Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG mods/tweaks ONLY!

Aha never thought of looking there, as I'm not looking for a backlit keyboard! I'll check it out. thanks.

 

Has anyone had success with this? I asked it in the other thread, buy maybe it's more of a tweak.
>>>
Has anyone tried putting a slim or manually cut / sanded D-SUB VGA cable, while there is a HDMI cable plugged in? There is no reason why could we not do 2x external displays on the AMD card. I think its just the spacing issue.

 

Yep, I cut mine with a dremmel and it works fine.

 

Wow, its good to know its worth the effort. But what do you select in the Fn + F5 menu?

Can it do two external + internal?

 

It will only output to 2 displays. internal + external or two external. I just set them up in screen resolution menu (right click on desktop)

 

I was bored so I scanned motherboards of 3820TG (ATI 5470) and 3820TG (ATI 6550). It could be very useful for hardware modding or if you have to replace a failed component.

Ideas for possible hardware mods:
- eSata port
- Adding missing PCI-e lines to the PCI-e slot
- SIM card slot
- More USB ports

You are welcome to use these images for any purpose. Giving the credit for the scans is appreciated, but NOT required.

Scanner: Canon CanoScan 8600F

Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG-3022 (Canadian)
i5 CPU / ATI 5470 512MB / no 3G modem
Winstron JM31-CP Mainboard
Acer P/N: 48.4HL01.031

Interesting info:
Clockgen: SLG8LV595V

Download:
600dpi (6000x4500) (5MB): file mirror1
1200dpi (12000x9000) (34.2MB): file
imageshack.us (600dpi): Top Bottom


Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG-6829 (Canadian)
i5 CPU / ATI 5650/6550 1GB / no 3G modem
Winstron JM31-CP Mainboard
Acer P/N: 48.4HL01.03M

Interesting info:
Clockgen: ICS VS3197BL

Download:
600dpi (6000x4500) (5.2MB): file mirror2
1200dpi (12000x9000) (36.5MB): file
imageshack.us (600dpi): Top Bottom

 

Excellent initiative, thanks!

 

I'm going to do the 3G mod in as soon as I get the parts. That sim card holder is tricky. 9 connectors, when they normally come in 6 or 8. The closest I found was a 6 connector combinationholder at Farnell
AVX|00 9162 006 501 150|CONNECTOR, MICRO SD/SIM, COMBI | Farnell Sverige
I have found the JAE - MM60-52B1-B1-R850 MINI PCI EXPRESS, 3.9MM connector but no stock in the whole of Europe until August.
JAE|MM60-52B1-B1-R850|CONNECTOR, MINI PCI EXPRESS, 3 | Farnell Sverige

I'm leaving for a one year research trip in 6 weeks and needs to get this done while I still have the access to uni's lab and soldering equipment. Can someone in US ship me over a couple in an envelope? I will transfer the funds in any suitable way, PayPal or similar?

 

couple of cool mini PCI-e cards I found online

USB 3.0 Card

Mini PCI Express USB 3.0 Card - 2-port | StarTech.com

Sata II two port card with raid 0/1

Mini PCIe to SATA Controller Card - 2 Port | with Built-in RAID Support | StarTech.com

I figure the USB 3.0 card could be put in and then solder the USB 3.0 connector where a 2.0 one currently is.

 

Thanks, for the scans.

 

Hmm, that SATA controller looks nice. Two 1.8" SSD disks in RAID0, would easily fit in the HDD compartment. I once had two 1.8" Intel X25M in RAID0 and taped together in my desktop, took actually less space than one 2.5". Do we get the bandwith in the full length slot? Has anyone tried out to mount something storage related there?

The 3G mod could easily be done using the USB path as well. Decisions decisions..

 

You have only one pci-e lan there.

The usual raid cards for the desktop (not server) are using four lans.

Edit: The 3G Modem inside the Acer 3820TG is using the USB path and is only fitted inside the slot

 

One pci-e lane can be enough. Pci-e 1.0 1x has a max 250MB/s, and Pci-e 2.0 1x has double that, 500MB/s. I'm happy to grab "only" 350MB/s or so... The access times and small 4k files will benefit greatly from a RAID0, and that's what I'm after. I don't care much for transfer big files with my laptop.

