Aspire 5315 CPU Step-by-Step Upgrade Guide

done it
do you have more than one network in range ?
if yes you have to delete/ignore all other networks, and set yours to the only network.
switch off power save mode

i put the wifes laptop in to hibernate but with loads of local networks showing and auto select off. i had to do a restart for the wifi to work as vista had switched it off. and the pushing the the wifi button did nothing.
now i have it set back to connect to this network on auto and bingo it was ok

 

nice one
have a rep

 

Man the 5315s are cheap....I will probably go for one of those or a 9500M GS Acer (If the 9500M GS is MXM-III)....
Right now, I am busy modding my BIOS..

 

i got my aspire7110's with 1year warranty for £575 two of them from an auction of ex-lease stock
£1000 worth of laptops well cheap

look for pc/laptop auctions of bankrupt stock.

 

i wanna know how that BIOS modding works out.... it was hard enough for me to just program in 6800 assembly code working with smart cards...

i guess i have a rather unique situation.... no other WIFI being broadcast around me.... just a few cordless phones and microwaves,, but that doesn't matter since i can't "borrow" WIFI from my neighbor *damn depression*

 

I have been hanging out here lately..

http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forumdisplay.php?f=4

and using Phoenix BIOS Editor 2.2

 

cool, i'll check it out... and, i won't be as "fearful" as i might have been since i have successfully recovered my BIOS after major F/U,,, (pulling a thumb drive before it completed) ((2 seconds to screw up,, 1 minute to fix )

but thankfully it worked when i attempted to recover the second time...
the first was just testing to see if a thumb drive would work in place of a USB FLOPPY

 

Yeah, I remember you mentioned that you will be making some sort of guide for BIOS recovery....!!
One of the forums linked above has tons of method for BIOS backup and recovery, but I haven't tried them as yet, becuase right now I want to see if I can build a BIOS without any errors..

I have also heard that if the BIOS goes bad, just take out the BIOS chip and thrown in a new one and flash it..is that possible..??

 

that works on desktops for sure

i'm not so sure that you can just unplug a BIOS from a laptop mobo,,, i have a feeling it's surface mount soldered like all the other components

but if you have the correct replacement IC and a PIC programmer,, you can just flash the needed bios into the chip and then replace it with the one currently installed... might be a hastle for those with limited soldering experience.

 

I guess if any laptop has a DIP or PLCC chip, it should be possible to remove it....but I don't know what they exactly look like..

 

yeah i have the guys from next door too, the only annoying thing is, even when i delete them and set it to only connect to mine, vista decides it will still connect to another network anyway...but i shall try again. i will leave if off for today and check it again when i get home from work to see if the power settings and updated driver have made any difference.

thanks again, your help is much appreciated

 

we could solve all your problems with an XP PRO cd and about 2 hrs

 

Bodes-sh....
I have also had problems with windows vista and my wifi adapter with bios above 1.34. Going to 1.4 and above caused many problems with my atheros adapter and the ethernet adapter not functioning properly. The ethernet adapter (broadcom) most of the time would not even be recognized. The atheros adapter seemed to be recognized, but had lots of trouble connecting. also under system properties, power management (of the atheros adapter) be sure that 'allow computer to turn off this device to save power" is checked. Downgrading to bios 1.33, and checking this in power management, cured my problems with the adapter and vista. I hope that this helps..

jeepman

 

jeepman - yeah, it cured my probs too, but i've just rebooted it and it's working fine now with what hoggie suggested yesterday about the power management plus the new drivers. i'm on 1.43 now, but i will see how it goes. once i upgrade the cpu i don't mind turning it off as it will boot a lot quicker...

bigozone - 2 hours, are you serious...? i really would hope it doesn't take that long lol...i've done plenty of full reinstalls and none of them have taken that long...will see what happens as time progresses, but for now it's working properly...besides, i already have my xpp cd sitting here ready for if/when i decide to chuck it in

 

bigo i did what you told me about the xp instalation doesn't recognize my hard drive. I changed the hard drive to IDE mode(i guess that's what you meant)
but after I changed it it just gives me BSOD

 

is this the post you are referring too?

what is the HARDDRIVE transfer mode setup as in the BIOS? ACHI??
that's what i have always had mine set at...

are you getting a STOP CODE error when it fails to boot. if so what are the #'s???

it sounds like XP installed properly but you are now having a driver or hardware conflict.... without a bit more info it's hard to know where to look.

try booting in XP safe mode,, see if XP hangs after a certain driver loads...
the last driver named on the SAFE MODE BOOT SCREEN is the last driver to successfully load... so we can figure out what loads next,,, and with that info we have a place to start looking..

