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

...you might want to mention ATITool

Or how do you aprove your tested clockspeeds are artifact-free?


BTW: How do you get HWMonitor to show you all this parameters, mine only shows Temps for CPU/GPU/HDD/Chipset?

flunserl

 

Go for the 30W then

In practical terms, flux 'wets' the metal so the blob of liquid solder sticks to it.

See this video for a better description.

(refer to Hendrickson's pics)
In the backlit keyboard mod, you'll be soldering to a ribbon cable and a usb port. Needless to say, don't melt the ribbon cable. I haven't tried it, but when you're trying to solder ground to the usb port housing, you might need to scar and flux the joint point if the solder doesn't stick. Also when you're soldering to one of the actual joints on the usb port, ensure that the joint is set properly after you re-heat it. Usb ports suffer a lot of strain from plugging in/out stuff, and if the joint is brittle after you solder the keyboard power in, then it might break after repeated usage (and you'll have to solder it again ).

If you look closely it's Open Hardware Monitor (as opposed to HWMonitor). Webby is here.

 

Haven't come to ATI Tool just just as yesterday I wasn't but trying to push the limits, that's all. I'm not planning on running any higher than 700/1000 for daily purposes. In my heavy OC'ing days (yes, still have those watercooled & Dice beasts upstairs) it was one of my default tools anyway

To get the other parameters (I suppose you mean minimum and maximum temps), just go to "View - columns" and select min & max.

 

I thought I was alone! I better stop all those rebooting, reinstallation, etc; that save me LOTSA time. Many thanks.

Next, Win7 SP1.

 

Do you think it would be possible to "transplant" new ATI drivers also? I was going to try it myself but I have to study for a pharmacology test this Friday so I haven't had any time. Will try on Friday though.

 

I don't know how you're planning to take power and ground off the USB port but I found that soldering on the bottom of the USB card is a better solution IMO. http://forum.notebookreview.com/6902598-post303.html It is an easier joint to solder on, it is invisible once you put the USB card back in and, if you remove it to send the unit in for am RMA, it is far less obvious. http://forum.notebookreview.com/7062503-post329.html

I used flux on the joint. It makes the soldering much quicker (less exposure to heat) and the joint much stronger. It prepares the surface while the solder is heating up in the joint. It actually seems to flow the solder into the joint easier. I have done it both ways and prefer the flux.

One note of caution. If you take the ground off one of the gounding points on the side of the USB, make sure to use the one opposite the power pin. Also make sure your joint and wires are not in contact with the copper areas on the bottom of the USB board as they will conduct the power. It might be better to find a ground somewhere else, like a chassis screw like Hendrickson did. Once you solder the joint, I would cover it with some non-conducting material to prevent unintentional grounding. At the very least, cover the joint with electrical tape.

When you solder the wires to the ribbon (I use flux there too), have a piece of shrink wrap already on the wires so that you can put it over the ribbon joint and shrink it down to protect the soldering points and the ribbon. There are a few pictures of this in the backlit KB thread.

Finally, make sure all power is off, the battery is out and any residual charge in the unit have been released before you start. Go slow and be careful.

Bronsky

 

whoa i haven't posted here in months... good to see the thread alive and well!

bronsky's still kicking i see, nicee

and dookie, you still haven't gotten the 3820?! LOL man u are missing out... what a beautiful machine..

anyhow, i might be selling mine since i just built a new desktop and bought a netbook..

 

Ordering now! Thanks!

I found this video yesterday, it really cleared me. Thanks for sharing anyway! And thanks for all the following information.

I didn't even put my 3820 out of the box yet, but I'll follow your tips, for sure!
And I'm going to buy some flux too. Thanks!

 

Still stuck on that processor OC ... I can't get it stable above 2.9 GHz. I used Throttlestop to stop it from using the turbo (an CPUID at least shows the same parameters as I put in Throttlestop so I guess it works) but anything beyond 157 (being 145 base) seems to make it unstable. Anyone any idea (besides hacking the BIOS)?

 

I don't want to be rude, but what is the purpose of OC'ing cpu to 2.9GHz if the turbo feature already boosts the speed only when you really need it?
Won't you get better power management if you leave it stock?
Overclocking the gpu I can understand, if you can increase the fps rate to have a smooth game...

