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

same hardware/software and zoom feature work in firefox. try it.

 

Hello,

What is a good SSD for the 3820tg. The included hard drive is making noises (I believe its the hard drivee, but not 100% sure).

 

If Your HDD is a WD, QuietHDD will do the trick, every member got rid of the "clicking sound" using it.

As for the SSDs, I don't have one, but I'd consider these : Vertex 2, Agility 2, Crosair Force SF-1200, Crucial C300.

 

Thanks for your reply. Where can I get Quiet HDD from?

 

QuietHDD is here.

 

that sux alot, getting dreaded blue screens of death can make a bad impression on your thoughts and spirit when having a good laptop. Hope you get it sorted out, I went through hell on my older machine with literaly thousands of them before I switched memory and poof it was gone. That was back when laptops just started coming out with dedicated video cards tho. Best of luck to anyone going through bsod's. For some people its better to play the redundency game then the overclock and update game.

 

I just installed an OCZ Vertex 2 80G and I'm loving it system is blazingly fast. And everything is just generally more responsive and smoother. Graphics in games are much smoother. Once faster processors are invented, SSDs will be able to interface with them even better and the whole way we compute will be different.

Flip a switch..computer on.
Copy a file..it happens instantly.
Run program.. It immediately appears on your screen fully loaded.

SSD is here...SSD will be the future.

 

Intel Chipset Driver v9.1.1.1025 - no update as of today

Realtek HD Audio R2.56 Updated [TESTED]: Realtek - select the one for Vista and Windows 7 32/64bit. You might also want to install the ATI HDMI Audio Device driver highlighted in red in the same page.

Broadcom Bluetooth v6.3.0.6700 [TESTED]: Broadcom.com - Bluetooth Software Download - accept the license agreement and download. Bluetooth must be turned on during the installation.

Atheros Bluetooth v7.0.2.13 [NOT TESTED]: Drivers for Atheros AR3011 and Windows 7 - I have not tested this because I'm using Broadcom bluetooth, if someone could verify if this works it would be great

Alcor Micro Card Reader v1.0.15.54 [TESTED]: http://www.station-drivers.com/tele...eader_1.15.54-w7(www.station-drivers.com).exe

Atheros LAN v1.0.0.36 [TESTED]: ATHEROS Network drivers for Windows - look for your hardware (mine's AR8151) and select your version of Windows (likely Windows 7 x64)

Alps Touchpad Driver v7.6.2020.204 [NOT TESTED]: http://www.station-drivers.com/tele...ad_7.x6.2020.204(www.station-drivers.com).exe

Synaptics Touchpad Driver v15.1.18 [TESTED]: http://www.station-drivers.com/tele..._touchpad_151180(www.station-drivers.com).exe - select the one for your system. Note that this source sometimes posts drivers that are for in-house testing and generally screws up gestures. Look for release notes after downloading the file. If release notes are not present, it is an in-house driver and NOT recommended for your system.

ATi Display Drivers v10.12 [TESTED]: ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver - Remember to set graphics mode in BIOS to "discrete" before installing. However, installing this driver is known to cause brightness keys to not function.

Intel WiMax Driver for 6250 v6.1.0 [NOT TESTED]: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19616&ProdId=3199&lang=eng - Not tested because I am not using Intel WiMax, hopefully someone can verify if it works.

Atheros WLAN v9.2.0.113 [TESTED]: ATHEROS Wireless drivers for Windows - look for your hardware (mine's AR5B93) and select your version of Windows.

Broadcom WLAN v5.100.249.2 [NOT TESTED]: http://www.station-drivers.com/tele...0.249.2-vista-7(www.station-drivers.com)).exe - This driver should be compatible with all Broadcom WLAN devices. Verification needed.

Intel WLAN driver v13.4.0.0 [NOT TESTED]: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19516&ProdId=3200&lang=eng - Read the readme in the page. If it scares you then don't use this driver. Verification needed.

Not a lot of updates for drivers. Only Realtek driver updated so far.

 

Hey everybody, I'm just curious as to everyone's idle temps for the 5650. I ask because mine seems as though its running a little hot. Idle temps for me on the 5650 are around 55C. Load temps such as playing games it varies, but usually between 83C-88C. This seems high to me on this laptop. I also ask because overclocking on this notebook and the results others get are amazing, but my highest result without artifacts or crashes is just 620/920. Is there a way to check for some solutions or do you think the thermal paste is just not seated right? By the way, I'm running Catalyst 10.12 and Bios V1.19, so all the latest but still getting what seems to be high results since my CPU idles at 43-44C. I understand it is not the same which is why I'm asking here where it seems just about every problem has come up.

