AMD C-50 CPU and 6250 GPU performance(Acer 522 review)

@ENzo

What did you use to check temps?

@alan

as soon as I find out what he uses ill check

 

HWmonitor. It's listed as GPU core under radeon 6250. But remember, this is an APU.

 

Thanks will try it later

 

Exchanged my 522 for another one. This new one performs well, no hardware faults that I could find. So I decided to do a fresh install of Windows. I put Home Premium on the machine.

Now I got a new problem and I am not sure how to troubleshoot it. When my screen is dim (lets say 10% brightness) the brightness of the screen would flicker by itself brighter and then dim again. This doesnt happen when the brightness is on full so I didnt notice this before because I was on AC power and full brightness.

With my freshly installed machine I only put on drivers, acer updater and acer epower mangement. I then disabled epower thinking it might be a conflict with Windows power saving options. Still no luck.

I am going to try and boot into another os later tonight and see if I have problems with it.

But anyone got any suggestions?

I use a program call SIW to check temps and hardware. There is a portable version on their site so you don't have to install the program. It just runs.

 

This is part of Acer ePower Management. I forgot to install mine so I installed it last night and started to notice this. It appears to adjust brightness/contrast depending on what is going on screen to maximize battery life. Open a page that is very dark and google home page in another tab and flip back and forth... You'll see it at work.

 

I uninstalled Acer ePower Management as I do not want my screen to flicker when watching video on battery with a slightly dim screen. The flickering however is still happening.

This has become a really frustrating experiance. Today I got my new ram and hdd. Hopefully another fresh install with radeon pro and the new service pack will get rid of some of these problems...

 

Bought one of these great netbooks a few weeks ago, and have been reading this thread:

1. I know no-one has overclocked yet, but is anyone aware of any sites trying?
2. I hate the Canadian keyboard, anyone know where to get a US CHICKLET type that's compatible? Not really wanting one that's got similar keys to the Canadian one i.e. all raised. Bonus if there's a backlit one out there somewhere
3. I believe 4GB is required. I bought and installed Kingston KVR1066D3S7/4G 4GB 1X4GB PC3-8500 DDR3-1066 204PIN SODIMM Memory - DirectCanada and it's working a treat.
4. Anyone know of any BIOS mods to mess with? the base BIOS is pretty cut down.
5. VMWare runs on this setup with the 4GB pretty OK for what you'd expect.
6. For gigabit ethernet (well, 400Mbit at least, faster than the stock ethernet) consider $19.16 - Arkview USB 2.0 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter - Networking. I have one, and it works well.
7. Anyone got any fan control working yet? I'd prefer to run the laptop hotter and not bother with running the fan.
8. Put an SSD in this and it flies, soooo fast

 

I thought SSDs had notoriously slow write speeds, which is why a gigabit ethernet is overkill for you. Am I wrong?

As for your keyboard, you can search auction sites with this string "acer aspire one keyboard 255". Just found a US keyboard from China for only $14.51US + $12.49US Shipping (w/ buy-it-now, so you don't even have to bid).

 

My SSD has a sustained write of about 130MB/s in this netbook. It's an OCZ Vertex 2 Sandforce, so having a gigabit adapter makes sense, at least to me - backups of the machine just happen faster.

Keyboard: was it chicklet? I've had a look around there and haven't had much luck finding something chicklet. I'll take another look though. Thanks

 

i have a agility 2 SSD and its the sh*t, except recently this month, ocz switched out of 25 nm so i would get an SSD from intel or somthin

 

hey guys, first post here, and have been following the thread for awhile since i picked up this little netbook given everyone's positive reviews on it.

installed the 2gb RAM, and about to do the Anytime Upgrade to W7 Home Prem as soon as i go pick up the kit... but at the moment, i've got a problem with my machine, albeit a minor one.

my card reader doesn't seem to like either Patriot brand cards, or 16GB cards.

I've tested 8GB Kingston and ADATA cards, and they both work fine. when i put in my 16GB Patriot card, it tells me to format the disk or something, and that it can't read it.

this 16gb card works on all of my other laptops, so i know it's not the card.

can anyone else test this for me, and pop in a 16gb card and let me know their experience?

thanks guys.

 

It can read it if it already says format the disk.

