New BIOS Update for 5920G v1.3813

Acer released a new update today v1.3813 for the acer aspire 5920G laptop. There isn't much to it and they only changes they have written are:

-Enable CRID when Arcade key power on to fix media key won't works issue.
-Change EC bios to v0.46 to modify THERMAL control table

I am not sure if the last change is because of the problems with the nvidia 8M series cards or something else.
Having said that I just install the new BIOS and I have noticed that the fun is working much more than before and the idle temps for the GPU are below 60oC reaching down to 55 after a while (before it was around 65oC). I don't think the temperatures during gameplay have changed though (around 84oC, my card is overclocked at GPU 600, VRAM 450, SHADERS 1250). I have to add that the new drivers 177.92 (I haven't installed the PhysX as my laptop was crushing) from laptopvideo2go are awesome for playing COD4. The online gameplay is very smoother now .

 

The problem is that this bios is designed to stretch ours nvidia chips life after a warranty period. Why? Because all G84 and G86s are bad. Read here: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

It doesn't matter if it's 80,65 or 55 nm chip. And this bios reduce battery life. Well I will never buy any nvidia product again.

 

Any way to update on Vista 64 bits without thumbdrive ? Winflash doesnt work on 64 bits..

 

Hi
I'm going to read this article but could You just write what is the major issue with those gf8's chips and if anyone had problems with their cards alreeady? Is it ticking clock bomb? And can we do anything about it? Will there be warnigns before failure?

 

Well the think is that it's very complicated. There was some mistakes in engineering process as well as bad material choices. In consequences after some period of time every chip form these series will die. So yes it's ticking clock bomb. Nvidia already reserved about $196 million million bucks for repairs ( http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1218573794316.html. Many analyst thinks it really not enough. Since the information became public nvida stock drops rapidly ( http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/07/03/nvidia-stock-drops-around-25-percent/. Some big companies prepares lawsuits against nvidia ( http://uk.news.yahoo.com/vdunet/20080910/ttc-nvidia-faces-lawsuit-over-defective-6315470.html. So definitely there is a huge problem.

In the beginning some thinks it's only hp laptops related problem but now it's quite clear that this is problem of all nvidia g84 and g92 chips. Many laptop oem vendors have already released new bios versions to modify their thermal tables. Examples:

- DELL: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4527

-HP: http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/08/hp-joins-dell-i.html

- Acer, well it is this bios ver. 1.3813

What we can do?

Nothing, absolutely nothing. There will be no warnings probably and you can get free repair as long as it will be in the warranty period. This bios is designed to increase acer corp. chance that it will eventually happen after warranty period. Oh, and even if someone gets lucky guess what chip he will get during free repair? heh defective one only :>

Still I didn't buy macbook pro. guess what GPU apple use in all macbooks pro? I will loose less money at least.

 

Wow this is something I didn;t expect - but then again who did. I just keep my finger crossed and will see - I bought mine 5920G in honkong almost a year ago so the warranty is almost over - Now gf8 gt is mobile and that also means it can be replaced, right? So Is is possible to insert some new gf9 into this laptop - if yes which one and what;s the cost?

 

Well Acer 5920G has MXM II connector so yes it can be replaced. But I don't think it can be any geforce 9 chip. Still you can buy old 8600 (with some die features onboard :>)

 

I upgraded my bios and works great. The gpu and cpu temps are lower. It does not bother me that it will use more battery power because it is almost always pluged in. Thanks for the update.

 

Anyone>>? Gotta be some experts around ..

 

New bios installed and running cooler all around.

 

adamus2001 - you can upgrade it with 9600m gt.

 

Can you?
I haven't seen anyone reporting anything relevant for the Acer 5920G. So far people who bought the 9600M GT card (I don't know from where) they have failed.

 

I don't have a 64bit OS but if you choose to download the BIOS for the Acer 5930 you will find in the zipped file a winflash version for 64 bit (probably, it's flash64 I think). I don't know exactly how you are going to use it but I hope it helps you or you can try other BIOS files.

 

i saw on a forum a walkthrough to upgrading the 8600m gt to 9600m gt but you have to do some mods to the cooler cuz it sits a lil bit higher but its out there.Also my 8600m gt probably fried dont know maybe cuz of some ocing.
I have a thread if anyone can help me.

 

I've seen one thread, it's from Nightwalker and he did it on a Asus C90S. I think it's the one you are referring to. He had some problems though. It wasn't an easy walkthrough and he had some problems afterwards as well. I can't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to upgrade to 9600M GT or any MXM II card, and as a matter of fact we should be able to do it and if not, Acer or Nvidia should provide help to do it. After all we bought a laptop with MXM II port for that reason. But until I see some people doing it on their laptop, I think I am gonna stay with my 8600M GT for now.

 

Acer doesnt provide any help on upgrading gpu/cpu only hdd/ram
i've tried alot of times its not like i wanted them to do it for free just
to do it so i wouldnt void the warranty by doing it myself but no.

PS.on ebay they have 9600m gt for sale and without that metal thing to make sit higher.

 

I used to had 5920G. I was in need of bigger screen and I got 7720. 5920G had 8600m GT and 7720 8400m GT. I've switched both cards and give up 5920G to my sister. Problem with 7720 and 8600m GT installed in it was instant overheating. Computer was rebooting by it self once in a while. I decided to upgrade it to 9600m GT. I've got one from ebay and upgraded it with a small modification of heatsink. BTW a did not have to change the BIOS. It is working very well with original witch have vendor id 0649.

 

Really? You are the first one I know. Can you make a new thread and post photos and any other info that will be useful?
Did you get 9600M GT with the Acer bios on it (from 5930G)?:smile:

 

Is not the Acer bios. When I use GPU-Z the vendor id it sees is 0649 and I couldn't find any info about it. It is exactly the same card as the guy from Asus forum got. But I didn't experienced any of his problems with clocks. As soon as I'll have some free time I'll make new post about it.

 

Can someone link the update? Everytime I try to use the Acer site I can't seem to get it to work (just get a blank page after clicking on Notebooks in the support page, no products show up!).

Tx

 

Here it is

http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5920.html

 

Excellent, thanks!

 

Does anyone know if the cooling is due to any underclocking of the cpu/gpu or if its simply making the fans run at a higher speed...

 

I haven't noticed any underclocking so far. However the funs are running until the temperature in the graphic's core reaches 55oC. So the fun doesn't run higher but it stops at lower temperature now. You can read the first post of this thread