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

It is the perfect replacement for a P310. Enjoy it.

Why would you want to?

 

There does seem to be a few prblems with the laptop occasionally not recovering from standby, and just getting a black screen, not sure if its a W64bit problem. Im planning to install 32bit on it soon.

Any gamers know if the slightly reduced RAM (I think 32bit will be 3gb) will effect my gaming at all? Ive been assured it wont, just looking for more opinions.

Also, how do I find out what screen I have in mine?

 

To find out what kind of screen that your unit has you can go to CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting and download PCWizard. Thats what i have been using.
Cant understand why you would want to go 32 bit Windows 7. The reason to the black screen when recovering from standby is propably driver related. Experienced the same problem and after I installed the latest drivers the problem dissapered. There is a newer driver both for the Ati card and intel card on the acer support site.

 

I think the extension needs to be "done" in 90 days after the notebook purchase.

 

Been answered a ton of times already, Google really is a good friend m8

 

I read that you could buy an advantage warranty and use it through your entire year of initial coverage?

 

that's pretty interesting- does that mean you can get warranty coverage in your home country if you bought the 3820tg from overseas?

 

Exactly. 10char

 

Where can you get this extended warranty thing in Canada?

 

Explain why I would want to stick with 64bit

 

Hi, i'm a new member from France, i've bought the 3820TG w/ 5650 & i5 460M from computeruniverse after reading your feedback on this very usefull thread. I would like to thank Bronksy for his excellent guide to do a new Win 7 installation, so activation was no problem.

Mods so far are a Vertex 2 120, 8 Go of GSkill and a 6200N wifi card.

I must say i'm a bit disappointed by the results in gaming and in oc.

Best oc on gpu is 660 core and 910 memory. If i put more than 910 on memory, artefacts will slowly appear. At 1000, the whole screen turns green immediatly after clicking on "set clocks". I've not been lucky with the ram of my 5650, it seems. So the result in 3DMark 2006 at 660/910 is a 8500 pts.

 

Have you used setfsb to overclock your processor. I'm sure the score of 9.5k your looking for uses a heavily overclocked cpu. Remember alot of people would be very happy with a 8.5k score in 3dmark06 especially with a 13 inch laptop.

Could some one do me a favor and do a benchmark of ffxiv's benchmark( link) on low and high? Id very much appreciate it as I cant find any of them with google. The download is all the way on the bottom of the page.

 

64bit's memory advantage won't help with gaming "today", but if you use some video editing apps, they can take advantage of additional memory usable with 64bit. Perhaps in a couple years, 64bit will help or be needed for games as well. It's only a matter of time. The extra memory available for a few apps is about it for main reason to go 64bit.

Here is a sample discussion using google search to compare 32 vs 64.
http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/64-bit-computing/46916-does-64bit-os-have-better-gaming.html

Reasons to go 32bit is more about today and yesterday, and as such are many, but not what this question asked.

 

Yes, same concept; a lot of power and battery life in 13". I have no doubts for graphic cards, but I hope I will see differences between P8300 (2.4Ghz Turbo @ 2.53) and 460M (2.53Ghz T @ 2.8).
Are i5 5xx and i7 6x0 worth of it?

what is interest of 6200N? WiDi? Included one is too bad?

For the Ram, has BIOS capacities to set timmings?

How quick did the delivered? I planned to order by computeruniverse also.

 

What i have experienced from going from the network card that the computer was sold with to the Intel 6200N wifi card is better stability, signal strenght, speed and better driver support. With the Intel Centrino 6200N wifi card you can also use the laptop as a wireless ruter quite easily with the Intel Mywifi app technology. With that i have been able to share my wireless network connection with my mobile phone that has not yet been able to connect to the school network. If I have not been quite clear, you can be connected to a wireless network and in the same time also have a wireless netwok being broadcasted from the computer that utilises an WPA2 encryption technology and ability to share the internet connection.