 

2 hrs is kinda LONG,, but if you are like me,,, after installing XP, then loading drivers, and then SP2, and SP3 updates... then other misc. updates..
it can take awhile to complete

 

Forget about what I said I might've done something wrong.....
I installed xp in my system now and all I have to do now is fix the vista bootloader and install drivers.....
sorry

BTW: I didn't have to change the HDD mode and yes that was the post I was referring.

 

no problem.... just trying to figure out what was going on...

needing the VISTA bootloader would explain the situation...

 

yeah, i know what you mean, especially with a celeron i'm still considering a dual boot setup, but i'll see what happens with the new cpu. should hopefully be in the mail today or tomorrow, fingers crossed...i guess i'll have to follow that guide to adding sata drivers to the xp install file...?

 

just download the new sp3 to save time and don't just use xp cuz vista is better than xp in a few aspects..... xp is better because it's faster and it is compatible with almost every software......
So if you ask me double boot is definitely better.... It's like vista is only 1/2 an OS and XP is also 1/2 an OS but when they are together they are 1....

 

Yeah, you do get the best of both worlds..

 

If anyone is looking for a T5450, I have one for sale:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=274817

 

damn dude are you watching that "hannah montana" kids show......
btw: o yeah its great except there are lotsa problem with wi-fi in your 2nd operating system....

 

well, i must quote myself...the computer has been off hibernating for 2 days now and all is still going well. just booted it up and wireless is working fine, so i'm not sure what setting actually fixed it, but all looks good for now...whether it was the driver update or changing the power settings i'm not sure, but all i know is it's ok now

 

glad to hear it

 

nice one bodes-sh

 

well i took the plunge and went to xp. so far so good, haven't tried hibernating yet but i have sp3...

 

Got myself one with the following:

Core Solo T1400 1.7Ghz
2GB
250GB hdd
Intel X3100

Just giving it a quick look, and it does (as seems to be usual with all brands) seem to come loaded with lots of trash.

I'm facing a problem with sound that does keep going all wacky quite often (distorcions,etc..) anybody else having this problem (have, at least for now - Vista Basic)

 

if you are using an ACER ASPIRE 5315

UPDATE THE BIOS TO THE NEWEST ONE LOCATED @
support.acer-euro.com

i think it's 1.43,,, could be 1.42 but i'm pretty sure i have 1.43 installed on mine....

and almost all BIOS versions prior to 1.33 had the sound issues

 

My laptop has BIOS 1.35, still I hope I can get it fixed with the upgrade, doing now!

 

Seems to be fixed

BTW any ideas of what the performance of the Celeron or Core Solo T1400 can be comparable too, not sure if its worth to spend more money in a cpu upgrade now.

Lets just hope the tv-out on the x3100 is good

 

wish i had caught you in time to tell you to do the WINFLASH

i've not had a failure with winflash and i know i've used it 50 times or more

just close all open apps first... especially firewalls and anti-virus

 

Too late, used Acer provided software (looks dodgy to say the least) but seems to be working, no more screwed sound!

 

which version did you flash to 1.43?

 

Correct, that is the latest one available.

Now Im just thinking of getting rid of the Vista install I have tho, loads of crap...

 

ditch VISTA

it's the best thing you can do to enhance the speed and performance of the ASPIRE 5315

http://soulpass.com/2007/11/10/inst...essional-sp2-on-acer-aspire-5315-2153-laptop/

that link is how i did it with mine... worked first time
if you have any questions let me know

 

well, finally got my cpu yay, here's a shot of cpuid just to prove it lol

mine has a purple (maybe pink) socket
just for good measure, I thought I'd add a pic from a cpu monitor to show core temp, this is at idle as you can see from usage

 

Lots of work, but I guess its worth it.

After resuming, my wireless (on Vista Basic) seems to be gone, is this "issue" normal?

