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

Go into Control Panel > Power Management, click on Advanced Settings for the power plan you are currently using, choose "Hard Disk" and tell it to never turn off the Hard Disk. What you are probably experiencing is Windows powering off the drive to save power, so that when your game needs to load something, it has to wait for the drive to spin back up to speed (which is the high-pitched whirring sound you're hearing).

 

Well, i checked it now.

And i only play games when plugged on the powersupply.
And there it is automatically set not to turn of the hdd.

Hm, i don't know about the other options, but it says it is "balanced".
Perhaps i should try with "max performance".

I hope the freezes stop then, because it is quite hindering.

 

Not just you...

Your HDD is not dying at all..

 

does anyone know if there is a way to overclock/increase multiplier for the i5-460m turbo boost mode? It'd would be great if there turbo boost can ramp up to 3.0 ghz only during gaming while preserving the normal speed/power consumption during normal tasks.

 

Am currently waiting for my 3820tg. It is aboard a ship from the Norwegian Coastguard. I can see the ship in my binoculars. It is about one nautical mile out. At anchor. Never has waiting been this annoying

 

Isn't boot default 1066MHz even if you have 1333MHz RAM?

 

The actual speed of this system amazes me too, and i know the advantages of a fast HDD, so i ordered a Corsair Force F60. 285/275, sustained write 250MB/s so actually it have to be lightning fast for the OS, and the few programs i do use. It costs me 39500FT ~ <200$, i think thats OK for it.

Right now i'm backing up my old HP-s 40gig D ) hdd, and the try that virtualCD thing to save my drivers. The SSD will arrive on tuesday, so i have to finish all of my needed experimenting with this OS installed by acer.

I readed some guide "for the first time users of 3820Tg " or SMTG like that, it was a coll step by step tutorial what to do with a new machine, but i can't finf it now, anyone can help me?

THX!

 

Hi, I'm just wondering if anyone can explain to me some questions.

#1. What are the uses of Acer's PowerSmart manager? When I'm in dedicated graphics mode, pushing the P button displays either one of the two icons: a green battery icon or a green battery icon with a red X in it. Does the laptop go into battery saving mode if the icon is the former, and vice versa?

#2. Is there a power management utility for this laptop like the ASUS Power4Gear for their UL-line of laptops?

#3. Is the laptop supposed to automatically switch from ATI to Intel graphics depending if the power supply is plugged in? Mine doesn't seem to do that.

 

Yes, that buton , and the wole powersmart thing is a mystery for me too.

In my imagination, an efficent powersaver function work like above:

When on AC, CPU should run normal, and if needed, turbo boost is available to some high OC'ed speed, and the ATi GPU should be running normal, or OC'ed to its max. This is the main state of the machine (for me) when i use it home/work/etc, and the noise doesn't disturbs, max performance should be available for use, if needed.

If needed, the turbo, and all of the OC-ed settings of CPU and GPU switchable to off ( if it would be possible with the dedicated button, that would be flawless) That is really cool if you want to listen only music, or watch some movies, enabling the machine to stay silent, i think the ATI VGA could be turned off , this CPU, and the intel HD is capable of 1080p HD, and with DXVA, or other HW accelration I think silent operation is not a dream.

When on battery default the ATI VGA is always disabled, in normal mode and powersaver too. The powersaver mode while on battery should be optimized for the available lowest power use of the machine, maybe some CPU downclocking, and everything in the lowest power use mode, to get the earnable maximum battery time.

But if the powersaver mode is off, CPU should be enabled to get to its max default speed (turbo enabled), and still with the intel HD, the machine would be capable of serious computing, while the baterry lasts more than 3-4 hours.

That is just my opinion, how should power saving work in a laptop, in MY machine if its possible.

If anybody have advices, or information about setting the powersaving feature working like i described, please let me know.

The sad thing is i really don't know nothing about these Core i5 stuff, and all this newest tech. I stucked at the "old" core2-s (

 

Was it siezed by the Coastguard from an illegal Acer smuggling ring?

Bronsky

 

Here is my guide (it's pinned to the first page at the bottom). http://forum.notebookreview.com/6465732-post1613.html And here is a more general guide on steps to take with a new Acer. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/487245-what-do-when-your-new-acer-arrives.html

Bronsky

 

I'm happy when I remember my own name.

Bronsky

 

I am amazed at how pooorly the dual core I7's OC. I think I had my 540M over 3.1 w/o turbo and 3.7 top speed and, as I later found out, I was still using the wrong clockgen definition. With the right definition and probably some adjustment to the ram, 3.2-3.8+ is very possible and maybe more.

