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

Guys its not hard, as per the first page... I've posted how to get the lastest 10.5 Cat ATI driver.


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.

 

Is there a way to update the Intel VGA driver?

And how can I select the Intel VGA as the default VGA device after a reboot?

I need the ATI only for games at the moment.

Thanks

 

nice case! how much did it cost you (in EUR) including delivery?
i'm planning to get mine here ( ZeroShock III Laptop Case 12.1-13.3" - Black - GearZap.com) and can get it VAT free so it will cost me roughly EUR 18.
can't wait for july to get my hands on my 3820.

 

Thanks for the configuration file

 

Hey!

Do anyone know if the 9-cell battery is for sale, and if it will fit with the 3820T, aswell with the 3820TG?

 

both 3820tg and 3820t looks same it just with and without additional graphic cards so yes it will fit for both of them.

 

here's a bunch of listings for the core i5 version in the UK. Notice they have the 9 cell battery, although it's coupled with a 430m and a 5470.

LX.PTB02.015 ACER TIMELINE AS3820TG 13 3 INCH i5 430M 4GB 640GB NO ODD WINDOWS 7 PREMIUM LX PTB02 015 Laptops Notebooks
Acer Aspire Timeline 3820TG Core i5 Laptop LX.PTB02.015 - Acer Direct
Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG LX.PTB02.015


and here's the almost same model in Germany, but with a 6 cell battery and a 5650...

http://www.amazon.de/Acer-Timeline-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=ce-de&qid=1276765063&sr=8-1

It seems you can either go for a 9 cell battery and get a lesser gpu, or the other way around. Acer confounds me every time...

 

anyone found the 3820tg for sale in the uk, with a 5650?

 

Any hardcore gamer player gaming 3-4 hours in a row for a few days? I've seen this computer in a shop its so thin I can't believe it will run Wow Ultra for hours on end without overheating.

 

Same problem here, with one exeption: i can switch "one time" from ati to intel, but i cannot switch back to ati without getting "switching the graphics processors cannot be performed at this time due to the current display configuration" error

Switching-Window looks like:



No Settings available

Any idea?


Clean Windows 7 Prof. 64bit
Powerplay is turned off
Acer Driver installed

 

I am getting fairly poor reception on Wifi when connecting to a Wirless N network. My old Dell Latitude D820 gets a full signal, the 3820TG gets 3 or 4 bars (mainly 3) in the same place.

When I move elsewhere in the house the signal gets a lot worse, even my phone gets a better signal (Nexus one).

I can't find an updated driver for the Atheros & can only assume that it is a very low performance device to keep the power consumption down.

Anyone else seeing a similar problem ?

Other than that it is an excellent PC, great speed & very good battery.

 

i am using DIR-855. no issue with wireless N

 

alternative method, disable it via the device manager instead.

 

Do you have an external screen configured? Switching just works if you're using the notebooks screen.

If that's not the problem... does restoring factory results via ATI CCC help?

Perhaps something is wrong with your 3820's antennas

 

Will try that, but i think the problem is, after switching via tool, the ati card is no more available in the device manager. Looks like completely uninstalled.

Yes, it's a external screen configured, but even without it's not possible to switch back via tool (will try with device manager).
And the clean installation of windows + drivers should be factory-settings or am i wrong?

 

Even if you pull the monitor cable? Did switching work before you did the clean installation? There's a "Defaults"-button in ATI Control Center...

I'm still haggling with myself if I should do a clean Win7 installation

 

The problem appeard before i plugged in the external monitor, so a second monitor isn't the primary problem... dunno why the problem ditn't exist with the acer-factory-windows...

 

Is the Wlan 5GHz capable?

 

I played about 4 hours straight of Fallout 3 yesterday, but that's not really a new game. Neither that nor Mass Effect 2 produced much heat.

 

Hi guys. I am a new owner of the 3820TG. I read all 50 pages and still not know what is wrong.I did everything you wrote.Your link for latest ATI 5650 seems to be 10.6 but when i instal them the ati driver is 8.713.3.3000. You have other link? You can help me?
Is strange but release notes from ATI site is about version 10.5 and driver is 8.732.

 

if you read the specs of it... no.

2.4GHz @ 300Mbps

 

hmm.. mine is...

Intel HD doesn't work with external display device.

Switched to it, my external monitor couldn't detect its existence...

revert back to ATi.. no issues.

 

Hm, Catalyst 10.5 contains driver 8.732 and runs without any problems on my 3820.

Yesterday ATI released 10.6 with driver version 8.741... but I didn't test it yet.

This works as designed... external screens are not supported while on IGP.

