V3-771G mSATA

Well Intel released their 525 Series mSATA recently, and their 30gb version is only ~$50. I know that Acer's Aspire V3-771G has a spare Full Mini PCI-e/mSATA slot. Obviously a lot of potential buyers, and owners have been curious and asked if the slot worked.

Acer directly denies that the slot works. I have read so many blogs, threads, and watched videos of users saying they would try it out, but no one has ever gone through with the action. If they have tried it out they have never told the public.

I want to upgrade this laptop slowly, but can't quickly as a poor college student. My version the 771G 9809 came with 8GB of RAM and 1TB 5400RPM HDD. 8GB is fine for me for now because my desktop system has 16GB of RAM. But the 5400RPM HDD is starting to bottleneck games, and it might get in the way of my photo/video editing. I will be purchasing a 2.5" SSD, but I also want to know if the mSATA slots work.

I have searched through the Acer forum, but there are only a few threads about the Aspire V3, let alone the 771G notebooks. My previous thread on lcd panel upgrade remains unanswered. I realize that is normal as screen upgrades are a bit more advanced compared to hdd and memory. I was just hoping someone has tried a mSATA SSD so I don't waste $50 and time.

Thanks for reading my thread

 

I just ordered a Intel 525 Series mSATA SSD, so I will post here again if the mSATA/Mini PCI-e slot does work on the Aspire V3-771G series.

 

cant wait to hear your results! As for the screen upgrade, i think i replied to that one??? it can be upgraded, but i havent done it yet. I will order the screen i found and let you know.

 

Just if your curious. When you search for mSATA related to V3-771G you find a thread on a bios-mod forum where a user asks for a modified bios that can enable a mSATA ssd to be bootable. Well just in case I contacted him if he knew any information about the mSATA slot. Well what he told me is that currently there is no way to boot a mSATA SSD, but that if you install a mSATA on a 771G, it will be recognized by Windows. So it must be usable. But I would suggest you wait for me to try it out first hand.

Also I don't know if you purchased a 771G that came with Windows 8 or 7, but there is a new bios that was released on 2/4/2013 if you did get the Windows 8 version. I'm currently on 2.12, so I want to know what kind of updates there is to it. Maybe it will give us more options in the bios? I'm going to try to contact Acer on this one before I update.

 

So the SSD arrived yesterday. I'm just waiting for the T2x3 screws I ordered to come in to test it out.

Also the 2.16 update changes only a thing related to the battery. Acer replied to my question saying a customer or many wanted something about the Battery OCP settings changed. So they changed it from ~4-5A to ~3A.

 

Okay, so I just installed the SSD. Like I said previously it is detected by the OS. But the cool thing is the Laptop detects it also through the BIOS. The person who helped me said it wasn't detected by the bios or he couldn't boot from it. But when I check my boot order section in the UEFI BIOS the Intel SSD exists. Maybe its the difference between the 1.x Bios and 2.x Bios.

I don't think I can use Intel RST because the V3 has no option for raid. So now the question is, Do I put in a game that I use frequently in the SSD, or install Windows 8 on it for now.

.:edit:.

No dedicated section for mSATA for UEFI Bios, but is identified in Boot Order. Problem is my 1TB does have a dedicated section, but the SSD Name is replaceing it's place in the boot order

 

I'd love to hear an update on this. I'm seeing a Cruicial M4 256GB mSATA drive for $159 on NewEgg today (it's sold out already as of 7am CST), while other 240-256GB 2.5 inch drives seem to be fetching $180+ still. It's a great deal and I've seen it before and if I see it again I'd love to jump on it. Local review of this drive:

Crucial m4 256GB mSATA SSD Review

If I could remove both hard drives (500GB 5400 and 500GB 5400) and replace with one mSATA SSD, I'd have a much lighter and faster computer. The mSATA card allegedly weighs 10 grams (0.35oz), whereas the 7mm and standard SSD's weigh 73 and 75 grams, respectively, and a pair of 5400rpm spin drives would weigh roughly 198 grams (99 each converted from 3.5oz for Seagate Momentus 2.5" 500GB, found on Amazon). The mSATA card cuts the storage's total weight by 95%. Power would be greatly reduced from 2w per hard drive (4w total) to 0.2w (active) or 0.065w (idle) for the mSATA card.