 

I've bought a 4820TG last month, also bought an Acer Advantage Platinum (3 years warranty covering accidental damage as well, 15" notebook bag, and mouse included), I've just read the terms and conditions, anmd it says that the warranty needs to be activated in 90 days after the purchase.

My bad, I've interpreted it wrong last time, based on the extensaions disclaimer - theoratically - You can buy the warranty extension anytime, it's the extension itself that needs to be activated in 90 days from the purchase date.

I've bought the notebook and the extension in the same time, because the retailer wasn't sure if I could extend the warranty later, and I wanted to do it anyway, so it was easier this way.

 

Try editing satelite images in any modern GIS software without it and you'll know.

I added 8GB of GSkill but the Ram was defective. I'm retruning it now and will probably be ordering another set. Which GSkill (prod #?) did you use? Thanks. Glad the guide helped.

I've had an I3-370M, an I5-450M and an I5-540M in the 3820TG and was able to feel the performance difference between all three. Add the ability to OC and the differences become even more pronounced.

As far as the Wifi card, the Atheros card being put in the 3820TG ATM is fine. The Broadcomm card was terrible. That is why there was so much talk about replacing it.

Bronsky

 

I had the Broadcom card. It was what the computer came supplied with. I disliked it and chosed to replace it with the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 card.

For 8gb of memory you can also look for Corsairs laptop memory. I have been runing mine with a set from them now for a week. Quite pleased and it also gave a boost in performance since it has a higher clockspeed than the ones that the computer is supplied with that has a clockspeeed of 1060MHz compared to the ones from Corsair that has clockspeed of 1333MHz.
The product number for those from Corsair is: CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9

 

Greetings all the way from sweden!

I picked up a 3820tg two days ago, it came with the i5 460M processor and I'm pretty damn impressed to say the least! The main reason I even bought this laptop was from all the good things I've read about it here.

The GPU overclocks beyond expectations. It stays at 84c in Furmark stability test using 690/1080 without any artifacts. Black Ops in single player runs on High - fluently.

The only problem is the CPU, can't seem to overclock it at all in SETFSB. Been using the freeware and using the Clockgen Hendrickson recommended, but the slider starts at -200(?) and when I push it to 130~ the computer hangs immediately. Is the i5 460M not overclockable? Should I return it?

 

I have the 450M and I to have experienced problems with overclocking it with freezing as a reasult. I to have a scandinavian bought Acer 3820. Enjoy it as it is and buy yourself an i7 620M to it later on, I am quite sure on one thing and that is that I am surely gonna do that later on. Even so I am quite pleased with the performance in this machine. System runs smooth and quiet compared to my old 14inch laptop.

 

Although there are more questions raised by the thread than answers, you might want to look here. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/513560-possibly-overclocking-unclockable-3820tg.html Congratulations on your units.

Bronsky

 

-> Bronsky

About your tutorial, sorry if it sounds like a stupid question, but at step 8, during windows installation, are you not prompt for any serial/key?

 

To answer your question, windows will ask you to enter a serial. But you can choose not to enter one and you will have a 30 days period of use in wich you will have to enter a walid serial number to make windows work as it should past the 30 days.

 

You can enter anything you want there. If you are even considering phone activation, you should type in the number you have under your computer. I just use the OEM method because it's easier.

Bronsky

 

ok, thks both of you
I just did not remember that you could postpone key input during setup.

I have some doubts anyway, because this is exactly what I tried with my old German LG P300 Vista x86;
I tried to install a Vista oem 32bits english and during setup, to register with given (german) key and it never worked.

 

Hi all!

I have been very pleased with my 3820tg, it's a great machine.

But recently the fan on the right side has started to make buzzing sound, like it's position has changed and is now in contact with something else.

This sound kind of comes and goes. It's fairly loud sometimes, and sometimes it's hard to notice.

I have noticed that the buzzing also depends of the laptop's position. If I tilt it to the right, the sound is louder, and if I tilt it to the left, the sound vanishes.


Do you guys have any ideas what to do?

