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

Yeah, the probability of a BIOS installation failure can only be attributed to a coincidental power outage if you've done everything right. And to have a power outage right in the 30-second window of time after you hit "update BIOS" button is less likely than winning the lottery.

 

heeh..... Jerg, i just noticed... congrats on your 3820TG!

 

Hi everybody

i would really appreciate if you could help me with my little issue with this notebook. My switchable graphics are not switching indeed. Well let me explain. If i have pluged in external display in my VGA output everything works fine. But if dont, when i try to swith graphics it reports that it cannot be completed due to current display configuration which is kind of error i really dont get what it means .
I am sorry if this problem was mentioned here but 800 pages are sooo hard reading . Thanks a lot

 

Mine's the 5820TG, but hey thanks! Not too pleased with the screen though, dithering issue persists.

 

HDMI or analog?

The Intel is not able to use the HDMI port.

 

when im using display on my notebook im am not able to switch from intel to ATI.. also when i try to use HDMI it dont work unless i firstly puts VGA then switch graphics and then use HDMI.. but it switches back everytime on battery to save energy and then i have to put in VGA again and so

 

Do you try to use the contex menue?

The P button over the keyboard doesn't work.

 

sure i tried im telling you it puts error message switch cannot be performed due to current display configuration

edit: and when on VGA it works fine

 

I received my 3820TG with ATI 6550 from Germany yesterday. A nice surprise too, the specs on the website and even the sticker on the machine say i5-460M whereas in actual fact it's a 480 . That's besides the point though.

My GPU, the ATI 6550, is running natively with 600/800 Core/Memory clocks. I was able to OC to 840/1050 without problems or artifacts, I'm sure it could go higher, just haven't tried it yet and don't intend to - already got 9850 3dmark06 score with those settings.

The 5650 has a lower core clock and a slightly lower volatage. From what I can see it does not OC as well as the 6550, at least in my machine.

Hope this helps.

 

What bios is it running? What is your voltage when you're running OC'd like that.

Bronsky

 

Does Bios 1.19's heat managment superior to the 1.13 due to improved fan control, etc?

Is it worth uprgadring overall?

 

My 3820 decided to crap out totally out of the blue. Last time I used it, everything was fine, but yesterday when I put it on windows wouldn't load and I had to do a startup repair.

That took about 6 hours and the I could get in to Windows. Not that it helped out any, I couldn't do anything with the hdd churning away god knows what. I couldn't shutdown properly because it just kept freezing all the time.

Now the problem is, should I just do a clean install or RMA the thing? If I do perform a clean install and then need to sent it in, will they mind? I was very happy for a while, but now I'm just pissed at this sudden failure.

 

The simplest is the RMA, but be sure that is not a software problem.

 

Hi,

I am new here and I recently bought a 3820TG with i3 330m and ATI HD5470. I want to overclock both the GPU and the CPU but for some reason I cant. I downloaded SetFSB and used ASUS as PLL but it didnt work. Tried to use AMD Overclock for the 5470 and i got an error message with no device recognized.

Any tips for what i can do?

 

Acer changes the PLL very often. Have a look at Bronskys Thread about his PLL and compare the both.

The 5470 is a very small card and it isn't worth to overclock it.

Best regards

 

That sounds quite logical and I believe you. However I am surprised as Furmark was known to me to be the most stressful application ever for graphics and reach higher temperatures than any game (especially for Radeon, where it loads 100% of the stream processors, what no game can do).

I will investigate and try some Crysis.

 

For the CPU, Nick's right, you have to find the right PLL (if it is not locked).
For your GPU, I suspect that you were using intel HD graphic when you launched AMD overclok. Be sure to switch to HD5470 before launching this app.

 

That's kind of why I haven't formatted yet. It's really difficult to make sure it's not a software problem if Windows freezes all the time. It probably is though, since safe mode works more or less and doesn't have the same hdd trashing.

 

Ceate a backup of your data and recover the "Acer Windows" over night for testing.

 

True, will have to do that. It can be done on boot?

 

anyone can help me pls?

 

The lappy came default with the 1.19 BIOS. GPU-Z shows voltage @ 1.050V when running FurMark on the above OC settings.

I have another problem though - high temps and fan speeds.

At the moment running 800/1050 to reduce temps a little bit, with FurMark constantly on I'm reaching 92-93C on the GPU. Even the keys get hot on the right side. I'm not used to that, I don't know if it's normal or not. It's been running stable for about 5 hours on those settings.
GPU-Z was showing fan speed at 100% in the first 2 hours or so, now it's only showing 30%. The lappy is very quiet, the fans are spinning to it doesn't sound like they're at max capacity.

Is there any way to up those fan speeds to the max? And do you think those temps are normal? On stock clocks I was getting up to 84-85C while running FurMark.
CPU temps are consistently low btw, never reaching 70C.

PS. Using 800/1050 and the 10.12 driver from ATI's website, when running FurMark the temps hit 101C. At this point I stopped it. Downgraded to the 6xxx-compatible driver from Acer support and now temps are below 95C, still between 92-94 which seems very high to me anyway.
Does anyone know what the 'coolest' drivers are that I could use to reduce temps a little bit more? It's scary for me to run anything on the GPu with over 90 degrees....

