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

@zsero Yes my atheros card in my last 3820TG was good. What's the model of the atheros card again? I'm going to order one from ebay.

While the 6200 in my house is good. Traveling its not

 

CRT flickering has nothing to do with VGA dizziness. Obviously on an LCD you don't get CRT flickering, but there are other type of problems you can see, when using a VGA cable. If you look very closely at a pixel by pixel black and white checkerboard, you can see that it's not as "stable" as with DVI. But it mostly depends on the VGA card, expensive cards have much better DACs and thus produce a much more clear and stable picture.

Yes, even DVI might be old too, but the important thing is that it was not designed for devices working on a television/CRT way, but was made for digital signal path from the first moment. In those days, there were even some very expensive CRT monitors for CAD which had DVI input, because even with the most expensive 2D videocards and cables, the manufacturers agreed that it's better to supply a digital signal from the computer, through the cable, and only process the signal inside the monitor, even if the monitor was still a CRT.

3 pieces of Acer 22 inch monitors with cheap TN panels is a thing, but don't try to suggest a VGA cable to anyone who needs monitors for more serious things than home gaming (medical imaging, DCC, 3D graphics, CAD).

Heck I even have a old EIZO monitor (L685, street price of $1,890 in 2002!), which only has two DVI inputs, an no VGA at all.

 

I'm still not trying to say DVI isn't better then VGA. All I'm trying to say is that it seems super far-fetched to get a headache because of VGA unless there is something wrong with the monitor or the cable (maybe with the "piece" of video card your dad had in his computer even).

It is completely obvious that someone with HDMI, DVI, VGA inputs should just go ahead and use HDMI or DVI. And to somehow assume I would try and suggest a VGA cable over digital alternatives is also absurd. While I'm at it, I'll try and talk my friends into using COAX between their HD boxes and their 1080p TV's. If they don't have COAX I'll suggest the obvious upgrade path to Composite.

 

The Intel Centrino Advanced-N blah blah 6200 and the 6300 are supposed to be the two best WLAN PCI cards out now. The range is supposed to be extended from almost all other wifi cards (this based on what I read of them) so why do you experience bad reception and detection while in public vs the Atheros? Maybe driver issue?

I have a 6200 but it's not installed, it will patiently wait for whichever 13" I choose. The Intel 5100 in my Dell is just fine for traveling and at home. Your experience is the first negative I've heard about the 6200 so I am curious.

 

I don't know, I got it from ebay maybe its a clone. But I doubt it as the intel drivers install etc. I will try reinstalling them...But I recall I only just updated them and the wifi at home is like this: (lid closed)

Atheros 3-4 bars 300mbps link
Intel 5 Bars 64-100mbps link
Broadcom 3 bars

So singal wise at home, yes the 6200 is the best. But range, I don't think so.

Traveling its like this

Intel 6200 can't connect to low 2 or less signal AP's
Atheros I used before could.
Broadcom - Not tested traveling.

I'm having real trouble staying on this hotels wifi and thats on 2 bars on signal.

Edit: Yes before I recommend the 6200 that was at home and close by wifi AP's. But traveling and using hotel wifi
I have seen the 6200 is not that good at range or good link speed.

 

buddy, try the atheros!!!!

so much better, i can get so many bars .

in my home alone i can catch five other sources of wifi from others, compared to my intel!


Actually I even posted the same thing a few pages back, that when doing transfers i get a hugeeee increase using the Atheros.. over the intel

way better 1-2mb vs 5-9 with the atheros.


Could if be that a lot of routers out there use atheros chipset? or broadcom and therefore work better?
i havent seen any intel based routers ( do they exist?)

 

Whats the part code of the Atheros? Is it AR5B93 can someone confirm?

 

yep ar5b93

 

I also find that the atheros AR5b93 works better than the 6200N, wasn't happy with the choppy connection so I removed the 6200..haven't looked back since

I finally got my backlit keyboard to sit correctly and finally got rid of the KB flex that was driving me crazy. You know after removing the keyboard so many times, the upper casing racked up a couple of small scratches here and there so I ordered a brand new one (comes with speakers & mic) for 86 bucks US shipped.

Ordered the I7-640M ES, should be receiving it by mon or tues - hopefully it'll work with the current bios.

 

Where did you order the case and speakers from? Can't wait to see the 640M in action. I should have my motherboard back next week and have everything back together.

Takes a lot of time to fit teh KB. Glad you got it right.


Bronsky

 

Hi everyone!

