Acer TimelineX 3820TG Owners Lounge. Info, benchmarks, tweaks, mods and upgrades

System specs.
i5-420M to i7-620m processor*
13.3-inch display with a resolution of 1366×768 pixels,
Switchable ATi Radeon HD 5650 graphics
4GB of DDR3 RAM
640GB of hard drive
Atheros Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (Can do 300mbit/s)
Bluetooth 2.1 or 3.0*
3 x USB 2.0 ports
100/100/1000 Lan
Multi card reader
6 or 9-cell battery*
8 to 12 hours of battery life.
Windows 7 Home Premium

*Various according to spec.

My mini review:

Display:

I was expecting a dull and dark display reading some reviews, However the display is bright and the colors aregood. While it could be brighter its certainly not the worst display I have seen in terms of brightness. Its very reflective, so using this is direct sunlight or bright environments would be difficult. Vertical viewing angles are average. The screens response time seems very quick. I don't feel let down by the display.

Touch pad:

The touch pad is good, multi touch gestures make it easy to scroll down webpages etc. No complaints in this dept. The single styled mouse button has good feedback and isn't loud.

CPU/GPU Performance

For a 13.3 thin and light notebook this unit exceeds in this department, even the i5 430m preforms very well. No notacible lag and
with 4GB of ram its plenty for most users needs. The ATI 5650 is excellent, the performance is top of its class for a notebook this size. It also loves to be overclocked and this further increases the frame rates in game and 3d applications.

Keyboard:

Acer's floating style keys and keyboard take some getting use too. The style of the keys is prone to dust and muck getting in underneath them. Nothing a quick vacuum couldn't fix however. There is a small amount of keyboard flex.

Connectivity

With 3 x USB2 ports, HDMI, bluetooth 2.1, gigabit LAN, N wireless its well covered. The wireless card running on my N wireless network runs at 300Mbps flat whereas my P6831's Intel 5300 AGN connects between 200 - 300 Mbps.

Portability:

At 1.8 kilos or (3.9 lbs) this isn't the lightest 13.3 notebook, but its still an acceptable weight for its thin size and fits into a backpack
or briefcase no worries.

Heat management

My 3820TG running the i5 430m runs cool and temps are around 77-81 degrees on the CPU and maximum 82 degrees on the when running Furmark and prime95. Normal gaming the GPU normally sits at around 73 - 74 degrees. Office use the CPU is around 44-50 degrees. The exhaust ports are hot to the touch when gaming and using furmark.

All in all its a cool running unit even when the GPU is overclocked. Fans rarely make much noise at all and the system is very quite. (Compared to my gate P6831fx) Note I'm running bios 1.13, other bios might have more aggressive fan profiles, I haven't tried them. The fans only kick up in speed after playing demanding games like Battlefield BC2 etc. The the seem to pump out the heat nicely.

----

Pros:

Light weight, good size and very powerful for its size. Runs cool. Good build quality. Great battery life around 7 hours surfing the web.

Cons:

No eSata or USB3, glossy LCD. Finger print magnet, specially black the Aluminum lid.

Drivers if going a clean Windows install:

All drivers can be found here Acer Europe - Service & Support, Drivers & Utilities, Downloads Search under notebook then Aspire and find the 3820TG.

Latest Realtek HD audio driver: http://www.realtek.com/Downloads/do...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

Latest ATI 5650 catalyst drivers (Fixes PCI-E x1 issue

Over-clocking the 3820TG ATI 5650 GPU

Since the 3820TG features a ATI 5650 1GB graphics card that loves to be overclocked, why not boost up the GPU and RAM clock speeds a bit for a nice increase in FPS during those gaming sessions.

AMD GPU clock Tool is used for increasing the clock speeds from default. (Use version 0.9.26+) Read this post from Mac on how to overclock the gpu on start up.

Around 650 core clock and 950 ram is considered a safe over clock. I run 670 / 1040 personally, your GPU may or may not support these clock rates. If you see glitches or the system locks up. Lower the speed.

Over-clocking the i5/i7 CPU

Yes its possible on some units and depends on which clockgen Acer used. So its random. Using SetFsb newest version and selecting the AsusG73jh clockgen or try the freeware version, and use ICS9LPRS365BGLF. if you don't get an error when clocking get FSB. You can overclock. PLL error = you have a locked TME clockgen.

