New Acer Aspire V Nitro series

Well no I'm not sure, from just from experience in the past anything non native does not look as good as native resolution.

@4cefed4
What about when you ping your router? Open up a cmd prompt and type "ping 192.168.0.1" Or whatever the ip to your router is, usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 I get a consistent 1-2 ms on 5ghz with my Atheros chip.

 

4k scales perfectly to full HD. Since it has 4x the number of pixels of full HD it just uses 4adiacent pixels together to draw a single pixel of full HD.

Quality will be fine but you will not take advantage of the added resolution offered.

 

Update: Unfortunately, unlike the rest of the posters, installation of the intel 7260 ac card hasn't really solved the wifi problems I've had. I get great signal and connection downstairs (up to about 10m from the router). But still, as soon as I go upstairs and into my bedroom the speed drops drastically. It still says the reception is good but the internet is slow and the connection is inconsistent, disconnecting often.

I've updated to the latest drivers using the intel utility, anyone got any ideas what I can do at this point? My old laptop - also an acer, several generations old and a cheaper model - produces much better connection in the same place. It really isn't acceptable for such a pricy laptop to have such poor wifi connectivity, even with a better card.

 

Before disabling U-APSD per @downloads recommendation:


...and after:


As I'm not playing any games currently and am more concerned about battery life, I'm going to see how everything works out with the U-APSD disabled. Seems to be a good fix though!

 

Wow that's quite the difference. Glad there's a fix for it.

 

Doublecheck antennas connection

 

BTW guys i went to the store earlier and looked at the v15 nitro UHD version in person. The 4k screen using 1080p looks good, cant say it's blurry even though its non-native. Couldn't tell the difference.

Another thing i want to add is that i am disappointed with the build quality of teh nitro. The soft matte texture looks and feels nice but it gets scratched VERY easily and permanently. I can imagine a few months of using it and you will see scratches everywhere...even the touchpad. The overall build quality seems cheap-plastiky, including the hatch, lid, etc etc. All plastic and wobbly.

Looking at the ASUS N551JM just next to it made from aluminum is WORLD of difference. Just thought i should share this for everyone who cares about these things. Specs of the nitro r awesome but you are buying a cheap plastic build. Sure there are worse things out there but after seeing the ASUS i dont want anything thats of lesser quality.

 

Is this the card you purchased? Amazon.com: 7260NGW Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac, Dual Band, 2x2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0: Computers & Accessories

 

Did you use a guide or just tear into it? I couldn't find a manual on the Acer website for disassembly, but found this pretty good picture-heavy guide: Acer Aspire V Nitro VN7-591G Disassembly | MyFixGuide.com , but it is for the 15 inch.

I got a 17 inch Acer Aspire V Nitro 7-791G-77JJ delivered yesterday, but have to wait until Xmas morning to open it up :-(( , but was looking for a guide to tear apart and upgrade ram and HD, and came across that guide. Wonder if the internals and procedures are pretty similar.

 

Thanks for the tear-down guide @hovercraftdriver. It clears something up for me - those of you who are complaining about the inferior Wi-Fi range with this notebook - see where the antennas are placed, that will explain a lot of things.

Antennas should be at the top of the screen not at the back of the base. You can replace a Wi-Fi card to a better one but you won't be able to mitigate this.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw it...I'm already wondering if it would be prudent to reroute the wires up the sides of the display(if of course, it causes me problems)?

 

How disappointing. Do you think a USB wireless dongle like this one ( Tenda W900U 867Mbps Dual Band Wireless USB Network Interface Card: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories) would fix it? I don't want miracles, just a stable connection at the speeds I am accustomed to 20ft away from the router.

Edit: Also looking at this usb adaptor - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-USB-AC56-Wireless-Network-Interface/dp/B00GGLL5TC.

It is more than double the price of the Tenda one. My router is only N-capable (not AC), would there be any advantage buying the asus one i.e. would the signal be better? I see that it has a screwable antenna so my guess is this would be better.

