Acer Aspire VN7-591G USB boot + SSD question

Hey guys,

I have bought the new Acer Aspire vn7-591G also known as V15 Nitro Black edition and my configuration is with only 1Tb HDD, but I am looking to purchase and install one SSD on it. I have read and checked that I need M.2 SSD (2280, since the space for it is 8cm long). I am planning to dual boot windows and Linux on this laptop, so is the Samsung XP941 SSD from this link suitable and do you have any other recommendation, as far as I have seen this drive is the top performer at the moment in the M.2 form factor segment.

In addition I would like to install Linux on my laptop but for some reason the laptop does not boot from the USB stick. I have used unetbootin to install minimal install on Ubuntu but when I click F12 key it only detects the internal HDD. I had similar issues on my current Dell XPS and I had read in the forums that I should use USB v.2 not v.3 so I am really wondering how I could force my new laptop to boot from the USB. I have already tried the USB stick and it boots just fine on my current laptop.

I am also wondering what wireless network card to use. Currently on my laptop I have installed AC7260 but it is not very stable and I have also noticed that AC7265 was also released. To be honest I don't need the AC standard at the moment so I could consider even n-compatible card if the performance over 2.4GHz and 5GHz is stable enough even under heavy load. What would you recommend me in this case?

 

So you are looking at leaving 1TB HDD and supplementing it with SSD? If I were you I'd be looking to get rid of the HDD entirely (replacing 2.5" HDD with 2.5" SSD) but the M2 drive you mention would work fine.

As for the Wi-Fi card your choice is rather limited since you have to use M2 factor cards too and there are not too many of those yet. Killer N 1525 would probably be a good choice but it's nearly impossible to get hold of one. Intel 7265 is not much of an upgrade from 7260 and apart from that there seem to be some entry level cards from Intel and Atheros (which can't be recommended).

I do have 7260 myself and I'm very much aware how troublesome this card is. Make sure you are using the most recent drivers (see this thread for updates). If you have a dual band router switch to 5GHz band - most problems with Intel 7260 are related to 2.4GHz band. Also make sure you have U-APSD set to "disabled" in advanced driver settings available through device manager.

I can't help you with USB part of your post, sorry.

 

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. Yes, I want to supplement the internal HDD with SSD and to use the HDD only for static data storage.

Actually can you confirm that I need 2280 M.2 SATA SSD because there are M.2 SATA and M.2 PCI-E SSD's (reference: SSD Guide: M.2 PCI-Express, M.2 SATA, M-SATA And SATA Express - The Differences Explained! and Buying An M.2 SSD? - How To Tell Which Is Which - Republic of Gamers).

To be honest I wasn't aware that the WiFi card should be also M.2. I have also read some articles about the Killer N 1525 and the issues of the 7260 over 2.4GHz, the problem is that at the moment I am using primarily 2.4GHz band. My wireless setup is that I am connecting not directly to the wireless router but to a repeater and I am connecting to 2.4GHz and even with this repeater my Internet connectivity is quite crappy. It is constantly dropping some packets and the time delay is increasing heavily during online game-play. So I was even considering to purchase an external USB WiFi adapter with external antennas in order to improve the speed and reliability of the WiFi connection.

 

Just a heads up. I found that this laptop (in UEFI mode) is one that will only boot EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi. You can install a Linux EFI img and change the boot order with something like 'efibootmgr' and it will switch the boot order back to Windows first on reboot. You can hit F-12 at boot and then select your Linux image but that's a pain. I ended up copying Window's bootmgfw.efi to EFI/Microsoft/bootmgfw.efi and installing rEFInd as bootmgfw.efi as described here.

Could be I was doing something wrong, so YMMV.

AN

 

@filister

Yes I can confirm it's M2 SATA - first because Kingston only offer M2 SATA drives (and Kingston drive is what Acer have used). Secondly because I checked the HWInfo log posted at the end of Czech review (see here) and the Kingston 128GB drive is listed under SATA drvices and in another place SATA controller lists two active devices (HDD and SSD as there is no DVD drive).

