Friday, December 18, 2009

Fixed My Left Speaker

Ok, I had issues with my left speaker on my laptop. It was dead.
So if I were to order the exact replacement it would cost more than $100 for the entire front panel palm rest moreover it was also out of warranty.
But it is not worth it because a speaker isn't worth that much for a replacement.
I had 2 approaches.
1)Remove the left speaker and replace the speaker (actually it is called a tweeter) with a Generic Internal Part.
This failed because the Generic Tweeters sold are not as high quality as the original and wasn't able to generate the exact frequency and amplitude of the original and undamaged right speaker.
2)Buy a off the shelf speaker set from ebay and replace the left speaker.
This approach worked.
I got a speaker set of another laptop model.
The speaker is an identical 4 ohm 2 watt speaker.
However I had to cut out the speaker connectors as they are split into 2 pin left, 2 pin right rather than the original 4 pin .
After some modification I was able to get the connectors right. Plugging them in works as well, producing the right sound.
However the right speaker was still slightly louder, I suspect the original speaker had an air column under which produced louder bass.

I am still satisfied with the final result as 1)it doesn't cost much 2)the new speakers were of comparable sound quality.

Edit:
The slight difference in sound quality wasn't due to the air column, it was due to the positioning under the speaker cover I shifted it slightly and attached it using tape and the difference was alleviated.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Nvidia Driver Release


3D Mode


2D Mode


Windows Desktop Default Mode


Nvidia WHQL Notebook Driver version 195.62 is released.
Download them from Nvidia Website here
Please note that the new Nvidia Driver fixes the issue of not being able to throttle to default clock in Windows Desktop so please use this driver instead of the Acer Download (187.XX) which has the problem.
This driver is recommended.

Acer Aspire 4530 Actual Fan Control

I found the actual control variable of Acer Aspire 4530 Fan.
It is actually a hex value located in the EC.
To access the EC Control Variables, Download and install Rw-Everything.
Next run the program.
Select EC Button to view the EC Variables
You should see the following as shown below:
If you set it to 13 then click done, you will quickly hear the fan spining at maximum speed.
Other values between 0-13 also alter the RPM but there are also values in between that does nothing.
Happy Experimentation!