Acer Aspire 5942G Owners Lounge

The laptop was brand new and sealed with acer's labels which if you try to remove a ''void'' and ''acer'' appears.
The same with the external box.
All stickers there, everything in plastic bags etc
Also, my previous laptop as i said before also did not have acer arcade deluxe even though its stickers stated otherwise.

Allright, because i dont know how to, where can i check if i have this partition?

And even if it there, how can i recover it if i do not have backup manager?
As you say i warranty issue is a very good reason to have it working.

 

Start button,
In the search box type diskmgmt.msc enter
You should see a map of your disk. You are looking for a partition of about 10 - 12GB with no drive letter allocated but for simplicity please describe or screen shot everything you see.

 

Here it is.
It is 12gb and it says that is a backup partition.


But as i can see it is empty.
So, it is erased, right?


I put the battery in but the epower button does not work.
I leave only the battery to power the laptop, the same thing happens.
What now??

 

g47, I have the same partitions as you and it's working fine.
You should have an application called acer eRecovery installed in your laptop.
You can use the application to create the recovery cd's.
One of the cd is the application and driver cd which contains the drivers and applications.

 

g47, you can find the Jmicron card reader drivers here
ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb38x/XP_Vista_Win7/JMB38X_WinDrv_R1.00.40_WHQL.zip

 

Thanks for the drivers but i get a message that the installation was unsuccessful.
Also, no, i have not erecovery and i can not find the one for my laptop. :/

edit: I uninstalled the previous one and its allright now, thanks!

 

My 5942G is an i7 version with DVD, not bluray and it also doesn't have the fingerprint reader.
But it has all the software installed, and all the buttons are functioning.
It has acer arcade, grid vista, backup, powersmart, etc.

When I press the green button (with or without batteries), a popup window will show up saying that it's switching to powersmart mode. Also the button will light up green. but there is no fancy icon like the bluetooth or wifi, only that popup window, and you can check it to not to show again, so the only indication is the green light.

 

Is it possible that you have a different chip ? Is your original driver from Jmicron ?
Do you have the firewire interface in the laptop ?, as I know it's controlled by the same chip.

 

Everything is alright now, i edited my previous message, thank you!
Do you have the install file for backup manager?

I opened a new thread of my two problems just in case a not-owner of the laptop knows what i can do.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...-power-management-backup-manager-problem.html

 

g47, have you tried the D2D recovery ?, if those two partitions are not empty it should work.
Press F2 while restarting to get to the bios and enable the D2D recovery.
Then while restarting again press Alt F10 while the Acer Logo is showing.
If it's working, you should get to the recovery menu.
If not then there is something wrong with your recovery partition.

 

Yes, that is working.
But i have acronis with a full working image of my system.
I guess i dont need erocovery, but just to see if i had it...well i dont.

 

It's good that it's working, this means that you can create the CD containing the drivers and applications including Backup (assuming that the contents of this cd is the same for all the 5942G's)
All you need is to install the eRecovery program. Using this program, you can create the CD's.
But the sad thing is that it is not downloadable from the acer site.

 

I have it, but it's 408 mb, very large.

 

Yep, thats why i am asking for it.
I can not do anything without it.

Oh, 408 only if you split it and upload it to rapidshare or something.
I can not ask you to do that it may take some time.
I will see what i can do.

 

Here you can finde all of the sw you need for your Acer 5942

FileFactory Folder view - Acer5942G

All credits for this go's to member VAZMUTEN

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Back again. seems you are making some progress.

The Recovery partition is not readable by windows so don't worry about that. You could check what happens if you hit Alt-F10 while the acer logo shows at boot up to double check.

I think you must have a retaillers special version with some things taken out to save a few € ? Still if you can put them all back for free it is not problem

 

Thats what i am trying to do.
At the print screen i posted it is mentioned that 100% of the 12gb are free.
So, even if it was not readable, it should be a percentage much lower, am i wrong?


edit: Unfortunately, the 12gb are empty.
With alt+f10 nothing happens, i checked it for good now.
Thats not bad if i can find the progs, then i can make an image with acronis.


But the problem with epower remains, i opened a separate thread.

 

Just to warn you Windows will not be able to see anything in that partition - it has had it's partition type changed by acer to an unrecognisable type to avoid meddling/accidental deletion etc etc.

If you do try to use Paragon's Backup & Restore boot disk it will read whether there is actually anything in it and I would not be surprised if there still is..

Yet If Alt+F10 doesn't work (and F2 into the bios confirms D2D is enabled) that may mean the boot records have been changed by a repair or clean install, yet you say it was out of the box like that.. . . Just to be clear there is a knack to the alt-F10, only when the acer boot logo shows you press Alt and then F10 just once for a moment . . .

