Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG Owners Lounge

Thanks for the info, that is what i was looking for.

1) Do you guys recommend to buy an SSD for optical drive + keep the original HDD ( I do like the idea of haveing windows on a 30gb ssd so i can always format the 500gb without touching windows)

2) Buy a XT drive and replace the original HDD?

 

i would buy SSD (win + programs)and put in in instead of original HDD and replace DVD drive with caddy with standard HDD (storage). 7200 if you want speed, but I used 5400 and was just fine.

in my previous laptop I had the 120GB vertex 2 and 500GB 5400 Toshiba set up this way and could not complain.

 

QC Arrandale core i7 CPUs have no IGP built in, so you cannot use them in the 4820T or 4820TG. Stick to dual core arrandales.

 

Thanks I think ill do that =)

BTW will this work OK if i want to put an ssd in the optical slot?

9.5mm SATA to SATA 2nd HDD Hard Drive Caddy 4 notebook | eBay

 

yes. it doesn't matter, both are SATA. in my previous laptop, DVD had IDE connection, that is why i put the SSD in the place of original drive.

 

CPU started to reach the 100C's recently even while playing counter strike source and this is 2 months after I applied AS5. The GPU never exceeds 74C and before the CPU never passed 90C on Prime95 100% load with background surfing. I think the GPU is cooling just too much, and possible the AS5 on the CPU might have gotten worse, which I don't understand. What is the best thermal grease to use, I've read Bronsky recommends IC diamond 7, which lowered his temps 10C, anyone have a better experience with some other grease?

 

AS5 is one of the best - you wont get a 10° C improvement just with a different paste.

It's more to do with the application - you can get away with a blob the size of a grain of rice if not less.

 

Why would my CPU start to go passed the 100c mark 2 months after AS5 was applied, do I have to apply it every 2 months..?

 

It is and it was a known design problem of the 4820TG.

The one fan is not able to put the heat from the GPU and CPU out of the case for a long time under heavy load.

 

Have you cleaned the vents properly? AS5 won't disintegrate after two months so it shouldn't be that.

 

just a note for anyone wishing to buy.

microcenter.com has got 3 units of 6847 in stock at Philadelphia/St. Davids for 799 USD.

 

It instantly goes to the 90C'sjust plyaing CS:S for 1 minute, and to 101C after 30 minutes. It used to remain under 90C. Even when my CPU is 101C my GPU is nicely cooled in comparison at 77C.

I blew compressed air from under the bottom panel, and on the bottom of the main vent but not directly into it, guess its not enough. Yeah the CPU grease can't be disintegrated because the GPU is being cooled fine and it has heavier load most of the time. So I'll be opening my laptop again I suppose, is there an easier disassembly process for cleaning out the vents than the processor for reapplying grease?

My acer has the i5 480M Btw. Throttle seems occur at 102C based on the high range temp fluctuation on HWMonitor .

 

Some of you must be owning this laptop for sometime, is body of laptop fairing well considering the weak construction, i intend to buy this one, but i will be carrying it a lot, so you think its suitable for that?? If i buy it, i will be keeping it for atleast 2-3 years, is is sturdy enough? There is one more option for me, asus k42ja, you think 4820 is better than the asus one?

 

I find the 4820TG to be extremely sturdy. It has a nice, uniform, flat profile that makes it ideal for slipping into a bag with books or papers. I've used my laptop for 4 months and haven't had any build issues. The lid is thin so naturally you need to be a little careful with opening/closing it. Otherwise, this baby is solid as a rock.

 

I was wondering if we could replace the thin display lid with a sturdier lid?? Maybe from 4830tg??

 

why would you do that ?

if you want something super sturdy get magnesium elitebook or alike.

but as a 4820tg owner I am too confident about the sturdiness of the lid.

 

Lol what? just get another laptop..

I haven't had any problems with the sturdyness of the laptop, just the heat, but not everybody has that problem.

 

Hi, I am going to purchase a 4820Tg with i5-480m and ati 6550.

