Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG Owners Lounge

Has anyone been able to undervolt the GPU? I remember reading a post a while back about which file to edit after extracting the BIOS files but now I can't find it. I'd like to undervolt the 5650 and disable the Intel GMA.

 

Ugh...I've ran into a bit of a problem. I was trying to update my GPU drivers from the 10/2010 version to what is current.

I switched to discrete GPU from the bios and after the update ran, I'd check the driver version in the device manager and I'd see that it has not been updated. The date and the driver version of the old one was still there. Even after restarting it a few times, the same thing persisted.
So anyways, I decided to get a bit more adventurous and clicked on "Uninstall Driver" under for the 6550 GPU. After doing so, and installing the driver update, the update seemed to stick as I could see the new date (7/28/2011) as well as the new version on.
So, I restarted my PC and put it back to switchable in the bios. However, in switchable, I would get this extremely low resolution like I did when I first clean installed Windows on here. So I did a windows update on the intel VGA drivers. After installing and restarting my PC, after the windows load screen happens, the screen is just blank. I can't see the login screen, although I can login and everything (I can tell by the sound it makes logging in). Everything is responsive, except for the screen. I tried pressing Fn+F5 a few times but that didn't do anything. I tried connecting to an external monitor but that didn't do anything either. When I restart and go to bios and put the GPU mode back to discrete, everything starts up and works perfectly, even the monitor. It just doesn't work when I have it set to switchable.

Is doing another clean install the only way out?

Edit:

Strange...I updated my discrete GPU again, using Acer's 8/2011 release and when I went back to switchable, everything was working as normal, even the screen, as if nothing happened. Oh laptop...

 

Can anyone recommend a reputable site for a backup battery, officially from Acer or a third party that isn't a cheap/dangerous Chinese battery?

 

Are you still under the one year warranty? If so, just call Acer and tell them your battery is malfunctioning and it only holds charge for 30 minutes or something like that. They'll send you a new one for free.
You can do the same with the Acer recovery disks, call them up and make up a story about your computer not working and they will ship it to you for free.

 

Quick question:
Does this laptop have a PCI Express slot?
Would something like this: How to Upgrade Your Notebook Graphics Card Using DIY ViDOCK
be compatible with this laptop?

 

Yes there's a mini pci-express slot, but you will have to pull out your wifi card !

I think it's possible, but you will have to choose between wifi and a powerfull graphic card, but only 80-90% of it's power.

I've found 2 links :
PE4H (PCIe passive adapter ver2.4)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...7667-lets-figure-out-how-make-diy-vidock.html

So the only solution is "PE4H ver2.4 with PM3N" and to make a hole in the large middle bottom plate.
The best solution will be to build an external box to put the graphic card and the power supply in a safe place and secure (for dropping and away from dust)

 

Just to add to that, perhaps get a USB wifi adapter?
I haven't tried doing anything like this, but it looks like it would be a hassle setting your laptop up to this and then reverting it back to its normal use.

 

I am having an issue updating to the latest ATI drivers through their catalyst software. I get the proper card (even tried doing it autodetect just to make sure I was doing it right and was), download, and then when it goes to begin installation I get this error:



Anyone have any ideas?

 

yes, download catalyst individual installer from amd site, and just install that
the drivers you need to install are from the acer site specifically for the 4820tg

 

Have they been updated at all recently?

 

Yup the amd/intel drivers for the 4820tg from the acer site were updated around august 20th so they are pretty recent.

I have a separate question: Can anyone with a ATI 6550M card check this out for me, I thought the card had dedicated 1GB of VRAM but if I look in DXDIAG (start >> run >> "dxdiag") it says I only got 590MB. Is that what everyone else has?

 

You have to set the graphics to "Discrete" in BIOS for the installer to recognize the ATI GPU. When it's installed you can revert to "Switchable" in BIOS.

 

Oh so it is doable to update to latest then?

 

Hey been a while since i posted here, had the 4820 for i think 1 full year now and its been great. Just wondering whats the next upgrade path if one is looking to buy a new laptop?

Mainly looking for a laptop with better graphics but still being able to get the 4+hrs of batt life and 14" form factor.

 

Yes you can update to the latest ATI drivers this way.

 

@iwin2000

For ATI it should be showing roughly 2700MB- 1GB of dedicated memory and the rest is so called HyperMemory.
Were you switched to ATI when you started DXDIAG?

