Acer AS7560-SB416 w/Quad Core, 4GB, 500GB, 17.3" $320 refurb BUY.com. Videos inside.

[Diogenes2]

Everything?

 

[kingkung]

Is the 7183 upgradable? For example, can I add a gpu to it?

 

[slightlyhuman]

alright got my 2.5" 500gb sata in the primary slot. took my dremel to the plastic part on the inside. smoothed all of it out. a small corner piece when everything is screwed in still pokes out just a hair. not a huge deal although whoever designed the bottom of this laptop should be shot. i'm pretty sure i took out a small plastic piece that helps attach the bottom cover. could be worse. if this had a lit keyboard it would be perfect.

over all i'm happy with it. all i have installed on it is quake 2 and red alert(old schooler here). might install bf3 sometime and arma2 just to see what happens.

thanks for the thread jason! please PM me the link to the keyboard cover you have.

 

[slightlyhuman]

spoke too soon. i've been plugging it in to my LCD. after using it on the bed i noticed a small(see hairline) line all the way across the screen at the very top(between the top of the application and end of the screen itself).

it's a constant flash/flicker. any one else have this problem? i'll have to take a look at the return/exchange policy but not sure after hacking away at the horrible bottom cover. maybe it's a driver issue. going to do some research and will report back.

 

[Basilisk]

Misc' observations on my just-delivered SB416:

• Replaced the 4GB with CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 1600MHz PC3 12800 Laptop Memory(CMSX8GX3M...) and replaced disk with 256GB Samsung 830. The "Windows Experience Index" increased 5.9->7.3 RAM, 5.9->7.9 "HD". Win 7 hasn't insisted I re-validate my license after these changes!
• I don't believe -any- SSD (or HD) will fit (with cover closing) in the 2nd-drive position even after Dremeling as the curving cover appears to pass through the required space towards the rear edge; that's not to say a (hypothetical) 1.8" drive wouldn't fit, but those aren't very available and would require a u-SATA adapter, right? There's an image of a 2-disk-compatible bottom-plate on EBay (~$50) and it has a large "blister" on the rear curve to accommodate that second drive. I'm unsure just what an earlier poster did to his, but I'll consider Dremeling the bottom-plate's interior grid (which fills the 2nd disk space) and using a heat-gun to "relax" (flatten) that rear area's curve -- 2 or 3 of the rear tabs wouldn't fit any longer and there'd be an opening. [[[While I was typing this, "slightlyhuman" posted that the rear 'nearly fits' after dremeling. Keep in mind that in this condition the 2nd drive will not have much protection against shocks to the case's bottom or rear, so HD's may be unsuitable there; also keep in mind that the rear gap will probably be impacted by the depth of the drive with a 7mm drive almost closing but a 9.5....]]]
• That does look like a micro-SATA pin-out! Who has the guts to plug something in there?!?!?! [Not much point when one has an SSD.]
• To clone the HD to the SSD I used EaseUS Copy Drive (free version run off boot CD) after turning-off & deleting System Restore, turning off prefetch (etc.) and running CCleaner and Defraggler -- all of which allowed me to Shrink Volume the main partition to 220GB so it and the other two partitions would all fit on the SSD.
• Yup, a lot of crudware to remove, but it's manageable.
• FWIW: 8 seconds to completely power-off; 30 seconds to power up from full off (which includes ~10 seconds of POST -- a full reboot cycle takes 28 seconds from desktop to desktop).

 

[Basilisk]

Is the 7183 upgradable? For example, can I add a gpu to it?

No slot for a GPU -- it uses an integrated one. RAM and HD can be replaced/upgraded, and that's all -- ignoring replaceable parts like keyboard, screen, WLAN. (Whether or not you consider a 2nd HD an upgrade depends on your love of Dremel tools.)

 

[slightlyhuman]

reboot seemed to fix the issue i had uptop. not sure what caused that.

 

[funboy6942]

reboot seemed to fix the issue i had uptop. not sure what caused that.

I had it happen to me 2 times so far. Very top of the screen and a reboot always fixed it. Like a GPU glitch or something, but Im not all to worried about it to be honest.

As for the covers just put in the model number of mine into the search bar and they will show up. Also I dont know if they will fit yours because you got a different model then me. My want to put yours in and see if any pop up as well.

 

[Ashenor]

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-A6-Series A6-3420M.html

I found this, and indeed you are 100% right! WTF didnt AMD or laptop makers advertise this????

Ya i got mine yesterday and it has a sticker on it about the boost.

Works good so far, i might upgrade the ram to 8g this week, it would not read/load my Mist of Pandaria World of warcraft disk though, and ended up downloading 22g instead. Will have to try another disk to see if i have a issue with the drive.

And wow after living with a SSD, a non SSD drive seems like the stone age lmao.

 

[AlexAL]

Anyone have any idea which is the Realtek USB Card Reader 2.0 upgraded driver from
http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads...=25&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

I seem to get horrible rates when writing to SD card, something like 500kb/s instead of at least 4Mb/s, so might as well try a newer driver.

 

[slightlyhuman]

Ya i got mine yesterday and it has a sticker on it about the boost.

