Aspire TC 885 I am trying to find a technical manual

Jeff307

I am trying to find a technical manual for my 2 year old Aspire TC 885. I am looking to do some upgrades and need to be sure my parts are compatible. 

I have the user manual but, it does not contain any tech specs. I did not receive any manual of this type when I registered the pc. 

Thanks for any assistance. 
[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

ttttt

I have a TC-885-UA91. Acer is exceptional bad on documentations. Never heard or seen a technical manual. If there is any, that may be for Acer's employees, not for public circulation. 

For upgrades, you may have better luck by posting questions here and communicate with people who use the  same PC.

billsey

The TC-885 comes with the Intel B360 chipset and supports Coffee Lake-S processors in the LGA1151 socket. It shipped with 65W processors, so unless you want to also upgrade the cooling you should stick with that wattage. It has two memory slots that each support a maximum of 16GB DIMMs, so 32GB memory max. The memory is DDR4 unbuffered non-ECC at either 2400MHz or 2666MHz. Best is to have all memory at the same speed and needless to say 2666 is faster than 2400. If there any 2400 sticks in there it'll all run at 2400. There is one M.2 slot that supports a NVMe SSD and three SATA connectors on the MB. What combination of storage shipped with your model kind of leads into what's the best upgrade options, the NVMe SSD is significantly faster than any other storage and is by far the best for your boot drive. You also have a PCI Express x16 slot that is suitable for a nice GPU, the G models shipped with a shorty GTX 1050 card. You can put most any shorty card in, if you want a longer card either get the half height or move the HDD so it's not in the way. The power supply is a standard ATX, I think yours came with 500W but check to be sure. Remember that some of the newer GPUs really want 650W or higher.

ttttt

DEAR Jeff3307,

Billsey gave an informative description here. Don't know the sub-model number of your TC-885. My TC-885-UA91 uses i3-9100 CPU, that processor can handle memory speed to 2400 MHZ only (though I have 2666 MHZ memory sticks in both slots). The motherboard can handle to 2666 MHz. Also, my UA91 came with WD SN520 PCIe 3 x2 M.2 NVMe SSD, I have upgraded it to WD SN 750 x4 ( for better performance) since then. 
You can add one 92mm/90mm case fan, one more 4-pin SYS_FAN connector is available on motherboard.
Adding a couple SSD/HDD should be O.K. (maximum three if willing to give up DVD drive).
People even put GTX 1060 super full sized GPU to this PC.

Feel free to ask if you want any upgrade.

Commodore_1995#

This link can help you: https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Acer-Aspire-TC-885/93029

billsey

Heck, I paid a lot more than that to upgrade my Amiga 1000 from 256KB to 512KB and then again to take it to 1MB. It's got 2MB now...

ttttt

I have a TC-885-UA91. Acer is exceptional bad on documentations. Never heard or seen a technical manual. If there is any, that may be for Acer's employees, not for public circulation. 

For upgrades, you may have better luck by posting questions here and communicate with people who use the  same PC.

Jeff307

Thanks. That looks to be the case. You would thing there would be docs on how to upgrade or at least what is compatible. I will use your advice and just ask specific questions. 

billsey

The TC-885 comes with the Intel B360 chipset and supports Coffee Lake-S processors in the LGA1151 socket. It shipped with 65W processors, so unless you want to also upgrade the cooling you should stick with that wattage. It has two memory slots that each support a maximum of 16GB DIMMs, so 32GB memory max. The memory is DDR4 unbuffered non-ECC at either 2400MHz or 2666MHz. Best is to have all memory at the same speed and needless to say 2666 is faster than 2400. If there any 2400 sticks in there it'll all run at 2400. There is one M.2 slot that supports a NVMe SSD and three SATA connectors on the MB. What combination of storage shipped with your model kind of leads into what's the best upgrade options, the NVMe SSD is significantly faster than any other storage and is by far the best for your boot drive. You also have a PCI Express x16 slot that is suitable for a nice GPU, the G models shipped with a shorty GTX 1050 card. You can put most any shorty card in, if you want a longer card either get the half height or move the HDD so it's not in the way. The power supply is a standard ATX, I think yours came with 500W but check to be sure. Remember that some of the newer GPUs really want 650W or higher.

ttttt

DEAR Jeff3307,

Billsey gave an informative description here. Don't know the sub-model number of your TC-885. My TC-885-UA91 uses i3-9100 CPU, that processor can handle memory speed to 2400 MHZ only (though I have 2666 MHZ memory sticks in both slots). The motherboard can handle to 2666 MHz. Also, my UA91 came with WD SN520 PCIe 3 x2 M.2 NVMe SSD, I have upgraded it to WD SN 750 x4 ( for better performance) since then. 
You can add one 92mm/90mm case fan, one more 4-pin SYS_FAN connector is available on motherboard.
Adding a couple SSD/HDD should be O.K. (maximum three if willing to give up DVD drive).
People even put GTX 1060 super full sized GPU to this PC.

