3820TG Owner's Lounge - Part Two

If you're using SetFSB, you have to activate the shareware license and use Asus G73 clockgen. If you don't want to contribute the 800 yen activation fee, you can try SetPLL. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/562583-3820tray-hardware-control-powerprofiles-cpumonitor.html Look at the second entry.

 

Hey there lads, just wondering if anybody has ever used Heaven Benchmarking tool before ?

Heaven DX11 Benchmark | Unigine: real-time 3D engine (game, simulation, visualization and VR)

I have a 6550M and without OCing I am getting only the score of 189.



What score are you guys getting ?

I am also having some strange artifact problem in Witcher 2 and Fable 3.
I gave my acer for servicing and after it returned I am still having problems with these particular games. I ran the ATItool, but get no artifacts, I also ran the Heaven Benchmark tool, but also don't see any visible artifacts. Now I am wondering how could this be ? I know that some of you guys play those two games absolutely with no problems, me on the other hand, I am having serious problems with them...it's got to be the VGA, I don't think it could be anything else. I am running the newest Catalyst Drivers 11.8.

Fable 3 Intro Artifacts


Witcher 2 Intro Artifacts

 

ok, ill give it a try

 

Sorry about the Thumbnails, didn't know how to make them 500 in width, will know in the future )))

 

I wonder if the lcd panel from Samsung 900X3A would fit into 3820tg

 

Yes, it seems you are having something faulty with your VGA. I would contact them again and provide the same information you provided here. I would not accept any flaws, nor any non-sucessful attempts to fix them. In Sweden were I normally reside I would hammer them with returns until they either gave it a real over-haul or replaced it. Then again, in Sweden we normally do not need to pay for the shipping.

 

I live in Russia ))) Yeahhhhhhhhh things are ...shi.....not so good here )))

 

Hey there everybody, I have some good news on the artifact problem.
It was a driver problem after all, that's why none of the benchmarks showed the problem. I installed the 11.5b Hotfix drivers on top of the 11.8 (or at least I didn't uninstall the 11.8) and it worked. Works like a charm, still need to tweak witcher 2 a bit, but for the better part it all looks good, no more artifacts. If any of you had a similar problem, please try the fix guys perhaps it will help you as well.

 

im still having the problem of getting a BSOD when i shutdown the computer with the intel gpu active...i have to switch to ati before i shutdown or it freezes..i tried reinstalling the drivers and its still doing it.

im currently running the alien9 hybrid 3 drivers...should i try a different set of drivers? which driver is best right now?

if i just you discrete graphics (ati only) whats the battery life like?

 

1.5 to 2.5 hours.

 

alright guess im sticking with the bsod lol...iv finally managed to OC my cpu using the pll method...im running stable at 159mhz fsb...but i wanted to increase my multiplier using throttlestop...im pretty sure its set at 10x by default, what is a save multiplier to use?

 

You cannot change the multipliers unless you use the Extreme line of processors, ie i7-2920xm.

 

When I insert a speaker/headphones in the audio jack I constantly hear a buzzing sounds and it's driving me crazy. How can I fix this ?

 

Use a usb to 3.5mm xD

 

If anybody is interested there's a refurbished 3820TG-6829 with i5-480m and HD 6550M on ebay for $655.99 in Canada.

ACER Laptop 13.3" i5-480M 4G 500G Win7 AS3820TG-6829 | eBay

I also bought an open box return 3820TG-7360 with i3-370m and HD 5650M for $366.75 yesterday! I have an Mushkin Enhanced Callisto Deluxe 240GB SSD I am planning to drop in. Also I am debating about upgrading to 8GB of ram. For the price of the 3820TG I am quite happy since I was planning to buy a new 3830TG-6494 (i5-2410M, 6GB, 540M) for $699 with battery and throttling issues. The only thing I would miss is the USB 3.0.

 

using Throttlestop i was able to increase my multiplier from 10x to 22x at idle/low load but it goes down to 20x under full load...i suspect theres something im not understanding?

 

I have an opposite problem, cheap headphones are fine but I have a pair of usb powered headphones that use BOTH a usb port and the 3.5 and they tend to buzz at low volumes...

 

Check to make sure your microphone is muted.

 

can someone explain the multiplier thing...

 

You cannot increase the maximum multiplier from the stock maximum, ie if your turbo boost is capped at 22x (for example), then you're stuck at 22x and cannot modify that unless you have an i7-2920xm.

