The Acer Guy

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.

Other Pictures

My network headquarter XD

Shiny~~~~~

Not so shiny

Glow Glow Glow!

Dolby, lets watch a movie…

Sticker

More stickers…

5 in 1 card reader, audio, mic, line-in jack with volume wheel

- The details -
Acer Aspire 5920-6313

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.

You want comments? We got comments:

1. Morris Lee wrote, on September 18th, 2007:

   

   Hello, I am Morris Lee, the Author of this review, feel free to ask me question as I will be happy to answer you in the best way I can.

   Morris Lee

2. Dean wrote, on October 15th, 2007:

   

   hey.
   have we worked out whats the best video drivers to use?

3. Morris Lee wrote, on October 17th, 2007:

   

   hummm… I heard the 154.45(something like that) worked well, but I am using the 163.69 one, you know, you stay updated and play bioshock too

4. Morris Lee wrote, on October 29th, 2007:

   

   today, my laptop kinda messed up, video card driver can’t be installed anymore, only the original one thats packed with this computer, even with that driver, the power modes for the card is no longer functioning correctly, since it is stuck at 275 mhz core at all times, even if you set the graphics power mode in the acer epower thing, no effect will be made. as for the CPU, there is also a problem, it can no longer hold back to 700mhz(690mhz ish) to save power, that was a while ago, doesn’t effect the maxmium performence, but can’t save power so well anymore…. this was caused by installing the 64 bit vista, and reverting back to 32bit didn’t fix it at all. So, I am thinking of sending it back to the manufacture for exchange or repair, gotta call them tomorrow morning, since it is Sunday today, F@#$!!!!!

5. Michael Walsh wrote, on October 30th, 2007:

   

   Hey Morris,

   Man I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems!

   I wrote to Simone and he replied with this. Hope it helps you out:

   Hi Morris,

   Have you reinstalled 32bit OS formatting hdd ? I think yes but … it’s strange that after reinstalling an OS drivers cannot work correctly … If you have installed from zero, nothing of the previous OS is stored in the hw, of course; but HW could be damaged if the value of the driver settings is too high/aggressive. It could, but …….
   Can you use your recovery DVD to re-install the original Acer preload?
   If not, you’re going to have to contact an Acer repairing center to get it back up and running.

6. Morris Lee wrote, on November 7th, 2007:

   

   yes, it is 32 bit, everything formatted….. clean, inside out clean, ahaha, still, same problem. I contacted acer for repair, and they want me to send it in for diagnostics for a week time-who have time to wait that long? sigh….. according to my experiences with computers, this is so far just the commnunication between the hardware and the software, so yeah, there is nothing Ican realyl do from there is there??? hum… yeah, the recovery, I don’t have the disk, I had eRecovery, stupidist theory ever, storing a backup in your harddrive and you can’t even see? reinstalling windows yourself makes it useless, whys that?? the Alt+F10 on the startup no longer works……why didn’t they just make recovery disks????

7. avinash wrote, on December 30th, 2007:

   

   Hi i wanted to know if you know how to solve this problem.i managed to change my OS to XP after changing the sata options in bios but instead of 250 Gbs i have only 130.I have formated the laptop a couple of times now but always the same result only 130 GB.When i bought it i had Vista but you know the deal with vista right and yes it had 250 Gb i hecked.How can i resolve this if you know.Also i got nearly all the drivers for it from the Acer site but there are some (minor ones) missing that i don’t know what they are so any help where to get all of it.

8. ANGIE wrote, on January 19th, 2008:

   

   Hi,
   I AM KINDA ASKING A V SILLY QUESTION HERE,.
   i WANTED TO DO A WEB CHAT WITH MY BROTHER WHO LIVES IN FRANCE., THROUGH YAHOO OR GTALK BUT FOR SOME REASON I CANT HEAR HIM AND HE CAN HEAR ME AND I HAVE TRIED THIS WITH MY FRIEND IN LA WHO IS FACING THE SAME PROBLEM. I WANTED TO KNOW WHAT SETTING DO I DO OVER THIS LAPTOP. CAN U SUGGEST
   kIND REGARDS
   ANGIE

