Acer Predator (Vega 56+Ryzen 2) Helios 500

I know it's not limited to AMD. But 9 of 10 machines sold means better access to parts. Same is it with cars and other products. See... And the differences will show up even more when you hunt after spare parts when the years have ticked away after release. It's what it is

 

Then I guess you recommend people buy Alienware's Area 51m because it's built in large quantities with *lots* of spare parts?

 

Nope. Damn risky buy USED or even new ticking bomb

 

Which is why I still have my Ranger even though I had been eyeing this and/or the P72/P73 since they also have P5200/RTX 5000

Since parts for this dont really exist, I am just waiting on some RTX 5000 GPU to start trickling into the used market.

 

Supposedly spare parts in the US can be ordered from these places:

https://us.answers.acer.com/app/ans...39.1561271472.1572658667-284903869.1566685811

But I am guessing that since its a consumer model then probably three years after its EOL they won't make any more spare parts, as that it the longest they would need to for a warranty claim. It is also likely not a very popular model compared to other brands so used spares will likely be less available from ebay and such.

 

If so, I expect they will have to give me refund or new machine here home. Obligatory 5 years free warranty whatever will fail with the machine. And release date doesn’t matter.

 

Well, that's it for this laptop for me.
Called pc world today and complained about the long repair time, and they said that the repair shouldn't take that long, so after a bit of waiting I was offered a replacement or a refund.
Since they don't have any replacement identical units at all, I have to get a refund.

It should be processed by the end of the week and I should also get my extra ssd and ram stick that I installed back.

Oh well.

Now I have to find something else or perhaps just not bother anymore ( a second option which is not an appealing one but I am highly discouraged by all this and frankly sick of it all).

Won't consider a desktop as I have nowhere to place it and to top it off if I'm traveling, I can't take it with me at all.

If someone has a suggestion on getting a comparable laptop for up to £1500 in UK, I'd be open to ideas.

I hate this.

EDIT: once I get my refund, I can order the same laptop from amazon usa (it ships to uk and would get here by 12th November at the latest). Total price with shipping fees etc would be
1,731.01USD /
1,340.66GBP

So I'd actually save £160 from initial purchase.

But I'm worried about warranty etc.
If you buy stuff via Amazon and have it delivered to UK, what's the procedure for warranty repairs or replacements like? Is it applicable in the first place etc?

 

In Europe Zandparts sell Acer spare parts, they have motherboards for the Helios 500 - the Intel version. And they are extremely expensive: 2,479.94 EUR to 3,245.20 EUR.

 

Why are the replacement mobos more expensive than the laptops themselves?
This really doesn't make sense.
Mobos (like most electronic equipment) are produced by automation. Manual labor is primarily used in assembly of laptops (and even THAT could have been easily automated a decade ago).

So, why the inflated prices?
If anything, given the nature of mobile electronics and the fact how most OEM's solder majority of chips/components onto them for the sake of lowering costs, it would probably cost LESS than the desktop components to produce.

 

I think they always charge more for repair parts to discourage people from repairing instead of replacing. Usually spare parts are only good for simple things like a fan, display cable, power jack. The only machines where spare motherboards are reasonably priced new is Clevo.

 

Could someone advise me on whether its a good idea to get the Helios 500 from Amazon USA website for a lower cost once I get my refund?
What are the warranty stipulations for repairs or replacement in case of failures if the laptop is ordered from USA but is delivered to UK?

 

If Clevo machines are completely out the picture I recommend getting the Acer from UK if you did not count in the import fee that will incur if you import it from the US.
But even if with the import fee and its still cheaper then get it from US Amazon.
But warranty wise you are safer buying within UK duo to EU consumer laws protecting you.
Frankly not sure how this applies if you buy from abroad.

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Last I knew someone in this thread was selling his helios 500

 

Do you know if that is still within warranty?

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Iirc sometime in 2020, it was in the marketplace

 

Clevo machines aren't completely out of the picture... but I don't have money to throw away either.

I cannot get the Acer Helios from UK Amazon because it sells for £2000... that's well outside my price range, and it ships in 2 or 3 months (which is also no good).

The Helios 500 from USA Amazon costs £1340 with import fees (so its £660 cheaper than the UK version) and that one would take roughly 5 days to be delivered.

But yes, you are correct about the EU consumer laws protecting me at the moment - so I'm not sure how repairs or replacements would work in case something happens (my guess is that Amazon would arrange for the thing to be shipped to Acer USA for repairs or replacement, but in case repairs are required, I might have to pay extra for shipping fees... and possibly again for new imports).