 

ic well my turbo boost is actually 20x but throttlestop lets me go to 22x...but when my cpu hits full load it goes down to 20x from 22x...this is why i am confused...i read up alot on the issue and i believe it has something to do with the TPL but i havent bothered to increase it.

im going to pick up some g skill memory and see if i can push the fsb a bit further

 

hi,
would anyone know for a fact if this memory would work for a 3820tg-3022
Mushkin Essentials 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz CL9 SODIMMs (996647)
and will it work better for overclocking?
thanks

 

it will work and for overclocking i would recommend g skill

 

It will work for overclocking, and its better than G Skill since Mushkin has been making enthusiast components for quite long and it's known for its rock solid reliability and performance.

 

thank you both for the answers

 

I finally bought a sata2 120GB ssd for 120$ at ncix. I'll receive it in two days. I really wanted that Mushkin sata3, but it the OCZ vertex was 60$ less.... and I'm poor

 

Hi guys and sorry if this question has been asked before. My Acer plays back HD videos without a hitch, both with the integrated card and the ATI. However, and this is the source of my frustration , whenever I stream some BBC iPlayer HD stuff I get smooth playback with the integrated card, but rather annoying stutter when the ATI dedicated card is employed , which is a paradox and a pain in the neck , since I can only use that to put the video out to my TV using HDMI cable. I have done all updates, yet to no avail. It may have something to do with the iPlayer encoding, or whatever, but I am in despair. Is there any workaround you know about ? Like to make the Intel integrated card do the job and send the streaming stuff to my TV instead of the ATI?

 

i thought the 3820 wasnt compatible with sata3....

 

it will just work at sata2 speed

 

for those who think about buying a crucial m4 --> works great with new firmware 009 in my 3820TG!

 

ic...then whats the point of paying for sata3 speed

 

having futureproofing for your next laptop

 

ah ic...good idea zap

 

Most likely you would use sata 3 for a least 2years right? IMO, it would be a waste to buy an expensive ssd and use it for less than 2 years. If you are planning to future-proof I'm afraid that by that time you will need a faster ssd in order max out your new laptop full speed. It also doesn't make sense to buy a new laptop and cripple its performance by using a slower ssd; hd has a big impact on your laptop's overall performance. Just IMO. For me, I would just buy which ever one cheaper. Sometimes, you can find a sata 3 on sale for the same price as sata2 or cheaper.

 

I would buy a good SATA III SSD like the Vertex 3 for example, because the Sandforce controllers will be able to max out the SATA II bandwidth. Some SSDs are so bad they cannot even max out the SATA II bandwidth, and that's rather embarrassing for a SSD if you ask me

 

Hey everyone! I need to speed things up on my 3820tg! (love this beast)
Is this p256 any good? its not that future proof... but for how long have we been on the 80mb/s loadings? FOR TOO LONG. but anyways, 280mb/s seems great, and reviews says its good. but its starting to get old... any thoughts?

Cosair CMFSSD-256GBG2D/RF Performance Series P26 2.5 Solid State Drive - 256GB, SATA 3Gb/s (Refurbished) at TigerDirect.com

 

Decent price for the capacity. I have a last gen M225 Crucial SSD in my 3820TG and it is plenty fast. I have never owned a refurbished drive but an SSD should be easy to evaluate, even with a reduced warranty (damn! Still has a full year warranty). I think refurb vs new is your bigger question. This will be a big improvement over a conventional drive.

 

My room is very warm (no AC) and some days I run the laptop like a desktop 8/12 hours. I keep the laptop well ventilated and have no heating issues with it but the power brick usually sits on a carpet floor and my fans don't reach it. Sometimes it gets fairly hot and I elevate it just as a precaution.

What problems might arise if the power brick overheats? Can they overheat? Can it affect the laptop if it does?

 

They don't really overheat. The diode just burned or the capacity failed when it times come. Can it affects the laptop? unless you have one of those cheap ones from ebay, then yes.

 

Any idea if there are problems with the OCZ Vertex 2 line of ssds? I had a 240 gig one just go bad after 5 months. It started in the morning with files that I copied to the drive disappearing. Then after powering off the pc I got a no operating system message found when attempting to boot the computer. The drive is seen by the bios but I don't think I can access it at all.

After having this issue I googled around and there are lots of negative comments about these drives and a few people who have multiple drive replacements all of which failed within a short period of time. Also it seems these sandforce drives are subject to something called panic locking if you use sleep mode. From what I can tell the drive is fine but your locked out. Apparently OCZ can unlock them but if you RMA one they just send you a new blank drive.

