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

Does anyone know how to enable brightness control when the bios is set to discrete?

 

Make adjustments as usualy using Fn + arrows, then close and raise lid to have the clicks you did take affect.

 

Thanks! That's an interesting way to do it. However, is there a way to control brightness without having to close and raise the lid?

 

How do you mean? Dont Acer have video drivers for 32bit? When I go to the drivers website, the 32 bit drivers seem the same as the 64 bit drivers > Service & Support

Which driver are you talking about? VGA?

Thanks, do you know anything about the Bluetooth on the 3820tg? I thought it had it, but cant seem to find anything on the computer about it?

 

i am trying to OC my i5-460 cpu with setfsb...it works fine until I restart my computer.....then I have to open setfsb again and fikl out three registers, isnt there a way to make a "permanent" change ?

 

SetFSB supplies several command line options to do the change via short cut or job on boot (task scheduler).

This method will just work with the provided clock generators without manual register changes.

 

Hello Guys,

So i have finished the Backlit mod with the Acer Aspire 5942G Keyboard with German Layout. The Keyboard comes from Berlin in Germany. I myself live in Germany. So this Keyboard German Layout Backlit Keyboard for the 3820TG here!. It have the same connector's (flex cable) as the Original and the 3810 / 4810 Keyboard. You can use the same Thread of Backlit mod for the 3820TG ;-) It is so pretty. In Germany it is now night and i can read the letters on my laptop it is so cool.

 

For the VGA thing I just noticed it said no vga can go higher then that resolution I listed when I read it on wiki as well for the hdmi 1.3 supporting resolutions up to that high. Sorry for misinformation it was just a AFAIK but I did get one thing right, the resolution of your laptop makes no different with hdmi/dvi and an external monitor.

@danieljoachims: For the backlight keyboard, you dont have to cut into that one to make it fit? What will you do if you have to use your warranty?

 

Like Bronsky said, try looking at the back of your notebook for stickers showing your unit has a bluetooth module installed. From what the owners have, it could just either be a broadcom or an atheros bluetooth module. Or you can try pressing fn+f3 on windows and it will respond automatically and locate for drivers.

 

Hey, I just got a momentus XT 500GB Hybrid. I want to do a fresh install of windows, but is there anyway to keep the recovery partition thats on the original HDD?
I was thinking about cloning with Acronis, but i hear a fresh install is faster

 

Nice another momentus xt user!ü What i did personally is wipe out everything from the original hdd and dedicated it as an external storage. Did a clean install on xt, drivers, softwares etc then cloned it. It'll be much faster to recover using acronis it will just take a minute or two especially if you have the recovery software on usb. With D2D recovery, it takes a little longer as it uses the erecovery software provided by acer, and i didn't want the preinstalled os on my notebook that's why i got rid of it.ü

 

wait. so first delete everything from my HDD
then install Momentus
install windows
install drivers
THEN clone?

 

setfsb.exe -s160 -q

Put that in an icon and copy it to your startup folder.

 

Hey depends on you man, if you have important files on your old hdd then might as well save it.ü

 

I have never used acronis before so im not really sure, but is there anyway to ONLY clone the recovery partition?

 

Yes you can clone it using acronis

 

Get rid of the partion. Just make sure you burn the recovery CDs using the Acer utility and you'll be fine.

 

=Marc[QUOTEMTL;6924024]Get rid of the partion. Just make sure you burn the recovery CDs using the Acer utility and you'll be fine.[/QUOTE]


hmm no burner.... although i might get one to do this.

 

I installed Daemon Tools and burned binary images of the disc, which were then transfered to an external HDD.

I used my desktop to burn the images that were on the HDD.

 

Does anybody have this configuration EDIT: or better?
Review Acer Aspire 3820TG Subnotebook (i5/HD5650) - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Where can I find it?

Thanks!

 

how do you use daemon tools to burn the iso?

 

Import from PC Home ?

 

My US keyboard is STILL en route, but I decided to tinker with the keyboard removal in advance, just to be ready. I'm having some difficulty. Specifically, I can't get the tabs to stay pushed in and th one above f8 won't really stay pushed in at all. Are there just three up top? Once (if) I can get them pushed in, then what? Hendrickson's post says to pull the keyboard up from the top ... anyone have insight as to how? I'll be bummed if I can't so the swap.

 

hey guys a qns about screens here... I've got a LGD023 display, which i guess has something to do with LG displays? Some here have been complaining about issues with LG displays (even health related ones) however they have been reporting hardware codes along the lines of LPL (LG Philips). Was wondering whether LGD (LG Displays) = LPL (LG Philips) displays as so far I'm pretty impressed with my screen....

 

You need to make a virtual CD drive in Daemon tools. Windows will detect it as a genuine drive and allow you to burn. You can them make .ISOs and whatnot

 

for the size of this laptop, the charger brick is huge, anyone know of smaller ones that we can use?

 

^this
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

 

I realised that this doesn't have the grounding pin (unlike the original power brick). Will there any safety impact??

 

No. You should not take a bath with the power brick.

 

If you're in the US, you have to import it. There are 2 models available to the US from Canada: the I3-370M/HD 5650 model and I5-460M/HD5470. No I5/HD5650 is offered in North America. PCHome in Taiwan is the most commonly used importer for the I5 model. If you are in the EU, Computeruniverse and a lot of other German retailers have this model.

If you're in the US, I would check out the "North American Purchase" thread.

Bronsky

 

Where did you see this 100% false info?

Like many things posted on the net, the wrong info is spreading, and I am getting PM help request about how to get around these bad drivers not installing because of "what they saw posted".

