The Acer Guy

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.

You want comments? We got comments:

1. Jing wrote, on September 5th, 2007:

   

   I was pretty interested in doing this, but there is a Registry hack circulating around the Acer Notebookreview forums that can be used to remap some of the media keys’ functions.

   Those solutions seem pretty scary to try out Michael. It seems strange that you can only remap the keys, by reinstalling the Acer launch Program, and even more inconvenient for day to day use. Perhaps Acer or Synaptics (the company that make these touch controls) can develop more comprehensive software for re-mapping the keys.

   Finally, you can tell Simone I have encountered something troubling regarding the Arcade button. When my 5920 is turned off, the button is supposed to act like a Dell Media button, that allows you to play media, such as DVD’s and CD’s without booting the laptop into windows via Acer Arcade.

   When I use it, a Windows XP boot screen appears everytime (strange; is this supposed to happen?, cause I don’t like it. It seems like an old version of Acer Arcade has been installed that is reliant on XP, and additional Xp files) then after some time (longer than it takes Vista to boot) Acer Arcade screen appears. It works as it should, but upon exit, I get booted into Vista. Tell me if Im wrong, but isn’t the point of using the Arcade button specifically so I don’t have to boot into Windows?

2. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 5th, 2007:

   

   I’m glad you weighed in on this Jing, I was holding my breath for the longest time there….

   I think after all this, until Acer or Symantec come up with another suggestion on how to reprogram the keys, the safest bet is to leave things be, unless you want to simply disable the keys for which the above instructions are just fine.

   Apologies all round for jumping ahead of myself.

   As far as Arcade is concerned, Simone says the moment he gets his hands on a 5920G he’ll look into the XP thing.

3. Colin Welch wrote, on September 5th, 2007:

   

   the day i bought my acer, i hated the way best buy set it up, so i reformatted, i didnt install any acer e software cuz i hated that too, but installed all the drivers ans stuff. i am able to disable the touch buttons to the right but i would really like to use them with something other than stupid windows media player, also winamp has a button hotkey set thing but it dosnt recognize the media buttons, i did a little registry surfing but still cant find anything to with them. acer made a GREAT product but they messed up with customization in the software hardware integration. also it runs really hot sometimes (like 170 degrees according to speedfan) and ALSO you cant set the fan speed.

4. Colin Welch wrote, on September 6th, 2007:

   

   Update: after a little research i found that if i uninstalled the default driver that came from the acer website then reinstalled it, enabled everything in the settings then if u go to the synaptics website and install the newest driver from them the media buttons work worth winamp. ahhh, problem solved, super happy now, lol, all they were good for was pretty blue light but now i think my laptop is awesome.

5. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 6th, 2007:

   

   Hey Colin,

   I’m glad someone figured it out. Maybe I should add a 1, 2, 3 procedure to the main post so that anyone else who visits this post can see it. Thanks!

6. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 6th, 2007:

   

   Jing,
   Word back from Simone regarding Arcade (he got a 5920G). I can follow it up to a point, then you’re going to have to explain it to me

   Jing’s right about the XP splash screen. The reason this happens is that in order to run Arcade without running WindowsVista, Arcade is installed on a hidden partition of approximately 4GB, on which WIN XP is also installed.
   In fact if you look at it, the HDD is divided into 4 partitions:
   - a hidden partition needed for the recovery engine
   - partition C: with Vista
   - partition D: empty
   - a hidden partition with Arcade

   When he closes Arcade, does he see the splashscreen of the computer go into hibernation or not?
   What it seems to be doing is rebooting rather than shutting down…. but on the one I’ve got here, when I’m in Arcade and click on “Exit”, the XP partition goes into hibernation and then shuts down…
   Does this only happen when he opens Arcade?

   He could try doing this:
   turn on Arcade with the button, when the NB starts push F8 (try a number of times) and the system should ask him whether he wants to continue or whether he wants to reset everything to the default settings. Select reset.
   This will reset the part where Arcade is loaded, and the program should re-configure itself in some areas. But, if there were problems on the Arcade partition, these will be completely removed.

   How did he do?

