The Acer Guy

Hi everybody.

I need your help. Or rather Jimmy does.

Jimmy was about to buy an Aspire 5920 (6313 model) from Best Buy but they’re no longer listing them on the site. Do any of you from the US know of any other online stores selling them? Thanks.

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Just in case any of you were wondering why Simone and I haven’t been replying to your questions and/or writing new stuff or replies it’s because we’ve been getting ready for Acer’s annual press conference in Madrid this week-end.

I have (I think) finished all the preparations, we’ve got the company brochures done, press releases, there’s some really interesting material on Acer’s environmental policies I’ll probably follow up on in the near future and the inevitable new models I’m not allowed to mention but I think some of you know what to expect. Again, I’ll be following up on them in due course.

So, my part is (virtually) over. I might have to make some last-minute corrections to the keynote speeches but other than that, I’m done. Oh, by the way, I’m not going to Madrid as any minute now I’m expecting my wife to call (our third baby’s due in a few weeks).

Simone on the other hand has been shipped lock, stock and barrel to Madrid. Who else would you expect to keep the hardware running smoothly for three days straight in a hotel? He will not be able to read his mail either.

So, we’re limping a little but we’re both here in spirit. I’ll do my best to keep things afloat but please be patient if I don’t get back to you right away, particularly on the technical questions.

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The fourth user review of the Aspire 5920 comes from Canada. Again, the rules are very simple. You do it, I’ll publish it.
Here’s what Morris has to say about his….

The new Acer Aspire Gemstone, co-designed by BMW is yes, shiny. Not to mention, it is better looking in some perspectives then the older models in the Aspire series. With the “door handle” design, and the rather rigid hooks for keeping the lid closed, it becomes very functional (Not like some older laptops with cheap hooks that break so easily with only a small twitch, e.g. my old TravelMate C100) lol


Lets take a looky -

With the Shiny “Gemstone” look outside, and the beige/grayish color finish inside is not so bad of a combination. The door handle features a webcam, which gets kind of annoying, The angle is fixed unless you tilt the LCD. Before I made up my mind, I did consider that the color for the interior might get dirty easily. But after I received the product, I noticed that the color is not completely white so it made it easier to keep clean.

6.6 lbs. is quite heavy for me, but it comes with a 15.4 inch LCD that has a max. resolution of 1280×800 Pixels. I can’t ask for more! (left: my old TravelMate C100 from Acer, right: Aspire 5920, behind: my desktop with 17″ monitor).

Lets take a CLOSER look -

The High-Definition Surround sound speakers is what I call amazing! Playing Counter-Strike: Source is more impressive than ever before with the 15.4″ wide screen. With the support of the subwoofer, music playback is rather impressive even though it is just a laptop.

And the “lovely” media touchkeys on the side, you play pause, stop, next track, previous track button made it convenient while you are Word processing, gaming etc.

Some useful key buttons on the left side here allows you to toggle wireless on or off to save power, open up Internet quickly, read Emails right away, and the useless bluetooth button on this model… Both the Internet and the Email button can be reprogrammed to open up something else.

The HD-DVD ROM with the combination of multi-burner is a useful feature, with the capability of HD-DVD play back, and ability to burn DVD and CD media, great desktop replacement. Sure a HD-DVD drive, but what about the display? Yes the monitor on this laptop already has the capability to display 720p videos.

So, 15.4″ not big enough for ya? get a load of the support of HDMI port on this laptop, plug it in to your HDTV with single cable you get both sound and display XD. So on this side, we got 3 USB ports, more then enough, both RJ45 and RJ11 for both cable/DSL and dial-up connection, a 15 pin VGA port, s-video, and of course, the firewire. One last thing on this side, the ExpressCard /54 slot is available for some other device expansion.

