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

Take the i5. Nobody can say to you, which one will overclock better.

 

Anyways I tried those steps but it didn't work for me either. Back to the stock drivers available on Acer's site. I think I'm going to try the 6000M series drivers and see if they work even though I have a ATI 5470M.

Edit: Finally managed to get it working and now I have the latest ATI drivers installed. Funny thing though, I find the laptop to be a bit slower in terms of boot up time and responsiveness. Maybe I should've tested it with 3DMark or something before I updated the ATI drivers.

 

hey guys, what is this software: Single LUN iconutility for vid? I cannot find any information about it on the web.

nvm, it's the alcor micro usb card reader

 

Question for anybody: Is it worth doing a clean install if I've removed all the included software and tried to update all of the drivers?

And if I do a clean install (it's been a while since I've done one (xp days)), where would I go about getting all of the updated drivers, and ensuring everything works? ( edit: never mind, I'm guessing the acer europe site lol)

I'm just looking to fix the problem that occurred after a restore that causes my boot times to be ~190k ms - no idea what it could be, possibly a wrong driver?

 

Hello,

I've been very happy with this computer since I bought it and it really changed my image of Acer. Also kudos to this thread for convincing me to buy it

I got the i5 450M, Radeon 5650.
First thing I did when I got the comp was to switch the harddrive to a 7200rpm 500gb.

Lately I've been having some serious overheating issues. Currently I have the laptop sitting on a cooling plate with two usb-powered fans. I also have the lid open.

I pretty much always use the computer with HDMI-out at 1080p. Normally I have the lid closed and I pretty much keep the computer running 24/7.

Gaming can make the comp simply shutdown due to overheating, which is quite annoying.

I've removed the keyboard once to see if there was a nice layer of dust inside, but I could find none :/
I did however not dig very deep so there could be some collected somewhere. If this could be the case how do I most easily get access to these areas?

No overclocking and running Win 7 x64 Home Ed.

Temperatures are at the moment with minimum load:
Mobo:
TZS0: 60C
TZS1 51C
Assembly: 45C
Air Flow: 45C

i5:
Core 0: 63C
Core 2: 55C

Radeon:
67C

Thank you

 

Please post the Temps under load and your room temp.

 

I crack opened my Freeagent Go: the model is ST9320423AS and it is a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 320GB, so it is SATA-II too. The Hitachi works well in the enclosure.
According to HD Tune the seagate does not support Acoustic Management, Interface Power Management and Power-up in Standby.
Reading the datasheets of both hard drives I found out Seagate have its own proprietary technology for power management and quiet acoustics, which makes him good on both.
As the power consumption in Seek is 1.554W and Idle is 0.67W, while the hitachi is 1.7W and 0.8W respectively, and the temperature by both drives is the same when I tested out of enclosure, I will do this swap for sure!

This is the first thing I do with every new computer, and always worth.
Right now I'm swapping the hard drive to a 7200 rpm and then I will install Win 7 Pro.

What you should do before formatting:
- Download Virtual CD 10.1.0.11 Demo (the shareware do the job, don't need to buy). Now you can burn virtual discs!
- Use it to create the Drivers DVD with Acer eRecovery Management. Now you don't need to download any driver.

 

Cool man, thanks a lot i'll check that out. And won't the drivers on that dvd be out of date - it's what's installed on my computer now, no? I'm so confused as to why my computer is so unbelievably slow after i did a complete restore lol.

 

I don't really know how the restore works, but I don't believe it goes back to the factory state, where you have to put your name again, etc. So a clean install makes it new again. =)

The drivers are outdated, but I really recommend you to create this disc, because always there is some program or driver that they don't provide online. You can search the updated drivers or install from DVD and let WU update them.

 

Have you lowered the ram timings from CL7 to CL9? The i580m I use doesn't OC well at CL7, so use CPU-Tweaker and try it.

 

Nice system you have there!

No, not 24/7 OC for me, I mostly thought of future gaming needs . I would clock down after a gaming session. I just wanted to make sure the i5 wont be at a disadvantage. Thanks!

 

Gotcha, thanks! Now I only have to decide if it is worth the extra 100 bucks. Decisions, decisions...

 

Ollollo, if the only difference is the i5, I would go with i3. With 100 bucks you change the keyboard and put 8GB of ram, or swap to a small SSD.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't let me change the CL (other parameters are OK though) ...

 

which is the way to change ram timings???
wanna buy a 8 giga 1333 ram kit and that procedure will be helpfull for me!!
p.s: 10450 is my score, setfsb helped you to icrease??