 

No, unfortunately USB card is not going to be better than an integrated one - placement of the antennas will be similarly bad but off-course antennas that were provided by Acer will be spread apart more and will offer bigger gain so ultimately, internal card should still be better.

As for what @hovercraftdriver proposed - it is the only way of significantly increasing the reception but I doubt it can be done. Acer must have had a reason to move antennas to less-than-optimal location. There might not be enough space to fit them on top of the screen and I don't know if there is an easy way to route antenna cables through hinges.

 

Disassembly guide for 17" model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6eAxTj7MQ

 

Just got my "Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-591G-74SK".

Everything looks good, no issues in display, wifi .

Wanted to thank everyone here, who helped me to make a decision

" Thank You"

Observations:
Comes with low-end Windows 8.1. Upgraded it to 8.1 pro as I need to run virtual machines (hyper-V).

 

Thanks for the response. Why does the antenna being just a few inches away make such a difference?

What about a card which can be extended via an adaptor and clipped onto the screen like this one? Asus USB-AC53 Dual-Band Wireless-AC1200 USB Adapter []

I don't really understand, the reviews I've seen for the ASUS usb card are positive, one review had it downloading at high speeds 120m away from the router. Why wouldn't it be able to work optimally 20 feet away from mine?

 

The fact that two antennas in the notebooks are 6 or so inches away makes them work as two antennas whereas USB stick where antennas are literally millimeters away are in fact one antenna.

Reviews can be more or less credible but high speeds at 120 meters does sound like a fairy tale. High speeds at 20 meters would be something to be very pleased with but 120 m.

If you are looking for a USB card you should look for something with an external antenna, the extender you've linked to is certainly an improvement but the best thing would be something like this or this (note I'm not talking about the actual cards but about the way antenna and connection is designed)

 

I purchased that card, but it shipped from China via eBay. The key is to make sure the one you're buying is AC not just N, 2x2, and m.2/NGFF. Usually if one is a few bucks cheaper it's missing one if those traits.

I looked at a German YouTube video before hand, but the guy who shot it already had the screws removed, case separated and cables disconnected. Cracking the case and disconnecting the cables is the only remotely difficult part. Once I removed the screws there was a little gap near the Kensington lock that I put the guitar pick tool from a cell phone repair kit into and worked all the way around from there. Basically stick something thin and rigid in there and drag it continuously around the perimeter. 2 of the cables had the standard guillotine locks on them, the larger one for the keyboard itself used a lock I haven't seen, you have push the two white tabs on the sides back towards the screen at the same time, then the ribbon pulls out.

 

I did from the very beginning suspect just changing the card wouldn't solve the problem, as it seems to be more a physical problem in terms of reception, as an internal card issue. When I am in regions of decent Wifi coverage, the Atheros card actually provides very fast speeds.

Since I only have this problem when the computer is at home on my desk, I got an external USB wifi adapter specifically advertised for strong reception: Amazon.com: TP-LINK TL-WN8200ND 300Mbps High Power Wireless USB Adapter, 2.4GHz, 802.11n/g/b, 500mw, 2 5dBi detachable antennas: Computers & Accessories

And that solves the issue entirely. The reception now is 5 bars at all times and the only rate-limiting factor is the actual internet connection. When I'm on the go the internal Wifi works fine so I dont need to bring the adapter around. I highly recommend this solution as opposed to keep fiddling with settings and internal cards etc.

 

HI guys

Received my laptop, and I'm pretty happy about it. Except the touchpad which is not perfect (but not as bad as I thought) and a battery life which could be better (any possibilities of battery replacement ?) I only have 1 major problem :

The laptop produces an "electronic" noise which is pretty loud, louder than the fan (and more aggressive). It seems to be linked to the ssd, even if this sounds weird.

It was not happening this morning (during which I was working in perfect silence), but when I booted this afternoon it was lourd and clear. Any idea ? Am I the only one ?

