Acer Aspire TimelineX 5820TG Review + discussion.

Well... I've turned it on.

 

My 5650 maxed out at about 700/1050.
I am liking this laptop but the keyboard takes some time getting used to, also I hate the numpad.

 

Maybe I got it all wrong m8. After gettin the 10.7 drivers, do you mean changing the bios after this? Like back to discrete? Would that make SC detect my GF card?

Just throwing out some balls in the air here.

By the way... is your card DETECTED in SC meny?

 

Hi

I`m looking for laptop with long battery life. For how long 9-cell battery provide autonomous work, for example, with office routine (text processing, email, web surfing) & little bit multimedia (listening to music)?

 

6+ hrs easy.

 

I like my new laptop so far, the performance/battery life is fantastic. But I'm having few issues with it:
1. Sometimes Radeon isn't changing it's clocks to max settings, but only to 300/300. I have to re-enable PowerPlay to fix it.
2. HDMI tends displaying movies in purple color. I have to re-connect the HDMI cable to fic it.
3. Sound tend to crack when using integrated speakers.
4. Using newest drivers, display remains black after sleep when Radeon is active. I have to unplug laptop to change graphics card to fix it.
5. HDD is incredebile slow, system is randomly freezing for a few seconds, especially when playing games, which is very annyoing.
6. Sometimes after (un)pluging laptop graphics cards aren't switiching, I have to do it manually.
7. High frequency noise, which can be very annoying.
8. I was burning DVD some days ago with my 5820TG, when suddenly the burning process was cancelled due writting error. From that point my optical drive won't read any disc. It starts reading, but after second or two the sound of "jam" appears and that's it. Windows detect drive normally, as well as BIOS. I'd like to fix this myself rather than waiting for my laptop one month; I don't have any other computer.

Any help would be very appreciated.

 

9-10hrs.

I've been listening to music with spotify and surfing web for just over 10hrs, and office usage shouldn't be much more demanding as long as you run on the intel card.

 

1: Didn't have that issue.
2: - Not yet tried HDMI on mine
3: - Try latest audio drivers. Realtek ver 2.51 is what I'm running.
4: Only had that happen once, and don't know any fix for it
5: Aye, especially those slow WD disks that acer is so happy to use. Use QuietHDD quietHDD to disable APM and AAM (misc page in quietHDD options). Should help a lot. I have to admit I went for an seagate momentus XT 7200 rpm hybrid HDD myself, never looked back
6: Yes, noticed that as well, although rare. Don't know any fix for it.
7: My computer had that at times but not always, and it was not very loud. Only noticeable in an silent room. Someone says it's gets worse when using USB devices, but didn't notice that myself.
8: Sounds like it has to visit the acer doctor. Acer use an bit special ODD with no tray eject button on the drive itself. Either send it in for an warranty repair or get an original sparepart drive from an acer parts dealer.

 

Is it safe to use QuietHDD?

 

Yes, just remember to make a shortcut of quietHDD in the Windows startup folder. It should stop the random freezing on the Western Digital hard drive.

 

I am tossing over buying this Acer or a Dell Studio 15. What do you guys think? I need a laptop that is suitable for uni (interior design course), so needs to be transportable and also have the power to edit films and photos and play games for a casual user (like WoW). Anything that's bad about this laptop which I should to know about? Or is there another type of laptop you recommend (don't say Mac)?

 

Hi all,

Like a week ago ive bough acer aspire timelinex 5820tg i5-430M, 3gb ddr3, ati 5650 1gb, 6cell battery. The problem I am facing is that my battery from 100% dropped to 5% while playing WoW with power saving button on, in like 1.5h...Also if im only reading news on the internet, the battery life is also for like 2h or so ( didnt really checked but it can be for gaming 1h and reading 1.5h or even less ! ...I will try to recheck it today while i got some free time)

When ive bought the pc the description about it said that the battery works for 8hours.

I will try to phone to the shop from where i bought it tomorow and ask whats wrong.

Please tell me your battery life time while playing/reading and maybe u got any suggestions what can be wrong? I also saw 1more guy facing same problem in this forum.

 

Are you sure you were using the intel graphics card?

