Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG Owners Lounge

hmm I fitted it different times..
so does anyone know what RAM is compatible?`I bought Corsair ValueSelect 4GB SO-DIMM, DDR3-1333, CL9

 

I had 4GB ram but needed 6GB so I removed one the two 2GB and put the one below and it works perf with the other 2GB ram in dual channel

Crucial CT51264BC1339 (4 GB, DDR3 SDRAM, 1333 MHz, SO DIM

I got it from ebay for £10

 

I've been running the value select for a while now, 2*4gb, and it's worked like a charm since day 1. Therefore I'd be surprised if it's a compatibility problem...

 

Did my Acer 4820TG laptop finally die? What's wrong with it?



It's the one with the Intel i5 460M and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650.

It does that when I run something gpu intensive (the picture shows me trying out minecraft) while on the discrete graphics card. It works while on the integrated gpu most of the time but just yesterday while I was using Google Earth while on the integrated gpu the screen completely went noisy (animated noise). After the laptop crashes from these episodes or I shut it down improperly because it doesn't crash after the screen becomes noisy and freezes, the screen is black after the Windows loading screen passes. If I give the laptop time to cool down the chances of it showing something after the Windows loading screen passes is greater, then I quickly change the gpu to integrated if it isn't set already. The first time this happened I was on the discrete graphics card rendering something in Maya 2014.

I've had this laptop since December of 2010, and a year and a half ago I took it to a computer repair shop to have the thermal paste on the cpu replaced, because it was overheating, and to have the laptop cleaned out. It was a success because the thing ran cooler after that repair and I had no problems until now.


acer laptop weird stuff on screen monitor checkerboard checkers noise artifacts distortion freeze crash gpu graphics card problem

 

Looks like a bad mobo / GPU.

Did you know that Motorola did research in the 1980s and found that 95% or more of ElectroStatic Discharge induced failures were latent? They introduced a flaw that would later fail under stressful conditions such as increased heat etc.

There's a very real chance the place that worked on your machine did so without a static wrist strap as so many technicians do today, and introduced a latent failure. But it's also possible your GPU had a slight flaw from the factory and is now finally dying.

 

Hey what is the latest drivers everyone is running? im running 12.6 but would like to run newer all others cant from official amd. but leshcatlabs makes some but was wondering what is the most stable for switchable and overclock ability that works with win 7 64bit?

 

Has anyone experimented with adding extra cooling ribs to the heatsink in the 4820 TG? I had a look at the mod with the solder holes earlier on in this thread and was wondering if anyone has tried adding passive cooling ribs to the copper sink which then would stick out of the bottom plate and putting the whole assembly on a notebook cooler? Might give it a shot next time I dismantle and would post results if anyone is interested. Think it's worth it?

@ Espada - I'm running 12.4 stock drivers atm OC'd to 750/1050 (AMD GPU clock tool)... is 12.6 running smoothly for you? What are you OCing to? Not sure about the Leshcat drivers, have only heard mixed results so far...

 

No cooling ribs just did the copper mod. and my temps for everything dropped by like 10C ic diamond and copper mod = awesome.

12.6 are good. Don't really have it overclocked atm...Have had no problems no bsod no nothing.

 

OK nice! On my list to do in the next weeks, -10C would already be awesome! Picked up an i7 640m and some 0.8 shims so just waiting to find the time and I'll swap the CPU and do the mod. A bit nervous - first time changing a CPU
I'll also try the 12.6 then, thanks for the tip.

 

Well it wasnt like 10C from when I got the computer. I never thermal paste it in like 3 years. I put a copper shim on the gpu and removed the rubber thing on it. i used a 15mm x 15mm x 1mm copper shim. My temps before were like 85C on cpu when gaming and like 78C on gpu. Now cpu is like 73 and 78C and gpu never went above 66C while gaming its awesome. Also cleaned out my zalman cooler there where huge dust bunnies in there lol. So it could be a number of things but now my comp is acting like warm near the vent instead of super hot. and keyboard is normal in temps.. So just cleaning would help with temps and putting a better thermal paste than what comes with stock...