9. Pizpot wrote, on February 12th, 2008:

   

   I got my 5920 a week ago. I formatted the whole hardrive, and it is 250GB just fine. I made a 100GB fat32 partition using the Ubuntu7.10 cd. I installed XP home retail there and all the drivers are good from acer. I then installed Ubuntu linux on the rest of the hardrive. Ubuntu had all the drivers built in, although you do need to fiddle with the volume control to unmute Center and Surround to get sound in all programs such as XMMS. Vista can wait. I called Acer Canada, they will refund me $65 for Vista if I ship it to them. LOL. I also know that the store owes you $300 and no OS if you raise a stink. But, I’ll need it someday for work… Nice laptop, very compatible. Great drivers for every OS! XP, Vista, linux.

   6800 score in 3d mark 2006, not too shabby. Plays DOOM3 on high quality mode very smooth! Wow. Plays warcraft for windows in linux with very high frame rate! Better than my desktop in native windows. I’m impressed, and hey look, the price is $50 less and I got it less than 14 days ago… thank you very much for the refund.

   pizpot(at)shaw(dot)ca

10. Ben wrote, on February 22nd, 2008:

    

    avinash:

    I believe that the 130 gigabyte is a Windows XP limit. I was experiencing the same problem and once I installed service pack 2 with Windows XP I then installed Partition Magic and was able to get the entire hard drive space available.

11. Morris Lee wrote, on April 7th, 2008:

    

    I am sorry guys, I have been busy. avinash, you should look into the driver for windows xp, and make sure you have installed the windows sp2 version, I believe the older version of windows(eg, 2000, 98, 95 etc…) cannot handle more then 128 gb or something… just a thought.
    for ANGIE, I think it is because your audio driver is not installed correctly, go to the acer’s website, look up aspire 5920 and download the version of realtek driver there, thats the one that will understand that aspire 5920 has 2 mics.

12. Morris Lee wrote, on April 7th, 2008:

    

    Oh yeah, forgot to inform you guys, i got my laptop back from acer, everything is working fine again. a break through I manage to do yesterday was to bind my bluetooth button to toggle from Power Saver to High Performance and pressing it again to go back to Power Saver, very useful function so you don’t have to use the mouse to click on the battery icon then ….. you know the time it takes to do that. With the button to instantly toggle the power is really useful to me, but if anyone feel that they want to use this function too for the useless bluetooth button on their 5920, please email me at morrismurphy@gmail.com, once more then 10 people has sent request, i will write a complete guide on how to do so.

    Morris Lee

13. Scarlet wrote, on April 8th, 2008:

    

    hello,
    kind of hoping you might know how i would fix my acer c100. i tried to do a system restore with the cd’s , they worked for a bit and now after POST, it doesn’t show up with win xp tab ed. it just shows a lovely blank dark screen and a flashing cursor in the upper left corner. won’t allow any typing, nada.
    i have checked and everything is on the hd, just for some reason it isn’t showing..isn’t starting into windows.

    i don’t have any money to send it to a tech to fix so it’s all up to me.

    any help would be GREATLy appreciated!! i miss my BABY!! love it. the acer travelmate C100 is the absolutely perfect laptop for me.

    thanks!!

14. Morris Lee wrote, on April 9th, 2008:

    

    Scarlet, I would recommand a fix MBR(Master boot record) to do so you will require to have a Windows XP installation disk(I believe any version will do) boot with the disk with the disk drive came with your c100. On the first screen, press “r” for recovery settings I remember, you will get to a screen, might ask you keyboard settings, choose english, enter the administrator password if there is one. From the command prompt type exactly “fixmbr” without the quotes, enter, then press “y” for yes when it ask to confirm the operation. When it is done, either use command “exit” to reboot(pull the disk out after it is off) and rebooting should boot windows.

