Aspire 5553g - 5000 graphics card - scrambled picture

JoseMarti

Hello, my Aspire 5553g has scrambled picture when in 5000 mode, 4200 works well.

Both drivers show working in device manager.

Here's the question, is the graphics card physically damaged (burned out), or could this be a driver problem?

I have used the win 7 drivers from Acer website, also drivers from Amd with the exact same problem. When the 5000 drivers were removed, it works in windows standard graphics (low spec).

Hdmi works well through a tv.

Any help appreciated.  

JackE

The graphics adapter is definitely not damaged. If you've installed Win10, you're lucky it works at all. What do you mean by 5000 vs 4200 mode?  Jack e/NJ

JoseMarti

Hi, Sorry I should have said, it has two graphics cards, you switch from one to another by pressing a button on the top of the laptop.

Win 10, yuck! Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot cattle prod

JackE

A lotta folks with newer G laptops would be jealous of that button.

Press WIN+R. Enter 'msinfo32'. What's the BIOS version number? Jack E/NJ

JoseMarti

I though it was a gaming laptop when I bough it, but it doesn't play world of war planes (Amd 5000 series not up to it) and none of my old xp games as no win xp.

Bios Phoenix Technologies LTD V1.23 25/04/2011

Smbios version 2.6 whet ever this is.

JackE

Is this graphics button on your machine located anywhere near one of the numbers below? Jack E/NJ

JoseMarti

It's number 13, unlucky for some.

JackE

OK. That button should be labelled with a 'P'. But its graphics function is kind of hazy --- at least to me. If you didn't get a user manual specifying how to Program the 'P' button, then it probably means it simply toggles the laptop's Power-saver mode on & off. Which to me means when it's toggled on, graphics will likely tank to basic VGA --- basic awful.  So it probably doesn't manually toggle the discrete adapter on & off (still an automatic function in balanced or performance mode). Do you recall if this button toggled on ever did anything good? Jack E/NJ

JoseMarti

It toggles between 4200 and 5000 drivers or cards, in device manager you can see one change to the other when the button is pressed. Strangely, 4200 uses 2gb memory and 5000 uses 512mb. I have never seen it change from one to the other without pressing the button. Anyhow, when in 5000 mode it scrambles the screen up something awful.

JackE

I'd then guess that the c rap setting simply use less power than the other. Sounds like it should be set to plain vanilla 640x480 resolution instead of whatever the system is trying to drive it at. Since no display drivers are listed on the download site, you might want to download and try DriverBooster freeware https://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php   or similar DriverUpdaters https://www.lifewire.com/free-driver-updater-tools-2619206  to see if they can make the P button do something good. So far, it doesn't make me feel jealous.   Jack E/NJ  

JoseMarti

Problems all sorted. The scrambled screen was down to the cpu having old heat sink compound on the pins (and not enough on the graphics card chip). I used a jewellers eye magnifying glass to get every bit of grease off.

Win xp no problem, (in bios choose ide/sata then xp will load on) simply wrote down each device in win7 Device manager, and used a search engine to find the corresponding driver for xp. I guess you could do this for win 10.

I must say I'm over the moon with the graphics, at last a laptop that can play my old games.

JackE

Congrats. Jack E/NJ

JohnPaul1

Instead of my Acer aspire 5553 laptop to be 5470 graphics it is 4200.

How can I fix this please?

billsey

@JohnPaul1 you should start a new thread for your issue, instead of camping out on this really old one. Use the Ask a Question button and include your full model number, the issue you are seeing and what you have tried so far to fix it. The model this thread is for is a 5553G, not a 5553. They are different.

JoseMarti

Hello, the 5553 has the 4200 video card, not 5470.

My graphics card blew up shortly after my last posting; the graphics card took out the whole mother board.

I have replaced it with the 5553 motherboard as that's the only one I could find at the time. I didn't continue looking for a 5553g motherboard as it is well old now, and secondhand bog standard laptops of various makes, have better graphics cards in them.