 

Heh, I think I actually did get the HP ENVY 14 discrete driver to work, though I don't know how stable/safe that is. My primary goal was to get the updated Intel driver, as I haven't encountered any issues with the discrete drivers from Acer.

Though at that point, you might as well just update to the latest discrete driver instead (Catalyst Mobility 11.2 series), if that's what you mean, which works as long as you do it as per the first page (switch to Discrete mode in BIOS first), even after this Intel driver "transplant".

 

ATITool will only work on Windows 2000/XP/2003 (64 bit versions are supported).

Does it still work on windows 7 64bit?

 

What graphics card do you have? HD 5470M, HD 5650M, or HD 6650M? The only reason I felt it might be safe to do this procedure is because I have the HD 5650M, which is the same graphics card as in the HP ENVY 14. If you have the newer refresh with the HD 6650M, that might be the problem right there.

Though it did work for Musho, who has the HD 5470M model. However, that is a 5xxx series, and perhaps this procedure won't work for those with 6xxx series unless the ENVY 14 gets a refresh with a 6xxx series card with new drivers.

Though I faintly recall there should be some laptops from other manufacturers with a 6xxx series card and switchable graphics. Perhaps the Intel driver from those will work out better? Not sure.

P.S. Just checked the MD5 of the 8.752 driver that I have been using and it matches yours exactly.

MD5=297ECAF2A6C5E911B3E1E938B8053D0D

 

Hey guys,

I've been lurking (if you may) this thread for quite some time, and is actually the reason why I purchased my 3820tg-3022 in Canada. So far it's been great.

Now, recently I tried updating to the 11.1 catalyst, had some serious problems that wouldn't seem to go away - I couldn't seem to get the drivers back to default, and if I could, I had countless problems. Long story short - I restored to factory using Acer's eRecovery Management.

Just a question for you experts here: My laptop seems to be INSANELY slower than it was before the restore, including program load times. I find myself hanging at the welcome screen for a bit, and it takes a little while to get everything loaded (barely any startups except AV and a few small things). I was wondering if any of you would have any idea what would cause this, as it's seemed to load slower since the moment I restored it? My intel chipset drivers are updated, VGA's (catalyst 11.1 and intel), etc.

I just find it weird that my computer seems to take so much longer to load after the restore, almost wishing I never tried to update the catalyst drivers in the first place.

Sorry for the long post, any help is appreciated!

 

hey guys, my f2 key fell off and I couldn't put it back on. Any ideas how to fix that? Thanks.

 

You can try using the Windows 7 Event Viewer to find out what's causing boot up times to be slower.

Here's a pretty detailed tutorial.

 

If you are comfortrable with reinstalling Windows (clean install), then that would be the best thing to do. I have the same exact model and after clean install it works 40% faster. No kidding.

 

I'll look into that now, I'll keep posted. Followed the tutorial, going to analyze the findings in a few moments.

edit: appears to be no degradations, boot durations include: 109678ms, 74606ms, 148186ms, 160263ms. These seem to be pretty high

Not sure if it's the problem though. it was lickity-split before I restored, so it's got to be something that was done before/after the restore. My acer was set up by staples as they apparently set up all of the laptops hoping to sell it for $100 more with the CDs, but I respectfully declined hah. So maybe they did something to it that I haven't done yet, or I've done wrong?

Only thing I can think of is drivers, and that I ran NOD32 before but am now running AVG free.

 

No offense taken
Unfortunately, that's not how turbo mode works: The maximum turbo frequency refers to the maximum single-core frequency that can be achieved on the processor. When I clock my CPU on 2.9 GHz, it clocks both cores on 2.9 GHz. And I can easily leave the turbo on, giving me a 3.2 GHz single core turbo boost. So any way, this improves my processor's speed and improves frame rates as well in CPU demanding games.
However, I'm not a die hard gamer at all (so you're right, the above does sound rather stupid). I just love to overclock and see what limits I can reach with a CPU or a GPU. Watercooling or Dice aren't the most sensible choices either (WC is OK, you still have the noise and tem advantage but Dice isn't even workable in real life!) but just give me great fun. So you could simply call me an HWbot or OC junkie if you'd like

 

The single-core argument convinced me, and if I can run it in 2.9GHz with the same vcore and no heat impact probably I'll do it later.
But would 3.2 in one core work stable with turbo feature?