 

Yes, you can use the Acer Revovery Option. (Don't know the name at moment.)

 

Sounds like your gonna burn out that hardware pretty fast. Those temps are higher then people try and run on desktops. You may have already done damage. I suggest slacking off right away.

 

Eek, looks like Acer went overboard with that upgrade. Most of us have lappies with 5650 and the temps are nowhere near those, I guess the increased voltage of the 6550 means it releases (it seems) a lot more heat.

Lower your OC to 750/1000 and try again, see if that helps. 800/1050 might be stable in the GPU, but not in the laptop cooling.

 

I've been doing more testing after downgrading to the original 6550-compatible driver from ATI / AMD support website.

I've also finally removed all the stickers / protective foil etc. from the laptop. Not done it before since I only got the machine yesterday and was really busy with other things since then .

Here are the new and I think final temps, with the 3d settings in the CCC set to max performance:


1. OC 800/1040 FurMark stable temps of 92-93C
2. OC 800/1040 FurMark with laptop cooler stable temps 86-87C
3. OC 800/1040 3dMark06 with laptop cooler max temp 76C*
3. Stock 600/800 FurMark stable temps of 79-80C

*3dmark06 score 9715 (3630/4600/2960 2.0/3.0/CPU)
I could set clocks to 840/1100 stable to break the 10k mark but don't feel like pushing my luck that much .

This is all in FurMark of course, I can only assume real life / gaming temps will be a lot lower.
Panic over?

Any suggestions to further reduce average temps are welcome!

 

I've got same setup (480m & 6550) and have exact same temperatures and 3d06 scores. I do not think there are anything to worry.
When my 3820TG was lying on a table, I even broke the 100°C with Furmark at 850/1150, while slightly wedging the laptop reduced the temperature of 5/10°C (~95°C). It was running stable anyway (Furmark, 3D06, 3D11...).
Unlike CPUs, GPUs are likely to reach high temperatures (80/100°C), and if they go too high, GPUs (like CPUs) can throttle (idle cycles), reduce frequency or even shut down.

About controlling fans, I quickly had a try with speedfan but had no success.

 

Sounds like 3820 I got at Staples. It would freeze randomly with haddrive working all the time. It would take 5minutes for me to open "My Computer". This was stock install. I tried to do system restore a few times. but it was a complete failure. I've seen something similar before, so I checked my harddrive with SMART utility (I used Gnome Disk Utility on Ubuntu, but you can find Windows alternatives) and it had a bunch of bad sectors. It failed the Read Test too. I went back to the store and got an exchange. Everything was fine with the new one!

If you want to check your HDD on Ubuntu, download a desktop live CD 32-bit/64-bit and boot from it from USB stick. There are many guides online on how to create bootable Ubuntu flash drives.
Enable F12 boot menu in BIOS, then use F12 menu to boot from flash drive. When Ubuntu loads select "Try...". Open (it is on top left) Applications->Accessories->Terminal. Make sure you have LAN cable connected with internet (Wireless may not work out of the box). Then type sudo apt-get update + Enter. Then type sudo apt-get install gnome-disk-utility + Enter. Once it is done, go to System->Administration->Disk Utility. There you can select your harddrive and view SMART data and do some tests. Here is how it looks like.

Hope this helps!

 

agree,

for me, i will not like to make any part of my notebook hit 90 degress C
I want to use it for 1 year

not just 2 months

lol especially i swaped my cpu,, no warrenty hehe lol
650/900 is my everyday gaming clock.
it seems fast enough

 

That is some great advice for anyone to do regardless of issues or not. Great advice prik. I'd rep but I have to share some love

Still jealous of your machine btw rx. My 3820 is on the way and should be here by Friday. I should know by then if I have a little extra cash to upgrade ram and cpu. As for a HDD I wand an SSD but really want something with high capacity. " WD throws out 2.5-inch 750GB Scorpio Black hard drive, makes your laptop beg for an upgrade" <---- I'm waiting for it to hit online retailers... giggity giggity

 

You have to enable D2D (disk-to-disk) recovery in bios and when the first screen shows up after powering your laptop up, spam alt+f10 to enter the hidden, protected partition which will restore everything, although if your HDD is crapping out then it won't help much since it's on another partition on the same hard drive.

 

You know, if i were you , I will not go 7200rpm drive.

I tried the hybrid drive from seagate which is basily a 7200rpm plus some sad,
When it spin up , I could felt the vibration.(which was really annoying)
I think it was because of the thinness of the notebook, which let you feel everything.
If you really need space, I will not even bother changing the hard drive,
Just get a external Harddrive

 

I believe in the next several months, I will keep my 3820tg,
The only think I may upgrade is a newer/ faster ssd.

After upgraded to a faster ssd, i will use my current vertex2 as a external storage.

 

YES! I do have problems. In Intel graphics mode, IE9 does not work with hardware acceleration.