 

Well my acer decided to quit on me. After having this computer on for countless hours for almost 3 years or more. The graphics card has finally decided to take its toll. Seeing as I like to game I have no use for this laptop anymore . fortunately for me my a family member is helping me out since the computer works fine with the intel graphics but amd is completely dead. and all he would use it for is for internet or watching movies. So if anyone has this problem they shall look here if your computer dies while gaming and you get a checkered picture and becomes distorted and unresponsive is a close example that the gpu is dieing. and no my temps were never high on the gpu. 75C was max and it happened on csgo I guess it just decided to call quits. Well it was a good laptop and served its purpose now I am moving towards a desktop again till I find another great laptop like this one.

 

Nrk, that sucks sorry to hear - seems like mine is the last one hanging on in this forum Good luck with the joys of desktop gaming

 

Nope, Mine still going strong but i hardly use it.

 

Not sure whether anyone has tried this out but I would just like to share this cool fan mod for your laptop.

Video:
Delta 190CFM Fan Installed in an ideapad - YouTube

Since you can't actually tweak the fan speed inbuilt to your laptop, this is pretty useful if your laptop is suffering from overheating, especially during gaming. Man, look at those temps !

I think this would be a cheaper and more effective solution compared to buying one of those overpriced laptop coolers that don't even make a lot of difference.

 

hi

my laptop started dying yesterday.
i hear this grinding noise which is often accompanied by screen flickering and then it blacks out and attempts a restart but usually fails.
i can run the laptop longer if the adapter is unplugged or if it's been turned off for an extended time (1h or so).

anyone know what's the cause?

 

4820TG-7107 screen/hinge/bezel parts needed?

So happy to say my laptop is purring along, technically working fantastically, battery still great! However, running into a structural issue. Seems as with the -7107, the hinge mechanism is actually glued to the laptop cover rather then screwed in. And, my right hinge attachment point is now broken off. So, every time I open the laptop, not enough strength to open the lid without splitting the bezel and outer cover apart. With this strange design, it seems as if you can't just replace the hinge. I've looked for 4820TG hinges, and they are different from the -7107 version (just the 4820TG seem to be a stronger hinge, but don't think that will work here on mine, without drilling new holes and attaching in that way. Strange to have the hinge mechanism glued to the back screen cover, but that's what it is with this version.

So, wondering if anyone has a dead 4820TG-7107 around who might want to part with the hinge/bezel/back cover combination? Does seem strange to have to replace the whole package here, but can't see anyway around this, save for lots of epoxy! Let me know, and we can get in touch.

 

How much have u guys OC-d your GPU, my HD5650M can run 760/1130 stable. I also tried 770/1130 and after like half an hour my game crashed (Assassins Creed IV), i thought it was because of the OC and went down to 760. Played a few hours with that oc, no problems.
Why I ask is that i googled a bit how much has anyone OC-d their HD5650M and the results say that my OC is one of the highest, that felt a bit suspicious. And what programs to run to test if the system is stable with the OC ?
And about the temps...my temps went to max 88 degrees, max allowed is 105 I think, so this should be ok?

 

i wouldnt suggest playing at that high temps sooner or later something will go wrong. get a cooler and change the termal paste
I OC to the max possible and it's all good not sure why for some people is ot stable though.

see my post before about the holes in the plastic cover. my temps went down to 70° OCed

 

I cannot boot from USB to install fresh copy of Win7 on my 4820TG
What would be the problem?

 

Hey, another 4820TG-user tagging along here.

My laptop is switching jobs as home/game computer, and school laptop, meaning it has been in constant daily use.

As of late, I'm noticing that the harddrive-led is alight a lot, and the computer performance is getting slow. I'm considering upgrading the RAM to 8GB, but that's a bit later.
Adding to that, it runs very hot. At heavy use, it's really ridicolusly hot.

