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

I have it elevated 4 inches to keep temps low.

 

I submitted my post before I finished typing =.=

If I or a friend can get the Staples AS3820TG-3022 for around $620 + tax, is it worth it?

 

depends, i bought this for portability and gaming. with the staples model it seems like just portability....

 

The HD 5650 is selling for $735-$775. It's worth the extra money.

Bronksy

 

SM2, SM3, SPU scores please?

I've figured out, my performance power saving profile f*cks with the 3D benchmarking results. Today i sat it to 'balanced' and i've got 8319

HD5650@625/960

SM2 3083
SM3 3802
CPU 2800 (highest ever)

Now i'm trying to overclock the GPU again, because i think my performance settings may ed up smtng, i really can't go over 630 Core until now.

 

If you're running ePower, you might disable it and set your profile to power.

Bronsky

 

SM2 3541
SM3 4403
CPU 2539 (my highest ever)

 

That's the thing. I'd be using this for school work only as I have my own desktop when I get home. Honestly, how often will I be gaming when I'm at school? For me, I think the Staples one would be better, as it's not a desktop replacement. And paying an extra $120 just for a more powerful GPU and slower CPU in a laptop doesn't quite sit right with me.

Is there any difference between the Staples one and Canada Computers version, besides the slower CPU and ATI 5650? Anything I or my friend should know about if we buy either version? There's quite a lot of posts in this thread and it's a pain going through all of them. I did go through the more recent ones in this thread and the 4820 thread, and some people were saying there's something wrong with their screens?

 

Hey, can someone point me to a website where I can buy a spanish keyboard for this laptop ? I think that I will buy the german version soon

 

If your the type that upgrades every 2 years or so, laptops with dedicated gpus, especially fairly powerful ones generally hold there value considerable better than ones without.
The staples model may sell for 2 hundred in two years where as the tg model will probably still go for 400 or so.. You pay more up front but generally you make it back by the end, not to mention you have a better overall experience for the two years of ownership.

 

I have one of the LG screens, no problems here. got it from CanadaComputers too.

 

There are a certain number of displays that have shown defects. You have to check your display when you get it and return it if it is bad. If you really don't need the GPU power, then, by all means, the Staples unit is a decent deal. This relates not only gaming but other uses of your computer that might implicate a GPU. I do not game with my 3820TG but do a lot of work that relies on GPU accelleration. Plus, I think the business world will be faced with ever greater use of parallel computing. I am considering loading Firepro drivers on my HD 5650 GPU to get the advantages of the commercial GPUs. If you're not an engineering or art major, you can probably get by without it.

Bronsky

 

i have a clean w7, and no crapware. I have custom energy saving profiles, and the one with the CPU completely in powersaver (almost all time @ 1.2Ghz) takes the best 3dmark score since now.
The one wich i sat up for max SSD performance (CPU @ 2.7GHZ all time) scores ~6k wit OC'd GPU.
I figured this out only today, so i began OC-ing the GPU again, but seems it cant go higher.

Anybody got HD5650 with same low OC capabilities? engine 625, mem 960? It's stable only until theese speeds, but @ theese speeds, ATITOOL artifact scan can go all day without error. GPU temp goes up to 87C

 

before you return it check if it can overclock well.

 

try doing a jump, i think mine is unstable at 620/1050 but at 640-730/1050 it works fine.

 

How can I tell which model/version has which screen by what manufacturer? Which manufacturer is good?

 

device manager->monitor->properties->details->hardware ID

LG is supposed to be a bad one.

 

when overclocking, is there s specific ratio you are supposed to keep between the engine and memery clock? it seems like there are set speeds you are trying and not just random values.
my 4820tg seems stable at 750/1200. Got about an hour of starcraft 2 in at that without any problems so far.

 

Mine is very similar. I'm getting artifacts at around the same clocks, and same high temperatures. They go down when I lift the back of the computer up, but there's defiinitely something wrong.

Under advanced power settings, my cpu cooling was running passive when plugged in, and I changed that, but it still does it.

How did people register their PCHome/overseas warranties in the US? I'm having no luck at all.

 

im just trying to input the highest possible values without artifacting.

and wow those are nice speeds, what temps?

 

At 750/1200
3dmark06: 9998.. pissed I dint break 10000=p
Temperatures:
using CPUID HWMonitor:
acpi: 86C
core 1: 81C
core 2: 86C
5650: 70C
This is the i5 460 model, after a fresh install of 7 Prof. using 10.8 drivers.
On stock drivers before the fresh install i got 10116 in 3dmark06, im not sure what made the difference.

that was after a 3dmark06
after about an hour of fallout vegas,
my temps were 62, 60, 63, 60 in the same order as before.

