Acer Aspire 8930G Owner's Lounge

Sorry, had to give a quick answer ealier so i didn't give a reason why

I bought a dell 130watt psu with my m17x r1 and with the x7900 @ stock and fx 3700m the psu became quite hot and i'm 99% a 90watt psu would burn

Only problem i can see with this upgrade is getting the correct heatsink, seems most ppl have the 9600m mxm II and you need the 9700m mxm III heatsink.

 

Ah wouldn't have known that. I would've assumed that my heatsink would have been capable. I wonder, would I have to change the heatsink if I managed to get a GT240m.

 

Installing anything higher then a mxm II card would require modding the mounting holes


Searched a bit, seems 60.ASZ0N.001 is the 9700M GT heatsink, should fit any nvidia mxm III card without real mods.


And if i were you i wouldn't even consider a gt240m/9600m ddr3/4650 ddr2.

I'd get an hp fx 3600m, they seem to be really cheap, cool and twice as fast as the mxm II cards!


E8435 + fx 3600m seems the way to go if you want a pimped 8930g for little money

 

And again, thanks Frag I've found two fx3600m on ebay, according to the pics supplied though they're HE / III connections, would this be right or are there specific 2.1 cards out there? Unfortunately can't find any E8435s, best I've come up with so far is either the t9900 or x9100... getting itchy fingers now, I want to upgrade

 

I am seeing 7 listings on eBay at the moment, some at reasonable prices. I ordered mine from the US to London on 3-Jun and it arrived on the 7th, so don't be put off by international sellers.

On another note, ordered Quadro FX 3700M earlier today, looking forward to decent FPS once again!

 

Hi Kakty, yeah had another look and found quite a few Now I'm just debating whether to get the gpu or cpu first... oh decisions, decisions!

 

I'd say gpu! Which cpu do you have now?

Unless it's a really really low end c2d upgrading the gpu will be a much bigger upgrade.

 

Good to see your successful upgrade.
Could you make any benchmark in you CPU in order to estimate its power?

And for all those who had upgraded their CPUs to X9100 either E8435, PLEASE make a benchmark with CoresMark 2010
or SiSoftware Sandra and share the results with us.

CoresMark 2010 Standard

 

There you go, 248.76 secs for the standard dual core test with CoresMark, which is a just over 18% increase over stock P8600 according to their database. Not too shabby, IMHO. Temperature didn't go above 53C on running 10x stress test (the 51C in the image is wrong, as the CPU meter doesn't vary in my 8930G for some reason).

 

For the Q9000 at 2.0 GHz The CoresMark 2010 is 185.23 seconds



As far as temps go, cores 0 & 1 are bad, however 2 & 3 are good.

 

I get around 125 seconds.

 

my 8930g got 208s
but the program was showing "not responding" about 5-6 times so dont know what was going on there

 

The card has arrived, appears HP refurbished (the GPU appears as if the thermal paste has been accurately removed).


Applied Arctic Silver 5 and installed. Couldn't flash with the GTX 280M BIOS floating around this board, so just modded the .inf file of the 195.62 drivers by Dox. Nice to see that nvidiaInspector is able to see through the rouse, unlike GPU-Z.

Idling at 50C, which is a bit hotter than 9700M was.

Off to test with 3DMark Vantage and will report back!

 

Nice! Hope it gets along nicely.

Here is my highest score for comparison:

http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3217168

I was running 900/1150 clocks to pull that off with the cpu as in my sig.

 

Hi, Nvidia Quadro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia aren't they made specifically for workstations with CAD in mind? So will these cards be faster and can I fit one into my 8930G that has a 9700GT?
Chris

 

He’ll never get 7k vantage. My fx 3700m suddenly started working like it should after connecting a working internal lcd.

Running at 585/1450 ,1000 memory 280m bios I get 5500 gpuscore

 

Bricked the bloody card by !"£$%^ around with NiBiTor :x

Neither stock nor 280M MXM-2.1 BIOSes I got from this forum were recognised by the authentic Nvidia drivers without INF modding. Moreover, it didn't look like the card entered P0 with 280M BIOS, so I thought I'd be clever and patch the Device ID and Subsystem ID up in the original FX 3700M BIOS with NiBiTor, while also getting the clocks up to 280M levels at 1.0V. As a result, laptop won't even POST, so the cunning plan of blind flashing if the s hit the fan didn't materialise.

Sending it up to the BIOS repair service later today, as hopefully all that needs to be done is to reprogram the ATMEL EEPROM on the board.