 

thanks for that bro, i'm going to update the bios now and install a fresh w7 with these fresh drivers hope my lappy gets fresh too and get rid of BSOD-s, throttling, and the "i-leave-the-machine-turned-on-for-night-and-when-morning-comes-it-is-frozen" toooo

 

I'm having a little issue with my 3820tg, i5-450m, 5650hd, 6cells.....

The battery time varies as it wants to.... The Windows' estimated "battery time left" is sometimes like 7-8hours, and other times 2-3hours left.... Acer powermanager is installed, Intel GFX is activated, and the powerbutton is lid.. As I'm writing this post, my battery ate from 100% to around 90% with the 3hours stated in the battery-icon, now it indicates 7hours 51min @ 88% battery left... And now it is 8hours and 1min @ 87% ???

Any ideas? Or someone with similar problems??

 

It's not a problem. Windows calculates the battery time left by calculating the discharge rate and your battery capacity. Thus, when your power usage fluctuates, so does your battery time.

 

With low CPU load the Laptop needs around 9-10W and if you push the CPU to the limit the power consum can go to nearly 30W.

The runtime calculation doesn't know what you will do in the next time and calculated every time at the actual usage. It doesn't interpolat the values like a few other tools.

64,8Wh/(9 to 30W)=runtime [h]

 

I know that the usage of the laptop will affect the battery time... But I'm talking about idle, web-surfing and nothing else. Not battery consuming task at all...

 

Your web browser, RAM, hard disk all use power. Web surfing, being a very broad definition, can range anywhere from staring at a blank page to having 20 tabs all loading a flashy page full of flash ads, java apps and memory hogging stuff. In the first instance the power usage will be minimal, thus an apparently long battery life. However, the second instance, since CPU, memory and hard disk are all being used, power usage thus increases, apparently shortening battery life. Take into account memory leaks, which occur over time and thus will cause power usage to increase slowly over time as well. Also, you have no idea what other things your laptop may be up to, like contacting Windows Update, updating antivirus, virus scan etc, all of these can increase power usage. Don't worry about it.

 

Okay so I looked at the Smart stats via Ultimate Boot CD and sure enough, there were a ton of errors. Tried to run the diagnostics but they gave me more errors.

So now it's going to RMA and UPS should pic it up tomorrow.

 

Ok, for those who are interested, i ran a 3Dmark06 on my 3820TG
The test was made on a 1366X768 resolution and AAX4

CPU: i3 380m @ 2.53GHz
GPU: HD5650
4GB RAM
Win 7 ultimate

3dmark score: 2607
sm 2.0 score: 941
HDR/sm3 score: 940
CPU score: 2720

I have no clue what that means, so.. is it good, bad, or somewhere in between?

 

did you run it on battery ?

isn't it the 3820tg should do over 6500 easy ?
may be it is the AA setting.

 

i was running it on battery

6500?? then i must have done something wrong

 

Did you install the latest drivers from ATI like Hendrickson mentions on the first page? If not I think you were only at PCIx1 and not PCIx16 so your result is about right.

 

Nope, didnt install the new drivers. i am still with the ati drivers that came with the computer. i just didnt know if the latest drivers are stable enough

 

Where's the laptop's sound equalizer? Do I need to download this?

 

Yeah, don't run 3Dmark on battery. The power saver settings (such as switching over to Intel HD graphics) might have went on to produce that low score.

 

I think that 10.12 are just preview drivers but not sure on that. If you want stable you could try to find Catalyst 10.6. I believe they do not have many problems and the brightness keys still work when on the dedicated card.

 

There's the reason. On battery you're not using ATi 5650, it automatically switches to Intel integrated GPU, which has like 500 score instead of 5000 score.

 

you can still use ati 5650 even on battery,
but the ati 5650 will run at lower clock

 

Unless you disable PowerPlay in CCC, which while on battery also reverts the voltage back to 1.0V instead of 0.9V

 

Ok was doing the test again. AAX4 and resolution 1366X768 and plugged the battery

3Dmark score: 5851
SM 2.0: 2244
HDR/SM3: 2310
CPU: 2779

Then i was running the test again only changed no AA and resolution 1280X720

3Dmark score: 7628
SM 2.0: 2747
HDR/SM3: 3463
CPU: 2776

So.. good, bad, or somewhere in between?

How is the CPU score?