Did anyone experience throttling issues with this configuration?
I'm a little bit confused, I didn't understand if 4820TG with i5 throttles or not.

Thanks in advance!

 

no throttling problems with the i5 that i have read or personally ever had. I heard only the i3 would have the problem. Your good to go! laptop is nice and great.

 

I think, but I am not sure. I bought this laptop with an intel i3 version from someone else. The laptop is less than one year old and the graphic card, 5650 version, is dead. Just looking at the keyboard, which was worn out, I see that the previous owner used this laptop a lot , and probably heavy loaded with intensive application. Someone else in this thread stated before that the cooling solution on this laptop is poor and I agreed with him.

 

Many thanks!
Did you reach 5-6 hours of light internet surfing before installing the SSD?

 

i got like a little over 4 hours i says to 4 then 5. But with an ssd i get a little over 5 hrs close to 6.

edit: Okay so my 640gb hdd that came with the laptop died . I went to chat in tech support cause I wanted to RMA. I told the guy specifically then my HDD is the only thing wrong and can I just RMA that. The guys responds "sure". So i say great and ask me if I trouble shoot it anyway, and of course I did literally doesn't boot or spin anymore. Now he asked for all my info, and I keep asking do I have to send the laptop because i just wanna send the hdd. He says yea. So then he tells me when hes done doing everything okay Im going to need you to send the whole laptop etc... Face /palm! I told him again and again just the hdd. So then hes like okay well I already put this thru so, can't do anything about it. Then he gives me two options for the hdd they put a hold on cc and send the hdd and then i return my hdd in the same box etc.. or I send my hdd and they test then they send the new hdd. I was about to type the second one he says okay emailed you everything thanks buy closes chat! b4 i even respond.... So I called a little ticked off and told them the situation they said I have to send my laptop I told them I cant i use this for school and has all my stuff for school to take notes etc... They said ok give me sec, the guy says the last person in chat the "tech" locked my account to send my laptop to the company for repair. I was like real life right now. He says to call back in 14min-1hr to see if it is open to change it to sending just the hdd. Im going to call tomorrow. All in all for this RMA process don't do online chat, I regret doing it speaking with them directly is most easiest way possible.

 

Yes its very sturdy. I bought it last summer for first year of university and every day it had 2 400 page hard cover txt books on top of it when it was in my bag and often times I leaned against the wall

But It took it like a champ, little to no scratches on the screen, lid is still solid and tight ( U can increase tightness by tightening the screws under the body) and the laptop has held up verywell.

It will be subject to the same next year and then some

 

Hi all,

I am still running stock windows as I am happy with the performance of the laptop out of the box. Still, i am curious to know which services are safe to be set to manual or disabled Does anyone have a list?

Also, do we have a list with bloatware programs safe to remove?

 

clean windows install ftw.

 

You can disable all of the factory applications, including ePower and eRestore. You only need Launch manager AFAIK.

If you're comfortable, a clean install is the better option, IMO.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6465732-post1612.html

Bronsky

 

So today I completely randomly started getting a crash reboot as my 4820tg is resuming Windows. The event log says Kernel Power 41.

I haven't really installed anything in weeks or made any system changes whatsoever, and I've had the system for months without error.

I'm not sure what the issue is but I figured I'd update drivers, though I don't know why they'd suddenly fail. I currently have catalyst 11.2, If I were going to update to 11.5 would I have to revert back to the original Acer drivers first? Or can I just switch to discrete then upgrade, then back to switchable in bios?

 

Maybe, it is related to this?

[SOLVED] Kernel-Power 41 (63) error - Tech Support Forum

 

Has anyone been able to successfully use 3 monitors? (hdmi, built-in display, and vga)

Whenever I hook up all 3, it automatically disables one of them.

 

my laptop suddenly shows that windows is not genuine (it's the one that came pre installed and worked fine for 2 months)
what should i do ?
restore using recovery disks ? or what

 

You can't use all three video outputs at once in 4820tg, but you can use usb to dvi adapter to achieve multi display setup. I saw something like this on amazon for about 70$.