Feel free to ask if you want any upgrade.

Jeff307

Thanks everyone. I am not sure what the sub-model of mine is. It shows a part number starting with DT.BAPA. 
Anyhow, it has been a number of yeare since I tinkered wth my PC hardware so, I am a bit behind on some of the  charges. I remember when an SSD was a fantasy. It once cost me $100 for 1 mb of ram so my 286 could have 2 megs and run Windows 3.0 with the 87 meg hard drive.
Thanks for helping an old man catch up.

Commodore_1995#

This link can help you: https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Acer-Aspire-TC-885/93029

billsey

Heck, I paid a lot more than that to upgrade my Amiga 1000 from 256KB to 512KB and then again to take it to 1MB. It's got 2MB now...

kqian111

billsey said:

The TC-885 comes with the Intel B360 chipset and supports Coffee Lake-S processors in the LGA1151 socket. It shipped with 65W processors, so unless you want to also upgrade the cooling you should stick with that wattage. It has two memory slots that each support a maximum of 16GB DIMMs, so 32GB memory max. The memory is DDR4 unbuffered non-ECC at either 2400MHz or 2666MHz. Best is to have all memory at the same speed and needless to say 2666 is faster than 2400. If there any 2400 sticks in there it'll all run at 2400. There is one M.2 slot that supports a NVMe SSD and three SATA connectors on the MB. What combination of storage shipped with your model kind of leads into what's the best upgrade options, the NVMe SSD is significantly faster than any other storage and is by far the best for your boot drive. You also have a PCI Express x16 slot that is suitable for a nice GPU, the G models shipped with a shorty GTX 1050 card. You can put most any shorty card in, if you want a longer card either get the half height or move the HDD so it's not in the way. The power supply is a standard ATX, I think yours came with 500W but check to be sure. Remember that some of the newer GPUs really want 650W or higher.

Thanks for the info. Any tips on the best way to upgrade the SSD and clone the drive? Since there's only 1 M2 slot, it's not possible to have 2 SSDs connected at the same time and clone. I can't think of an easy way to do this.

Also, this mobo only has a 4 pin CPU power connector, which i think really limits your upgrade potential to 65w TDP CPUs. Most DIY mobos have 8 pin CPU connectors that allows for up to 125w CPUs.

ttttt

@kqian111

1)  Create an image file of your original HDD/SSD to another HDD
2)  Install new M.2 NVMe SSD to the M.2 slot
3)  Remove the original HDD/SSD and put the Image file HDD in
4)  Restore image file with ALT+F10 while boot up or boot up from repair disc to restore the image file
5)  Reset BIOS to default and then boot from the M.2 NVMe SSD 

You should have no problem connecting M.2 SSD and two HDD/SSD at the same time for TC-885 PC.
If not using the x16 slot for graphics card you can add another M.2 SSD there with an adapter.

kqian111

Thanks for your directions. I didn't know our BIOS had recovery functions by press alt+F10. What software are you using to create the image?

ttttt

@kqian111
No extra software needed.

Control Panel -> System and Security -> Back Up and Restore (Windows 7) 
Choose Create Image File from left panel
If you do not have a repair disc , create one when you finish creating image file (you will be asked at that time).

billsey

I used Macrium Reflect and a USB M.2 case on mine.

Awesome123

did any of you change the case with this model - TC-885?

I read about the front IO ports wont work with new cases, but if I dont care about audio, can I not use one of these? https://www.startech.com/en-ca/cards-adapters/pexusb3s2ei

Wouldn't the case's headers just plug into this card?

billsey

The front ports on the TC-885 are soldered to the MB on that 'diving board' that sits out toward the front of the case. If you put the MB into a different case you need to deal with two things, the case needs to be deep enough that the diving board isn't in the way and the ports on the MB need to either not be used or you need to cable them to the front of the new case. That card looks like it would give you an extra two USB ports on the back of the machine to supplement the six that are already there, but wouldn't replace the USB-C port on the front of your computer.