 

Right... I guess I was too quick to praise 10.10... My brightness shortcuts don't work too...

Since I'm almost always using my external monitor it doesn't matter to me, but I now recommend others against installing 10.10 until Acer releases their set.

 

If they ever do, Acer hasn't updated the 3820TG drivers since March this year ;(

 

wow, i think i should have gotten the 4820TG... i heard it was overheating so i didnt.....

 

Did you register your unit? What are you doing to estlabish the warranty? In either this thread or the north american purchase theread, Bankergolfer registered his unit, had to prove the purchase and he got a response from Acer confirming the warranty period. Take the time to look that up. It might help when working with Acer. Let them know that you only used PCHome because of that.

Bronsky

 

Hey all just adding my info to the mix

Got a canadian unit from canada computers, (3820tg-7360) have added a seagate momentus xt and have a US keyboard on the way, the mini shift key is bugging me.

GPU is stable at 710/1030 (8.713.3.3000 driver)
CPU stable at 182 fsb 2.9ghz

3dmark06 9378 with both overclocked

temps cpu hits low 80s Gpu mid 70s

There is a noticeable drop in preformance playing bfbc2 with the cpu overclocked.

Have been wondering if I should bother with updating to the 10.8 driver as it seems people are not exactly getting better results?

 

your results look nice i would keep it. im on 10.8 and getting 9155 with 730/1050 and stock cpu. same model also from cc.

 

How is the battery like, regarding constantly using the charger?

 

I found his guide, and tried it. I couldn't register it, cuz the serials are from Taiwan, and they only cover US and Canada. They referred me to the Taiwan customer support. Not sure what to do next.

 

Fresh!
Review Acer Aspire 3820TG Subnotebook (i5/HD5650) - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

I would show them the other registrations and explain that you would not have purchased the unit from Taiwain if you knew that. See if that helps.

Bronsky

 

Battery life is only 5 to 6 hours according to them, yet people reported a battery life over 10 hours on the forums?!

 

well at certain times when im just reading a PDF my battery draw is around 5k with a capacity of 64k it would equate to 10 hours, but under normal usage with wifi on its just under 6hours

 

10 hours might be from then 9-cell

 

So is there any other way to check the screen manufacturer? Here, we can't return it unless you want to be charged a 15% restocking fee.

 

how come 4820 owners can o/c their 5650 so high ? Any possibility of doing that on 3820tg ? I mean the temps of gpu are way higher than theirs, mine goes max 72c with 690/1080 so there is room for more, however i am getting arfitacts..

 

So I recently bought this laptop from Staples (3820TG-3022) and decided to format it because of the loading times.Should I download certain drivers from the acer website or just download and install every single driver? I was also thinking of getting a SSD - OCZ (OCZSSD2-1VTX120G) Vertex Series SATA II 2.5" 120GB Solid State Drive, Read: 250MB/s, Write: 180MB/s | Canada Computers. Anyone recommend this SSD? Also, does anyone know where I can buy a 9-cell battery for my laptop. I am located near Toronto.

 

Cancelled my order from PCHome due to the warranty issue. They confirmed the cancellation and I will order a Canadian unit as soon as I see the refund in paypal.

Bronsky

 

i would just copy your current drivers somewhere before doing the reformat.


open up my documents, select tools, options view and select view hidden files. You may have to press f10 to see the tools option.

The drivers are located at C:\OEM\Preload\Autorun\DRV, just navigate there and save every file located in the folder.

 

Not every 4820tg owner can overclock theres so well, its kind of a hit or miss thing. I've only seen two or three others on the owners lounge forum that posted clock speeds as high as mine. And the 4820tg may stay cooler due to the larger case, generally having some breathing room in the case keeps thing cooler.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. The only problem is my brother already formatted my laptop . Now I'm stuck because I don't know which drivers to download from the acer website. BTW I have the 3820TG-3022. I found a list of drivers posted by Bronsky - http://forum.notebookreview.com/6481111-post1821.html. Should I download the drivers listed there?