    If the above option still does not work, try a check disk(check for disk errors, it fix all the incorrect sectors that’s possible), use the “chkdsk /f” without the quotes(1 space between chkdsk and /f) in the recovery option from windows xp disk.

    if you do not have a windows xp disk, but you do have another computer such as a desktop running, get either a laptop ATA to desktop ATA converter and plug it in or using a laptop ATA to USB converter and run the chkdsk command like above, we will be using using cmd here, fist change the drive letter corresponding to the windows explorer shows for your c100 harddrive using “cd..” enter then “(eg “e:”)”

    Note: the Laptop ATA to desktop ATA converter are usaually sold in local stores for about $5.00 USD(preferbly small stores, bigger stores meaning “Best Buy” etc)

    If abit of money was not an issuse, perchase a “hitachi laptop hdd upgrade kit” but use a fresh install of windows. 2nd, I would also recommand a new laptop, c100 is old, the wifi card does not even support some password encryption(I had figure out some work around to just even upgrade the wifi card manually) c100 gets very very hot in my lap too(c100 is fanless, I took it apart before).

    Anyother questions post here, you can reach me easily via email, i check my emaill pretty much every hour

    email
    morrismurphy@gmail.com

    Good luck on testing some of these methods
    Morris Lee

15. Michael Walsh wrote, on April 9th, 2008:

    

    Hi guys,

    Thanks Morris for that answer. There is a caveat here though… Simone says that your solution will only work if Scarlet has an original Windows XP CD… If all you (Scarlet) have is the Acer back-up CD, it won’t work.

    The only thing to do is a full system restore, but the “flashing cursor in the upper left corner”could mean that the disk needs looking at. Before doing a full restore it might be wise to check the state of your disk and if possible clean it up.

    That’s what he said…

16. Morris Lee wrote, on April 9th, 2008:

    

    yes, thats essentially what I have presumed, I also stated that you wold need a windows disk in that specific reply. With her indications, I believe it to be a harddrive problem or boot sector being corrupted. but cursor on the upper left corner is something i have never seen, the default position for windows cursor on startup is the center of the screen, however, Linux GUI such as Gnome, also for Mac OS have the cursor on the top left corner on startup though. Seen the corsor to be located on top left is very very uncommon already….

    hope I helped at all
    Morris Lee

17. Scarlet wrote, on April 10th, 2008:

    

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!! i do have a win xp disc. had to buy it last year for a class. i will be doing what you suggested post haste!!

    figures my cursor would be weird. nothing surprises me anymore!! *L*

    going to go and fix what i boogered. i also have a usb cable that will connect either a desktop or laptop hd. so that option is also doable.

    once again thanks for your help!!

    CHEERS!!

18. Scarlet wrote, on April 12th, 2008:

    

    BOOM BABY!! Absolutely worked brilliantly! took me a bit to figure a few things out but right on the $$.
    Thank you both, Morris Lee & Michael Walsh !!
    i appreciate this more than you will ever know!!

    i can’t afford anything newer than what i have so i have to keep it running as best i can.

    once again thanks!!
    CHEERS!!

19. Morris Lee wrote, on April 12th, 2008:

    

    No problem, I am glad you sort it out!

    Morris Lee

20. Damian wrote, on April 15th, 2008:

    

    Hi – hoping someone can help with this.

    I installed XP on my 5920 successfully except for one thing.

    When I boot it takes about 20 – 30 seconds to move on from the ACER boot-up screen – it used to only be in view for about 2 – 3 seconds.

    Just to let you know, it happens in IDE and ACHI setting in the BIOS.

    Any ideas as to the cause of this (and possible fix) would be greatly appreciated.

    Kind Regards,

    Damian.

21. Morris Lee wrote, on April 16th, 2008:

    

    Damian, I would suggest updating your BIOS, I even run my vista under the ACHI mode right now, does not take as long a your now. Follow http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5920.html and scroll down to “BIOS and Guides” choose which ever one you want, but for your info, I am using 3708. going to try the newest one now, since 3805 was really loud…

    happy testing!!

22. Morris Lee wrote, on April 16th, 2008:

    

    oops, Damian, wrong word, i meant IDE instead of ACHI there

23. Damian wrote, on April 16th, 2008:

    

    Hi Morris – thanks for the fast reply.

    I was using 3708 also.

    I tried 3805 – 3811 and it’s still the same.

    I forgot to add in my first post that when I start from a cold boot it starts normally (about 2 seconds on the post screen).

    It’s only on a restart that I get the 20 second delay.

