3820TG Owner's Lounge - Part Two

What gives BIOS uptade to my laptop ? It is worth to install it?

 

Ok I definitely don't see the Intel Media Codec. All I see are the following that can be de-selected:

• PX Profile Update
• AMD APP SDK Runtime
• ATI Display Driver
• Catalyst Control Centre

Edit: It seems that Windows 7 SP1 installs correctly, but then when it restarts to configure the system, it errors out and gives me a pop up saying installation was not successful. Error: 0x800f0826

 

lol no just wishful thinking...i would hope some acer reps check up on this thread periodically

for those of you who are having trouble with installing sp1...idk if it helps but my version of windows 7 is sp1 preinstalled and i have never had any problems with it not being compatible when installing drivers or anything like that...so maybe do a driver wipe, then install sp1 then reinstall drivers

 

@boostjunkie92
If that was just wishful thinking you should have hoped for an AMD HD6770 with 2GB DDR5 that HP dv6 uses rather than GT540

 

or the 6990

 

Imagine how much better the x830TG would be with dual fans and an A8 MX crossfired with a 6750 / 6770 or something similar. Plenty of gaming horsepower for a small light portable. And those AMD chips are proving VERY overclockable.

 

yea probably $1500 better

 

No way, the Asus K53TA With A6 and 6650 was only $450. I can't imagine a 6750 and A8 driving the price over $1k. In fact you can get an A8 MX CPU on ebay for $120. So unless a 6750 drives the cost up by some $900 or so that's a crazy price tag. Heck, the HP dv6z with A8 MX CPU and a 6750 GPU in crossfire is less than $800.

 

I could be wrong, but I think these drivers are actually from Catalyst 11.4 based on the filename (8.8 4_ from official AMD drivers corresponds to 11.4). Also, the actual AMD drivers within the package have a modified date in June 2011, but 11.6 drivers are 8.8 6_, 11.7 » 8.8 7_, 11.8 » 8.8 8_, etc.)

Regardless, it's still the most up-to-date driver officially, and I'm glad Acer is still providing some semblance of support for these notebooks.

 

If you guys, like myself, hate the unbeatable automatic graphics switching and the 3820tray tool doesn't work for you then I've found an easy and 'official' workaround

All you need to do is have an IE9 shortcut at hand (you dont have to use the browser at all). Whenever you want to un/plug AC power without switching GPUs, all you need to do is start IE9 before dis/connecting power cable and right afterwards you can close it. IE9 (due to the new GPU rendering thingy no doubt) prevents automatic GPU switching.

If this was mentioned before, then my apologies...

 

its ati catalyst 11.7 and intel 8.15.10.2202

 

This is what I just found on the Acer 4820tg drivers page. Should be compatible with 3820tg as both of these laptops share Core i5 + Radeon 5650, right?

 

Should work.

 

does the 3820tg support sdcard with sdxc i.e.64gb ???

 

Anybody experienced random changes in brightness, not backlight brightness but display settings, like Gamma?

Happens when I'm on battery.

 

Sounds like the brain damaged idea Vari Bright (TM). Look for settings in the Catalyst Control Center, or equivalent to disable it.

 

On the Intel one, it a power managment function.

 

Where in Windows can I change so that it switches from ATI to Intel automatically when the power cord is disconnected? The question used to pop-up automatically, but I checked "don't ask me again" I have looked in catalyst control center and intel control center....

 

Which one is the Alps touchpad driver that is stable? I don't want to use an untested one as I have to format tonight and I have school in the morning tomorrow.

Ended up formatting just to install Windows 7 SP1 >.>

 

Don't format, download the offline SP1 installer and run it. It works also with the old Intel video driver.

 

Ah... neat

 

I dunno if this applies, but right click on the desktop, or on the CCC tray icon, and it should give an option to "Configure Switchable Graphics," or something similar.

 

It does work - contains Catalyst 11.8 + Intel build 2202... courtesy of Acer, hallelujah!

 

Take a look at the attached picture. The yellow marked option has to been disabled.

 

^^you have to select battery mode in the Intel IGP control panel before that option shows up. It's Intel's cheesy way of saving power by changing backlight+gamma based on what the image on the screen looks like. It's supposed to look natural, but... lol.

 

No problem. The driver between the 3820/4820/5820 are mostly exchangeable.

 

It doesn't for me. Dunno if you've been following my last couple posts, but everything installs, then it cannot configure the SP1, and giving me an Error code. I posted the error code before. One of the solutions was formatting. Another was using Driver Sweeper to restore the missing files, which I couldn't restore for some reason. Now that I've already formatted, I need the proper and stable Alps touchpad driver, aside from the one on Acer's site.

 

I was following the discussion roughly.

This was the solution, which was working in my case.

 

How did you find out that the AMD driver is from Catalyst 11.7? I just installed it and DirectX (dxdiag.exe) tells me my graphic driver is 8.840.7.4000 (corresponds correctly to the filename), and a Google search seems to show that Catalyst 11.4 corresponds to graphic driver versions starting with 8.840.

