Acer Predator (Vega 56+Ryzen 2) Helios 500

Hi, I had a question about gpu overclocking. I tried increasing both core and memory clocks but all it did is increasing power draw to 120 and made them both unstable. Any change to clocks even smallest one caused everything go up and down. Do you have any ideas what might be causing this? I was testing in RE2 on both balanced and performance modes using latest Radeon drivers. With regular clocks the gpu draws around 110 watts.

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Does anyone knows how to remove the HDD from this laptop? Removed the HDD cover and somehow I managed remove the HDD cable from the HDD pulling it at an angle, but I can't lift the caddy. Is there any maintenance manual provided by Acer?

 

This is what I used. https://us.answers.acer.com/app/ans...-instructions-for-predator-helios-500-laptops
Hope it helps!

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Thanks, I thought that I'm gonna brake the caddy's nylon levers (not sure what's the word) by pulling them. But it was just tight fitted. By the way, it's a bit tricky to install 9.5mm HDD - you need to insert both the HDD and it's cover simultaneously in place. The cover has two pawls and the one in the corner can't get in it's slot if the HDD is installed.

New question: why there is no "SATA legacy mode" in BIOS? I want to install other OS, disabled secure boot but can't see my bootable USB drive in boot menu.

 

I don't know - which driver version are you using? I've noticed large differences in power consumption depending on driver. If you're using the Acer supplied one vs. one of the 2019 AMD drivers, that may be the reason. Mine seems to top out around 118W, occasionally hitting 120 and I can see a corresponding small drop in clock speed when it does. It may also depend on the game, I haven't tried RE2 and it may push the gpu harder.

 

I'm using the latest ones from AMD but it seems in both RE2 and Forza Horizon 4 gpu is pushed really hard. Performance is just not great when compared to stock cards; in both games I'm losing around 40 percent which is crazy to be honest. Though, I'm not sure if it is mostly because ram is so slow or card at 1230 is just not doing it. Most likely it's a mix of both. I just wish we could push it a bit further. Have you tried any GPU heavy games and see what power draw you get? Btw, thanks for a reply!

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Has anyone seen this laptop for cheaper? It was around $1650 on Amazon and not I cant see it for cheaper anyway.

 

I think it's the slow ram, but i'm not sure. I run mostly vr on it and find the gpu utilization is in the 80-90% range, meaning it's somewhat cpu limited even at 4ghz all core. I have my ram at 2400mhz cl14 (stock is cl17), but no way to go over 2400mhz that I've found. Might be worth buying some 3200mhz laptop ram and testing, depends on pricing.

 

I would love to buy new faster ram, I just don't trust myself taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together with no issues. Oh well, I guess maybe sometime in the future. I definitely will need more ram for work.

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After much thought I believe I'm likely to get this machine the next time it goes on sale.

If and when ryzen 3rd Gen comes out and it gets a patch to play nice then it would be really hard not to pick this thing up.

 

Hi. This is my first post here. I am from Poland, so my english is poor.

I want to buy this laptop - Acer Predator Helios 500 with AMD Ryzen 7 2700 and AMD Radeon Vega 56.

But...

I saw almost all reviews and unboxing videos on YouTube and everything i found on internet about this model.

Now I know that this laptop has 2 M.2 ports - 1 NVMe and 1 SATAIII so... this looks clear for me - I must buy 1 SATAIII SSD M.2. And then i change SATAIII HDD 1TB to 2TB SSD SATAIII.

So I will have:
1. One M.2 SSD NVMe 256/512 GB - operating system, programs.
2. One M.2 SSD SATAIII 256/512 GB - games.
3. One SATAIII SSD 2TB - music, movies, photos, documents.

Will it work?

But what with RAM?

The man in this movie shows that he has 2 RAM sticks clocked at 2666 MHz. He tries to set this timing in the Ryzen Master program, but with no result. In my laptop there will be 2 sticks clocked at 2400 MHz and I wonder if I can buy better RAM with a clock of 2666 MHz, maybe even 3000 or 3200 MHz.

Has anyone run the higher clock speed in this laptop?

 

Your SSD setup should work fine... but I'd sooner advise getting just 1x 512GB M.2 SSD and using it for OS, programs and games.
Save your money to get another 512GB SSD M.2 when the prices go down.
You can have a regular hard drive for music, movies, photos and documents. It would certainly be cheaper. than a 2TB SSD SATAIII (those are expensive).

