Acer 5920 Upgrade.

Hello Everyone.

Just looking for a little advice before proceeding with a major upgrade.

I have an Acer Aspire 5920 that is in good working order running Vista. The laptop is taking ages to boot up and down so I am thinking seriously about a major upgrade.

I admit that it may be more economical to buy new, but I like the challenge having successfully upgraded a desktop before.

Here were my original thoughts:

1) Upgrade from 2GB to 4GB RAM. Seems easy and cheap. In order to get the best from the RAM upgrade I would also:

2) Install a clean copy of 8.1. All of my important files are on a remote HDD so no problems with data saving.

and finally

3) Upgrade T7300 CPU to T9500.

However looking into things a little more I'm now thinking that upgrading to a SSD would be easier since I am planning a clean install of 8.1 anyway and this would result in a faster operation compared to a CPU upgrade.

Also I reckon that a CPU upgrade would be technically more difficult and risky.

I was wondering about possible driver problems with the 5920. It looks as if I could install x64 version. Could I be setting myself up for problems here?

Any thoughts on the upgrade proposals?

Z

 

/summons triturbo & cdoublejj to the thread.

 

The RAM upgrade would give you the largest overall performance gain. Having just 2GB will limit your multitasking ability.

An SSD is also a great upgrade; storage drive read/write access is often a bottleneck especially when starting up and opening programs. I've always stuck to the Intel SSDs but there are other solid brands as well, such as Samsung and its 840/850 line. We have a whole forum dedicated to SSD's: SSD Forum

Upgrading the CPU from a T7300 -> T9500 will likely be unnoticeable for everyday tasks ...I'd skip it unless you can find an inexpensive CPU (<$50). Note if you do the CPU upgrade, you'll also have to get some thermal paste and potentially do quite a bit more disassembly. The operation carries some risk.

The poster above me mentioned a couple of our users who have the Acer 5920 who can likely shed light on your other questions/concerns.

 

^ What he said. RAM and SSD, CPU - not so much. It would help for FullHD movies for example and some games, but the I don't think that the price is reasonable for the performance gain. So again - RAM and SSD, it would fly

 

The CPU upgrade has little marginal value, but the hard drive to SSD and adding more memory will offer you better bang for your buck. If you need more space, the WD Black2 might worth a look. It's a 120GB SSD and 1TB hard drive mated into one 9.5mm drive. That way you get the SSD for the OS, which will give you speed, and the 1TB drive for files and whatnot where speed is not as critical. It'll also cost about half or less what a 1TB does.

 

Many thanks for the helpful replies everyone.

Looks like SSD and RAM is the way to go.

I will also install the Windows 8 pre-diagnostic tool that checks your system for Windows 8 incompatibility issues..

Z

 

Update

Purchased a clean copy of Windows 8.1 and a Samsung 840 EVO 120GB as recommended. Both installed today fairly smoothly.

First install of 8.1 went badly because I took the advice of another user and did not enable the on line driver searching. I tried to finish the drivers manually but it appears that the ones I was trying to install were not the correct ones.

I installed 8.1 again and this time let it do a driver search on line. There were still a few conflicts but with the help of DRIVER MAX my wireless is now working and all of my apps are installed as well.

The system is very fast; I still have 2GB RAM as the retailer did not have any DDR2 in stock. I just ordered that from ebay but that is a routine thing. Also with 64 bit I now have the luxury of the full 4GB when it arrives rather than being imited to 3GB with 32 bit.

Device manager is still showing some conflicts:

Ethernet card ( Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet)
Winbond CIR Tranceiver whatever that is. I think this a bogus device as it did not show up on Device Manager prior to the upgrade.
ATA Channel 1 which is probably bogus although ATA channel 0 is showing up as properly installed.

I'm not panicking about these. I plan to load up DRIVER MAX tomorrow to see if it can resolve the outstanding issues. Apparently you get two free searches and downloads per day unless you pay. I may even pay for it yet.

So there you go.

A great upgrade. Not cheap but there again the laptop is working superbly and as good as a model costing at least £400.

Any further thoughts welcome.

 

I would not have recommended Driver Max, let alone think about paying for it.

See:
Acer | Download

Go to the above link, chose the model of the 5920 that you have, choose Win7x64 and those are the only drivers I would be considering installing on a system that I want to be stable and not have to rebuild again until I throw it away.


If you do the above, I would recommend a clean install and let Windows Update install anything it wants to, as long as it is not in the Optional section.

After a couple of reboots, pick and choose the drivers from the link above and install, reboot and checking if the Device Manager shows them as working properly.

The only ones I would not consider from the Acer support website would be the ones for the VGA drivers - use the current ones as needed (NVidia or AMD).


Before any of the above is done, do you have the latest BIOS as indicated on that website? If not, I would flash it first, then do a clean Win8.1x64 install.


You may notice that the Acer website has the driver for the CIR (InfraRed) transceiver, so it seems it may not be bogus.

You may need to do this install dance a few times to get a fully stable and functioning system - don't rush it. It will more than pay off by having a system that simply works as expected until you decide it is time to retire it. Keep a list of the order you do the installs in and if the system is unstable, change that order to find one that works.

How you describe your systems present state, I would not use it or expect it to be dependable. Even if you find the proper drivers for the missing devices and install them. Driver Max is not smart enough to know what your Acer systems needs - all it is doing is scamming for Ca$h by installing 'any' driver that somewhat matches the hardware id.

And that is not good enough for me.


Good luck.

 

Tiller you are a star!

Just installed the drivers for the suspected conflicts (The Card Reader, and CIR Tranceiver). The Ethernet card is now showing as working. The ATA is also showing as working,

The CIR is still showing as not installed properly but the system is stable; everything works that I want.

Not bad for a days work.

A step nearer to being 100% but I honesty reckon I'll be able to live with it.

I'l keep trying; noted about Driver Max. I'll delete now.

Happy Bunny

:thumbsup:

To add:

The Winbond CIR Tranceiver was indeed listed in Device Manager before the upgrade. My error.

 

Glad to have helped.