    I just don’t get what’s making it hang there for so long.

    If you (or anyone else) have any other suggestions please let me know.

    Good luck with the BIOS flash!

24. Morris Lee wrote, on April 16th, 2008:

    

    do you have any other usb device before the harddrive to boot? make sure there are not disk in the DVD drive, change the harddrive to first boot device. give those a try, since I had my 60gb usb drive with linux, but later I removed it, having a unbootable drive plugged in the primar boot device will reault a long startup.

    Morris Lee

25. Damian wrote, on April 16th, 2008:

    

    I’ve tried all of those things and searched through many forums from Google results and have not come up with anyone that mentions the same problem.

    The only other thing I can think of is that it’s possibly something to do with the drivers I installed, but again I don’t understand why it boots fine from being totally shutdown but not from a restart.

    Thanks for your help – if I get it figured out I’ll post the solution just in case there is someone else with this problem.

    Guess I’ll just have to post the issue in some other forums and hope for the best for now.

    Regards – Damian

26. Morris Lee wrote, on April 17th, 2008:

    

    Drivers should not affect the bios, technically. then again, for a fact that vista last longer on battery on power saver then xp, it was benchmarked somewhere… this is why I didn’t bother changing to XP

27. Tushar wrote, on April 29th, 2008:

    

    i m not able to listen sound in ubuntu linux with my acer lappy 5920.

28. Morris Lee wrote, on April 29th, 2008:

    

    check if your audio driver is installed, use ALSA in the audio control panel thing, make sure from the audio icon, you select surround, and have it un-mutted.

29. Cool Breeze wrote, on May 13th, 2008:

    

    How do I get the volume and wireless displays on my computer screen. It used to display when I changed the volume or turned off/on the wireless. I know this is kinda simply but I really liked that option and I can’t get it back.

30. Morris Lee wrote, on May 13th, 2008:

    

    cool breeeze, are you in windows? if so, to get the green on screen display messages for toggling wireless volume touchpad etc, install launch manager, you should be able to get the installer from eRecovery.

31. Charlie wrote, on May 14th, 2008:

    

    Hello again!

    Well, I have now installed Ubuntu on my 5920, and it works splendidly, really fab. However, my Vista install is now broken- when selecting it from GRUB, the screen goes blank and then we have a reboot!

    Actually, the problem started after I’d worked on the partitions- after removing the recovery partition, all was well. Then I deleted ‘D’, resized (down!) ‘C’ and moved it right to make a large continuous space for Ubuntu.

    Then restarting resulted in going around in circles- BIOS, blank screen, restart…

    Any ideas how this happens and how to correct it?

    Of course, you were quite correct about the Acer Arcade breaking at this point as well. I get the error-
    Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
    \system32\hal.dll.
    Please re-install a copy of the above file.

    I will take a look at that another day!

    Cheers
    Charlie

32. Morris Lee wrote, on May 14th, 2008:

    

    hal.dll currupt or missing is the os’s own problem, so fart I only see it happen in XP, I would assume the arcade is running a reduced version of XP to tun arcade. to fix it you might have to go look into the partition using linux, and download another copy from the web. I don’t think arcade is so important in your case anyway, but to fix the MBR of the arcade, in windows, navigate to C:\Acer\eFrame(something like that)\eRecovery\ here find the mbrwrwin.exe and rtmbr2.bin(I think those are the names) run like mbrwrwin.exe install rtmbr2.bin in cmd, make sure you get the path correctly example would be “C:\mbrwrwin.exe install C:\rtmbr2.bin” if both files are right under the C:\ partition.

33. Charlie wrote, on May 14th, 2008:

    

    Hmmmmm.