It is very strange - I would love to hear what acer say about it

 

Maybe i did not explain something clearly.
Let me tell this better.
I said that the programs were not all installed when out of the box.
I did not search for any partitions to see what is going on.

Now i have changed my hdd to a better one and the old one (the one that was in my 5942g) is in my 5920g.
Thats were the screenshot is coming from.

When i have putted the hdd in my 5920g i made a fresh install of 7 ultimate.
But the screenshot shows a partition that contains backup data, and it is surely from my 5942g.
The thing is...It is empty or not?
And when i restart the laptop and hit alt f10 nothing happens.
Even if it in another laptop the alt+f10 should work.

 

Don't know all the answers here:

• You will not be able see into the Hidden recovery partition with Windows.
• You need a partition manager / recovery type tool to get how full it is.
• Alt F10 will work if the BIOS, boot sector and active partitions etc are all as expected.
• It is not certain that the 5920 will try to boot the right sector for the 5942 formatted drive. If anyone knows for sure please tell us

I still think something is strange about the software loads you are getting in Greece . . maybe some licensing issue ?

On the plus side it sounds like you are getting the system the way you want it

 

Something is going on for sure with acers in Greece, some programs are not there.

What i am going to do next is put again the oem hdd in my 5942g to see if it can boot.

Yes, after all i just want all the programs to make my laptop fully working.
And now i have only on button not working, everything else i made it work. (bluerays, backup manager etc)

The thing that i have changed my hdd with whatever this comes with, (different windows, no programs preinstalled, etc) means that i lost my warranty or that has nothing to do with that?
Because i wont care to be in such trouble if there is no warranty issue.
I like my system as it is right now.

If you have any clues answer to this problem, its the last one.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...-power-management-backup-manager-problem.html

 

I don't know why you have the two remaining problems. You certainly don't need the Acer backup manager unless that is how you want to back-up. it is not involved with the Alt- F10 recovery

As far as the power options are concerned if you have both programmes (launch and power) installed it should be going. Again I have not bothered using it as you can set power profiles for AC power and battery easily in windows and that is fine with me (and automatic).

I believe the warranty position is swapping 'user changeable' stuff is ok. i.e. stuff under user-access panels On the 5942 this is therefore the HDD, RAM wireless card etc is fine provided:
a) only the original parts are returned with any warranty claim/repair
b) no user created damage resulted or evidence remains of the swap

Putting your original HDD back as it is now (or imaged to how it was at new) to send in a warranty claim should therefore be fine. (try another drive/restore an image are both legitimate fault finding steps after all)

Breaking the SATA interface connector or returning the drive blank, repartitioned or running Linux would likely not please them.

 

Well, i solved that.
Acer backup manager is up and running.
One problem to go.

I know its not something so important but it would be nice to have all the macro keys working.
And i tried everything but it refuses.

Of course i could not ask a repair if the fault was the upgrade i did myself.
But having done an upgrade to my hdd i dont think is something to make acer void my warranty.
I have the original disk after all, what i dont have is the original windows, but i did an upgrade to 7 ultimate.
Also its up to me if i keep the oem programs installed or not.
But i ask because with warranty issues you never know.

 

Ok, guess that's all I can do for now.

ps there is a new BIOS out but I don't think that will affect any of your issues

Enjoy your laptop !

 

g47, you have swapped the drives in the 5942G.
How is the space inside the 5942G, is it possible to put a 12.5 mm (height) drive. For example the 1 TB WDC drive ?.
The standard ones are only 9.5 mm (height).

Edited : Sorry I mean the thickness of the drive, not height, standard notebook drives are 9.5 mm thick, so is there space for a 12.5 mm drive in the 5942G ?

 

Hmm, i havent noticed that to be honest.
I think yes but i will recheck as i'll be swapping the hdds again as soon as i take my laptop from the service.

 

hello to all, i want to ask you guys how is the cooling system and gpu overclocking, as im thinking to buy this laptop, thx.

 

Cooling system is good, max temperatures under full stress test conditions
CPU (i5-520) Prime95 69c No throttling !
GPU (HD5650) 3Dmark06 59c with stock clocks (550MHz core 800MHz Mem) so some headroom likely (untested)

The only issue with the cooling system is it is major dismantling job to access the fan/cooler assembly. However there is access to blow air duster at the fan/radiator path from both sides so i don't actually think dismantling is going to be needed.

Only modder issue is that the ATI chip is reportedly not on a card but soldered to the board. (the Service guide suggests the opposite but what would that know . . clearly there are multiple board builds ) On the other hand I dont know what there is to swap it too right now !