7. Troy wrote, on September 7th, 2007:

   

   Thanks for the info guys, you really know your stuff! I have a question concerning the HDMI output. I tried connecting my 5920 to my Samsung 32″ HD TV and have found that there is no sound. The picture quality is great (especially for playing Bioshock!) but the sound is still pumping through the laptop and not the TV. Any ideas?

8. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 7th, 2007:

   

   Hey Troy,
   Great question! Have a look at the post it generated

9. Jing wrote, on September 7th, 2007:

   

   Hey Michael, tell Simone he was exactly right, and all the information provided was useful. Acer Arcade Instant-On work.

   Basically, everytime I tried to exit the Acer Arcade, the laptop would sound like it was powering off, only to boot up again, and load Windows.

   From what Simone said, when I exited Acer Arcade Instant-On, it should be hibernating, then turn itself off. However, it wasn’t.

   I then had an idea, instead of exiting, I pressed the Power button whilst within Acer Arcade. Success! A message appeared on-screen saying I was entering Hibernation, after which the laptop turned off. I tried pressing the Acer Arcade button after the laptop turned off, and a progress bar quickly appeared, with the words “resuming from standby” (or something like that) and loaded Acer arcade in about 10-15 seconds flat.

   No XP boot screen anymore.

   Something that annoys me though is the fact Windows XP needs to be installed. As well as wasting precious space, why can’t Vista be used? (e.g. what does XP have that vista can’t use to load Acer Arcade?) So when the next Windows Vienna comes out in a few years, will Vista have to be installed to boot up Acer Arcade?

10. Chris wrote, on September 12th, 2007:

    

    As a side question, can the 5920 be made actually boot into XP proper? Might be useful for people with Vista compatibility problems with software.

11. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 12th, 2007:

    

    Hi Chris,
    Apparently it can. Simone’s working on a step-by-step guide that I’ll post the moment (if and when) he sends it through…

12. Maikeru wrote, on October 24th, 2007:

    

    hi guys!
    i have recently bought an Aspire 4920G notebook.
    i have been problems with the MediaTouch keys.
    The first time i used the notebook, the record button was working (without the red light indicator) and whenever i press the media keys, they would cause the unit to beep. after a few days, i noticed that the record key had its lights on, and on certain occassions it was off. And the media keys no longer gave off any beep when press.
    its really frustrating.

    Another problem i have is with the touchpad. i reinstalled the driver / software a few days ago. after a while using it, i noticed that the omni-directional keys in-between the right/left buttons performed left clicks instead of the horz/vert scroll function. i was pretty sure i got the touchpad drivers for the 4920g model.

    Lastly, does anyone here experience the same Vista Pause problem? coming from sleep mode, the system would just suddenly go blank after a few minutes of using it. and then you have to power it off and back on again so you could use it.

    I’m starting to really hate this unit. but i know it has a lot of potential. are the acer guys aware of these problems / bugs?

    hope you guys could help me out. THanks!

13. Tom wrote, on November 3rd, 2007:

    

    Re: mediatouch keys with winamp
    I was able to get them to work, it was accident really, I use a great program called “cd art display” to show my album art with winamp. Just go to
    http://www.closetosoftware.com/?s=cdartdisplay
    then in the options of the program tell it to “use multimedia keyboard” works well for me.

    maikeru: I also had the same Vista pause problem, it went away for me after I severely changed around the sleep/power management settings. I haven’t had any problems since then.

14. mike wrote, on July 25th, 2008:

    

    i was playing around with the settings on my acer 5920g and i deactivated the media buttons on the right of the keyboard, but i have now forgotten how to reactivate them.
    please could someone help.

15. Morris Lee wrote, on July 26th, 2008:

    

    double click on the synaptics icon on the bottom right corner(if it is not there, right click on desktop -> personalize -> mouse pointers) Navigate to Acer Media touch, check the very first check box on that page. if the Acer Media Touch tab is not present, uninstall the current synapptics driver, then install the one from eRecovery Manager, or download it from Acer driver support page for aspire 5920

16. Gus wrote, on December 1st, 2008:

    

    Thank you!! I purchased a 5920G the other day and I’ve been very impressed with everything apart from the touch-sensitive keys. I could find nothing on the Acer website, and the support team from the company from whom I purchased the machine were clueless.