 

I have owned both the I5 and I3 models and I would pay the extra $100 for the I5. I would also save my pennies for an SSD.

Bronsky

 

SetFSB will help you increase the score in the CPU-test of 3DMARK06 as the processor will be (slightly) faster.
When you put in the 8GB 1333 MHz RAM with CL9, it will automatically adapt the CL to 7 when running at 1066 MHz (hence giving you a slight performance advantage, especially at some benchmarks).
10.450 points? Very nice! What processor/videocard do you have in yours and at what resolution?

 

If I would buy memory today, I would buy this:

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Laptop Memory Model F3-8500CL7D-8GBSQ

1066 and 7-7-7-20. Just $70.00 shipped home.

There is this option too but you have to wait two months to receive $20.00 back:

Newegg.com - PNY Optima 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Laptop Memory Model MN8192KD3-1066

 

Was the i5 running cooler? Is it a higher binned chip that will clock higher? Or was there another reason for your choice?

Cheers!

 

Yes, the 100 dollars would alomst be enough for an 80 gig SSD which is very tempting. Then Bronsky chips in (oh my, pardon the pun), and the rules change! Lets see what he has to say

 

Getting Sandy Bridge...

 

Does the brightness keys work for you using catalyst 11.1? I could swear mine was working a week ago, but when I try it now it doesnt. I cant even adjust the brightness in windows mobility center (win + x). Just me?

 

It works... both ways

 

Firstly, is there a way to perform a search on this thread? I can't seem to figure out how to do it.

Secondly, I own a 3820TG-3022 (i5-430M, 5470 512mb, 4gb ddr3) and I ran a Prime95 basic torture test for about 2 minutes and according to HwMonitor... one of my cores went up to 100+ Celsius (maxed at 105C before I got scared and shut the test down) while the other stayed at about 45C (everything else stayed at around 45C - 50C). I'm assuming this isn't normal? Or is HwMonitor just broken?? I can run it again and just screen shot it if it'll help (I'll stop it before the temps start to peak). I'm assuming both cores are being cooled by the same fan so the difference in temps is kind of confusing me (unless Prime95 is only abusing 1 cpu at a time? in any case, 100+C is scary and I want to know if mines defective??). I also have TurboBoost on and my cpu clock speed during the test was fluctuating hardcore between 2.27GHz and 2.6GHz.

I'm also running WinXP rather than Win7 and yes, I have valid drivers for everything. The majority of the Win7 drivers are actually backwards compatible and run perfectly fine in WinXP (from what I can tell). The only tricky ones are the wireless drivers and the ATI 5470 drivers but I've managed to get those working as well. The wireless I know works fine.. still haven't tested the ATI drivers yet though.. will do so later but they seem to work fine so far.

 

I think there is a way to specify number of threads in Prime95. Perhaps you need to increase it to 4 threads to cover for hyperthreading (2 threads per core).

 

There's a button on the thread toolbar called "Search this thread".

Alternatively use this link.

 

Actually, most I5s run hotter than the I3s. But with the extra clockspeed and turbo power, the increased performance of the I5 makes the operation of the 3820TG much smoother, particularly when multitaksing. When you OC the I5, you get into Workstation speeds. My I5-540M runs optimized for temp and speed (frequency) at 3.66 ghz. CPU driven programs like Matlab love operating in that environment.

I have a particularly stable 540M CPU and it runs quite cold with IC Diamond 7 thermal paste. I was recording idle temps of 27C. I was also picking up 10C temp reductions on the high side. The I5 also has a thermal limit of 105C while the I3 has a max temp of 90C (to be honest, though, I have never throttled my I3, although I've tried).

To be sure, I like the I3-370M but, when I sent my unit back to Acer for service, I put the I3 back in. I had the unit back less than a week before I was taking it apart again to put the I5 back in.

Bronsky

 

OK, so my nephew was looking for a new 15" portable ... he really liked the design of my 3820TG so (after spending days of searching anyway and more questions than what's good for any 'normal' human being) he decided upon the 5820TG. So I ordered it in Germany (because of the big price difference) but with the cheapest i3. Now why the excitement?

Well, my 480 M will end up in his laptop so I just ordered a ... i7-640M for myself ... eagerly waiting for the postman now

 

It's set to a default of 4. The test I'm running is "Blend".
I'll run it again right now and see if there's any change. I just did a fresh format and reinstall of XP.