 

Try looking for Clevo resellers in Europe, not sure what your CPU and GPU requirements are but lets say you do not need as powerful CPU as you do GPU you can choose a cheaper one or the opposite.
Tongfang also sells barebone laptops with pretty good hardware but its soldered so.
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/919450-tongfang-custom-laptops-and-world-tongfang-resellers/

Anyway I personally feel that you might regret getting the 500 again when they might refresh it next year like in less than 4 months even.

Clevos are also much easier to repair and get help with specially on this forum.
And they weight no less or more than your Acer, size is about same as well maybe a bit thicker on some of the models.
You can easily get a good Clevo for 1600 pounds or even less depends on how good GPU you need, 2060 or 2070.

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Asus never refreshed the GL702ZC... so I'm not too optimistic of Acer refreshing the Helios 500 with Zen 2 and 5700 for example (or 5500M).
Plus, I'd hate for Acer to do yet another blunder with the 4 RAM slots and put a slow memory into it... with the existing Acer Helios 500 I can actually live with that, but on a 'refreshed' version, not so much.

Plus, there's a problem of me needing a laptop.
I do have an 8 year old laptop at the moment with a weak Intel iGP... so content creation is not exactly great.
It should help me muddle through somehow, but I don't know how well I'll manage with animation bit.

If I knew for certain that an OEM will make another all AMD laptop, I might end up grinding my teeth and waiting for it.

 

There is a MSI with RX 5500M but its slower than your old 500.
I suggest you look at Clevo, in Europe they deliver fast, UK has a few resellers I think.

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I'm aware of that MSI with RX 5500M, and I know the CPU is weaker (by half at least vs the Helios 500), but the price tag on that MSI doesn't seem well balanced.
The 8GB version will cost $1000/£1000, whereas the 16GB version will cost $1100/£1100 (usually UK price tags have identical numbers to USA price tags with only difference being in the type of money used: $ vs £).

In comparison to the Helios 500 with 8 cores and 16 threads... that MSI laptop doesn't seem like good value.

I think realistically that MSI should be pricing it at least $100-200 lower - don't understand on what they are basing those prices on. 7nm GPU perhaps? Unlikelyl.

My only problem with that MSI is the price, otherwise, I might consider it... plus, availability of that laptop is still out of the question and we don't know when it might be available in UK (or for what price - my own UK prices are estimates based on how laptops were previously priced, but that's about it).

 

Most likely because Acer don't like users fixing their old computers instead of buying a new one combined with zandparts wanting to make a profit. The prices doesn't make much sense in general. Still I guess it's nice that one can get parts if needed.

 

Used HP Zbook (something like this as an example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MINT-HP-...856903?hash=item341793ba87:g:VHUAAOSwictdvurl). Built like a tank and dependable, or get a similar used Dell workstation notebook. Pocket the extra cash and keep saving / waiting for a Zen 2 desktop replacement laptop to arrive.

 

Adding RAM / SSD to the MSI Alpha 15 will be a bit troublesome given that you have to remove the heatsink to get to the SSD and remove the motherboard to get to the RAM. Then again, I would suspect the MSI bios probably supports DDR4-3200 or better right out of the box. They have a far better bios than Acer does. With any luck it may also support the hidden command to unlock all bios options.

The only thing close to the Predator Helios 500 AMD in price / performance I have found in the USA is the Clevo N970TF. It has an RTX 2070, and takes socketed desktop 65W intel processors up to the i9-9900. Unfortunately the cooling system isn't as good as the P775TM so the palm rest can get pretty warm while its gaming.

 

And the Clevo N970TF costs 1849 EUR.

Not in my price range...

You know, I think I'm leaning towards getting the Helios 500 again from Amazon USA website (biting the bullet and just getting that 'beast' again).

One of the reasons for that would be the amazing cooling system in it... its quiet and barely gets warm while stressed.
I'd just forgo messing with the BIOS completely and focusing on software updates instead.
The stock BIOS should (technically) work fine unless Acer releases BIOS updates for Zen 2 and/or Zen 3 and high RAM support.
But if they do, I wouldn't consider updating the BIOS again until I had access to those components and possibly the reflashing tools (with some assurances they'd actually work in case the BIOS becomes corrupted again for whatever reason).

And another reason why I'm wary of spending big money on 'similarly powerful' NV/Intel laptop... are the thermals. While NV gpu's are capable, I would prefer an all AMD system.