I didn't call you stupid, from 10 to 5 years ago I was doing the same thing...

 

...Shouldn't wear my at night...

THX

 

It's a HD5650M.

What I meant by doesn't work is:
I start with a clean driver install like you mentioned in steps 1 and 2. When I update the Intel HD Graphics in safe mode, it warns about unsigned drivers, but updates without any error messages anyway. However when rebooting into normal Windows, the desktop is scaled down to 1024x768, aero is turned off and SC2 won't launch; right-clicking the desktop no longer shows the switchable graphics option, ATi Catalyst Control Center won't start (but no error message either ); in device manager, the HD5650 is shown as enabled, but the Intel adapter reports an error "Driver could not be loaded".

I'm wondering if this is similar to what you encountered during your initial attempts?

Anyway I've emailed Acer Singapore about updated drivers; so far their customer service has been friendly and prompt, but they don't seem to grasp the concept of the driver bug yet . Hopefully they'll oblige an official update soon

Btw, I suspect the 6550 and 5650 may share a unified driver architecture, as Acer Singapore lists the exact same 8.752 package for notebooks containing either card.

Thanks for checking mate

 

Hi guys, question, I read through this thread but haven't seen this yet. Im a noob, and I want to upgrade my ram from 4gb to 8gb, my only question is what's the difference between ddr3 1066 & ddr3 1333? I have the AS3820TG-6829,

CORE I5-480M 4G DDR3,
500GB HDD,
HD 6550M GRAPHICS

Thanks for the help in advance.

(oh, and do you guys think there is a huge difference in manufacturers? PNY, Kingston, G.Skill, Crucial, Corsair?)

 

There's no difference in the case of 3820TG both will work but both will work @1066MHz only. If you buy 1333MHz it will downlcock to 1066MHz too.

 

hey forum,

is there any way to disable the shared memory on the 3820TG? I've already switched my 3820TG to discrete, thus it has only the HD5650 active, yet Windows 7 64bit (the one pre-installed with my acer) still shows only 3,86GB memory available. I could not find any other BIOS-Option to turn off shared memory completely, so it seems the Intel GPU on my i5 460m still reserves memory even if set to discrete...

thx in advance!

 

I don't fully agree on that one: if you can get the 1333MHz for (about) the same price, I would definitely grab those. Take a look at the Cas Latency (CL). You'll notice most PC-10666 (1333 MHz) sets are CL9 like the Corsair CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9 (bought them for 77€), as are most PC-8500's (1066 MHz) like the Corsair CM3X8GSDKIT1066 (same price anyway!!).
Although your portable will indeed clock down to 1066 MHz, the 1333 MHz version will put its Cas Latency to 7-7-7-20 instead of 9-9-9-24 ... and that's a nice extra! Just take a look at the Windows Experience index going from 5.9 to 6.9 for the memory ... or Sisoft Sandra if you want to see the difference.
It won't be like a giant leap or so, but hey, if they're about the same price, why the hell NOT taking the 1333 MHZ? Just my two cents

 

Yes, that's true. My answer was about the frequencies only. Even if there was no latency gain and 1333MHz would be priced like 1066MHz there would be no point in buying the latter ones.
That said it depends on the memory bank. One has to compare specific modules rather than general type.
Just don't use WEI as a reference

 

OK, and what about Sisoft Sandra (I just mentioned WEI as he calls himself a newbie ... so no use in starting to use difficult tools and benchmarkers ) ...

 

I'm not questioning what you said. It's just I don't like WEI.
When it first came out I thought it's a lame thing for noobs who can't even use proper benchmarks... and it caught on

Sandra is a proper benchmark just like many others that are meant to highlight real differences in speed which is something WEI never did.

 

It is not the shared Ram of the Intel gpu. The bios is simple not able to remap the memory adrresses which are used for hardware adressing.

Take an old book about the hardware structure before plug and play and see how it works. It's still used in the modern computer.