 

thx for the quick answer, the cooling seems rly good, i think the issue with the cooling system won't be a big problem for me (hope so), as for the ATI chip, im not sure that i fully understood u, do u mean its like integrated or what ? and about the swapping part, i didn't get that rly. thx again

 

Some laptops have integrated graphics, usually means a pretty poor graphics part included in the chipset eg GMA4500 etc, or in some core iX CPU's.
May just be enough to play blu ray videos, forget 3D video games

Some laptops have discrete graphics which simply means a separate (discrete) chip is used. Typically the discrete chip is an ATI or nVIdea chip of reasonable to high power and thus the laptop is able to play some up to all current games according to spec.

Recently some laptop makers have put the discrete graphics chip and memory on a small plug in card called a MXM card or similar. This means that at a later stage if the GPU is to be replaced or upgraded you can just unplug it and re-plug another. Just like desktop PC Graphics cards the cards are not exactly cheap for the latest spec though

Some 5942's apparently have removable cards (says the service manual) but users who have looked inside theirs (not me) say they found the chip soldered onto the motherboard. . . a puzzle we will no doubt work out one day

Unless you plan to spend a large proportion of the laptops remaining value on an upgrade at some point there is no important difference between discrete and discrete MXM graphics.

HTH

 

thx, that was rly helpful, i hope i can get +100Mhz on both core and memory on the gpu, btw before i was thinking about the 5740g and now at the 5942g, couldn't find any gaming videos on the 5942g but i think it will be like the 5740g as they have the same specs (i5-430m, 4gb ram, HD5650), what will you say? are they the same or close in performance ? thx again.

 

I was also trying to decide between the 5740 and 5942.

My conclusions were
The 5942 seems to run a little cooler based on various reports etc
The 5942g adds eSATA, backlit keyboard, an express card slot and the more questionable cineboost (a picture 'kicker' but for purists it adds too many side effects (can be switched to low/off))
At the time I bought it only the 5942 did Blu-Ray and does it very well . .
I liked the black look of the 5942 compared to the greyer top of the 5740

Quite a cost difference but I wouldn't trade down even if I could


PS
You may already know this but I would just say that some retailers sell their own versions of ACER 5740 and 5942 where typically they have swapped the graphics card for a 4000 series, removed the bluetooth module and made the HDD smaller all to cut their cost price a little. It is therefore worth checking exactly which spec you are buying by looking for the entire reference number e.g. Acer Aspire 5942G-524G64BN (LX.PMT02.018) and cross checking the acer site. Stores that only state the processor, RAM etc may be selling any one of a number of specs!

 

yeah i like the look of the 5942g more, looks more "stylish" and "high-end", however, till now i was only looking at the processor, ram and video card (thats the most important thing for me), but from now on i will consider the other specs too, thx

 

Yes, the black look of the 5942G looks nicer than the greyer top of the 5740.
And the eSATA also functions as a USB port, so there are actually 4 USB ports not 3 as advertised on many acer websites.
It also has a firewire port, which is also not advertised on many websites.

 

Anyway, I can get +100 MHz from the GPU and memory.
In fact the 5650 is advertised as having a clock speed of 450-650 MHz. It only runs on 550 Mhz on the 5942G.

I tried to do increase +100 Mhz from the GPU and memory and get only + 0.1 in the Windows Experience Index from 6.8 to 6.9
But its not very stable, it hangs the system sometimes.

And anyway, if you do the unigine heaven benchmarks (DX 11 with Tesselation), you won't notice the difference (its slowwwww). But you get a really nice picture.
And overclocking it stops the power management of the GPU, it always runs on the overclocked frequency and doesn't vary as usual (100-550 Mhz).

So decided I put it back to the stock frequency.

 

For me the HD5650 at stock is a pretty good compromise between respectable 3D performance, heat and power consumption. It has been totally stable as supplied once I applied ATI mobility 10.3 driver instead of the initial Acer one.

Thanks Captnemo for saving me the time to do this experiment, I might try it as a bios hack or once there is a proper overdrive tweaker that allows the GPU to clock down in 2D but at present it seems not worth it.

 

I am back and happy with my lapy.
As i have written in previous posts, i had trouble with the e-power button when making a fresh install of windows and some times with finding wlans.
My laptop has gone to service to be inspected, and also having my screen inspected for the well known problem of some diagonal lines.

The e-power button and the wlan porblem was fixed after a restoration to the factory state.
I had to wait a week for that because they did not have the restoration cd!!
The original acer service point in Greece did not have a restoration cd!!!
The emailed acer and told the problem and asked for the cd to be sent to them.
Acer replied with some links to download it, which took them 4 days to do so!!
Anyway, they did it eventualy.


Then they tried to fix the screen.
They left that problem last, just in case the problem was fixed with the restore.
The run some tests on the screen and they found it to be faulty.
They also told me that it is a hardware problem.
But their first move was not to change the screen itself, but the mainboard!!!
Which was not in stock and i had to wait even a month for the mainboard to come.
And i was sure that this move would not change anything.
So, i just asked for my laptop back, and everything is ok now.

