Aspire 7720G major upgrade

I noticed that the WD 250GB SATA2 HDD is running on SATA1 interface in my 7720G. Is there a way to run SSD/HDD on SATA2 interface in this machine?
What interface/speeds are you getting with SSD's on your 7720G's?

 

A Quadro FX 770M will work, yes.

Don't confuse MXM 2.1 (Arabic numerals, meaning MXM version 2.1) with MXM-II (Roman numerals, meaning MXM type II). Arabic numerals identify the socket version, Roman numerals (or letters in case of MXM v3.0) identify the form factor.

So, the Quadro FX 3600M is MXM ver. 2.1, but type III, while the 7720G can only take types I and II.

 

Just thought I'd update you all on a little episode I had recently. I decided to upgrade my 7720G with the Seagate 750Gb Hybrid drive as an alternative to a full SSD drive. The system had been previously upgraded to Win 7 (32-bit), the graphics card had also already been upgraded to a GeForce 9300M GS and I also had a T9300 CPU to put in. I reformatted and then upgraded the drive. All went well with the resintallation of the software until the Windows update service stopped running. A few Google serches provided lots of solutions but no answers and even a call to Microsoft was fruitless (...I declined the "offer" of the Premium service at £65.00), so i reformatted and reinstalled everything again. But just 2 days later, the problem returned with Windows update service. I was just contemplating anoter reinstall when I came across a reference to the Intel rapid Storage technology driver and problems with laptops accessing drives bigger than 700GB. I decided to give it a shot...downloaded and installed the Raid driver and was more than a little shocked to find it cured the issue immediately...:thumbsup:

I wonder why the microsoft man didn't mention that in the free consultation...

All working fine now; Seagate Drive has improved startup's quite significantly so quite pleased with that outcome..

One point - does anyone know how to enable the Green screen ledgends that came up when you pressed the wireless, bluetooth, internet (etc) buttons at the top of the keyboard...? They're not working since the refit. It's more of an appearance thing than a critical factor...

 

I think you need to have Launch Manager installed for those.

 

Hi guys, could you tell me what is the best wireless card i can buy for my 7720g?. I recently have a lot of lag and disconnection problems with my 3945abg wireless mini pci card. Thanks in advance

By the way, i like to play online with my friends so, would be nice if the newer wifi card was designed to play online like killer wireless-n card or something like that.

 

There's no such thing as gaming-optimized card. It's a way of selling an otherwise good Atheros card for a ridiculous amount of money by adding a Killer sticker to it.

Also you can't look at this issue blaming the card- it may well be the router or the fact that you are (most likely) using 2.4GHz band that is overcrowded (use inSSIDer to see low it looks).

Basically it may be enough to change the channel, it may require replacing the router and/or the card and moving to 5GHz range.
Simply replacing the card is rarely a solution.

 

Good to hear that the Seagate drive works as advertised. I think I'm going to put one in my sons and my fathers notebook.

I am running an ocz agility ssd in my 7720 with great results.

Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk 2

 

Actually, since the Killer is a half-sized card (type HB112) that uses the AR9380 chip's integrated amplifier, it should perform slightly worse than Apple's AirPort Extreme card (which is type XB114, full size, and using a separate amplifier).

 

Anyone knows how to put raid0 on acer 7720g?

and what about the 9700m GT works on the acer 7720G I think its mxm II?

 

I seem to remember that you need to set SATA mode to IDE, before you can see and configure the Mobile RAID option.

 

i already have a ssd vertex2 60gb on my acer, but i bay another to put in raid0, and in bios e put sata mode in ide to see the mobile raid but i cant create and configure raid0. I think this laptop doesent support raid. And about my another question if 9700m gt works on 7720g? its works or not?

 

9700M GT physically doesn't fit in the 7720G, as it is a Type III MXM card. (7720G only supports up to Type II.)

 

And the GT240m works on 7720g? have to make some adjustments or its plug and play?

 

As long as you get the MXM v2 Type II version (not the MXM v3 Type A one), it should work.

 

i'm search on ebay and i see the ati 3870 mobile. can i put this graphics card on 7720G?

 

No. 3870 is a Type III card. You need Type II.

 

And about the acer 7720g supports raid0? it supports or not? in the manual its said thar can handle, but i think its not support.