Edit : After restarting and plugging, the problem is gone

 

@RDeluxe

What kind of battery life are you getting? I'm getting 4hr+ watching 720p mkvs and browsing the web, pretty happy with that considering it's a gaming laptop.

 

Can i ask you where did u find it at 850€?

Thank u so much

 

I am thinking of buying this USB range extender Networking - USB-AC56 - ASUS

Question: my internal wif card is not AC, does this USB dongle then convert my laptop's wifi to AC when i plug it in and disables my internal wifi card or does it merely act as an antenna and extends its range?

in which case i dont need to bother buying the AC version and can go with this http://www.asus.com/us/Networking/USBN53/

 

It's not a Wi-Fi extender as such, it's just an external Wi-Fi card. So yes - your laptop will be 802.11ac when connecting via the Asus (although you will have to disable internal Wi-Fi manually).

I'd go with AC dongle - first because it's more future proof (do you have 802.11ac router to begin with?) and secondly because it will have better range because of the antenna used (compared to 802.11n you linked to)

 

Hi Banender, I have ordered that exact USB dongle and it will be coming tomorrow. I'll let you know how I get on with it.

 

Regarding repasting the CPU/GPU:

I also would like to.

I assume with "tutorial" the video is meant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6eAxTj7MQ
or is there something else?

I'm dissatisfied with the bigger (and louder) fan sooner or later constantly
spinning when my VN7-791G-70Z7 is idle.
With idle I mean cpu has 1-5% load in C0, 95-99% in C7.
Core temperature is about 45-52°C and power consumption is about 29(25-31) Watts then.
I would like to know what power consumption those lucky with a
"silent" machine have under comparable load. If it's lower, I would know
I have a software problem, I'm running Gentoo Linux.
Under full load, i.e. 4 cores 100% C0 and 3.2 GHz, the worser cores
reach 97°C. At least once the kernel reported throttling due to overheating.

I would like to raise the trigger points for the fans, but don't know how
to accomplish that yet. So repasting seems to be the next step.

The aforementioned video at 9:39 min shows the back of the mainboard with the heatpipes.
I would love if somebody could share his knowledge about contemporary
notebook design, how to remove the heatpipes, what to expect beneath them,
how not to destroy them . Is there an IHS between heatpipe and chip die?
Is the IHS glued to the CPU, so that it has to be removed with a razor
blade? The CPU itself should be soldered to the board. Any retention mechanisms
one should know about?

The video also mentions that the display cable is glued to the bigger fan chassis.
The mainboard therefore can't be removed from the notebook chassis,
complicating access. So the question is, can the display cable removed
from the fan chassis without destroying the cable.

---
BTW, 97 °C is with turbo on, with turbo off core1 is 76°C, core2+3
a little bit cooler, and core4 is up to 10K cooler, especially if load
is 100%. I wonder if the difference is more likely a sensor or a
thermal problem.

---
Update: Reason for the bigger fan constantly spinning and 50°C idle
temperature of the core was the nvidia chip switched ON.
Switched on, it burns 10W doing nothing. In Linux, GPU needs
to be switched off using bbswitch kernel module, part of bumblebee package.
Power consumption dropped to 20W.

 

Just received the Acer Aspire VN7-571G-53XF.

It has:

Core i5 4210U
8 GB
128 GB + 500 GB
GTX 850M

Was looking at the MSI GS60, but the heat and fan problems made me go for the Acer.

I'm a real review junkie, so read everything about the Acer.

I don't have Wifi problems, excellent speed. What surprises me is that my Acer is equipped with an Intel 7265 Wifi card, not the Atheros.

My Acer is also not equipped with the flat power supply, it's just a normal size power supply. Maybe because of the less demanding processor?

I don't have issues with the spacebar. The touchpad however is not the best. Surprises me, because my wife has an Acer chromebook, and it has an excellent touchpad!

What is annoying is that the touchpad doesn't immediately react. Also 2finger scrolling just doesn't feel right and sometimes doesn't react. Amazing that after all these years they equip a laptop with such rubbish. I can live with it I think, because will use a mouse most of the time.