If you were using the intel graphics card, wow should barely be playable at lowest settings. If wow ran better than that, it indicates you were using the ATI card. And ATI card + heavy load like playing should give around 2 hrs.

intel graphics + websurfing should give anywhere between 5.5-8hrs depending on brightness, WLAN, amount of videos/sound etc.

 

for playing im using ati graphic card but ive been trying browsing with intel gpu also result is same i dont think my battery can hold more then 2h. Theres a rewiew about that in google. There were some tests made and result was that intel and ati graphic has almost same graphic consumption. If i remember good with intel battery was working for 3h and 7 mins and with ati 3h and 2 mins...its easy to find that review in google...

 

That's because of Flash, especially intense Flash sites, such as YouTube. Block as many Flash elements on sites as you can and your battery life will improve.

 

Bronsky

 

well i dont think i was wisiting sites with many flashes but i believe problem is not here. It can save me some energy but it will not increse my battery life time atleast 2x times.

 

Has anyone found a cooler to keep the temperatures down on this laptop? Temperatures reach 90 C on CPU and 85 C on GPU when playing Bad Company 2. I have a cooler with one adjustable 5V fan and I've tried placing it on different areas of the underside of the laptop but it makes no difference. Also 5820TG has only a tiny intake around it's internal fan!! What kind of design is that?! And they have placed vents towards the front end (touch-pad area) of the laptop where there's no GPU or CPU... All the heat seems to be produced in the left ~1/4.

Any good tips for lowering temps?

 

Look it up again, I saw plenty of reviews comparing the battery life while using wifi/heavy load/ no load etc and with wifi it was around 4 - 5h.

From what I read here, coolers will not make much of a difference, the temp might drop a *C or 2 but that's about it..... as for "Any good tips for lowering temps?" - get A/C in your room and make sure it's proper cold

 

Thanks. I guess I can try applying better quality thermal paste and see if that helps. I just have to figure out how to open the back cover. Couldn't get it open last night and didn't want to break anything by forcing it.

 

Has anyone been able to remove the cover on the underside of 5820TG? I need access to the CPU and GPU but only removing the part that covers the middle does not allow that. I can see the CPU and GPU right at the edge but I can't do anything to remove the heatsink.

 

You have to remove the motherboard, turn it over and then you have access to the GPU/CPU/Sink.

 

Ok but from which side do I remove the motherboard? Top (under keyboard) or bottom? The reason I'm asking is because I couldn't remove the cover on the underside to completely expose the motherboard. I could only remove the plate that covers the middle 1/3.

 

You remove the keyboard, then take the case apart in halves. The motherboard comes out from the top.

 

About O/C; I can't go over 600/1000 and reading your results it seems a little low, especially on GPU. Temeratures aren't above any of your results and whole computer lays in well cooled place, so I don't know what could be the problem.
I use 10.7 catalyst drivers, and card is put on Discrete setting in BIOS.
Any help would be appreciated

 

Just a tip to those who haven't already done it. Remove the mesh that's covering the intakes on the removable plate under the laptop. I lowered my temps with 4-5*C by doing this. My plan was to open up the entire laptop and remove all meshes but I almost ripped apart one of the ribbon cables trying, so I had to give up half-way.

I don't understand why Acer did such a poor job with the ventilation on 5820TG. Just a few more intakes would make a huge difference. But not only are there few intakes, the ones that are there are covered with a mesh, limiting the airflow.

 

Every GPU is different. Plus, factory installation is not always as precise as it should be so heat sinks are not always fited as well as they can be. Your OCing is not outside the normal range.

 

Please can anyone tell me where to buy this exact model, I am unable to find it anywhere. I find the same model but with a lower graphics card. Thank you.

Looked over this thread found the site: http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=599193
any other sites? For uk?

Also seems that 10,000 NOK converted to Pounds its £1k.. and there is this model on amazon for same price which seems better:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-15-6in...uetooth/dp/tech-data/B003S3R3GK/ref=de_a_smtd
although says 1-3 months dispatch, thoughts?

 

It just occurred to me that it's going to be a PITA to clean the fan on this laptop... As I wrote in a previous post, the ribbon cables are fragile and really difficult to connect/disconnect. I don't know if I dare to ever try it again. There doesn't seem to be any way to access the fan without removing the keyboard, top cover, and motherboard.