 

Hey guys,I asked about a 9600m gt card in the past,and with your help I made it!I bought from ebay a 9600m gt 512 ddr3, I just installed the drivers that were given here by "ttomorad" ,some posts ago,and the card was fully recognized with the old 1.35 bios!
This card seems a great improvement from the old 9500 m gs...
The laptop already had a t 9300 and 4 gigs of memory so...only the ssd was missing,and I installed one !
the laptop is snappier than many today's laptops ,faster than an old e5200 dual core pc I have,and plays "smite" at high Res,ever at highest with a liiiittle
lag... what more to ask?

 

........................

 

Hello
I own an aspire 7720g with specs:
cpu: T8100, Graphics: 9500M GS, 3GB DDR2, 250GB HDD.
Since yesterday everything was OK, and suddenly the screen went black. I restarted the laptop and the screen was showing first some strange shapes (see photo No1), and then the screen went totally black!
Then I read the topics about the malfunction of the graphics card and I tried the trick with the hair dryer. But it didn't work.
After I connected it via vga cable and tried to install windows, but you can see what the TV screen was showing at the other 2 photos!
The laptop has the latest official bios (1.45).
Can someone help me out what the problem is (graphic card or monitor) and if I can fix it because right now I have a HOUGE finance problem and I cannot afford of buying a new laptop. I want it for my job (mostly emails, internet, word, excel) and not for games.

Thank you in advance

http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s641/w3bp3t/IMG_1834.jpg
http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s641/w3bp3t/IMG_1828.jpg
http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s641/w3bp3t/IMG_1827.jpg

 

GPU is likely at fault- connect the notebook to an external monitor and see if it looks the same on it.
That would rule out laptop screen.

 

Looks like a detached VRAM chip to me - try heating (reflowing) the VRAM chips.

 

The last 2 pictures I uploaded are from my TV which I connected it by vga cable with the laptop

I also tried 2 different ram modules and I had the same result

 

.NetRolller 3D didn't mean RAM modules- he meant Video RAM- the one on a graphics card.

 

OK sorry!!! At my first post also mentioned that I opened the laptop and tried the trick with the hair dryer at vram, but it didn't work!!
As long as I understand, both you believe that my problem is the graphics card?

 

Yes it most definitely is the graphics card.

 

So the best choice is to get from ebay a 9600?

 

Best- yes. Cheapest- no.

See here for cards that have been confirmed to work with your laptop.

Some of these cards are affected by bumpgate problems but it's up to you and depends on how much can you spend on a new GPU.
You might want to go cheap for now or buy something that will last- wither way the thread I linked to has all the answers.

 

Thank you very much for you quick answers, I will read the posts to find out.

 

Between these two cards
1. MXM nVidia 9300M GS 256MB G98-630-U2 VG.9MG06.001
2. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 MXM II 256MB DDR2

which would you prefer to install to my acer?
Because I can't find a trustful seller to buy a 9600m, if someone knows someone (cheap) please pm to me

 

hello ttmored..i wann ask u..cos i have an aspire 7720G also..for HD upgrade..do u know the maximum Gb or Tb can be use for upgrade ?

 

Hi everbody, i bought in ebay a quadro FX770m for my acer, its a 9600m GT but tweak for CAD programs. My question is this card works weel with my bios version, i have a 1.45. And anyone know i many time takes to ship from US to europe?
regards.

 

Is this card:
New nVIDIA Geforce 9600M GT MXM II DDR2 Acer VGA Card G96-630-C1 VG.9PG06.009 | eBay
compatible with 7720g?
Regards

 

i think so. But try find one 9600m GT with ddr3 because it faster.

 

OK but every 9600m gt with ddr3 that I find at ebay are all used. I can't risk it, so I will search a little more and if I won't find I will buy 9600m gt ddr2.

 

The FX 770M should work. However, you will likely need to patch the VBIOS with NiBiTor to avoid BSoDs on newer drivers. (This is a known Nvidia driver bug, the NiBiTor patch is just a workaround.)

 

But i have to change the bios of the fx770m? i look in techpowerup bios for graphics card and they have only one bios for the fx770m. How i patch the vbios for graphics? Can you make a toutorial how to do this?

regards

 

The tutorial is linked to at the beginning of the MXM BIOS modding thread.

You probably won't find your VBIOS on TPU; instead, just use NiBiTor or GPU-Z to read it directly out of your card.

 

I am working on an Acer Aspire 7720G which had an HD4570 or 47670 replacement card installed. Worked fine after returning from MXM-upgrade in Belgium. In the coming six months the pc started failing intermittently. My daughter have brought home to Ausutralia when on a visit and I have looked at it.

