Acer 5920G: heat and noise

Hey guys,

I´m reading as many reviews and comments as I can, but I haven´t been able to find many comments about heat and noise, which are the things that concern me the most about this laptop (aside for the 8600M GT, naturally... ;-)

Basically, I´m coming from a HP dv2145, Centrino m725 with and integrated graphics card, and I barely couldn´t be happier about how quiet it is: the fan NEVER goes on (unless the CPU´s temperature goes above 63ºC for a few seconds, which rarely happens) and it´s quite good on the temperature department (specially on the upper surface, which makes for a very comfortable typing).

Could you please leave your first-hand experiences with this laptop regarding heat and noise?

(I'm specially interested to know how often does the fan kick in, and whether or not it gets "too warm" for comfortable typing, with "AVERAGE" USE (no gaming)).

Thanks a lot guys, I appreciate it.

EDIT: Since it seems to be different CPU versions with different TDPs, it would be nice if you could specify which processor do you have.

For those interested, here you have a couple links about TDP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_po...ison_of_power_consumption_of_some_modern_CPUs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_future_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

(Sadly, I haven´t been able to find equivalent lists with the GPU´s TDPs...)

 

hi andario

ive had this laptop a couple of days now and im really happy with it

i had it next to my bed last night downloading a few things and i could'nt hear a thing

it does get a hot underneath in the top left corner when your gaming but thats to be expected

but as a rule its really quiet

 

Thanks Anthony, great to know that it´s suitable for "bed use"... ;-)

I´m kinda "oversensitive" with noise, I guess.

What about the fans then? Are they "silent" or they simply don´t kick in?

 

hahaha what are you trying to imply young sir! nah they are quiet even when gaming i dont really notice them ....what does everybody else think though ,id say whisper quiet!

 

To Andario: Read the review of this laptop at notebookcheck.de (you will need to have google translate it to english), that will answer your heat and noise questions.

I can quickly answer them for you now though:

temperature: pretty much a negative while the notebook is on your lap and a non-factor while the notebook is on a desk. The palm rest temperatures are quite amazing actually (~32 degrees Celsius) meaning you won't even notice while typing or resting your hand on them while using the touchpad. But underneath the notebook the temperatures are another story as they reach up to 50 degrees Celsius at the top left-hand corner of the laptop. This could be uncomfortable to keep on your lap for long periods of time (keep in mind though these temperatures will go down if your unplugged and the CPU/GPU will underclock but it will still be hotter than average).

50 freaking degrees Celsius is NOT to be expected, thats a design flaw.

noise: the noise levels are quite good at idle (virtually a whisper) and are at average while the computer is underload. The problem is the fan does not have a wide enough diameter and the heatsinks aren't 100% copper. This means that the fan would have to spin at above acceptable levels to keep the GPU/CPU fully cool. This is why Acer opted to have the fan spin at lower noise levels and have the temperatures of the middle-upper left side of the laptop remain (way) above average.

Overall though I don't think its a major issue because personally I prefer to have my palms cool and I barely touch the upper-left hand side of the notebook...but it was something that could have been avoided with more copper and a larger fan. But costs have to be cut to keep the laptop at the price point it is at.

Hope this helped.

 

The fan does come on a fair bit for me but it makes a pleasant whoosh sound that is ok by me to endure. This is my second Acer. Surprisingly it is my second because I swore them off after my first 3000 Aspire Series Fan noise was the whiniest shrill sounding fan of any laptop I ever owned. As others said the heat on the top left is toasty but not roasty. Make sure not to angle the exhaust into your left leg.

 

Thanks for the input guys.

link1313, the God of rep power be with you, since I didn´t know that review was up (I only check the English version of the site. By the way Babelfish didn´t want to work with that page, so I got a mildly-understandable translation using freetranslation.com for those who can be interested).

About the review itself, I´m afraid sound results aren´t that great: 36.2 db IDLE average is not very good (although the 38.3 load average is somewhat better). From what I´m used to read in the notebookchek site, most reasonably quiet laptops are around 34 db or so (idle), whith the most quiet ones around the 32 db mark. If I remember correctly, due to the non-linear nature of the db scale, I think that something like 3db is perceived as a double intensity noise (not sure about this, please correct me if I´m wrong), so, the difference between those 32 db to the 36-38 of the Acer is quite significant...

(Once again, it seems that the laptop is "quiet" according to the users that gave their feedback, I´m just giving an opinion based on data, which is the only "objective" thing I have to compare them...)

Indicated temperatures, if ok for the wrist areas, aren´t specially good either, and clearly not good at all for the underneath (which happens to be the worst "area" of my current HP, and the only area that I can clearly "complain" about it. Provided that those measures are accurate, this Acer is no better by any stretch of the imagination, if not worst).

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback guys. I have mixed feelings about this machine (yeah, and who doesn´t, right?) but I´m afraid that trying to find a "Centrino-Quiet" machine with decent gaming capabilities is virtually impossible these days (the only exception I can think of is the new Macbooks Pro, which can be quite hot as well, and most importantly, almost TWICE the price of the Acer´s where I live in...).

Anyway, I´ll keep watching. Thank you guys.

EDIT: I just tried to give out some "reputation" but, according to the administrators, I´ve given "too much reputation" in the last 24 hours (Now that I wanted to be a good guy...), so sorry about it, I´ll try to give it back as soon as the system allows me to do so.