Intel CPU's are notorious for overheating in laptops or at the very least being unable in sustaining their boosts reliably without also increasing temperatures radically (which would require a repaste) - not to mention the noise levels (Helios 500 is really quiet).
To date, most Intel CPU's needed a repaste to achieve lower/proper thermals... such problem did not arise with Helios 500 (though the Asus GL702ZC left a LOT to be desired in regards to cooling and noise).

The thing that nags at me with the Helios is its BIOS and inability to modify it to boot from USB stick manually (since its set up in such a way it automatically detects a bootable USB drive - which in itself is useless unless the flash drive is properly configured - otherwise a Windows boot USB stick won't be detected).

I had issues trying to do a clean install of Windows on my Helios 500 because for some reason, even when I (finally) managed to configure the Windows 10 bootable USB flash drive so the BIOS recognized it, for some reason, whenever I tried installing it on an SSD drive, it said something about not being able to find a 'valid parition' (is there any way around this issue?).

 

Why not wait til black friday? helios 500 was $1,299 or $1,199 (I forgot) last year on Amazon US site.

Maybe you will get a better one this time?

I am surprised Acer hasn't released a newer version with 5700 XT and support for 3900X etc.

 

I have one for sale in Estonia, Pärnu . Warranty to 03.2020. 1000€

 

Keep in mind you can get a flat 10% student discount I believe from Eurocom on boutique Clevo and other chassis.

Also, don’t know if you can buy from Newegg in the UK but they have “the beast” refurbed for $1299 USD: https://m.newegg.com/product/9SIACA197F6509?m_ver=1

 

Good to know.
At any rate, I'm presently using an old E5420 which I got from a friend. I already put 500GB SSD into it and am waiting for 2720QM to arrive so it would replace the 2310M cpu... and in another week or two, 16GB.

I may just end up using this E5420 (which should be able to tie me over) until I can find a better replacement system with all AMD hw (hopefully, Acer will make a revision of Helios 500 with Zen 2, Navi and a better RAM layout)... or, I might end up getting identical Acer Helios 500 with Ryzen/Vega from Amazon USA (it would actually be cheaper vs what I paid for one here in UK even with import fees)

 

Got to love how upgradable those old Dells were! Miss those days.

 

The Upgrades (500 GB SSD, and 2720QM cpu were cheap... £120 total).
The 16GB RAM will cost another £44... but like I said, I won't get that for another couple of weeks likely.

The upgradeability of E5420 is good... but Acer Helios 500 is quite similar.
We could upgrade all of those components in Acer too... the mobo would even accept 2700x easily.
Problem is, lack of Acer BIOS upgrades to include Zen 2 support and better RAM speed inclusion (Acer certainly messed it up with placing 2 RAM slots below the kb, which is impossible to access without full disassembly - but I think this would even be worth it if they included microcode upgrades for Zen 2 and better RAM speeds).

On the bright side, since I exchanged the HDD for SSD in the E5420, the laptop fan switches off now with idle use... and I checked the temps, they seem fine.

 

Yep. I’m with you guys that it’s absurd that something as simple as a BIOS/AGESA update is holding this system back from supporting hardware it is absolutely capable of running.

CPU upgradability is rare in all but boutique hardware these days. You don’t see new latitudes with the ability to slot in a new CPU.

 

It's what let's me love my t440p, 1080p ips, 4980hq, 16GB 2133mhz, 3 drives, iris pro, 8 hours battery life. Maybe cost me 300 usd altogether. Use it for work and writing at home. Couldn't be happier with a 14" workhorse.

 

Or that something as simple as a BIOS update could corrupt the entire BIOS and turn the laptop into an expensive paperweight.
It's ridiculous that in 2019 Acer (or any other laptop manufacturers) made 0 effort to improve their BIOS upgrades to the point where new hw microcode would be implemented to support new technology (especially in systems with removable CPU's and components based off desktop hw), along with contingencies to avoid corruption of the BIOS and easy/simple retrieval of the BIOS version you tried to upgrade from.

 

The AMD Thinkpads are awesome, I have the first series they did and the newer ones, they all work really well, the P series are overpriced and under performed unless you can find one for a proper price.
Only thing is they soldered memory on the 12,5 inch ones which is disgusting. There is plenty of room for sockets in those.
You can also unlock full potential of these APU by removing TDP limit, someone did 45W LOL but damn it was a performer, look into it, its pretty cool having 45W APU delivering pretty stellar gaming performance.

