Acer Aspire Timelinex 3820TG - I7-720qm upgrade

Hello, my question is - is it possible to upgrade i5-430m in my acer 3820tg with i7-720qm? And when possible what i need to do it (Bios update, another heatsink/cooler, power Adapter) ?

 

You are in fairly uncharted territory. I think the CPU will fit the PGA988 socket. The stock heat sink will not work. It will not cover the whole CPU. The QM has no integrated GPU. Who knows about the bios.

Bronsky

 

Ok, what's now with i7-620m, i7-640m or i7-2620M, do i need any bios update or so? How big is speed increase compared to i5-430m, i5-450m?

 

You can do the 620m or 640m but not the 2620m its a sandybridge processor

 

You should go 480M / 540M or faster.

I'd get a 560M or 580M.

 

+1 ^ The I5-580M is the best compromise between power draw and output IMO. If you're going to OC, it will probably reach frequencies higher than the I7-640M.

Bronsky

 

I think the stock heat sink will cover it, had it apart and from what I recall it's quite large. If there are other models in Acers line-up that uses the 720qm it can be done. I would not be surprised if it would fire right up. Only real obstacle I see is the lack of integrated gpu. Battery time will not be fantastic when having to run on the ATI card all the time.

 

The Arrandale dual-core heat-sink in the stock Timeline has two separate heat transfer surfaces to accomodate the CPU and integrated GPU (they are mirror images of the heat transfer surfaces on the CPU). The QM models have a much larger, continuous heat-sink that would remain almost 45% uncovered by the dual core heat sink. The physics doesn't work. The cooling capacity is likely reduced by the same amount, meaning that I think the QM will be unable to keep itself cool and will probably self-destruct without modification to the CPU fan/heat sink assembly.

The QM:


The Arrandale:



Bronsky

 

You are assuming that the heatsink is the same size as the CPU core, wich is not the case.

It should fit.

 

I'm not assuming anything. I've had the fan assemby on and off my unit about 15 times. As I noted above, the surfaces of the heat sink on the fan assembly mirror the heat transfer surfaces on the arrandale. It does not have a contiguous surface. The two smaller mating areas on the fan assembly simply won't cover the complete heat sink on the QM. It leaves about 35-40% of the QM's sink uncovered. To make this work, you would have to modify the fan assembly to properly mate with the QM. I have a spare fan assembly sitting around somewhere. I'll take a pic.

Bronsky

 

What more is differen on i7-620m/640m to i5-580m or original i5-430m ? I get the cheapest tested i7-620m for 50€ from damaged Laptop and cheapest i5 580 I can get for 160€ new. I sell again i7-720qm, because I now understand that this does not work in 3820.

What makes must more sense from all?

I have read that is i7 better for video editting than i5?

 

I don't think you'll notice a big difference between i5 and i7. I've read an i5 is the best bang for the buck for the laptop. Just looking over the wiki for intel micro processors and the intel site itself will give you a lot of information. I also found a pretty decent site a while ago but it's going to take me a while to track in down.

I've heard the most difference is between the i3 to an i5... But I owned an i3 3820TG and I can't see how going from an i3 to an i5 could make that big a difference because the i3 was a darn fast CPU that handled everything I threw at it.

May we ask why your so interested in upgrading the CPU besides max performance? Do you render? Game?

EDIT:

Missed that. I'm not sure what kind of work bronsky does but as he mentioned, the i5 can overclock better the the i7 in some cases and might actually be better for video rendering then a slightly over-clocked i7... An i5 560 or 580 might be slightly better then an i5 480 that comes stock but I doubt you'll literally notice or see a difference.

 

I do a lot of video editing. Either the I5 or the I7 will do the job nicely. The I5 will out clock the I7 but either is sufficient for editing. If you can get an I7 for $100 less than the I5, I would go wtih that.

I edit high-resolution satelite images with my Acer and it doesn't break a sweat. The software we use is proprietary GIS software used by government agencies that makes use of the GPU quite a bit, not only for rendering but parallel processing.

I also edit my own video depositions for trial. My unit loads them without a glitch once they're on the SSD. The biggest delay is trans-loading the large files onto my HD from an SD Card or USB 2.0 thumb drive. USB 3.0 would be really nice or at least an ESata port.

Bronsky

 

Aha, that explains it a bit better. I get it now

 

Many thanks to all, for all answers, specially to Bronsky.
Another question - it makes difference to replace original thermal grease on cpu and gpu with quality thermal greas so as Arctic Silver 5? What is best compromise an thermal grease price/quality?

Any who know about Seagate Momentus XT 500Gb (HDD/SSD-Hybrid) it's more better solution than normal 7200rpm HDD ?
SSD solution have not enough place for me and is to expensive.
What's about battery life with 7200rpm HDD, i know it with my Samsung NC10 that batterylife was 1-2 hour less with 640gb 7200rpm(Samsung HM640JJ), than with original 160gb 5400rpm (Samsung HM160HI)? What's about loudness and vibration? Are there any tests about this?

 

If anyone interested, the 3820TG BIOS (at least BIOS v1.19) contain CPU Microcode Update for the i7 processors with CPUID 106E5h. This including i7-720QM. However 3820TG have 2 GPUs; Intel & ATI GPUs. There are two possibility if you put i7-720QM:-

1. If the Intel is the primary GPU, notebook probably will not boot.
2. Considering the switchable graphics is using multiplexer(s) in this notebook, i7 will probably work. You can always set primary GPU to ATI in BIOS before swapping the processor.

