Acer Aspire 5942G Owners Lounge

[PaAra]

Got my Acer 5942G on friday, been working with it all weekend and I am very satisfied with it so far.
I am a student and use my computer mainly for writing and powerpoint. When not using it for work internet and HD movies. I needed a silent, fast laptop with 2 monitor outputs.
The Acer 5942G seemed to me like a good choice. It replaced a HP 6910p 2,5ghz dual core laptop, which was to slow and noisy.

I removed the 640HDD and swapped it for a Corsair P128 and installed W7 ultimate instead of the W7 home.

Specs:
15,6 (1366x768)
Intel i7 720qm
8gb DDR3 (1067)
ATI HD5650 (1gb DDR3)
Blueyray, HDMI, eSATA, Bluetooth



Initial impressions:

Good:
Fast
Silent
Cool
Good trackpad and keyboard
Back lid keyboard
Bright screen with good colors
«music controller» on the right side of the keyboard
Easy acess to RAM and HD
Good camera
Fast charging
Digital SPDIF output
Good connectivity: 4 usb 2.0 (3 Left / 1 right), eSATA, HDMI
Good overall built quality

Neutral:
2 hours battery time
Windows premium (not professional)

Bad:
Rather big for a 15 inch laptop
Reflective screen
Lots of bloatware on in the preinstallation
Somewhat bad contrast ratio on the screen
Poor speakers
Wireless indicator blinks annoyingly as long as WIFI is on
Screen tilt is maximal 110 degree

Benchmarks:
PCmark Vantage






During idle

[PaAra]

Did a little GPU benchmarking:

The 5650@625/1000 (550/800)
The GPU temp: 69C with fan at 30%
Catalyst 10.3
Win 7 ultimate 64bit
3DMark06:1280x768, default settings




@625/1050 (550/800 stock)


The overclock potential of this ATI gpu impress me.

[TehSuigi]

There's a reason your battery life is so low - you've got a quad-core processor! The Aspire 5942G is a beast of a machine, and the fact that you've additionally tacked on a solid state drive makes me wonder, as a fellow student, where on earth you're getting this money from.

All OEMs load up their systems with bloatware - Lenovo's the only one that actually provides useful software, and even then it's buried under muck.

If you want Windows 7 Pro, try looking at The Ultimate Steal and see if it's available in your geography.

[PaAra]

There's a reason your battery life is so low - you've got a quad-core processor! The Aspire 5942G is a beast of a machine, and the fact that you've additionally tacked on a solid state drive makes me wonder, as a fellow student, where on earth you're getting this money from.

All OEMs load up their systems with bloatware - Lenovo's the only one that actually provides useful software, and even then it's buried under muck.

If you want Windows 7 Pro, try looking at The Ultimate Steal and see if it's available in your geography.

Yes, it is a beast I am quite happy with 2 hours, and I am especially happy that this machine has a good thermal design, because it is really quiet. I can only hear a soft blowing sound when it is completely quiet around me.

The machine is priced pretty aggressively and I think it can be bought for less then some of the i5 machines out there. And the SSD I already had in my old computer, so no extra cost there

I can warmly recommend this for anyone who need a fast and quiet desktop replacement.

[BruBoo]

For reference I have the i520M version and find light web browsing on balanced power profile with wifi on gave me 2hrs 40 minutes of battery life.

The screen is a compromise all around, the same unit is found on some samsungs etc and it is a value for money job, optimised for a 'look down and type, viewing angle'.

You can make some significant improvements using windows or the ATI gamma correction settings to lift the black level and lower the optimum viewing angle. A touch more video gamma makes DVD watching possible face on rather than looking down.

On the plus side having fiddled around for hours with colour corrections etc the image in the sweet spot is barely worse than my £600 colour matching screen. However that does 120 degree viewing angles where the screen here goes iffy at 20 degrees.

You will find you can now download the ATI mobility radeon 10.3 driver I posted a link in my other thread on the 5942G

[PaAra]

For reference I have the i520M version and find light web browsing on balanced power profile with wifi on gave me 2hrs 40 minutes of battery life.

The screen is a compromise all around, the same unit is found on some samsungs etc and it is a value for money job, optimised for a 'look down and type, viewing angle'.

You can make some significant improvements using windows or the ATI gamma correction settings to lift the black level and lower the optimum viewing angle. A touch more video gamma makes DVD watching possible face on rather than looking down.

On the plus side having fiddled around for hours with colour corrections etc the image in the sweet spot is barely worse than my £600 colour matching screen. However that does 120 degree viewing angles where the screen here goes iffy at 20 degrees.

You will find you can now download the ATI mobility radeon 10.3 driver I posted a link in my other thread on the 5942G

Thanks for the tip!

Does anyone know if there are any "fan controls" that work on acer computers?


Some practical links:
Catalyst 10.3 for various windows versions or here from ATI.com

ATI GPU clock tool for HD5000 series

GPU Z 4.0 for GPU monitoring

HWMonitor 1.15.0 for monitoring of CPU temperature and power consumptions

[BruBoo]

Hi,

The ATI link you posted currently takes you to the desktop graphics card drivers.

You can use them on a notebook if your really must (if you use an inf file modder to hack them into accepting the card ID presented by a laptop).

HOWEVER I was pointing you and others at a somewhat hidden (from main ATI pages anyway) link to genuine reference notebook 'mobility' drivers from ATI that check your system and install without any hacking and therefore with ATI support. (And work really well too, being about 6 months on from the one supplied with the Laptop).

For W7 x64These are at http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa..._win7-64.aspx?

Other OS's have predictable nearby URL's

[BruBoo]

Final observation regarding speakers. If you are using the supplied Acer version of the Realtek HD driver then the additional TUBA speaker will operate to produce additional bass. (I am not going to call it a subwoofer . . it still won't do much below 250Hz while my cinema subwoofer is a subwoofer and rattles doors and teeth at 18Hz)

If you installed the Default windows 7 driver you have lost drive to that unit as it is NOT recognised as a 5.1 subwoofer by the standard Realtek driver.

To check go to Sounds (NOT Realtek HD audio) under control panel, to speakers and then levels and see if you have a slider for subwoofer. Taking the slider from 100% - 0 - !00% with music playing should be very easily heard in the audio. If not or no slider download the OEM audio driver from Acer.

All that said the sound is still not anything for music or cinema to get excited about - little bass below 250Hz and limited volume. However on my careful but subjective side by side music comparison it is better than the 'samsung 580' or the non subwoofer Dells' I was considering and it is fine to listen to for a while if you have no headphones and can't be bothered to plug it into external audio..

[BruBoo]

Regarding the Fans I imagine you have the Insyde system BIOS that I have. This new concept BIOS is currently regarded as fairly impenetrable so there is a lack of modding /hacking tools at this time.

(Although the BIOS has an advanced interface where we would traditionally start to play with fan profiles it is in chinese and not accessible from the user interface at present. I would call this a downside to the system at present but I am not looking to play until it is out of warranty anyway by which time there may be some proven tools.)

The ATI card of course has it's own BIOS but as far as I know no separate fan so caution would be needed if detaching fan control from the common system BIOS

[vazmuten]

Hi everyone!

I just want to warn you about the display problem with all 5942G models described in detail here.