Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T Thread

interesting. battery bar gives me exactly the same readings: 59400mAh fully charged, 5,2% wear from the start.

i start to believe that the rated capacity of the battery is a lie.
please, everybody install battery bar (freeware) and report!
this might just be another part of the answer to why the battery life is so much lower than expected.

btw, a few german sites/magazines have been commenting on lower than expected battery life and promised to get in touch with acer to clarify (c't in their article about the 1830t). notebookcheck.com announced a forthcoming review of the 8172 and report the same issues with a run time on battery of about 5h. Notebookcheck: Probleme mit der Akkulaufzeit beim Acer Travelmate 8172T und Aspire 1830T?

 

i installed battery bar and it is shows 5.2% battery wear as well

 

weird, i wonder why it doesn't install then

 

They also said that this i due to a wrong configuration of the graphic card driver (Energy saving option). If you put that option from high performance (on battery) to battery saving the battery runtime should last for about 11 hours. Could somebody check that please?!

 

iCore 1830t going for 11 hours??? that sounds too good to be true.

 

It it too good to be true. I have it set to that and the most I get is 6 hours battery life, but more like 5.5 hours. And this is with a clean install of Win7, startup service+msconfig tweaks, and firefox open (w/ discharge rate varying from 6.5mW to 10mW).

It may improve were I to disable wifi, but not up to 11 hours. I wish...

 

You have to uninstall those, then install the ones from the Intel website. I had the same problem.

 

Yea.. uninstall your current graphic drivers.
Reboot - it automatically uses the minimal built-in Win7 generic drivers.
Then install your new ones.

Can't remember for sure, but you may need to "right-click"
on the install icon and choose "install as adminstrator"

 

Mine installed on top of the old ones.

 

It's possible that you could see 10+ hours if you just let the machine idle.

The Acer 1830 has a 63Wh battery, so for 10 hours you would need to draw no more than 6.3W average. My old Acer 1410 idled around 4W so it's not at all implausible that the 1830 could do 6W.

The problem is that one you start using the CPU at all you've blown past 6W. Even moving the mouse will cause the CPU to jump a watt or more.

Most of the power savings in modern Intel CPUs come not from EIST (Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology, also known as P-states) but instead from C-states (CPU sleeping). In the deeper C-states the CPU is basically off, which obviously cuts power consumption a lot. The problem is, whenever you do something that makes the CPU do work (even if it's not a lot of work), it needs to run (go to C0). The CPU can only transition from C0 to lower C-states relatively slowly, and things like animation, audio, or even moving the mouse will prevent it from reaching deeper sleep states as often as it otherwise would.

Sometimes surprising things can wake the CPU: just having an SD card plugged in on my Acer 1410 would do it.

To maximize your battery life, you need to:
- Keep the display brightness low
- Keep sound muted (this prevents the audio amplifier from using power)
- Disable Bluetooth (saves some power, but more importantly keeps the Bluetooth controller from waking the CPU, which is often a problem)
- Remove any SD cards that aren't being used
- Remove any unnecessary USB devices
- Avoid animations and video (for example, by using FlashBlock)
- Disable background tasks like download managers or virus scanners

Disabling WiFi won't do you much good if you use an Intel card, which is already pretty good at saving power (unless, of course, you're downloading/uploading a lot - which will kill your battery life). I don't know about the Broadcom card but it's probably at least decent at saving power.

An SSD can help a bit, but laptop hard drives are already pretty low power.

The reality is that you're probably not going to do all of these things. That means that you're far more likely to get 5 hours instead of 10. But if you do get in a jam, just remember:

- Keep the display brightness low.
- Disable whatever you're not using.
- Keep the CPU sleeping.

 

Thanks a lot for all your advices

 

Great info! So yeah then it looks like I will be sticking with my 1810TZ... I need a system for real world used and not just for sitting idle looking pretty. The 1830T is simply a little too powerful at the price of battery life.

Do third party manufacturers eventually release insane capacity like 9 cell batteries for acers?

 

does the american version of 1830T ship with this AC adapter?


it seems light

 

FYI, everything I said applies to the 1810TZ. Actually, it applies to just about every modern laptop, it's just that you don't really notice the savings on a more power hungry laptop.

For example, take my T400 with ATI graphics activated. Under CPU load, it's at around 15W; if you use the tricks I described, you can get it down to ~12W.

