Acer Timeline Ultra m5?

so i just upgraded my m5 to windows 8 and if i put it into sleep mode while it's connected to a wireless network it bsod's and restarts - also, i have no clue how to set up the intel rapid storage tech to cache on the 20gb ssd, any tips?

 

Hi,
I have opened my acer m5 as vacaloca explained and it doesn t work any more !
I need help plz !
Thanks

 

The software that does the SSD caching is called ExpressCache by Diskeeper. If you're talking about the Deep Sleep feature, that one is controlled by Intel Rapid Start Technology. The Intel drivers for HD controllers are called Rapid Storage Technology. Confusing I know. Acer released newer Windows 8 drivers on their website, specifically for Rapid Start. Check them out.

As for the bluescreen, you need to be more specific.. is the wireless driver mentioned? If so, you'll have to get a newer version of the drivers and see if it resolves the issue. Frankly, I'd spend the extra $25 or so and get an Intel 6235 WiFi card, it's a lot better than the Atheros one that comes with the system.

You need to be more specific. The system will not turn on when the screws are off -- one or more of them seem to be a ground connection. I had issues with that, and have posted about them.

 

Hi I've just installed Windows 8 on my m5 and it took me nearly two day to get it working so I'm here to share what I've learned.

1) Do a fresh install, just keep your personal files

I first installed Win8 by keeping all of my previous programs. I ran through a lot of driver problems. My usb devices won't work. My wifi was dead. Putting my m5 into hibernation only made it crash. Worst of all whenever I installed drivers it usually stalled. I had to force close the installers and reboot my laptop to see if it worked (and they usually installed properly). I tried installing the new Win8 updates but after an hour of staring at the 'restarting' screen I gave up and forced restarted it. Long story short my laptop crashed and I had to do a fresh install. I was able to save my personal files and some of my games but I had to install all of my programs from scratch. It was worth it though cause I didn't run in to any of the problems I initially had, except for my wifi.

2) Find the wifi driver online and update it.

I don't if Acer has rectify this problem yet by placing the update in their website but if not google this file [ Wireless LAN_Atheros_10.0.0.200_W8x64U_A ]. It solved by wifi problem twice.

If you have any more questions regarding installation of Win8 on your m5 just ask away

 

Please update on your experience with Win 8 on the M5. Battery life? Temperature? Speed? Boot up? Wake up time? Snappier? Slower?

 

I never really used the windows button that much so it wasn't that big of a change for me. I had to turn off the touchpad swiping gestures because I kept on accidentally bringing up the charms bar and switching apps. I'm not too sure about the battery life because I usually keep it plugged in but I think I still get roughly the same time as when I was running on Win 7. The temperature never rose while I was running Win7 (except when playing games) and it's still the same with Win 8. Microsoft said that the battery time read out has improved but I still get a reading of 8 hours once in a while and I know that that's simply not true. I think waking from hibernation is faster now by a couple of seconds. Shutting down your laptop and then turning it on IS faster but it's just a Win8 thing, so it's not model specific. Rebooting it on the other hand is much much slower.

 

Has anyone upgraded their M5-581t or 581tg to the latest BIOS (2.03)? I upgraded and now have a strange charging issue. If I turn on my laptop while plugged in it charges fine. Windows shows it charging and the percentage increases. However, if I then unplug and plug it back in it does not charge correctly. Windows says it's plugged in and charging but the percentage does not increase. The percentage doesn't go down either. It just maintains the charge level. I then have to restart for it to charge successfully and the percentage to increase. I also tried booting into Linux and noticed the same behavior. Is anyone else experiencing this same issue? Does anyone know a way to downgrade to a previous BIOS?

 

what kind of temps is everyone getting? i just hit 85c on the gpu and 92c on the cpu.

 

Looks like a nice machine. Too bad folks are having noise issues.

FYI, newegg has these on sale with a $100 gift card right now until next week.

 

I'm not having any noise problems. It's only noisy when I play games and even then it's only loud once in a while.