As for RAM... the reason why the guy was unable to set his RAM timings is probably because the BIOS is locked - same thing happened on my GL702ZC (Asus locked the BIOS, and as a result, I couldn't manipulate RAM timings - but I could still undervolt the CPU).

In regards to buying a better RAM... given that 2600MhZ ram worked in GL702ZC, it seems likely that 2600 MhZ RAM dual-channel RAM will work in Acer Helios 500.
Also, given that the laptop in question has a Ryzen+ in it, its possible you can use 3000MhZ RAM as well (though I cannot be absolutely sure about this - it should be possible for Ryzen+ to support it right off the bat, and we don't know if Acer released any new BIOS updates for faster RAM support).

P.S. According to AMD's website description of Ryzen 2700, it supports 2933MhZ RAM... so technically speaking, 3000 MhZ ram should work as the CPU shipped with that support from the start (but I would suggest you also pick the RAM with smallest timings as those can GREATLY affect gaming performance - even more than actual RAM speed - but generally speaking 3000 MhZ seems like a good range to shoot for).

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-2700

 

Hey guys... I think I found one remaining Acer Helios 500 with Ryzen/Vega in UK... and the price is actually reasonable (£1614 - which is only £64 more vs what I paid for GL702ZC initially).

Now, the thing I'm questioning though is that in the specs, it says it comes with 1x 16GB of RAM stick (2133 MhZ), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD.

The RAM speed is awfully slow for Ryzen+ (which is undoubtedly what causes lower gaming performance at 1080p in some games and is further compounded by lack of dual-channel)... but I can upgrade that 2x8 GB 3000 MhZ for £148 from Amazon so that's not too big of a deal - and 3000 MhZ should work as Ryzen+ technically supports that.

My question is about the HDD. I noticed that the USA version doesn't have a HDD (just the SSD), but is that the case for the UK version if the specs say it ships with 1TB HDD?
I mean, sure, I could buy the hdd in case the laptop doesn't have it, but that only further adds to the overall cost of the unit (which is something I want to avoid of course as I don't have money in spades).

 

From what I recall in the thread it should include a bracket even if initially not installed. Also it seems that HDD and RAM specs are where the sellers seem to differ at times.

 

Even if the CPU’s IMC supports much faster RAM, the firmware and RAM slot traces on the motherboard may not. For example the 8600K can do 4000MHz+ in a desktop, but in a Clevo anything much above 3000MHz is a crapshoot. From what I’ve seen, this system is limited to 2400MHz with all 4 slots populated, or 2666MHz with 2 slots populated. So your best bet are a couple HyperX 2666MHz CL15 modules as these run at full speed PnP. And keep in mind that half the slots are on the other side of the motherboard, requiring full disassembly to access, so it would be wise to ensure that the seller installs the factory 16GB module on the user facing side to facilitate easy upgrading.

 

Can't say I know much about this, the most I've done with the RAM is reducing the CAS latency just to verify that Ryzen Master was properly installed. Did a quick search about a month ago to see if anybody had upgraded their AMD Helios 500 but didn't find anything solid.

A bit confused, are you going to buy the US version or the UK one? There have been a number of different configurations and AFAIK all European ones have one SSD and one HDD, mine have a 256GB NVME M.2 SSD and one 1TB HDD for example.

 

@ yrekabakery suggested I get 2600 MhZ CL15 RAM instead if I were to populate only 2 slots... but given the existence of 4 memory slots... two of which seem to be already occupied by 2x 8GB sticks underneath the keyborad makes this entire prospect of upgrading RAM less appealing in the first place because it would require disassembling the entire thing.

I was looking to get the UK version (which in the specs has 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD.
So, it seems that the EU version indeed comes with a HDD too (which is good).

 

Now that's a drag.
So, essentially, the Helios 500 Ryzen should come with 2 RAM slots pre-populated, but they are located beneath the kb which would require full disassembly to get them out (which is a drawn out process considering how Acer decided to design the thing)... and if I just want to expand the RAM to 32GB (using 8GB sticks), getting faster frequency RAM would be pointless since the system wouldn't work on frequencies past 2400MhZ in quad channel?

Sigh... at this point, I'm seriously considering getting the Acer Nitro 5 with 2500u and RX 560x as a placeholder laptop until Zen 2 comes out.