I bought this beast about 2 weeks ago and i'm already fallen in love with her
But i would like to ask some questions if you don't mind:

1.Which is the best way to find maximum stability for GPU OC,currently i'm using ATI tool artifact scan but i don't know how good it is,the thing is that i OC'ed my GPU to 700,1060 and the artifact scan displayed an error in almost every sec but in the other hand furmark was really stable.While i was playing mafia 2 on full the GPU cores max. was 76 Celsius,what do you suggest?

2.is 90 Celsius allright while running artifact scan?

I couldn't be more satisfied with my beast,this is the best choice in price/value!
And thanks for the help you've provided here so far!

Thanks in advance!
All the best!

 

as mentioned before... my Atheros works much better than the 6300 that i've tested.

and such... he is not the only "first negative"

 

Mine is a AR5B97. I have installed the official Acer driver, as I was afraid that Fn + F3 might not work with some other, but as I have just checked my driver version is 9.0.0.173 which is newer than the official one, I think Windows Update might have updated it to a newer one. Anyway Fn + F3 works well, and the signal is reliable.

Update:
Mine is: PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_002E&SUBSYS_E034105B&REV_01

 

You can choose whatever you would like, but I would strongly suggest you to overclock only till ATITool artifact scanning, OCCT GPU, OCCT Memory (still CUDA only?), and Prime95 (for the CPU) is all stable. OC-ing can produce some weird errors, which are hard to diagnose.

 

I get your point, but why could you not believe that someone can get eye-strain when looking at VGA? It's all about who is sensitive to what, for example in the same piece of hardware, someone can not hear "CPU" whine at all, while others could go insane because of the same whine.

OK, just run this test pattern on all the VGA monitors which you would think have a perfect picture, and I am really interested if you see any difference when first starting the pattern. Do not push auto on the OSD, or adjust the settings to the pattern, just start it as it is, and look if the picture looks identical or not to DVI.

http://www.nec-display-solutions.co....zip?e=e3s1&fn=CableCompLongCableSoftware.zip

 

Is the Atheros operating on 'n' 2.4 and 5Ghz while the Intel just on 2.4? Certainly is strange that it caps out at 1/3 of its transfer rating. Another possibility could be it's an ES model which was a problem with earlier shipments of the 6200 and 6300. Guess it's not bad though, no upgrade = less $$ spent!

My Intel 5100 does pretty good in airports and train stations. It's not stellar but blows away my poor Nokia 5800. Identifying networks is never a problem, actually connecting very occasionally can be. On a pure G connection it drops out sometimes but on N it definitely holds its own. This is the home comp though.

Maybe I'll look into returning my 6200 since the 13" will be mainly for travel since the Atheros in the Acer seems reported better and the Asus's card (Azureware) is a major PITA to change out but can be ordered with an upgrade. Thank you all for bringing this up and telling your experience with it!

 

Acer 3820TG i5-430m & Radeon 5470 $699CDN ~$675USD -Staples Canada

This is with a $100 off deal that ends Sept 28. That is serious firepower for under $700!! I hate still being in the collecting pennies phase or I'd have my order placed!!

 

Do you have any advice/tips now that you've done it that will prevent me from having flexing/scratching issues when I fit mine?

 

The one thing I did is leave the packaging plastic on until the KB fitting was done. The other is to have a proper small file (preferably diamond file) that is the same width or smaller than the slots that need to be filed down. Having a file that cuts the slots easily means less fittings. That is where the artistic work seems to be in the fitting process. The plastic tab adjustment is fairly straightforward.

Bronsky

 

To add to bronsky's tips, also file down the side indents and top where the keyboard fits in. Bend the keyboard down in the middle about 10mm will get rid of any keyboard flex.

My second fitted keyboard has no flex, as i bent the keyboard and filed all the tabs and removed and fitted the keyboard about 5 times to get it 100% flat.

Bronsky, I might have a i5 580 if the seller agrees to my offer. Will be interesting to see what she clocks to.

 

Hi all, I just got a 3820TG with i5 460 and I love it. There's just one thing that I can't get to work, so I'd be happy if you could help me out.

When ATI video card is active, I can use my external 22" LCD monitor through HDMI port fine. When I switch to internal graphics, my monitor doesn't register at all and I can only get picture on the laptop's monitor.

Since I don't have a VGA cable, I can't check if VGA works. Does anyone know if the internal video chip does support HDMI video out? Am I missing anything?

 

It because the HDMI only works with ATi, it won't work with Intel...

 

I have been looking at the 3820tg for at while, and almost decieded to buy one

My question might be a bit odd, but how can you know if it is a silver colored back on the lid or the black one?? Is there any way to know that? I have seen alot of pictures on the web with black lid, but when I saw the 3820tg-5454G32n in a store, it was with a silver lid?! The core i3 the store had was black?