 

hey guys, i'm from Malaysia and recently i bought Acer M5 with 128gb mSata SSD. I emailed acer to ask about adding a 500gb 7mm HDD into this laptop and they say is possible but they told me that Acer M5 is configure to boot priority on HDD(*if available) which mean if i add a HDD, i must boot from HDD instead of mSata. Is that true? I thought if i set mSata to be the first boot priority in bios, it should boot from mSata first instead of HDD right? Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,

Do you guys get a lot of harddrive noise on the 14 inch model, even on idle? I mean it makes the harddrive "writing" noise every second or two pretty much constantly. I had another one and I returned it due to this noise -- is this just normal? Is there a process I can de-activate to maybe stop it?

 

So I returned mine -- second one I've returned with a noisy harddrive. Newegg is supposed to be sending me naother one. Hopefully I'll be lucky as the rest of you who had more silent machines!

 

I currently have 1.02 bios but would like to update to the latest 2.07 from the Acer website. However when I run the updater utility I get an error: 'Please update to same type of bios (v1.x)'. Any idea what could be the problem. I can't find any other bios on the site to flash.

 

hello,i'm about to Upgrade my acer m5,too.

Unfortunately i can't find any tutorial in german .
I would be very thankful, if somebody could post a short vid,how to open the case and what to do ,to reaplace the Hdd to Ssd and the Ram,cause i cant imagine how to open it by looking at the pics.

thank you all

Greetz D.

 

Hi,
I've been through the first 25 pages of this thread and realize there's a lot I probably missed. I'm about to by the M5-481tb-6814

Additionally, I was going to:
replace the 20gb msata ssd with what everyone recommends: SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7PC256B/WW
replace the ram with this Corsair XMS3 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 1333 MHz (PC3 10666)

I also wanted to replace the HDD with a larger 1tb. Any suggestions on what would be the best? Or over all advice on what else to consider?

Thanks,
C

 

mm the ssd in the m5 is a msata, you cant replace it with a 2.5in, so you can

-replace the hdd with the 2.5 SSD (and remove the small SSD)
-replace the msata witha bigger msta (like this one MSataSSD)
-the memory should work just fine

 

Hello. Acer is correct on this. If you add a HDD to an M5 that already has an MSATA SSD, it will override the boot priority and you will not be able to select to boot from the MSATA as long as the HDD is physically connected. I am not sure why they skimped out on what should be simple functionality to let you select drives in the BIOS, but they are correct in their statement. There was also talk in earlier posts about some MSATA only configurations not coming with the SATA ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard, so that also might be an issue.

The service manual is very detailed as to how to replace pretty much all the components. Once you remove all the (14-16) screws from the bottom, turn the laptop back onto its feet, and swing the LCD all the way until there is no further resistance. At that point, with a plastic pry tool, you are able to slowly pry from the LCD/keyboard edge, through both the left and right sides. The palrest along with the keyboard is all one part. It lifts from the edge where the LCD meets the keyboard. Once you have lifted this top part, you can be exercise caution in unlatching the ZIF ribbon cables for the keyboard and touchpad. If you are not experienced in laptop disassembly, have someone that is to help you -- ZIF connectors are very delicate and can break very easily.

 

Thanks Yanko - you are right, I almost made a mistake and bought the wrong drive.

Also, @Vacaloca: I thought I read in earlier posts that I could get around the boot problem if I also installed a new mSata SSD as well as a new HDD. Is this correct and/or is there a bios update I can install so that I could boot from a new mstata ssd alongside a new HDD?

Finally, I think I was wrong assuming there was a 1tb hdd 7mm I could use. All of this leads me to question why I'd want to change the drives in the first place. I like the hybrid compromise, but I still need about 1tb of space for my work. Any other suggestions?

C

 

Hi,

question for owners M5-481TG:

1) labels on the keyboard are printed stickers, or are transparent (do not know how it's called)?
if this inscription illuminate backlit key? or only framing key.

2) M5-481TG has only one slot for memory, support this one slot 1 x 8gb ddr3 or only max 1 x 4gb ddr3?

3) about gpu: nvidia geforce 640m le 1gb ddr5 is KEPLER or FERMI?