As a positive, learnt a load of new stuff which I will probably never put to any use. Ah, and 3DMark comparison will have to wait

PS: FragZero, could you please post your 280M BIOS file when you have a moment. Thanks.

 

Yes, this card is comparable to 280M performance, although runs hotter. Otherwise, if you have 9700M you could replace it with one of these babies with no problem. There is a lot of reading material on the board already, if you search for it (site:forum.notebookreview.com "FX 3700M" 280M).

 

Lulz, a manual bios flash will fix it, so you will get it back.

 

Will do, its a 280m bios with 1.05v 585/1450/1000 but offcourse you can change this using nibitor. HDMI does not work for me with this bios, everything else works flaweless.

Do you have a hp card? And does it have the .10 bios sticker?

Edit: And you'll have to use modified drivers, acer laptops seem to overwrite the vendor ID and nvidia does not supply a driver for an acer 280m/fx3700m. I suggest the laptopvideo2go drivers.

 

What do you mean by "manual BIOS flash"? As I said in my original message, the laptop no longer POST with the flashed card, meaning I cannot boot onto a rescue USB key and launch the blind nvflash bat file. It is now not possible to do anything with the card apart from reprogramming the EEPROM. See this thread.

Yes, it's the HP 0.10 BIOS card (NB9E-GLM3). I noticed the vendor ID problem, this is exactly what I tried to overcome with NiBiTor when the card FUBARed...

 

Manual flash = removal of chip and inserting it into a programmer.

 

Ye, that's the only way... And an extra £50 to the cost it seems

 

Sorry for the late response, work got in the way unfortunately

I have a lowly T6400 running @ 2Ghz - but alas this and a GPU upgrade are gonna have to wait a bit - well at least until I replace / solder my DC jack...

 

Woah £50? I paid way less, just a second....

bios-repair.co.uk | BIOS Recovery | Crisis Recovery | Flash Recovery

These guys dont charge that much and were very professional.

 

Thanks for the tip, Meaker. I'll get in touch with them and see what they say.

 

I can flash your fx 3700m, i have a free sli slot and a heatsink which will work.

Bios
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

Works flaweless on my hp .10 card, no hdmi on my m17x but when i tried it in an acer 5920g it did work.

 

Thanks, FragZero. Very kind of you to offer to flash it, but I already posted it to Grains BIOS Repairs Meaker recommended, which was reasonably priced.

On the subject of the drivers, did anyone try HP's original NVIDIA drivers for FX 3700M (found here)?

 

No original drivers will work. There is no acer 3700M so no driver. Modded drivers do provide drivers for a 3700M with the acer ID so they will install.

 

you just use the nvidia fx3700m driver from the nvidia site(latest is 275.33)
so no need to mod anything, as long as the driver see you have a fx3700m installed it will install driver makes no odds that acer didnt do a 3700m

 

Hi all, i am trying to install a second HD into the second bay, but once installed Win7 seems not to see it, it does not appear in My Computer as another drive but seems to be in the list in device manager, anyone have any suggestion?

cheers

 

Have you tried to format the disc?
Create and format a hard disk partition

 

Hi, can you see in disk management, right click my computer left click manage. Also check how many primary partions you have already as you can't have more than four in win 7...
Chris

 

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum. I bought an acer 8930g in early 09. Last month, i upgraded my windows vista to win7 x64 enterprise edition and i notice that the laptop is running very hot.

I've downloaded CPUID monitor and noticed my nvidiea 9600m GT was the culprit. During normal usage, the videocard would be around 77-80 degrees Celsius. For some reason, my CPUID has clocked my videocard's max temperature at 255 degree Celsius!

I have opened up my laptop in the past and cleaned out the dirt/junk that was building up but now I am starting to think that my win7 upgrade is responsible for the heating.

I dont want to change back to vista, but is there anything I can do to lower the videocard's tempurature?

 

Cheers Chris, that route seems to have worked, there were 4 primary partitions on the C drive, due to crazy Acer installs, but it let me create a new formated partition on the new HD and it can now be accessed through My Computer. Thanks for the advice.

Russ

Hi Jindy, i am running the same video card with Win 7 32 bit, have no problems at all. 255deg c is 491 deg F i know chip sets can get hot but those temps are hot enough to melt the solder on the board, are you sure the monitor is reading the temp correctly?

