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

I have started with an early daily build ...

But switcheroo should be in the kernel and if you use the radeon driver (not the binary from AMD) it should work.

 

I've got a bit of a problem with total laptop freeze while playing some games. Well basically my laptop suddenly frezzez to the point i have to do a hard reset when playing bad company 2 and cod world at war, everything used to be fine with high o/c buy now it does that even with 650/1060. Anyway i had 10.7 ati drivers so downloaded 10.8 and installed but when i check version it still shows 10.7. You guys think its the driver cause it use to work great. BTW when i play Mafia 2 on 700/1090 eveything is fine ... :/ plz help

 

Remove the OC and try it again.

 

Well, but still, I would take that if just one my friend had better signal, but its all of them....

 

hi guys just wondering if I need to disconnect the battery to help preserve a better life for it when i connect my power from an outlet?...like does it stop charging the battery when its plugged in?..

also I had a situation where my battery was 75% and I plugged it in to charge it but it said "plugged in, not charging"...how do i make it charge? i cant find the settings for it under power options

thanks

 

right so my laptop froze while being on skype so it cant be o/c. Driver issue?

 

There are lots of guides at the internet and all of them describes different ways.

I don't remove the battery and let it all the time inside the laptop. I see tahe akku as a replacement part and will replace it with a to high wearlevel.

If you have 75% the akku should be load. Give Windows a few minutes to react on the event. If you have 95% the akku seems not to load to save the wearlevel.

 

Bad. Is there an entry in the system log?

 

Thank you Bronsky. I think I found a store but I'm still unsure if they sell the right battery. I have the 9000mAh that sticks out of the laptop. I thought that the 6000 mAh at 11.1V shouldn't stick out and "should last" 8 hr. Am I right? I do not want to buying the wrong battery again! Would you mind helping me with the specs and part number, please?
BTW, do you ever use the built-in microphone? mine seems to have a high background noise but I'm not sure if it's faulty or average for this computer.
Thanks again!!!

 

too late i uninstalled drivers but now i cant install acer ati drivers. well im getting failed to install driver error. I uninstalled eveything, reboot, installed intel ones, reboot switched to descrete and still getting same error. I pretty much tried every way possible. Am i doing something wrong?

 

Since my motherboard is in China I can't check my unit but I think I had both drivers installed from the ATI installation. I don't think I installed the Intel first. If I recall, that's all I did and I have the same driver # for the intel and the 10.7 ATI. I rolled back 10.8 because I was getting artifacts and my notebook failed our graphics program's GPU certification. Uninstalled everything and only installed the Acer ATI driver - it installed the intel driver as well. Didn't have a problem after that.

Bronsky

 

did u do all that while being on switchable or descreete?

 

I have done it at switchable mode. Both cards were visible at the device manager.

 

I did it in discrete but I think it was unnecessary to switch.

Bronsky

 

Have you tried to disable the A.I. in the 3D Options in the ATI CCC? It might be the same problem that occur when you bench with something like cinebench. When A.I. is activated the shaders will be replaced and this can give inaccurate images in 3D applications.

 

Good hint. Never mind on that.

 

ok i uninstalled all the drivers, did driver sweep under safe mode and im still getting the same error here is log:

PX Profile Update
Catalyst Control Center
ATI Catalyst Install Manager
The Lord of the Rings FREE Trial
HDMI/DP Audio Driver
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable


Packages for install
ATI Catalyst Install Manager
Final Status: Success
Version of Item: 3.0.765.0
Size: 20 Mbytes

ATI Display Driver
Final Status: Fail
Version of Item: 8.713.3.3000
Size: 90 Mbytes

Error messages
Driver Install: the installation failed

///

i downloaded VGA_ATI_8.713.3.3000_W7x86W7x64_A driver from acers website under windows 7 64bit ultimate.

dnt know what to do :/

 

btw found this on acer website in 3820tg Bios section:

BIOS Acer 1. Updates ATI VBIOS to support 2GB VRAM. (more...) 1.17 6.7 MB 2010/09/24

What is that suppose to mean ?

 

how does the i3-370 perform? is it over clockable?

 

Is the AMD/ATI card visible in the device manager?

 

intel hd is, no ati 5650 instead there is standard VGA adapter. It was visible before but while being annoyed at the whole process i might have clicked uninstall on it. How do i make it to go back to 5650 ?

 

figured it out, its all good now. Thx for help

 

right, so i installed stock ati drivers and hardcore(reboot needed) freezes are still there. Anyone has got any ideas what it might be or format c: ?

 

I would try it.

 

Don’t worry about overclocking. There are a few points which indicates, that the ram access time is going high and the cpu doesn’t get fast enough the necessary data.

 

Are on the 3820TG some traps for dismounting the case, resp. dismounting the CPU? I would like to change the heat ( or cooling? excuse my english) paste on CPU but I dont want to loose a warranty on a month old laptop...
And one dummy question :
Are all 3820TG motherboards staffed with CPU socket ? Could be on market someones with soldered CPUs ?
THX and God bless 3820TG ....best NB I ever had

 

No ... there are no CPU's mounted in BGA mounts. They all have the PGA 988 sockets. Buy, the CPU has a warranty sticker that could void your warranty once you take it off.