4) M5 or M3 throttle same as previous timeline?(3830/4830/5830TG)
thanks for reply

(I would buy this: https://www.alza.cz/acer-aspire-timelineu-m5-481tg-53316g52mass-d362774.htm
and I would like to know in advance if it's already Kepler or older fermi.
it says:"up to 384cuda" /in czech: až 384/, therefore I fear)

What is better (quality, chasy, speed, throtling exist or not?, etc) in comparison M5-481TG vs M3-581TG?
https://www.alza.cz/acer-aspire-timelineu-m5-481tg-53316g52mass-d362774.htm
https://www.alza.cz/acer-aspire-timelineu-m3-581tg-53314g52makk-d362772.htm
which is better, if it goes to say

 

Not sure of all your questions but I'm pretty sure it was Kepler. It ran games great. The real weakness of the laptop in terms of games is probably the CPU which is weaker than a lot of full throated laptops out there.

 

I've installed both a new MSATA SSD (Crucial 256 GB) and the Samsung 840 256GB, but I do not have the option of booting from the MSATA while the main HDD is connected. What I have done is used EasyBCD to permit the Win7 bootloader to boot the Linux install off the MSATA if I chose to.

I do not think there is any way of getting more than 750 GB combined storage with the currently existing hard drives so far -- MSATA drives up to to 256 GB, Traditional HDD that are 7mm in height seem to go up to 500 GB now. The Samsung 840 7mm in height comes in 512GB flavor, but is quite expensive. So it depends if you want to shell out the $$$ for the 2 SSDs, or just keep the existing HDD and put in an MSATA SSD like the Crucial 256 GB one.

In your case, setting up might be a bit complicated if what you want is to have Win7/8 installed on the SSD and have the spare HDD used for storage given that you'd have to have a bootloader on the main HDD to boot the OS on the MSATA SSD. I had purchased the Samsung first, so it was not unreasonable for me to install Ubuntu on the MSATA and have EasyBCD boot it using the Win7 boot menu. If you want 1TB contiguous space, at least for this laptop, you're currently not able to, so it depends on what your needs/expectations are.

 

1) The keyboard characters are partly transparent, so the illumination clearly shows the symbols/letters/numbers in a slightly blue, but mostly white-ish tinted LED light. The light also leaks a little around the edge of each key border, so it helps discern key borders in the dark as well.

2) M5-481TG has only one user upgradeable slot for memory. It supports either 1x8GB or 1x4GB DDR3 SODIMM towards expansion for 10GB or 6GB or DDR3 RAM, respectively.

3) GeForce 640M LE is a Kepler based GPU. 384 cores.

4) Read this thread further... I have discussed most of your questions in detail. Yes, M5-481TG throttles, but not exactly in the same way as the 481TG series. Read my earlier posts in this thread. Also look at the reviews on both Amazon and Newegg, they give more information on playing games on this ultrabook -- I use it for development work.

I have no experience with the 15.6" version of this laptop, much less it's very similar M3 cousin. Perhaps others can comment on throttling on the 15.6" models.

The Acer service manual for the M3-581TG model is here: http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/Manuals/acer/2012/ServiceGuides/M3-581T_TG_MA50_HX_Book2_29.pdf According to page 35 of that PDF, that M3 series also throttles, most likely in a very similar way as to what I have described previously in this thread.

What I can comment is that the models you have linked to do come with Windows 8, thus and the UEFI version of the BIOS that has been springing up on Acer's website. Acer posted a 2.11 version of a BIOS for the M5-481TG that does not mention the "not for upgrades" text... but it also fails to upgrade in the same way with the "Please update to the same type of BIOS (v1.x)" error.

If anyone figures out if it's possible to flash a 2.x version in a 1.x BIOS platform, I'd love to hear about it.

 

Hi all,

Very proud new owner, couldn't be happier. Although I do want to upgrade... grateful for help and confirmation (saves me the unnecessary worry of opening it up!).

1) I have the 128gb SSD model. I want to retain this as my primary boot HDD and add more storage. What slots would I have? Preference would be a 1TB 7200rpm secondary HDD.

2) Model came with 6gb (2 + 4, both 1333mhz I believe). Since memory is so affordable, I could buy an 8gb stick and swap it with the 4gb, but my question is - is it pointless going for a top-line stick if I'm limited by the 2gb on the board, which I understand is not the greatest?

