Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T Thread

I'm rocking a OCZ Vertex 2.

Not loving the touchpad though....

 

Did you not get the synaptics? The synaptics one seems fine to me, not that I care either way since 99% of the time I am using a external mouse.

I just installed the SSD. Installing windows updates and other things as I type this. SSD is absolutely amazing, its almost a crime to not run this laptop without one.

 

guys any news or update when the next generartion i guess sandy bridge will come maybe a 1840T...?

 

Well, despite being very reluctant due to the amount of resistance encountering when trying to open I pried the one I bought for my brother, and 2 or 3 small tabs of plastic broke. Not the three on the far end of where you start opening, but ones in the middle of some of the other edges. Now one edge slightly bulges out at least 1/2mm... Brother is not too happy about it...

I am not sure how it was supposed to be opened but the design is ridiculous. The only thing I can contemplate is the tabs are intended to break so Acer will know if the panel has been opened, but there is no voiding the warranty for this so I think there must be some special way to open it, and forcing it is not that way...

 

Perhaps you can get a replacement panel here at FixMyAcer.

 

Oh damn...
That's something upsetting...
I'm sorry for your experience; when I opened the panel first time, I was preoccupied too feeling such a resistance.
Then, I opened it many times until now, and it has been easier during the time.
Based on your experience, there must be a defect on the Acer design of this panel.
I wonder if Acer should give you a free new panel...
That could have happened to any of 1830T owners.
I'm wondering also how many of us have had this issue and never reported it.
I'm sure Acer knows there's something odd with that panel!

 

Ok well a 1/2mm bulge is not that much... When you guys finally got yours open was there not a popping sound along with it? That was the sound of the little tabs breaking. I then inspected the underside of the panel and saw that two little tabs had broken and they eventually fell off.

I think this has happened to more than one of us but we didn't notice.

Attached is a pic indicating where these tabs and the bulge are located...

 

I had no problem taking the bottom panel off on my 1830T-3721. I actually just slide it to the left a little and bent slightly and lifted up.

Not having trimmed my fingernails for a couple weeks also helped. In my opinion the biggest pain in the butt was the ridiculous amount of screws involved with the whole process.

 

Yup I have done the research I think alot of folks look at the sequential read/write values and I think for general usage you want the one's that rate the highest in the 4k/8k sequential read/write...here is my short list - intels, OCZ vertex2, crucial....looking at the 120/128GB size..But whatever I get I just want to make sure it works....

 

I have it loaded up and everything appears to work, ordered the 6200 from the egg, can't stand broadcom...and the only thing that is giving me issues is the trackpad....it appears that alps is not wanting to play nice with linux....It doesn't even recognize it as a trackpad..hince I have no way to turn on/off click to tap and the cursor goes haywire when I type..ugghh....but I have to look some more to figure out what I am going to do about it....I really wish they wouldn't have gone cheap with the trackpad cause otherwise its a very nice machine.....next 2 upgrades will be memory and SSD....

 

I have a version of a compiled ubuntu 10.10 x64 mouse that gives you vertical scrolling but not tap to click, which is perfect for me and exactly what I wanted....not sure if anyone is running the same version...here is the link to get the compiled driver....

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/550625/+attachment/1764896/+files/psmouse.ko


Here are the instructions on how to put it to use...backup/make a copy of the original in case this version does not work for you...you have been WARNED....

Rename the orginal file in case the new one does not work...
sudo mv /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.org

Before copying the file make sure you renamed the file:
ls -l /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.*

Then copy if the orginal file was renamed
sudo cp psmouse.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/

Make the changes active and test whether it works..
sudo rmmod psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse

Hope this helps someone out...was driving me crazy when I was typing...

 

You know what? I'm adding reputation for your citations.:smile:
Most of all, the first citation about SSD anthology The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News has been one the most interesting and amusing articles I've read in the last past years!:laugh:
How could I have missed that?
Thumbs up!

 

guys anything on this...

 

Wow, that stinks. I didn't have any problems like you describe whatsoever when I opened my bottom panel. I definitely had to be VERY careful unscrewing because I could feel the screws wanting to strip (combination of cheap/soft metal used in the screws and over tightening at the factory) but I had no problems with the plastic panel itself.