On an 1810TZ, you can save about the same 3W, bringing the power consumption from about 8W down to about 5W.

The difference is that 8W on the 1810TZ gets you around 7 hours of battery life and 5W gets you over 10 hours. Whereas 15W gets you around 4 hours on the T400 and 12W gets you around 5.

In lower power laptops the savings are magnified since the CPU is a larger part of the overall power equation.

 

Hello,

Do you know if 6 cell battery of 1810 is compatible with 1830T ?

(I will receive my 1830T (version with i3 330UM) in few days and I search for anoter battery...).

Thank you !

 

how come i cant access the launch manager? or acer power manager?

i can see it installed but i cant launch the program

 

I have both an 1810tz and a 1830t.
The batteries are similar, but are not interchangeable.

 

Ok, thank you for your answer.

It's damage, actually I can't find (cheap) 1830T batteries...

 

i get around 8 hours on my 1830t doing normal stuff surfing the web , instant messaging and listening to music

 

I believe launch manager simply enables some of the hot keys and provides an on-screen display for their actions (e.g. hot keys such as Fn+Up = Sound Up). There isn't actually an application to launch. Try adjusting the volume and confirm you get an on screen display indicating the change. If you do then the launch manager probably installed correctly.

 

Allright guys....

Which is the best Non-SSD HDD for Acer 1830T at this point in time....??

Is it the Seagate Hybrid Momentus XT ?
Is it the Seagate 7400.4 ?
Is it the Hitachi Travel Star 7K500 ?
Is it the WD Scorpio Black ?

Which is "THE BEST".... PERIOD....???

 

The Momentus XT will run circles around any other laptop hard drive. Of course it gets destroyed by a real SSD, but it's hard to argue with 500GB for $130.

 

I have just ordered my 1830T and have been looking into this also. I would definitely go for the Western Digital Scorpio Black. Western digital make by far the most reliable hard drives in my experience as a IT Engineer. If you do some research and read the data from the review sites this drive performs top in most categories. It has the perfect balance of top performance, reliability and low power consumption (for its class).

Check out Tom's hardware chart (I know it says 2009 but they have the latest drives on there):

Benchmarks 2009 2.5? Mobile Hard Drive Charts

 

dave...

thanks for that....

forgot to mention... min size required is 500 GB.

 

Np

Tom's hardware chart has five Scorpio drives including the 500GB black version, which is the best performing one out of the five.

You can see all the sizes they make at their official product page:

WD Scorpio Black 500 GB SATA Hard Drives ( WD5000BEKT )

 

Will the Scorpio really make a noticeable difference you think?

 

Depends what drive is in it already. The i5 model has a 5400rpm 500GB drive which I am going to swap out and put in a caddy and replace it with a 500GB Scorpio Black which is 7200rpm. The difference wont be incredible but definitely noticeable.

 

A year ago, I swapped the stock 320GB 5400 rpm in my Acer 1810t with a Hitachi 7200 rpm. No problems.
The Windows 7 Performance hard disk rating jumped from 5.6 to 5.9.
But there was never even a moment where I noticed an increase in performance.
Really... don't bother considering the extra cost,
and especially the hours of effort.

Given that experience, I'm now trying to resist my impulses to buy an SSD, or maybe even
the new Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus XT 500GB Solid State hybrid drive at $129
Linky

 

Anandtech has a pretty convincing and thorough review as well: Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD

While you give up a little more power consumption (haven't noticed a real difference) and a bit of noise, the upgrade to the 500GB Momentus XT drive was well worth it.

 

Hello all,

Just to know : in US, it is possible to have a refund (from Acer) for the preinstalled Windows (like in France) ?

 

Hi all:
So I actually managed to get my acer 1830t core i5. Laptop is very nice looking and fast. Only thing bothering me is a frequent clicking noise from somewhere. Like every 20 sec. I guess it does it when it has to access the harddrive, but sometimes the blue harddisk led also ligths without the noise. Can also happen when I don't do anything with the laptop. Not a loud noise, but noticable. Sound mechanical. Anybody noticed this?

 

Hi Dabile, no we don't get any such opportunity. How interesting. How much do you get for your refund? Is it close to the OEM cost of Windows 7? Or do you only get a small amount? Under what conditions do you get the refund? Is it only if you install a different OS such as linux?

