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

I thought the same thing when my 3820TG would only go to 650 core.
So if I'm 50 less than "them" and you are 50 less than "me" yet still 50 more than stock, looks like simply another not as great of a GPU overclocker.. Nothing wrong. Nothing broke. Nothing you can do.

 

Hey guys, first of all thanks to bronsky and the other guys that have been consistently posting advice and info here. I bought one of the dialed down versions of this a few days ago for about 700$ CAN(i5 +5450...I dont game) and have been lurking ever since and you guys have been very helpful.

I am having a small problem with the graphics switching - when I unplug the machine it says can not switch graphics because resources are being used.

same thing when I manually try and switch the graphics - so it's stuck on high performance gpu which is really not cool for me. If it was stuck on intel I wouldn't might but I need the battery life.

does anyone have any idea why this might be happening?

If no one has heard of this I can take a screenshot.

sorry for the punctuation still getting used to the multilingual kb

 

I was able to finally reach 620/920 stable. Am i missing out on a lot of performance because i can't reach the 700+/1000+?

 

As long as you have a program running that is using the GPU, it will not switch. I would use this method to force the ATI GPU to remain on while the unit was plugged in. Make sure everything is closed and then try switching. Even a web browser will prevent the switch.

 

What kind of benchmark scores are you getting? 3DM06?

Bronsky

 

Highest i got is 8002. Heart breaking when you see people almost reach 10 000

 

Best I can do with 3820TG here is 9237 at 650/1100
while 650/800 = 7758

Your 8000 is fine. Don't worry about the numbers. Perhaps in the future the overclocking ability might help make a game playable, but for now, everything is playable at stock GPU speeds.

 

Do you NEED shareware version of setFSB to OC cpu to 2.9 ghz?

 

That is exactly what i was hoping for. Being able to OC my GPU to help me be more future proof.

I am going to add an extra 4gig and OC the CPU to 2.9. From what i understand that would help my gaming experience a bit.

Watch me not being able to OC the CPU either

 

OC'ing the CPU will not help gameplay. For some reason, these CPU's actually seem to impede 3D performance when they are OC'd with SetFSB. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

The 370M will be fine for most gaming. You can always futureproof the unit by upgrading the CPU after the warranty. Any reputable shop can swap in a more powerful dual core arrandale CPU. The hard part is getting to it.

Bronsky

 

Bronsky

Thanks for the quick response. To my knowledge every program is closed except the virus scanner. Could McAfee prevent the GPU from switching? At work right now but I'll shut it down when I get home and give that a shot..

 

Thank you for the info.

Am i seeing a big difference in my gaming performance between a 8k score and a 10k score? How many FPS are we talking?

 

Acer is releasing a series of Slate/Tablets on November 23rd. I wonder how much of its engineering and production capacity is geared toward swithcing its netbook market dominance into Slate/Tablets.

I guess there will be more Acer products that we don't get here in the US.

Bronsky

 

This should be a good replacement than the current 3820TG's adapter
Amazon.com: AcBel Ultra Slimmest & Smallest 90W Laptop AC Power Adapter NoteBook Charger for Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG 3820T Series NoteBook PCs (Worldwide Safety Certificate with 3 years Warranty): Electronics

Just saw one from shop, its nice

 

zdanee need your help again... I already try to recovery my HDD on other computer but the erecovery manager only can recovery C: drive so I can't do it because the C: that it detected is my friend HDD. What can I do now?

 

You can disconnect your friend's HDD, so only yours remain in the machine. If you have an external DVD drive, you can try it in your 3820tg too. So far I see no reason, why your notebook does not see your HDD. Did you try what happens if you put it back and use [Alt]+[F10] at boot?
Were you able to save your data from your HDD? Was your recovery partition in place? If not, you should consider a clean install of Win7, it gives a better optimized, faster system. Also did you resize your C? If so is it smaller, than the amount of data eRecovery tries to put back? (below 30 gigs or so considering space for hiberfile and pagefile).

 

Were you messing with any bios settings? its possible you removed the hdd as a bootable device if so.

 

McAfee should not be interfering with this.
Have you installed any custom desktop UIs? do you have any desktop gadets open?
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and see if anything is listed as running.
Have you tried restarting your computer? Its possible that something did not close right and its still interfering with the graphics switch.

If none of that works, its most likely something starting at startup that is interfering with it. Go to start>all programs> startup, and delete anything in that folder that you do not want starting up.

If it still does not work, go to start, type in msconfig, and navigate over to startup. Look for any programs you have installed, and try unchecking them one by one to see if you can pinpoint the problem.

What software have you installed if you dont mind me asking?=]

 

Nah, switching seems to work pretty well - I can definitely tell the difference between power draw on ATI and power draw on Intel. I'll try driver sweeping and see if that fixes it. :|

 

Holy crap - want. At that size I could fit it in the zip-bag of my Zeroshock III.

 

This got buried pretty fast. Has anyone successfully ran the windows memory diagnostic "extended test"?

 

Seems like amazon dont ship to Hungary. Someone from Hungary plans to buy this? I'd be in for a group order . It's half the size of the thermaltake ultraslim and the same price.

 

I recall somebody running it ... there is a discussion in this thread I think but good luck finding it.

Bronsky

 

I was planning on buying an additional charger, so I'm in, if it works with our unit.

Does the german amazon have these babies?

 

Didn't find it there. Found it on ebay once thou, but its not there anymore either. Aint there a way to get this package from overseas? Like a relative or a friend ... or someone you know from a forum How much would it be if someone bought it there and send it here? Can someone help us?