The long and short is that it turns out indeed to be a problem in the graphics card area. When I removed the holding down screws for the MXM II card it flipped the edge near the screws up in the air about 25mm, at the time I thought this was a design of MXM socket spring loading system.

When I looked lot closer I discovered the bracket on the "backside" of the card helping spreading the force of the four fixing screws for the thermal unit/heatsink , this bracket was riding on top of surface mounted component so that one edge near the MXM socket was lifted about 1 to 2 mm creating a nice fulcrum line when the board was secured with the screws.

I can see the graphics board bend and at the same time lift the MXM socket visibly when screwing the two holding screws in place. This is not right in my opinion but I am no expert.

Question: When inserting any MXM II card is there any "spring loading" involved or should the card just sit flat down in the empty area without any stresses?

My apology, I am floundering a bit in the this forum as I think it first time I have tried to post, yet it says I have posted 3 times, I am suitably lost,

Ah looked around in my profile and found out the I have indeed posted 3 times. I have found out that I have posted about this problem in the early days of the problem when deciding what to do. Well as written the pc was sent to MXM-upgrade where their recommended card was installed.

 

Do not worry mate, the MXM card is spring loaded and it pops up when you unscrew the 2 screws that hold it down.

I believe you will have your question 100% answered by watching the following video.

Replacing video card in Acer Aspire Laptop 77xx
replacing video card in Acer Aspire Laptop 77xx.3gp - YouTube

Spread the knowledge!

 

retinoli
Thank you for the link, it was helpful. Though it looked to me that the re-install process did not require as much force as in my case. This was however very hard to estimate. I will look further into the mechanical aspects of the card set up.

I have to dismantle again to get new thermal grease applied, I will measure and take photos for my record. When I get the replacement card I was going to test I hope there will be enough difference to tell me more.

Though after having re-installed the card the pc has worked twice in succession leaving room for hope that some last important data can be removed, data encrypted in MS files, which I do not relish having to de-crypt from a copy held on the hard drive. This is good news.

 

@handy09
I am glad I managed to help you with your issue.

The intermittently problems is very possible to be caused by thermal issues.
Try to clean the heatsinks from dust that block airflow and re-apply thermal paste!
Just take notice that thermal pastes and thermal pads can be found at
a bid spectrum of qualities and you shouls buy good ones.

They differ in thermal conductivity, in how easy it is to clean them when you want to
change them, in how long they last and at if they are electrical conductive
or if they show capacitance when they come in contact with the circuits around the GPU or CPU.

I also want to get a spare replacement card for my lab but I found in ebay just a few
MXM II cards which are sold at a very high price!
Where from are you going to get yours and at which price?

Have a happy new year!!!

 

retinoli
Thanks for the information, airflow path is now very clean, I do not think that is a problem anymore. Initially I was unhappy with the temperature of the keyboard above the Microprocessor and the graphics chip, it was too hot to touch. This was in comparison with my own functionally identical Travelmate 7720G.

There was dust blocking 1/3 of the airpath or the filters/grill after cleaning this and the fan well the temperature dropped to just able to feel it on the keyboard. This is my simple test of status of cooling before I start opening up a computer. Having cleaned I was not confident enough to remove the graphics card so I just re-installed the thermal units adding new grease to the micro processor. The graphics unit used 1.5 to 2mm heat conductive rubber and this looked just usable again.

Following days I figured out enough to remove the graphics card and thermal unit, and starting up the laptop. I was now on course to find out if I would get beep codes if the graphics card was removed. I did not. I found however that the LCD display responded with grey background until the boot process got a bit further and the background colour changed to black. This indicating that the LCD most likely was ok.

Replacing the T7500 cpu with a T7300 and the graphics card installed, pc is "dead" so in my opinion all pointing to the graphics card. I have since realised from my correspondence that the new graphics card was put in early 2011 and lasted about 6 months slowly getting more and more difficult to start. So for a long period it was not in use before it got to Australia from Belgium.

Returning to present situation. Last night I added a bit of thermal paste to the graphics rubber which had split, as the board was also removed I took a (poor) photo of the card showing the bracket I am concerned about. I will attach this and would like comments regarding this. I notice that the lifted part of the bracket has left impressions in the black insulation in the area where the graphics card is installed indicating that I do have extra tension on the board which is not part of the spring loading mechanism in the MXM II connector.