 

I bought a 1830T for my wife for Christmas and just ran into an issue. The screen went white while my wife was using it and I could not get the display to work again even after rebooting several times. The screen would just go white immediately on powerup. I really thought the laptop was bricked. So I googled it and found that some Acer models have a known "white screen of death" issue, although I have seen no mention of this in relation to the 1830T.

Anyway, I found discussion of the issue for other Acer laptops, and it apparently has to do with a faulty or loose display connector. One potential fix is to apply pressure around the upper left edge of the laptop chassis to nudge the connector. So I tried that. And it worked. I firmly pressed my thumb on the chassis in the area of the power button, and was able to see the display flash between white screen and normal a few times as I applied pressure. So I pressed around a little more until the display came on and stayed on. Now if I press around there I cannot get the screen to go white again. I'm guessing all of the pressing reseated a loose connector.

Would you guys consider this issue "fixed"? It's a little bit disconcerting that a brand new laptop just stopped working altogther, and my little "fix" just seems too random/lucky. I'm concerned the issue will reappear, and I'm torn on whether or not to return the laptop. But the screen is rock solid now, and no pressing or flexing of the chassis will bring the white screen back.

Keep it or return it? Thoughts?

 

Anyone using the Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS drive in an 1830T? I have a model 3505 on the way and need more space than 250GB. I don't want to use SSD as well because I need more space.

I read most of this thread back to Nov 1, and was considering buying then Intel 6200 wifi card everyone talks about as well as the Seagate hybrid hard drive. I'd order both from Newegg and get them on the way for the arrival of my 1830T.

I've made the Win 7 64 bit bootable USB chip already. My plan is simply to remove the 250GB drive and store it (never boot it). Install the 500GB Seagate as well as the Intel WIFI card, and install Win7 64 via USB.

Does anyone have any other suggestions or tips so I'll be ready? Anything else I should buy?

What drivers might I need after vanilla Win7 install?

Many thanks,

Andy

 

That sounds like a doable plan, I just replaced the broadcom for the intel....still not happy with how I have to enable it but it appears to work much better than the broadcom the intel from the egg comes in the retail package and includes the driver disk...and most of the other drivers you can find on Acer's website...you will need some small needle nose pliers to remove the antenna leads from the broadcom board...some folks have had issues removing the back panel...I have had it off several times, just go slow and work from your left to right when trying to open it up....and then work from your left to your right when replacing....what I would prolly do if it was me running winblows....is to go ahead and set up the 250 and go through the startup procedure and once you finish go and get ABR (Activation Backup and Restore) look here - ABR (Activation Backup and Restore) | directedge.us then you can backup your activation cert stuff to a thumb drive...then shut down and then do the replacement hard drive/wifi card load a clean version of win7...once you have it up and running then just load abr and do the restore from your thumb drive..then you will not haver to re-activate with microsoft via the phone....one note...ABR will only work if you load the same version of win7 that was orginally installed...ie., if you had win7 premium installed thats what has to get re-installed....the versions have to match or it will not re-activate.......

The other advice I would have is to go to device manager and double check that you do not have any question marks left ...that will indicate that you are still missing some drivers....


Hope this helps....great little laptop, I think you will like it a lot!

 

Well.. it will be somewhat inconvenient either way.
But you do have a full year warranty,
so why not keep it and enjoy it.

Easy to return if ever necessary at FixMyAcer.com

 

return it and get a new one. the only way i would keep it is if i opened up the casing and confirmed that it really was just a loose connector that needed to be pushed in.

it's easier to do a return and exchange with the retailer, within the initial return/exchange period, than to deal with the acer warranty later.

 

I have changed my hard drive for an SSD so I have some experience here. I found that I needed an Acer program not now on their website so I was glad I had created the back up DVD's at the beginning. It also has you creae an Apps DVD in the process and here I found the program I needed. I use a bluetooth mouse and needed the Fn key function to be able to turn on the bluetooth. So I think your (never boot it) is a bad idea.

 

Hello 1830T's happy owners, I just read about the new Intel mSATA 310
Intel's SSD 310: G2 Performance in an mSATA Form Factor - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
It is a SSD solution through a mini PCIe connector, ideal for laptop solutions.
The article states

and

I'm impatient to install the 40 or 80GB and swap back the original 500GB HD to its place (now there is a A-DATA S599 64GB).
If it is so, all storage space issues will be resolved in a blink!
Does anyone see this doable in the 1830T?

