All in all I’d say yesterday was a great day.

The project I’m working on is absolutely huge and the “brand guidelines” – meaning naming, brand philosophy, colour choice and icon usage etc., is right at the very start because if you don’t know what you’re building, you’re going to get stuck very quickly.

Fortunately this part went very smoothly and everyone welcomed the choices made so at least they have something concrete to work on which shouldn’t be underestimated as I also got a first glimpse into the inner workings of the project development stages and it’s both frighteningly complex and fascinating at the same time.

The sad thing for me is that once this passes I’m out of the project until it goes public (if Acer decides to do any marketing with it) so I won’t get to see the team in London again which is a real shame as they’re a top flight agency and it was a privilege to work with them on this. If you’re reading this William, top marks for the group you put together!

Still, we’ve got a much bigger fish to fry starting Monday so it’s not as if work’s scarce round these parts… Brilliant.

I find myself sitting in a very quiet, yet highly productive office I cannot name in London.

I’m not actually part of anything going on here right now but I am part of the caravan trailing through this city today meeting a bunch of agencies and suppliers on possibly the most interesting project Acer has ever undertaken.

It’s a long way from my “bunker” in Milan and a million miles from where we (Acer) were only a few years ago.

But that’s the thing with this company. Senior management takes strategic decisions at the speed of light. It might take a couple of days to pin one of them down and get an approval out of them but when they’re available, they approve about twenty things at once.

Which is why I’m here today. I wasn’t supposed to be presenting this but I guess I just became the Creative Director of this project as I was the one gluing all the pieces together and – quite possibly – I’m the only one who can explain it and hand it over in the limited time we have this afternoon before the companies in London do their thing. The best part is that I’m presenting it to my counterparts from two of the top flight agencies in London so it’ll be interesting to see if they giggle behind my back

So yet again, I named something and – hopefully – it’ll be something that will blow you away for a long, long time rather than something that’ll get replaced next year.

I’ll keep you posted on how it played out today and it won’t be long before this baby sees the light of day so be patient. It’ll be worth it.

So I have showed you here how to simply upgrade your wireless card in the 5920G *IF* it is using 2 antennas like the original intel WiFi 3945ABG, what if you want to upgrade to say intel 4965AGN, intel 5300 or anything requires 3 antennas instead? Don’t worry, I got you covered here

However, you must be warned, this mod is slightly more challenging, as you will need to crack open more parts of the laptop.

——————————————————————
Here is my new chart of modification hardness (1-10):

1. Simplest, unscrew a few things involved, and simply put it back together again with a screw driver.

2. Simple, but requires some more effort for some parts of the modification such as more than just a screw driver is required.

3. Still simple, but can require more than a screw driver and may need some improvising tips I have provided.

4. Can be slightly challenging, requires all the above and specialty tools and materials.

5. Challenging, requiring all the above but for improvising tips and materials I have used may not be easy to come by, other possible materials or methods are up to your creativity.

6. Advanced, skilled hands on experiences required(my previous mods may provide the most applicable experiences).

7. Challenging advanced, semi-professional, has been following my modifications and have complete up to anything qualified as level 5 is preferred.

8. Advanced improviser, close-to professional that has done couple level 5’s and 6’s some sort of circuitry background is preferred.

9. Professional, fan of my mods and has been following all my mods, completion of from 75-90% of my modifications is strongly suggested.

10. Pro-Processioned, HARDCORE fan of my modifications and has done all or similar mods on different machines, access to multiple soldering tools or cutting and drilling tools is strongly suggested. **first with completion of this level with prove using pictures or videos may win prized on selected level 10 mods!!**

The above levels will be labeled in the title like: lvl(7/10)
——————————————————————

Without more babbling! Lets get our hands busy!

What you need:

Philips Screw driver shaped like this +
Old credit card or plastic card
Thick Double-sided tap (ones with foam in between the sticky sides)
Spare internal wireless antenna with the clip-on notch
A pair of sharp tweezers

First, we need to do some disassembling,

Remove the backplate and screws that are circled in red too.

With those screws removed, we can pop off the power button plate like so

After that is done, we need to crack open the screen’s frame, staring with the rubber tabs

Peel them off using a pair of sharp tweezers and put them on the waxxed surface like the ones stickers comes off from or you can make your own by rubbing wax on a piece of paper until even and smooth. This is to keep the tabs in the mint condition.