The sound gave me goosebumps when I first turned it on maximum loudness. It's really loud for a laptop and you can actually hear some bass and also the Dolby is working quite well.

The screen is OK. Nothing special. Colors are good, but it's not the brightest screen. My Samsung laptop has a screen that is so bright it hurts your eyes. This screen does not do this.

When you are not really in front of the screen, I find the edges of the screen a bit darker. How can you determine the modelnumber of this screen?

Build quality looks quite good. It's not the most exciting laptop out there. It's a good thing that the keyboard is red illuminated. That gives it a bit more flair. However the light could have been brighter.

The laptop is really fast offcourse with the SSD. Also very quiet and cool on normal use.

At first start some programs showed blurred text. That turned out to be a Windows setting with increased text size.

Keyboard feels good.

They could have skipped the dvd-writer. Don't need it. They should have at least moved it to the right, so that the usb ports can go on the left side.

Thanks for all the info on this laptop! Hope my impression helps other people.

Note for people living in the Netherlands: The Action (a store) sells a mouse for only € 5,- which is a great match with this laptop. It's a gamer mouse with red lights and a red cord.

 

Around the same. It's not bad for such a laptop, sure, but I would have liked to have more juice (who doesn't ?). The battery being easily accessible, I'm wondering if any better battery replacement may be possible ...

Ho, they really released a lot of versions, did not know some had ULV CPUs.

I personnally got an Atheros Wifi card, but I don't have any problems with it for now. Was hoping to get an intel one, but he...

For the touchpad, I have the same problem. I find it nice, except for this latency problem. I tried playing with windows options about "delay" when you type on the keyboard (the touchpad being disabled for X seconds), but no luck. It's actually pretty weird. Did not manage to install atheros original drivers either.

Had the same problem with blurred text too. Lack of testing from Acer ...

It's an external Dvd-writer, right ?

 

If you mean that it is not a slot in dvd drive, then you are correct. A slot in would have been nicer.

I looked for a different touchpad driver on the Acer website, It showed the synaptics driver for this model. But on install there is no extra synaptics menu. Quite happy with the cpu, because I have good battery life with it.

 

So the ASUS AC56 USB arrived today and just tested it out now. More problems for me I'm afraid...

The speed of the net is great and getting the same mbps all over the house, signal at 5 bars (this thing is pretty large and obviously has great range).

When I go upstairs though, the internet lasts for about 10 seconds before it disconnects and I get limited connectivity (no internet) until I disconnect and plug it back in again, when the same thing happens. I'm pulling my hair out with frustration here. What the hell is wrong with this laptop? I have several wireless solutions showing 4-5 bars of signal but they are either too slow at range or can't hold internet connection longer than 10 seconds.

Really regretting this choice here and very angry at Acer.

Any ideas on how this could be remedied? I don't really understand why it connects for a short time then retains the wireless connection to the router but the computer can't access the internet. Also, would I be able to return the laptop to Acer under warranty? This really is not acceptable. I bought the laptop from a retailer but they say for electronic goods to go straight to the manufacturer for returns.

EDIT: It appears that the connection with ASUS ac56 remains stable when it is plugged in viathe cradle which is circa 1m long, even when the USB is then on the floor. It seems the dongle needs to be away from the laptop. Would unplugging the internal antenna help with this?

 

If the internal Wi-Fi is switched off there should be no interference from it whatsoever. It is possible that other elements cause interference - CPU is one that does so (that's why it a properly designed laptop has antennas routed away from certain things)

 

So has anyone OC'd the 860M yet on these things? If so, how did it affect performance, temps, fan noise, etc?

 

I briefly messed around with a +58 core and +291 memory overclock. This puts the core and memory at 791g speeds. Increased my 3dmark firestrike 3d score by 240 points. Didn't notice any increase of temperatures, they rapidly rise up to 70c and then the fan speeds up and they stabilize at around 70c.