 

Thanks for a very good review. I got my 5820TG yesterday and I'm quite happy with it. My only problem is the high pitched noise mentioned earlier in some of the posts. At first i though there was something wrong with my computer, so i went back to the store. However the sound level in the shopping mall was too high, so the guy at the store was unable to hear the sound, and he couldn't give me any information. So the sound is due to the HDD? On my computer its quite annoying, and audible almost all the time. Is there nothing to be done with this? Im kinda going crazy here, but it would be a shame to have to return the computer because of a small thing like this. Maybe i just have to get used to it? Any help appreciated.

Morten

 

After some reports it seems it's not the harddrive. It's most commonly referred to as CPU whine and may appear on some models.
There is no known "fix", some has exchanged their computers and got machines without whine.So it's either live with it, or exchange the computer.

 

Ah ok, thanks. I will call to the shop on monday. So its completely random which of the 5820TG computers who has this problem? Seems like very bad work from Acer. I hope I'm able to exchange the computer, and the shop doesnt just send it for repairs. Anyway thanks for your swift reply

 

I have found the reason for the cpu whine. It that it comes every time i use the USB ports for something. Especially wireless equipment (like a mouse), but also when using external hard drives. The whine disappears when the cpu is being loaded though. Some people on the net claims their problem goes away when using a usb hub, but this doesnt seem to work for me. And some people use a program to constantly load the cpu (lets say to around 50%) to avoid the problem.

I dont know if all of this is common knowledge here on the forum, but it was new to me so i decided to share it

 

Where do i buy this laptop?

 

If anyone has been able to successfully take apart the 5820TG, could you upload a video on how to do it? Last time I tried it felt like the ribbon cables were going to snap so I couldn't reach the CPU and GPU.

 

Hello everybody!
I've bought Acer TimelineX 5820TG and now I've faced such difficulty.
While I am moving on the touchpad by my finger, I press any button on the keyboard. At the same time the touchpad stop working for a half of second, i.e. the cousor starts to move only after a half of second after clicking the button on the keyboard.
I can’t understand why it is so?

Should I change smth in the Settings?

 

All of the ribbon cables should be removable. In the 3820TG, there are two antenna wires that hold the motherboard in. They have to be reverse threaded and removed to get the motherboard out.

 

Yes they are removable but I don't know if they used some special tool to connect/disconnect the ribbon cables. I was able to remove all by pulling the blue hard plastic part of the cables but inserting them back was a nightmare which made me think that they must have used some sort of tool to connect them. With the time it took me to insert them by hand, Acer would only be able to produce like 10 units/month.

 

Hello everybody!
I've bought Acer TimelineX 5820TG and now I've faced such difficulty.
While I am moving on the touchpad by my finger, I press any button on the keyboard. At the same time the touchpad stop working for a half of second, i.e. the cousor starts to move only after a half of second after clicking the button on the keyboard.
I can’t understand why it is so?

Should I change smth in the Settings?

 

Question: My keyboard and touchpad doesn't work at the same time. How do I fix this?

Answer: In the Synaptics software, lower the sensitivity for "PalmCheck".

 

Thanks for help)

 

I got the 5820tg on monday and it's great. I don't have any mentioned problems the laptop is better then I expected. Just need to get used to the keyboard now thanks a lot for every1 who recommended it to me

 

Where did u buy it from?

 

Notebooki, komputery, laptopy, monitory, karty graficzne - Komputronik internetowy sklep komputerowy

 

Anyone know of an english site where i can buy this model from please?

 

Acer Aspire 5820TG, 15.6inch HD LCD Noteboook, Intel Core i7 processor 620M, 4GB, 640GB, Bluetooth,DVD, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

I got this laptop about 2 weeks ago and it's working pretty well.
I have one problem with it though and I read through the thread and no one else seems to have the problem. Sometimes, I live in dorms and we have wifi but sometimes, it just stops working. I'm not sure if it's the wifi's fault but I am pretty certain that it isn't. This morning, it happened again and I decided to try turning off and then on the wireless on my computer and it started working again. Can anyone tell me whether this is my building's or my laptop's fault?

 

That is a model with different spec.. not to mention the price

 

do a google search

or specify exactly what you're looking for.... I also got a diff spec (although very similar) to the one reviewed

 

do they sell them is aus yet