Yes, I see now that the 3G uses the USB path, but can't we hook it up on another USB channel than that from the pci-e slot?

 

Should be possible, but you have to connect the module back to the sim card slot.

Has any one the schematic of the motherboard?

 

Not yet. There is for 4820/5820, but not for 3820 yet.

Here are some good websites for future:
ACER Schematic | Laptop Schematic
http://laptop-schematics.com/db/1/Aspire/

Also, I seem to have found a free USB port. Here is a page from 5820TG schematics. If you look closer, you can see that CCD is connected to USB. It is a webcam. On my 3820TG, I have a port marked CCD and there is nothing connected to it as webcam is connected via LCD cable.

Here is a photo (top right of the motherboard)

 

Great find! That port definately can be useful no matter what path we go.

 

I gave it another look, and it seems like there are some components missing to the right of the port. Maybe it is not wired?

 

Hey,

I was thinking the same about the CCD connector on the motherboard, but I have not enough time to test it now.

I'm just waiting for the schematic at the moment and hope, that it will be leaked in the next time.

 

do we have special mod bios for the 3820?

 

Look in my sig.

 

thanks. Is there a mod bios for this laptop that add features.

 

Hey,

could the free place U67 on the motherboard between the HDMI port and the Intel chipset be a place for a HDMI switch to witch the HDMI output port between the Intel and AMD graphic card?

 

omg surfing with a quit intel vga on a big screen

edit: is there a chip missing ??

 

btw. i found the bug why reading EC doesnt work....

Code:

            public static byte ReadEC(byte iPort) {
            if (WaitWriteEC()) {
                ols.WriteIoPortByte(0x66, 0x80);
            }
            if (WaitWriteEC()) {
                ols.WriteIoPortByte(0x62, iPort);
            }
           [COLOR="Red"][B] if (WaitReadEC()) {
                return ols.ReadIoPortByte(0x62);
            }[/B][/COLOR]
            return 0;
        }

should be ->

Code:

            public static byte ReadEC(byte iPort) {
            if (WaitWriteEC()) {
                ols.WriteIoPortByte(0x66, 0x80);
            }
            if (WaitWriteEC()) {
                ols.WriteIoPortByte(0x62, iPort);
            }
            if ([B][COLOR="Blue"]WaitWriteEC()[/COLOR][/B]) {
                [B][COLOR="Blue"]WaitReadEC()[/COLOR][/B];
                return ols.ReadIoPortByte(0x62);
            }
            return 0;
        }

the Sleep(1) is not a problem (as long as rweverything is not running)





PS:
@_InKr_ and @prikolchik -> any news in KBC modding

 

Actually I've stopped with following algorithm:
TZ0<60 - 0% speed
60-66 - fan is running at lowest possible speed F0 (lower that is used in original BIOS)
>66 - not modified.

Fan speed table has next values:
FF FF FF F0 81 6F 6F 6F 6F

I 99% satisfied with this algorithm. Next step on its improvement needs lots of playing with temps thresholds and I don't think it worth it.

Can share modded KBC if anybody interested.

 

TZ0 is cpu temp?
does it work for gpu too?

if it does not have sideeffects pls share . . .

 

Now it works only for CPU Fan. Have no need to quiet GPU Fan since I only turn on ATI for gaming and noise is not a problem then

Of course one can modify GPU Fan tables if needed.

Modded KBC works fine for me and prikolchik so I'll share it later today.

 

But what is TZ1? In HW Monitor its something like a system board temperature. Its definately not the AMD card. Is the AMD card in the ACPI table? I would be happy to use a more quiet AMD card, as I need to use it for HDMI all the time when docked.

Update:
Or maybe a much easier option: could you update KBC 1.13 with the thermal values from 1.19? The thermal settings in 1.19 are really quiet, but it has a bug which makes my AMD fan go into an infinite loop. I would need to send it into a warranty replacement to have it fixed.

