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**SteveRiley** · Dec 30, 2011, 04:24 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

The Core i3-370M is Nehalem/Arrandale, not Sandy Bridge. So while you won't need the intel-sna PPA, I bet you'll need xorg-edgers to get effects working.

I know it seems like I've been writing about this PPA for a while now; I'm really amazed at how well it's working.

**GreyGeek** · Dec 30, 2011, 05:14 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

That's a good idea! Since I tried edgers on this Sony and it worked will I will try it on the Acer too. Between now and when I actually install Kubuntu on the box I was going to play with the parms of the i915 driver while running the LiveeCD just for kicks, IF I can do that without causing a reboot of the LiveCD.

BTW, the i3 CPU runs phenomenally cool. Amazing for a dual core cpu with two additional virtual cores.

Running either Win7 or Kubuntu Oneric I could not detect any heat coming off the machine with my hand. Nowhere on the keys, touch pad, or bezel did I sense even a slight elevation of temp above apparent room temp. With my IR gun the J key showed a temp of 70.1F and the table in front of the notebook registered 69.4F. By comparison this Sony shows 86.8F on the J key and table next to it gave 71.4F The touchpad gave 98.7F. The core temp shows 107.4F.

**SteveRiley** · Dec 30, 2011, 05:27 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Originally posted by GreyGeek

With my IR gun

Why am I not surprised that you just happen to have one of these lying about the house?

**schnelle** · Dec 30, 2011, 05:30 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Default driver for your graphic card should be in very good shape in Oneiric.

Opensource radeon driver for my old ati card is also in very good shape but I also sometimes have disabled desktop effects at first boot/live session. So I think kwin is culprit (it get corrupted somehow).

So usually I get desktop effects working with following steps:

1) I delete kwinrc file in ~/.kde/share/config
2) Then run kwin --replace from krunner

I hope this helps 8)

**GreyGeek** · Dec 30, 2011, 07:18 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Thank you, Schnelle, that "kwin --replace" solution worked perfectly! 8)

I installed Stellarium to test out acceleration and got 47 fps. On this Sony the edgers driver doubled the fps in Stellarium to around 15fps, 20 at the most. I may try your solution on this edgers driver.

Your solution means that everything in Kubuntu 11.10 works perfectly on the Acer 7739.

With accelerated video the J key shows a temp of 80.1F, 10 degrees higher than without it. The Hardware temperature applet shows both cores at 98.6F as I type. This Sony has a temp of 107F.

**GreyGeek** · Dec 30, 2011, 07:24 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Originally posted by GreyGeek

Thank you, Schnelle, that "kwin --replace" solution worked perfectly! 8)
You taught this old dog a new trick!

I installed Stellarium to test out acceleration and got 47 fps. On this Sony the edgers driver doubled the fps in Stellarium to around 15fps, 20 at the most. I may try your solution on this edgers driver.

Your solution means that everything in Kubuntu 11.10 works perfectly on the Acer 7739.

With accelerated video the J key shows a temp of 80.1F, 10 degrees higher than without it. The Hardware temperature applet shows both cores at 98.6F as I type. This Sony has a temp of 107F.

**GreyGeek** · Dec 31, 2011, 10:54 AM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Disaster!

Yesterday, after I applied Schnelle's solution, I used my new notebook for several hours. Everything worked beautifully.

Today, I plugged my LiveUSB stick in, the one I used yesterday, and turned it on. Kubuntu came up as normal. But, the accelerated video was not working. When I attempted Schnelle's solution again I discovered that the keyboard wasn't working, so I couldn't type in "kwin --release". When I tried the "Desktop Effects" I noticed that it was checked, but there were no effects! The CPU temp widget showed 136.4F and I couldn't hear any sounds from the fan. I began smelling hot hardware. I ran the shutdown lougout. It appeared to be off but pressing the power button wouldn't turn it on. I noticed that both the power and battery lights were on. I unplugged the power cord. Both lights remained on. I flipped the case over and pulled out the battery pack, waited 30 seconds and plugged it back in. Both lights were off. I continued waiting until it cooled down, crossed my fingers, and pressed the power button. Win7 came up, the fan was running full blast, and continues to do so. Both cores appear to be working normally and within comfortable parameters. I have a feeling I dodged a bullet, but the hardware probably aged a year in that event.