You can reach speeds of around 3.3+ Ghz (turbo) I have seen on the i5 450m CPU's. I5 520-540m's and i7 620m's don't seem to overclock as much. The higher the stock clock = less FSB you can push. Ram timing on the i5 5xxm & i7's might have something to do with this.

More details on overclocking and the results here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...rks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-249.html#post6523078

Benchmarks
My 3820TG has the i5 430m.

Windows 7 rating after fresh install (Stock)


3Dmark06 stock clocks on 10.5 Catalyst drivers



3Dmark06 OC @ 680 / 1065 clocks



OCZ 120GB vertex upgrade:





Stalker overclocked GPU



Heaven 2.1 benchmark results:



Resident Evil 5 fixed benchmark - Default game settings.



PC Mark Vantage stock and overclocked scores (Not this is with a SSD not the stock HDD)

Common issues and solutions

Poor 3d performance / PCI-E runs at only x1 not x16. Installing the latest ATI Catalyst drives fixes this. See below:

Installing the latest ATI 5650 catalyst drivers. First make sure you install the stock Acer ATI vga driver. And then Intel HD Graphics driver. Then go into the systems bios (F2 on boot) and set the vga mode to discrete in the second screen. (See screenshot below) Install the newest ATI driver over the top of the existing and then reboot the notebook. Go back into the bios and change the options back to switchable.



Upgrading components

The bottom access panel gives you easy access to the hard drive, ram modules and wireless adapter. So upgrading the hard drive to an SSD or swapping the atheros wifi card for an Intel 6200 AGN is very easy.

Kindan has posted a great guide here on upgrading the CPU with photos and pdf guide.

• http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...tg-new-ssd-hdd-photos-inside.html#post6311199

Modding

3820TG Keyboard swap and backlit mod (With on and off)

Make that 3820TG glossy screen look and act like a matte screen with an anti-Glare matte screen protector semi-mod

Videos of my 3820TG in action

YouTube - Acer TimelineX 3820TG Battlefield Bad Company 2 - ATI 5650 benchmark [HD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LmErx2iun8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G36MiwZNWVA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGExHM0yr_Y

Good protective case for the 3820TG

A popular case is the ZeroShock III

More info and buy links here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...arks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-50.html#post6359996

Some photos are requested...




Buying a 3820TG from Germany

Bronksy has posted a good write up on buying a 3820TG from German and whats needed to get it running in English etc. Read about that here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...rks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-162.html#post6465732

 

Please post the LCD panel ID whenever possible. Interested in seeing if you got the most common AUO panel - or something else.

 

I have an AUO panel (AUO322C)

 

Yap, typing mistake on my side, ment AUO.

 

Can post pictures of how you see the screen with the brightness max?
I want to see pictures of your baby

the manuals are multi5 language? or only germany

thanks!!

I have NVIDIA xD

 

heavy o/c 3dmark06 score would be awesome , can you try bad company 2 and post fps under o/c and settings plz congrats on your new baby lol

 

Yes they are in many European langauges (English,Spanish etc). And I can't get a good photo of the screen brightness as the camera senor always adjusts to the screen and the background looks dark. I'll try again soon.

I just got almost 8800 3dmarks with 650 / 1050 overclock This is with firefox open and other stuff running too.



I will test bad company 2 when I get steam installed and download the 6GB....

 

not bad not bad, why do you think i7 would be running much hotter? its the same 35W like i5 is it cause higher clock? The temps seem quite safe as you say, i think you could push it up to 10k like some guy did with 4820 that had single cooling fan for both cpu and gpu. Let us know everything hows the battery during wifi browsing/listening to music ? do you have the HSDPA in your 3820tg?

 

Looks good so far. Doing a clean install, what drivers did you install? The acer-europe driver site lists many drivers for the 3820TG, I don't think all of them are applicable (there are 3 3G drivers and 4 WLAN drivers ).

Edit: Also, could you post an in depth guide on overclocking the 5650, with temp comparisons and other possible cons of overclocking. I mean, if there's no cons to overclocking, why do manufacturers gimp their own products?

 

I installed the latest ACHI intel drivers, chipset and turbo boost driver. Sound card and card reader later. Also downloaded 10.5 Ati drivers and installed them.

I've clocked my gfx to 660 / 1060 without any issues and got 8860 points. Its very easy with the ATI GPU tool, just set that clocks speeds and your away. So far the GPU temps are nothing short of amazing with such an overclock.