3) I'm definitely going to delete the 18gb recovery partition (got a nice image on USB drive plus recovery disk), but not as sure on the hibernation partition - is it used for ANYTHING other than loading from hibernation? Because I barely ever hibernate in the first place. Even if it adds a couple secs to standard bootup...would rather have the gigs of space to be honest.

Many thanks for help.

 

1) There are no 1TB 2.5" 7mm height hard drives available. As I just mentioned a few posts back, the largest drives available in this form factor so far are: 500 GB (HDD) or 512 GB (SSD). As other posters have commented, and I have repeated to others that asked this same question in the thread, I do not believe that the SSD only models contain the ribbon cable that connects the HDD to the motherboard. Read this thread further, as this has been mentioned earlier, with included replies by myself.

2) It is not pointless if you need the RAM for running virtual machines, simulations or any other particular task that requires using up to 10GB RAM.

3) I've mentioned the use of the hibernation partition repeatedly in this thread... This partition is not actually used for "hibernation".. that is what the hiberfil.sys file is for that can be disabled by the usual

Code:

powercfg -h off

in an elevated command window.

The hibernation partition is used by the Intel Rapid Start software to achieve the 'deep sleep' feature that draws very little power, so one could leave the laptop in a sleep state for weeks at a time, without noticing barely any battery drain. If you want to get rid of this partition, search for RapidStartConfig and run it... it might already be running in your taskbar tray... disable deep sleep, reboot, and only then wipe/remove it. Otherwise you might run into bluescreens or other un-desired behavior if you wipe this out while the software still assumes it is there for use.

Similarly, if you add more RAM and want to use the 'deep sleep' feature you will have to re-create this hibernation partition so that it fits the available RAM (10GB or 6GB, depending if you get a 8GB or 4GB stick). This in turn might mean that you might have to remove the Diskkeeper Expresscache software that does the SSD caching and remove that partition before you are able to recreate the hibernation partition with a larger size, as I believe the partitions in the MSATA SSD weres contiguous (back-to-back). I have posted about how to go about re-creating the deep-sleep partition earlier in this thread as well.

 

Thank you for your response. I have read a lot of the thread, but not all of it, so that must be bad luck.

Assuming no ribbon in point 1, is there any other functionality I can get from the slot?

#2 - I understand 10gb could be utilized, my question is more specifically about the branding ... is it worth going for the more expensive Corsair or Crucial stick or the some ~50% cheaper lesser-known brand, ASSUMING that performance is limited by the slowest part - i.e. 2gb whatever brand it is soldered on the board.

#3 - Good info. I have less than no use for the concepts here so comfortable losing it, thanks to your advice.

 

You didn't specify if you had the 14" or 15" model, the other person that did not have the cable had a 15" M5, and at least for that model the correct Acer part number is 50.RZCN2.003. Without this cable you just have.. yeah.. an empty slot that you can't do anything with.

Branding doesn't matter much, I just looked at whatever memory was on sale. I just got a DDR1333 SODIMM, I don't recall if others tried a 1666 stick, but others including myself posted what we bought and installed in this thread as well.

 

15. Nevermind then. Guess I'll roll with an external HDD.

Unfortunately, I've got more pressing issues - the fan won't stop, which I did read about previously. Jeez.

 

I just got this laptop and its great except a few minor caveats.
1. Whenever I'm on battery my wireless drops constantly but plugged in it works as expected. Is there anything I can do short of replacing the wi-fi card? And if not what is a good card to replace the stock card with?
2. Reformatted with Windows 8 x64 and now I can't find expresscache software. Can someone just send it to me?

 

In re: 1, if the behavior was reversed -- working on battery, but dropping plugged in, I'd say the A/C charger was bad, or a grounding issue either on MB or outlet you were connecting to... but the current behavior doesn't give me any clues.

1) I've recommended Intel Centrino 6235, I have the older 6230 that excludes the WiFi Direct feature. Link: Buy.com - Intel Centrino 6235 IEEE 802.11n Mini PCI Express Bluetooth 4.0 - Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Adapter

What I'd do is replace it and see if the problem goes away, if it doesn't and still within return period, get a replacement, because then it'd point to a motherboard issue. At most, you're out $23, either way. You could see if Acer would send you a replacement Wireless card under warranty and see if that fixes the issue as well.