 

My findings:

just download and install the latest drivers provided by Acer will do.

you will get @ x 16 as well.

no point going for the latest 1 at ATi site and disable your ability to switch GPU - or rather gives issues while switching

 

^ figured that too, acer's ati driver on their website is just the same as the amd 10-5 catalyst. but i will try the new 10-6 later

 

seems that acer have also updated their drivers on their site, new one is version 8.73 dated 06/09/10

 

Only the old analog port is connected to the Intel GK. The HDMI port is only connected to the ATI.

 

What bout us with the 3820T model, without the ATI? I will get mine in a few days, and i really hope the hdmi is connected to something

 

No, the HDMI ends in free space.

I don't know but the Intel VGA is able to use a HDMI port.

 

Catalyst 10.6 (driver 8.741.0.0) rocks... still no overclocking

 

^ could you try overclocking your gpu to around 600/1000 and see the result?

that's pretty high for a raw score..

 

Here we go

GPU@600/1000... what was your clock for the 9214 points

 

There is no 3920tg with bluetooth and 3G modem in my country. Is any possibility to add them on my own? It could be only one of them...

 

nice score!
i clocked mine @ 650/1050. try that clock rate

 

The bluetooth looks like it would be easy to add. Anybody selling 3.0 modules yet for the 3820T on ebay?

 

Your i7 wins... but it's pretty close

What's your cpu score?

 

dunno what my cpu score is haha, here's my 3dmark score.

 

Its 3037 (your CPU score).

 

^ haha thanks mate

 

The i7 definitely makes you win (~10% in cpu score).

But my SM 2.0 & 3.0 scores are higher

What's your driver version? Try Catalyst 10.6... and your score will increase

 

^ i used 10-5 during that test.
will try out the new driver later and see what happens

just a quick question, would an SSD make load time, fps etc faster/higher with games/general performance? how's acer's performance with gta4? is that game heavier than BFBC2?

 

Oh i dont know why I didn't do this before. But my theory was correct. My backlit mod is almost perfect. You can disable it

Going into device manager and right clicking realtek hd audio, select disable and the backlit keyboard turns off. Enabling it again it turns on No reboots required.

Of course when its off you have no sound. But for an ultimate battery life, doing this will help things.

More happy now bronsky?

 

I think, its part of the motherboard. At least it looked to be on mine.

Try 680 / 1060. Thats the highest I can get with no artifacts on the GFX...Ram over 1070 seems unstable after 1-2 hours of BFBC2.

 

^ OK i'll try that with the old driver, then the new one and see the difference

 

I want to know, does the 3820TG comes with any turbo memory installed? If not, will it benefit from having turbo memory installed? Also, by installing turbo memory, what does it inhibit us from installing?

 

Can anyone estimate how much the TimelineX 3820TG will cost in America? I've seen all types of different prices in other countries, but wondering if anyone was able to find pricing info in the U.S.

 

You would know better than me. I though it was a module on the mobo but I was looking at pics.

The sound control is cool. I'm a control freak.

I'm starting to think that everybody on the face of the planet has one of these except me. I keep waiting to log on and read the message that says these are available on Amazon. It will probably be ordered 10 min later.

By the time I get mine, there won't be anything left to figure out.

 

We won't know until the 3820 comes out in July.

 

ENVY or 3820TG ? What say you, reader?

 

Though I have stock drivers (telling me they were released in January) GPU-Z tells me that I'm at PCI-e 16x during gaming, I think I don't have this issue. Anyways I thought I'd update VGA drviers, so for my noobish question, do I need to remove stock drivers before I install the Acer drivers in Win 7 enviroment?

GTA IV runs fine for me on native resolution all high. Though it ran better on my previous unit (it scored 6.7 for the CPU, the unit I have know scores 6.6) it runs well. There are a few minor lags however, happens while driving at night. I have patch 1.0.2.0 BTW.
The 430M reaches a max temp of 84/87 C, and 77/80 C when on a cooler. Note these ratings are the highest and the lowest I've experienced, lowest temps were measured with ambient temps like 20-21 C.
Real Temp's log tells me the core(s) running at 2540 MHz (max load is around 85 %, avarege 72 %), which is funny, cause it seems that the game runs on single core, though I thought GTA IV can utilise even 4 cores.
The game dosen't stress the GPU, max temps were 65 C, and 60 C with a cooler, in this game the bottleneck might be the CPU, I'm interested whether the 450M or any other faster CPU would run the game better.
Though the 430M seems to be fast enough, I wish I had more time to wait for at least the 450M, the 430M's minor turbo boost still bothers me.

BTW does anyone know why I score only 6.6 for the 430M? The unit I've returned had the same CPU and it scored 6.7. Do I need to refresh any Intel related drivers? Thanks in advance!