Unfortunately for me the pc does not start reliably any more. Because I do not have not yet found conductive rubber/tape thicker than 0.5 mm I have a problem because the rubber has no disintegrated significantly and not doing good heat transfer. I need to do something here. I am thinking about installing a copper or silver shim if I can figure out the exact thickness needed if I can't locate some rubber around 1.5mm thick.

In the mean time I plan to just use forced air cooling using high airflow and reasonable pressure from an Electrolux vaccum cleaner. This will allow me to run the card without the thermal unit and be able to push with toothpick in various areas on the card. I am also hoping to figure out if I can safely remove the bracket on the bottom of the card. This seems to be glued on or an insulating plastic material providing insulation from the metal bracket has been used which may have softened/melted.

The card I have got coming is:
VGA Card nVIDIA Geforce 9300M GS MXMII DDR2 256M G98-630-U2 VG.9MG06.001 Item number 200768849582

I think if you search ebay on item number you will find it. Picked because it is about the cheapest I could find. Laptop cards generally are very expensive compared with Desktop similar cards, you don't really want to think about this. I am not after speed, I do not do gaming it is generally just used for office work.

Edit:
Having trouble with making attachment, coming later

 

No, will not be able to get attachment working for the moment. Upload manager opens but I can not browse to my file location. If I drag and drop a valid file I just see the picture in full screen in upload manager and can not continue, basically only close and upload manager gone.

Tried Firefox too, normally I use Opera and I am running a PCLinuxOS, both show same response.

I have read the Forum guide and section on attachments. I am not sure why I see paragraphs of html text mixed with the description here. Though the guide is straight forward.

Doing better now:
Think I have found out how to do it, here is the pic.

 

I have increased my understanding of the MXM_II cards, luckily got some mechanical specs in particular, with drawings. Have also received another card mentioned above. As expected this is slightly different and needs a bit of engineering but that will be no problem. Doing a bit of photography with my Canon Powershut 50, but this is not really my strong side. The details on the cards are so small that I need some reasonable photos so I can take advantage of the magnification.

1.. I picked up the courage to try and removed the darned bracket which has been glued on, feels like a silastic clear type of glue. Flexible to a degree but certainly hangs on well. I realised that the operation may well have destroyed a card that cost us in excess of 250 euro, it hurts especially as I believe it may still be ok. I have succeeded removing the mounting bracket and fitted it to the new card where it fits perfectly in the "no go zone" allocated. The new board has not been inserted in the pc, I have a cooling problem and looking at re-engineering this for testing. I have seen there are water coolers available but silly me I did not think at the time to make a note of the website.

2.. When I say was successful, I got a bit too over confident or impatient towards the end when sliding a scalpel like knife under the bracket, remember it was partly lifted off the board because it was riding on some components, I believe that one of the few jerky movements when the glue slipped knocked capacitor C1266 off the board. Here I can only say I was very lucky, the smc is close to 1 mm I can not even see without my glasses plus magnifier for good positive view. It stuck in the glue where I found it when inspecting the whole glue perimeter after the bracket removed. I had a feeling that I might have had an accident but was not sure until much closer inspection. I believe value is about 0.8 uF amazing value considering the size, a rough measurement carried out. I was a bit scared to loose it before getting measurement plus I don't think I have stock that small. Not even sure I can solder it but will try if it is really needed. Capacitors sometimes not strictly needed. I will attach photo of location.

3.. On the photo it clear to see that for this card, the bracket really did not fit, in parts it is way over the border, when I finally noticed this I began digging in and looking much closer at MXM cards, the whole exercise getting quite interesting. The photo shows the 3 mm standard standoff which has been installed in the 41 mm square located holes normally used for thermal unit mounting. This thermal unit mounting is a headache when doing testing, such a fiddle to get in and out. this is why I am looking at a simple liquid cooler plate for testing, which I think I will leave in place. This is however a side issue.

The pictures are self explanatory I think, The smaller cut top right hand corner, the smc capacitor is floating in the glue, where I keep it safe at the moment hopefully. As far as I can tell the glue is non conductive and it should not really matter that the bracket rode on top however my concern has been that high temp and the pressure on the card when installed may have allowed intermittent problems.

If anybody has a link to the small water coolers please chirp in

 

What is the proper black keyboard for the 7720? That is one of the last two upgrades I am doing with my notebook. The ssd made a huge difference in speed of the system.

Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk 2

 

Can someone confirm that I can install 1TB HDD on this laptop? I want to replace 2x250GB with 1TB HDD + 120GB SSD.