 

Hey there guys is anyone experiencing any graphical glitches with the 5650???
I just installed the latest vga intel and vga amd patch from acer and now my games run with artifacts. Or atleast texture problems that look like artifacts. I realized from a post here you are not supposed to download the vga intel so i uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled new ones but still get the texture problems in all of my games such as. sc2, witcher 2, devil may cry 4 although the severity of the matter is different from game to game. I tried low graphic setting and low resolution, windowed mode but to no avail. If I use the intel card no glitches but obviously games run really slow so im guessing its just my 5650.Also it is not overclocked, and i ran furmark and saw no artifacts. Long post, thx for reading and thx to anyone who is willing to help. Anyone experience this????


[SOLVED]

Nvm guys I found solution here
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=137208
clint123's post. False alarm but putting it here just in case someone is having or maybe will have a problem in the future.

 

Hi,

On the first post, it's writen you cannot activate your Windows with OEM key, unless you backup and restore activation files.

However, i successfully did that in a perfectly legal way: i use my OEM key to install W7 x64, it works, but it's not activated. Then i use the "call to microsoft" option to activate Windows (you must enter a code and they give you one back). It worked, Windows is activated!

Just to let you know
--------------------------------------
Windows Live Messenger (MSN) crash :

Hi, i'm very surprised to see no post at all in this huged thread about WLM crash with this laptop.
For example, on an almost same model, the 3820TG (same mobo, cpu, gpu...) i found that:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...info-benchmarks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-957.html

It clearly states the problem: some hardware accelerated apps, mostly from Microsoft, crash when on the Intel GMA graphic card. WLM, IE9, flash plugins... and others are having the issue.

Don't you guys ever faced it? I'm fighting with it for some months already, tried every possible bit of solution, changed 666 times the drivers with all available version (specific or generic, or even specific to other models). Nothing helps, i keep having crashes of Windows Live Messenger, some seconds after it started.

From what i know, it's an incompatibility bewteen these softs and the Intel GMA driver. Unfortunately, i couldn't find a version of this driver that would be stable enough to avoid these bugs. And when i think i get one, it's impossible to install it.

If anyone faces that too, please show me i'm not alone

Note: I have an original W7 x64 installed, not the Acer one. And i installed the drivers from the website, not from the rescue CD. When i had the Acer version of Windows, i didn't face problem with WLM, only with Flash plugin of IE and FF. This is also a known issue of the driver.

Heeelllp

 

Well, I assumed people already knew about the "call to Microsoft" option. I just thought that restoring activation files was a much quicker method if it worked.

It's great to have multiple ways to do something.

Edited: I'll mention the "call to Microsoft" option on the first post. Thanks.

It's a known problem. Read this post. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/561840-3820tg-owners-lounge-part-two-76.html#post7461201

 

hi, recently I'm getting freezing windows like 1-2x a day.

cannot move mouse, have to restart using power button.

and having issues with AMD driver. Randomly , screen flickers as during the switch of GPUs and I'm getting message that AMD driver stopper working and recovered.

would these be related (I think so)... and would driver reinstallation sort this out ?

thanks

 

Sure sounds like a corrupted driver. I would uninstall, run a driver cleaner and reinstall the latest Acer AMD driver.

Bronsky

 

If reinstalling the driver doesn't help, you could have a dying GPU. If so it'll likely become worse over time until it just dies.

 

To anyone who's ordered a 4820TG optical drive caddy, is there a good recommendation and link to purchase one? I preferably want to keep it under $20.

 

if you want the ebay for like $10 heres a link and it will take about 2-3weeks to get to u.
NEW SATA 2nd HDD caddy for 9.5mm ACER BENQ HP DELL ASUS | eBay
but u can not switch the faceplate, without modding/breaking some tabs. So it will indeed go in a bit.
more info go here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-ssd-hdd-storage-using-optical-bay-caddy.html

 

I have a very strange problem. I got home from work and found that my Ethernet connection has completely vanished. It doesn't show up in my adapter settings and it doesn't even show up in Device Manager. I uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, but it didn't do any good. It has been working since the day I got it.

edit: wow, my Ethernet is dead. Never had that happen to me before. Followed this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315539 (works for windows 7) and uninstalled the drivers/device and now the drivers will not install because it can't "detect" the hardware --> it's dead!