CPU: Core 2 Duo T52520 1.5 GHz, 2 MB cache
RAM: DDR2 PC5300 2GB Dual Channel configuration
Graphics: 8600M GT 256 MB up to 1024MB (note that the 768MB is used for both system and graphics, so system still has 2GB)
HD: Hitachi 160GB SATA 5400RPM (only thing that’s actually slow on this laptop)
Bluetooth: Not included in this model
Drive: HD-DVD DVD CD multi burner
Wireless: Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG 802.11a/b/g WLAN(goes pretty far to about few neighbors distance)
Sound: Realtek High Definition Audio with VirtualSurroundSound Speakers
Keyboard: 88-key, inverted T cursor layout, embedded numeric keypad, hotkey controls, 2.5mm minimum key travel, international language support
Battery: 8 Cell 4800mAh 1.5 hr high performance gaming 4 hr on low power web surfing + messaging

Other notes -
Pros: Nice battery life , 1 and half hour mobility gaming for games like oblivion is more than enough for me, 4 hrs if you use it for only web surfing, or messaging. looks very shiny when the lid is closed and all the LED lights in the interior. HDMI output and HD-DVD ROM

Cons: Shiny, but easily scratched or gets all oily with your hands touching it, hard to clean it after, hard drive slowing the whole computer down in the loading speed so it’s useless to have DDR2 technology. 6.6lbs (3.0 kg), kind of heavy for long distance traveling.

Summary.
Great laptop for University Students who would like to game or watch some movies during class break time, and with the built-in mic’s and speakers, it’s awesome for stuff like skype so you can voice chat with people easily.

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2.5

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Got another question in from Amine about the Aspire 5920.

My question is about the FAN, it kicks in way TOO often, even in 2D mode. Do you have a way to control the fan speed of the laptop ?

Now the obvious answer here is to just play with the Empowering Suite software. With ePower Management you can adjust the settings a little bit, but it’s not a complete solution. In fact, Amine’s response was:

When I unplug the PC from the outlet, the fan sure calms down… there is some sort of power management link between the power outlet and the notebook. It seems as if you unplug it, both the gpu AND cpu are underclocked, which makes the fan turn slower. Playing with empowering does lower the fan, but it does not replace the fact of unplugging the pc from the power outlet.
my question is : how to obtain the SAME result using a software, because i keep my laptop plugged in all the time. I want the quiteness of unplugged laptop with the ac outlet in. (same usage of course).

Now I don’t know of any other solution to this (other than Empowering Technology). So this time it’s an open question. Do any of you know of a software solution to this problem?

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On another post, I received a question from Troy about getting sound from the HDMI output on his Aspire 5920.

I’ve come across this problem before on my home theatre set up so I thought the problem would be similar.

What you have to do is go into Control Panel –> Audio Devices (DO NOT click the Realtec CODEC but on “Audio” in Windows Vista) and select HDMI as the default audio ouput. When you use the DVD, the audio will be redirected through the HDMI bus and you’ll be able to hear it on the TV. You might need to change it back once you’re done though.

Here’s a screenshot of the “Audio” menu you should see. It’s in Italian but hey, beggars can’t be choosers

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I received an interesting question from Eoin (Fitzer) and Colin earlier on and thought I’d write a thread about it.

Eoin asked “I would like to reassign the ‘dummy’ bluetooth button…is this possible?”, while Colin wanted to know “is there any way of making the media touch buttons on the right usable with winamp or any other media player than windows media player?”

Well I checked with the Acer support guys and there are two things is something you can do with the media keys: disable them (so you don’t keep accidentally brushing against them when you type) or reinstall them which should allow you to reassign the functionality.

For the first (deactivation), you have to disable the function form the touchpad driver (sorry it’s in Chinese, but I’m sure you can figure out where you have to click).

Then uncheck the item

The media key will be disabled.

If you’re not happy with that, the second solution I have been given is to remove the launch manager and reinstall it by going into Control Panel -> Manage Programs and Applications. You’ll need a reboot but in theory that’ll let you reassign the controls. I don’t have a 5920 available to play with so I can’t vouch for any of these but feel free to play around and see if either one works.

UPDATE 1: I’ve crossed out the reinstall option because I’m not happy recommending it. See my comment below.

UPDATE 2:My man Simone’s being cryptic today, and has asked me to invite 5920 users to install iTunes + Quicktime and see what happens to the Arcade button (top right). Emm, let me know as I’m in the dark.

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I’ve had a couple of requests to do this and I think it’s time I gave some serious thought about setting up a forum.

Some of these threads are particularly long and they’re getting difficult to follow. So what do you say I install a forum plug-in? That way you can have your say and we can divide it into sections so that people can get to the information they need faster.

It’s just a thought. Maybe you’ve got a better one? I’ve downloaded what appears to be a good one from BBPress so you might see a new page pop up in the next few days. Let me know what you think of the idea and I’ll see about getting it up.

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