Usually try another SD card on the slot or restart the machine with the SD card inside the slot already

 

Well formatted fully with ram and hdd upgrade, this time with drivers only the screen still flickers when you have something bright open and then the image changes to something darker. Are any of you guys noticing this?

I sent an email to Acer support to see if they can point me to the right direction.

I also can't seem to launch CCC. If anyone with 11.2 drivers could try to open it up and see if it launches. This may just be a bug with ATI. Wanted to scale the resolution of older games so they don't strech.

Just wanted to say with 4gb ram and a HDD upgrade this thing is pretty fast. I wanna see how much I can get away with this netbook in terms of performance.

 

Yup the backlight can sometimes change depending on the background.

It does not really bother me though.

Will test DA2 here Just finished it on my Desktop

 

You have to turn off vari-bright from the catalyst drivers.

 

Thanks yeah I finally found that out just before posting here. I couldn't open CCC before, untill now it decided to just randomly open. I saw that option in there.

Man it was driving me nuts. I am glad you mentioned it though. Here is a screen shot just in case anyone else is interested. Now I have no real problems with this netbook. For the price and what you get you can't go wrong.

 

On the AMD site ( ATI Radeon? Video Card Drivers ), one of the suites says "APP removed". What's APP and is it worth the extra 8MB? Thanks!

 

APP is the new name for their ATi Stream SDK for OpenCL programming.

 

AMD OverDrive?

Overdrive by AMD seems like a viable option for overclocking

anybody want to test it out?

 

Is it diffacult to get to the hdd... I am planing on buying this machine and want to know if its easy to get too... I want to change it out for a 64gb ssd i have

 

search is not working, so...

Can anyone tell me if Acer 522 is faster than Acer 521(k125) ?

I'm going to buy one of them, but in my city there is 522 with 3cell only and it costs as much as 521 with 6cell.

 

Well in theory

A K125 is 1.7Ghz Single Core

A C-50 is 1.0 Ghz Dual = 2Ghz

So I am guessing faster

 

I believe it's not so simple...

Anyway, would 3cell Acer 522 be a better choice?
How long would it work?

 

Well if I do HEAVY gaming (Dirt 2, SC2 and L4D) it depletes in 3 hours min.

So 1.5 Hours Gaming on a 3 Cell

Internet Browsing would be at 4-6 Hours.( havent really gone on a Wifi only test)

2-3 Hours on a 3 cell.

I suggest you try to talk to them about getting a 6 cell model.

I cant find anyone else that has both a K125 and C-50 so I am basing it as it is.

 

thanks for info.
I tried to talk to them, and they said it'll come in future, but no certain date.
I live in such an a.. called Russia )

 

Well I am not entirely sure how it works there but I dont think location will be a problem(Russia is BIG btw so I am guessing around moscow)

I dont live in the USA myself as you can see.

I just remembered this quote:

In a Russian voice

American Components, Russian Components ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!!!!!

Hope you find a way to get a 6 cell battery

 

It's hard to find a direct comparison, but from the googling I did I estimate that the K125 is about equivalent to the E-350 for office tasks, though it will lose for anything multi-threaded. The C-50 will likely be slower for everyday use.

References: Acer 521 benchmark, with PCMark Vantage figure, E-350 PCMark Vantage for comparison, Anandtech Bench comparison of E-350 and 2.0GHz single core Sempron.

 

))) Unfortunately i'm not around Moscow.
So i have to chose K125+6cell or C-50+3cell. I need a netbook for my travel in 10 days.
I can try to order battery from China, but it will take much time for delivery. (usually about 1-2 months for small packages)

 

Thanks!
//////

 

I may pick the C-50.

a K125 has 4 hours Max battery with a 6 Cell, C-50 3 Hours Max.
Acer Aspire One 521 and 721 review -- Engadget

Reasoning behind this is for only there is only a 1 Hour difference when you travel for this incoming trip.

After the trip when you order a 6 Cell all future travels will have 6 Hours battery and you have an extra 3 hour battery as backup

 

found a direct comparison

AMD C-50 Notebook Processor - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Check the benchmarks, Click "show comparison"

 

Shadowfate's link cements my impression that the 521 will be faster for everyday work. However I think that the 522 wins due to one factor: display resolution. 1280x720 will be a big step over 1024x600. That's 50% more pixels and should be a lot more usable.