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I picked up one of these on Prime day. I swapped the nvme for a 2TB intel 660p. Been happy with it. Can it play Red Dead Redemption 2? Has anyone tried RDR2 on this hardware? Benchmarks show that the game likes the desktop vega 56 as much as a desktop gtx 1080.

 

With a bit tweaking you can easily do over 60 with Vega 56 with a mix mash of high and ultra.
Look on YouTube for tutorials on the matter also you might want to overclock the V56 in that laptop and get extra performance which helps a lot.

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Usually there's little point in pushing ultra quality in games. The difference between high and ultra are most of the times unnoticeable, so personally, I wouldn't bother with ultra on new games.

As for overclocking the vega 56... That would certainly be good, but overclocking the hbm/vram would usually produce better results rather than core clocks would.

 

What memory type do you guys have on the Helios Vega? I know my Samsung memory will easily do 1100MHz without artefacts using Vega 64 vBIOS

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Since Helios 500 Vega 56 is based on the desktop version, it has HBM2.
Predator Helios 500 V56 HBM is clocked at 800 MhZ if I'm not mistaken.., but before this BIOS fiasco happened, I DID manage to overclock the VRAM to 950MhZ with stock core clocks.
I don't think we can go (reliably) past that point (without diminishing returns) on the VRAM. The core can certainly be overclocked though, but VRAM overclock tends to give better results

 

It depends if its Hynix or Samsung, Vega 56 tend to get better stability and speed with Samsung memory.
Core clocks should also be raised as with Hynix you tend to be limited to 900MHz or so most of the time some will do up to 950.
But depending on the memory type there is in the laptop.

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Mine is Samsung, I can go 960 Mhz stable. I sometimes can push it to 980 as long as I keep my Vram temperature below 60 degrees.

 

Did any of the latest drivers solve the static noise problem?

 

I didn't test that, but for some reason this driver made my core clocks highly unstable. They would rise up to 1400 in games with 60 fps lock where at max clocks reach 1000 depending on the complexity of a scene. Had to roll back cause temps were going up as well.

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Weird.
Is this on a stock card or did you modify its clocks at all?
If you modified the clocks, try using the drivers on stock or at least don't touch the core clocks but OC the VRAM to 950 or 960MhZ.

 

The 19.11.2 drivers still had the static noise issue.

 

Well that's no good.
Have you tried contacting Acer support about it?
Them not fixing this problem still is a real issue.
Drivers up until 19.5.2 work fine, so there's that, but anything after that causes the static noise whenever the display gets switched off.
I tried raising this issue with Acer on two occasions (while I still had the laptop) but nothing was done.

My refund should have gone through and was thinking of ordering this 'beast' from Amazon USA - would still cost me less with the import fees vs what I paid for Helios 500 here in UK directly.
What do you guys think?
Should I pull the trigger on it or should I just keep using the E5420 for now and wait until Zen 2 units come out?
Hopefully, Acer will upgrade this model with 3700x (at least) and Navi 5700 (and won't repeat the same mistake with the RAM).

 

I haven't tried contacting them about it.

I was planning on trying Windows 10 1909 on mine before I sell it, just to see if and how it runs.

 

That's the thing, everything was at stock. It was really strange. After that I just rolled back and everything seems to be just fine.

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Something to note.
Acer might be waiting for B550 chipset to roll out before they make another Helios 500 with Zen 2 and Navi.
If history is any indication, Asus made the GL702ZC with B350 chipset, whereas Acer did the Helios 500 with B450.

B550 is still not out yet, so its possible they could update the Helios 500 with Zen 2 and Navi once the B550 is released... otherwise, they'd need to rework the existing model by updating the BIOS to support Zen 2 CPU's (something which they evidently don't wish to do as of yet, or at all because that way they might get backlash from users who bought the current model - but we complained before and they couldn't really care less) and in the process would need to change the GPU from V56 to RX 5700 or RX 5700 XT.

If they are indeed waiting for that, I'd be willing to hold off and get that version instead... I just hope if they do that, they won't create a B550 mobo with 4 RAM slots, but instead, 2 RAM slots which are easily accessed, and slap in 3200 MhZ RAM (or at least 3000 MhZ one).

 

Seems reasonable if this experiment was deemed a success by Acer.

Why don't you like the current 4? I'd want them to keep 4 slots and add ECC support. Real mobile workstation albeit in a gamer outfit.