 

Thanks for the reply. In my reading of this thread I saw that the computer comes loaded with bloatware though. How can I get a clean Win7 and be sure to have all the Acer drivers? Why in the world would Acer not have their drivers on the web - that seems absurd.

For what it is worth I have model 3505 on the way, and I am pretty sure I don't even have Bluetooth in it.

Thanks,

Andy

 

for all of you guys doing clean intalls, see post 2282 below. i installed w7, then do the wifi or ethernet driver, then run windows update and it will install everything except for the few drivers below which will show up as a yellow question mark in device manager.

 

I did not need any drivers from the rescue disks, just a program. It takes half an hour to make the disks and having that one program available is worth the time and effort.

 

Just came across this site at Laptop-Software that has about
twenty drivers for the 1830 available to download.

 

any one know about the next generation 1840T ?

 

So has Acer support website.

Michael

 

thought someone may be interested in this....2x4gb ddr3 memory for ~$67....I jumped on it....


Super Talent 4GB DDR3 1333MHz SO-DIMM Laptop Memory $34.30 AC Shipped (2 for $66.70) - Slickdeals.net

 

Does anyone know if Acer is planning on updating this with a Sandy Bridge processor? I've been itching to buy this, but thought I'd wait for SB to be officially debuted to see whether there might be any new models coming out that are about the same price as this or if this price might drop...

Thoughts/Suggestions?

Thanks!

 

CES officially starts tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll find out.

Bronsky

 

My guess is that it will be upgraded with a Sandy Bridge processor, or at least a new version with one will come out. But the thing you have to realize, is that once it's announced, it's still several months before it come out, if at all. Honestly, there is always going to be a newer better model coming out in the next 6-12 months, but if you operate along that logic you will never end up with anything. I had been waiting on getting mine, then one day I called Microcenter to check if the -3721 was in stock and they said they were no longer carrying it (this was on 12/23). Same thing with Fry's, bot said they were no longer going to be carrying it. I grabbed on Amazon (has the 470m processor and an ALPS touchpad) So my guess is that they're trying to move people to either the more expensive i7 variant, or get people to get the cheaper 1430T. If you like the laptop, just get it, you'll be happy. I know I am. (OCZ Agility 2 SSD installed is awesome btw)

 

I received my computer - it is nice, but I have a stuck pixel on the LCD. It is off (black) in the center vertically, and about 4 inches from the left horizontally. Anyone else have any bad pixels? Should I return for replacement?

I bought from Overstock.com

I can report my process for upgrading went incredibly well. I removed the original hard drive and wireless card.

I installed my Seagate 500GB hybrid hard drive and the Intel wireless card.

I booted win7 off of a USB chip and installed. I installed the Intel WIFI driver that came from the CD via USB. Once networked the only yellow exclaim I had in the end was thew wired ethernet driver. I downloaded this once driver from the Acer site and all was well.

I installed the Dell touchpad driver referenced in this thread.

The computer is nice with the exception of the dead pixel. It is distracting. I've never had these on my Lenovo laptops - any opinions? Am I being too picky? It seems I should get a solid screen with a brand new machine.

 

Snipoe sorry toi hear about your screen. If it bothers you then you should make the change.

 

Hey there, I had a similar issue with my mom's new 1830T. The wireless didn't like to work properly after waking it up from Sleep/Standby. The 1830T I'm working with has that pesky Broadcom card.

I figured out that going into the device manager and disabling the wireless card, then re-enabling the card did the trick. To simplify the hassle of having to do this every time, I used the following:

PowerTriggers - Launches batch files right before it sleeps and right after you wake it up)
DevCon - Command line interface of the Device Manager

To use DevCon through command line, you'll have to run their self-extractor, then copy and paste the file from the folder you just extracted \I386\DevCon.exe into \WINDOWS\system32\

Once that's done, you should be able to run DevCon.exe through Command Prompt.

As for the batch files, I wanted something that ran somewhat silently (in the background, minimized into the taskbar and not *too* noticible) so I wrote these:

Right before putting the laptop to sleep, I want it to force-disable the wireless card.

