Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG Owners Lounge

Is there a link on the Micro Center site? or did you only see them in store, locally?

 

Found it.

Micro Center - Acer Acer Aspire TimelineX AS4820TG-6847 Notebook LX.RE102.034

Also, buy.com. Buy.com - Acer Aspire AS4820TG6847 14" LED Notebook - Core i5 i5-480M 2.66 GHz 1366 x 768 WXGA Display - 4 GB RAM - 640 GB HDD - DVD-Writer - ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5650 - Webcam - Windows 7 Home Premium - 8 Hour Battery - HDMI

 

Thank you. I will add these links to the first post.

 

This laptop looks really amazing and I really want to get one, the only thing that is holding me back is that i'm worried about the build quality. I've known Acer in the past the skimp of this and I tried handling a 3820TG and it felt a little flimsy and the keyboard had some bad flex. Just to be fair, it didn't have a battery in it which might be a factor. I'm looking for something to last through college. How is the build quality for the 4820TG?

 

I know build quality can vary among various units, but my 4820TG has excellent build quality. It's solid, it's slim, and there are no flex/bending/etc. issues with anything including the screen. The DVD drive is a bit flimsy but that's not too big of a deal.

 

I've had that experience too. I bought an acer about 5 years ago for my sister and that was the last because of how horribly it was built. I bought the 4820T for my brother in law and was totally blown away! I'm planning on getting an acer of this kind with the graphics card and all in the future. as inm8#2 said, its a very solid machine. You won't be sorry you bought it.

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Edit:
Also, does anyone know if the 4820TG is going to be available around mid march? Thats when I'm looking to buy a new laptop. As in a refreshed model of some sort?

 

So, I just noticed that if you go to this url on Microcenter's website: TimelineX AS4820TG-6847 and select Microcenter web store you can mail order it! Holy crap, these things have been "in store pickup" since forever!

 

Does anybody have a good way to do a clean install of display drivers on the 4820?

I had to reinstall my catalyst drivers to fix a glitch with Borderlands, but in the process something didn't go right. I uninstalled the radeon drivers, cleaned all ATI stuff with driver cleaner pro, and reinstalled the new mobility catalyst 10.12 but something is wrong. I can't access the catalyst control panel, nor can I switch between integrated or discrete graphics from the desktop. The option just isn't there when I right click. In the device manager it shows both the radeon 5650 and the intel integrated graphics are present.

Has anybody experienced this and is there a good way to simply clear out all the graphics drivers and do a clean install of the ones on the acer support site?

 

Think of it this way: every computer company has their bottom consumer lines, mid-business/gaming lines, and top business-lines. E.g. Lenovo's Ideapad have SH*T build quality, see their hundred-page complaint threads. However their Thinkpads are the best in the world.

Think of Acer's TimelineX as their own "Thinkpad line" except much cheaper. It seriously differs in quality from rest of Acer's laptops.

 

You should not have uninstalled the ATI driver because it's also part of the Intel driver. It's a basically a custom graphics driver bundle (ATI + Intel) created by Acer which allowed you to have switchable graphics in the first place.

For your situation, you should uninstall both ATI and Intel drivers from the Control Panel. Then download Acer's AMD drivers (8.741.1.6) (the custom graphics driver bundle) from the Acer website and install it.

You can then follow the steps in the FAQ section on the first post to update ATI drivers to the newest version. However, there are known bugs like graphics switching malfunctioning, brightness keys not working, etc. with newer versions of ATI drivers. I personally stick with default drivers because of this.

Also, it'll be unlikely for you to update Intel drivers because not many people have successfully done this.

 

So should I run driver cleaner or any other program like then after I uninstall the intel and ati drivers? Or should I just uninstall them straight from the device manager, then install the big driver from the acer driver page (the 190+mb AMD driver)?

 

I don't think it's necessary to use Driver Cleaner. You should be able to uninstall the drivers from the Control Panel. You don't have to mess with anything in Device Manager.

Just follow my steps from the previous post and see how it goes.

 

Hello

I have the Acer Aspire timeline X 4820TG

I did by a mistake try to reinstall windows 7 Home premium on it without having created a back up.

Since i got stuck at startup (with status: 0x000000f) i tried to download windows 7 Home Premium and burn the .ISO to a disk and try to reinstall windows 7 but i got the message "A required CD/dvd drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert now"

Then i tried to download the ACHI driver for the computer. Put it on a USB and inserted and the computer could find it but not install it. Got the message "No new devices could be found. Make sure the driver files are correct and located on the driver installation media."