Might be a girly thing, but I really like the black lid over the silver one.

 

It's not just a girly thing (or at least I hope not ) as I prefer the black to the silver. Some retailers will list the color in the add. I know that Computeruniverse does. If you order from PCHome, they have all been silver as far as I know.

Bronksy

 

I am considering one of these with the i3 cpu and 5650 gpu, can anyone tell me how well this games? main use for me

 

Hey there, I'm also thinking of buying an 3820TG.

But as I am coming from the Envy14, I'm really upset about one thing: that fearsome CPU/capacitor/whatever whine.

I had two units of the Envy14, both giving me insta-headaches with their high pitched noise. Especially when transfering data via USB/eSata it got unbearable.

Since I read that this not a HP specific mistake, I'm wondering if the 3820 Series is also "infected" with this issue.

I know it's quite subjectiv (I'm seem to be hyper sensitive to that, my mates didnt even notice it), but are there lots of 3820 users explaining about whining laptops?

 

It will for sure. I loved the 540M in my 3820TG for the short time I had to play with it. It had so much power that it felt like a completely different machine. I was particularly pleased to learn that I had a SLG8LV595V clockgen in there becuase SetFSB had a specific definition for my clockgen. I was using one in the same family and getting really good results. I think that I can get it to remain stable at a higher OC using the new definition. I can't wait to get it back to tinker with it.

My motherboard arrived at Shark Technology yesterday (I have USPS confirmation). Hopefully, it won't take them too long to fix it and get it back to me. It only took 4 days to get to Shenzen, China from the East Coast US. Why does it take so long from Germany?

If it can't be repaired, at least I'll know soon and can order a replacement unit from PCHone in Taiwan or one of the Canadian retailers who are getting the units in this week. I hope they can repair my unit. I would like to keep my original notebook.

Bronsky

@all - oh on the keyboard issue ... DO NOT USE DOUBLE SIDED TAPE. It pulls the back off the backlit keyboard. Luckily, I saw this as soon as I popped the clips on the board and was able to carefully lift it, but double sided tape is not an option on the KB. There is a seller in the US who has these now for under $20 and free shipping by priority mail in the continental US.

@Nesetel - I have never heard any whine from the CPU, the USB ports or anywhere. I think there have been a few reports but only a few. If you are sentistive to this, you might want to make sure you order from someone close to you in case you need to return it. You don't hear vioces when you hear this high pitched whine do you?

 

any idea on gaming on this little thing? lol with 5650 gpu

 

I have GTA IV, runs well on 1366x768 with everything maxed out.

3820TG in action - from the first post:

YouTube - Acer TimelineX 3820TG Resident Evil 5 benchmark ATI 5650

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

YouTube - Acer 3820TG / ATI 5650 BattleField Bad Company 2 1080p HDMI out test

- credits to Hendrickson -

Check out zsero's signature, I think he experiences the same thing as You did.

AFAIK other users didn't report such problem regarding the 3820TG.

 

Ther Acer uses a hardware GPIO to enable/disable the wlan card.

This GPIO is controlled by the EC and the launch manager application.

The driver version is not important.

 

cool, do you think you could do a gta video? thats my fav game

kiskapu I meant

 

do you know how hot the cpu/gpu got? I had laptops in the past and gta iv almost melted them , haha

 

Currently deciding between this and the Asus U35CJ... leaning towards this because of the gaming capabilities though. A couple of questions: how is the fan noise when it's idling? Light use? And during heavy load? And how "bad" is the keyboard really? I've read some worrying reports that it's squeaky and noisy. Is this a big problem? The laptop will be used in a mostly noise-free environment (study hall, library, etc), so it's kinda important that it's as quiet as possible.

 

Hey all

What a great source of information this is! =)

Well, I have a problem which I haven't been able to find any information about...

When I hoook up my Philips 244E monitor to the VGA output, the monitor starts to blink on and off every minute or so, until it finally freezes. Even after unplugging the cable, the monitor stays frozen, and I actually have to disconnect the power to get back into contact with it.

I've never seen anything like it, and when I use the HDMI connection to the same monitor, there are no problems at all. I thought the monitor had a defective VGA input at first, but it turns out to be running fine on my other computer through the same cable.

I've updated the drivers and all that jazz to see if it had an impact, but it doesn't change anything. I noticed that the monitor is detected as a 75hz device, so I tried changing that to 60hz just for the sake of having tried everything, but that didn't change anything either...

