Acer Aspire 5532 and Windows 8

I recently updated my, admittedly a few years old now, laptop to Windows 8 and have had a nightmare hunting down drivers for things. It’s probably important to note in case someone finds this post when trying to decide if to update, that the Aspire 5532 is not listed as one of Acer’s Windows 8 update qualified device.

Windows “helpfully” installs its own Microsoft drivers to get components up and running and they do work to some extent but not enough to make the laptop fully usable.

The big issues for me was no OpenGL support with the graphics driver, and a bug with the WiFi controller which meant you couldn’t reconnect to a network after hibernation. Others like no webcam, card reader, etc were minor but useful to have.

I thought since there isn’t a list anywhere, but lots of posts with people asking for help, I would post my list to help anyone else.
I found on Acer’s site that there are some components from different manufacturers so you may need to use Acer’s Hardware Vendor Detection tool to confirm they are the same as mine.

  • Graphics – ATI Radeon HD3200 *
  • WiFi – Qualcomm Atheros AR5B93
  • Ethernet- Qualcomm Atheros AR8132
  • Sound – Realtek High Definition Audio
  • TouchPad – Synaptics PS/2
  • Webcam (Windows 7 Driver)
  • Card Reader – Realtek RST5159

Note: Windows decides its drivers are the best ones to use so doesn’t allow you to install all of these drivers automatically, you may need to select manual install (have disk) to get Windows to use them.

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Enough of me, let me know your thoughts below...

  1. Gavin Gavin says:

    glad you found it useful, I had trouble finding a WiFi driver that fixed the dropped connection issue, I did find a driver that said it was for Windows 8 but it didnt make any difference to me.

    I have since bought a new laptop as this one died, if you find a WiFi driver that works, please post another comment with a link and I will update my post.

  2. Robyn S Robyn S says:

    Thank you SO much. I’ve been having the same issues, but unfortunately I’m not a web developer. Much obliged.