Bronsky

 

Shark has been testing my board and assures me that they can get it fixed. I get the feeling from their email that the damage was more severe than I expected. I get the impression that the repairs might take some time. Thank god for this 1410T.

This part of the email was music to my ears:

"Please don't worry it .we will repair it.
Sincerely yours,

Shark Technology Co.,Ltd"

Bronsky

 

oh well

 

An alternative way to have a decent thermal paste applied without losing the warranty,is to have it done buy their service center - however, if there's no warranty work to be done, it'd cost some money.

Your best bet would be to send the notebook to the service center for a warranty repair - when it's necessary - along with a mobile CPU (let's say 580M ) and themal paste and have the CPU swapped and thermal paste (re)applied.

 

Don't forget the folded Ten dollar bill for the technician.

Bronsky

 

They might be thinking of a way to make it water ressistant.

 

Good Ideas

Or I will attach 20 dollar bill with 580m , Thermal paste, backlight keyboard, recoiled speakers, CPU fan with toilet rejuvenator , Sony´s display and some colour LEDs and stickers from Fast&Furious

But seriously , 580m would be an American Dream in Europe...

 

I am sooo stupid....
I found out, that closest Acer support and repair center is in Czech Republic, Brno, Turanka 110 and I am working at CZ, Brno, Turanka 100 :-O
only 10 buildings far away... I could go there and ask for everything I am curious about, in my national language, instead of taking time of you guys
So if somebody needs something difficult from his far country, let me know, and I will phone or ask them personally

 

The schematics of the motherboard.

 

Very good idea,
but you need to wait some time,
before I collect more bottles of slivovice ( favourite national drink )

 

Just playing with a few mods in the brain, but I missed two usb ports ...

Just thinking about the unused place for the CCD conector. Is it a USB Port?

Have a nice party with the drinks.

 

To check if your ATI chip or memory is bad, and for your only chance for a warranty replacement, you have to set BIOS to default, delete everything, restore the whole 3 DVD Acer factory image (there is no other way to do this if you deleted the D2D partition), and do a ATITool or Furmark or OCCT test in the factory system. Any hard freezes in there would make an obvious warranty replacement.

 

Please, please ask them about if they know anything about the brightness shifting issue, that is it because of something with switchable graphics on the motherboard, or it's because of the display. You can find a video in my sig. You may even show them the video, it would be awesome if someone knew about it in there.

Also, please ask them if they re-solder the ATI chips or change the whole motherboard. I am afraid that if they replace my motherboard I will lose my SetFSB clockgen, which I really like (G73).

 

HP is no longer offering the 14.5" 1600 x 900 Radiance display on the Envy 14. HP Envy 15 and Envy 14 with Radiance display no longer available through HP, new CPUs ease the sting -- Engadget I think HP needs a new supplier. A new E15 is rumored for the end of October. The E14 is getting an I5-580M option but the Envy still costs $1,000 (more for the 580M) while the Acer 4820TG is selling for under $800, has the same resolution, weighs a lot less and has twice the battery power.

I would guess that inventories of 4820TGs in the US and Canadian 3820TGs will not last very long.

What would be really cool would be if HP put the Dream Color 2 display in the Envy 14 with 1080p resolution. Then it would up the $300 premium to a $400 premium (and they would easily get it).

Bronsky

 

Biggyrocks, any news on your i7 640m ES overclock? Did it overclock at all?

Saw a i5 580m (3.33 Ghz turbo) for 229 USD on ebay, its a Q4 QS sample so not sure it would overclock well.

 

Guys I am interested in buying the 3820TG from computeruniverse, is it possible to change the OS to english version and keep the same german keyboard?

I've never changed computer parts before, let alone laptops so I guess that's my only option.

 

I don't know how you would be able to type. 3 or 4 of the keys are different under each OS. If you go english OS, you have to put in an English KB (at least IMO). It's not that hard to swap KBs. You can order one from MK Electronics at the same time you order from Computeruniverse.

Bronsky

 

They are replacing the whole mainboard. It is cheaper.

 

Yes, you can. You have to change the keyboard layout to german to see the same letter on the screen which ist printed on the keyboard.

Or use the english layout with the german keyboard. For an example, if you press the Y on the german keybord the computer will write a Z. This happens to a few letters.

 

right, i dont have any backups as i deleted acer crap straight away and went for win7 ultimate. Everything used to work perfectly but the freezes sometimes show sometimes dont so im guessing its smtng within the system. Well ill do a format C whenever i copy everything of my HD and see if the problem is still there. Thhx

 

Did you buy a German unit? I have my original OS, etc., factory settings on the original HD. The problem is that I have no motherboard ATM or I would put it in make a backup and send it to you. If you can wait a bit, I would be happy to do that so you can send it back for warranty work.

Bronsky

 

This is maddening. Maybe you can get used to it over time, but for the short amount of time I had the English OS and German KB in my unit, it drove me nuts.

Bronsky

 

Well ill try full format c first and see how it goes, you guys rly think its hardware malfunction? Im in uk now and bought the unit in poland. The thing is that i can play games like mafia 2 without problems (didnt freeze for me there), however it does freeze on bad company 2 and world at war. I did have an 45 min game of cod5 in the morning and nothing happened however i tried about an hour ago and it foreze :/

 

Good to hear that(changing the kybd layout to german that is). I decided to wait a few weeks more maybe it will become available in US before I get it from Germany