 

There's still not a lot to really compete with the 4820TG right now. The Asus U46SV etc are only slightly more powerful but with a 35W GPU instead of the ~20W GPU in the 4820TG so they tend to run much hotter. And for all that you get 2 or 3 fps improvement in gaming.the Alienware M14x has a GT555M which is a bit more powerful than that, but it's as heavy or heavier than most 15" machines. Don't even consider the overheating / throttling mess that is the 3830/4830TG machines.

 

Yes I am on the ATI graphics and I was on ATI graphics when I took that screenshot. I double checked. I'm not sure why it's not showing the 1GB dedicated memory.

I can't think of why it would be that way. Only thing I can think of is that I have my system pagefile disabled, so that might be affecting it. It could also be a bad driver install I guess I could try reinstalling them.

The only way I found out was that I was benchmarking my system for Battlefield 3 and it said I failed the system requirement for graphics due to my low VRAM.

 

Pagefile doesn't affect this- driver is another matter but it's still weird.
Although you may want to check it- it's most likely to be the root of the problem.

 

I've recently had trouble with my 4820TG-- it kept freezing shortly after boot, with the Windows 7 spinning "wait" mouse cursor still being active. I could move the mouse around, but it wouldn't do anything. In addition, when I tried to play GTA IV, I would be able to explore and play around fine, and even get into missions, but the whole system would just freeze at a mission's completion point.

After a fair amount of system reboots and scans (both ESET Smart Security 5 and Emsisoft say I'm clean) it appears to be working all right, though I haven't tried any games on it post-recovery. The freezing isn't happening anymore.

However, I've noticed something on the My Computer screen: my D: and G: partitions both have around 10GB less free space. (My hard drive has three partitions: C, D, and G). But if I manually select everything in the respective drives, their total adds up to what they would have been normally; that is, each drive, when examined in this manner, doesn't reflect the phantom 10 gigs each. I realize this manual "Properties..." inspection isn't exactly the best way to check things out.

If anyone has any idea what's going on, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Here are my specs:

CPU: Intel Core i5-460m 2.53GHz
GPU: Radeon Mobility 5650
Motherboard: Acer ZQ1B
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill 1333MHz DDR3 F3-10666CL9S-2GBSQ (though I suppose it peaks at 1066 because of the processor)
HDD: Western Digital 640GB 5400 RPM (WD6400BEVT-22A0RT0)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, with latest updates

 

Does anyone have a step by step guide on how to replace the none-backlit keyboard with a backlit keyboard on a 4820TG? And is it possible without messing with the warranty?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/491169-acer-timelinex-3820tg-backlit-keyboard-mod.html (It's done the same way for the 4820tg)

You don't invalidate the warranty by replacing the keyboard...
but if you start making holes in the case to install switches and such, that might invalidate your warranty.

 

Well, i was hoping for something easier than this, without me having to use the soldering method, kind of plug and play (if it is possible, think i read something about a plug on the back of 4820tg that is not in use somewhere). But good enough i suppose!

Thanks for the help man!

 

The trick is to piggyback for power from a plug connector for the USB ports. You can pull the pins out of the plug, wrap the leads for your keyboard around them, and plug them back in. Then if you need to return it for warranty work etc you can then just remove the wires, replace the keyboard and send it back with no physical changes.

 

Hello again guys,

Small issue I've been having for the past week or so. My 4820tg won't sleep after the set time limit (15 minutes). The screen turns off and stays off, but the machine simply will not sleep unless I close the lid.

I cant recall installing anything or updating anything when this started to happen because it took me a little while to notice it. Is there any monitoring software I could use to see if a software is causing a spike in CPU usage, thereby stopping my computer from sleeping?

Thanks!

 

I'm trying to update the 6550m driver from 8.741.1.6 to 8.84.7.4. I uninstalled and used drive sweeper in safe mode for the install. I keep getting a "install package failure" at the beginning of the install. The driver gets installed though. When I switch back from discrete to switchable my screen is just blank while everything is running smoothly in the background. In discrete, everything is fine. Anyone got this upgrade working yet?

--edit--
The error comes up right after the C++ 2010 redistro.
--edit2--
Ok so figured it out. Went and installed the Intel driver 8.15.10.2202. Which was what switchable was missing.

 

AIDA64 will probably do that for you. There is a 30 day free trial I think.

 

Hey,

Anyone else having this small problem?

Occasionally I will find that my F10 <-> Del keys are popped up for some reason. They still work and all I have to do is push on them a little harder then a key press and they will pop back into place, but sometimes the next time I use my laptop they will be popped out again.

Is this a known problem? It has to do with build quality I guess...