    Your article has saved my laptop from certain death and has also saved me some money on glazier’s fees! Many thanks

17. Maureen wrote, on January 23rd, 2009:

    

    I have big troubles. My son’s computer was in sleep mode and I turned it on pushing the little circle. I thought the triangle E button on the top was for internet and low and behold the Arcade started loading. I pushed exit and the computer said hybernate and went black. I pushed the little on button again and the computer went into recovery mode. Alt F8 didn’t do anything. Alt F5 got me places, but I couldn’t do anything there, F2 got me in Set up but I couldn’t do anything of use there. When you push Alt f10 and get into the recovery from disk screens I put my back up disk I made when I first got it and got a mismatch error d2ds32. I tried recovery from factory settings and got the same mismatch errors. I tried cprompt recovery nothing. I tried the recovery fix itself stuff and it said it could not. The problem event name: Startup Repair v2
    Problem signature 01: System Disk
    Problem signature 02: 6.0.6000.16386.0.0.0.0
    Prob signature 03: 0
    P. signature o4: 65537
    P. signt 05: unknown
    P.signture 06: corruptvolume
    P. signature o7: 0
    P. signature 08: 1
    P. signature 09: chkdsk
    P. sign 10: 31
    os version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
    local ID: 1033
    Does anyone know how to fix it? When I turn it on it asks me what language. I push English and then it asks what system or what driver. Under systems none are listed so it says chose driver. When you click on install a driver NEXT button it brings you to a system 32 section with pick a filename: with the type of file underneath saying set up file. No idea what to look for here and tried many and it usually says file folder is empty. The column on the left gives 3 choices. Places you were recently. Systems, or Computer. If you click computer the 3 drives are shown. C, X, and maybe LP or something like that. I put recovery CD in there and nothing happened either. The C drive also looks completely blank like all free space available 0 used or something…What the heck happened to the C drive? Did the Arcade thing wipe it out? I have a friend who is familiar with computers looking at it now, but I wanted to know if anyone had this kind of troubles and if Acer site has some kind of disk I could burn that will fix this headache. My son and I absolutely loved the computer until this happened. Its an Acer Aspire 5920. Thank you all for reading this lengthy entry. If I get it figured out I will share in case someone else has this problem.

18. Morris Lee wrote, on January 23rd, 2009:

    

    @Maureen,

    P.signture 06: corruptvolume

    that seems like a harddrive problem, if you have a Vista DVD, insert it, see if you can do a startup repair from there.

    maybe download Ubuntu live Disk and boot it up, check if the primary drive is visible to Ubuntu, if it is, harddrive might just need check disk done (chkdsk under cmd ether Win Vista DVD or in windows)

    if chkdsk does not fix the problem, you need a harddrive replacement, bring it in to local shops(small shops) if you don’t have warranty left

19. SimOinAus wrote, on January 28th, 2009:

    

    Hi guys, dose anyone know how to turn off all the blue lights on a acer 5920 including the on/off button and the L shape line next to it??
    cheers

20. Morris Lee wrote, on January 28th, 2009:

    

    @SimOinAus,

    you can’t, unless you unsolder those LED’s

21. emelito mendoza wrote, on July 8th, 2009:

    

    please help! my media keys does not work i checked everything and still does not work

22. MelesMeles wrote, on August 1st, 2009:

    

    On the Acer Aspire 6930, the touch-sensitive buttons (not just the media launchers, but the volume control and wireless button) are all hyper-sensitive and sometimes are triggered by nothing at all. I’d be happy if I could just disable them all. Any advice?

23. Morris Lee wrote, on August 2nd, 2009:

    

    @MelesMeles,

    You should be able to modify the settings under Mouse Properties -> Acer MediaTouch, at least, this is how it is on the 5920.

24. MelesMeles wrote, on August 3rd, 2009:

    

    @Morris

    Thanks for the suggestion. There doesn’t seem to be an option for me to disable the wireless button. There’s this very annoying intermittent connection which is disabling internet every time my fiancee drops a box upstairs. Also, the volume buttons aren’t backlit, and pressing a volume button triggers the IE launch. THere’s clearly some hardware problems, but I don’t really care about the touch-sensitive buttons. I just a nice hack to disable the whole bar.

    If you have any thoughts, I will be eternally in your debt, and send you cookies!