 

I just bought a 5315 as an impulse buy and was thrilled to discover it's upgrade potential. So far, I have bought:

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2GHz/2MB L2/800MHz CPU SLA49

RAM
2 GB Corsair Vista DDR2 667 533 M PC-5300 1 2GB DDR RAM

I have a couple of questions.

My bios is 1.34. Does this need upgrading prior to upgrading the CPU?

I'm not sure if I currently have a 1 gig ram or 2 x 512. If I have 1 gig, is it worth keeping the existing ram in conjunction with the 2 gig RAM?

I am guessing that it will all run at the speed of the slowest ram stick.

Down the track, I will probably change to XP (when I get a bigger hard drive). Is it worth 3gig RAM for XP?

Great thread by the way, some good information.

 

^^yes, 5315's run ram at 667 anyway, so you will be fine there. yes it is worth it for xp, and that cpu is a great upgrade, good luck, it's very easy
so far mine, on battery at idle from 82% it reckons approx 3 hrs life, that's a T8100 though, 45nm instead of 65 like the T7xxx series (well most of them)

 

you are having that after upgrading to 1.43?? i know that was an issue with BIOS 1.42,, but i thought 1.43 fixed that issue?? search for 5315 WIFI RESUME ISSUE there was a few posts about this and i think there was a work-around.

BIOS Upgrade not required,, but version 1.43 has been very good for me....
if you don't UPGRADE the BIOS consider going back to 1.33,, it was also very good.

2gigs vs. 3gigs in XP will not be noticed unless you are opening and modifing some huge graphics files or doing something really crazy and memory intensive.

and you are correct all RAM will run at the SPEED of the SLOWEST DIMM,, unless the slowest DIMM's speed is higher than the FSB of the CPU in which case the CPU's FSB is the limiting factor!

for example you can put PC6400 ram (800mhz) in the PC but when combined with CELERON or any CPU with a 533Mhz FSB,, the Ram is gonna run at 533Mhz... the "weakest link in the chain"

another thing to consider is that the i965 chipset only supports RAM speeds upto 667mhz, so even with PC6400 ram (800 mhz) and a CPU with a FSB of 800mhz... your ram will never reach it's max speed due to the chipset limitation

 

CONGRATS........

i told ya it would work!!!!

 

keep in mind this post and the following statements are MY OPPINION and only based on my knowledge and what i have observed..

after reading your post more closely...in your situation with VISTA 3 gigs is going be better than 2gigs even if it lowers the speed of the ram. but if you are looking at 2.5gigs @ 533mhz compaired to 2gigs @ 667mhz, i'd go w/ the 2gig dimm alone so you get the speed benifits of it!

when speaking of XP stick w/ 2gigs alone... XP is not nearly as memory intensive and i've had many smart people here tell me that more than 1gig is overkill with XP... but it all depends on what you are doing with it too!

 

yep, it's great, heaps faster and better on the battery. not sure if you would call the socket more pink or purple, it was sort of a deep pink colour...

still, great, informative thread, just glad these laptops are such great bang for buck, especially upgradeability

 

i agree.... i am currently working on an ASPIRE 4530 (AMD/NVIDIA chipset) and while it is a very nice little machine which weighs half of what the 5315s weigh,,, i cannot get XP to RUN... it installs all the way thru, then reboots and blue screens before loading the OS the first time. i've eliminated the HDD and the RAM as possible issues.... anyway i guess i've been spoiled by the ease of upgradability and the COMPATIBILITY of the 5315s...

i know i'll never even consider an AMD CPU (even if the problem is the motherboard and it's on-board NIC),,, i just like the peace of mind that comes from knowing my CPU is not going to be a possible liability.

 

haha, yeah, not much else left is there? it's all about experimenting isn't it, if you don't try it, you will never know will you?

 

NEW BIOS VERSION for the ASPIRE 5315 just released (kind of)

i'm gonna flash with it now.... i'll report my findings in a few minutes hopefully! worse comes to worse... i have my trusty crysis disk loaded on a Thumb-Drive...

so i'm covered no matter what happens

wish me luck...... VER 1.44 here i come

 

Thanks. I live in Perth, small world!!

 

Thanks. Does it matter which memory slot has the larger RAM stick, where they are unequal?