Aspire 5740G (orignal bios : 1.09) with the 1.10 version.
The update take a long time, but when finished the computer restart and i've a beautiful brick in place !

I tried the recovery method with Wincrisis and a flash drive and the 1.16 bios but nothing (the led of the usb drive doesn't flash and power off few seconds after the power on of the computer with fn-esc).

So, what next ?

It is possible to get the original bios 1.09 ?

Thanks

 

If you download the service manual posted in this forum, it has step by step instructions how to make a recovery usb sick for our computers, enter recovery mode (fn-escape @ bios boot screen iirc) and flash a good bios. BTW, 1.10 is really old.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

That happens sometimes- probably a short circuit. You may replace the camera if you feel like dismantling the notebook. Cameras are very cheap on eBay.

I have a crisis with BIOS 1.22 if you want it.

On another note:

I bought a Samsung SSD 830 256GB- it's limited by SATA II but it is pretty awesome nonetheless.
I haven't had enough time to test it but it seems like it adds quite a lot of battery time to what my 8800mAh battery offers. Battery indicator shows 8h 12minutes when disconnected from power where it used to show 6h 30minutes.

In case anyone is wondering Hitman Absolution works perfectly smooth in medium details- and looks great.
I haven't tested Assassin's Creed III or Far Cry 3 (is it out already?) but I'll go one game at a time.

 

i have some problems withc oc card (5650 ati). when i install new drivers 12.5 and higer when i use amd gpu cloock tool and change clocks (for example 670 and 900mhz) i have artefacts when i minimalize window, open program etc. - the same when i change to any lower freq. 500/700
when i install some old drivers 12.4 and older - everything is ok,
whats going on? dexter please help

 

We all have this problem when we reset drivers to default values (100/150) but not with OC values.
Something to do with Aero and the way driver handles it.

 

ok thanks, dex, what graphics drivers you prefer-12.10? or leter?

 

I don't know really- I'm using 12.11 beta8 at the moment as it supposedly improves performance in Hitman Absolution but at the same time Hitman forum (not the official one) advises not to use this driver.
I run a benchmark on 12.10 with 670/900 and scored 29.x fps. I will re-run it on 12.11 beta 8 and see what that scores.

There are quite a few interesting games hitting the shelves right now- Hitman, Assassin's Creed III, Far Cry III and probably something else I've forgotten, so getting the best driver with optimization is important especially that Radeon HD5000 series is bound to struggle and every few fps count.

 

Hi,

I am recently having heat issues with my acer. I checked speedfan and speccy, but both don't display my gpu temperature for some reason. My laptop is sitting at ~60C just browsing through websites using firefox. When I play games, it hits ~80C. How do I check if my acer fan is working or not? I have a cooler under my laptop and it is still reaching these temperatures. I appreciate the help, thanks.

 

You can hear if the fan is working or not- you should clearly hear it once the cooler is off.
GPU temperature can be seen in GPU-Z

Also make sure the radiator is clean- not stuffed with dust- use a gas-duster (canned air) on it.

 

I don't have much knowledge of computers in general, but after downloading GPU-Z, my GPU temp is ~52C, fan % @ 30%, and fan speed is -RPM. I can hear the fan working after I turned off the cooler. Cooler was also cleaned ~30 minute ago. Is this normal temperature for just browsing? Thanks

 

52*C for GPU is quite OK. GPU-Z always shows fan to work at 30%- that part is not true.
60*C for CPU might be too much but not necessarily a hardware issue- check the load- maybe something is using more CPU than it should.

 

Hmm, it seems that firefox is running the cpu up to ~30% usage. I also have a question regarding dual monitors. When i was streams on my laptop screen, it runs smooth on 720p and 720p+, but when i drag it over to my Acer G276HLDbd, it doesn't run that smooth. How can I fix this problem? Thanks for help.

Also have a question regarding rams. I did some googling, and found it the max ram I can have on this laptop is 8gb. But using ddrmemoryupgrades, it says I can have a maximum of 16gb. The laptop come stock with 4 gb ram in 2 slots. I have 2 more slots available. Do you know what is the total amount of ram this laptop can handle and what is the maximum ram per slot? Once again, Thank you for help.

 

No idea why would video had issues on external screen- it worked fine for me the last time I checked.
When you use more than one screen the card doesn't do that in 100/150 mode but goes higher- but I think that should be smooth even on battery.