 

If you need 32GB, I suggest 2x16GB of the HyperX modules. You mentioned the SKU you were looking at comes with 1x16GB of 2133MHz by default, so I suggested the possibility of having the seller install that single module on the user facing side, that way you can swap in the HyperX easily with just a bottom cover removal.

 

Since its sold by Curry's PC world, I doubt they would do that (considering these big resellers don't really muddle about with doing something as 'customized' as that).... but I suppose it's worth asking.

EDIT: I sent them an inquiry about moving the RAM sticks, so I'll post back here once they reply.

 

I may grab some 3000mhz cl16 ram to test in mine - I've successfuly run 32gb (4x8gb) 2400mhz ram at cl14, so I don't think 2x8gb at 2666 or 3000 with slightly higher timings should be an issue provided the bios doesn't lock out speeds above 2400mhz. If it does, I'll return the higher speed ram and see how far I can push the timings on the stock ram.

 

I can't be sure, but someone on Acer forums also might have tested 2x8 GB 2666 MhZ RAM and that worked fine... however, I have not seen tests for 3000 MhZ dual channel.
Would be good to at least see if that is supported (theoretically it should be, given that Ryzen+ shipped with that kind of BIOS support - unless of course Acer restricted speeds beyond 2666MhZ in dual-channel, which would be quite stupid if you ask me - then again, they should have ensured proper quad channel support for higher RAM speeds too given that at least on desktop quad channel DOES seem to work beyond 2400 MhZ).
Or at the very least, Acer should have just given the laptop 2 RAM slots (on the easily accessed back side).

 

I just ordered it (2x8gb 3000mhz cl16), so we'll see sometime next week.

 

I got my Helios 500 from Currys, the listing of a 16GB stick on their site is about as accurate as their listing of AMD G-Sync support (AKA a typo), don't worry it's definitely 2x8GB, and they're under the keyboard. I added a spare 2666MHz 2x8GB kit to mine for 32GB (at 2133MHz) and it's running great

 

You should be able to easily bump that to 2400 using ryzen master - I added a couple of no name 2400mhz sticks to mine and got it working 32gb 2400mhz cl14 without issue.

 

Sheesh... were you the one who snagged that last one in UK from Ebay Currys?

 

My bad I meant 2400 not 2133, didn't need to touch anything it just auto set to 2400 as it's what the stock RAM ran at to begin with.

No mate I got it of their site a while back.

 

Well, at least you have all 4 sticks running at 2400MhZ in quad channel.
Have you tried affecting the RAM speeds in Ryzen Master though to increase them to 2600Mhz?
A word of caution if you do try overclocking the RAM in Ryzen MAster on Helios 500... someone apparently tried it and it messed up the system where they had to apparently reach for the motherboard battery to reset everything... however, I think they attempted to push the RAM well past 3000 MhZ (he tried going for 3200 Mhz actually)... so, its possible that 2600 or 2800 MhZ overclock might work (but one cannot be certain as laptop RAM is not exactly the same as desktop RAM, and who knows what kind of other BIOS restrictions Acer placed onto the RAM on Helios 500).

Ah I see.
Someone snagged the last one off Ebay Curry store for £1614. Was a good offer, but I was hesitating and therefore didn't get it - I was actually waiting to get back a reply from Curry's themselves about moving the manufacturer installed RAM to the easily accessible slots, but alas, they never contacted me - this is mostly what delayed it all).

Right now, the only one available unit is on Amazon UK for £2000 (the only difference is 512GB SSD) and that's too expensive for me.

 

It’s 4 sticks in dual channel, as mainstream Zen does not support quad channel memory.

 

I stand corrected, yes.
Zen doesn't have quad-channel support.
But oddly enough, on Zen+ desktop motherboards, people were able to get 3000 MhZ and above with 4 dimms... so, what's the big idea with Acer not providing at least 2800 MhZ to 3000 MhZ support with 4 sticks?
More to the point, WHY did Acer go with paltry 2133 - 2400MhZ RAM?
Don't tell me they have 0 clue about Ryzen Infinity Fabric needing fast RAM with low latencies to perform better in games at 1080p?

 

The tracing/topology on laptop motherboards aren't as robust as on desktop boards to be able to support higher memory speeds. For example, the MSI GT75 and Alienware Area-51m have the same limitation, 4x2400MHz or 2x2666MHz. Clevo has the best motherboards, that's why their P7/P8 models can support 3000MHz+.