One thing weird while looking at 3dmark scores for other 591g and 791g laptops. Most 591g GPUs on 3dmark have a default core of 1020 and a memory of 1253. While most 791g have a default core of 1155 and memory of around 1403. Strange.

Could someone with a 791g post a nvidia inspector screenshot? Curious to see what the default clocks are. Here's mine (591g)

 

VN7-791G-783K

 

I live in the Netherlands too and I was looking forward to buy the same model, where did you get it?

 

Got it at Wehkamp:

Acer Aspire VN7-571G-53XF laptop 15.6 inch? Bestel nu bij wehkamp.nl

At the moment they have one left.

Coolblue also has it:

Acer Aspire VN7-571G-53XF - Laptopshop.nl

 

Couldn't disable adaptive dimming of the screen. Changed it in power settings, but it kept coming back. Very annoying feature.

Got it disabled with these tips:

Adaptive Brightness - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

Now the screen looks much brighter at all times!

 

nope, still cannot update my graphic card driver from nvidia homepage. And there are others with the same issue. Don't know what's the matter with that. If anybody knows a solution, would be very appreciated.

 

I have had this laptop for a bit over a week now and I would like to give everyone my thoughts. First of all I have the Acer VN7 591-590D version. It is basically the same as the other vn7 versions. Mine has an gtx 860m, i5 4210h cpu, 500hdd storage with128gb ssd. First of all the positives.

Pros

-Incredibly fast ssd, it can boot up between 2-4 seconds it is insane.
- Insanely fast laptop all round, I have used a lenovo y50 for a bit an g750jm and asus r752ln, and this Acer laptop has been faster than all of them. (Also partly due to the ssd)
-Great keyboard to type on, it's very comfortable and nice also has a backlit keyboard.
- Cheap considering what your getting, I got mine for 850 euros.
- Very powerful and will be able to play many games for the next 2 years, but remember it is a laptop.... I would always get a desktop if you have the option, (I needed portability)
- Temperatures are good while playing games like CS: GO, and League of legends, (they are between 55-70 (While playing civ 5 for hours it will never go past 80 degrees)
-Very quiet when browsing or idle, ( when I say quiet I mean you literally cannot hear it it's insane.
- Good speakers, but not as good as the Y50 speakers (but very similar)
- Thin laptop (that being an advantage is up to you
- When playing demanding games you can only feel the heat from the right side of the trackpad and it is not that bad, way better cooling to touch than the Y50, which had same temperatures when playing games but it got hot when you touched the laptop still.
- Wifi is insanely quick when your very close to a router, its very weird, (maybe ignore this one pro)

Between pro and con?

- Idle temperatures are around 40, and when browsing the web it is around 45-55 (degrees) depends what your doing. I had an asus laptop the r752ln, and it had 35-50 temperatures, and the y50 had normally 50-60 (degrees C)
- 'Meh' design, it looks nice but cheap, but considering the specs your getting and the price it is I could not complain (it's made of very very similar material to the Y50, if not the same).
- Made by Acer, (back in the day and maybe even to this day (im not sure) acer had bad laptop lifespans around 2-3. But after choosing laptops I have learned that you should never trust reviewers 100%.
- I dont think anyone will care about this one but the Battery life is ok. It can last around 2-3 hours at 100% brightness when web browsing. When playing games probably less than 1 on maximum brightness, but remember its a laptop if your going to be playing games keep it plugged in.

Cons

-Touchpad has a slight delay when you first use it like 0.5 seconds or so, this can get very annoying, and you notice it a lot when you scroll up down left or right with it. (all vn7 versions have this I have tested this with various versions in the store.
- Wifi is horrible, absolutely horrible, I cannot believe Acer did not include another wifi card they are very cheap. Also very funny since it says X2 Wifi speed or something on the laptop (on a sticker)
- Screen could be better for price
-

Overall I am very pleased and most of the problems I have listed are fixable. Except the touchpad, I dont ever think that the touchpad will ever be better, but I almost always use a mouse anyway. With the wifi card, you could EASILY replace it for less than 50 euros, o r even use an wifi adapter which is like 10-30 euros. The only way I can imagine the touchpad getting fixed is within windows 10, but I doubt that will happen anymore, but I suppose there is a chance. It's ashame because when you use the touchpad after the 0.5 second delay it is an amazing touchpad better than all the other ones I have tested, it is really a joy to use after that delay, but because of the delay it is just average, but it could have been almost perfect for me (my opinion on touchpad many ppl differ about touchpads)

So overall the laptop version I got is very good for the price, but if Acer made the price 50-100 more euros higher it could have been the best bang of buck for 2014.
Overall I am pleased with my purchase.