 

It shouldnt be to hard to figure out which ones you need.
Do you know if it had a intel or atheros wireless card? same goes for bluetooth, it would of been the same brand.
do you know the touchpad brand? an easy way to tell (assuming this hasnt changed) is how the scrolling up and down worked. if you had to swipe up and down to scrool, its a synaptics; if you held your finger in the top right or bottom right corner to scroll up and down it was a ALPs.
Did you have a 3g service plan with it? (dont think this is offered in the US, never knew this model had the option til now lol)

basically any of the drivers that dont have duplicates in its category, you need it.
if you have 3g, you need one, Im not sure which.
if im not mistaken, most units have the atheros wireless card and bluetooth, just download the latest version of each. and you need the latest 2 VGA drivers. one from ATI and one from Intel

 

I have no idea which ones I need. I know that I need the synaptics driver but for the wireless, 3g, and bluetooth I have no clue whatsoever. Anyone have an idea to which one I need?

 

go with the atheros wireless and bluetooth drivers. Im not positive for you specifically, but pretty much every speck sheet ive read for a 3820tg or 4820tg model has had the atheros card in it. And ignore the 3g unless you are paying a monthly bill for 3g services. =]
If you download the wrong ones its not that big a deal and you can tell by going into device manager and seeing if you have any uninstalled devices.

 

is it worth putting on the antiglare on?

 

OMG help me today I uninstall bluetooth driver I dont know what wrong it took long time so I closed it then the computer restart and said that "Windows failed to start"
I try to partition Alt+f10 but it said "fail to get PQSERVICE drive" I never delete it so I dont know why it couldn't find.

I got 3 eRcovery CDs I try to use I can get into the select restore type it said "No user data has found on your computer" However there is one time it shown that I got around 350gb data on my computer but then I ask for eRecovery CD1 again and agin but I already put the CD but nothing work.

I try the completey restore option, on the restore destination is not show anything then I press next, it said "fail to create partition table for disk 0"

I dont know what to do...

 

Okay ... my motherboard is in Acer's hands and they are trying to determine why it does not work. If they can find the problem, I think Shark can fix it. The problem is finding the issues. I had ordered a replacement from PCHome but it seems as if Acer has stopped recognizing warranties on units bought overseas and imported into NA. That leaves us at the mercy of the international warranty which I would not want to rely upon. I cancelled my order from PCHome over the weekend as it had not yet shipped.

Now that there are units available again in Canada, it looks like I can get one there. Here's the question ... it is almost November already. That leaves only 2 months to the introduction of SandyBridge CPU's and likely the 6000 series GPUs. Although I have a presentation to prepare in November, I can probably prepare it on my desktop. I am considering waiting until Q1 to order a new unit, in order to see what is being released in CES in January. It's just that this 1410T keyboard is too small for serious typing. A 13" unit is the smallest I can work on comfortably. It's going to be a pain in the a** to wait.

I wonder if Acer will be upgrading the Timeline series ... is there a 3830TG in the works? Sandybridge and 6000 series GPU? If so, is that worth the wait?

Anybody read anything about 13" sandybridge models? It's kind of amazing that there is virtually nothing being published about ultralight models proposed for early next year. Last November, we were awash in such articles.

Any rumors I haven't heard yet?

Bronsky

 

Sounds like a lost partition table or worse. If you have a desktop machine, you should connect your Acer's HDD to it and see if your desktop sees it, and if it does, are your partitions there? (opening the hdd door and changing the HDD does NOT void your warranty) If not, there are many partition undelete tools out there (freeware too). Also do you know how could it have happened? like did you bug with your HDD? Did you ever check your S.M.A.R.T. status? Did you transport your Acer while turned on accidentaly? Did it overheat?

Also even if you manage to get back your data, I would not put this drive back, sounds like a good time to change to Momentus XT or SSD.

@Bronsky: Why wait? Even if it does come out in Q1 (acceptable price probably at Q2), you can still sell your unit then and get the new one. If it is a tool for work and not a toy, you should buy it. A carpenter will get nowhere with a swiss army knife.

 

Bronsky et al,
Where are you finding these units in Canada? I'm looking at this or the 4820 and would REALLY prefer the 3820....

 

No warranty issues. Simply not following proper procedure to add the new laptop to the system.

All that is needed to do is:
edit: (from Lastdon's method, before bankergolfer changed it).
First, make sure you use the "included app" to Register your new Acer online. Then wait a few days until you received confirmation.
Done. The Acer will now show up in the US system.

It will not be in their system unless you do that, and they will not know how to enter it into their system.

The Acer registration app does this automatically, and you do not even need to enter any serial number. It will not even ask for your serial number. It reads all your laptop info and submits it into their system. If you entered a serial number anywhere, you did something wrong.

After you get the confirmation email, you can call them to confirm if you wish. Success!

The Acer registration app is included in the driver and app disk you created when you first got the laptop. Or available as a download in one of the prior posts here.