2) It should be on the drivers disk you probably did not make with the eRecovery software that came preinstalled I'll see if I get a chance to upload it somewhere later tonight.

Related to most of the recent talk on large SSD drives, there is a Samsung 840 500GB on sale on NewEgg for $300: SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD500BW 2.5" 500GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $300AC at newegg - Slickdeals.net

 

Thanks! I already talked to them about the issue and they said they wanted me to ship the laptop back for the wireless issue...Kind of extreme for such a minor issue I'm just gonna work this out myself. I read on Amazon someone having a similar issue with the wireless on this model and they just switched out the adapter. For only $7.25 each when QTY 50+ purchased - MiniPCI-E Wireless Lan 802.11N Adapter | Wireless Network Cards - PCI Would this do or should I really spend the extra money and go for the Centrino that you recommended?

 

You should spend some extra money at least on Intel 6200 if you don't need Bluetooth, or more for 6230/6235.

What you've lined to is what is scientifically called "crap" and it will work exactly as the name implies

Seriously though- solving an issue by buying a worse card than the one you already have is not a good move.

 

yea you're right bad move I'll get the one suggested. Thanks!

what are the chances its the motherboard and not the chipset? I really hope that its just the adapter

 

It's not the mobo. It might be a Wi-Fi card or simply driver issue but not the mobo.

 

What wake-up times are people getting from deep sleep? My M5-481TG-6814 consistently takes 38 seconds to resume from deep sleep, which is more than 2x the time it takes to resume from hibernation (16 sec)!

Intel's literature claims to resume from deep sleep in 6-7 seconds. Is anyone getting close to that with the stock HDD?

It is possible I'm missing something, especially if others are getting more reasonable deep sleep resume times (at least the same if not faster than hibernation resume).
The 20GB SSD and 500GB HDD were both wiped and the following was done:

• Clean install of Windows 7 on HDD
• Disabled standard hibernation (hiberfil.sys is not present on the HDD)
• Manually installed drivers, including Intel Rapid Start (v2.1.0.1002)
• Created a hibernation partition on the SSD (using its full size) as per Intel's instructions

Have I missed anything that should enable the SSD to quickly resume from deep sleep?

At this rate, I would be better off using standard hibernation off the HDD than using deep sleep via the SSD

 

My response time from DS is very quick. Haven't time but certainly better than twice as quick as your time. I'm on stock 128gb SSD though so maybe not a fair comparison.

Unfortunately my fan is still a major issue. It kicks in at the first hint of ANY new activity, i.e. a new Chrome tab, click Reply to an email, etc., and god forbid I run a couple things at once (say Chrome, Skype and Spotify - which is hardly much) ... you'd think I was trying to remotely launch a shuttle into space.

 

Hello, Thanks for all the informative post. I just had a simple question

I have the 14" m5 with a 4gig ram. And I just bought an 8gig stick. Is it just plug and play? Or do I have to do anything else?
Thanks for the help

 

Thanks - what about updating the Bios? This post suggests that we need to unlocked version:
laptop - Sorting out mSSD acceleration on a Acer M3-581TG - Super User

What do you think?

 

Updating the BIOS will do nothing as far as getting further storage space (and there isn't a version that we can update to, anyway). There are NO existing SSDs or HDDs in > 500/512 GB formats. The most you can do is 256 GB MSATA + 512 GB SSD currently. No 500/512 GB MSATA SSDs exist yet that I know of. The post you linked is talking about someone that reformatted his laptop without creating the recovery media, so of course he can't find the ExpressCache software because Acer does not provide an online download.

Look back on my posts on this same thread. If you don't care about losing deep sleep, follow my directions to disabling it completely, and upgrade the RAM and be done with it (those are within the last few pages). If you care about keeping it, you need to repartition the MSATA accordingly... uninstall the ExpressCache software, delete its partition, disable deep sleep, delete the hibernation partition, recreate hibernation partition w/ 10GB size (total installed RAM size), and if you care to have the MSATA cache working again, reinstall its software package, which I assume also recreates its cache partition -- I haven't tried because I switched both of my disks to SSDs.