Also the Direct3D Version also corresponds exactly to the same numbers found in Catalyst 11.4 drivers (7.14.10.0825).

 

+1 for 11.4.
And it ever can't be newer than 11.6 because of date in .inf file:
DriverVer=06/13/2011, 8.840.7.4000

 

Yeah, and there I can switch from ATI og Intel manually... but I want to disable that it switch from ATI to Intel automatically. Firefox can't handle the switch, it only becomes black

 

Oh, i thought it is 11.8 because of these informations:

 

Holy moly am I glad I stumbled upon your post or what!? I've been having tremendous artifact problems with my 3820TG ever since the beginning where some games are actually playable with only minor glitches, but others give me nothing but artifacts all over the screen - as was the case with the newly released Dead Island and also the demo of HoMMVI.

This hotfix, which I had no idea of existed, actually turned Dead Island into a fully playable and beautiful game :O I bet if I reinstall the HoMM-demo, I'll now be able to play it as well.

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

Did you install the drivers over any old drivers? Or did you have any 11.8 drivers installed prior to installing these? I'm thinking it might be remnants of an 11.8 driver installed beforehand.

I don't have the Catalyst-Version part in my system information.

 

no, i even deinstalled every graphic driver i found.

 

Formatting worked for me. Previous methods didn't.

The Alps touchpad drivers on the first page don't allow for two finger scrolling. Had to go back to the stock Acer ones.

 

Have fun with the new Windows Installation and the update to SP1.

 

try to change settings of the touchpad. finger scrolling is off in default settings.

 

Guys I have an Acer 3820TG-3022

Everything works great, I did a clean install, got the switchable graphics up and all my drivers working fine.

However, one problem is that my fan seems to be always on and very loud. I read that it could either be the fan or hard drive, but I'm not tech savvy enough to open up my laptop and know what to check.

I tried using some BIOS configurations to adjust the fan, but nothing seems to help.

The main problem is that I don't want my fan to always be on if it is (especially if I'm on my intel card), and that when I bring my laptop around, it's really loud and gets annoying.

Does anyone know about this or have this problem?

 

Ah I didn't know it was disabled and you could change it. Thanks!

And yea, I stayed up till 2:30am reinstalling drivers and SP1 and stuff. I'm getting tired and I'm not done school till 9:30pm tonight

 

@ lunarslash: what are your temperatures on idle? (Gpu, Cpu)

@ geokilla:

If you're interested, I can write you a plan on how to install windows 7 incl sp1 and latest drivers. But its 11pm in germany now and i have to sleep

 

Which bios version are you using?

 

Nah it's fine. That method involves slipstreaming and I've seen it numerous times. I only format my PCs like once every 6 months or so, so I'll just put up with it. Next time, I'm not gonna format my PC in the middle of the week unless I absolutely need to.

For the two-fingered scrolling, I have it enabled now but I noticed it's inverted. Go up to go down the page, and go down to go up the page. Is there an option to change that? I can't find it. I'm using the Alps Touchpad drivers on the first page, AKA Dell ones.

 

I am on 1.19

My idle temps are
CPU: core1 45 C, core2 43 C

GPU: 38 C

 

You never installed a 11.8 driver on your system, ever? If you haven't ever even attempted to install 11.8 on your system, then I don't know how you got that Catalyst-Version thing. It's also suspicious that it says 11.8 when the driver itself could only possibly be up to 11.6 (considering how old the driver files are, modified in June 2011). The version 11.8 represents the year 2011 and the 8th month (August).

Uninstalling drivers does not always remove everything, I'm not sure if running Driver Sweeper in safe mode after uninstalling even removes everything 100% of the time, but I do it anyway.

 

when i installed the 11.8 catalyst drivers it no longer gives me the option to check the box saying "automatically switch to power save gpu on battery" now when i unplug the cord it stays on ati unless i manually switch the cards via P button or menu

 

I'm trying to install WLM 2009 and while it does install correctly, when it prompts for an update, the update doesn't work and it redirects me to the WLM 2011 website. I don't want WLM 2011. Does anyone know to get WLM 2009 to install again and successfully "update"? I formatted my friend's netbook back in June and he was able to install WLM 2009 just fine.

 

anybody else having problems with flash drives? when i insert the drive it will take forever to show me the drive icon but wont let me access the drive or the file...i have to disable the drive in the device manager then unplug it, then plug it in and enable it again then it works instantly...whats the deal?

also the drive works perfect in any other computer.

already reinstalled the drivers but that fixed nothing

 

I see, well i haven't ever installed 11.8 on my system but i got the 11.8 catalyst by ATI on my SSD. Maybe when i installed the acer driver, windows automatically took the latest driver on my SSD.

 

No. Windows never does that for graphics drivers, I don't even know by what conditions do they push out driver updates via Windows Update. Suffice it to say that you somehow installed Catalyst 11.8, or that you misread the version information.