Does anybody know what i can do from here?

 

Did you delete the partition too?

If you did, then a copy of W7 from a torrent site won't restore your 4820TG to normal, you'll have difficulty getting the drivers to install properly.

You need the recovery discs: https://secure.tx.acer.com/RCDB/Main.aspx?brand=acer


If you still have your partition, it can be accessed during bootup... press F2 and look for the recovery option... to restore your laptop back to normal.

 

I really want this laptop but the ones in GREECE
are more expensive and have the 512 mb graphics card.

I would like an online seller with the good version of this laptop that ships internationally.

specifically to greece.


thanks in advance.

 

I think the German sellers will ship anywhere in the EU (Greece is still in right? ). You would have to change the keyboard and the OS. PC Home in Taiwan also ships internationally.

Bronsky

 

Are there any links in english for this since i dont speak these languages.

In addition why are these laptops not sold on ebay?

Thanks in advance.

 

Try using Chrome as your browser. It will translate. They are not generally on ebay because they are still very much in demand and supply is slim.

First, try to restore to factory settings from the F10-F10 partition. If you deleted that when you were trying to reinstall Home Premium, you might try this http://forum.notebookreview.com/6465732-post1612.html. Follow my instructions for a clean install. The problem you might have is that the digital certificate is no longer available at the location in the guide. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll try to give you a hand authenticating your copy of HP. Good luck.

If none of that works, you'll need a set of recovery disks ($20).

Bronsky

 

When i enter my SNID in the formular it says it cant find it. I registered my comp and tried again, but still cant find it. I figured that this is for US customers. So i started looking for the european one. But i cant find it. I allways get redirected to "http://www.acer.dk/ac/da/DK/content/home" no matter what i click. Could you give me some guidence how you found that?

 

This seemed to resolve the issue. Thanks!

 

You're welcome. Glad I could help you solve the problem.

 

Has anyone with a 4820TG tried taking apart the screen? Usually there are 4~6 hidden screws hidden behind rubber dimples in laptop screens, but with the TimelineX there are only 2 (plastic) caps which look like they have screws behind them; even then shouldn't there be other mechanisms holding the screen bracket/cover tightly in place?

 

1. Remove the two covers and screws at the bottom of the LCD module.
2. Carefully pry loose the bezel from the LCD case and detach the bezel.
3. Remove four side screws securing the LCD panel.
4. Turn the LCD panel over.
5. Detach the clear adhesive tape protecting the LCD FPC cable connector, then disconnect the LCD-CCD coaxial cable from the LCD panel PCB.

Enjoy!

 

hi nick...i have given my laptop to the service centre now citing the same error......they have not given me the explanation yet of the error code i got while recovering.....also the service centre guy was telling me to not use my hardisk for recovery......and refusing to correct the fault......what should i do......

 

Welp, on further review its not quite right. Everything seems normal, performance is fine and I get the CCC up. The problem is when i bring up the "configure switchable graphics" menu up and click on the power saving GPU, it never switches over. I have the intel and radeon displays showing up in the control panel. Do i need to install one of the intel VGA drivers from the acer support page?

 

Is your notebook plugged in?

Bronsky

 

The 4820TG on Amazon is up for sale now.

 

Ok i am really sad.

I would like some place in english where i can get this laptop shipped to greece.

the american version.

its driving me nuts

 

Amazon ships internationally, according to this page: International Shipping they ship to Greece.

 

Has anyone been experiencing crashes in IE9 Beta and skype with the 8.714 drivers and the INTEL HD ? This happens for me, that why I'm still using the old ones.

 

IE9 Beta crashes on my 4820TG and Dell desktop PC all the time.; I reverted back to IE8.

 

Do ppl still use IE...

Just joking...

Firefox all the way!

P.S. Still loving my 4820G... the seagate momentus XT helps perk up performance also.

 

IE9 is Tablet friendly. That is why I use it on my HP 500 slate. It has too many shortcomings to use it on my 3820TG, which is my main Computer.

Bronsky

 

IE9 is the least of my problems, what made me rollback to the previous driver is the fact that I skype a lot while on batteries, so for me is a deal breaker the fact that it crashes with the intel hd.

I suspect that the IE9 crashes because of the driver, since it uses the GPU.