 

Some problems that are annoying and worth mentioning.
First of all i have a dead black pixel at the upper left corner of my screen.
I try with some programs to unstuck it but no luck until now.
Thank god is not in the middle of my screen.
But the weird thing is that it was not dead until today!!
That makes me nervous in case any more dead pixels appear.
Second is tat the space button makes a skweeck when pressed, like the plastic is not cut properly and it makes this noise.
Last one is that every 5 hours or so, there is a message with the logo of acer saying ''Please upgrade to the last version of flash player''.
I press that message, opens the i.e. and i begin to download the player.
After that the message appears again.
I am starting to get a little disappointed with my new laptop.

 

Two more problems.
First there is a little ''tak'' every once in a while from the speakers.
It was not there before the recovery made by the service so, it is a software thing.
Reinstalled the video and audio drivers but nothing changed.
Second one is that while browsing, if i dont use the wheel of my mouse but the bar at the right of the screen to scroll up/down, i hear a little noise, like the hdd is working but much weaker noise.
This noise does not come from the speakers.
It does the same noise when i magnify a photo and i grab it and move it around.
Can somebody confirm that?

I can say that this laptop was not a good buy.

 

No one has the same problems?

 

I have not noticed either of these . .

 

You dont have a light ''tak'' every once in a while from your speakers?
Thats good, i tried to find a solution by messing with the settings of our sound card, i think it is lowered now, i may hear one or two in a day.
But still it is there.

The noisy scrolling is not easy to notice even in a quiet room.
It is made only if you catch and drag the right bar in a window.
You can put your ear at the down left corner of the laptop and hear it, i am sure its there.
It is like the sound of the hdd only lighter.
I googled it and it seems i am not the only one with these problem.
The flash player message mysteriously disappeared, thats fine.

But still this laptop does not make me feel comfortable.
I have a tense in case any more problems appear.

Can somebody post temps of cpu/gpu at light internet surfing status?
I think mine are a little high.

 

Speaker noises. I havn't ever noticed this. For background noise/hiss it is a way quieter than my Dell studio.

The scrolling noise may be some kind of pickup if the wiring got put back differently. Try turning down or muting mic and line-in on your sound settings ?
............. CPU GPU
Light use 45c 49c
Stress test 72c 59c

Stress tests were :
CPU max during continuous file conversion, no throttling seen
GPU max while scoring 7505 in 3Dmark06 - this is at standard 550/800 clocks
. . . plus overhead of running Norton in both cases

 

I haven't noticed those problems, no tak or scrolling noise.
But I have noticed a different problem.
I think the sound quality from the left speaker is better than the right speaker. The left speaker has better high frequency response (more treble) and sounds more clear than the right speaker.
Has anyone noticed this problem ?

 

My CPU temp is between 46-55 under normal browsing.
It increases to 65-70 when compiling C++
And increases to around 78-82 when compressing (using winrar) or encoding a video (using mediacoder).
All temps are in celcius.

 

My speaker noises are surely a software problem (they were not there before i send the laptop to the service), but reinstalling drivers for gpu/sound card/hdmi did not help.
I does it rarely (today until now i have not heard it but it will do it one/two times)
No big deal but it is an annoying thing.
There is no ''tik'' sound when i play games or see movies.
But because my room is quiet (too quiet i guess, i can hear this noise and the scrolling one)

Scrolling noise.
Yes, i have tried turning them off, nothing changed, it is a hardware thing, as you said maybe the wiring.
Also i tried many tricks i found online but no luck.
Many laptops from many brands have the same problem.
I have to admit i dont hear it but one day i noticed it and now i can not avoid hearing it, you know how it is.
When i use the laptop and have time to see the temps i am doing two things.
I have around ten tabs opened in firefox and i am looking at some pdfs or photos that help me study some lessons for my university.
At these times my temps are something like this:



But when for example i have some youtube tabs open, the cpu temps easily reach 65 even 70 some times.
What do you think?
Normal or not?
Thoughts on the other issues?

Captnemo, i tried to stick my ear to hear any difference between my speakers, i could not see something.
Try going to speaker properties and balance left and right if they are unbalanced.
Also, add room correction if it is annoying.

 

opening you tube is not really a scientific test

Several people have posted that CPU temperatures over 70c are easily reached by pushing the system a bit. If you are really worried run prime95 and that really will stress the CPU, you should reach 85c before the fan hits max and 95c before the CPU starts to throttle back. It should not crash.

ps how did you get a 1TB desktop HDD in there ?

 

Its my external.

 

Thought it would have been a squash