I had 4GB set aside on the USB stick for app storage, and I had installed the Stellarium repository in order to load it and test the GPU. The next time a fire up Kubuntu I'll go back to the LiveCD, which also ran the hardware very well, even though without acceleration, but isn't capable of modification. Regardless, the next time I fire up Kubuntu on it I will be VERY SURE to MAKE SURE the fan is running and the keyboard works.

Steve, do you know of a good Win7 hardware temp gadget?

EDIT: I checked the temp range for an Intel Core i3 and found it to be 0-90C, which is between 32 and 194F, so 136F is well within its range. The smell was probably the burn off of trace manufacturing lubricants and plasticizers, so I probably didn't loose a year of life on my new box. Felt like it, though...

I found a core temp gadget at www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp

**vinnywright** · Dec 31, 2011, 11:53 AM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

FYI ....I have a corei3 in my HP-G62 and it usually runs at 120-130F and will run up to 160+ during a recode .

mine is a

Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU M 370 @ 2.40GHz

and all the 3D Kwin effects (that I use)work without adding a PPA

and yes it is using the integrated graphics

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

I have found that although you can install stuff to a live-USB adding to mutch (espeshale drivers) will bork them or make them act strange........

dont even think about a kernel upgrade

VINNY

**GreyGeek** · Dec 31, 2011, 09:01 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Originally posted by vinnywright

.....
I have found that although you can install stuff to a live-USB adding to mutch (espeshale drivers) will bork them or make them act strange........

dont even think about a kernel upgrade

...

I think your right, vinny.

The acer has been running like a champ in Win7, and when it was running with the LiveCD, so I believe the problem is with the LiveUSB and the size of the storage section, which I maxed at 4GB.. Next time I'll keep it at 3GB or even 2GB, just to be safe.

I have noticed one thing, however. It seems to me that, when comparing acceleration under Win7 with that Under Oneiric with the LiveCD, the display is about twice as fast in Oneiric.

**GreyGeek** · Dec 31, 2011, 11:06 PM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

I just ran the Acer with Kubuntu 11.10 from a LiveCD for two hours. The core0 and core1 temps oscillated between 105F and 116F. I used the "kwin --replace" trick to activate 3D acceleration and installed Stellarium from the repository. It gave me 47fps. While it was running the temp went to 117F.

Also, while exploring the Win7 system tools I discovered that it allows me to shrink a partition. I shrank my 595GB partition (C:\) and took 280GB from it for my future Kubuntu install.

I sticking with my plan to install 12.04 on it, which will probably include KDE 4.8.x also.

I decided to install the Minecraft exe on Win7 and when I opened up my "saves" they were empty. The one I had been working on for so long to mine enough diamond to make a full set of armor, which also had 3 bows and over 250 arrows, was erased. If I had known it was going to do that I wouldn't have installed it. However, it gave me a chance to confirm that Kubuntu's accelerated video is at least twice as fast as the Win7 version and doesn't seem to run as hot. In fact, while running Win7 the fan blows all the time. With Kubuntu it cycles on and off to keep the temp around 107F.

**ardvark71** · Jan 01, 2012, 03:58 AM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Originally posted by GreyGeek

Intel HD Graphics, Graphics RAM: 128 MB

Hi GreyGeek...

They're still selling graphics chipsets with this low of memory? Wow!

Regards...

**silviucc** · Jan 01, 2012, 05:34 AM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Intel graphics aren't much to talk about you know. The only worthy ones are the GPUs included on die with the new Sandy Bridge CPUs. So 128MB of VRAM isn't bad. It's not like you are going to load any big textures in there. Not a gaming machine

Just in case you need more video RAM, most BIOSes have an option to reserve system RAM for the video system.

**ardvark71** · Jan 01, 2012, 09:35 AM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

Originally posted by silviucc

Not a gaming machine

In every sense of the word!

But it shouldn't hurt overall performance if GG bumped it up to 512 MB's.

Regards...

**GreyGeek** · Jan 01, 2012, 10:14 AM

Re: Oneric on an Acer Aspire AS7739-3860 notebook.

For $350 I am not going to complain about a video performance which is twice as fast as what Win7 gives. I like that idea of adding some RAM to the GPU. I wonder if the i915 driver is doing that automatically?

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