Batch file ran from PowerTriggers:

"beforesleep.bat"

Code:

start /min disable.bat

"disable.bat"

Code:

devcon disable *[COLOR="Red"]DEV_4357[/COLOR]*

Then after I wake up the laptop, I want it to force-enable the wireless card. The code is similar:

Batch file ran from PowerTriggers:

"afterwake.bat"

Code:

start /min enable.bat

"enable.bat"

Code:

devcon enable *[COLOR="Red"]DEV_4357[/COLOR]*

Please note that the above code in red is unique to the particular wireless card you have. You can find this by going into the Device Manager, right clicking the device, then going to properties. I've highlighted an example here:


And lastly, to make sure PowerTriggers runs when Windows starts up, I put a shortcut to PowerTriggers in the Startup folder of the Start Menu.

Hope this helps (and hopefully I didn't waste your time)

 

Ive been slowly trying to weed through the hundreds of threads but Ive lost some motivation reading about wireless cards, ssd, and batteries. Just picked up the Canadian version of the 1830T (i3) , 4gb, swapped the hdd for a ocz vertex 32gb. Looks like the Canadians are stuck wth alps too, agreed the two finger scroll sucks, however the one finger scroll seems quite smooth.

My questions are, has anyone cracked the entire computer open in a dissection?
- any hidden gems (extra space for mini-pci-e)
- anyway to get a touchscreen on this and power it from the board
- anyone getting comparable battery life in ubuntu 10.10 vs Win7
- anyone had any luck swapping the colored frame to change the color (canadians only get the brown, while its nice I'd prefer black)

 

Can't be sure, but I've followed and contributed to both the 1830
and the 1810 discussions here since their inception.
I cannot remember seeing many references to your interests.
I do remember seeing an early dissection of an 1810,
but that machine is actually quite different inside.

Oh.. I remember some discussion about poor battery performance
using various versions of Unix. I don't think there were any resolutions.

About a touchscreen, Acer sold a limited number of 11.6" 1820 model
with touch about a year ago, which I tried out a couple times while I was in Taipei.
Quite unimpressive. Nothing like an iPad or Android tablet.

 

Some good questions I can provide some insight to some of them...so the breakdown for Linux, the i3 works out of the box, almost everything works with a newer kernel like 10.10 or fedora 14 etc, the only thing that didn't work was the junky alps touchpad, does not see it as a touchpad so you can't turn on/off stuff, several bugs open on it, I found some that been compiled drivers that turned off the tap function and enabled the vertical scrolling functions...

I promptly swapped out the broadcom for an intel 6200 and waiting for a deal on an intel 120GB ssd, battery life is as good or better than windows on the i3 version...now the i5 and i7 versions are a different story and that is due to the cpu's since they have a turbo mode and the 2.6.35 kernels do not know how to handle them and they always ran at full speed, hence the shorter battery life..now the good news is that the 2.6.36 kernel and up, I think ubuntu 11.04 will have 2.6.37 and has new code in it to handle the intel turbo modes which should mean that battery life on those models will be the same as winblows also if not better...

The only option that I see that you can add is a internal bluetooth module and you have to take it almost all apart...some folks on ebay selling the module and actually have the step by step photos showing you how to do it...

The us i3 versions are black I haven't seen anyone changing the bezels but hey anything is possible...Hope that helps..

 

Thanks for the replies, that confirms most of what I was thinking. I thought long and hard about ordering the black from the US but duty, and shipping just took away any value in that option.

I think as soon as I see another good deal on a 60-90gb ssd I'm gonna pick one up and throw ubuntu on this if the battery doesnt get hit. Dont want to bother right now with such a small hd in it, tried the live cd last night for ubuntu, aside from no wifi I didnt notice any issues.

Thanks for the info. I have to say this is easily the best laptop Ive owned, well balanced overall for performance, portability, and battery life. Dedicated video would be nice but not at the cost of battery for me.