Anyway alhtough all the negative press is a bit anecdotaI have sort of lost faith in these units. It seems that most are happy with the Intel drives and the few stats I could find suggest the Intel drives have by far the lowest return rate. I have started the RMA process with the drive and I am thinking of selling it for what I can get for it and buying an Intel drive. But maybe I am over reacting.

 

most likely it's dead. Run a linux live cd and see if you could read your ssd.

 

Well, if you are able to sacrifice performance Intel is the drive to choose. Personally I choose the Crucial brand of SSD. They have a very low return rate and are performing in line with the best drives out there (4k random). Crucial has been into memory chips for a very long time and are OEM manufacturer behind lot of stuff you see today. I've said it before and are saying it again; search for the Crucial C300 drive, it's the drive that will carry you through untl the next generation 2012 or so... My 2 cents worth..

 

I'm using a Vertex 2 both in my Acer 3820TG and in my desktop with Intel X38 chipset and I never had any problem, but I always used the latest firmware. Have you used the latest firmware? With Sandforce the worst thing is that you have to update the firmware to have a reliable drive, but you have to do it with Crucial and Intel too. So these SSDs are really not like HDDs yet, you have to know how to use them.

As of now, the two drives I would consider buying are the Intel 320, with 5 year warranty, or the Crucial M4 with a similar controller to the Intel 510 but with much better price. Actually its said that the M4 with the latest firmware are a really stable drive without problems, so in my personal opinion the best deals today:
1. Crucial M4
2. Intel 320
3. Drives from last year, like Vertex 2, Crucial C300, etc.
x. Don't buy anything with Sandforce 2xxx controller!

 

Thanks all for the advice. It turns out the drive wasn't totally dead. OCZ support sent me instructions to download a linux tool to delete all the data and partition information from the drive. I was then able to reinstall windows on the drive. But I have lost all confidence in it. I know that any hardware can fail but I just don't feel comfortable with this especially since I use my Acer 3820TG extensively when I travel. I would rather have a computer with a slow but reliable hard drive than one with a fast but flaky drive.

Anyway I am back noodling on flogging this one and getting something else. I did update it to the latest firmware. However I did have problems doing that as the stand alone Linux firmware update tool from OCZ didn't work for me. It kept giving me a message that it failed with an "internal error". However deleting the partitions did allow me to install Windows 7 and the OCZ windows tool did update the firmware. Again however the "internal error" message hardly inspired confidence.

I may give this drive another chance but be careful and backup more frequently than I have been. Still not sure if I am ready to trust it though.

 

Oh, of course, never trust an SSD for data. Even the Intel can (could) destroy all your data in a second. Have a look at some directory mirroring tool, and set it up to mirror your directories to an USB harddrive.

 

Actually, I keep all my working files on an SD drive in my Acer that gets switched to my Slate when I'm traveling. The SD is echoed and synch'ed with my Acer/Slate by using SyncToy. Works perfectly and there is no need to be fanatical about HD backup since the HD is merely a back up for the SD and the Slate is a redundant back up.

 

Could someone give me the latest version? I can't find it on the German website and have no idea which registry key needs to be changed to disable the automatic start of WLAN.

 

Fortunately I do back up so all I lost was the time it took to sort through the problem. Still think it should be more reliable than this though.

 

Hi guys and sorry for asking again. So far I haven´t had any reply, and I am sure there must some solution. Here´s my problem.
My Acer plays back HD videos without a hitch, both with the integrated card and the ATI. However, and this is the source of my frustration , whenever I stream some BBC iPlayer HD stuff I get smooth playback with the integrated card, but rather annoying stutter when the ATI dedicated card is employed , which is a paradox and a pain in the neck , since I can only use that to put the video out to my TV using HDMI cable. I have done all updates, yet to no avail. It may have something to do with the iPlayer encoding, or whatever, but I am in despair. Is there any workaround you know about ? Like to make the Intel integrated card do the job and send the streaming stuff to my TV instead of the ATI?

 

so i went and bought 8gb of 10666 mushkin ram....BUTTT before my upgrade i was able to run 159mhz FSB using setpll...after the ram install my max is 154mhz...anything past that and my computer either freezes or bsod instantly!

i was expecting to be able to push my fsb further than 159 with the 1333mhz ram...why is it performing worse?