    Well, unfortunately, I can’t boot anything in Windows at the moment, so am unable to follow your advice! As you say, the arcade is less important to me- are you able to shed any light on the Vista-failing-to-boot issue? Then I could have a go at the arcade recovery advice…

    Cheers!
    Charlie

34. Morris Lee wrote, on May 15th, 2008:

    

    humm…. do if you have a vista installation disk, you can try chkdsk /f command for the C:\, and the use http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392 the bootrec thing to fix your MBR, just to be sure… I don’t know if this will overlap GRUB, I would assume it would. I used Fedora, in fedora installation, I recall there was an option that automatically protects the MBR of windows, but GRUB controlled. not sure about ubuntu, ubuntu is too… brown and orange…. ahah fedora is blue~~ LAWLS anyways, good luck for trying those options, please do reply is it works or not. REMEMBER! ALWAYS BACKUP!!!!!! ^_^

35. Charlie wrote, on May 15th, 2008:

    

    Wah-hey!

    That worked. I had to download a Vista installation disc iso and burn it- it was Vista Lite (don’t think it mattered, as I just needed the recovery part of the setup), followed the instructions for repair via Bootrec.exe. The automatic fix didn’t work.

    Then needed to re-instate GRUB- using ‘Dualboot Option 2 – GRUB bootloader’ 2/3 of the way down the page. With all my mucking about with partitions, I used (hd0,4) and not 0,0.

    Now it just works perfectly! Thanks for all your help.

    Charlie

36. Morris Lee wrote, on May 15th, 2008:

    

    lol, I am glad you got it sorted out!!

    Morris

37. Cool Breeze wrote, on May 17th, 2008:

    

    as simple as my question was, u answered it. i really appreciate the love. thanks for being cool as hell.

38. Dipak Debanth wrote, on June 4th, 2008:

    

    Hi,
    I am using Fedora core 8 linux. But have not able to find any audio driver for this laptop in linux; which I brought just 1.5 months before. But in Windows Xp sound quality is very fine. Could you please help me out?

    Thanking you.

    Dipak

39. Morris Lee wrote, on June 4th, 2008:

    

    Realtek HD audio should be automatically installed, go to sound manager or something, change all the input and out put to ALSA, on the top right corner, go to the preference of the speaker icon, change the “Surround” volume to get sound from the speakers

40. Morris Lee wrote, on June 22nd, 2008:

    

    A update on the graphics card driver, for all the aspire users that is equipted with nvidia graphics card, you should be able to apply 175.61 from laptopvideo2go.com, since this one is directly packed by Acer, no need for moding the inf files

    Even better news, HD-DVD works for this driver too

    If you want to update driver later one as soon as possible, refer back to laptopvideo2go.com, and search the forum topics with key term “acer” then it will show you the latest discovered driver from acer I suppose.

41. Morris Lee wrote, on August 6th, 2008:

    

    Another update, a BIG one,

    Integrated the bluetooth usb dongle a while back (http://techdailly.uni.cc/5920review/bluetooth) now I integrated a 4 port USB hub, I have both the bluetooth and the wireless mouse receiver in the laptop. no more USB ports being occupied outside.

    Physx Working with Unreal Tournament 3 Physx Mod, further testing on other games compatibility are to come, but physx runs flawlessly on 177.79 with v8.07.18 (http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19939)

    Have a good one

42. Amanda wrote, on August 8th, 2008:

    

    Hi

    I have an Acer Aspire 5920. Ive only had it for a week and it died on me. I have contacted the Acer support team as to how to get it back up and running, but my real concern is the files on the computer. To fix the computer means losing the files on it but I really really need them!!! Is there any way of getting them back?

    Ive been told to buy an external hard drive case and put my hard drive in it so I can get the files off it that way. Is that possible or is there an easier way?

    Cheers

43. Morris Lee wrote, on August 8th, 2008:

    

    use another computer to download Ubuntu (google it, it’s free), burn it to a disk using Nero or somesort, boot Ubuntu (live dsk mode) in your laptop, put all the files you want to the D drive (D: DATA partition) then, use Alt +F10 to use factory default Windows. All the files in D: are not touched when using eRecovery.

44. Amanda wrote, on August 9th, 2008:

    

    Hi again,

    I have tried this, however, it has not succeeded.

    I have used Ubuntu, XUbuntu and Knoppix but none of them have worked!

    What shall I do! Im running out of options…

45. Morris Lee wrote, on August 9th, 2008:

    

    what do you mean? you can’t load the ubuntu disk? or ubuntu can’t read your harddrive files? if ubuntu can’t read your drives, then sorry mate, you ARE out of options other then spending a lot money to get your data recovered by professional.

46. Jhonsonlee wrote, on August 10th, 2008:

    

    I would keen to have my Yahoo Acer toolbar back can anyone know how how to get it back?

47. Dipak Debnath wrote, on August 27th, 2008:

    

    Hi, I am using Fedora core 8 linux. From widows I can connect wireless network. But in Linux wifi button does not blink and I can not connect my laptop in wireless network. May be some driver & softwares are needed. Please help me out such that I can connect it into the wireless network from linux fc8.
    Also thank you very much for helping me for configuring audio in linux.

    Thanking you.
    Dipak

48. Morris Lee wrote, on September 21st, 2008:

    

    Dipak, I recall that fedora core 8 installed my wifi right out of the box, connected flawlessly to my WPA encrypted router, try another install of fedora, something might have went wrong during the install.

49. Morris Lee wrote, on September 21st, 2008:

    

    Acer FIXED IT!! users with 8600m GT on Aspire 5920 that is heaving performance and down clocking issues after a few minutes of game play can now try out the newest BIOS update from Acer. here is the link

    http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5920.html

    I tested the BIOS v1.3813 with laptopvideo2go.com’s newest 177.98 driver(with physx support) I no longer need rivatuner to do the work around for the problem.

    mental note: I recommended this BIOS update, not Acer, and I do NOT work for Acer(yet) and I am not held responsible for any issues or miss use resulting a dead machine, proceed these fixes with extreme caution, know what you are doing first.

    Users using older driver(anything 16X.XX and lower) and does not care about physx support, you do not have the need to use this fix, this is only for users with 17X.XX and up with overheating and downclocking issues.

    6920 and 8920 users with G84 and G86(8400, 8600, 9500m gs, 9650 cards) that are experiencing downclocking issues, you can try the new 177.98 driver from laptopvideo2go.com first, if the issues continues, you may try the BIOS update for your specifit model at your own risks. I do not have a 6920 to test it.

50. Jeremy Cooper wrote, on November 22nd, 2008:

    

    What’s up, I have an Acer Travelmate c100 with no cd drive. It was used at a business. The business has since upgraded their computers. This was is a gift. How can I restore Windows XP back to the factory settings without the OEM disk or a cd drive? Please, help.

    Thanks,
    Jeremy

51. Morris Lee wrote, on November 22nd, 2008:

    

    you should try pressing Alt+F10 upon startup of the the computer(at the moment where you see a big acer logo) this should launch the eRecovery manager, if not, then there are the possibilities that the windows was reinstalled from a disk manually.

52. Jeremy Cooper wrote, on November 22nd, 2008:

    

    I tried the Alt+F10 method and nothing happened. Could I use an external cd drive to re-install XP? The bios screen shows a boot option from usb cd-rom.

53. Morris Lee wrote, on November 23rd, 2008:

    

    you can, but you can try reinstalling the boot loader by following this guide http://www.techemia.com/2008/04/20/ripristinare-o-spostare-acer-arcade-deluxe-instanton-compreso-mbr/en/

    then your Alt+F10 should work again.

54. Jeremy Cooper wrote, on November 23rd, 2008:

    

    Will this work if I can’t access Windows? All I can do is access the F2 Bios and the F10 Boot selection menu. When the system boots, it goes to a company username and password. I can’t access the Start menu for a command prompt.

55. Jeremy Cooper wrote, on November 23rd, 2008:

    

    I’m sorry, make that the F12 boot selection menu.

56. Morris Lee wrote, on November 24th, 2008:

    

    you need to get ubuntu to get the files you need from the PQ service partition, then using hiren’s boot cd(google it) you should be able to remove the passwords on the computer. then access the windows from there.

57. Jeremy Cooper wrote, on November 24th, 2008:

    

    Thanks, I’ll give it a shot!