 

I have never heard of this happening on its own. Have you taken the KB out at all? These are the places where the keyboard tabs/slots are and they sometimes get damaged when removing the keyboard. It is an easy fix. You can get a new keyboard for $20 and snap it in with no problem.

 

I've never removed it. They must have snapped on there own somehow. It is odd considering I have been very careful with handling it.

And if i'm going to get a new keyboard I would try my luck at backlit, but at this point I think that might be too risky/beyond me.

 

Does the sound crackle for anyone else when playing music while on battery power? I just noticed it did this, I hope it's just the drivers...
I have the new 4820tg-6847 with the 6550M card and 640GB HD.

 

good evening everybody

i have a problem when i connect my laptop to the TV trough HDMI cable

before i reach the maximum stretch in the TV
but when i changed the refresh rate from 50 HZ to 60 HZ then i couldn't reach the old way(maximum view)

when i try to retune everything to the default nothing changed

now i can see what in my laptop in my LCD but the picture is not stretched
just only in duplicate mode
but the resoultion is ok in projector ,ode i reach 1920*1080

any suggestion or i need to formate

 

depends on which graphics your on. AMD its in one of the tabs dont remember which but should stretch out for the 1920x1080. intel doesnt you have to use your tv settings to stretch to look nice.

 

thank you very much
i have ATI mobility radeon HD 5650 and the intel not AMD

and like what i have said
before the picture was stretched but when i change the refresh rate it's gone & when i try to return it back it's fixed on the refresh rate 50 Hz before was 60 Hz
the the resolution on duplicate mode now 1366*768
and in projector mode 1920*1080
i have 55 inch LCD

 

Are the 11.10 preview 3 only for desktop usage ? And what about switchable compatibility ?

 

Has anyone tried placing a copper shim on their cpu ? Is this even a good idea ? Just wanted to know if the cpu temps can go even lower on max load temps.

Oh and theres one more thing I want to add, are all copper shims anodized ? As in, it won't be electrically conductive to prevent any accidental short circuiting. Just wondering..

 

One flat piece of metal isn't going to do you anything. At most, it would drop your temperature by 2-3 Celsius. Not worth the trouble.
Best thing to do would be to get a cooling pad or some arctic silver compound.

 

Dear all,

At most a month ago, my webcam has stopped working. I have not seen any error messages in Windows 7 of any kind, but Skype and MSN no longer recognize my webcam.

I have looked for pretty long time on the web for drivers, and tried installing CrystalEye Driver from CNET with no luck. I found a message a couple of days ago in the Windows 7 Solution Center, about driver for a USB device not recognized, and it said something with USB/VID_xxxxxxxx. However, the message is gone now and I can't seem to find it again.

Anyone have some ideas what I might try? Otherwise I will have to try a restore somewhere down the line and see if that works.

Peace.

 

I had a similar issue last December and my Webcam was shorted out. Sent it to Acer and they replaced it under warranty.

 

Is this laptop capable of running BF3 on lowest, 1366x768 with at least 40 FPS? Has anyone tried this game yet on this laptop?

 

Yeah at lowest, it is around 35-40 FPS. Just bought the game yesterday


However, these are my settings:



Runs around 25-35 FPS(OC'ed @ 675/940). So its pretty good I think.



Here are some screenshots:

 

Hey, thanks a lot man! I really appreciate it. I've got the 6550, so I should have an easier time running this, right? I may even OC it to 700/1000.

 

Easier time- not really- 6550 and 5650 are the same core with different frequencies (and voltage) and since you're willing to OC to 700MHz and GamerzCreed did his tests with 675MHz core freq, it's going to be pretty much the same.
What does greatly improve performance is Cats 10.10 preview drivers.

 

Ah, I missed that he OC'ed.
I have Catalyst 11.X. Are you suggesting to downgrade to 10.10?

 

I'm an idiot- I meant 11.10

 

ahh, lol.

And nevermind, before I reformatted, I was 11.X but I have 8.84 currently.

I tried upgrading to catalyst 11.10 using AMD driver, but it didn't work. the driver didn't work and my GPU wasn't recognized.

 

Same here, I think the driver is meant for desktop GPUs.

Driver 11.10 is the one optimized for BF3 and Rage right ? Any success on installing this driver ?

 

So i havent updated my drivers for video and i see a little glitches in game so i guess its about time I do so, but I totally forgot what program to use to uninstall the video drivers. if anyone can help that would be awesome.

 

Driver Sweeper.
But you would need the stock driver to retain the switch mechanism.

 

I know it works on Aspire 5740G (HD5650 but no switchable graphics)