 

Read this review:

https://diit.cz/clanek/recenze-acer-predator-helios-500-ph517-61-r54r-aneb-osm-jader-v-notebooku

The site is in Czech, but I translated the part into English:

"The board then holds only three screws, after unscrewing them we can free a pretty small motherboard and replace the first two SODIMMS. I tried a faster DDR4-2667 CL18 kit from Corsair, but it only works at 2400 MHz and even the Ryzen Master tool settings won't help. According to Acer, only DDR4-2400 memories are officially supported, but do not exclude or promise faster RAM support. Personally, I think it's a shame, because faster RAM can help Ryzen to get more performance relatively free."

I also found the same information on another page:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/azzcsb/acer_predator_helios_500_the_beast_with_desktop/

"Actually i tried Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB DDR4-2667 kit and its locked on 2400MHz and even OC via Ryzen Master tool did not worked. I asked Acer about this and officialy only DDR4-2400 RAM is supported."

It looks like we can only run the lower clock - 2400 MHz looks like the only option.

 

That’s because the Corsair modules require XMP to run at 2666MHz, otherwise they drop down to 2400MHz. The Kingston HyperX ones I mentioned run at 2666MHz in PnP mode, and are also lower latency (CL15 vs. CL18).

 

Yes, however, the predator helios 500 with ryzen/vega is somewhat unique because it's all desktop hardware based. Even the motherboard is B450.

And as I said, Acer should have put in only 2 ram slots, not 4 if the topology is the issue. What possessed them do 4 slots (2 of which you can't even access unless you disassemble the whole unit?)

 

Correction, the Alienware Area-51m is also desktop based (Z390 board) and it can’t do 2666MHz at all, the max supported at this time is 2400MHz.

 

Well we know that dual channel will work with 2666mhz on ryzen Helios. We just don't know if it supports speeds above that in dual channel.

Also, ram speed more depends on OEM bios support. So I'd blame Acer for potential shortages in ram speed support and for putting 4 ram slots in.

 

How do you know they don't already, have anyone tried faster memory?
One can't directly compare desktops with laptops as desktop motherboards have more space to route signals partially (at least in the past) compensated by more layers in laptop motherboards.

$$$/£££/€€€/¥¥¥
Faster RAM cost more and can even be hard to source in the quantities needed by a manufacturer.

AFAIK Clevo tend to use all desktop components for their top of the line computer with the exception of SODIMMs and often GPU. The GPU have used desktop chips in some cases but is often a slightly lower power version. The Helios 500 use all desktop components but with SODIMMs plus a lower power version of the Vega 56.

The same reason Clevo does I guess. Wanting to sell to real power-users wanting/needing a lot of memory. Placing the standard memory behind the motherboard is a problem for some (replace with faster RAM) while an advantage for others (expanding memory easily).

 

Not sure this is the right place to ask about this issue or if it should be in its own thread but here goes:

I recently got a new NVMe drive for my Acer Predator Helios 500 (AMD) laptop and installed it, only to have my laptop not recognize it in its BIOS, Device Management or Disk Management.





Just to be sure there wasn't any issue with the slot itself, I used a spare (albeit formatted on a different PC) SATA m.2 that I had in a Silverstone MS-09 in the same slot and my PC was able to boot up with it inside without any issue and the drive itself was completely accessible from Windows Explorer. I'm at a complete loss as to why this particular m.2 SSD isn't showing up at all. Acer's support wasn't able to identify the issue (since it wasn't the main drive, they couldn't offer any help) and their website details what drives are compatible with which slot: https://us.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61109

I cloned the boot drive to the SATA m.2 and installed the new 1TB SSD only for it to once again not appear. Anyone else having/had this problem and know how to resolve this?

 

You got NVMe drive so you have 2 NVMe drives:
1 mounted by Acer
2 mounted by you.

There are 2 slots, but only one supports PCIe NVMe disk. Second slot support only SATAIII disk.

 

That doesn't explain why it didn't show up when I cloned the drive to the SATA m.2 and removed the original boot drive; I tried this in both slots just to be sure there wasn't an issue with the m.2 slot I used for the secondary drive. I only had one NVMe at that moment and it didn't show up anywhere.

 

On some websites on the Internet you can find information that can help you change the options in the BIOS - some kind of thing with AHCI mode.

However, you must have two different disks - NVMe and SATA.