 

...hii...now..friends...i have lost my hard disc recovery partition. ...however i had created the recovery disc earlier...but i want to have an recovery partion on my hard disk anyways....is there any way to make a recovery partion again on my harddisk using my recovery discs.......kindly help me out friends!!!

 

If you're willing to disable GPU acceleration, IE9 beta will work fine.

Alt (to get menu bar to show up) -> Tools -> Internet options -> Advanced tab -> Check the box under "Accelerated graphics"

I managed to get the 8.741.1.6 drivers to work with GPU rendering by manually installing the Intel driver (8.15.10.2189) from the latest HP ENVY 14 graphics driver package through Device Manager (in a crude way by using the INF file from the Acer drivers and the Intel files from the ENVY 14 drivers). It seems like everything has been working fine the past couple days, but I still don't know if it's a good idea. Even these aren't the latest Intel drivers available, but it helped fix all issues I was having with hardware acceleration in Flash and IE9/Firefox 4 beta while on integrated graphics.

I tried a lot of different things before this with a lot of trial and error (tons of black screens and driver sweeps) until I came up with this method and it seems to be stable for me.

 

A quick video drivers question... I'm still running stock, yet when I try to update the AMD drivers it says it's incompatible. Where are people getting updated drivers?

Thanks

 

The most recent drivers on the Acer site are the only official drivers that support switchable graphics. You can use the more recent AMD general catalyst drivers, but they all have a few issues. After installing the Acer driver (which gives you both AMD and Intel drivers) you can switch to "dedicated" graphics in the bios and load the catalyst drivers. It is not recommend unless you know what you're doing.

Bronsky

 

although its not officially stated anywhere, many sites presume that the timelinex series has been discontinued.
How likely is it that they will release a new 4820TG with the 6500m series GPU and the sandybridge CPU around mid march?

 

If Acer follows the same refresh/release pattern for its new Aspire models, they should be converting their production facilities as soon as they can get a steady supply of dual core SB CPUs. I would guess that, if they haven't do so yet, they will be soon. Then, the new models should be released first in China or Singapore, then the EU and eventually, the US/Canada. In the interim, I would guess that Acer will keep shipping its current TimelineX stock. The real question is how long will the current inventory of the TimelineX models last (I5-480M/HD6550). Your guess is as good as mine.

Bronsky

 

can someone please put up some benchmarks with the i480 and the 6550 GPU?
has anyone gotten this new revision yet?

 

I just got mine today! What kind of benchmarks would you like me to run? I've never run any before.

 

My battery seems to drain no more slowly in sleep than in regular use. Any idea why that may be?

 

Your computer's sentient and it's dreaming!

Jk, I have no idea. Is the computer actually going into sleep mode? It may be faulty software that's keeping all the internals running even after you press sleep mode or shut the lid, etc.

 

Hmm, well it just drained ~2-2.5% after 1.5 hours of sleep, so maybe it's okay. I guess that I noticed that when the sleep only lasted 15-20 minutes there wasn't much of an advantage in saving battery life.

On another note, I seem to have this continuing problem in which when I plug into AC the graphics don't switch. When I try to do it manually everything freezes for 15-20 seconds, and nothing changes. All stock drivers and whatnot.

 

Congrats!
Can you just do a 3dMark06 test? You have the 6550 GPU, right?

 

Hi All,

I have been successful in placing in a SSD as my main HDD, and taking the original 500gb HD and placing it in the DVD tray with a Caddy I bought from eBay. My question is; now I have a perfectly good DVD burner just sitting here. Does anyone know of a external Enclosure Caddy that fits works with the DVD Burner that came with the 4820tg. It would be nice to put it in a external enclosure so if i ever need the DVD I can just plug it up via USB.

Thanks,
Michael

 

Hey guys, my new 4820tg is having a bunch of Wifi problems. It's as if my laptop is limiting the speed with which I can download and upload. I'm not having any problems connecting to my wifi from my other devices...it's just my acer.

Sometimes it'll stay at a pathetic ~20,30 kb/s, and other times it'll start off high, then continuously drop until it gets either disconnected, or it hits 0 kb/s.

I've got the model that's shown in my sig, and it comes with an Atheros AR5B97 wireless adapter.

@omni, and I'll run the 3Dmark06 test once I get fast enough internet on this laptop to actually download it, haha.

 

Just wanted to ask where you bought this refreshed version ? with 6550

 

There are 3 links in the first post of this thread on where to buy this refreshed version. Look for the model: AS4820TG-6847.