But it's funny, the problem only started in the last couple of days, and SEEMS to correlate with the SSD I just installed. Do you have an SSD?

It seems there are a lot of people with hardware acceleration problems in general with IE9. Let's not forget, it IS beta, I am sure with such widespread problems being reported, it will be fixed.

 

After reading through some of the postings on the Sandy Bridge, I decided to pull the trigger on an OEM i7 620m. It looks to me that 640m is pretty much about all that we can realistically get for this line of notebook. (going to upgrade from i3 350m)

Based on how CES has turned out, we might not see a compact notebook capable of very intense 3D graphics for at least a few seasons. However, I am of the camp that Razer is going to move in this direction by late 2011, based on what they've announced thus far with the Switchblade.

A refresh of the M11x might also come, but it will be no 3820TG.

On the subject of hardware acceleration, I am also experiencing problems. Now back to using 3.6 Firefox.

By the way, does using the SSD drive really impact battery life at all?

 

Also curious about this, I'm assuming it increases it but by how much?

 

I don't know if it has been addressed in the first 700 pages, but I would like to ask 2 questions:

1. Does the 3820TG support 4 RAM modules? I'm planning to buy another 4GB and add them to the existing generic 4GB for 8GB of RAM.

2. Will I get a significant performance improvement if I upgrade my HDD to 7200rpm? And if so, which ones don't make too much noise and vibrations and which ones should I avoid? I don't want an SSD as they break my bank and I need a lot of storage space. I can probably use my existing HDD as an external disk for even more storage.

 

No, most laptops support only 2 RAM sticks, few support 3 (I know 5553G supports that), every rarer (and of course larger) laptops support 4. It's usually overkill.

As for the HDD question, no, it'll maybe transfer files faster, booting will be faster but only by a couple of seconds, not noticeable. As for noise level, it depends more on the brand than the fact that it's 7200RPM. I'd say if there is a nice deal on a big 7200RPM HDD (maybe 640 GB or 750 GB), then go for it. Otherwise save up for an SDD + external HDD(s).

 

Hay guys
January is quite cold in central europe, but my 3820tg has some overheating issue now. When i urchased it few months earlier, i've ran excessive benchmarks to check the cooling systems, but then the temps stood normal (CPU80-85, GPU 70-75) The room temp was also lower then. First i've noticed overheating when i first played with the new CoD Blackops game. sometimes it gets over 95c, when it is on a flat surface. Now i installed the new NFS game and noticed that the cpu iss throttling after some minutes, and temps are over 100c !
Can you tell me something positive about this, or just show me an ideal cooling pad for this lappy pls

 

The short answer is: Yes, a tiny bit.
The slightly longer answer is: It depends on the SSD vs. HDD comparison. Some ssd's use more power than low power hdd's.
I read numerous posts stating the same as this article from anandtech. While its a bit dated, I believe the data still holds true. So while your ssd might draw slightly less power, you shouldn't expect even an hour worth of extra battery life. I do have doubts you would even notice the difference at all.

 

The 3820 have only 2 slots, you have to replace the 2GB module with a 4GB module.

A change to 7200rpm hard drive will not speed up the laptop on all your work. The different between 5400 and 7200 isn't worth the update in my opinion if you not copying great files every day.

 

Quite some time has passed now.

Are there any new mentionable drivers for this notebook released?

I have looked some up on the Acer support site.

But, it's a bit chaotic there.

It seems that they have used webcams from various manufcatures, as well as for many othe modules like bluetooth, W-Lan , touchpad and so on...

Haven't done any updates so far.

 

I now installed the Syncaptic driver from Acer to replace the Alps driver.

It feels a bit sharper, more precise now, though no options of multitouch gestures or whatsoever at all!

 

Sure?

 

What are you pointing at?

Deinstalled the Alps driver and installed the Synaptic driver.
Haven't found any register to configure the touchpad yet though.


It works somehow even if it isn't a synaptic touchpad?

Anyways, the scrolling feels much better now.

 

You can not use the Synaptics driver if you have an Alps Touchpad.

 

I agree.

SSJ- check the touchpad in the device manager- see what driver version it's running and who provided it.
My guess is you're running default Windows driver.

 

Is anyone playing Empire:Total War on their 3820?

I just installed the game today, it all runs beautifully on high settings @ around 40 FPS...that is until I turn on AF.

I've played many games before including ETW on a much weaker hardware and AF never caused any noticeable FPS drops, but now it goes down from 40 to 29 just by enabling 8x / 16x AF! Even going from Trilinear to 2x AF causes a 4-5 FPS drop.
This is on Win7 64bit. Tried both the 10.12 driver and the ATI / AMD driver from their website and various CCC settings. No change. Turning on AF still makes my FPS nosedive.

Even AA doesn't reduce FPS as much as the lowest AF setting on this game..?

Any ideas what might be wrong?

 

Well, doesn't matter.
I really couldn't handle the Alps-driver for the touchpad, laggy and not fluent for my taste.

 

@SSJ
I admit it's a bit surprising but if it works...