Acer Ethos AS8951G/AS5951G Owners Lounge

[Edgar83]

Hi everybody!

After the succesfull experience with a great Gemstone 5920, the actual 4820TG timeline X, I want to give Acer a chance again, buying a ETHOS 5951G as a present for my girlfriend.

Said that, can anyone tell me if that model has any particular weakness, trouble or down side (heat, failures, screen, usability, throttling issues for example)

Thank you very much for your help!

The version I'm planning to buy has i5 2410M 4 gb ram and nvidia gt555m, and costs a little more than 500 €

PS: excuse my poor english!

Is there anyone there?

[GalaxySII]

The stupid Acer Update program decided to serve me a BIOS update which failed and bricked my computer...so I had to figure out how to fix it. There have been a few posts here regarding how to recover the BIOS, but also some unanswered follow-up questions (such as how to get the actual BIOS file from the BIOS exe available from Acer), so let me clarify the process (very simple, actually).

How to Recover AS8951G BIOS after failed BIOS Update:

Download 7-zip if you don't already have it.
Download the most recent BIOS from the Acer website (what you download will be a zip with two folders, DOS and Windows).
Use 7-zip to extract the BIOS zip file.
In 7-zip, browse to the folder with the extracted BIOS files and browse to the WINDOWS folder (it may look like the same file is in both the DOS and Windows folder, but the contents are indeed different). Right click on the exe file (ZRH113W.exe) and select "Open Inside." This will reveal the contents of the exe file.
Copy the files that are now visible by selecting files, right-clicking, and using the "copy to" function (you may not need all of them but you definitely need at least ZRH.fd, just copy them all and it will work) to copy to the main directory of a USB flash drive (I freshly formatted one, but sure if this is necessary as the BIOS recovery probably knows what files to look for).
Connect USB flash drive to one of the USB ports (did it with the one closest to the front on the right side, probably also doesn't matter) and hold FN+ESC while pressing the power button. Power button light should start flashing; now just wait. Power light goes off after a while but process continues (my fan stayed on despite the lights going off); if successful system will reboot and you are good to go!

There, easy, takes <10 minutes if you do it right. No $100+shipping to Acer to resolve. Outrageous that Acer pushes a BIOS update through their update utility like it's a software patch (no red warnings or anything, I didn't even pay attention to what the update was as I generally trust manufacturer updates) and then fails to provide these simple recovery instructions after their glitchy updates fail.

Hi man thnx so much for informative
But i have changed bios 5 times or dont know how many few times and never had problems..
When u flashing you MUST NOT mess with anything in windows during proces.. Or removing stuff from usb or even moving with mouse..
All causing crash..!

[RAY24]

Is there anyone there?

Hey Edgar83,

I myself was the proud owner of the Acer Aspire Ethos 8920G (The BIG 18.4" brother of the 5920G) --I passed it unto my dad after buying new the 8951G.

The little brother is the 5951G

All I can tell you is, I have had no problems with this one, at all.

--No Throttling issues,

--HI'm running a i7-2630QM 16GB 1866MHz RAM, and 2 750GB 7200rpm HDD's...
Running on it some Pro on-the-road HD Video-editing..

---So yeah in my case it's normal it can have some build up heat now and then..

---The screen, (for my part) is nice, and more than enough for my needs.

I haven't had any failures off any sort, only a tiny glitch in the Wireless-remote, where the battery got swollen (a little bulge on the back.. ??)

I left it out for a few days to get it back into normal 'straight' shape again..
And put it back in. Since then it stayed in it's normal _no-bulge_ shape...
...needs to get adjusted to some heat I guess?
Liquid Heat & Cold --Expand & collapse.. Chemistry stuff

--Heat and Throttling is I guess the most important thing you want to know about.

So...
In you're planning on getting 15.6" with an i5-2410m 4GB of RAM, and an nVidia GT555 M...?

I guess you don't have to worry about heat issues as much as one with an Quad i7 inside,
---And Throttling won't neither be an issue.

4GB of RAM you can off course upgrade to 16GB, but since you probably have them running on 1333MHz, heat wont be an issue there either.

Hope it helps.

[Edgar83]

Thank you very much for your opinion! I think that I will take it, it seems a good machine at reasonable price

[tolick]

Hello! I'm planning to buy:

Corsair Vengeance Laptop Memory Kit 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL10 PC3 12800 (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10)

But before purchasing, can anyone confirm that 8951g can handle up to 24 gb ram??? please let me know! thanks!

[GalaxySII]

Hello! I'm planning to buy:

Corsair Vengeance Laptop Memory Kit 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL10 PC3 12800 (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10)

But before purchasing, can anyone confirm that 8951g can handle up to 24 gb ram??? please let me know! thanks!

no man up to 16 only
but buy 24gb and try
i think 16gb is useless .. 24gb nonsense

[tolick]

What about bluetooth on 8951G???

I still can't use it.

My Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G-9630 have Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205 card inside. And also i have on/off bluetooth option, i tried all details but still can't find my phone.

Please help me! Thanks!

[JamieH]

Hello
I've been looking at buying the AS5951G version, but have been put off by the glossy, low standard screen.
May I ask if it would be possible to obtain a 1600x900 less glossy screen for this laptop and get it replaced?
Is this something anyone on here has done?
Thanks

[PredatoR_TR]

Why do they insist not to release new 18.4'' laptop with new generation Gpu and Cpu... cant understand it. In any case there is no competitor for 18.4''. who releases, it will sell the best.

[imokruok]

I have an issue that I think is with the gigabit Ethernet. Can anyone help?

It seems like the Ethernet just can't handle large bandwidth. It's connected to my hub at 1.0 Gbps, but when I run a Windows Media Center stream from my HDHomeRun in HD, it barely keeps up when I browse the web or do any other tasks that require the internet. And forget about watching one stream and recording another - it's just a huge amount of pixels.

I know it's not a hub/HDHomeRun problem, since I have an Asus i5 with gigabit ethernet, and it handles two streams and browsing the internet with no issues at all.

I have gone into the config settings and turned off all of the power saving and "green ethernet" settings on the ethernet card, but this doesn't change anything.

Anyone have any thoughts? Is the Acer known for having a gigabit ethernet card that's not really gigabit? Please let me know, as I am running out of ideas. Thanks!