The only way to know for sure whether it will work or not is to try it. I know at least one person already tried on notebook which originally not advertised by Acer to support quad core processor but it did work. Again that notebook only have discrete GPU.

Regarding the heatsink, you can use copper shim to cover the rest of i7-720QM surface.

For the thermal compound, better get IC Diamond 7 or Arctic MX-4. These two is better than AS5.

 

I actually got time to finally do the 3G mod and did have a closer look at the heatsink while I was at it. The heatsink is perfectly flat in a continous manner, so the QM would fit just fine. I could not really see the benefit for a manufacturer to do extra work on the sink to match the cores exactly, makes no sense. Anyway, it's flat.

 

Glad you made me go back and look. My recollection was that there was a discrete area for the Arrandale CPU/GPU. Since I have a spare fan unit laying around, I went to look at it again.

As you can see, the copper heat sink area available for contact with the CPU sink is matched to the areas on the arrandale. If the copper area on your sink extends completely across the entire surface, I'm assuming that the same is true on my unit, under the bonded plastic piece. If that is correct, the plastic (which appears to be bonded or glued onto the sink) can be removed without damaging the sink, the entire copper surface under it would be available for a QM processor.

If your unit doesn't have the plastic piece on your sink, more the better. I think that I would need a cooper shim, in any event, to take up the gap if the plastic piece is removed. What would be ideal is if the plastic piece could be removed in one piece, recut to the same size as the QM sink and replaced before installing the QM processor. But, yea, it looks like a do-able mod. Nice find. Rep to you.

Bronsky

 

I have Upgrade today my 3820g from i5-450 to i7-620m and i have now some problem. When i switch to ATI 5650 than i have blackscreen I dont understand what is problem now. It is bios version (i have 1.13) or i have make any error in assembly(any cable or so)?

 

I assume that when you start your notebook on the battery, there is no problem running with switchable graphics. If so, do that and see if you can detect the AMD 5650 GPU? Is the problem only when you switch to dedicated graphics or when you are still in switchable but running on AC power? The 620M should work on the old bios, but if you have the AMD working in switchable, I would try Bios ver 1.19.

Bronsky

 

It's ok now. I have reinstall ati drivers. I don't know why, but now work all. 1.19 version is for 6370/6550 it will work with my 5650 ?

 

any tutorial how to replace the cpu on this laptop step by step?
i have the manual downloaded from acer.com
but it doesn't look very clear im afraid i couldn't assemble it back again..
please help any videos here?

confused start number 29 to 36 the cable thingy @_@
i dont want to start opening my laptop before im 100% sure how to open step by step =,=

 

Kindan's guide from the first thread. Flickr: kindan_online's Photostream I have it stickied now on the first page of the 3820TG Owner's Thread - Part 2. Here is Kindan's post (#3001). http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...rks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-301.html#post6572460 He has a PDF as well which might be worth DL'ing.

Bronsky

 

Hello

I'm interresting too to change my I7-640m with a Qm , i'm ready to loose the IGP from intel , but i'm asking some questions about this mod.

I think that the piece of cooper and the CPU fan system cooling is ready to cool correctly the QM , but i'm not sure that the battery can hold the exces of power. I've read that the 3820TG can hit 75 watt/h during high stress , the 6000mAh can deliver no more than 64watt/h , when the 9000mAh deliver 90Watt/h .

For me , the real problem is that with the 6 cell battery , the pc would not hold some stress test , and some games ... i'm not sure ...

What do you think about that ?

Sorry for my english :/

 

so basically there are 2 white and black antenna cables that should be pulled out before taking out the mainboard?
im afraid i couldn't assemble em back so many cables @_@

 

My rule of thumb is, if you're uncomfortable, leave it alone.

Bronsky

 

I can't believe this thread went on for such a long time with you thinking this would be an insurmountable problem.

Even without doing anything at all, good thermal paste WOULD fill the gap and the temps would not be out of control... Its called isolation tape BTW.

I don't see what you are saying about it now either. It doesn't touch any part of the CPU at all, does it? So why would you need a shim? The tape is definitely not touching the CPU die and raising the heatsink off the surface.
You simply need some 'goo-gone' or adhesive remover.

 

Yes, it does raise the sink off the CPU so that the raised polished portions of the sinks on the dual core arrandale CPU fit snug up against the surface of the sink that is exposed on the fan assembly and the plastic area takes up the gap that surrounds that mated area. If the QM processor has the same height as the arrandale, it would not be a problem and no shim would be necessary. If not, you would need a shim I think. I would not rely on paste alone to fill the gap and properly transmit heat. I'm still waiting for someone to mate the surfaces and see how they fit.

I don't think this is isolation tape on the CPU. It's not thin and flexible like the isolation tape I have used in the past. This is fairly thick plastic that is bonded on the fan's sink.

Bronsky

 

Dunno if this has been said yet because 3 pages is FAR too much for me to skim / Ctrl+F through, but, the 3820TG has an option in the bios to set the video between Discrete and Switchable.

One would make an assumption that if you were to set that to Discrete, you would not utilize the CPU integrated graphics and could go about doing it that way.

The heat on the other hand, the fan is smaller than that of the GX640 and so is the heatsink (from what I can remember - I had both) and with the GX640 running on a i7 720qm with Zalman STG-2 thermal paste, I would get around 50-60*C idle and around 70-90 on load.

While it may be possible, I wouldnt really recommend a anything more than a i7 640 (and thats just to say "hey, my 13" has an i7") for the 3820tg.

/Rant

P.S.
Dont quote me on this, I have not tried it and I dont really recommend you try it because it is all an assumption based on what I have seen.