 

I have not tested it any further. Because my laptop came with Windows 8, and I have no physical copy of my Windows 8 product code (somewhere embed in bios or programmed on computer) I don't want to risk screwing up my installation. Already using 300GB of the 1TB hard drive. Like I said Intel RST cannot be used because V3-771G does not have a RAID option in the bios. The bios also does not have a dedicated section for the msata slot. So for Optical Bay space it has the information for that, Hard Drive 0 has the information for the 1TB drive, and Hard Drive 1 has no information because it is not being used. But when I go to the boot order section the mSATA SSD is on there, but it is labeled as Hard Drive 0 even though it is not. Windows 8 also comes with that weird boot loader thing that controls the boot order settings. So I'm not completely sure how to use it compared to Windows 7.

I lost my Windows 7 64-bit disk so I can't test it out either.

 

I am in same boat, I can see drive in diskmgmt program and I see that Disk 0 has 3 particians but I can not duplicate the particians on SSD or figure a way to install windows to make it a boot drive
Tim

 

I have a v3-771g-9441 with windows 7 64-bit and bios version 2.21. I have a 128GB SSD drive installed in my mSATA/PCIE port.

windows doesn't see it, the bios doesn't see it. my computer originally had windows 8 and uefi bios selected. I changed it to windows 7 after switching to legacy bios mode.

any suggestions?

my friend mentioned something about the slot is only compatible with 8 gig ssds or less.

 

I can't really help that much. I have a 30GB Intel mSATA SSD installed on my V3-771G 9809 laptop. While the BIOS does not see the hard drive correctly, Windows does. I'm not sure why it's not popping out in Windows. Did you check the Disk Management setting/window?

It would look like this picture but in the newer Windows 8 or 7 interface.

The Disks with the Blue Line means they are already setup and being used on your computer. The Disks with black lines mean they are detected by the computer/operating system but have yet to be formatted and setup to be accessible.

 

For the mSata drive to be recognized and bootable in the Bios:
- Bios must be set in UEFI mode
- the mSata drive must be partitioned as GPT and contain some bootable EFI operating system (e.g. Windows 7, Windows 8).

The cleanest way to have both conditions met:
- revert your bios to UEFI etc
- in the Bios, allow manual selection of boot drive with F12.
- insert some Windows 7/8 x64 setup disc (or similar UEFI-bootable installation USB stick)
- save bios settings & reboot.
- as soon as it reboots, keep hitting F12 until it allows you to select your Windows setup media
- install Windows normally, using advanced options to select your mSata drive (eventually deleting existing partitions to recreating them properly).

Once complete, your mSata drive will be GPT-partitioned, bear some (hidden) EFI partitions, and boot directly to Windows 7/8. If you look back in the Bios, you'll notice some Windows Boot Loader device now listed, it's the one installed on your mSata drive.

 

Thank you for the response, I tried re-installing in UEFI mode with GPT and Windows 8.1, my computer still does not recognize my 128GB mSATA drive, it also is VERY VERY hot after just a few minutes. Maybe my drive is broken.

I also tried a re-install with legacy bios and MBR, no luck there either.

 

Okay, so this Acer Aspire V3-771g-9441 has what kind of port on the bottom?

Obviously my Crucial m4 128GB mSATA drive doesn't work or doesn't work with my computer...

Please, which of these filtering options in newegg do I need to click to get the right drive?

 

My mSata drive works in windows (not in boot) on my V3-771g, but like you I have the same problem of it being SUPER hot. Please please pleeeeeeeeeeeeease tell me what you did to solve it? did you try a new drive?

 

I removed HDD and installed mSATA SSD to my V3-771G-73634G1TMAII, made recovery from usb flash drive factory backup. The SSD works well. I inserted the original HDD. Now I can choose which disk boots with F12. But If I am booted in mSata windows I can not see the original drive, not even in device manager. If I am booted to original drive I can see mSata mounted as E: and explore files. Another problem is I do not know how to change default F12 boot order. Unfortunately if I do not hit F12 the machine boots from the old drive.

Later I booted to SSD, invoked windows repair and It fixed both problems for me. SSD boots as default and I can see HDD files.