I can assure you that the Acer drivers work 100% perfectly with 32 bit.
The Acer/AMD/ATi driver installer package is designed for both 32bit and 64 bit.
No issues. Nothing special needs to be done.

Latest for video is:
VGA AMD VGA Driver (Supports AMD Radeon HD 6370M/6550M Graphics) 8.741.1.6 193.9 MB 2010/11/09

which downloads: VGA_AMD_8.741.1.6_W7x86x64

Beside normal installer, you are also able to install these from device manager if desired, and if so, your 3820TG will then show as a HD 6550M when set to descete (search for prior posts). But that is not the usual method of install, and may require additional steps to first remove old drivers and change Bios settings. The normal install works fine and is what most should do.

 

The same place I see most of my 100% false information. Thanks for straightening that out.

Bronsky

 

Bump - does anyone know if there is a youtube video specifically showing the keyboard removal, or a post with slightly more detailed step-by-step or close-up photos? I've been looking but can't find anything, and based on my first attempt, I'm really unclear on how removing the keyboard is supposed to actually work.

 

I've cuted an old (flexible) credit-card; each time I pushed a tab, I've inserted a piece of the credit card between the keyboard and the laptop, so the keyboard don't come back in place.
There is three "top tabs", and two "side tabs" if my memory is good.
When the 5 tabs are pushed, it all come easily.

The plastic around the keyboard is very scratchy, use plastic tools. (You can break a CD case to make a tip, for pushing the tabs)

 

I have 5 top tabs and 2 side. The trick is to have an ever-so-slight upward pressure under the keyboard and as you release each clip it will pass upwards past the clip. If you look at Hendrickson's backlit keyboard mod thread, the first page shows the removal of the keyboard.

+1 on the plastic tools.

Bronsky

 

Not sure if this has been announced but the 6550m has appeared on computeruniverse. Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG-464G75nks - Notebooks - computeruniverse.net

 

AMD Radeon HD 6550M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Apparently, there is no difference in performance.

However, I am looking at this one :

Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG-5464G75nks Tests - Notebooks - computeruniverse.net

Cheaper, but still has a german keyboard.
Is it easy and/or cheap to change the keyboard on this laptop?

Also, is there any way to have this shipped to Canada or the USA?


EDIT: Is it actually worth the extra ~200$ to have all of those features? (i5 460M, Bluetooth 3.0, 750GB HDD, 1.3MP webcam)

 

I'm skeptical about what notebookcheck posted on 6550.
First thing- it doesn't have 800 pipelines, second is it really 650Mhz core and 900MHz memory? Third- it can supposedly use either DDR3 or GDDR5 and so does the 6570- really? What would be the difference between the two?
At this point one has to wonder what is real in this pseudo-spec.

 

@downloads

I'm your skeptical at your skepticism =P.

Until we see benchmarks, noone can really tell.

 

Ram upgrade (8gb) and replacement keyboard have arrived. Ram will be in tonight and the Keyboard as soon as I have some spare time. Just in the nick of time, since HP has started shipping the Slate 500 today. Mine should be here by the end of the week. I'll have to see if I can overclock the Z540 Atom in the Slate from 1.86mhz to 2.5mhz.

Bronsky

 

We do have user in here received 3820TG with i5 480M and HD6550, and based on GPU-Z, its HD5650 + 50MHz on Core clock speed..
and you can find the 3dmark06 score here
credit to cedricjy

 

Thanks for the info. Not a bad score but not worth upgrading for. Its really just a re-labeled 5650 with a little overclock. I wonder if its over voted? Maybe it could push a bit higher than our 5650's ?

 

Im having trouble finding the latest ATI driver, can anyone send me a link please?

10.11 says its not compatible... and borderlands is giving me strange tearing issues.

 

Thats pretty much the one I have. Processor is amazing...though its my first dual core if you can believe that! I swopped out the hdd straight away. Keyboard is easy to change though the one I got is black and glossy...the stock 3820 keyboard is a matte grey...quite nice....the 3820 replacement keyboards are starting to creep out though. Haven't seen a UK one one ebay yet though. Will probabl change when it appears

 

A handful of us are using this one ( AMD Mobility 10.10e Hotfix - Guru3D.com Forums) to good effect.

 

Thats super close to my stock score. I think the CPU is the only thing that made a real difference.

 

How about the backlit keyboard that dosnt have to be cut into? Is there one yet? Wheres the best place to solder it on the board?

 

So... which bluetooth module should I get?

 

So ... I got home tonight to discover that my US keyboard had finally been delivered. I wasted no time and I'm happy to report that I successfully managed to do the swap. I'm typing on the keyboard right now and it's pretty great after a couple of days with the old Canadian one.

Thanks to everyone who gave me pointers. Once I got down to it and realized how the thing really works, it wasn't too hard a job after all.

 

Hi Bronsky and everyone else,

A couple of questions, did you ever get the Broacomm wifi problem worked out. I used my 3820tg Saturday to view a soccer match. The game was only available on the net using Espn3 so I used my 3820tg and an hdmi cable for output to my hdtv. It worked great for about 30 minutes then the network connection failed. Had to disconnect and reconnect to my router, and it just kept failing. My other system, an acer 3810t did not drop the connection to the same router, but I was only using it to surf the web while watching the game. This tells me that the router was fine and so was my ISP, this leaves the broacom card in my 3820tg as a the reason the connection kept dropping. What do you think? Am I missing something such as heat? I was on ac power the whole time so it should not have been epower screwing things up.

I recall that several folks were saying either the intel 6200 or atheros ar5b93 were the way to go to replace the broadcom card. Is that still the case?

Also, I could not seem to get the HDMI output to work using the intel graphics only the ATI is this what others have experienced?

Many thanks
HOX