Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG Owners Lounge

Stock on these is not much better here in the US.

 

Does anyone else have a problem/ fix with the screen cutting back on from sleep mode? The screen will start, show the acer logo, and then cut back off when windows starts. But if i repress the sleep button (fn+ F4) and put it back to sleep then immediately press the power button again, it wakes back up and the screen cuts on fine.

 

I experience the same problems on my 3820TG, I think it's due to the ATI drivers, try upgrade to 10.8 and see if it helps.

 

i am on the latest version and it has not helped. in fact It seems like its a more common problem for me than before i did a clean install and installed the latest drivers

 

Does anyone have the part number for the Bluetooth 3.0 HS module?

Or a BT module that will work in the as4820 that is not USB?

 

Quick! Should I get the newegg extended warranty or not?!

 

I see they're back in stock. The Newegg warranty adds only 13% on the price of the notebook and gives a 2 year warranty. Just be sure you are not going to mod the unit in any way. Not even new thermal paste or you're risking that warranty.

Bronsky

 

Yup, in stock as of about 5 minutes ago. I actually went ahead and put my order in without the newegg warranty, because I was afraid that this was going to be another of those "in stock for 1 hour" fiascos, and I figured I could always add a warranty later.

I guess I'm pretty confused about all this warranty stuff. Doesn't acer offer a warranty for one year just for purchasing the laptop? What advantage does newegg's $60 warranty add to that? Is it just an extension thing, where newegg's warranty kicks in after the manufacturer warranty expires? If so, maybe I'd be better off buying the extended warranty direct from Acer.

Also, where the heck can you find details on the Acer warranty that you get just for buying the laptop? I've scoured their website and come up with nothing.

 

Anyone come across this?

 

If you like pissing your money away, by all means buy the extended warranty from Newegg...

Acer gives you 1 year standard.
Most major credit cards give you an additional year on top of that.

In other words, purchase the laptop from newegg with an AMEX or Visa (with extended warranty protection) and your laptop will be covered for 2 years. The first year by Acer, the second by the CCs insurance company.

 

Did I mention my 4820TG was delivered about 2 hours ago? All backups are done now time to swap the HD and do a clean install!

 

Excellent point.

I inquired about this with the credit card company I plan to use to purchase
a laptop and was assured that the 2nd year was covered by them.

So yes, it's quite unnecessary to pay extra for extended warranty. Unless
of course, you want warranty coverage for the 3rd year or longer.

 

Hi Bronsky!

Greetings fellow NJ resident.

Thank you for your posts about your personal experience
with the 3820TG, they're very informative and helpful.

My final selection has been reduced to between the 3820TG
and 4820TG.

If the 3820Tg was available, at J&R or B&H, it would certainly be
my first selection.

For me, J&R or B&H has no tax and fast 1 day shipment.
NewEgg is definitely out of my selection
because tax would be $50+.

J&R is my first selection, because of their excellent return/exchange
policy. An example would be, some dead pixels on the LCD screen.
I can just go there personally and make an exchange/refund.

Ordering the 3820TG from a Canadian retailer, not sure about their exchange policies on dead pixels and such,
also the costs for international shipments to send it back and paying shipping charges for an exchange.

You mentioned about the excellent dual cooling and size/weight on the 3820TG. That got me very interested on the 3820TG.

Spending extra on a CPU upgrade and keyboard is out of my budget for now.

Back to the 3820TG and 4820TG differences,
screen size of (.7") and weight of (.7lbs).

Do you think it makes much of a difference?

I received today the 4820TG, from J&R (Maspeth, NY to NJ in one day with just the regular shipping option). I'll have no problem returning this and no restocking fee.

Do you think in my situation, it's too much of a gamble/hassle getting the 3820TG from Canada?

If Acer all of a sudden makes a US 3820TG release in November/December. Uugghh!

 

Anyone come across this?

 

Yeah, lucky for me I decided not to get it. I found this article right afterward that explained laptop warranties for me:

Notebook Warranty Guide

Fortunately, I just happened to buy the laptop with my Visa Signature card (sheer chance, I almost ran debit) and so it looks like I already have 2 years of warranty for $0! I'm probably going to use the $60 I saved for accident/theft insurance from Laptop, Desktop, Tablet PC, iPad and PDA/Smartphone Insurance from Safeware Insurance, as I travel a good deal and am pretty tough on my tech.