 

and in my opinion if you OC the cpu getting a 166 fsb, a 1333 ram will support better (and surely) that frequency than a 1066 ram, don't you??
if you need a hand for SETFSB maybe i can help you.... bronsky, abo san and all forum helped me to learn!!

p.s: i'm rock solid until 166 mhz fsb...

 

Thanks guys,
@ baretsu and downloads. Will go with the 1333

 

Install all the Windows 7 updates from MS AND Google "Win 7 hangs on welcome screen" or "win 7 slow log in". I had the same problem and it had to do with the background on my desktop, it's a known issue so search out updates and there might even be a separate hotfix, can't remember now.

What I do know is that now that everything is updated, log in and welcome screen are LICKETY SPLIT.

 

All of my windows updates are installed
I've tried to do everything - what did you end up doing to the background on your desktop?
edit: I do not have a solid background, it's a JPEG image - not sure if that was your problem.

 

At that point, I would do a clean install. Getting all the drivers is pretty easy.

 

I am finally a 3820tg owner! I am typing this message with it.

It's been a long journey, lol. Didn't know I was this patient, waited a whole year to get it.


EDIT: How do I check if I'm running PCI-e x16?

 

Yeah, I suppose that's the best idea. I did a restore from Acer's eRecovery, apparently that didn't do the trick. I'm just confused as to why this started happening AFTER my restore, sounds normal the other way around.

I guess I should read up on doing a clean install. I'm nervous I'll go through all the work and it won't do a thing. -_-

 

What do you guys think about swapping those hard drives?

Seagate Go (external HDD):
320GB, SATA-I, 7200RPM, 16mb buffer

Internal HDD:
500GB, SATA-II, 5400RPM, 8mb buffer

I'm not sure if my external enclosure will read a SATA-II hdd, but I'm really thinking about trying this... today!

 

Do you have the exact model number? HDTune will give you a good idea about the performance. I personally prefer SSD (and data either on an external HDD of a network drive). You can tune and tweak whatever you want, an SSD will improve the speed impression (and the actual speed as well of course) soooooo much more and makes working with your notebook a whole new experience.

 

New Bios and new driver has fixed the problem for a long time.

 

Welcome to the club man! Make sure to give us your review of it.

 

I thought this was an issue with 32bit OS'es not with the pre-installed Win 7 64bit on the 3820TG. My Desktop-PC with Win 7 64bit does not have this issue either and shows a full 8GB available...

 

The Bios has also to support the function.

 

Thanks eric! I'm liking it very much. However, occasionally it makes sort of clicking noises, not too loud and not too often. I was wondering if that's the HDD or the fan hitting the case?

I looked in device manager and my HDD is hitachi, not western digital.

 

thx for the info - so it's a sloppy Acer BIOS-any chance that they'll fix it?

 

Im about to order one with a 6550 but cant decide if should get i5 480m or i3 380m. Would the i3 be easier to OC? Or is there any other reason why I should get the i3 over the i5 besides price?

Thanks!

 

Hmm ... true, the i5 480M 'only' lets me OC (100% stable though!) to 2.9 GHz (or 3.2 GHz if you prefer the Turbo way of notation) but that's still a pretty nice speed. And are you really planning on OC'ing all the time? To the max?
Anyway, i've just hit 10.500 points in 3DMARK06 with these settings ... IMHO pretty nice

 

My internal HDD is a hitachi as anycolour just said. Model is HTS545050B9A.

I can't benchmark with HD Tune since the external hdd is limited by USB, but I know I can earn some minutes in big file transfers and the buffer size is tempting. I know Windows 7 disables buffering in external hds anyway... I feel sorry for this hdd having 16mb.

I would prefer SSD too, but I won't buy SSD and 8GB ram until june for this laptop.

My concerns about swapping them are more about the enclosure acceptance of a SATA-II, losing battery time and maybe temperature.

 

Take a look at this round up test to get some more info on the HDD's.
About the compatibility SATA / SATA II: don't worry, it will work.
About the temp: don't worry either

 

No, I don't think so.

The last mail I recieve from the Acer support was, that I can buy a Bios with the options I want for 20.000€.

It was simple to cheap for me ...