As for Wi-Fi -start by updating driver and disabling U-APSD (older drivers were horrible and U-APSD is responsible for weird ping spikes and co on)

 

Ok I have successfully installed 512Gb SSD m.2 SATA III 6Gbps 2280 and it works like a charm. It is booting really fast. I have managed to install the Windows 8.1 under legacy mode. I wasn't able to install it over UEFI, even with Secure boot turned off. By the way if someone is looking how to turn off the secure boot, this could be done if you assign a supervisor password in the BIOS prior to that. So right now I am thinking to purchase Killer 1525 AC m.2 PCIe card, my only concern is that it is recently released and probably the drivers wouldn't be very mature. Can you also confirm that this card will fit in the module, the pins look a little bit differently.

In a matter of fact I have also purchased external WiFi card with detachable antennas because my signal at home is very weak, where my laptop is and this solved my constant issues. Now my connection is reliable. Some of the problems of the Atheros card, which comes preinstalled in the laptop is that the antennas path is going through where your right hand usually sits, which attenuates additionally the signal.

 

Killer 1525 will work fine. Not all of M2 slot is not necessarily used. See this photo of M2 Killer 1525 and M2 Intel 7260 side by side - you'll see what I mean.

 

Yes, this means that the Killer card is just a little bit more narrow than the Intel card. But yes, the photo was self-explanatory.

 

I bought the same laptop and the same ssd(128gb variant) but when I put it in place my laptop doesn't seem to recognize it, did you do anything else apart from putting it in and boot up?

 

Hi Anthony96, nope, actually the BIOS did recognized the new SSD out of the box and I was able to install Windows on it. Please make sure to change the Boot Mode to Legacy and check in the BIOS if your SSD is displayed there.

 

Just a quick update, the Killer AC1525 does seem to have problems with this particular Acer laptop. It has really strange behavior, sometimes it detects the card, but sometimes it doesn't. I have tried to install a lot of different versions of the drivers, contacted the official Killer Networking support, which told me that they are not supporting after market installations of this card. Anyway he had logged into my PC and tried to debug the problem. In general I had lost more than 10 hours trying to debug what the problem could be and after that I had given up. By the way the Bluetooth also was not detected and never worked out. I thought my wireless card was without Bluetooth module, but according to their support guy, all of their cards has a built-in Bluetooth. So eventually I had given up and installed the original card.

 

@filister
I think it's an issue with the card itself. There is a thread on ot in the Networking sub-forum and if I remember correctly @WhatsThePoint had to deal with it at one point or another.

 

If you have a good quality uninstaller I suggest you uninstall all the Killer drivers and apps.If you don't have one use the trial of Total Uninstall.Use on highest settings.I find this works better than the KillerCleaner

For the Bluetooth issue look in Device Manager and make sure it installed correctly.The driver should say Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4 Bluetooth 4.0

After you are reasonably sure you got it all removed install the newest version of the Killer Performance Suite version 1.1.53.1484.After it's installed open Windows Task Manager and disable the 2 Killer apps under Performance then under Start up stop the Network Manager by unchecking the box

I'm using Killer Performance Suite 1.1.53.1484 and the N1535 Bluetooth driver.It works for the N1525 also

 

Thanks for the hints, for now I will stick with the factory card. Maybe @downloads is right and I have some kind of HW issue with this card, because it works sometimes and sometimes doesn't but for such pretty expensive wireless module it is really a shame. My other idea is to install the card and reinstall the whole PC, but to be honest I don't want to bother with this. Maybe I will do it when Windows 10 is released and will update you. I guess that probably the drivers are messed up and that is why it doesn't behave properly.

 

Okay, I know is pretty old thread but I just wanted to update you that I have installed today the Killer Wireless AC1525 card, which I had and now it works just fine. I have updated the BIOS to the latest version from the Acer support page and then installed the official Killer Network drivers and now the card is flying. Unfortunately I did not make a test in Speedtest for the wireless speed, but the ping response of this card is really fast and also the upload is more robust and the speed is definitely higher. The original network card was crap, and even the Bluetooth was not working on it, but on this, everything is working great. I strongly recommend this upgrade to anyone considering. So inserting the M2 SSD and replacing this network card made this laptop even better.

I forgot to mention that in the past with original card I was not able to connect from the balcony and now the connection is fine, so apparently the range of this card is greater.