 

Ohhh yeah forgot about that.

Although i was wondering how can they get the 1024x768/1280x1024 Benchmark with a C-50 when only 2 models are avaible right now Toshiba and Acer

 

They can run on external monitor

 

LOL yeah I also forgot about that possibility as well ahahaha

Oh forgot to post

I reached 90C on my Ultraportable while playing Dragon Age 2 Demo.

 

I would just do a quick comparison for you as I own both units.

I used to use the 521 for commuting. Out of the box with no upgrades it performs better then the 522 in basic computing tasks like Office and the web. Actually I never did a format on the 521 I just deleted all the bloatware and it performed fine. When I had several programs open It would start to bog down (only just slightly I am mentioning this cause I think its relevent but most people wouldn't notice). Like having 10 tabs open in chrome, an rdp session, and outlook.

The most aggressive game I tried on the 521 was probably Doom 3 it performed really well. I cant remember too much but I think I either ran it 800x600 with scaling or I forced it to be 1024x600 with medium-high settings.

The 521 is now running as a headless machine for me. I kinda broke the lcd screen. It had an unfortunate meeting with my feet waking up first thing in the morning. I was really sad this day made me realize how fragile an all plastic housing can be. Now I put 522 in a drawer when I am done with it.

Just to mention build quality. Its also easier to get to the hdd, ram and mini pci-e for upgrades. And the touch pad is nicer too. It runs hotter though overall. If you havnen't read it yet upgrading the 522 might be a hassel for some novices.

For the 522, I personaly havent done much on it yet. I can only comment on are some of the things I have done. There is alot more screen space on the 522 than the 521 which means that genereal multi-tasking and browsing the web is much easier. I think that deserve mega points because its the same form factor a 10" screen. It also feels much lighter to me as well.

I never really used the 522 too much untill I upgraded it but I can say that the battery life is amazing. I remember having to charge the battery every day for the 521 it would last about 3 hours with wifi off and about 60% brightness. (would watch movies and tv shows, and read magazines)

<s>In my opinion I would get the 522 with the 3 cell and get a 6 cell if you need it. So now when you travel you got a extra battery. Also I can only imagine that with a 3 cell the unit is even lighter then it already is. I think the battery life > performance for general everyday things. But this is my opinion cause I still got a desktop for everything else.</s>
Get whichever one is cheaper. You can't go wrong with either machine

EDIT spelling and grammer and new info: Here are the WEI score for the 521 I posted on a another site. This also reminded me that it came with a seagate hdd 5400rpm, and Kingston 1gb ddr3, and has two speakers

Damn! did it run? or was it a slideshow. I got 80c when transferring 300gigs worth of content all at once to the harddrive inside. My new hard drive was at 40c I didnt realize the ethernet port was 10/100

 

Yup it ran.

I ran it in DX11 mode at 800x600.

60 FPS when you watch cut scenes

battle it became <10 FPS.

playable yes. The gameplay mechanic of DA 2 makes it playable for me. Well you just need to pause it to strategize your attacks

Will try again now.

Another thing
ON a 522 I usually have 20+ Tabs open when I start FF(Palemoon). I thought it will have trouble opening all at once but it didnt really.

This is the first 10.1 that has 720p screen

Hope lizard reads what you wrote

 

Yeah I forgot to actually answer his question directly.

Yes and no. The 522 is faster when multitasking, but the 521 outperforms the 522 when running one or two applications.

So it comes down the the design of the unit which can be read above.

 

OK just tried DA2 again

I felt like DX 11 mode in 800x600 low settings has a smoother feel than DX9.

Min 10 FPS when you are in the middle of a spell

AVG 15-18 When you are surrounded by 5 enemies with no spells occuring

Max 24 When you are all alone or facing few enemies.

It was in Top Down View most of the time and a little bit of 3rd person when all enemies within my range are already dead.

So it was playable for me since DA2 isnt really about the graphics anyway but story

 

DX11 for DA2 might be like Civ 5 and WoW. Instead of adding prettier graphics, I forgot what the technique is but it makes the game run smoother. Still really impressive.