Whats your windows experience rating? I think my ram is low at 5.9?

Also I can't get the HDMI to output audio any ideas?

 

Why choose 660/1060? Seems pretty arbitrary to me, sorry for not knowing much. As for the rating, my unit has yet to leave the warehouse, but I imagine the low rating is due to the clockspeed of the ram being low (by today's standards) at 1066Mhz. I'd imagine faster speeds of laptop memory would be expensive though. Personally I don't think the investment is worth the return, but it you're going with an SSD, and upgrading to an i7, and want the absolute best, I guess it's shopping time?

Edit: As for HDMI audio, maybe you have the install the realtek audio drivers as well?

 

650/1050 is pretty stable so far, 660/1060 seem good too. I will just keep pushing it till i find a good overclock. I might stick with 650 / 1050 for now. Need to test in same games some more. Just installing GTA IV now in order to do just that

As for the ram I wouldn't upgrade it, I jsut thought it was getting 6.2 or something in other reviews. Mines slower?

I've installed the realtec drivers and the sound works, just not via the HDMI. I will try and find a newer driver

 

when you connect an external monitor/tv via hdmi, go to your sound control panel and set your hdmi device as the default for sound output

 

I'm fairly sure you should be able to get 750-800MHz from the core, you already got memory higher than I expected though! My HD5730 will do 810/1110Mhz stable, and the chip is the same - only different Core clock.

 

How much did you pay for this machine hendrickson? I really wanna get one of these...

 

For hdmi audo out, try to right click in the volume icon, and click playback device(no se el nombre exacto mi w7en spanish) and option ATI HDMI OUTPUT by default

on my lcd I have to switch this if you want the hdmi output, if you do not see this option, maybe try to install ATI HDMI Driver

 

Really that high, hmmm I guess its time to push the envelope. Just out of interested I see that setfsb also detected my bus speed correctly @ 133 Things could get interesting...

I guess around 1080 USD more or less delivered, Note that im in the EU so no extra tax on top of the German VAT and cheaper delivery.

Tried that, it shows the HDMI but its disabled Can't enable it, what am I doing wrong here !?

 

Did you install the ATI HDMI Audio Driver? It's part of the Catalyst Driver Package, but maybe you have to choose a user defined-installation instead of express in order to install this driver.

 

Oh no didn't see that, that will be the issue I did the express install. Thanks! I will get it sorted

 

Try

ATI Catalyst? HDMI Audio Driver

 

Taking into account that both i5 430m, 520m, 540m all are tdp 35w

in that case should be posibility overclocking the 430m @ 2.93 or more?

Mmm could we awesome i5 430@2,93 and gpu 750-775/1100...

 

I got a question regarding overclocking: MSI Afterburn has a limitation for memory clock at 1040Mhz, is there any chance to extend that limit?

 

I've gotten setfsb to detect the bus speed correctly however setting the new bus speed results in a lock up. But someone has got this working as I've seen i5 430m's running 300Mhz higher (144 bus). I say its possible and a nice free boost.

The author of setfsb needs the correct ICS chip id, only way to find out is a motherboard photo or when i get around to opening this unit up.

As far as the GPU: I have clocked 710 Mhz core and 1040 memory stable running furmark for 15 minutes. Temps hit 82-83 degrees and sat between that. Further testing is required to see its 100% stable after say 3 hours of bad company 2.

MSI afterburner detects the card, however you can't set teh clocks. ATI GPU tool is working just fine.

My HDMI no audio issue seems to be the 10.5 cat driver. I will have to go with the stock Acer driver for now till i find a fix.

 

That is one heck of an improvement in 3dMark you got. Does anyone know if AMD GPU Clock Tool will work with my 5450?

 

Double post

 

Is really very good mark for this time, and see the real temp with the games, for that furmark is the big stress gpu

this thread promised, congrats for this smallbig machine

 

this is one sexy machine!! can anyone tell me if it will be possible to upgrade the 15inch version with a better screen?

 

finally your keyboard is in English, or German characters?
style

http://www.onepoyle.net/german/support/german-keyboard.gif

 

@hendrickson - Very nice work with this thread. It might be helpful to new users who will be doing a clean install if you would link your sources for the drivers that will be needed after the clean install, like they have done in the 1410/1810 tweaks thread.