I've not cared that much, because I'm somewhat assuming that it will fall apart soon, that, and I'm slowly needing a better performing computer.
So I decided to check in with you guys what you've done to keep you 4820TG somewhat cool?
I'm using a cooling pad at full effect, placed so that it cools where the GPU and CPU are (I've guessed, as those areas are noticeably much warmer).
The temps I measure, from the sensors "Temp1", "GPU", "Core 0" and "Core 1" in SpeedFan, ranges from 80-102*C when playing, usually between 93-100*C. At less demanding use, it runs at 60-70*C.
I know this is very bad for the hardware, especially the former temperatures, so, well, bluntly - what have you guys done to keep the laptop cool?
I've not cared anything about it to be honest, so all options are good ones, even looking for clumps of dust on the inside.

Thanks in advance!
Mattedatten

CPU: i5-460M
GPU: HD5650
RAM: 4GB

 

A cooling pad can help drop those temps a few degrees.

 

Hi Mattedatten,

I had similar problems with heat earlier this year after not really maintaining the laptop at all over the years. Basically I also added a cooling pad (which sucked and hardly did anything to drop temps). Then I dismantled the laptop and changed the cooling paste and cleaned the fan. The fan was surprisingly dust free, but the pad that is on the GPU was completely cracked and disintegrating. I replaced it with MX4 and a copper shim (dims are here in the forum somewhere). Also took the opportunity to put an i7 cpu in while I was at it After reassembling and being relieved that everything still worked, my temps came in at around 45 cpu and 40 gpu at rest and around 65-75 under load. Before I had the same temps as you have. Earlier I had changed to 8gb ram and ssd and it made a huge difference in speed, just in case you were wondering what it does. The pre-installed Win 7 boots in ~10secs now

If you don't want to dismantle, I think people have proposed leaving the maintenance hatch off on the cooler as a first thing to do. Later you could create extra ventilation holes in the case with a soldering iron... I was thinking of adding passive cooling units that stick out of the case, but it was too much effort in the end

 

I have a cooling pad active, I guess it has dropped my temps somewhere between 5-10*C, I wouldn't dare trying to push the computer hard without it activated as it is now, as I'm afraid it would reach further over 100*C, heh.

Ah, cool, I'll get onto at least undoing some of the plastic covering, and look inside, see what I find, I haven't checked it out whatsoever - it might be filled to the brink with dust for all I know.
The plan is to look into getting more RAM. How is it with slots, there are two slots for SO-DIMM memory, right?
I'm looking at a pair of Corsair 2x4GB sticks, after a google search, here they are on Newegg.
I think those should be compatable. They are PC8500/1066MHz. Do you maybe know if any other speeds are comatable with this laptop? (Both slower and faster)

And thanks a lot for your experience, I'll see how far I go. Now I at least know that it's possible to do some lookarounds in there, heh.

 

To disassemble if you haven't seen this yet:
Acer Aspire 4820TG - Remove and replace CPU, SAl, HD, Display - The Disassembler

re the RAM: yes 2*204 pin slots. I have the [Corsair CMSO4GX3M1A, 8gb DDR3, 1333MHz] and had no issues so far. I'm not sure faster RAM is compatible, but definitely remember reading somewhere that it doesn't increase speed because of bottlenecks somewhere else. Have a browse in the thread. The upgrade made the laptop feel much faster than before, but that may be pure subjectivity on my behalf...

Good luck!

 

I've taken apart a few laptops in my time, including my 4820 back in the day. Two key things are 1: take your time. being in a hurry is bad. 2: Always use a small screw driver to push the connectors apart and NEVER EVER pull the cables. Watch that disassembly video two or three times before you start, and then watch it bit by bit as you work.

 

Ah also the guide is erroneous in that keyboard flex connector DOES HAVE TO be open to remove the cable! Otherwise the connector falls apart and it takes ages to fiddle it back together (yes, this happened to me). And Sxooter's advice is excellent

 

Broke mine but a little bit of duct tape holds the cable in place now.

 

Thanks to you both for quick and very helpful replies, this forum helped me choose this laptop, keep it in check, and now disassemble it. Really, means a lot, thanks again!

Thanks for both the link and the answer. The reason I asked about the speeds was simply economical - I wanted to have a wider range of memory sticks to choose from
While I'm at it, as I'm trying to go for cheap, if I managed to get hold of a single 8GB stick, could I fit it in one slot, leaving the original Samsung 2GB in the other, or would that malfunction badly? (Yea, my experience with hardware is kind of limited)

Yeah, I'll be careful no doubt, if nothing else, this is pretty much my only usable computer, heh.
Thanks for the tips though!