Has anyone experienced the same thing as what I'm seeing here? Any ideas as to what's most likely to be causing the problem?

Thanks in advance =)

Drezn

 

Nestel, let me quote "cloneman" from SPCR about this laptop:

It does have a slight whine, but it's muh more quiet than for example the WD 5400 RPM hard drive in it. It's 100x times more quiet than my X61 was.

 

OK, so it is kind of powering off the whole slot? I could have put any kind of card in and it will power off with Fn + F3?

 

It is very very quiet. The keyboard is just awful. Mine had flex (service fixed it for me), it's only sensitive at the middle, for example I always have to push F4 in Ctrl + F4 many times till it recognises, and on some keys including "space" it started producing a squeking noise. I might need to take the KB out, and apply some WD40 to it. It's less than a month old...

But it's really really powerful, when overclocked, it's faster then a i7 620m (the strongest Macbook Pro available), it's quiet, and has a powerful VGA.

 

Look back the last 10 pages about my opinion about VGA cable. Do yourself a favor, and use HDMI and never look back. Buy thick HDMI cable from any known brand, and you will not have problems up to 15m distance.

 

Sure thing.

These are my temps after like 1.5 hours of GTA IV:



Note that I use a Notepal X2 notebook cooler. Temps are monitored with HWMonitor and Realtemp.

Realtemp's log shows that the cores run for like 2 minutes on the recorded max temps, avarege temps are 74/79 C, max CPU load was 85%, avarege CPU load is like 70%.

The HD5650 never ran hotter than 72 C.

 

And what about the other slot?

 

So...
Intel 6200/6300 or Atheros AR5B93 ?

 

No not the whole slot. The wlan cards have a few special pins for enable/disable and the wlan LED, these pins are used to switch off the wlan card.

Just have a look at the pci-express papers.

 

Ok so I am a dummy, but could use some advice. So on Tuesday I spilled coffee into my keyboard on my brand new 3820tg. Freaked out, took the laptop apart and removed any liquid that had gotten through. There was a little near the right side fan and one of the lower connectors. After drying everything off I reassembled the laptop and attempted to fire it up. The machine booted fine but I was unable to key in my password because it seemed the keys were not dry yet. I attempted to clean the keys with alcohol and let it dry in rice for a day but that keyboard is definitely dead delete, backspace and a few other keys will not come back. I removed the keyboard and used an USB keyboard then rebooted. Everything seems to be fine I seem to have no issues whatsoever inclusive of installing Liquidkaos' keyboard from his 3820tg testing all the keys all of which worked great. So I ordered a keyboard from one of the ebay sites that another forum member used. When that keyboard arrived a whole different set of keys from my original keyboard did not work. Is it possible that I burned a small section of my keyboard connector or is it more likely that I just received a bad keyboard from the vendor? I am stressing sorry for the wordiness.

 

The slot is never switched off, only the device.

But it should be possible to deactivate the lane, but why?

 

So liquidkaos' keyboard worked fine? Try the keyboard you ordered in liquidkaos' laptop, and see if it works.

if it works in his, and his keyboard works in yours, just make a trade.

 

Just be sure, that the connector fit exactly. It's hard to burn only one signal path on the keyboard, mostly you burn it all or nothing.

 

Is the HDMI via intel graphics a hardware issue or software issue? I am trying to use the HDMI port on the 3820TG when in intel graphics mode. I think this is useful if you need to do a presentation watch a movie etc etc, don't have and AC adapter and need to save power.

I know the VGA port still works for that but why can't they do it for the HDMI port too! especially if you are running it to a HDTV, instead of running an audio cable along side.

 

The problem are hardware cost and development time.

 

Thanks for the reply zsero.

I'm not trying to decide whether to use VGA or HDMI since the better choice is rather obvious. I do move around a lot at school though, and the preferred method of connecting to the projectors there is through VGA cables. If this is most likely a hardware malfunction, I'd probably return the unit for a refund since it's still brand new. I wouldn't want to wait for a couple of months only to have to send it in for repairs, if it could already be decided now with a fair amount of certainty that the laptop is to blame

Could this be a signal strength issue perhaps? I don't know much about VGA outputs, but I'm thinking that if the current is too strong, it might crash the monitor. On the other hand, if it's too weak, the monitor might lose the connection or something, forcing it to reboot...

 

Well the thing I loved about my 1810T was that I was able to run HDMI and watch a movie and still have about 4-5 hours of battery life, surfing on an HDTV with sound and everything.

With the switchable graphics on ATI and HDMI, there's no way to get that kind of battery life anymore and you always have to carrry around the power brick...