    –MelesMeles

25. Morris Lee wrote, on August 4th, 2009:

    

    @MelesMeles,

    One way to make sure you disable the touch buttons, you can uninstall the Synaptics touchpad driver and use the one from official synaptics site, as that driver does not suppor the touch keys.

    When I first had my 5920G, I get annoyed by the touch keys too but now I am used to it

26. MelesMeles wrote, on August 4th, 2009:

    

    @Morris

    Thanks for the advice. No luck. I installed the Synaptics driver, but some of the touch-sensitive buttons are still active.

    The play/pause/stop/volume buttons are all deactivated, which is a good step, but the wireless/IE buttons are still functioning and causing me problems because of the intermittent connection. It’s not that it annoys me, it’s that it disconnects me from the internet at random, making it impossible to use Skype or download large files.

    I really don’t want to have to return the laptop, since I’m not in the country and it will cost me a small fortune in shipping. Any other thoughts?

27. Morris Lee wrote, on August 6th, 2009:

    

    @MelesMeles,

    I guess you can try removing Launch Manager.

28. Mark wrote, on February 16th, 2010:

    

    I have used the touchpad driver from synaptics website for windows 7 and great it disables the touch sensitive media keys, but leaves the indicators on, using power unecessarily.

    Is there a way of turning these lights off?

    Many thanks.

    Mark

29. Morris Lee wrote, on February 17th, 2010:

    

    @Mark,

    What do you mean the indicator lights? as far as I know, there are no way to disable all the media key’s lights except the recording one.

    They barely uses any power, they are LED based, there are only 4 of small lights there, does not have a big impact, maybe 1 or 2 minutes less on your battery, not worth looking into disabling it. I have the recording light enabled on max brightness since I have used a custom driver so I can change the function for it.

    Morris Lee

30. AF wrote, on June 13th, 2010:

    

    I never knew the 5920g could boot Arcade like that when switched off.

    This laptop’s got so many cool tricks and the synaptics pad is one of the best I’ve ever experienced.

    I rebooted my laptop some time ago with Windows 7 and ditched most of the Acer Utilities except Arcade.

    When I press the Arcade button when the computer is shut down it just starts up the computer as the power button would.

    Is there any way to restore the Arcade boot function?
    The partition Michael Walsh mentions still exists…

31. silco wrote, on July 19th, 2010:

    

    @SimOinAus & Morris Lee:

    I am not sure but it seems like there should be some way to disable those buttons via software – see

    http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3897
    (“The media buttons are certainly useful, but it is easy to brush the touch sensitive buttons accidentally and trigger unwanted actions. But again, Acer provided software to let you adjust the sensitivity.”)

    or

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-5920G-Hard-drive-Capability/dp/B000XRVM1Q (” The touch sensitive “media player” buttons on the right-hand side are a pain – too easy to trigger by brushing against them. You can adjust their sensitivity or disable them – I found the latter the best solution since in normal use I don’t need them.”)

32. Frank wrote, on August 1st, 2010:

    

    Hello can anyone help i have a aspire 5670 have 11.1 gigs on c drive and recently almost every time i type on the keypad i get acer arcade launching itself , can anyone tell me how to get this to stop it happens intermittently when least expected and at times it does it for a good while then stops , then launches anyone plz help

33. Frank wrote, on August 1st, 2010:

    

    Hello can anyone help i have a aspire 5670 , Running windows xp, have 11.1 gigs on c drive and recently when i type on the keypad i get acer arcade launching itself , can anyone tell me how to get this to stop it happens intermittently when least expect it and at times it does it for a good while then stops , then launches anyone plz help i would really appreciate it

34. Ricardo Nicola wrote, on January 9th, 2011:

    

    I have an ACER ASPIRE laptop computer that I purchased Dec. 28, 2009. I am just a couple of days outside my warranty period and ACER is basically telling me I am “shit out of luck”. It basically does not want to boot and wants to constantly scan and repair itself but outside Windows. Please help me diagnose the problem. When I power-on the computer the activity light does not blink or remain steady.

35. jorephy wrote, on August 8th, 2011:

    

    My acer aspire 4920 media touch keys got problem. keep beeping as if we press the start and pause button. give me the solution pls~~~

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