An OEM I5-580M should be a monster. But I would only get an OEM. Wonder what an OEM will sell for on Ebay? I can't find any ... how about you?

Bronsky

 

Just create two icons on the desktop or in the system tray for SetFSB, like this:
setfsb.exe -w0 -s 160 -b

 

Do not install powersmart. The switch works automatically if you installed the factory Acer + Intel driver.

 

So far out of several system tray monitoring apps I tested, realtemp seems to work best and configurable for my system tray needed. Great app! And it's free (donate if you can).

 

i know there is a thread about replacing the keyboard, but is there any guide on how to replace the CPU?

edit: and can someone post average temperatures while playing games.. if cpu stays below 95 i dont think ill need to replace it..

 

Nah, no smuggling. The coast guard is the only way to get mail or goods up here. Am stationed on an isolated island in the Barents sea called Bear Island, with no ordinary transport or deliveries. Btw: the laptop has arrived. It has all the ordinary stuff. And the sec-3030 display instead of the somewhat crappy lg/auo stuff. It is seriously the best monitor i have seen on a laptop.

Am on a mission to backup windows, install my momentus 500 and get rid of some bloatware now. Will try my best at some cpu/gpu clocking after that.

 

I beg to differ. Using system memory if there is not enough "room" in the VGA card's own memory, is a design feature of all PCI Express (and AGP!) VGA cards.

Exactly this happens. System RAM is assigned dynamically on demand. All is organised by the VGA driver. There is no reason for an operating system to not support this.

He doesn't need to know.

Technical reality for at least 10 years.

Michael

 

Hey, thanks for pointing that out.
It seems that it helps.
And to top that off, no more clicking sounds...
Is there any real use for those both feature?

 

can any of the current owners post gaming temps for the cpu? ty.

 

Max. temp i have ever noticed is about 86°/87°C after endless gaming.

 

Hi again!

I'm enjoying my 3820TG (+ SSD) to great extent and everything works fine. I'm using Win 7 Pro x64 and all drivers from Acer are installed. Intel Rapid Storage Tech is updated to 9.6 and Catalyst is at 10.8.

I only have one problem with the laptop: sometimes it can permanently freeze. I think that when this happens it's usually within a minute or two after resuming from sleep/hibernate state.

With daily usage, it occurs about once a week.

Anyone else experiencing total freezes like this? I want to believe that it's driver-related.

 

My has AUO322C, it looked awesome after my nx6110-s panel, with its brightness, and resolution. Im working now, it tooks tiny next to a pair of 22" Dell SXGA, they are brighter a bit maybe, and the colours are richer, but the difference in the resolution makes the Acers display the better IMO.

 

Nope .

And those clicking sounds annoy the crap out of me too .

 

sounds good. this means an i3 wont throttle and that i should pull the trigger. ty.

 

Anyone knows, the acer logo on the top of the lid is removeable cleanly? is it a sticker only? I would like to apply a design sticker on the lid, but that should be removed. i do not like it anyway, the brushed aluminium surface is cooler by itself IMO

And, any advice fixing the flex of the keyboardy center area? the cursor keys are stuffy for me. It is very disturbing for me, but this is the only negative point of this machine yet.

 

I have just checked where Bear Island is, and it's absolutely, unrealistically high up north! What a place it can be!

Glad you got a good display, doing warranty replacement from there couldn't be easy.

 

No, I am not talking about that. That's the way it should work, but it's not something specific to a card, it's by it's design. I am talking about when video card have "fake" memory, like with cheap cards and IGP graphics which reserve memory from the system ram. That's what I think our ATI cards don't do. Our system simply has for example 4 GB of system ram AND 1 GB of separate video ram. On different chips, running at different speeds. No Hyper or Turbo or anything. You can use them separately, graphics are not stealing anything from system, and system is not stealing anything from graphics.

If your system has a 4 GB swap file, you shouldn't apply a label that it has 8 GB of Hyper System memory.

OK, this one is fake memory, ours is not:
http://www.techpowerup.com/130040/Gigabyte_Sells_HD_5670_512_MB_HyperMemory_Card_as_1_GB.html

 

Temps after 1,5-2 hours of GTA IV, with a Notepal X2 cooler (might be upgarded/changed to a Notepal U2) ambient temps at 22 C.
The cooler provides a temperature decrease of 5 C.