Here is a picture of mine all kept nicely on the waxed paper from the double sided tape

make sure all 4 rubber tabs and the 2 plastic tabs right by the lid latch like so:

Now, we need to pop it open using the plastic card from the edge of the lid (TRY not to break any clips inside)

Now, the laptop should look something like this(I have the spare antenna lying on the keyboard)

Now, we can install the antenna! we can insert the antenna in this hole:

If done right, you can pull it out from the bottom right beside where the fan is, it may take a few tries

Hopefully the length of the antenna is long enough so you can attach it to the card

Following the left original antenna and double sided tape, I stick it just above the original white one (try not to have the metals touching.)

Tuck it in!

Putting it back together is as simple as snapping the screen frame and the power button panel back on and screw all the screws back. Remember to put the rubber and plastic tabs back on the screws for the screen frame!

Morris Lee

Envy MacBooks with 2 finger easy scrolling on the touchpad? I have a gift for you all!

With this driver, you can have 2 finger scrolling, chiral motion scrolling, momentum, 3 finger flick, 3 finger launch. Best of all, it works well with the Launch Manager patch!

Box.net

you can see it in action in my video here:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Having trouble fitting all your games and movies on your laptop? Well, this does not just apply to Aspire 5920 itself, laptop with 2 harddrive bays can get up to 3 using this mod – THAT is if you are not going to use your DVD-ROM(bluray or whichever one you might have).

Got one of these off ebay for $20ish, not too bad to use old harddrives again!

As you can see here, the original drive is taken out

Here is a drive with the harddrive installed ready to be put in.

Comparason between the drive and the caddy

Morris Lee

Orbicam driver for Windows 7.

Just got this mail from Phil and wanted to post it up in case others find it helpful. Thanks Phil!!

“I replaced Windows Vista Home Premium with WIN7 enterprise and I never checked if an Aspire 9420 was OK with this. All worked fine except the camera and girlfriend was giving me heaps over it not working.

The v10.4.0.1319 even though I installed it does not work with SETUP… but
linking to Drivers folder manually worked a treat.

Hope this helps somebody else who is not sure about WIN 7 on this model,

Phil”

Sure Olympic has passed, this was a model purchased after the Olympics was finished, so what? this is just another normal Aspire Timeline 4810T with aluminum lid and a brushed finish.

Exterior:

The screen is a high glossed screen just like any other laptop display, however, it is ultra bright with the new LED back lighting. It is not comparable to how phenomenal the brightness it can produce with my old tank 5920G. With the LED back lighting, it will lit up instant to full brightness with lower power consumption to traditional fluorescent back lighting which was inefficient and gets pretty warm at the location where the lamp is. It boasts 1366×768, which means it can show that pretty Windows 7 boot logo!

On the front, there is the multi-card reader for conveniences, this image also compares the machine to my beefy 5920G. In the center, there is an amber light that indicated the charging status, amber means charging, blue means 100% full.

on to the left side(from left to right order), there is a USB 2.0 port, the ventilation exhaust, VGA 15pin, HDMI (THAT’S RIGHT!), another USB 2.0 (beats macbook air’s number of USB already eh?), Pink microphone jack (3.5mm), black headphone jack (3.5mm)

to the right side(left to right), we have the DVD ROM(which is opened only by pressing the button by the speaker so you don’t accidentally pop it open every now and then), USB 2.0(woh! wait another one! YES!), RJ45 Ethernet port, AC power jack, and the Kensington lock port. Sorry no dial up!

Bottom of the laptop, black meshed surface, pretty standard from all Acer laptops. Note, the bottom does not get hot at all! (didn’t try it on a bed though).

Inside!

Here is the power button on the left corner of the keyboard, right to the right is the left speaker.

The touchpad is nice and big with a nice simple touchpad toggling button on the top left to the touchpad itself with a light indicator of on or off. the location of the touchpad being in the center but aligned to the left of the space bar like most of the laptops makes this easier for either left or right handed mouse users (for reference, check Aspire 5920G’s touchpad, it is aligned to the left of the space bar but centered)

Here we have a couple of light indicators, some of them are actually touch buttons. From the left, we have the wifi (tapping it will toggle the wifi, when it is lit, means it is on), the Acer backup button(only works if you have the eRecovery setup properly), then we have the interesting power saving button(I will talk more about later), the harddrive icon (surprising, the icon does not lit up but the LED next to it), the left speakers and the DVD-ROM eject button.

Comparing to the 5534 I have reviewed before, the media keys are not on the function keys on the top, they are designed like the 5920 series which I find much easier to reach to.

Facts about the laptop:

The power saving button never showed any difference according to the Windows battery time left calculation, it merely deems the brightness slightly and change some of the windows power settings. a green light does light up when you tap it, and tapping it again reverts to the previous power settings.

When opening browsers, this happens fairly fast, even though this was a lower end model, I don’t see anything that would affect the overall speed as this is only for office and on the go use

The laptop is ultra light, thin and easy to carry, recommended to all business and students who carries a laptop everyday and all day long.

My rating for this product: 8.5/10

Pros:
• Light, thin!
• Awesome battery life, too long for me to benchmark it, that is how long! (other sources benched it to be around 9 hours with light web surfing)
• Great screen brightness
• Keyboard function keys for the media keys
• 3 USB ports vs 1 for macbook air! (sounds like a personal jab, that… – MW)
• HDMI out, connect to your HDTV to watch DVD’s or Bluray disks (if you upgrade to Bluray drive, it will be able to play it)

Cons:
• Intel 4500MHD for graphics, not good for gaming, but what do you expect? otherwise, get the hybrid version with ATi HD4330
• Resolution at 1366×768 is really unpopular, slightly lower at 1280×720 is more understandable or push it up to 1680×1050 at least.
• the battery bumps out of the bottom of the laptop
• low powered speakers (Aspire 5920 is still superior in all laptop speakers that I have seen, even better than macbook pros)

Manufacture: Acer
Pictures: Morris

Hello to all! Yes it has been a while since you have heard from me!

Apart from one of my other articles, the “Morris’ Aspire 5920 GPU Swap/upgrade”, use that as a reference for part of the dis-assembly for the cover and the GPU, now we are going to swap the heart of the 5920G out!

–Sorry for the poor image quality as I don’t have an actual camera for the pictures–

**Warning! Do this in your own risk, please observe other similar modifications and understand your own skills on these tiny operations, unplug the computer and eject the battery for safer working environment. REQUIRES A STEADY HAND for the physical part. I am not able to hold responsible for any damages to your own systems.**

Table of contents:

1a. Suggested Tools
1b. Materials
2a. Removing the back panel
2b. Screws and wires need to be removed
2c. Removing the heatsink
3a. Removing the CPU
3b. Installing the new CPU
4a. Putting everything back
5a. Remarks
6a. References
6b. Contact

1a. Suggested Tools

philips screw driver
flat-head screw driver

1b. Materials

Aspire 5920
Thermal Paste (Arctic Silver 5 or better)
Socket P (PPGA478) FSB 667 or 800MHz only compatible CPU (check here

2a. Removing the back panel

Remove the screws indicated above in red circles to pop open the back panel

2b. Screws and wires need to be removed

The 3 wires (two wireless antennas and fan power) can be removed by pulling them off gently, the screw in the battery compartment circled is for easier removal for the heatsink later.

The reds are the screws already removed for removing the GPU module, the ones in green has to unscrewed, the 4 silver ones(with springs) will stay on the heatsink even if it is unscrewed, that’s normal.

2c. Removing the heatsink

Pull on the edge where the smallest arrow is pointing up(close to the screw we removed in the battery compartment before), as it is lifted, pull the heatsink towards the harddrive and angle up slightly at the same time.

3a. Removing the CPU

Turn counter clock wise with a flat head screw driver on the “screw” just above the CPU to loose up the socket, pull out the CPU.

3b. Installing the new CPU

install the new CPU at the same orientation as the old one(notice the little copper/yellow arrow), turn the “screw” clock wise to lock it. Use some new Arctic Silver 5 on top of the CPU(put half of what I put there I put too much at the time of picture taken)

4a. Putting everything back

Insert the heatsink back at the same angle you pulled it out(make sure the thermalpads for the northbridge on the heatsink is not damaged), screw the 4 silver screws on, and the 2 other screws indicated in green, insert the GPU and put back the 4 screws that holds the GPU(the screws marked in red above)

Don’t forget to reinsert the fan cable and the wireless cables!!!

5a. Remarks

I got this CPU from u6b36ef user.

6a. References

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=26548

6b. Contact

If you have other questions, please reply on the bottom here, www.theacerguy.com or Email me at morrismurphy@gmail.com

Hi everybody and welcome back to another very rare installment from the ever-so-slightly-hectic world of The Acer Guy.

In the four years I’ve been living online I’ve discovered that writing an article here is like preparing for a wedding. You have to know that “she’s the one” and that you want to go though with it of course, yet every now and again, when you’re under the kind of pressure we are day in-day out to satisfy her never-ending needs, you often experience first hand that love has some wonderful ups and colossal downs.

Then you have to think about your relatives. Can you invite them all? Will that stuffy old aunt you can’t stand who lives in the house on top of the world get offended if you don’t send her at least an invite? Probably.

Finally, the guests and the menu. How many of your mates (and hers) do you want to turn up and how do you choose which go in the “yes” basket, and which fall in the “no”? The problem here is that if you write about the latest hot products (great menu), Google loves you and sends you quite a lot of people. If you write about your week (packed lunch), well… only the most loyal of friends will come.

OK. This morning I’m in the mood, but it’s more out of the love for my mates and a few relatives than anything else. Any of you who’ve been following the often quite hilarious conversations that go on over on the Acer Guy Facebook page will know that the past two weeks have been manic.

I’ve discovered a bunch of new friends including Daniel, Massinissa, Kurucz, Josh and Travis, and we’ve made the world a happier place because, well, go and find out for yourselves.

I’m also doing this for my relatives and “professional” spouse. This week I borrowed the worldwide human resource director for an hour to find out how to initiate three projects – all of which affect The Acer Guy in one way or another – and I rediscovered that patience and understanding you get when you’re in the company of family. Thank-you again, Domenico.

Then on Thursday the Marketing & Brand VP, Gianpiero Morbello, came to see how we were getting on with one of the many projects in our collective in-box and gave one of the most passionate overviews of Acer’s strategic vision I have ever heard shortly before he – rightly – bollocked us for overstepping the corporate mark for the silliest of errors (not mine, thankfully!!).

They’re magical moments these and quite simply they make the world go round, so thanks to all of you for taking the time to make it all flow a little better.

Two things came out of these past two weeks:

The first – and most important – is that the causes section is going to be a lot harder to set up than it looks. Technology makes raising money for worthy causes easy but the tax man has another view on money movements so I’m going to have to take a few extra precautions to make sure my house doesn’t get repossessed simply because I wanted to help. Also there has to be – and is – a better way of getting Acer involved in these projects and at this level, you don’t go in with an idea on the back of a fag box…

The other interesting thing is that the place of these conversations has shifted and that’s mainly because of the time available. Trust me: making a comment or post on Facebook is a lot easier than writing this so if you want to hang out with us as we joke and rant our way through the week, click on the link below.

TheAcerGuy | Promote Your Page Too

Here’s a little something from my inbox that might interest you…

Gazaro.com are currently holding a simple promotional contest and the prize is an AOD250 10.1″ Aspire One Netbook Computer!

And the great thing is – MORRIS ARE YOU LISTENING??? – that it’s open to US and CANADA.

All you have to to is predict the price Amazon will be selling the netbook on May 10th and the closest entry takes home the prize.

Currently the price is $282.55 so all in all it’s well worth entering…

Here’s the specs of the Aspire One on offer (from the Amazon page)

Product Features
* 1.6GHz Intel N270 Atom Processor
* 1GB DDR2 SDRAM Single Channel Memory
* 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM), Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED
* Windows 7 Starter Operating System, 3-cell Li-ion Battery (2200 mAh)
* 10.1″ WSVGA Acer CrystalBrite LED Display, Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard
* Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270
* RAM: 1 GB
* RAM Type: SDRAM
* Memory Slots: 1

Hard Drive
* Size: 160 GB

Cases and Expandability
* Size (LWH): 7.24 inches, 10.17 inches, 1 inches
* Weight: 2.44 pounds

Wireless
* Wireless Type: 802.11B