Works good so far, i might upgrade the ram to 8g this week, it would not read/load my Mist of Pandaria World of warcraft disk though, and ended up downloading 22g instead. Will have to try another disk to see if i have a issue with the drive.

And wow after living with a SSD, a non SSD drive seems like the stone age lmao.

i noticed that too(about the ssd). it's night and day.

 

[Delbert]

Misc' observations on my just-delivered SB416:

• I don't believe -any- SSD (or HD) will fit (with cover closing) in the 2nd-drive position even after Dremeling as the curving cover appears to pass through the required space towards the rear edge; that's not to say a (hypothetical) 1.8" drive wouldn't fit, but those aren't very available and would require a u-SATA adapter, right? There's an image of a 2-disk-compatible bottom-plate on EBay (~$50) and it has a large "blister" on the rear curve to accommodate that second drive. I'm unsure just what an earlier poster did to his, but I'll consider Dremeling the bottom-plate's interior grid (which fills the 2nd disk space) and using a heat-gun to "relax" (flatten) that rear area's curve -- 2 or 3 of the rear tabs wouldn't fit any longer and there'd be an opening. [[[While I was typing this, "slightlyhuman" posted that the rear 'nearly fits' after dremeling. Keep in mind that in this condition the 2nd drive will not have much protection against shocks to the case's bottom or rear, so HD's may be unsuitable there; also keep in mind that the rear gap will probably be impacted by the depth of the drive with a 7mm drive almost closing but a 9.5....]]]

Anything like the Acer in this article?
He didnt mention model.
If so, note what he did.
http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/some-ugliness-installing-an-after-market-ssd/

 

[AlexAL]

[/LIST]
Anything like the Acer in this article?
He didnt mention model.
If so, note what he did.
http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/some-ugliness-installing-an-after-market-ssd/

Yeah, it's exactly the laptop this thread is about.

 

[Basilisk]

If so, note what he did.
http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/some-ugliness-installing-an-after-market-ssd/

Nice to see someone had the guts to try that! The un-casing option was mentioned early in this thread, but I don't think that poster risked it; I certainly lacked the cojones with a new 256GB SSD. Having seen it proven out in this article, I'll give my SSD a month to convince me it won't need a service call, then I'll try it. Hmmm... would've been interesting to see him try the same approach fitting an HD in there.

 

[AlexAL]

Nice to see someone had the guts to try that! The un-casing option was mentioned early in this thread, but I don't think that poster risked it; I certainly lacked the cojones with a new 256GB SSD. Having seen it proven out in this article, I'll give my SSD a month to convince me it won't need a service call, then I'll try it. Hmmm... would've been interesting to see him try the same approach fitting an HD in there.

Yeah, I mentioned it and was gonna do it till I realized the thing about the warranty. Glad that it works but I'm still not gonna do it.

 

[Mathwiz]

I just bought the 7560 model and would love to put a 256 SSD in it except I am still a little unclear how to transfer the data from the original drive. I have never used the program the guy in the article used.

 

[slightlyhuman]

also forgot to mention i did the same thing linked above. but mine still has a small opening due to me hitting that clip with the dremel=p

 

[Basilisk]

II have never used the program the guy in the article used.

This is marching OT, so apologies. There are many ways/tools for doing an HD to SSD swap. Below is what I did:

• For EASEUS Disk Copy (free) [EDC] you must ShrinkVolume the main HD partition to ~220GB (for a 240GB SSD) so that all three partitions will fit on the SSD. (Shrinking is done in Disk Management.) The "catch" is that Win7 puts several unmovable files in the center of the "C" partition, so you must dispose of those as follows
  • Turn off Protection (System Restore) on the C drive and Delete the restore files (a button on the same screen as the disable option).
  • Disable prefetch and superfetch as they are unnecessary with SSD and create more locked files in the middle of the drive.
  • Download and run CCleaner and Defraggler -- you may have the best luck running defraggler from Diagnostic Startup mode as you want to move all the files towards the beginning of the partition.
  • If Disk Management allows you to Shrink Volume on the C drive enough that the "C" partition plus the other two HD partitions will fit on the SSD, you are set to boot to that ECD disc.
    • If you couldn't shrink the drive adequately, you can use defraggler (or other tools) to identify the files blocking the Shrink. Delete or move them as appropriate, and retry Shrink.
• Download EASEUS Disk Copy (free) [EDC], put a blank CD in and run the downloaded program to burn a bootable CD.
• Boot into ROM (F2?) and set CD as first-checked boot drive.
• Remove the bottom cover (3 screws) and slip your SSD into the empty drive slot - no caddy required, nor need you re-install the bottom cover.
• Boot the CD and just follow its instructions -- it took about 80 minutes for a 240GB copy.
• Remove the boot-CD and the SSD and HD drives. Mount the SSD in the HD's caddy and install it into the HD drive space, then reinstall the bottom cover.
• Don't forget to re-enable System Protection and create a Restore Point -- you deleted all existing RP's above. I also went to the Task Scheduler and disabled the MS periodic defragmenting program since that is counterproductive on an SSD.

You may have a better procedure or choose different s/w. It's not trivial if you're a newby, and it may be suboptimal if you're more advanced than me, but it was pretty uneventful for me. G'luck!