3820TG Owner's Lounge - Part Two

I have not touched any cables or the motherboard.

 

I can't seem to get these properly working.

The old ones (from Acer) show correctly in the device manager, but not the newer ones. Any tip?

 

Try inserting a memory card. Does it work? Also, the card reader will usually only show up in Device Manager when a card is inserted.

 

Finally managed to pick up a 3820TG from the internet with an exhausted research. Gotta say I love the machine for playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. Now if only TOR wasn't the same ol' grind.

 

Are 3820TG's hard to find/sought after?

I'm really considering selling mine, since I don't use it that much anymore.

 

Yes ... up to now, they have been hard to find in the I5/HD5650 or better combination. The new Timeline 3830TG's have serious flaws. Put yours up on ebay, allow enough time and you should get a decent price for it.

 

Hi Bronsky,

I know this is a little off topic from the thread, but since you are talking about the I5/HD5650 combination and the 4820TG has that, will there be a good demand for the 4820TG too?

Thanks!

 

The 14" has a lot more competition than the 13" 3820TG and the 13" has the unique cooling system.

 

What do you think is better to buy ? ...
At first the way was crucial m4 128gb(183€, here), but today the price of OCZ vertex 3 120GB drops from 188€ to 165€.

thanks fo reply

 

I have managed to buy a really good and cheap second hand one. It has a core i3 cpu. I was wondering if I could fit a Core i5-560UM wich I have on the shelf

 

Bronsky, master of the 3820TG.

What to do with non-working USB ports? Both on the left hand side.

 

Those two ports are on their own card. The card is attached to a controler on the main board through a double sided ribbon. The problem is either the card (easy to replace but hard to find in the US), the ribbon or the controler. Check the ribbon ends for connection tightness. I'm assuming you're out of warranty (if not, RMA it). I don't know if you can find a card in the us, but i would start looking by calling the temple texas depot.

This picture shows the USB card on the left and the ribbon in the middle (the wires were added by me).



The ribbon goes into ribbon clamps on both sides. Check for tightness. One way to test is to check the power and grounds with a multimeter.

Here is a link to the part number for the usb board. http://forum.notebookreview.com/7174352-post404.html

Edit: it just occurred to me that the usb ports are on the same sub-board as the SD card reader. Does yours work? If you have an SD card, snap it in and see if it is recognized.

 

Some drivers updated. Listing here.

 

Acer has updated Radeon 5650 Catalyst drivers with integrated Intel HD drivers to 8.901.4 ...for those of you who don't like the buggy, homemade franken hybdrid drivers, then here's the link: http://global-download.acer.com/GDF...=Aspire 7750G&OS=721&LC=en&BC=Acer&SC=EMEA_27

 

Would they also work with the 6550?

 

Yay for driver updates. Gotta love the ongoing support. Thanks for keeping up to date.

 

I'm gonna take a wild guess here. Usually, the package hovers somewhere around 260MB - that's when it contains a single card driver only - but this time it's 384MB so it might contain multiple GPU drivers. Ultimately, of course, there's only one way to find out... you gotta grab them yourself and run the setup. (Click Custom and) If you don't see AMD/ATI Radeon Drivers on the checklist, you're out of luck.

 

The file size does not matter, usually one driver can be used for most if not all cards, what really matters is whether Acer/AMD removed the driver inf entries as well as the ATI_ASIC_INCLUDE entries in the msi files.

 

My goodness I love this laptop.

Will try some CPU OC'ing later and find out how high the sky really is.

 

hi guys...recently i am facing some problem with my graphic card which is very annoying ...

this problem happen when i play game or even open multiple video at once... refer the image below...and my graphic do have switchable graphic amd --> intel ....this problem never happen when i use the intel one...

below here are my graphic card drivers detail,then my graphic card "problem"

refer pic here...

AMD Radeon 6500M problem? - Tech Support Forums - TechIMO.com

 

I'm trying to put together a list of Acer laptops with switchable graphics - containing both Mobility Radeon HD 5650 and first gen Nehalem CPU (Core i3/i5/i7 only). The point is obvious I think - to keep track of GPU driver updates by Acer. This is what I've come up with so far:

Aspire TimelineX 3820TG
Aspire TimelineX 4820TG
Aspire TimelineX 5820TG

Aspire 5740G
Aspire 7745G
Aspire 8942G

TravelMate 6594G

Any update to this list will be appreciated

 

Aspire 5740G doesn't have switchable graphics.

 

anyone can help me?

 

Your pictures don't load.

 

Really? Then why does it have drivers for both Intel and ATI VGA?

 

Because there 5740 uses Intel and 5740G ATI. Support sites for 5740 and 5740G are identical and feature both.