I think the positives outweigh the negatives, mainly due to most of the negatives being problems that can easily be solved for free. Sorry for comparing a lot of things to the Y50, its only because I have used it before and that these 2 laptops are competitors. Thank you.
So getting a powerful laptop with a gtx 860m and 128gb ssd for 850 euros made me get this laptop, there are no better deals than this. I would recommend if you are getting a laptop try test it out for a week or so, and then make up your mind of which one to get, so then you wont regret it in the future. Tried to be completely honest and yeah thank you for reading.

 

Anyone else getting a weird noise from the fan area? Only way I can describe it is like holding a 3G phone next to computer speakers. Seems to go away when plugged in.

 

Well, I think we faced the same problem :

I thought it was linked to the SSD usage, but I did not manage to get more details.

 

So I just picked up the v17 with the 256 ssd and 1 tb hd. It runs like a top, my only issue is that there is a pretty audible electronic whine/crackling sound coming from the center on the bottom. I've done the power reset and nothing has seemed to fix it. I saw someone else mention this and its only under load. Normal cpu noise or am I destined to replace it from newegg?

Edit: seems like it has been an issue, judging on the last posts

 

I don't know if this is what you guys are describing, but with the laptop in sleep mode and plugged in, whenever the blinking orange LED on the side turns off, there's a high pitch whine. I really have to stick my ear next to it though to hear it.

 

Mine is constant whenever it's loading something. Plugged in or not. Think it's heatsink noise from the cpu. Returning it today

 

I'm running mostly in Linux and I don't see the touchpad delay. The touchpad is smooth and responsive. I DO see that behavior when I have powersave enabled for the USB bus channel the mouse is on.
Also, I remember when I was in Windows there was one ,maybe two settings that I had to shut off to get the mouse more responsive. One was some sort of tap delay or timeout or similar. If I remember, next time I'm in Windows I'll try to find the setting.

So far I've had no issue with wifi (again in Linux "Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)"). At home I'm on 5 GHz (2.4 is unusable since there are like 15 access points all fighting each other), when I'm out I'm typically connected to a Starbucks (just checked and it's 5.8GHz) or tethering through wifi on my phone. So maybe the issues are 2.4GHz ones?


AN

 

None. Everythings fine.
VN7-791G-783K

( i7, Croatian keyboard, no SSD.)

 

Could you please tell me where did you find your laptop for 850 euros?

Thank you so much in advance.

 

May have been from here:

Cyberport: Acer Aspire V Nitro Black Edition VN7-591G-590D, i5-4210H, 8GB, 628GB Hybrid, Win 8.1 (NX.MQLEG.001) um 849,- inkl. Versand statt 929,- in Computer | Geizhals Deals

 

I bought the VN7-571G-52DB ten days ago. It has the i5, a GTX850M and 1 TB hybrid drive. I can't hear any electronic noises as described above, maybe it's covered by the constantly spinning hard drive.

BUT... I hear noise coming from the speakers as soon as a sound is played, continues for about 5 secs after playback and then quits with a crackle. It sounds as if the amp is switched on for playback and of again. It's the same noise you get when turning a speaker system's volume up without playing sound. The worst thing about it, I want to dual boot with Linux, so in a live session I hear this noise constantly and it's annoying. I asked Acer about it, and haven't received an answer yet.

Can someone confirm this issue or are your speakers noise-free?

 

My speakers are perfectly fine, no issue like what you're describing.