 

Funny thing is I never booted it up in win7, I just loaded up Ubuntu and went to town, I had done my research and this one was the best for things working and battery life processopr etc...I like mine a lot...Like I said up top the only problem is the touchpad...I loaded the x64 version of 10.10 and if you need the new mouse driver just PM me and I can shoot it to you...that will turn off tap to click and enable the vertical scrolling...if you have any other questions lust let me know...Oh and the wifi can be enabled by turning on the Ubuntu proprietary drivers under Admin, but you will have to do that while plugged into the network and then you can load the broadcom drivers and then wireless will work...

 

Hi All,
I'm new to the site and am intimidated by the 200+ pages of responses for the 1830T laptop

I have a question regarding the laptop. I'm looking at buying the AS1830T-68U118 and I was wondering if the 4gb that comes with the laptop is 1 single 4gb stick or 2? Also how many memory slots does the laptop have? Is there a spec sheet which has all of this info somewhere...One other thing I was wondering about is the turbo boosting of the CPU. How does that work? Does it do it automatically when it notices you need the boost or do you need to turn this on? Thanks

 

1. Two sticks, computer has two slots.

2. Turbo Boost is automatic, depending on the load the processor automatically boosts up to help speed tasks.

 

Hey guys,

I recently upgraded this laptop (purchased 2 months ago but never really used) with a 500GB WD Blue drive, 2x 4GB Mushkin ram, and the bluetooth module.

However, I'm having a problem now. I can't seem to turn on the wifi or know how to turn on the bluetooth. I heard that the bluetooth uses the same "led" as the wifi does, but for some reason, I can't turn on wifi. I thought it was my FN keys, but the FN keys work for everything else.

What could be the problem? I installed W7 Ultimate and installed all the drivers as well.

Thanks!!

UPDATE: Fixed! I installed the wrong WIFI driver. There's 3 to choose from on the ACER site, but Broadcom is the one

 

The fan on this thing is still annoying me. So in order for me to keep it without going crazy, when I go home from college for Spring Break I will be drilling some holes in the case under the fan to see if that improves cooling and thus makes the fan run less. I have been reading around the web and that seems to help. It is ridiculous how my 3810T with a 45nm SU9400 can be so much quieter than this 1830T.

 

We've got two 1830t machines.
Both are very quiet, unless I leave it sitting on my lap or the couch, blocking the vents.

But the fan on my wife's 1830t became quite noisy at one point,
so I sent it out to FixMyAcer.com.
It was repaired and returned within 14 days total.
The return information said something about replacing or fixing
the CPU cooling unit along with a part number.

I'll try to find and post the exact info.

 

The thing is for me to send it to them, that would mean I'd be without the computer for two weeks again like when I sent my first 1830T to them. I would have to wait for summer since I don't want to do it now with school going on. And to send it to them means I'd need to find a hard drive to put in it since I don't want to send Acer my ssd (I didn't before).

Also, the latest Alps drivers on the Acer site are now better than the Dell drivers Phil posted (the Acer one's now side scroll!)

 

I have my new system without a dead pixel on the display. I have my Seagate 500GB and the Intel 6200 wireless installed.

The system is working perfectly with one exception:

Once out of every 10 boots the system stops after the Bios splash screen, and sticks with a white underscore in the upper left corner of the display. Almost as if it doesn't see the hard drive. I get no other message, no key or mouse moves the system forward.

The only thing to do is hold the power button until the system goes off, then repower on.

It boots perfectly 9 times out of 10. I see no setting in the BIOS to affect this. I turned off booting via network, and made my hard drive the #1 boot device.

I do have an external monitor hooked up via VGA, and the USB cable connected to the system to the monitor. I have a Gyration wireless keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

I think you should send it to Acer before your warranty expires.

Looking at the fan noise Acer repair document on my wife's 1830t....
"Parts used:
Part Number 60.TVS01
Description CPU HEATSINK W/FAN"

These machines are very quiet unless there is a problem.
And its OK to send it in with your SSD. I did.
Just backup your docs, etc.

Drilling holes in the enclosure to provide more cooling
addresses the symptom, but not the cause.

You might be suprised at how different life
can be without a computer for two weeks....

 

Well I will try sending it to them in May after the semester is over.

 

Jay - - where can I find the drivers since the Acer site does not seem to have them or my eyesite is worse than I thought!

 

They are there under the drivers:

v7.106.2015.1105
10/13/2010
9.7 MB