58. Meens wrote, on January 7th, 2009:

    

    Hi,

    M having Acer Aspire 5920 …. its realtek sound driver is not installing .. Please lemme know wht is the problem …

    Best Regards

59. Sean wrote, on January 28th, 2009:

    

    Hey, I’ve got a quick question. Has anybody gotten the Windows 7 beta working on one of these things yet? I’ve got the 5920G model. I was thinking on trying to delete the Acer Arcade partition via command line diskpart then formatting that space and the 18GB I’ve already unallocated from the D: drive into a new NTFS partition. Kinda sucks I can’t add a 5th partition, and that I don’t have an external drive to back my stuff up onto. I’ve had the service/boot exe for the arcade disabled pretty much since I got the computer, currently the button doesn’t do anything though I’m not sure that means much.

    I’ve sorta tried to follow the guy above with the Linux installation, though it seems he kept the arcade partition. Will Windows still boot without that 3.24GB partition, and will I need to fix the MBR somehow either before or afterward?

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

    

    @Sean,

    if you install Windows 7(should be fully compatible with Vista drivers) only thing you might lose is the eRecovery upon the startup with Alt+F10 key, if you don’t use it, then go ahead and install Win 7 on another partition, it should recognize your windows vista, and add the “boot to earlier version of windows” entry(something similar to that) you can boot to vista using that selection.

    but with all consideration, if you really want to use it, use it when it gets out. using it now is the best if you have another HDD to play with, or another computer to play with, so far, only things I have noticed are the user interface and some process tweaks(about 25 processes by default, with drivers about 35, vista is about 35 on default with 40-50 with drivers.)

    with tweaked XP, I was able to get the RAM usage under 100MB! for Win 7, tweak, i still get about 500MB, XP still the fastest and most efficient windows so far.

61. jane wrote, on February 8th, 2009:

    

    hi im jane…

    i just bought this product, aspire 8930g… there is nothing wrong with it actually… its just when im playing a bluray disc, the background sound is way louder than the people’s voices which is coming out on the front speakers. i searched everywhere on how to set it up so that i could hear what the movie character’s are saying, and i’ve tried every possible way i know but to no avail. im not a computer buff so i’m not that good in troubleshooting. but when it come to playing music and video streaming its as loud as monster speakers. could someone help me please… thanks…

62. Morris Lee wrote, on February 8th, 2009:

    

    @jane,

    go to the control panel, search for acer audiio

    open up the control for the audio, try different equalizers.

63. Amaunet wrote, on March 28th, 2009:

    

    Hi!
    A little while ago, my Aspire 5920 started having some trouble with Vista. It behaved weird, while being completely clean of virusses and the likes. So I kicked Vista off and installed XP on it instead. It’s been running very smoothly ever since then.
    However, I’ve lost my hotbuttons now (which isn’t my main concern, I can probably reinstall that somewhere), but my build in mics also no longer work. I’ve reinstalled the realtek drivers several times, but that just works for the sound going out. It doesn’t do anything for the mics build into the laptop.
    So I’m really hoping that you might be able to help me out with this. It’s rather hard to have an audioconversation this way.

    - Ama

64. Morris Lee wrote, on March 28th, 2009:

    

    @Amaunet,

    You have to install the driver from the Acer website, the official driver can’t recognize the stereo microphone on 5920

65. Amaunet wrote, on March 28th, 2009:

    

    That’s the first thing I did. But it doesn’t work, so then I tried the one from the realtek site, but that doesn’t work either.

66. Morris Lee wrote, on March 29th, 2009:

    

    @Amaunet,

    did you uninstall the driver completely reboot then install the new one?

67. Amaunet wrote, on March 29th, 2009:

    

    I tried that now too.. Uninstalled, restarted, reinstalled, restarted.. It still won’t work.
    When I have my volume on max and I make a recording, it does play it back to me in a whisper. So somehow, somewhere, it knows something’s there. I really don’t get why it keeps not-working.

68. Morris Lee wrote, on March 29th, 2009:

    

    oh, try using the booster, should say something like boost microphone or microphone booster, push it to about +20dB

69. Amaunet wrote, on March 29th, 2009:

    

    *had to find how to first, but did it*
    There we go! It’s still very soft, but if I speak up a bit, it’s do-able.
    Thanks a ton

70. raghav wrote, on August 31st, 2009:

    

    Hi Morris,
    I have bought acer laptop (aspire 5920 series) a year back till now every thing seems to be working perfectly but all of sudden my DVD drive can’t read/write any cd’s or dvd’s , it shows up led light blinking and i can’t hear any cd running sound and in mycomputer the drive icon doesn’t show up nothing ….. i googled everything and found your blog thought to share my problem with you …. some one gave answers that to change the dvd ram i.e it might be dead … is it so do i need to change my dvd drive …..please suggest me some how to get my drive to working condition

    Raghav.