 

Try any linux live cd you like( for 4820tg owners out there, does the latest ubuntu version detect your nic automatically?), maybe ubuntu, and if it still doesn't detect your nic then most likely this is exactly like my ATI graphic problem! Completely vanished. Guess how many times I have to send it to acer for them to figure out what to do ? 3 times. Guess what is their solution to the problem? by replacing the motherboard. Well, I haven't get it back yet but I called and the level2 guy said he looked at the log and said they waiting for the mainboard. My laptop has 2 problems. Blurry spots and no ATI graphic detected. I sent it in the first time and got it returned without having anything fixed but the Hard drive? what? okay. Turned out ATI problem didn't get written down in their system( huh ? but I called two times to make sure it is in there since I forgot tell them about it on my first call), and tech wasn't able to see the blurry spots. I sent it back the same day. Second time around, I took pictures of the blurry spots, put them on the desktop and spoke to level2 around ATI graphic problem. I got it returned to me the second time with screen replaced but stated that my ATI adapter is not installed( what in the world!!!). I sent it back in the third time( will be handle by senior tech, only if i knew there is such) okay, so finally. So, still waiting for them to receive the replacement part from somewhere who know. I will get you guys and (prikolchik) updated when i get it back. I sent it out on thursday the 19. wait, wait, wait...and wait some more. Basically, if what the guy said is correct then this is a new laptop except the shell, some light scratches on the outside.

 

Wow ... pretty crappy service. Was this from the Temple Texas repair depot?

Bronsky

 

This was from Temple Texas. I would said it's a really bad service, if you know what I mean. I just want the laptop fixed. I will go back to school soon. Tell you more about it later.

 

Upabove, I'm gonna guess you made the mistake of calling Acer for repair service. Always use the website form so you can be sure what needs to be in the repair ticket is actually there.

 

yes, i saw that after the first attempt. But, as you can see, the tech over there said " no ATI adapter installed" on my second attempt to get it fix..

Edit: Your computer has been repaired and has been prepared for shipment. I wont get it until Monday then ):.

 

after spending few hours messing with the drivers, I can finally report, that the solution to BSOD and AMD driver crashing and recovering is (or seems to be):

a clean windows install (however it may not be needed, I just wanted to be totally sure)

and installing the newest AMD catalyst drivers following instructions on the first page of this thread in FAQ.



I've tried couple things, such as reinstalling acer AMD driver (with use of driver sweeper), reinstalling them over a clean install etc.

none of that helped prior to soluton above.

 

Hi everyone,

I'm a french man new member of this site.
I didnt read all pages of this topic (415), it's really an impressive forum !

I came here because i have an Acer 4820tg.
I oc my 5650 to 740/1110, since 3 days, i'm searching a way to oc my cpu.
I read many thread about this issue, so i downloaded setfsb. I tested all pll and i found that RTM plls dont have pll id error.

So now i need my pll series number, i disassemblied my notebook and wrote all referencies of cms black components around the cpu, chipset and the middle of the mb.

With my list of 30 components referencies i searched datasheets on the internet to find the pll and my search failed. I don't find my pll...

Please someone who find his pll on the 4820 mb can tell me the pll's location (or how can I know the referency) ?

Thx you very much for your answer and your help .

Kaari.

(And sry about my low level of english...)

 

When watching videos, there seems to be a slight delay between the video and the sound. Anyone know why this is and any potential fixes?

The problem becomes worse when connecting the laptop to my tv by hdmi

 

I'd say that has more to do with video/audio codecs and such...

is that a streaming video or file from your laptop ? which player are you using ?

was it happening all the time, or just recently ?

 

It only happens with certain downloaded files i've now realised, so it is an issue with the quality of those files and not a problem with the laptop