So what's the deal with new Acer Aspire's and PCI-E Video cards? Just unlucky?

Regional_Coffee

There is definitely something fishy going on with later Aspire slimline models and PCI-E video cards.  I don't know the root cause, and neither does Acer (if they care).

 

I currently own an Aspire X3300, with a 65wt X2 215 CPU.  Right now for the better part of a year it's been running a Sapphire Radeon 7750 Low Profile 1GB DDR5 card, which is the best card you can get for this form factor and is actually quite powerful - I do most of my gaming at 1080p with most settings turned up.  At load, it consumes around 45watts.  Previously I used a Radeon 6670 card which had a higher load at 66 watts - that was pushing it, not necessarily in terms of power drain but constrained thermals.  Before that, a 5570.  I still own all three cards, and all three worked reliably for the better part of 2 years in this little machine.

 

Now, I mention the power load as I've seen a response on here from an Acer tech to a poster who had the same problem I did when I went to upgrade my system to a newer Aspire model  - putting this card in his new Aspire produced no video.  His response was that "The tech specs of your video card recommend a 450wt power supply, so it won't work", which as anyone who's been building their own PC's for years knows that means very little with respect to how much wattage you actually need from your PSU.  Video card manufacturers state far higher numbers than necessary because they have no idea what hardware you have in your system, and the quality of your power supply.  A 250 watt 80-plus certified power supply can deliver more consistent power than a cheap $20 500 watt piece of junk.  Plus this is getting video right at boot when the card is hardly being stressed.

 

Needless to say, while the PSU in the Acer Aspire's may not be top of the line, they're not garbage either - plus the minimal power needed for the system, especially with a 65watt CPU, drives home that point even further.  To wit: I have a Kill-A-Watt power meter which measures the actual draw from the power outlet.  I've tested it on this sytem running FurMark, a GPU/CPU stress-test tool which maximizes the load from both the CPU and graphics card (GPU) - and my Acer was barely approaching 110 watts with my 7750 when maxxed.  And as mentioned, this system is 2+ years old by now and has been on and running most hours of the day.

Oh, and last year Best Buy was selling an Acer Aspire with a *95* watt Phenon II + installed 5570 combo, which of course flies right in the face of Acer's comments as that has a higher wattage draw than my combo. 

 

And for the final nail in the "Not enough Power" coffin - all 3 cards work fine in an older HP slimline, which has a meagre *160watt* PSU (albeit not extended testing, but does boot into Windows).

 

There simply is no obvious technical reason why a 7750 low profile card should not work with the newer Aspire's, but unfortunately I'm now 0 for 2. 

 

Both my 7750 and 5570, when put into 2 new Aspire's I tried (and sadly had to return) would not produce any video.  The PC's powered up fine, the video cards fan activates and Windows starts loading, but no video from the PCIE video card - or the internal video which is expected as it should automatically switch over when a PCIE video card is installed. The Acer Support was not able to help, after basically repeating everything I outlined in the support email several times, they gave up and stated they can't support a peripheral "bought from a third party" (kind of defeating the point of having a slot I guess).

 

2 models produced this exact behavoir with both the 5570 and 7750, which as mentioned work fine in my current Aspire and an HP slimline.  First up was the AX3475-EF328, using an A8-5500 (65) watt CPU, which actually game with a Radeon 7350 graphics card already installed.  With the 7350 card no issue, with my 2 Radeons no video.  The latest was the AX3-100-EF10 with AMD A10 4700 CPU and no installed video card OOTB, same problem.

 

The odds of having the exact same issue across 2 different systems is very suspect, the first I thought was a fluke, but the second makes me question what's going on with these systems.  Something to do with the AMD Trinity GPU models?  The PCI-E slot?  Regardless I'm not going to try a third time.

 

Anyone else running a later Acer Aspire with a decent modern low profile video card, especially the 7750 and not having a problem?  This is dissapointing as I love these Aspire units, quiet, small and cheap - the addition of the 7750 just took them to a new level, but without it I may as well be running a cheap laptop.

 

 

Juzzo

Although I have no experience with this issue, Ive seen others solve similar ones by deactivating safe-boot in the bios.

(Quoting here..You do these steps with the gfx card out) 

1- Change Authentification to: disable secure boot.

       This enables the bios to manage equipment not installed originally.

 

2- Change Launch CSM to: always.

 

Then save your new settings.

The computer will reboot.

Shut it down to install your new graphic card or SSD, HDD...

Reboot and everything should be fine.

Regional_Coffee

Ah, that may be it - specially Launch CSM to always.  I had indeed read about secure boot needing to be disabled as my video card likely didn't have an UEFI compatible bios, but I think I might have left CSM set to auto which may have not been enough - can't fully recall though.

 

Still food for thought for anyone else who runs into this issue.  I've moved onto a custom mini-itx build so unfortunately can't test a third time.