Check my times here. That was when I had already put in an SSD as the main boot drive, but was still using the original MSATA SSD. So... yes, intel quotes 6-7 seconds. I got the 6-7 second figure only when I switched both the WD w/ a Samsung 830 and the MSATA w/ a Crucial 256GB MSATA.

 

Can anyone get the bluetooth working on the 581tg? I can't get it to work at all. I'm on windows 8 and it can't even find the device

 

I've got a 481tg and the drivers are disastrous on Windows 8. We might be in the same situation. Bluetooth barely works. Wifi always has to be manually reconnected or requires a computer restart. It's pretty bad. By the way, for people that updated their 481tg to Windows 8, what are your resume from deep sleep times? Mine can be around 20 seconds...I have all the software installed. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

 

I realize what you are saying now. It's quite possible that the new 2.x BIOS behaves correctly in the sense that it lets you select booting from either MSATA or 2.5" slot... however as someone else mentioned and I also confirmed, a 1.x BIOS version laptop does not upgrade using the 2.x BIOS versions that Acer has currently posted. There might be a way to do it, but I'd be wary of bricking a laptop that's outside the return period...

If you can't find the device, you might have to Fn+F3 and make sure Bluetooth is on. At least that is the way that it is on Win 7.

The other WiFi/bluetooth issues are most likely driver related... if you can use a Win7 version of the drivers, see if it makes a difference. Heck, I've mentioned repeatedly the WiFi/bluetooth card in this system is not that great... the Intel 6230 or 6235 that includes bluetooth as well behaves a lot better than the Atheros and also has excellent driver support... honestly outside of the SSD upgrade, the WiFi card upgrade is definitely worth it for me. For ~$25 you can't go wrong.

As far as the deep sleep resume time, that sounds about right. With the Samsung 830 and stock SSD, mine took 16-17 secs under WIn 7. Only when I changed the MSATA to a Crucial 256 GB, did the deep sleep times drop down to 6-7 secs... Intel was very optimistic with their resume from deep sleep times. I also hope this is the last time I have to mention these numbers.

 

Fair enough. One thing I do wonder is how long does it take for the laptop to switch from sleep mode to deep sleep? Mine takes about 10 minutes..is that aobut right?

 

Disregard this post Acer sent me eRecovery media

 

Yes, 10 minutes. You change that in software (Intel Rapid Start Technology Manager in task tray, program name RapidStartConfig) from 0 - 120 minutes.

 

Hi,

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for this thread! Especially Vacaloca! I just upgraded my system to a Samsung 840 250GB SSD , and I added a 1.35 V Patriot 8GB 12800 DIMM RAM stick. And everything is working fine!

My hardest part was figuring how to disconnect the little cables (ZIF connectors). You just need to life UP on the little plastic connection!

Anyways my system is flying --- Boots in 7 seconds. I am expecting significant increase in battery life the SAMSUNG 840 has the lowest power consumption I've seen and the 1.35V rAM stick should save some wattage dissipation as well.

Thanks Again!

 

Ok, thanks Vacaloca. That's disappointing. So the only way to currently max out on speed and storage space is to got the expensive route buying both a 256gb msata and then a 512gb 7mm SSD, like the Samsung 840, correct? Otherwise, replacing the 20gb with the 256gb msata will require that I start up from the HDD, which will take a while longer and no doubt burn more battery life if I'm running my OS off of it.

If these samsung 840s, or something similar, go on sale again, would the above configuration work (256gb msata + the 512gb ssd)? Do you think it would have a noticeable effect on battery life and performance?

Thanks,
C

 

I totally agree, upgrade from windows 7 was worse. Since I did a fresh install of Win8 resume and sleeping has been fixed, but wifi is still terrible. I am considering replacing it with an Intel card if there won't be any stable drivers soon.

 

After updating to Windows 8 I can't get to make my M3-581TG to shutdown! Have tried everything, updating firmwware, doing a clean install of Windows 8... bigger problem that was working great until last week... :/