 

PCHome got it though..
PChome½u¤WÁʪ« - 24¤p®É±M°Ï¡mAcBel ±dµÎ 90W Ultra¦W¤ù«¬ÅÜÀ£¾¹¡n

 

Would be fine, but I cant speak chinese and they seems to ask $2699 for it. ?!

 

?! $2,699 is a very reasonable price for such an epic product.

 

That's $87.64 USD. If you use Google Chrome, it will translate most of the PCHome site for you. The currency is in New Taiwian Dollars "NTD".

Bronsky

BTW, LU Computers confirmed receipt of the wire transfer today and will be shipping my unit this afternoon. It's coming UPS 3 Day express so I expect that I will have it Monday. I don't think UPS delivers to the office on Saturday (if it is at the distribution center by Saturday maybe I'll go pick it up since it's near my house).

 

Glad to hear you'll be getting your notebook soon.

I've sent a second inquiry to LU Computers asking if they're willing to ship the notebook to an overseas address. They still haven't responded. I wander if their SPAM filter is filtering out Gmail E-mail addresses. Or maybe they just can't be bothered responding.

 

Test results of someone else's RAM will have no bearing on yours. If the Windows test fails and Memtest reboots, then you have a bad stick or possibly sticks. You should test them individually to find out which one it is, it may even be both but then you should notice that elsewhere in performance.

I'd imagine your warranty would cover it but you'd go a few weeks without the computer plus possibly pay for shipping it around. It may be more beneficial and surely will be quicker to just buy a matching RAM set of 8GB. Newegg currently has some good deals on OCZ 1333mhz and GSkill 1066.

 

I wonder if your laptop will also have the bump on the touchpad... i hope not!

 

Just got my 3820TG! i5-460m and 5650m with 500gb momentus xt! Very nice system!

 

the windows test freeze and memtest reboot don't necessarily signify bad ram. however in my case the windows test doesn't actually crash outright, it just freezes at 21ish% but i'm still able to navigate the menus. my 3820tg shows the same behavior and that's with 2 different sets of ram. one of those sets ended up being bad, but i found that out by running prime 95; that set failed all tests within a few seconds, and it would give bsod's while installing windows 7. can anyone else test out running memtest off a bootable flash drive and see if they obtain the same results?

 

My version of memtest86 is v2.11, and it just now booted and ran fine from USB floppy in 3820tg.

 

sounds like it may be an issue with the acer bios shadowing to memory. i'll try v2.11 when i get home. sounds like v4.10 (which i've been using) results in the reboot problem

MemTest86+ v4.00 reboots on Acer Aspire 5740-5513 - Canardpc.com

 

I recall it to. I remember the poster saying Memtest not working (which is the same issue I have). They had tested with WMD but not the extended test. Mine passes the normal test fine but stops (not freezes) at 20% on extended.

Yes, if you read my post (a few posts back in this thread) I have the exact same results. Since you are having the same problem it is making me feel more confident that this is a incompatibility issue (and not a memory problem).

Memtest 4.1 & 4.0 apparently don't run on certain Acer machines. Posts on Memtest 86+ forums indicate that 2.11 runs but doesn't test the whole range of RAM.

 

lol at currency confusion
did anyone overclock their acer with i3 370m? how did it go

 

I'll let you know in a few days ... speeds of 2.9-3.0 ghz are reported.

Bronsky

 

double post

 

if you want a thorough test of the ram i'd run prime95 w/ the "blend" test. In my experience even if a set of ram gets through all of the memtest tests, it doesn't signify total stability. I've had ram be memtest stable yet fail within the first few minutes of running prime95

 

How is the onboard speaker quality?

 

I'll try disconnect my friend's HDD and see if it work.
I got external DVD drive and try to run my eRecovery CD but it couldn't fine partition.
I already try [Alt]+[F10] at boot but still it said couldn't fine partition.
However, when I open my HDD on other computer I can see the recovery partition around 12GB(full) but I don't know how to open it.

When I bought this laptop I ask the shop to created D: for 100GB (so I can have C:400GB and D:100GB) can this be the problem?

Clean install of Win7 how can I do that? I don't have Win7 CD..? in fact what I want to do is recovery my laptop back to factory system.

 

Bad
Other small notebooks I have heard who have JBL, Altec Lansing etc. speakers have significantly better sound.

 

How's the speed/power of the i3-370 compare to an of the i5's? Does pure ghz numbers matter still with regard to performance? Would I be better of going for the 3820TG like you from LU Computers as opposed to hunting for something that has an i5? (I only want to play SC2 on at least HIGH, and run PCSX2/Dolphin emulators).

(I'm back in this thread again, because the G53's outta stock till about December, and the E14 is kinda pricey for comparable specs).

 

Is it possible to do a 100% (no crapware, apps, drivers etc.) clean install from [Alt]+[F10] ?

 

Why not just pop in a windows disc and clean install that way and let windows grab the drivers for you?

 

Hi fellas,

Had my 3820TG for a few months now and its great! However, recently my spacebar key started squeaking and its darn irritating when i type.. Any ways stop it from squeaking? Thanks!

 

Not possible. All the bloatwares and stock drivers will be reloaded.

 

Just bought it from ComputerUniverse yesterday
Aspire 3820G-5464G75Nks 3G
and AZERTY backlit keyboard on Ebay

I'm hesitating to get an SSD drive, besides the alignement thing for dual boot which seems painfull, there's the capacity problem, 120Go seems a little narrow for me.

can't wait begin working with it