As for RAM- 8GB is what's officially supported by a memory controller on the CPU.
There is another thing that may affect you though- there ate only two memory slots. Applications like Everest show 4 slots but in reality there are only two slots- so you'd have to replace RAM rather than upgrade.

Anyone here tried more than 8GB?

 

anybody play Far Cry 3? I test it and.....
<20 fps witch medium setting, only play witch x720 and low setting is >25fps, of course witch oc ati card (670/900).
Far Cry 3 on ATI Mobility HD5650 - YouTube
i found this video, guy test it witch 5650, not bad.

 

Now I know the general sentiments towards Windows 8, however, I've still decided to upgrade. Did clean install. Of course, logic beyond most UI decision escapes me, but that's been flogged way beyond death already. There are, however, actual issues with the system stability happening at mildly alarming rate: In one week of usage I've got one random reboot, two failures to wake from sleep and on one occasion screen brightness went to 100% for a couple of seconds before going back to normal. I can't remember this happening ever in two years while on Windows 7. I just hope that over time, MS and driver updates will fix most of this.

Been wondering if fellow 5740G owners who upgraded to Windows 8 faced anything similar, or is it more of an isolated case I'm facing?

 

yep, i test win 8 and after 1 week i note 5 bsod, so - i back to win 7

i write to santa for my present so, can i put new ssd hard disk to 5740g? only 1 ssd or 1 ssd + normal disk (i have 5400 hitachi - very low
anybody test it? ssd is better fo games or irrelevant?

 

For games it's irrelevant- except levels load faster. I replaced my Hitachi (over 13000 hours on the clock) with a Samsung SSD830 256GB a week or so ago.
It does feel a lot faster even though the drive is severely capped by SATA II.
For additional storage I use a NAS- I managed to squeeze everything essential on the SSD, everything non-essential is on a NAS.

Results- battery time improved and speed improved (both of which I expected) but to my surprise web pages also load faster (even though Internet speed is the same).
It looks like heavy websites with a lots of flash plug-ins or images and so on, take less time to load (and get scanned by AV software). It's a split-second difference but it's noticeable.

 

Dex, some people who use ssd disks move win swap file, firefox (or other browser) temp folder to other disk to improve perfomance. (turn off some win services, defragmentation etc...)
Can ssd improve work with Adobe programs ( photoshop, indesign ?) In future i dream about pc witch 4 speed SSD disk in raid 0

I open my acer and next to my hard disk i have empty space, for what?

 

Defragmentation, Superfetch and something else should be disabled- Samsung adds an app- Samsung SSD Magician or something like that that helps you with that.
I can't move any temp files since I only use one drive but I'm considering disabling hibernation altogether- no point for me since I use True Crypt and I have to type the password once when starting a system (or waking up from a hibernation) and one more time to mount True Crypt network shares (only when using hibernation).

All in all it would be faster to start a system rather than use hibernation not to mention it saves 4 GB on hiberfil.sys

Mini-PCI Express near HDD can be used for a 3G modem or a TV tuner (provided you can come up with a way to connect an antenna )

I have no idea if SSD improves anything in Adobe Photoshop- 4 core CPU definitely would though.

 

ok thanks again you are briliant!

ps. i test hitman absolution - not bad, but i hav >30fps only witch low settings. i run benchamrk (witch 12.11 beta 8 drivers) and have 24 fps
witch settings:
1366x768,
msaa: off
quality level: medium

670/900 oc of course
dex, what setting you use to have 29 fps?

 

The same you did. I will retest once more and confirm the settings- maybe I have disabled something else.

EDIT:

Cats 12.11 beta 8, clocks 670/900

Settings:
Display tab:
1366x768
MSAA off

Quality tab:
Shadow: medium
Texture: normal
Texture filter: anisotropic x2
Reflections: medium
Level of detail: medium
Depth of field: medium
SSAO: normal

FXAA, Global illumination and tessellation: all three unchecked

Average fps: 29.05 fps

The difference is I have FXAA disabled and you have it enabled- that's worth 5fps apparently.

 

i run benchmark again witch yours seetings (turn off FXAA) and i have average fps 26,05 fps. not bad but still 3 fps missing

 

Hi,

I have a question regarding connecting the acer laptop to a monitor. I bought this new monitor capable of 1920x1080 HD display, it has a VGA and DVI-D port. The laptop only has a HDMI and VGA port. Should I use VGA to VGA, or HDMI to DVI-D or VGA to DVI-D for better video quality? Or does it not matter much.

Thanks for help.