Two NVMe PCIe drives will not work.

 

I verified 2400mhz maximum speed. I took out the motherboard, removed the factory ram and put in 3000mhz cl16 ram. I could adjust the timings, but it wouldn't go over 2400mhz via ryzen master. So it won't do 2666, even with just two sticks of ram, at least not without bios mods.

Not sure I want to go down that route unless somebody has a modified bios already done, which I haven't found.

While I had it apart I took the opportunity to repaste with tg kryonaut but the factory tim looked pretty good (if excessively applied) and I haven't seen any change in temps, so not worth the effort imo.

 

What kind of memory did you use?

I have a thought.
Most memories have a specific frequency.
These memories have, for example, 2400 MHz and 2666 MHz, but the second option is XMP. 2666 MHz can not be set. In this laptop we will not use XMP memory, because the BIOS does not allow it - it is blocked and there is no such option. Ryzen Master will only theoretically OC your memeries, but it's not the same as setting the XMP profile.

But I found a memory that can work with higher clocking. Theoretically. I did not test it. Because they have not only the XMP profile, but also the JEDEC Plug and Play (PNP) option, which sets the maximum clock speed supported by the motherboard.

Look at this:
https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX426S15IB2_8.pdf

Info from DataSheets:
"Note: The PnP feature offers a range of speed and timing options to support the widest variety of processors and chipsets. Your maximum speed will be determined by your BIOS."

• JEDEC/PnP:
DDR4-2666 CL15-17-17 @1.2V
DDR4-2400 CL14-16-16 @1.2V
DDR4-2133 CL12-14-14 @1.2V
• XMP Profile #1:
DDR4-2666 CL15-17-17 @1.2V

Maybe with these memories it will be that if you mount them, the higher clock will automatically be set.

What do you think about it?

 

That's an XMP issue. People on the Acer forums have already run modules at 2666MHz with standard JEDEC timings, or in PnP mode (Kingston HyperX).

 

On the power consumption... you can easily undervolt the Vega 56 using MSI Afterburner or even via Wattman (once you enable its functionality in drivers via MSI Afterburner).
Plus, I'm pretty certain you can also undervolt the 2700 to a degree too... thus dropping overall power consumption, which could also improve performance somewhat (but I don't think its an issue in this unit).

As for DX11 games suffering on Vega... you don't really lose out on that much, and besides, Witcher 3 can run excellent on AMD hardware if you drop the Tesselation manually in drivers to 8x or 16x.
Ryzen would benefit from dual-channel 2666MhZ low latency RAM in DX11 titles (that's probably why the performance is lower in some games - but again, not by a terribly large degree).
Problem is, Acer decided to use slow speed RAM and populate the 2 slots that are impossible to reach unless you disassemble the entire unit - if Acer made a BIOS with better mobile RAM that's fast (and stuck with only 2 RAM slots that are easily accessible), the unit would perform better in DX11.

I think that AMD's Ryzen and Vega will definitely behave good and as far as I can tell from the reviews, the config is really quiet.

The only trade-off you're making is the absence of an iGP on AMD as 2700 doesn't have it - which is an issue if you're away from the power socket for protracted periods of time and want to use the laptop for simple stuff that doesn't use the dGPU, but otherwise, you won't really miss it.

Zen 2 will probably have a Navi iGP on it with some CPU's... but it remains to be seen if Acer will release BIOS updates for Helios 500 to include it.

 

I've only seen that on the Intel version, not the amd. I could use typhoon burner to make the xmp profile a jedec one but without verification that it will work I'm not going to basically void warranty on the ram.

I got gskill ripjaws ram, 3000mhz cl16, which is one of the better kits out there as it doesn't have super high latency at rated speed, unlike a lot of the other 3000 and 3200mhz sodimm kits (which are up to cl19).

 

Maybe, you can possibly change the profile using typhoon burner on the stock ram and see if it works, but I'm doubtful.

 

Again, those modules won’t run at full speed in this system because 1) this system supports a max of 2666MHz and 2) they require XMP to run at full speed. If you want 2666MHz in this system, you have to get modules using JEDEC timings (2666MHz CL19) or the Kingston HyperX that runs at 2666MHz CL15 in PnP mode.

 

They are xmp, not sure what you mean...

 

Look at the datasheet. They run at 2666MHz CL15 in both XMP and PnP: https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX426S15IB2K2_32.pdf