 

The real issue would be if the two memory sticks "get along." Everything on a RAM buss adds it's own noise, and if one of the sticks makes things a little noisy in a way that's bad for the other stick you'll get crashes / bad memory bits etc. Most sticks of the same model / brand / speed etc tend to have fewer of these issues. Matched sets are often preferred for this reason.

 

Hey guys, I dismantled the computer some, and just blew some compressed air on it to clear it.
Now after rebuilding it, I can start it, but nothing happens... The LED or whatever on the power button turns on, but nothing after that...
May I have broken something big time, or just reset something wrong?
(The flat connectors below the keyboard, how sensible are them? I mean, they are just supposed to be locked back, but, can half a milimeter one way or another make to computer malfunction? )

EDIT: The CD drive seems to start, but then nothing more

 

That sucks! Sorry to hear that.

If you don't reconnect the keyboard properly it just doesn't work, so I don't think that's the issue. Did you make sure you actually reconnected all the connectors? Didn't forget anything? Was there any one that you maybe injured while disconnecting it?

Did you take any ESD precautions? If not you might have destroyed something sensitive...

Sorry I can't be more help, not sure what else could be the cause

Good luck getting it back to work again!

 

Yeah, and no progress fixing it, darn!

Um, yea, I had an ESD-wristband together with ESD-protected pincettes.

Not really sure, it might as well be broken.
This sucks.

All tips are appreciated!

-------------------------

EDIT:
And it's back!

Heh, I literally redid everything, twice, and it's booting again.
My guess is that the smal flat ... not-even-connectors below the keyboard weren't set properly. Whoever designed those really didn't want it to be easy doing stuff in there.

So, I'll see if it runs any cooler now, there was some dust around the fan-area and in the fan, so we'll see, next thing for today is to relax to some game, heh

Next step overall is RAM probably, but:

Thanks a lot for all the help guys! That there's an active forum, and people freely sharing their experience on it - that's beyond appreciated.
Thanks.

Mattedatten

-------------

Edit2: And it's running much cooler now, after 1h of gaming, it didn't even reach 80*C.
Today was a good day, haha.

 

Hi everyone,

My 4820tg has 480M CPU & 2Gig RAM and I want to do an eGPU. Can I use the latest graphics cards like GTX 780?My motherboard was not changed since it was purchased back 2011. Model is JM41_CP. BIOS is INSYDE v1.22

Thanks in advance!

 

Hey Guys...loved my 4820TG for some time, but it's been collecting dust for a little while. In great working order, never had an issue with it. I've also upgraded the OEM hard-drive to SSD. I'm gonna post on the Marketplace shortly!

Scratch that, sounds like I need to post another 29 times to get my count up in order to qualify to sell. If interested, PM me, but I'll up the activity around here a little to become a reputable member. LOL

 

Hey all again, um.
I saw that there are, hm, "homemade" drivers for laptop as the Aspire 4820TG with ATI/Intel made by leshcatlabs.

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience installing leshcat drivers and getting them to work on an 4820TG or similar? And, if you remember, or know, which version might be working well?
Thanks in advance!

 

hi guys, hope someone can help me with my problem

I have a laptop
Acer aspire 4820TG timeline X
core i5-460M
2.53Ghz, 3mb L3 cache
with switchable video card, you can turn on the intel built in video card and you can also switch to ATI mobility Radeon HD 5650 1gb.
4gig ram
640gb hhd

my problem is that when i play heavy online games using my 1gig video card, my backlight just suddenly turn off, but my computer is still on, only the backlight just went off, i tried pressing Fn+f6 but no luck, i can still see graphics in my laptop if i pust some lights in the screen, i also plug a monitor in my laptop, all went good when i plug the monitor, and when i switch to the built in video card of intel, my backlight just turn on, i have no problem when using my intel built in video card. it just that when im using my 1gig videocard ( ATI mobility Radeon HD 5650) sometimes my backlight just went off,

hope anyone can help me.

