Acer Aspire 5020 Series AMD Turion 64 Notebook Review (pics, specs) - FOLLOW-UP

[REDFROG]

i think its big enough to make me want to do it an extra 128mb of vram will make all the difference in games like The Eldar Scrolls: OBLIVION

[VidKo]

Is the cooler on this notebook really so much annoying? Can it be exchanded for a quieter one?

Regards, Partizan

[Chabadoo]

I noticed the following Problem with my 5022WLMI... When ATI Powerplay is set to low power consumption it can happen that the notebook hangs completely, which is really anoying - anybody with the same problem? I noticed this when watching DVD. It seemes to happen when fan turns on - but I think it can't be a heating problem, because everything is fine with optimum performance option - maybe the clockrate set by powerplay is too low for my ATI X700 Chip?

Please Help

@VidKo: The Fan is not annoying because it is loud - it is just that is switched on so often at a really low temperature. Without load the turion chip would go to approximately 70° C without a fan, but Acer activates it already at 58 ° C and switches it of at 47 ° C so the fan is often switched on, when it is not really necessary - I think they expect less returns during warranty with this strategy.

So we need a bios mod to set new ACPI Temperatures

[gregd]

I noticed the following Problem with my 5022WLMI... When ATI Powerplay is set to low power consumption it can happen that the notebook hangs completely, which is really anoying - anybody with the same problem? I noticed this when watching DVD. It seemes to happen when fan turns on - but I think it can't be a heating problem, because everything is fine with optimum performance option - maybe the clockrate set by powerplay is too low for my ATI X700 Chip?

Please Help

In my 5024WLMI it was hanging very often when I underclock my GPU under the lowest ATI clock settings. And the signs were the same as yours - it hanged when I was playing movies.

My official lowest ATI clock is:
for ATI Core: 104.64 MHz
for ATI Memory: 119.81 MHz

[lukealexander]

Hi, I own the 5021 ( my review here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/show....php?p=1118994 ) and I have a couple of questions.

I currently have 512 ram, with 2 sticks...i think. What kind of benefit will I see upgrading this? And if so, am I best to buy a 1gb stick to give a total of 1.25gb.

Secondly, I see a few of you are talking about undervolting the cpu and gpu..to increase battery life. I find the fan on the system kicks in far too quickly and it irritates me. If I were to undervolt these two units, heat dissipation would be reduced hence fewer fan cycles?
If that is the case, what settings do you recommend (1.6ghz turion, x700 128mb), and is there any easy to use software or guides, since I'm not too confident with this area of computing.

Thanks for your time

[Omikr0n]

I currently have 512 ram, with 2 sticks...i think. What kind of benefit will I see upgrading this? And if so, am I best to buy a 1gb stick to give a total of 1.25gb.

That's exactly how I've it done. Works great, I can only recommend this option...

[gregd]

Secondly, I see a few of you are talking about undervolting the cpu and gpu..to increase battery life. I find the fan on the system kicks in far too quickly and it irritates me. If I were to undervolt these two units, heat dissipation would be reduced hence fewer fan cycles?
If that is the case, what settings do you recommend (1.6ghz turion, x700 128mb), and is there any easy to use software or guides, since I'm not too confident with this area of computing.

Software that I recommend for CPU undervolting: RightMark CPU
for GPU: Notebook Hardware Control.

In one of the previous post there was a link to RightMark
You should not be afraid of undervolting or underclocking. If you undervolt your CPU too much your computer will just hang. The same with underclocking GPU.
The way you shoud do it is to undervolting/underclocking step by step, checking if everything works and if computer does not hang. Do not undervolt too much at once.

In my case (5024Wlmi) I like quiet so I decided to undervolte my CPU from 1.000V to 0.950V with 4x multiplier and everything works for me. Of course if I am playing games I am changing the settings.

The RightMark software is quite easy to use so do not hasitate to use it.

Greatings!

More information: http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources...p?id=14&page=1

[lukealexander]

Did you find having the extra RAM makes a big difference? I know its kind of a stupid question, but I want to know what my expectations should be before I buy.

:noisyfan: I'm gonna take a look at that software and guide now. Do you find the laptop is a lot quieter with the undervolting?

[Omikr0n]

Did you find having the extra RAM makes a big difference? I know its kind of a stupid question, but I want to know what my expectations should be before I buy.

I would say that difference between 512MB and 1280MB is as much as I expected. Remember, that this notebook has still got very slow HDD, so it takes basically the same time for windows to boot up... But the difference is clearly visible when using multiple programs or in games... As I said, you will probably get as much performance boost as you expect.

[lukealexander]

have you got any other suggestions for increasing performance? I have streamlined winxp as much as possible, and have removed all non-essentialy processes...but I always need more power