Ok I'm running the test right now and my core temps seem to be stable at ~85C. However, my core speeds seem to be hovering between 2261.22MHz (X17) and 2394.46MHz (X18) whereas originally on my last test, it was pretty much stuck at 2527.44MHz (X19) which might explain the high temps.. If I had to guess, I'd say the TurboBoost was exploding on my other install (The only difference between my first install and this one is that I used .NET Framework 3.0 on the old install and .NET Framework 4.0 on this one. The 4.0 version causes warning messages to appear when installing most intel drivers though since they don't recognize the 4.0 version).

Ok, the core speed is hovering at 2526.5MHz (X19) and the core temps as well as the mobo temps are idling between 90C and 95C so I think my other install was just defective.

Time for a 3dmark06 test.


@RefCache:
Thank you, I found it

 

My ATI Catalyst Control Center version is 2010.1021.531.7998

Is that the latest? Is there a new one and does installing it cause the integrated intel not to work?

----

Also, what are the typical GPU temps while gaming? I'm playing Crysis (no overclocks) and it's sitting at 90c. Is that normal?

---
Also, what are the stock clocks for the ati 6550? Mine was at 600 core and 800 memory.

 

Hi!

My first post although I have been reading here before.

So I thought it was time to update my graphic-drivers since the present ones were pretty old.

Followed the description in the first post (read threw like 30 pages aswell ) and followed the procedure.

Had a hard time installing the Intel HD Graphics driver, had to more or less force it and even though it said it was successful it still said I had the old driver in the device-manager. Then I changed the Bios setting to discreet and installed the latest CC.

So now CC is installed but it still says I got the old drivers(in dev-manager):
Intel(R) Graphic Media Accelerator HD:ATI Technologies Inc, 2010-04-20,8.713.3.3000
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650:ATI Technologies Inc.2010-04-20,8.713.3.3000

I did not uninstall the drivers I had before, just installed the others ontop.

So to me it seams it wasn't successful(?) and what might have gone wrong?

Best Regards, Johan

 

I posted this a few pages away... but the thread is really getting clunky. It's impossible to find what you need

Anyway to install new drivers:
1. Open control panel, select "Uninstall ATi Catalyst Install Manager" and express uninstall all ATi software.
2. Restart.
3. Open Device Manager, right click both Intel HD Graphics and ATi Mobility Radeon HD5650/6550/5470 and select 'uninstall'. Try to uninstall the mobility driver first, then the Intel HD graphics driver, because if you uninstall the HD graphics one first and then the mobility, you may end up with a totally black screen. To fix this, (assuming you set the power button to shutdown) press the power button and wait until all the lights on your computer are off and restart your computer
4. Restart. You will be in that weird VGA mode.
5. Install the updated 8.752 drivers from Acer's website.
6. Restart. Done!

 

It's been 200 pages since I've last read this thread, so I was wondering if anyone has successfully found a higher quality or matte LCD panel.

Also one problem I've been having since purchasing my unit 4 months ago is speaker distortion. The speakers make what sounds like an electronic vibration or distortion during normal use. I sent the unit into through Acer's warranty service shortly after receiving it but they sent it back saying they found no problem but the distortion remains.

Has anyone run into that problem?

 

Thanks for the help =)

I understood the answer was somewhere in this thread but after reading alot of pages and trying to google it I couldnt find it.

Now it seams to work =)

BR Johan

 

Hey, Bronsky

Seems like you have a really nice specimen of the i5, congrats

Just to make sure, you are saying that that alone, without counting any OC, would make it worth it?

Thanks!

 

I usually like to compare CPU's at stock clocks. OC'ing is a bonus.

At stock clocks, the I5 (even my old I5-450M) is much more powerful than the I3 and it makes a difference in performance that you can feel.

The extra power is worth the money to me. But, I use it. I run model simulations and use my 3820TG for editing aerial images and video. If you don't use the power, I guess the I3 will suffice.

Yes ... my 540M seems to be a good one. I bought an OEM CPU rather than an ES.

Bronsky

 

see my sign for my 3820 setup!!
i'm going to buy a 8gb 1333 (corsair?) kit to improve speed and oc stability at 166 fsb... hope...
now until 160x22 i'm rock solid...
uuuh a 640m!! the same i want buy for mine!! where you have bought?? how much?? when you install it, please, run an hard setfsb session and tell me/us the results!!
p.s: 10450 3dmark06 @ standard, software settings hasn't been modified...