Are you seeing any anomolies (i.e., small black dots, etc?) with the OC'ed speeds you have set on your card? Any freezing? Are you running stability testing between resets? The HD5650 seems to OC quite well.

I'm probably calling Singapore tonight. I'll let you know what I find out.

Bronsky

@abaddon4180 you should have no problem using the ATI GPU tool on your DM4T. I would be interested to see how well it works. So would prospective Envy owners.

 

Congratulations Hendrickson for Your lappy!

Nice thread too!

My RAM is 5.9 too, HDD is ranked 5.6 though.

HDMI works fine here.

GTA IV runs fluently with standard clockrates on 1366x768 all HIGH, Max CPU temp 84 C / 87 C, max GPU temp 65 C.

Screen panel is AUO for me too.

 

Where/when can I purchase this laptop in the US?

 

So far nowhere I'm afraid, check on the Official Arrendale Timeline Thread, they're trying to find any retailers who would ship these babies to the US.

 

I've found that 670 / 1050 is pretty good. almost 2 hours of GTA IV on high and GPU temp is 73-74 degrees. No artifacts or glitches . Running the core @ 680+ seems to crash after a few minutes in games but not Furmark...

I'll get some driver links up asap.

Solved my audio issues: Seems my HDMI cable I was using isn't up to the job. Its not able to output audio only video.

I used my gold plated Panasonic one and it works just fine

 

what 3dmark06 score do you get with those clock speeds? also have you FRAPS GTA4 for fps on high settings with 4star police chase same for bad company 2 plz ;] mate im so jealous (;

 

Maybe a video playng gtaIV?

 

On the high settings its around 24-20fps. When there is alot going on it lags, drops to like 15 fps . Lowering the view distances or settings to medium its very smooth then and higher fps. I'm about to install an SSD so i can't test it again. But i think with medium settings its like 35-40fps. Very playable.

If i get time and when I get it back up and running. About to install an OCZ vertex 120GB


P.S overclocked I got just over 9000 3dmark06 points, so the higher CPU would get 10,000 points easy.

 

I have just registered to post because of this little beast! I am so much looking into buying him in the near future (I am in Europe), I am actually planning to put a 80 GB Intel G2 SSD in it, and selling both my Thinkpad X61 and a 3.6 Ghz overclocked quad-core desktop (quite a crazy decision, I know).

My only question is:
- Does anyone know anything about the temperatures/loudness of the 620m compared to the 450m in this laptop? They have the same TDP, so I don't understand the whole issue, that why would it be hotter by 10 degrees? Silent running is very important for me, I would not choose 620m if it would need a constant running fan. Would you recommend against getting the 620m over the 450m (if I ever see it)?
- Crazy question:
Is anyone willing to look into how could we hack a matte xVA or AFFS screen in this? For example with Thinkpad X60 and X200 series there was a strong community action researching how to find a fitting screen, make custom cable and flash the BIOS (only if the resolution was different). This way anyone can retrofit almost all X models with matte AFFS screen. As I see 1366x768 in 13.4 inch is not such a nice resolution, as I did not find any quality panel after a quick google search, but I might have missed things.

 

Hi Zsero, welcome to the forums. Using the intel HD graphics is very quite and you can't even hear it. Even with the ATI 5650 active you only hear the fans under heavy load. Normal desktop usage its hard to hear them.

Yes the TDP is the same of 35w. But I guess the higher speed generates much more heat?

For the moment I'm sticking with my i5 430m, if I can overclock a little. I wouldn't bother with upgrading it to a i7 620m.

There might be a matte screen that would fit, but the cables would be an issue. 1366x768 me is perfect in 12" and 13" notebooks. Any higher for me is just to small. I hate adjusting DPI to make the text bigger.

 

Have anyone tried running Ubuntu or some other linux-dist on the 3820tg?

Thanks!

 

I want this notebook, but I'm very afraid about the Display - I am okay with it being Glossy, but I've been told that it has horrible viewing angles, contrast, saturation and brightness levels... gahh.

The second thing I have heard is that the keyboard is very poor, and if your a person who type a lot, it's ill advised to buy the 3820 Notebook. The notebookcheck review talks about "yielding". Gaaaaahhhhhh...

Can anyone confirm, or explain these statements to me?

 

Personal opinion I guess. Depends how fussy you are. I'm a little fussy. For me my 3820TG screen has better color and brightness than my P6831fx next to it.

