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Originally Posted by kryten16
Hi guys,
My 1711's back from its trip to the Acer UK repair centre and the 128mb nvidia graphics card has arrived from their spares department as well. Its time for me save my baby from the useless integrated graphics and give it a new lease of life with the nvidia solution. One thing troubles me though, and i'm hoping you guys can help. My problem is this, i need to know exactly how to install the graphics card, what to plug in etc etc, basically how to get the thing in the machine. I've done tons of building of desktop machines but never a laptop. Please help guys, am scared of destroying my baby and flushing £200 of graphics card down the loo. So a walkthrough of the process would be much appreciated, or even better a pdf of the service manual, then i can do it myself. Then i post pics for you when it works!!!! |
This is very long - sorry. Read all the way through before you start.
I'm a little skeptical that the 1711 and the 1712 use the same m/b -
so this may not work.
Facing your system as you normally would, the vents for the GPU are the
little bitty slots under the audio and Firewire connectors. The secondary
CPU cooler exhaust is the next one towards the rear (where most of the
heat and noise come out). The next one towards the rear is the primary
CPU cooler exhaust (between the USB and power connector).
Put the system on something like a shirt on a table (so you don't scuff it
up). Close the lid and flip it over, back to front.
Remove the bottom plate (7 screws). The screws may want to stay with
the plate; let them. There's a little tab to lift it with near the side facing
you (the rear panel). Tilt the panel up no more than 1/3 towards vertical,
then slide it towards you. There's a flange on the left rear portion of the
cover that fits into the case.
Now you see all the guts. The big shiny assembly with the fans in it on
the lower RIGHT is the CPU/chipset cooler. Don't remove it; you'll need to
replenish the CPU thermal transfer compound on the cooler if you do.
There's nothing interesting under there except the CPU.
On the lower LEFT you'll see the hard drive; upper LEFT you'll see the
DVD player. (BTW - you can remove the entire DVD drive by removing the
one screw in the little flange sticking out of the back of it.)
The upper RIGHT is where the plug-in GPU goes. The part you ordered should
be about six inches long by about three wide by about one deep. Most
of it should consist of a shiny metal cooling housing with a fan in it. The
underside (circuit board side) should have a connector sticking out of the
circuit board.
CAUTION: DO NOT HANDLE THE PART UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO INSTALL IT.
Static electricity you could never detect could destroy it.
Turn off power to the system. Remove the battery (top section, five
screws which are loose and will drop inside your system. (-8 )
Turning off the power is very important. Be aware that if you accidentally
push one of the "CD player" buttons on the front edge of the system it may
try to power on. You can disable these with Fn-F9.
You *should* get an anti-static mat and wrist strap to work on your system
(although few but professionals do). The idea is to ensure that there is
no static electricity on either you or the system which could flow from one
to the other - potentially through some part that will be fried by it. The
simple way to ensure this is to touch some unpainted metal part on your
system before you work on it or touch your new part. DON'T touch any
circuit board or circuit board contact to do this.
The CPU cooler housing or one of the ground connections to
the hard drive frame are ideal. Touch one of these before doing anything,
before you touch your new card, and occasionally while you're working and
you should be okay. (Technically you should turn off power to the power
adapter but leave it plugged in so the system is grounded to earth. Power
strips usually can switch off power but leave the ground connected.)
The GPU assembly goes on the upper-right part of the motherboard. There
should be a white connector slot about 2.5" long about two inches down
from the top of the m/b, and about three inches in from the right side,
running left to right. The GPU plugs into that, with the cooling housing
extending over to the right side of the case. When oriented correctly, there should be a small white connector on the lower left corner of the GPU
assembly. The GPU is held in place by four screws, two that you have to
put through holes in the cooling housing on the right, and two on the left
edge, top and bottom. (You did think to order screws, right?). The left
two screw holes are on standoffs about 1/4" above the m/b. I hope they
are on your m/b. Remember, the screws only need to be tight enough to
hold everything in place and not work loose. Stripping them would not be
good.
Last step is to connect the LCD cable to the small white connector on the
GPU card. On my system the cable comes down from the LCD through the
left hinge (looking at the upside-down system, rear panel facing you). It
snakes to the right along the hard drive frame and then towards the top
under the memory. You can probably just lay it across the memory instead
of removing it and running the cable underneath.
This last part is interesting, as I did not see a connector on my m/b anywhere
for the LCD to use the onboard GPU, so I don't know where yours will currently be connected - or if the cable will be long enough. I expect it will
be, though. I'd be interested in a pic of your m/b while your system's apart.
I don't have a digital camera or I'd post one of mine.
Be careful disconnecting the LCD cable (in a black sheath, small white
connector with about twenty tiny wires on it. DO NOT PULL ON THE
WIRES TO DISCONNECT IT. If you pull wire out or break them, you need
a serious repair guy or a new LCD ($700). Use a small tool to pry it evenly
out of its socket. Mine didn't have any locking mechanism on it. Plug it
into the new GPU. The socket and connector are keyed, so they'll only
connect one way.
I suggest testing it with the system still open. Keep the LCD flat on the
table, and open the system so that the base is vertical. Check everything,
rub rabbit's foot, connect power, turn on. You should see something on the
screen almost immediately, just as usual. The fan on the GPU unit should
start immediately.
I do NOT know how to disable the onboard GPU. Usually you can do this
in the BIOS, but this BIOS has no such option. So either the BIOS
will detect your new GPU and disable the onboard one - or it won't, and
you'll have TWO GPUs in your system. I just checked, and my system has
only one GPU listed in device manager.
Intel has two different 865 chipsets, one with the built-in GPU, and one
without. I suspect the 1711 m/b has the one with, and the 1712 and later
the one without.
I'm a little suspicious that the m/b in the 1711 may be different than the
1712 and later. If so you may be out of luck. Call Acer and find out if
they are before you open the GPU - you might need to send it back.
Good luck - let us know what happens.
- Eric
I´m going to use it mainly for music production. I got a question though and I think you guys can help me out. I´m planning to use it with Yamaha 01X digital mixing studio which is an MLan FireWire device. Are IRQ´s of those two firewire ports on 1714 shared with other devices (onboard sound, USB2 etc) or not? Because it´s quite crucial for 01X to use firewire ports which are UNSHARED. If those FireWires on 1714 are shared, can I make some changes in BIOS to assign firewire ports to unshared IRQ-s? Or should I go after PCMCIA firewire adapter?