 

Bought it online from the LaptopMonkey for 212 €. It's an Engineer Sample (ES) but that shouldn't be a problem. As a matter of fact, my best OC processor ever, was my i7 975 ... was top on HWBot for quite some time

In about 2 weeks, I'll sure post some i7 640M results!

 

How about getting the bits of crap that get in between the keys, how do i get those out without a vacuum?

 

Compressed air or gas.

 

Can someone with a 3820tg please do me a big favor?

Download, create a character and play (for as little as 2 minutes) this game: Play Champions Online FREE Now

The reason is that this game is giving me a strange graphic error, no other game I've played does it. So I would like to know if my 6550 video card is faulty or if it's just Champions Online.

Please tell me if you get graphical errors or if you can play it normally.

Thanks a lot

 

Many thanks for your answear, much appruciated!

 

Hello guys,

i bought my 3820TG 3 months ago. I really like it but lately i got more and more problems with it. One of the RAM modules just died last month. Okay, i wanted to upgrade the memory anyway, so i didn't send it in. Now it is the power supply. Under workload I can hear the power flowing through the adapter. I don't know how to describe it else. In any case i don't believe it should sound like that or should make sounds at all. The temperature seems normal to me just like the power consumption. I think i will contact acer again and send it in (Last time i asked them if i just could send in the broken RAM and not the entire notebook but only got an email which said that my notebook is broken and that i should send it in... Oh thanks for that advice -.-). Okay i will ask the support anyway but does someone know if it is enough to just send in the power supply only?
With some bad luck the gpu (5650) will be the next thing to make problems. I tried to overclock it a little bit but even 600/850 is far to much. After 10 sec in cs source i get artifacts and after that the system freezes. Its the same when overclocking the core or the memory alone. After that i never tried it again. Temps are okay. Not more than 80C. At least i have no problems at all with stock clocks so i don't really care but i was wondering why everybody else can overclock the gpu that much.
Thanks for your help and sorry for my english. I'm not a native speaker.

 

Almost all of us have observed that OC'ing ability decreased with the addition of 4 more GB Ram. I would be interested to see if yours is more stable.

Air or a minivac ... stop eating near the keyboard.

Bronsky

 

Does the fan in your 3820tg's always remain at 30%?

I've been checking with gpu-z with my laptop under load, intense gaming and my fan never goes over 30%

How to control the fan speed?

 

I second this, my one seems to have the absurd problem of:
a) idling at 55 degrees
b) reaching 75 in a game, and then drivers decide that they should commit suicide. This has been fixed with 11.2 Cat, but still, i get some yummy artifacts instead.

 

Did you OC your GPU? Are the temps at stock or when OCed? If you get artifacts during normal circumstances (stock clocks), complain to Acer.

 

That's the thing, I haven't overclocked it at all, because whenever I test what people here deem as 'stable' I start getting artifacts on the desktop! (Note: Sometimes I don't and they usually work great in Furmark or MSI Kombustor, but in a real-game scenario they seem to flop) This is also my second one, so it is probably more of an issue with the unique combination of parts the Aussie version has (i5 480/HD5650/4GBDDR3/720GB) that no one else here seems to have, without replacing the CPU from an i3 at least. The artifacting isn't universal eitheir, it mainly occurs in CoD:BO (yes, yes it's poorly made but no one else has the same issue). In Dead Space, if I disable VSync, the card goes absolutely pshyco and starts pulling over 100 FPS, but begins to heat up insanely fast. The common denominator is the mystical temperature of 75 degrees. As soon as that occurs, fecal matter (I can't use the more common s word for some reason :S) hits the fan, hence why I would love to have the fan running at 100% whenever I'm gaming, because it's usually plugged in at that point, and noise is something I'm more than happy to deal with by simply increasing the game volume or using a headset.

 

very very curious about your 640m scores and improvements!!

@ Bronsky.. ah really?? where i'll se performance increase upgrading to 8 giga?? reactivity?? gaming?? (maybe not)
cause i've seen a kingston kit ( 2x2 giga hyperX 1333 CL7) that seems to be very good, and if, in your opinion, is better in gaming and OCing than a 2x4 giga CL9 value ram, it will be my next purchase!!

 

Overclocking with SetFSB in the Acer actually decreases frames in 3D games. No one has explained it to me yet, but it happens universally. For gaming, the stock clocks of the I7-640M are boss.

More Ram will probably not do much for your gaming. But some of the gamers would know better. The speed increases from better timing are negligible. There is a part of this thread discussing that.

Bronsky