 

Hi there, i'm the proudly owner of a Acer Timeline 4820 TG ..... and i'm very happy of my buy, for 2 years now ....

This week, i had the idea of upgrading my system with a nice SSD (samsung 840 EVO 120GB) that i put in place of the DVD-Writer i never use ...... so i bought a rack replacement to switch this DVD writer with the brand new SSD ......
Easily done, the disk is perfectely recognize by my windows 7 Home 64x, and i wanted to clone my system on this disk .....
I've cloned again pretty easily the system partition on the SSD with Xxclone, a very good freeware ...... Now, let's see the start of the End : i tried to boot on this SSD disk .......

Gone to the BIOS, the SSD is not visible in the disk panel ........ I tried to switch from AHCI to IDE MODE and reboot ....
Here, the SSD appear in the menu, select it with the F12 reboot menu ..... AND HE BOOT ...... until the small windows seven animation with 3 light bubbles move ..... and a blinking BSOD impossible to read and REBOOT :-(((

Then i tried to boot on my HDD system in IDE MODE .... same problem ..... boot, animation, then reboot .....

I've no ideas how to solve this problem .....
I tried to upgrade my bios to the 1.25 last release ..... same problem.....
I tried to Xxclone my system on another older SSD (kingston SSDnow V 40GB in SATA 2 ) ..... same problem
My last chance maybe is to deconnect my HDD, try to install windows from an USB drive on my SSD but i'm not sure if the laptop will boot .......

How can i make a SSD detected in AHCI rather than in IDE MODE ....

Please, someone help me ..... It's getting me MAAADDDD !!! ^^

Ps : please excuse my bad english language, i tried my best .....

Regards.

 

I'm Afraid i'm the last man on this topic .......

Hey dudes .......... someone here .... ??

 

Bsod could be ram?

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

 

So, I found a way to make all work now .....

I unmounted the primary HDD and swithced it with my SSD ........... Then, in AHCI, Boot is ok, and windows appeared ...... Seems that the location of the drive is not the same between DVDROM & HDD .........

Then, i mounted the HDD in the rack remplacement of the DVDROM reader ............ works fine, .............

I hope this will help someone .....

CU.

 

Anyone know what other acer laptop models shared the motherboard of the 4820tg? Mine is fried (i think, it tries to boot but nothing shows on screen and I can't access the bios) and I'm considering just getting a used/refurb motherboard if it's not much more than $100. Advice? I want to have more buying options if possible so if there are other mobos that will work that would be awesome. Thanks!

 

Hi All

Had my 4820tg since 2010. One cracked LCD, dead battery and a few missing keys later it is still running... albeit slowly.

Need some advice on the following parts;

- Crucial MX100 256GB SSD
- Corsair CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-10600 (1333MHz) 204-pin SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM

Pretty sure that SSD is SATA3 however I plan to build a desktop in near future and will most likely use it as a scratch drive for Photoshop / Vegas, will it run even though the mobo is SATA2? I have read that they are backwards compatible at the cost of power consumption.

Will these parts be fine? I also have a clean install of Windows 8.1 Pro. I would like to install it clean onto the new SSD for performance gains. Are all drivers compatible with 8.1?

Cheers guys

 

I'm in the same situation as yours ablackmo.

I just installed a Samsung 840 Evo SSD 500 GB and it works like a charm (although capped by the SATA @ 3 Gbps).

However I have an issue with RAM.
Stock RAM is 4 Gb Samsung DDR3 1333 MHz CL7, running at 1067 MHz.

I tried two 8 GB kits:
- Corsair ValueSelect DDR3 1600MHz CL11 (CMSO8GX3M2A1600C11)
- Kingston ValueRAM DDR3 1333MHz CL9 (KVR13S9S8K2/8)

Both are recognized by the BIOS, but the laptop crashes just after starting OS or memtest, as already reported by a few users on this forum.

According to Acer tech support I need:
DIMM socket number 2
memory size per socket 4GB
DIMM type 204-pin +1.5V DDRIII
DIMM Speed 800/1066/1333 MT/S
DIMM voltage 1.5V

But they also said they can't really recommend any 100% compatible RAM.

Can anybody suggest from experience a RAM that works?