 

My GeForce 9700M idles just around 50C after a thorough cleaning and re-application of Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. This is standing on an aluminium NZXT Cryo LX stand, which suggests Aspire 8930G cooling is really pants

I've been trying to find out whether there is a better alternative than the stock cooling fan (Sunon MagLev, same as Dell's Precision M6400 part W227F), but so far the research has been inconclusive.

 

Well, I was never in front of the computer when it reached that temperature but usually the laptop would just turn itself off. Usually it is alot lower than that but when it gets north of 80deg the laptop does start to get hot.

 

i sit mine on a Belkin cooling station when i am processing photos as it does get too warm to sit on my knee, but i think you may have other issues.

 

i never had this issue until i updated to win 7 64bits.. actually the last time i had this issue was when i used the hdmi as an output and it started to heat the laptop significantly.

 

So my FX 3700M is back from BIOS reprogramming, but unfortunately it appears dead. Blank screen and system won't POST when installed in my 8930G. I have no idea what went wrong, whether it's something I did over here, whether it was damaged when reprogrammed or anything else. Anyone has any bright ideas of how it could be fixed, if at all?

Unfortunately, I possess precisely zero knowledge with regard to electronic components, so there is nothing I can do myself at this point

 

Hello Peeps,
The dreaded battery problem has raised it's ugly head ,
From day one of ownership my laptop drains its battery within 4 days when switched off.
Remove battery and leave out for a month and when fitted back in shows 100% and runs for over two hours I then plug in charger and it charges back to 100%.
BIOS is ver 1.2 and all periferals are disconnected, explained all this to acer and there reply "it must be the battery"..........
Purchased new battery from Acer and does exactly the same as original one did'nt shock me at all.
Acer response must be the battery !!!!!!!!!!!!!???
As this laptop is covered till 2013 with full acer advantage I am reluctant to send in as would have to revert back to original spec pain in the backside that just to be told nothing wrong with laptop.
I am now considering reverting back to an older BIOS and am seeking advice does anyone have the cure for this anommally 100% ??????

 

DutchAnon , We said it before , the 1.20 BIOS has Battery drain problem, as u said when the battery its conected with the laptop its keeps drain battery when its OFF. From 1.000 technical Acer persons only 2-3 knows about that.I am wondering how they change your battery ? with your modified laptop.
Anyways your solution its very easy . Rollback to official 1.13 bios it will solve your problem 100% .......maybe i said maybe your dashbord will not work at first so take off your battery about 10 min. and back again.

And 1 more Tip for u The enemy of battery is HEAT so your sec battery try to keep it cold and not fully charged until u use it.

 

Hi, are you saying all of these laptops have battery drain issues with bios ver 1.20? If so how come mine doesn't, or is this another 'selective' issue?

 

Yes this is what i am saying, some time ago ACER has 2 versions of 1.20 bios some people have the old one and some the new one .(same name 1.20)
So if you download this time from ACER 1.20 bios and flash your 8930g u will have problems.
Try that Full charged battery left it on it and after 3-4 days of not work at all your battery will be at least 30% This is with New battery with old one you will have deferent behavior. The codes are deferent after 12/2010 8930g battery its deferent inside.

 

Hi, my bad, I forgot I have bios ver 1.21...
Chris

 

OK chris n problem .
I have a question does anyone solve the problem with the brightness when the powerplan is at balance it doesnt save the maximum brightness when the laptop is at ac.

 

Hi, I thought this was down to a particular version of the NV drivers...

 

Yes thats right its about Nvdia drivers , but all versions after 2010 do that .Only the first beta doesnt have this problem.
And Something elses what gpu can i use and were can i buy one?
I was going to buy 9700m gt from ACER but they want 350 euros , with this money i can buy another one 8930g lol

 

Hi, I'm searching 1.21 BIOS, with SLIC and Virtualization, anyone here has it?

 

Can anyone give any tips on installing that Quadro 3700m FX card that was mentioned previously?

I've bought one but the heat sink assembly doesn't quite line up and I haven't once gotten the card to be detected by windows. I have a display on screen but it is only picked up as "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter".

I used some arctic silver and am using the main heatsink arm from the previous card. I don't know if this is the issue preventing proper detection. When my previous 9600m GT would get cranky I couldn't even get a display but it seems stable now. I had a few automatic shutdowns at first, much like the heat-triggered shutdowns when things really warm up.

The NVIDIA driver installer won't install the driver because it claims not to be finding compatible hardware.

Is there something I haven't thought of here?
Also, this is definitely an HP version.