 

Yes, it is to install another OS like a Linux.

For Windows 7 Home Premium, Acer gives 40€ ($51).


You send the PC for free to a workshop Acer, and after arround five days, they'll return with the empty HDD and windows label removed. (And with a 40€ in check).

( Google Traduction )

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...und-acer-notebook-acer-aspire-1410-1810t.html

 

Ok, thanks !

 

Are there better touchpad drivers anywhere?

 

Which touchpad do you have, Alps or Synaptics? If Alps, the only way to make the touchpad better is to get a new one, with Synaptics.

 

I have ALPS, unfortunately.

 

There is nothing wrong with your 1830t. The clicking noise is from the reading arm of your hard drive when it’s moving back to the standby position in order to reduce power consumption. It's a hard drive advance feature called APM- Advanced Power Management, and can be disabled with software such as CrystalDiskInfo if you find the clicking really annoying

 

Hi: I actually read about the whole clicking issue and was about to follow the instruction from this post and disable the idle timer on the WD Scorpio Blue harddrive in the acer:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell/168425-clicking-noise-issue-resolved-37.html#post6476125

However will try to see if CrystalDiskInfo will help. Tried setting the APM on max performance first. Don't know if the setting is permanent after a restart of the computer though.

It was annoying as it would click constantly even though I wasn't using the laptop. One would think it would just stay in standby position when not being used.

 

Hi, everyone!

Just got my 1830t a week ago and I love it!

However, there is one problem that I haven't seen anyone here discussed before.

Whenever the fan is running in a particular low speed, if I tilt my laptop toward the back (battery) side a little over 30-degree, I can always hear a vibrating hum from my fan.

It's a dull, regular, humming sound repeats in a slow interval; sounds as if the axle of the fan is slightly off center in one second, and then bounces itself back to balance, over and over again.

The noise only appears in that particular spinning speed, and disappears whenever I tilde my laptop toward myself. It's only noticeable when the laptop sets on my laps in a quiet bedroom.

Has anyone here noticed the same problem or am I just being paranoid?

 

I clicked on "disable" instead of "max performance."
And no, the setting actually won't stay permanent

 

Ok, I restarted the laptop, started up crystaldiskinfo again and APM was still set at max performance.
It seemed to have reduced the clicking frequency, but I have to listen closer for a longer time.
Haven't noticed the fan humming, but will look into that. Well I'm a bit paronoid as well

 

The only way is to buy a new palmrest from with a Synaptics touchpad. Not sure if you can even do that or how hard it is to replace. I would love to do that.

 

Has anyone seen this review? ASUS UL20FT Performance, Benchmarks and Battery Life How does an I3-330UM perform better than an I7-640UM? I don't get it. I would really have to suspect the testing methodology here. Is anyone's I3 outperforming the I5 versions of the 1830T?

Bronsky

 

OK, so I just got my Acer 1830 (i5 version) and it's unfortunately getting returned.

Like many I have the Alps touchpad. I cannot emphasize how much this touchpad sucks. The two finger scrolling gesture is basically useless on the Alps touchpad - more often than not, it doesn't work, and when it does, it's jerky and inconsistent. Motion on the trackpad is also sluggish compared to a Synaptics pad. Additionally, the TwoFingerScroll.exe program that I used on my Synaptics pad doesn't work (for obvious reasons), which means that I can't use gestures like two finger tapping to middle click (opens a new tab). On my T400 I can just use the middle button, but the Acer doesn't have one so this is very sorely missed.

I had an Acer 1410 and loved it (now it's my mom's laptop). It had a Synaptics pad and worked great.

The other major issue is graphics performance. No one buys an ultraportable expecting great performance for games, but based on the 3DMark benchmarks the Acer 1830 should be about 2x as fast as the previous-gen Intel GMA X4500 on my T400 (and on the previous Acer 1410/1810).

However, the very low GPU base clock combined with the fact that some games use the CPU heavily means that the performance in real games is very poor. Portal was not significantly more playable than on my T400 with previous-gen Intel integrated. Starcraft II, which tends to use the CPU extensively, was even less playable than it was on my T400's previous-gen integrated.