 

Hello.

I just bought a TimelineX as4820TG-7805 (i5 460 etc.) and it's been awesome so far. My only complaint is that my keyboard is not lit, despite it being listed as a backlit keyboard. How can I turn this on? I have tried all three preset power settings, and looking through device manager and have come up with nothing. Google has also yielded no results.

Thoughts?

Also, I got it through J&R and they were great. Had it to me within 2 days, just in time to use for one of my classes.

 

The keyboard is not backlit.

@cykotoxik I would stick with the 4820TG.

 

Ah. Internet has lied to me again.

One other question, how do I setup a program to use ATI vs. intel HD automatically?

 

You can't, this is manual switch.

 

My laptop came with just 1 stick of samsung 2gb 1333MHz ram. I went to a shop to upgrade, and told them i would like to add another stick of the same ram. Today when i installed cpu-z, it shows my new ram as kingston 1066Mhz.

So both are running at the slower speeds now. My friend is telling me to just keep this, as there will be no problems with this and the samsung ram will be difficult to find.

Should i leave this like it is?

 

Even if you change it to 1333MHz, it will run at 1066Mhz, since that's what i3/i5/i7 6xxM supported...

 

I just got my 4820 in today from J&R..

One problem that I'm having is with google chrome, when you have the browser open all the way (not F11 fullscreen) the address bar is all garbled.
The text is very light and you can almost make out some of the letters..

Is anyone else having this problem? Is it a driver issue or Chrome is just not compatible with our machines?

FF and IE are fine just Chrome.

 

I have no such problem on my 4820TG. Google Chrome works fine for me. Could be a driver or software problem.

 

It looks fine now, I was making backups of the system using the acer backup app running in the background. It was interfering with chrome.

I restarted chrome and it is working fine.

Thanks for the reply..

 

So no one is having this issue?

 

All right, I'll try the 4820TG. Thank you.

 

I want mine! Drive faster, UPS!

 

I have a question. It might be off-topic but I'm still curious about it. I reinstalled windows on the 4820TG using Bronsky's Guide and I was curious whether I would be able to use the same activation key and certificate on a different computer. Or there is a chance for the key to be blacklisted or something.

 

You can only use it on another Acer that has Home Premium on it from the factory. It is the standard code for all Acer products within a particular time-frame of production.

Bronsky

 

Aww. I was hoping of putting it on my desktop. It needs a new system

 

No can do!

Bronsky

 

The Acer activation looks for a specific BIOS flag only on Acer machines. If you installed it on a non-Acer computer, not only are you violating the EULA of OEM Windows but it also won't have the BIOS flag and, therefore, won't work.

 

Does anyone know of an Internet site where I can buy this laptop and that allows for INTERNATIONAL shipping ? I tried on Amazon but they don't ship this laptop to other countries. I'm in Spain and not only do we have worse versions of the Acer Timeline X series, they cost almost the double too !

 

Welcome to computeruniverse.net!

Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG-5454G64Mnks - Notebooks - computeruniverse.net

They do ship to Spain. Note that all notebooks are german models with german keyboard layout and OS.

I bought my 3820tg from them and was very happy with their service. I installed the english language pack by using a program called Vistalizator. I already got used to the german keyboard, you can always change it to a qwerty keyboard anyway if you don't like it.

 

WOW! thanks !

In Germany they are 150 euros cheaper than in Spain , or even more, because here we only have the core i3 versions of the 3820. We don't even have the 4820. Still, not as cheap as buying in America (850 euros = 1150 dollars)

I see they have the 3820tg for the same price, which I like a lot too. I will have to think about it, but if anyone knows an American site that ships internationally feel free to share

 

The 3820TG is very scarce at the moment and it's not available in USA. It's being sold only in a few countries.(Canada,Germany and Taiwan I think)

Remember that when buying from outside Europe you have to pay import taxes. Also, make sure that the warranty is valid for Europe.

