Aspire R7 572 Stylus, RAM upgrade, Hard Drive upgrade

Michael1
Michael1 Member Posts: 6 New User

I just picked up the new R7 from Best Buy.  They didn't know anything about purchasing the stylus.  Does anyone have a link to do so?

 

The RAM has changed since the last model, which had 4G soldered and room for an 8G stick (12 total).  The new model has 8G but is that soldered and what kind of stick(s) do I need for an upgrade?

 

Finally, is the hard drive an mSATA or a 2.5 or a 1.8 drive?

 

Thanks all.

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Answers

  • surfaceproartis
    surfaceproartis Member Posts: 11 New User
    Answer ✓
  • Michael1
    Michael1 Member Posts: 6 New User

    Thanks for the link!  Just bought it.  Can't wait to try it out with Creative Cloud.  I searched for it too but couldn't find it.

     

    Any thoughts on upgrading RAM or HD?

  • surfaceproartis
    surfaceproartis Member Posts: 11 New User
    Be aware that Adobe apps still use old WinTab drivers so you won't have pressure sensitivity in Photoshop, etc. Rumor is that Adobe will be adopting Microsoft 's .ink API in a future release. Presently, Manga Studio, Sketchbook Pro. ArtRage 4 will recognize N-Trig digitizer found in the R7.

    Unless you 're working on massive RAW files, 8 GB RAM should be plenty.
  • Michael1
    Michael1 Member Posts: 6 New User

    Ok, thanks for the tip.

     

    I also code in Visual Studio, hence the need for max ram.  The R7 is great for that while traveling because the keyboard, monitor's pivot, and touch screen make airplane seats easier to code in.

  • cabowden
    cabowden Member Posts: 3 New User

    The Device Manager on my R7 572 purchased 11/27/2013 at Best Buy says that it is a Western Digital Blue (wd10jpvx-22jc3t0) which according to the spec sheet is a 2.5" SATA 5400 RPM with 8 MB cache.  It was performing miserably (kb data transfer rates instead of mb) until I installed the driver that Acer posted recently on the R7-572 Driver page.   It made a world of difference.

  • Michael1
    Michael1 Member Posts: 6 New User

    I was hoping to place an order before I cracked open the machine, but alas. 

     

    After removing the visible screws you need to uncover 3 hidden screws by removed the rubber nubs.  The two rubbers by the speakers are left alone.

     

    It has two 204-pin SO-DIMMs with 4GB sticks.  This probably means there is no soldered memory.  I ordered two 8GB sticks to max this thing out. 

     

    The hard drive is indeed a 2.5.  I ordered a Samsung EVO 500GB that claims to use excess RAM as a hard drive cache. 

     

    I'll update this thread after the install and let everyone know how it went.

  • greg1
    greg1 Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer

    There are 2 SO-DIMM slots.  I put 2 8GB sticks of Patriot PSA316G1600SK DDR3L 1.35V CL11 memory in.  Some 1.5V RAM I already had did not work.

     

    The hard drive is a standard 9mm 2.5" SATA.  That I replaced with the Samsung EVO 840 1TB SSD.  You can use Acronis True Image WD Edition (free) to clone the original WD drive to the SSD.  Two nice advantages to the Samsung: first, it is exactly the same size as the original drive, so you can clone identically without having to resize partitions; second, the latest Samsung Magician software will manage a 1GB ramdisk to accelerate the SSD even more.

     

     

  • Michael1
    Michael1 Member Posts: 6 New User

    I forgot to mention that the memory is low volt.  It's 1.35V DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800). 

  • Michael1
    Michael1 Member Posts: 6 New User

    Hey Greg, thanks for the post.  Looks like we clipped each other on timing there.

     

    How was the performance boost for you?

  • greg1
    greg1 Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer

    Heh, great minds!

     

    If you mean performance boost from the SSD... it is always fantastic!  I can't go back to mechanical drives anymore.  However, I didn't really use the machine much before I changed that out.

     

  • Bitfox
    Bitfox Member Posts: 11 New User

    Hi :-)

     

    it RAM now working and wich brand you use?

     

    Ciao,

    Bitfox

  • mitchellvii
    mitchellvii Member Posts: 7 New User

    Can someone point me to a guide on removing the HDD?  I have an SSD I would like to replace it with but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to remove the HDD.  I opened the back withut issue the removed the little black screws I could see holding the HDD bracket down.  No luck, wouldn't budge.  So I removed the silver screws holding the drive in the bracket - again no joy - won't budge.