 

Actually no. With no other software that reads EC running, works even this code:

Code:

 
            public static byte ReadEC(byte iPort) {
            if (WaitWriteEC()) {
                ols.WriteIoPortByte(0x66, 0x80);
            }
            if (WaitWriteEC()) {
                ols.WriteIoPortByte(0x62, iPort);
            }
            if ([B][COLOR="Blue"]WaitWriteEC()[/COLOR][/B]) {
                return ols.ReadIoPortByte(0x62);
            }
            return 0;
        }

But correct code, which is working on Linux is:
ec.c in trunk/src/ec/acpi ? coreboot

It corresponds to code which you have mentioned as buggy.

Also note udelay(10) - this couldn't be done on Windows. And this is a root cause.

 

the missing "WaitReadEC();" is the problem (its the step 7.)

6. Wait IBF free ->WaitWriteEC()
7. Wait OBF full -> WaitReadEC()

since i fixed that i doenst have any acpi error in windowslog anymore !!

that it delivers allways 0 if RW.exe is running is maybe simply because the EC chip cant be used by two progs the same time ...


i have implemented in 3820tray if it returns "0" then EC is blocked and i retry later

 

Modded KBC:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...inex-3820tg-mods-tweaks-only.html#post7260503

 

Yep, I tried the new KBC, but I had to flash back to the stock one. Why? Because the fan would rotate much more often.

Up until about 56C the fan will not turn on and that is great. But if I do anything on the computer, the CPU heats up by a few degrees and fan turns on low. It can't cool down CPU by much and it just keeps running for a long time until about 54C, then it turns off. It keeps turning on/off very frequently. There seems to be a small temperature difference between fan on high and fan on low. It keeps oscillating between those two speeds too.

I think we should still play with temperature thresholds.

As for GPU, i have ATI 5470 and max temp I ever seen was 65C. The fan is very quiet and it doesn't bother me at all.

 

Yes. If you need more smooth speed changing - you definitely need to play with temp thresholds, because now only 2 of them are in "working" range.
As for me - my i5-460 is completely silent when surfing and running at lowest speed for video playback: actually that is all what I want. But for any, even short, 100% load (eg. antivirus bases update) - it almost instantly goes >66. And then few seconds after load gone it goes back <60.

 

does the AS3820T has two fans or only one?

 

Two. One for the GPU and one for the CPU.

Edit: The T model has only one.

 

Yeah but 3820T doesn't have a dedicated GPU so it probably has one fan.

 

Sorry my mistake, the T model has only one.

 

hum...thanks. Didn't look at the GPU.

 

Hi all, is there currently a modded bios that could turn a 5650 into a 6550?

 

works really good so far. but the note becomes a bit warm !

can you make a version with the following values ?

TZ0< 52 - 0% speed
52-66 - fan is running at lowest possible speed F0 (lower that is used in original BIOS)
>66 - not modified.

this would be nize tia

/inteks

 

Here it is

 

nize . thank you !

 

i found a small problem. the cpuFan dont get to 100% even at 95°C is it also with org kbc file ?

is it possible to force 100% above 95°C via kbc mod?

 

What do you mean by "100%"? Even if you set fan speed to 0x00 in RWEverything, the fan will only go up to 0x6F, which seems to be the maximum possible speed.

 

but with the latest KBC it dont raise up to 100% - 0x6F - 0x00 ....
i set TDP/TDC from 25 to 50 and start prime to use all 4 cores to see if turboboost stays @ 21x multiplier and yepp it does
BUT after a few miuntes temp of CPU raise up to 96°C and i thought the fan is to silent . then i start cpufan control in 3820tray and the fan speed up twice as fast as before

 

I'll check this.

 

Hm. In KBC max CPU Fan speed is set to 0x6F, but if setting 0x0 in RWEverything - resulting speed is 0x60 which is noticeably (not twice of course ) louder/faster than 0x6F. I'm not sure why Acer's engineers did such thing, but probably they had reasons for it.

 

is it possible to change it ? can you set it to 100% (0x60) if temp is above 90C°
or is it also louder at i.e 70°C then ?

 

This can be done for >85C°. But actually, I still have some doubts regarding this: what if there are issues with fan on this speed? Will you take this risk?

 

hmmm... i dont know. what is the worst case? damaged fan ? burned mainboard (fan sucks to much power at this speed...)

the engineers leave some room for overclocked and KBC modded rig

Seriously i dont think a fan takes damage when running on 100% (designed for) speed