The problem with the ULV Intel CPUs is that you get either GPU performance or CPU performance, but not both at the same time. That means that 3DMark or other GPU-specific benchmarks make the graphics performance look much better than it actually is in real-world games. If you limit your gaming to older titles or don't game at all, that might be acceptable. But it tarnishes one of the big apparent advantages of the 1830 over the older 1810 series.

I had at hoped to be able to play Starcraft II on minimum settings with decent framerates. Obviously no one would recommend an ultraportable as a gaming machine, but it's nice to be able to leave the desktop at home for the occasional game at a friend's house or impromptu LAN party. The 1830 can't really do that any better than the 1410/1810 in my experience. In the best (real-world, not benchmark) case it performs slightly better than the previous-gen Intel graphics; in the worst case it performs slightly worse.

Combine that with the trackpad issues and I have a machine that's a joy to carry around but not really a joy to use. It might be a nice screw-around portable machine but at $600/$670 (depending on version) it's really to expensive than that (for me, at least). At that price this needs to be my primary laptop, and it just can't be.

Incidentally, this somewhat vindicates the AMD-based Acer 721. At $430 it's significantly cheaper, and even the Radeon 4225 graphics it has should have no trouble running circles around the 1830 when you stress the CPU at the same time. CPU performance and battery life are also inferior on the 721, but both are actually pretty decent.

If you can get an 1830 with the Synaptics touchpad, it's a fine all-around notebook as long as you don't want to game. CPU performance is very good, the design is nice, the power adapter is compact, and it has all the features you could really want. But if you are unlucky and get an Alps touchpad, or if you wanted to use this machine for some on-and-off gaming (maybe based on the decent-looking 3DMark scores), you might be disappointed.

Unfortunately, I fit into both categories. I was not prepared for how bad the Alps touchpad is, and I overestimated the 3D performance based on the 3DMark results.

In my opinion the 1410 (that my mom now has) was actually the better system. It has a Synaptics pad, it has significantly better battery life, and it came with Intel wireless. Despite being a year newer and $250 more expensive, I can't say that the 1830 is significantly better in any way other than CPU performance, and it's also significantly worse in some ways (Broadcom wireless without 5GHz, less battery life, heavier, Alps touchpad).

That's a real shame, because I really liked the 1410.

 

I think you would have to replace the entire top cover to do this, which is a nightmare (I disassembled a 1410 and I assume this is similar). 25+ screws, and you need to remove basically everything in the machine down to the motherboard.

I can't find the part either, and it probably wouldn't be cheap.

To anyone who is thinking about an 1830: this is a significant risk. If you're used to a Synaptics touchpad, the Alps touchpad is really, really bad.

Things like edge motion (lets you drag things longer distances) aren't even implemented with the Alps pad.

The Alps pad is slow to respond compared with Synaptics pads.

The multitouch gestures on the Alps pad don't work. Period. Working 1/3rd of the time does not count. I cannot tell you how many times I have dragged two fingers across the Alps pad only to have it do nothing.

One finger (edge) scrolling works but is very hard to use because there's no clear touchpad edge.

Corner taps do not register with any sort of consistency.

There are no multi-finger tap gestures like you can do with TwoFingerScroll on Synaptics pads.

If you don't understand or use any of these features the Alps pad may be OK. But on both my 1410 and my T400 I was used to these features working and working well. I am efficient and effective with a touchpad, to the point where I rarely use a mouse with my laptop. With the Alps pad on the 1830 I feel like I'm constantly fighting with the touchpad.

I bought an HP laptop a while ago with an Alps touchpad and I returned it because of these issues. I took the chance on the 1830, figuring that I might get a Synaptics touchpad and that if I didn't maybe the Alps touchpads had improved. I was wrong on both counts.

 

I disagree about the Alps on our 1830t.
And have grown to hate using the Synaptics on my 1810tz.
In fact, I have all the "Gestures" turned off.
But you do seem to be in the majority.

Really appreciate your overall observations on the 1830 though.
And I suggest you repost your comments as a review at Amazon and other sites
where they may help gaming folks make an informed decision.

 

This is why I'm still waiting for the 1551 to be released with a decent battery. K625, 4gb ram, 5800mAh battery. Should be good for the occasional gaming session on the plane/train. Thanks for your review, bsoft!

 

so gaming on this is no better than the 1810?

i was only going to get this in the hope i could also do some light gaming, if its no better than x4500 then there is no point.

i wanted to play gta4 on LOW settings.