 

refer the pic in this thread...
AMD Radeon 6500M problem? - Tech Support Forums - TechIMO.com

 

You can include those with other AMD GPUs, they should be supported as well, if not I can modify the driver to support most switchable graphics cards.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

 

anyone can guide me how to install the latest Catalyst Control Center? latest is this one right? ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

My graphic card is : AMD Radeon HD6550M
OS: Win 7 Home Premium x64

do i need to uninstall the oldest Catalyst Control Center before I install the new one?

if not...

1) First step is install the newest amd and intel driver all from here right? Acer Support: Downloads & Support Documents - Notebook / Aspire / Aspire 3820TG


can I know which one i need to install?

2) Second step is go into the bios and set the Discrete.

3) Third step is install the latest Catalyst Control Center? that's all? how about the Catalyst Software Suite?

thanks for advance

 

Nah, I don't want any hax0rin'. I'm just checking all the laptops with 5650 and core iX to see if they don't have official drivers for switchable graphics. I mean, it's not the ATI part that's the problem, it's the old Intel HD drivers

 

Perhaps of interest to 3820TG owners wanting to give their system some more GPU performance:

Ponjornoh²³'s Acer 3820TG i5-450M 2.4+[email protected] mPCIe DIY eGPU implementation​

He's getting 15479@3dmark06.

 

Use the hybrid drivers from leshcat.blogspot.com. It has the latest AMD and Intel drivers.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

 

any direct link? there are too many driver,which one is for AMD HD6550M...can i just download from acer website?

 

Just download the latest ones from the website, they are newer than those on the acer website.

Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk

 

do i need to switch graphic card to discrete in BIOS before install this?

 

This looks sick!

 

yeah... spent too much time on notebookreview over christmas

 

wow that is an amazing mod! looks like the cable goes right into the laptop. doesnt this make the laptop no longer portable?

 

Yep, but it's just a work in progress state. I still have to solder the second mini PCIe slot, since the gtx460 is connected to the half size slot where the wifi card usually is placed. The external PCIe-slot and the mini PCIe card are connected via mini hdmi cable. Switching between mobile and egpu use should be quite fast. The best solution is the express card... too bad that acer didn't spent us a slot

 

Here's ab update for those with broadcom bluetooth card...
Mine was cutting the connection to my bluetooth mouse and keyboard probably once an hour at least.

Now fixed with this update.
The package comes with a lot of extras from lenovo but you can delete them.
I couldn't get them to work else they would be quite handy
(use mobile phone as webcam, send texts etc. via bluetooth)

I've been using this driver for a week or so with no issues and notable performance and range increase.

Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate Software II for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad

Also on the note of the eGPU
I have been trying to figure out an external interface we could install into the 3820tg so that one would not need to open it up to connect... anyone have an idea?

 

The bluetooth software linked here is more recent, and I added it ages ago

As for eGPU, the only realistic way is mini-PCIe since we don't have an ExpressCard slot

 

Some thing like this could help to make it fast pluggable. Important is that there's mini hdmi on the pcie card's side of the adapter.

 

So I'm having issues with the graphic switching that prompted me to reformat. I can't seem to switch from dedicated to the intel gpu unless its I reboot the computer first. When I press the button to switch it, the screen flickers once, instead of the twice that it usually does. And the screen is kind of "frozen", I can move my mouse around still and stuff but I can't click on anything to interact with it. I have to put the computer to sleep and wake it up to use it again. Anyway, I thought that reformatting and starting fresh would fix this issue but it hasn't. Using the latest Leshcat drivers btw. Anyone have experience with this?

 

Post a comment on leshcat's post with a description of your problem, see if he can troubleshoot it for you.

 

oh thanks too456!
Wish i had seen that sooner, it's a real pain having your KB and mouse disconnect all the time.
Just out of cuiosity, did you get the Widcomm software suite working?

Hopefully we start seeing some cool mods for these little notebooks now that many people's warranties have started to expire.

I know I have a few in mind but will have to wait till I have the money to support them.

 

All Bluetooth functions work fine plus some extra features and menus that the Acer provided version didn't have.

 

Drivers for Atheros LAN, Atheros Bluetooth, Intel WLAN and Synaptics touchpad updated, grab them from here.

 

Sounds like the best idea. This was also an issue before I switched to leshcat drivers too

 

I have a problem with Skyrim. It uses LOW textures, even I try to play it with ultra/high settings = high textures. Now I have latest Ati drivers from leshcat and I also downloaded the game again from Steam, re-installed it with better textures --> no result. What could be the problem? Skyrim is ugly with low textures. Could there be some setting files that Steam leaves to computer when you uninstall the game, and therefore it uses some low settings in future?

Another Q, can I use 2 monitors with 3820TG, if using vga and hdmi outputs same time, and disapling laptops own screen?

 

If quality setting in ATI CCC is set to performance rather than quality textures look ugly- check that.