71. Michael Walsh wrote, on September 1st, 2009:

    

    @raghav

    According to Simone (Acer tech support) the only way is to “take it to an Acer repairing center to change it”.

    Sorry.

72. Morris Lee wrote, on September 3rd, 2009:

    

    @raghav,

    First things first, can you still open the drive by pressing the button on it? if not, it is probably not connected(or connection is dirty) or it is simply stuck. try using a paper clip(preferably the smallest one that fits right in the hole by the(from here on, I will use CD-ROM rather than DVD-ROM as it applies the same rules) CD-ROM eject button) and poke it in gentally, the cd rom will pop open.

    if that does not fix the problem, we can unplug it easily, we have to first let you locate the only screw that holds it in.

    MAKE SURE YOU KEEP YOUR COMPUTER SHUT OFF, BATTERY OUT, UNPLUGGED, AND THAT YOU ARE GROUNDED FROM A GROUNDING SOURCE(you can first touch a desktop tower’s powersupply that is grounded to make sure you are not charged)

    it is located just blow battery release lock when you view the laptop from the bottom, it is at the opposite side where the battery is oriented toward the battery lock.

    unscrew it, then you should be able to gently slid it out(by grabing the door of the CD-ROM)

    boot the lappy, shut down, and put the CD-ROM back in, try booting it and see if it is working.

    I am still here if you need further assistance.

73. raul wrote, on September 20th, 2009:

    

    hola aber si me puedes ayudar porfavor nesesito los cd del acer aspire 5920 si fuera tan amable de mandamelo te lo agradeceria de corazon.

74. raul wrote, on September 20th, 2009:

    

    mi correo es ruperta160@hotmail.com

75. paco wrote, on September 20th, 2009:

    

    no compren productos acer son unos estafadores hijo de puta que no tienen corazon alguno son una pandas de cabrones hijo deputa.nadamas quieres llenarce el bolsillo a costa del pobre y no merece la pena aorar unos centimos cuando tiene que gastarte el doble yo estoy arepentido de berme comprado uno nececito los cd de restauracion del acer aspire 5920 y no consigo encontrar auna persona que tenga mi mismo pc portatil y que me los pase .

76. Morris Lee wrote, on September 21st, 2009:

    

    @raul, paco,

    there is no “recovery cd” in the newer laptops, not to mention like asus ones etc, there is only what is called D2D recovery(eRecovery). you have to use Alt+F10 to recover to factory default, this is pressed when you see the acer logo on start up of the laptop

77. rakulle miko wrote, on October 5th, 2009:

    

    have problem with front volume control on acer 5920.i have installed windows 7 and now it doesnt work ,i have installed launch manager,synaptics drivers ,have tried even to change compabillity on launch manager to vista because windows 7 is not labeled.dont have a clue anymore.

78. Morris Lee wrote, on October 5th, 2009:

    

    @rakulle miko,

    May I ask where you have downloaded it and what version of Launch Manager is it?

    Morris Lee

79. lynn green wrote, on March 1st, 2010:

    

    i have the acer c100 travelmate. there is an administrator on here and no one remembers the pword. how do i override that?

80. Morris Lee wrote, on March 1st, 2010:

    

    @lynn,

    There is a disk called Hiren’s Boot CD and the other called Ultimate Boot CD I think , they both have to be burned on to a CD and rather than boot off your hard drive, you have to boot to the CD, usually by pressing F12, or pressing, F2 to change the boot settings. when booted into the CD, you can remove the password using one of the tools it is listed in there.

    Morris Lee

81. Joseph Paul wrote, on March 17th, 2010:

    

    i have a problem with mic. volume is too low especially in yahoo chat. (acer 5920 bought 18 months ago.) please help.
    josephpaulon@yahoo.com

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