 

My 3820TG from Germany was 707 Euros. The difference in what I paid and someone in the EU pays is the VAT. PCHome will probably ship to you in Spain but I think customs will add on the VAT.

Bronsky

 

Another option I have is to convince a friend I have in the US to buy the 4820tg from Amazon (800$ = 600 euros) and then send it to Spain (I don't think I would have to pay taxes that way and it shouldn't cost more than 100 euros). Having this option , what would you buy ? the 3820 tg or the 4820 tg ?

I like the size and weight of the 3820, and I don't care that much about the optical drive. It's just the price and the low specs that it has on Spain what holds me down from buying it...

 

The US has access to both. There is an I3-370M 3820TG (out of stock ATM) and an I5-460M 4820TG. If you are not going to swap out the CPU for a larger one, I would get the 4820TG. Otherwise, the 3820TG would be my choice. Be prepared for shipping to be expensive or take forever (15 days for mine to arrive from Germany).

Bronsky

 

Ok guys. I finally found a fan that would fit this laptop, and a perfect fit it is. I am not sure where to get the 5v power from. Obviously a laptop cooler would plug into a USB port, but what about an internal hook up. Is there anywhere to get power from on the mobo?
As of now, I am waiting for a new cover plate incase I mess up mine. Total was $18 and change shipped to my door. I was trying to position the fan close to the existing ports, but it is not going to work out. I will need to make a new exaust port on the bottom cover plate.

If anyone wants to know, the fan is a 5volt 30mm x 30mm x 7mm from Directron.com
Cost was $6.48 incl. tax. They actually have a store-front here in Houston. Very nice people. This fan was the smallest I could find that was less than 10mm thick (the most common slim fan thickness).

I will try to attach a pic of the WIP, if my DroidX will allow.

 

I want my laptop to have an i5 processor. The i5 processor on th 4820 can't be swapped later? I don't plan to do that right now but it's nice to have that option for the future.

 

The 4820TG uses a PGA988 socket so any of the Arrandale CPU's can be swapped in there.

Bronsky

 

I purchased the 4820TG from amazon yesterday after reading the great reviews. However, I am very dissatisfied with the quality of the screen.

The whites have a blue cast and there are vertical lines running through the entire screen! Is this a common problem with the 4820TG? I found some online posts regarding the same problem, but the issue doesn't seem widespread.

The manufacturer of my panel is AUO.

 

what's the battery life with a 9 cell for the i-5? and is there really no bluetooth?

 

I pulled the trigger on one of these earlier today with one day shipping from Amazon.com. Also, a few days ago when Newegg had them in stock. I got the email about two hours after they were in stock, and they were already out of stock again. Wowzors.

 

Yeah it doesn't have the best panels... just request a replacement from Amazon.

bing bang boom

 

I was planning on doing that...but I'm afraid I'll get the same problem. Since Amazon just got a new batch, won't all the LCD panels be made by AUO?

 

Return it. It is a problem with the individual panel, not all AUO panels. My AUO panel on my 3820TG was great. The quality across a particular model or brand is really inconsistent.

Bronsky

 

if the 2nd one has the same problem they will probably offer you a 20% discount to keep it

or u could just return it like bronsky said

 

I ordered my 4820TG from J&R. I've only had it for a couple of days,
but haven't experienced any problems with the screen.

My experience is the exact opposite. I'm quite satisfied on the quality of
my 4820TG screen. The color, brightness, and clarity is quite satisfactory.

I do not see any blue cast on the whites. I do not see any vertical
lines running through the entire screen.

I agree with Bronksy. The criticism shouldn't be generalized for all the Acer LCD screens. Maybe you were unfortunate to receive one that is defective.

How was your 4820TG delivered?

My 4820TG was packaged in 2 separate boxes. The first box is brown, it has transparent taping (with the Acer logo and statement "If seal is broken...") on all the openings around the box.

Then it has a gray Acer seal on the bottom opening and top opening of the box, that says "Please check contents if seal is broken...".

Inside this brown box, is a black box with the handle and graphics. The top opening of this box has the gray Acer seal that says "Please check contents if seal is broken...".