Acer Aspire X3950 User manual

Acer
Aspire X3950/X5950
Service Guide
PRINTED IN TAIWAN

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Revision History
Please refer to the table below for the updates made on this service guide.
Date Chapter Updates

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Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by Acer Incorporated. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language or computer language, in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of Acer Incorporated.

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Disclaimer
The information in this guide is subject to change without notice.
Acer Incorporated makes no representations or warranties, either expressed or implied, with respect to the
contents hereof and specifically disclaims any warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular
purpose. Any Acer Incorporated software described in this manual is sold or licensed "as is". Should the
programs prove defective following their purchase, the buyer (and not Acer Incorporated, its distributor, or its
dealer) assumes the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair, and any incidental or consequential
damages resulting from any defect in the software.
Acer is a registered trademark of Acer Corporation.
Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
Pentium Dual-Core, Celeron Dual-Core, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Celeron, and combinations thereof, are
trademarks of Intel Corporation.
Other brand and product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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Conventions
The following conventions are used in this manual:
SCREEN
MESSAGES
Denotes actual messages that appear on screen.
NOTE Gives additional information related to the current topic.
WARNING Alerts you to any physical risk or system damage that might result from doing
or not doing specific actions.
CAUTION Gives precautionary measures to avoid possible hardware or software
problems.
IMPORTANT Reminds you to do specific actions relevant to the accomplishment of
procedures.

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Service Guide Coverage
This Service Guide provides you with all technical information relating to the BASIC CONFIGURATION
decided for Acer's "global" product offering. To better fit local market requirements and enhance product
competitiveness, your regional office MAY have decided to extend the functionality of a machine (e.g. add-on
card, modem, or extra memory capability). These LOCALIZED FEATURES will NOT be covered in this generic
service guide. In such cases, please contact your regional offices or the responsible personnel/channel to
provide you with further technical details.
FRU Information
Please note WHEN ORDERING FRU PARTS, that you should check the most up-to-date information available
on your regional web or channel. If, for whatever reason, a part number change is made, it will not be noted in
the printed Service Guide. For ACER-AUTHORIZED SERVICE PROVIDERS, your Acer office may have a
DIFFERENT part number code to those given in the FRU list of this printed Service Guide. You MUST use the
list provided by your regional Acer office to order FRU parts for repair and service of customer machines.

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System Tour 1
Features 1
System Components 3
Front Panel 3
Rear Panel 5
Internal Components 6
System LED Indicators 7
System Utilities 9
CMOS Setup Utility 9
Entering CMOS setup 10
Navigating Through the Setup Utility 10
Setup Utility Menus 11
System Disassembly 25
Disassembly Requirements 25
Pre-disassembly Procedure 26
Main Unit Disassembly 27
Removing the Side Panel 29
Removing the Front Bezel 30
Removing the Heatsink Fan Assembly 32
Removing the Processor 34
Removing the Optical Drive 36
Removing the Hard Disk Drive 39
Removing the Power Supply 40
Removing the Memory Modules 42
Removing an Expansion Card 43
Removing the Front I/O and Card Reader Boards 46
Removing the Mainboard 49
Removing the Top Bezel 51
System Troubleshooting 53
Hardware Diagnostic Procedure 53
System Check Procedures 54
Power System Check 54
System External Inspection 54
System Internal Inspection 54
Checkpoints 55
Viewing BIOS checkpoints 55
Bootblock Initialization Code Checkpoints 55
Bootblock Recovery Code Checkpoints 56
POST Code Checkpoints 57
DIM Code Checkpoints 59
ACPI Runtime Checkpoints 59
Error Messages 60
Memory 60
Boot 60
Storage Device 61
Virus Related 62
System Configuration 63
CMOS 64
Miscellaneous 64
Table of Contents

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USB eModule Error Messages 65
SMBIOS eModule Error Messages 65
CPU eModule Error Messages 65
MPS Table (Multi-processor) eModule Error Messages 65
Beep Codes 66
Index of Symptom-to-FRU Error Message 67
BIOS Recovery 72
Undetermined Problems 74
System Block Diagram and Board Layout 75
System Block Diagram 75
Mainboard Layout 76
FRU (Field Replaceable Unit) List 79
Exploded Diagram 80
X3950 FRU List 82
X5950 FRU List 90
Technical Specifications 93

Chapter 1 1
Features
Below is a brief summary of the computer’s many features:
NOTE: The features listed in this section is for your reference only. The exact configuration of the system
depends on the model purchased.
Processor
One LGA 1156 socket
Intel® Core™ i3-530/540 processor
Intel Core i5-650/660/661/670/750 processor
Intel Core i7-860/870 processor
Intel Pentium G6950 processor
Chipset
Intel P55 Express chipset
Memory subsystem
Four DDR3-800/1066/1333 MHz DIMM sockets
Supports single channel or dual-channel memory mode
Maximum of 8GB supported
Media storage
Super-Multi DVD drive
BD Combo, BD-ROM, BD-RW drive
SATA hard disk drive
Serial ATA controller
Embedded SATA controllers
Two SATA ports
Audio
Realtek ALC888S-VC HD Audio Codec 7.1
Three audio jacks
Networking
Intel PCI-E Gbe LAN controller PHY
One Gigabit Ethernet LAN port (RJ-45)
PCI I/O
PCI Express x16 bus slot
PCI Express x1 bus slot
System Tour
Chapter 1

2Chapter 1
I/O ports
Front
Five USB 2.0 ports
Headphone/speaker-out/line-out jack
Microphone-in jack
9-in-1 media card reader — CompactFlash® (Type I and II), CF+™ Microdrive, MultiMediaCard
(MMC), Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC), Secure Digital™ (SD) Card, xD-Picture
Card™, Memory Stick™, Memory Stick PRO™
Rear
PS/2 keyboard port
PS/2 mouse port
Three audio jacks
HDMI port
Six USB 2.0 ports
Gigabit LAN port
VGA/monitor port
Operating system and software
Operating system
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Windows 7 Home Premium X86
Windows 7 Home Basic X86,
FreeDOS
Linux LL95
Applications
Acer eRecovery Management
Acrobat Reader
Acrobat Flash Player
Arcade Deluxe
Cyberlink Power Director
McAfee Internet Security
MyWinLocker
Microsoft Works
Nero 9 Essentials
Power supply
220-watts (115/230V AC) PFC or non-PFC power supply
Dimension and weight
Dimension (DxWxH)
X3950: 367.8 x 100 x 281.5 mm (with bezel)
X5950: 367.8 x 100 x 281.5 mm (with bezel)
Weight (estimate)
X3950: 8 kg
X5950: 8 kg