My laptop is: Acer 4820TG, i5-540M 2.4 GHz, Radeon HD 5470.

Thanks!

 

I have this model with the 5650 hd and a core i5-480m would that be able to run autocad 2015?

 

It can most definately run autocad. Got the same specs, this laptop is a beast even after 4 years.

Btw, my original 9cell battery died today. Where can I get a new original one? I mean the 9000mAh (97Wh) battery?

 

The TimelineX series had its own motherboard AFAIK. Even the 3920TG and the 4820TG had different Mobos. By now, there should be some decent refurbs available no?

 

my keyboard broke so i had it repaired. when they returned my machine to me the intel graphics card doesnt work in normal mode anymore, it works in safe mode though. i disabled it through safe mode so my laptop is running on ati graphics card. i tried uninstalling the intel driver in safe mode then running in normal mode for it to work again but it didnt. they said that i needed to restore my system for it to work again. so i restored my system to factoring setting using the built in recovery tool. now the problem is i cant even go back to safe mode to disable the intel graphics card because its saying that system recovery can not finish in safe mode or something like that and the screen is just blank in normal mode due to the intel graphics card not working.

any help as to how im supposed to make it run again is appreciated

 

I bought a 4820tg on ebay, and I need a new AC adapter. I suspect they sold it with a generic one, so I'm not sure what I need - 4.74a, or 3.43a?

 

Hey guys,

I have a 4820tg. It randomly froze, then after powering it down and back on, it says there is no boot device. I check the bios and it isn't recognizing my ssd. I tried plugging my roommates standard hard drive in and it recognizes it. I assumed my ssd was bad or something so I bought a new ssd. I tried putting the new ssd in and the laptop will not detect it. I've also tried removing the battery/cmos for a bios reset. I've also toggled the ahci/ide settings. Any suggestions?

 

iResurrecting this thread as these past few days I've had some issues that seem to stem from the hard drive. I started a clean install on a new hard drive and things were going well until I installed the Leshcat unified AMD/ATI+Intel drivers (14.4). I ran into an issue I remember many other people ran into (and searching the leshcat forums and the web, it's almost a universal problem with older ATI+Intel graphics drivers): the brightness on the discrete ATIcard can't be adjusted (it's set to whatever the brightness on the Intel graphics is before you switch), and if you come back from sleep while on the ATI card the backlight doesn't work.

Darn.

Now I remember why these past couple years I had never updated my ATI drivers past 8.93 (Catalyst 12.1) - found some older discussions in this thread (starting here) in which many of us found out that we simply couldn't update our ATI drivers past 8.96 (Catalyst 12.4). Using Catalyst 12.6 broke the switchable graphics, since that's when AMD probably abandoned compatibility with the older Intel HD 3000.

Many of us faced a decision - stick with old drivers or use newer ones from Leshcat but deal with other issues (lack of brightness control on switchable mode - it's fine on discrete mode). I've done some searches but can't find a definitive solution to this problem. There's a brightness resolver tool for Leshcat drivers, but no success fixing the issue with that. If I can I may keep the leshcat drivers after all. Otherwise I'll go back to what I had on my old hard drive. (edit - tried all possible combinations using the brightness resolver tool, but none worked. Cleaned out the leshcat drivers and went with Acer AMD bundle + ATI 12.1).

If it weren't for this thread and these discussions I'd be going crazy right now. I'm still stressed out, since now I might to remove the Leshcat UnifL drivers and follow the procedure described by omni here. But hopefully that works and I can get back to bringing my new install up to speed. I can live with older drivers as long as everything is functional (and I didn't have any problem for nearly 2 years).

The driver page for the 4820TG was up on Acer's support site a couple days ago, but since yesterday now it says "service not available" for that model. Other models load drivers and everything just fine. Good thing I had the latest drivers backed up. I'm also lucky to have bought a spare hard drive a few months ago in anticipation of needing to replace the existing one.

Man, what a trip rereading some parts of this thread. I wonder how everyone's doing now and what laptops they've found as suitable upgrades to the 4820TG. I'm going to use mine for at least another year or even longer before I upgrade to a new laptop (or hopefully build a desktop).