These are the max temps monitored by HWMonitor, RealTemp's log showed that the notebook reaches these max temps only for 2 minutes, avarege temps are 74/79 for Core 0/2, max CPU load was around 80%.

My HD5650 is not overclocked, the notebook keeps the GPU cool.

I remember some of the useres reported the i3 CPUs throttling at like 85 C, an i5 CPU would be a better choice since they don't seem to throttle even at higher temps.

 

None, I don't think the OEM are out yet, all I see is one seller with QS versions. I doubt the OEM 580m price wise will be worth it. It would no doubt be around 360-400 dollars...

That i5 580m QS is tempting. Still not sure i would want to repeat the whole process as my i5 540m QS wouldn't go over 160BLCK when overclocked. And the turbo was rarely used when overlocked. Still 160BLCK on a 580m could be ok. The default turbo of 3.33Mhz is nice WIth a good overlock maybe we could reach near 4Ghz.

Do we know the max multiplier on the 580m? is it x23 ?

 

no i5's in canada with the 5650....and im reluctant to swap one myself. only upgrade i plan on doing is swapping the hdd for a momentus XT hybrid

 

I find myself going back n forth between lots of threads as always...but this one is the one that has the most attractive news... 3820TG from Canada for ~725 before shipping/tax + ~200? for a i5-xxx cpu? Not bad at all... But can someone confirm that the 5650 plays SC2 on high well enough (30fps)?

Thanks!

 

I get 40fps playing as protoss at high graphics and textures at 1920x1200 resolution.

Drops to 25-30fps during big battles (and I mean big).

 

There is a guide in this thread. Somebody but an I7 in and took a lot of photos. There is also a disassembly guide in the manual.

Bronsky

 

Wow thats good! Now, is that cuz the 5650 in the 3820TG is better than the E14? Cuz folks in E14 thread have slightly lower FPS with 1600x900 radiance screen.

 

The HD 5650 was designed with variable clock speeds which can be set at different speeds by the manufacturer's bios. The HP bios clocks the HP 5650 lower than the Acer and prevents OC'ing to the same clock speeds. The Acer 5650 is significantly more powerful than the H14.

Bronsky

 

The HD5650 is underclocked big time in the ENVY AFAIK.

Bronsky was ahead by 7 seconds, nice job.

 

Bronsky

 

Sorry to hear that, however, i3 CPUs were reported to throttle.

A lot of members praise the Momentus XT, I think You can't go wrong with it.

 

Man, if you guys could point me in the right direction to obtain a good deal for an i5 cpu, I think I'm on my way to making the purchase VERY soon.

Please advise.

 

eBay? Tons of OEM i5 CPUs shipping to US, or North America, even to Europe.

 

Agreed. Best place to get competitively priced CPUs

 

hey guys i need some help. Well i posted few pages back my issues with deep freezes when gaming while o/c (hard restart needed). Well I wasnt sure what it was at the time so i formatted my win7 and the problem is still there. I came to the conclusion that its the O/C that's causing it. But i used to be able to get much higher clocks out of my card. Is it possible that lets say fans got dusty and 5650 operates on higher temperatures and that's what causing the freezes?


So my questions is:

do you use ati tool to find highest clock possible (check if artefacts appear), if not what do you use.

also i seem to be having driver issue with my FN + audio etc, not that they dont work its just the graphic doesnt show when doing so. What driver is it so I can reinstall it?

Thx in advance

 

Okay.

They do. According to Acer germany website, the card has 1024 MB own memory and can take up to 3067 MB shared RAM from the system's memory. But this is how it should be.

Good idea for the marketing droids.

On the other side: Acer claims that the 1810 (Intel 4500MHD) has 64MB dedicated VGA memory. Unfortunately, Intel's specs don't mention the possibility to install a separate memory chip for that IGP (would be something like AMD's sideport memory) at all. So I assume that this "dedicated memory" is nothing else than a fixed fraction of the system's memory. I haven't found a way to either verify or falsify this claim yet.

Michael

 

Should slapped myself instead of writing this post , the drivers are being burned right now by a virtual dvd writer

 

Hi,

have you already installed the software? If not, "Phantom Drive" from the same company is easier to deal with.

For Virtual CD, have a look at these tutorials:
Virtual CD
Online Help:
Virtual CD v10

Phantom Drive stuff:
Phantom Drive

Michael

 

Thanks for the help, actually i like the Phantom Drive better, useful stuff.

BTW i've got the drivers saved, anybody interested in it, send me a PM, or wait some days until i put upload them somewhere (any advices , or preferred online storages?)

 

CPU-Z Info: