Acer Predator Helios 500 PH517-61 Buyers Are Not Rubbish!

FizikPsix said:

Hi Acer.  These are the buyers of the PH517-61 which you safely abandoned.  But we gave good money and we want the same support! 
We want:
1) Fixed freesync on latest drivers

2) Introduce support for AMD 3000 series and possibly 5000 series.

3.1) Introduce support for high-speed memory 2666 and higher! When working in 2/4 slots.

3.2) Or unlock the bios and let people choose the frequency themselves.

Can you do it!  The chipset of the motherboard is B450 and it supports AMD 3000 and 5000 series.  And also with RAM above 2666!  Don't make buyers regret that we chose you!  We are still waiting!

Seconded.
And in case number 2 wasn't too clear, FizikPsix referred to 3000 and 5000 series Zen processors (aka, Zen 2 and Zen 3).

pfearn2303 said:

I had no clue about the locked bios and if I did I wouldn't have touched Acer. Never again

Most OEM's lock BIOSes on laptops - supposedly to prevent people from overclocking their machines (which really doesn't make any sense).

A brief summary of my experiencie.

The static after sleep never got fixed no matter what drivers I used. It got fixed when I upgraded my Windows 10 to 2004

2) I can upgrade my GPU drivers without issues, as far as I don't use the Factory Reset. If you do that, Freesync no longer work, but does not require the installation of the original drivers, by just using CRU add the Freesync Support range with the tool after installing the drivers, delete the unused monitors on the list, reboot and voila, it works.

3) Don't use the Ryzen power profile, it is meant for first gen Ryzen to allow the CPU to be stuck at 90% so the CPU can control its power states, not needed for second Gen. If you use the Ryzen power profile, the CPU will be stuck at 3.40GHz no matter what. If you change it to balanced, it will allow the CPU to idle at 1.5GHz but ramp the clockspeeds up to 4.10GHz during light workloads, allowing the system to feel snappier on lightly threaded applications as the Windows power scheme already contains the fixes for the second gen Ryzen. Ryzen 3x00 series clock behavior works the same no matter if you use generic balanced or the Ryzen performance as it already supports CCCP and does its own lol.

4) The latest Ryzen Master tool works like a champ and allows you to ramp up the memory clocks when you upgrade the RAM in the case that it only runs at 2,133MHz. Not tested with higher than 2,400MHz.

5) Battery life depletes quickly, already 30% in less than a year, those Panasonic cells aren't really that great.

dcmod said:

I second this request , Acer please update this machine Video drivers .
Evolucion,, what adrenaline drivers are you using which does not have the static after sleep ?

For me, the static after sleep resolved when I started using Radeon PRO Enterprise drivers, but I think that had more to do with Windows being updated rather than the drivers themselves.
At any rate, any modern drivers will work... and even clean installing them is fine (in that case you just need to use CRU software to restore Freesync functionality).

But yes, Acer, we need a BIOS update for this unit which integrates LATEST AGESA and support for Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPU's, along with a fix for the RAM speed problem (and integration of XMP profiles).

Acer IT support... are you listening?
Multiple requests have been sent regarding this and you're still keeping us in the dark.
Desktop motherboard manufacturers continue to release regular BIOS updates for YEARS after release... this is a B450 motherboard that we have and as such not really very old... besides, how difficult is it to integrate latest AGESA, high RAM frequencies across all 4 slots and unlock the BIOS in general?

Per the specs, this machine WAS designed for overclocking, and yet you went the extra mile and encrypted the BIOS even. I mean, what the heck?

I want the ability to upgrade to a new CPU for one reason alone.

I want Android Runtime for Windows. I'm very frustrated that Microsoft will be locking Android Runtime for Windows to only Zen 2 and newer CPUs. For a laptop, being able to run Android programs is beneficial.

I don't need faster RAM or PCIe 4 NVMe support (the GPU is a PCIe 3 part and not changeable, although I wish they'd have used a MXM module). The avaiability of larger cache in the 5800X3D sounds awesome, but ultimately it's not what I want.

I want Android Runtime for Windows.

Bluestacks? Yeah, if it's terms and conditions doesn't specify that I have to let it install programs on my NVMe disk as a trade off. Especially when the programs that it installs are online casino apps which are illegal in my part of the world.

I find the way Acer fixes the video drivers very ham-fisted. Instead of just downloading a custom monitor inf and icc file that specifies the availability of Freesync, it tries to force down a VERY old version of Adrenaline instead. Seriously, Acer?

The static sleep thing seems to be an issue with the AMD drivers as a whole and not just the laptop. I experience it on my desktop PCs as well (on both Vega and Polaris GPUs, with an Acer monitor). I can fix it by powering off and on the monitor, meaning that the problem is the display is unable to get a lock during wake for some reason- maybe the GPU has to reset the display on wake and it doesn't, and the display doesn't take too kindly to start receiving data when it's not ready.