View angles are fine, not wonderful. But good. After tweaking the display its good. While its no Sony Vaio screen. I'm 100% happy with it and it is better than I expected. Like you, I expected a super dull 0% view angle screen reading the reviews.

On the downside it is reflective as hell, like all glossy screens.... So dont try use it outside.

The keyboard is acceptable in my books. A little flex but ok. Its no thinkpad keyboard. I would give it 7/10. Takes a little to get use too. 10 being the best thinkpad keyboard you can get.

 

I'd say the fan noise is definitely more audible than on the Asus UL30VT that I recently got rid of. It's not obtrusive, but it could have been better. (Or maybe I've just been spoiled by the extremely quiet operation of the UL30VT.) Getting into some heavier work, the fan definitely makes itself heard, though, but that's to be expected. I don't mind noise when I'm playing games. Also, on the UL30VT the fan noise was just a smooth wooshing sound. The 3820TG has a little more tone in the fan noise, if you know what I mean. But it's not bad. I am very concerned about noise, and I can live with this, so you should be ok. I returned the Alienware M11x because of fan noise, though. That was a nightmare. The fan was spinning up and stayed on turbo for no apparent reason at all, and the CPU was practically freezing.

35w TDP doesn't mean exactly that the CPU consumes 35w. It means that the cooling system must be able to dissipate 35w of heat to keep the CPU running safely. I guess Intel set the same TDP rating for both i5 and i7 (and i3?) even though their actual power consumption vary. Higher clock rate on the same architecture generally equals higher power consumption equals more heat. Read more about TDP.

By the way, Hendricksen, did you get a nice picture with HDMI at 1080p?

 

Vertical viewing angles are poor. This is very obvious in dark scenes in games and video, where the colors invert slightly in the corners. Contrast is nothing to shout about either. Blacks are generally a little too gray for my tastes. Bright scenes look ok, though. I'd say the display is just as poor as on the Asus UL30VT.

I found out about the HP Envy 14 just after I ordered my 3820TG. Got the 3820TG 5 days ago, so I've still got 9 days to decide whether I want to keep it. I'm seriously considering returning it and get an Envy 14. A 14,5" 1600x900 display with 350nit sure is tempting. The display is definitely the biggest con of the 3820TG.

 

FYI 100% confirmed here its a removable CPU..Upgradeable

 

Just ran 3dMark06, and I only got 6970 points. I have the i5-430m/5650 combo, so exactly the same as Hendrickson. I've heard there was an issue with PCI-e only using one lane instead of 16, but checking Everest everything seems to be in order:



This was both before during and after running 3dMark06. Compare with the screenshot from the review at notebookjournal.de where they discussed this problem. What am I missing?

 

I'm running bios 1.13, so the fans maybe different. Also I'm used to my gateway which is loud when its underload. Compared to that this is so quite.

I heard about the M11x, apparently it fans really make a lot of noise underload and don't tend to slow down much after that. For me the ALienware is a brick of a 11" notebook. Way to fat and heavy for travel. Its butt ugly too

 

Read my first post of this thread there is the fix

edit: might as well post it here for you

Common issues and solutions

Poor 3d performance / PCI-E runs at only x1 not x16. Installing the latest ATI Catalyst drives fixes this. See below:

Installing the latest ATI 5650 catalyst drivers. First much sure you install the stock Acer ATI vga driver. Then go into the systems bios (F2 on boot) and set the vga mode to discrete in the second screen. (See screenshot below) Install the driver and then reboot and go back into the bios and change the options back to switchable.

 

I think you should add another section to your review, "How to upgrade your CPU: Coming Soon"

 

Yes, I knew about that, but thanks anyway. What I was wondering is why does Everest say it runs @16x? I was expecting to see 1x, since I got the mediocre 3dMark score. But I'll update drivers and BIOS now and report back how it went.

 

The new Arrandales will be out in Q3. Would be interesting to put an I5-580M in there or an I7-640M. You think there will be bios issues?

Bronsky

BTW, spoke to Singapore this morning (never thought about calling them when I woke up - DUH! ). Verizon took international blocker off with a simple call. Waiting for an email from them so we can exchange address/shipping information to see if shipping to the US is possible and pricing. The person on the phone was very helpful. BTW, everybody in my company thinks I'm completely out of my mind, trying to order a laptop from half-way around the world.