Graphics Card Upgrade - Acer Aspire 5 (A515-54-51DJ)

NeonNobility

I bought a brand new Acer Aspire 5 (A515-54-51DJ) on the cheap after my old laptop died and I needed a replacement on very short notice for college classes, but now that I've had it for a while, I've noticed that the graphics card is painfully pathetic. None of the specs I looked up online would tell me anything, but now that I have the laptop and can look at the display settings, it's absurd how little video memory there is. The 8GB of RAM is awesome, but the VRAM is a measly 128 mb. Honestly baffled this laptop exists, you can't do anything but use the internet on this thing. I'm definitely gonna buy a 1GB graphics card, but I need to know if the existing one is soldered onto the motherboard like my old HP. Really hoping it's not, because otherwise this laptop was a huge waste of money, but I need to know before I go spending money and poking around

​//Edited the content to add model name.

StevenGen

Firstly, you cant PnP (plug and play) your graphic card(s) on any modern laptop(s) these days! You are restricted and to 'what fits into the A515-54 case and can only swap your motherboard with an upper spec that the Acer Aspire 5 A515-54 came with, that is all that you can do. You cant even upgrade its CPU as both the graphics and CPU are soldered on. Have a look on the net what higher spec motherboards there are available for your Acer Aspire 5 A515-54?

There is an alternative to your problem, you can run an external graphics card with a "V8.0 EXP GDC Laptop External PCIE Graphics Card for Beast Dock Mini PCI-E" that you can buy on eBay or Amazon, its also advantageous to have an external monitor. You can do this very easily and it works quite well, I've done it and its very simple! 

NeonNobility

Okay, so it's just a simple external graphics card doc? Seems a lot cheaper to get that and a new card than a whole new laptop. Honestly the best solution would be Acer doing their job and not limiting the integrated VRAM to 128gb, but it's better than nothing I suppose. Are there any kinds of graphics cards it doesn't work with?

StevenGen

Try and upgrade to about 2x upgrade of your existing graphics card in your laptop now (btw what is the card in your laptop?) as from what I see its an Intel UHD Graphics 620 that is integrated into the i5-8265U CPU. Also, get a PS that will run the card, doesn't have to be an A grade one, just a PS that will run this card, also, you can buy a box to case all these components into to make it portable. There are very good guides on the net of how to do this and its very workable and fixes your problem. 

NeonNobility

It seems like only sketchy sites are selling that dock, and only shipping from China, so I really don't feel comfortable putting my money on the line to deal with that. My card is an Intel UHD 620, but for some reason I can't get the VRAM to go above 128gb, which is about 1/8th of what it should be

StevenGen

Ok I understand, do this and go to:

Right click Windows icon > cmd > regedit > HKEY_LOCAL_MACINE > SOFTWARE

Click on > Intel > New > Key > name it GMM > New > Key >DWORD (32-bit) Value > (name that key>) DedicatedSegmentSize > Modify > from 0 to 512

Then go to Display Settings > Advanced display settings > Display adapter settings > then reboot and you should have 512 or you can go higher to lets say 640 etc, dont increase values too much as the OP will give a BSOD blue screen!

NeonNobility

Did that and nothing seems to have changed on in my settings, but it appears to have at least had some effect on performance maybe

D4rkMatt3r24

Hi! I have an Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G-73VK). I was wondering if i could possibly upgrade my gpu. Nvidia MX230 isn't that powerful enough for what I'm doing. is it upgradable??

DavidSamy

DEFINITELY STAY AWAY FROM ACER! The graphics card broke 1.5 year after I bought it. Since it was soldered together with the processor, it was not possible to repair it. It cost about 350$ to repair. A very poor quality computer, stay away if you wanna save your money!