Where you the one who tested out tf2? If you still have it installed mind running it with dx8
right click to properties on TF2 in steam, go to set launch options and type in "-dxlevel 80" or "-dxlevel 81"

I edited my previous post with the WEI score from the 521. In case your curious

 

No I dont play TF2.

Maybe some other guy played it

 

I've been having this issue. It actually take opening CCC twice with about a 5 second delay between opens to get it to open. Then wait about 30 seconds and it will start.

It seems to crash on startup. This is annoying because I have my balanced profile for gaming and my power saver profile for well power saving. But if CCC is not open when I change profiles, the powerplay settings will remain the same, as you can see by opening CCC and you have to set them back again in CCC.

I tried running a batch file on startup to solve the issue with a delay and everything but for some reason, CCC will not start unless the system tray has been "refreshed" by moving the mouse over it to get rid of the CCC icon from the previously crashed start.

I did. It doesn't work. Basically it refuses to start.

Error message: "AMD OverDrive failed to start"

I hope someone finds a way to software overclock this thing. That would be cool and take my cod4 performance to a new level. (Although currently, at min settings at 1280x720 on less demanding maps and 800x480 on more demanding maps, I can get some good 40+ frames in most multi-player maps)

 

Hi to all of the users of our Acer Aspire AO522 units, just new here in the thread. I have a problem though and sort of looking for a solution by any chance somebody here has a kind heart.

Recently, i reformatted my unit from the windows 7 starter bundled with the system. I didnt know there are no included driver disc in the package. So I immediately reformatted and installed windows 7 professional. Just as I finished, i realized after reading this thread that the drivers for x64 OS were located in OEM folder in the backup of the unit before the reinstallation process.

Now Im on a mess looking for the x64 drivers all over the net which are no where to be found. Can anyone here who is willing to help and upload the x64 drivers for our AO522 so I can used the x64 OS of my windows 7. I recently upgraded my memory to 4GB and hdd from 250GB to WD Scorpio Black 500GB.

Your help will be much appreciated and God bless, more power to this thread and to all of us users of small but terrible baby here

 

Can anyone around here who is willing to help for those of us who're interested moving from 32-bit to 64-bit operating system. The drivers listed from the acer support website only offers 32-bit drivers.

 

Uploading those 64-bit drivers in mediafire will be highly and much appreciated, thanks in advance to all of you

 

I may have missed an earlier post ....

didnt see other posts.....

anyway

32 bit drivers will work on 64 bit OSes.(I think that was what other people did)

 

Need help:

i posted a while back about mine making a buzz/click like sound from left side about once every 30 mins or so,and asked if any others had same issues (one other person said they also noticed this)

so i took back to bb and they sent to acer....got phone call tonight from bb saying acer sent back and couldn't reproduce issue and found nothing wrong (but im not crazy i know this issue is happening to my netbook)

so is anyone else noticing this buzz/click like sound????

as bb wants me to pick back tommorrow without having done anything to fix it....and i would like to show there tecks this thread.....(hoping they simple give me replacement)

 

where did you get your replacement keyboard from? cause i kinda broke 2 keys upgrading to 4gig of ram my f4 and insert key keep getting stuck when i press them.

thks


maybe this one would be compatible?
http://www.aceroutlet.ca/products/A...,-D255,-D260-series.-Part:--KB.I100A.086.html

 

@diabeetea If you download the driver from Acer Support website altough the filename says x86. It does contain x64 drivers. It will automatically install the correct one for you.

Also congrats on the upgrades I put the same HDD in myself

FYI 32bit drivers do not work in a 64bit enviroment. Only applications

@Habs69M Woah where did you find that site? They have an inverter there!. I can fix my ao521 now. Holy Crap! Thanks.

Edit: I think I celebrated too soon cant find an invertor for my model. Was mistaken on the part number. But I put in a request in the request a part tab. So you never know

 

I must say this is the best bang for the dollar machine there is out there. Upgraded to 4 gb ram, 60 gig vertex2 sandforce SSD, windows 7 ultimate, and its smoking right now.

My only complaint is that Everquest will not run for some strange c++ crashing error. This machine runs starcraft2 really decent so I dont see why EQ is having issues.

Thanks for all of the great info here guys!