 

My 4820TG has an i5-460M and it gets these scores (stock no overclocking or anything):

3Dmark: 7705
SM 2.0: 2746
HDR/SM3: 3464
CPU: 2957

So your numbers seem right in the ballpark for an untuned / untweaked i3 based machine.

 

Second score looks about right. The standard test most of us do as a reference is 1280x720, NO antialiasing. So ~7.5k is in the ballpark. If you overclock the GPU you can bump it up to 9~9.5k.

 

What about the CPU score itself?

 

They look about right too.

 

Just to follow up my own reply.... It was a little stupid of me not to look at little more into the problem before posting, sorry guys...

I ran the powercfg -energy in cmd, and got an alert about my HTC sync program was eating around 25% of the cpu at that moment, just running in the background not operating... Uninstalled it and now the problem seems to be solved

 

hey guys,
I have a problem with my 3820tg (ATI 6550, i5 480, BIOS 1.19)
As soon as i switch to battery-mode i have problems with my graphics. (artefacts) This can only be repaired by system recovery. This is the second 3820tg with this problem so i think there is no hardware damage. I did not do anything except install the game and switch to battery mode afterwards.
I hope you can help me, otherwise i will send it back.
PS: sorry for my english, i´m from austria^^

 

Areteh artefacts on flash videos? If it true, disable the hardware acceleration.

 

I don´t have problems with videos but with games.
the games i tried are: WOW, Settlers 7, Gothic 4;
Anno and bioshock 2 don´t have any problems.
I don´t now what to do. I can´t be the only one with that problem.
I have no idea how to disable the hardware acceleration.

 

You are sure the ATI card is running on battery mode?

The other point is, that only a few persons have the new 6550 and the most the "older" 5650.

 

no, the ATI card is not running in battery mode, the problem uccurs only when i switch to the intel graphics some time. when i switch back to ati and want to start a game i´m having artefacts and can´t get them away any more.

 

artifacts are signs of a corrupted or damaged video memory most of the time, at least in my dealings with them. I have had to deal with this issue over the course of years with an older alienware. It went away after waiting months and then reinstalling the newest drivers. I Would bet that waiting for a driver update for your video card would be the smart thing to do if you can live with the artifacts. You say it only happens when you change it to battery mode...well that is no good. hmm, that wouldnt be worth keeping to me but Im sure its probably a driver issue.

 

My first problem with the 3820TG.

All was going well until last night.

Computer rebooted itself and now whenever I tried to log in to windows 7 (64 bit) I get a BSOD regarding "iastor.sys". driver irq not less or equal etc....

Any idea how to fix this other than reformatting?
I don't really want to reformat etc...

I'm going to try safe mode with command prompt and see if this will fix it.
(I saw this fix on a different site)
- Boot in Safe mode with command prompt (BSOD in regular Safe mode)
- Open device manager with command "devmgmt"
- Browse for "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers"->"Intel...SATA AHCI Controller".
- Right-Click on it and select properties.
- In "Driver" tab, click on Roll Back Driver.

Any comment or ideas?

 

Is it just me or is there a pretty high trouble rate on these things, is it just the folks over clocking or does it seem to be everybody?

 

Mine isn't even overclocked.
But as far as what google says on the error message that I got that it seems to be a driver problem with the intel matrix storage or something like that.

 

its just you.

 

Hello, I have a problem I hope someone can help me with.

When I try to install the realtek audio driver I get an error :

-5006 : 0x8000ffff

Do anyone knows what's wrong?
Please help me!

 

Make sure you have the one listed in " this post".

If so uninstall from system devices and reinstall. I'm not familiar with that error code especially for audio.

After a quick google it seems it happens for other reasons and not only the realtec drivers. Any more information? System specs? Hard drive full? Run defrag if not running on an SSD.

 

Oh, Reeeally

 

I solved it by open the device manager, find the audio device, right click and choose update driver from hdd location and then simply choose the directory I downloaded.

I don't know if this is the correct way to do it, but it worked for me.

btw. Thanks for your help!

 

I lol'd. When the person that couldnt get there 3820tg to work with there lcd tv over hdmi showed up I new something was up.

 

can't find the 1.19 bios anymore on acer support, probably pulled?

 

Considering the number of people who bought the timelines the number of actual problems have been fairly low. We have seen a lot of issues involving the installation of non-standard drivers etc. But, actual hardware issues have been rare. For instance, A lot of issues are related to Acer's ePower program or AMD's catalyst driver settings causing output issues. I find that we hear the same questions over and over due to the size of these threads.

In all, the timeline has an excellent record.

Bronsky