     

    Didn't apply much pressure as I did't want to break anything - but in the past HDD's have always lifted out with relative ease.

     

    Someone who has already done this can you help me out?  Thanks!

     

    ** One more thing.  Now that I put everything back together, seems my HDD is churning and zooming a bit.  Not sure why this would be as I didn't move it at all and it obviously works as I am tying this on the R7.  An ideas?

     

    New update. Couldn't stop the hard drive churning so decided to restore the whole system from scratch again. As it restores hard drive not churning at all just running steady. So apparently nothing physical is amiss. For some reason something was churning it although it was not apparent in the task manager. Weird.

     

    Really would like to be able to drop this SSD in here to cut HDD sound altogether if I can figure out how to remove the darned thing. Was hoping for a tear down video online but nothing.

  • mitchellvii
    mitchellvii Member Posts: 7 New User

    Ok figured out how to get the HDD out. Just remove the side silver screws and carefully shimmy the hard drive up and pull back. Then do the opposite to set the SSD.

     

    In this case my SSD is and older Sata 2 version. Although I cloned the HDD to it, the computer doesn't want to see it.  I even tried booting from my USB recovery stick and it tells me "drive is locked". Attempting to do startup repair fails as well. If I run UEFI startup the Bios does not seem to recognize my SSD in the boot sequence saying only HDD. However if I set it to Legacy boot sequence the SSD name appears on the list.

     

    Have no idea what is happening there. Thought I needed UEFI for Windows 8?

     

    Anyway will probably just go back to the HDD and live with that until my SATA 3 SSD gets here.

     

    Anyone know what I am doing wrong?  Tried to do full recovery from USB stick to SSD but computer does not see it at all.

     

    ** UPDATE: Just dropped a new Samsung EVO 120 in and it works great.  Samsung's cloning software is the best.

  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    Well count me in on the R7-572 owners...

     

    So far so great, glad I'd took the risk on this laptop...

     

    I installed a 128gb msata ssd I had laying around and swapped out the wifi card for the new Intel 7260-AC.

     

    I cloned the hard drive to the ssd and that went great.  I'm also fooling with an 8gb Intel Rapid Start partition.

     

    My only wish would be to have it just a tad smaller, like an inch or 2 less wide.

     

    I'll keep you posted.

  • mitchellvii
    mitchellvii Member Posts: 7 New User

    Here's a pen mounting idea.  Simple rubber penclip and some two sided tape.  Works great.

     

    R7pen1jpg.jpg

     

    R7pen2.jpg

  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    Doesn't seem the R7 bios supports Intel Rapid Start.  I hope they add support for this.

  • Rainebo
    Rainebo Member Posts: 1 New User
    My R7 572 came with a stylus in the box along with a palm rest and cleaning cloth. Shouldn't they all come with these?
  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    Mine from Bestbuy, has the palm rest, no stylus.  I guess you got lucky!

  • PenguinJim
    PenguinJim Member Posts: 72 Enthusiast WiFi Icon

    mitchellvii wrote:

     

    In this case my SSD is and older Sata 2 version. Although I cloned the HDD to it, the computer doesn't want to see it.  I even tried booting from my USB recovery stick and it tells me "drive is locked". Attempting to do startup repair fails as well. If I run UEFI startup the Bios does not seem to recognize my SSD in the boot sequence saying only HDD. However if I set it to Legacy boot sequence the SSD name appears on the list.

    ... 

    ** UPDATE: Just dropped a new Samsung EVO 120 in and it works great.  Samsung's cloning software is the best.


    I had the same problem. Wasted half a day trying to fix it! Acer's Recovery USB just wasn't recovering to my new MSATA SSD. I ended up cloning, like you. Robot Mad

     


    mitchellvii wrote:

    Can someone point me to a guide on removing the HDD?


    If anyone else needs a quick look at how to open up to access the SATA, MSATA and RAM, I saw a lack of R7-opening videos on Youtube so knocked one together when I opened mine yesterday.
  • Andrik
    Andrik Member Posts: 19

    Tinkerer

    Mine (527G) came with the stylus but no armrest. In fact this is the first time I've heard of an armrest. What does it look like?

This discussion has been closed.