 

Sounds like maybe something is in the fan area? Try sticking the vacumm on the exhust vent with a brush connection and see if that can suck out what ever is in the fan.

If the fan itself is touching something I think you would need to send it back under warranty. Good luck!

 

Hey Hendrickson, I have a question in regards to OC'ing the CPU and and OC'ing the GPU with regards to your resident evil 5 benchmark video. How is that you can do both and still have the audio in sync with the game? It's out of sync when I play it. I'm on an i3 core OC'ed at 2.8ghz and with a 3dmark06 score of 8600.

 

Thank you! Will try that

 

Is it normal, at idle, for the RAM usage to be in the low 40%?

 

Its normal..

 

Quick question, is it normal for my 3820tg to run games at native resolution better than 1280x720 (720p) ? It seems to me that 720 should get few more frames than higher res. I havent tried external display yet but could some1 explain that to me? thx

 

anyone know if the 9-cell battery is available to buy anywhere?

 

If you want an OEM, you can probably order it from MK in Germany.

 

Hi there. I'm not sure, I have never had audio sync issues when I overclock both GPU and CPU. In that video I was overclocking my i5 450m, an i3 shouldn't be different. Are you running all the latest drivers?

 

I'd be fine with a non-OEM, anything on this side of the pond?

 

You mean the GPU drivers? If so then yes. In addition to the audio being off sync, my fps drops. =/ I am using setfsb and have the clock generation set to G73JH. To overclock I've been moving the clicks slowly. Am I missing something in this overclocking process?

 

is there a compatible LCD panel with a bit higher resolution that we can use in our 3820tg ?

 

Theres a 3820tg version in tigerdirect.ca that has the 9-cell. Aparently acer can order one for you but you have to already have either the 9 cell or 6 cell to order another battery, another words which ever one came with your machine they can order for you.

 

Hm for some reason my GPU clocks won't go higher than 300/300 since this morning.

I used GPU-Z to check those readings since my games got extremely slow.

Anything I should do to remedy this situation? I upgraded to 10.11 and it's still the same thing.

 

I tried to reinstall the stock Acer drivers, still doing the same thing. Also updated to BIOS 1.19.

What the hell, it was working fine yesterday, and did not change anything until it started.

This is my 2nd 3820TG that has problems with the AMD GPU. I hope it's a software/drivers issue. I really don't want to RMA it again.

Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/1p9JqNBr
Screenshots:

 

have you been OCing at all?

 

Not at all, it still shows up the stock clocks in GPU-Z: 500/800

I checked in Catalyst and there is no Overclocking section, as opposed to the Desktop version.

After, I downloaded some apps to try and force the clocks to, at least, the default values, but I'm not sure what to use.

ATI Tools wouldnt install since it dosent have a signed driver, Afterburner dosent seem to work neither.

 

amd gpu clock tool. the version to use is on the first page of this thread.

be sure to check your temps, and start super slow. if your gpu is defective, it might make it even worse.

 

If it's defective I'll RMA it anyway.

I'll try to use that tool, if it dosent work I'll reinstall windows. Otherwise I guess I will have to RMA... again. Geez. Why can't it just work like all of yours?

 

I forced them with AMD GPU Clock tool to the stock 500/800 and it seems to be back to normal, but when I do a reboot, it goes back to 300/300.

At least, it seems to only be a software issue. That's reassuring.

 

The GPU is being throttled, that's what the sharp peaks are. Possibly detecting an over temperature condition (faulty sensor) on the GPU or one of the thermal zones. Try CPUID HW Monitor to see if any temps are off.

 

@K5Doom, try disable and enable back the PowerPlay ?

 

It's just your computer trying to save power by cutting the speed of your GPU. It's perfectly normal. If you want to waste energy then disable Powerplay in Catalyst Control Centre. You do not need an RMA for this.

 

Oh wow, I feel like an idiot now. I had no idea that PowerPlay existed. I haven't had a notebook with a discrete GPU in quite a while and I'm used to the Desktop-thinking.

Thanks, problem solved.