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

No CDs or DVDs here, wound be kinda pointless since we don't have a DVD/CD drive.. There's a program to make recovery discs though, the process to save them as image files is described earlier in this thread.

 

Thanks!

 

SC2 is quite CPU demanding in large battles... upgrade to a faster one (i5/i7) or switch the CPU dependant graphic options to medium/low while everything else is on high. If you're 3820TG is hooked up to an external screen, switch off the internal one to get more fps. Using fullscreen instead of windowed may help as well.

I usually play the game in windowed mode (high) on my external screen (1680x1050), while the internal one is enabled for browsing / instant messaging. CPU options are lowered.

 

Your reply is irritating. Even more irritating is that you're right! I never took the time to check the versions because there was a clear difference in a game I play when I switched, a difference that is typically caused by software.

I'm still not convinced that everything, when in switchable, remains the same as when in dedicated. Still, CCC agrees with you. I even took screenshots and everything. I am happy you are right of course: less hassle for me.

 

Can anybody with the stock 5400rpm HD+stock 4gb ram inform me of an average-ish start time for the computer using the event viewer?

I'm just debating seeing if I can fix it with another clean install, but if it's only a few seconds (eg less than 10 or so) I won't bother.

edit: Last three: 89.9, 125.3, 59.5s. This is bugging me, I hope these are normal times, finally.
edit2: I noticed almost every boottime that i get the same administrative events:
WLAN autoconfig successfully stops, fails to load cdrom driver (wth?), WLAN extensibility module stops, and Driver\WUDFRd fails to load.

Any ideas?

 

Not sure what you two are talking about completely but I got 2 cents here for ya.

When I first got the machine I used it for about 2 weeks with stock drivers (switchable enabled). While gaming i'd get a screen freeze. Audio would continue but the screen would just freeze for 2 or 3 seconds (which is an eternity in FPS). There were 2 other guys here on the forum with the same issue. Some tried to pan it off as the HDD or Audio conflicts but I wasn't convinced. Anyways, when I bought my SSD and did a fresh install I think I turned discrete off, installed acer VGA, then turned discrete on and installed ATI drivers. My loptop lost the ability to switch between the two on the fly and I have to do it manually from now on, but you know what, the in game freezes went away completely.

So there is a difference...

 

Sure, just tell me how to check that using Event Viewer.

 

PM'd with a link. Thanks for the help.

 

My start-up times go from 40s to around 60s, higher only if there were some updates or something like that

 

Damn, mine weren't even that low after a clean install with no programs installed -_-

I haven't seen less that 55s since before I first restored it. I can't figure this out for the life of me.

 

Nice link. Basically my boot times are the same as diesIupitri.

My last three were a little high: 63.3, 65.2, and the last one 81.

By the way, I didn't do a clean install.

 

NP, I'm down to under 60s in the last 4 reboots, so I guess I'll just have to live with it. Just seems super slow - maybe I'll use that as an excuse to upgrade to an SSD.

edit: one thing I noticed after my clean install, is that when i FN+up (volume up) it doesn't unmute the speakers, and i physically have to FN+F8 to unmute it. Any ideas? I have launch manager installed (can't seem to open it, is there a GUI for this..?)

 

What do you mean on-the-fly? ATI switchable is always done manually, not like nVidia Optimus.

Most of the game freeze could have caused by the rigorous power saving by the HDD, which can be solved by quietHDD or SSD.

Not sure about others, I've been using Switchable in BIOS all the time, no issue what-so-ever with any game. But then, I never compare with Discrete before (because there is no need).

To speed up boot time:
1. Download Windows Performance Toolkit
2. Run this in command line:
xbootmgr -trace boot -prepSystem -verboseReadyBoot

Event Viewer mostly record my system uptime in 14-15 seconds.

 

Thanks a lot, I'll check this out and update you. I'm installing it right now, seems to be taking a while lol.

are you saying your pc boots in 14 seconds that depresses me

edit: failed at defrag stage, couldn't load BootOptimizeFunction. Just looked, and apparently I don't even have a Dfrg/BootOptimizeFunction in my registry lol. -_-
and..now it takes 85s+ to boot lol. perfect..

 

At the moment I'm deciding where to buy my 3820tg. Decided to go with the 460/6550 version. Importing it from germany for 800 euros. Then on to decide whether or not to buy a backlit keyboard, as I don't have any soldering skills.

Btw does any of you guys run linux or OSX86 on your timeline X? Just wondering

 

Ubuntu 10.10 on mine, works well. I looked up in one of the threads on the forums how to disable the ATI GPU when in linux for good battery life. I get ~4.5 hours of low brightness low level use with wifi on.

 

I'm on the tipping point for this model. Fusion is nice, but I do want something with a little bit more oomph, while maintaining a <15" size. It would be a giant step up from my HP dv2 (MV-40 model >.<).

Just wanting some comments if $769(CAD) is a good price for the 480M/6550M model (I can maybe haggle a bit, as I'm on a first name basis with most employees).

Acer Aspire Timeline 3820TG-6829 w/ Core i5-480M, 4GB, 500GB, 13.3in HD, Radeon HD 6550M, Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit at Memory Express Computers

I can just go and pick it up right now, it's only a 10min drive to the store.

 

The stock hard drive is slow but 85s? I know when I reverted back to it when my momentus XT was broken it was a good bit slower though....just did a test on my Mam's acer...i3-370m with 500gb 5400rpm hdd and it varies between 60-80s...mine generally gets under 60s but that includes another bootloader for linux and password...

 

Oh yes. Do it. You know you want to. In fact, havent you already decided? Go start the car.

 

LOL. Boy, big idiot here (points to self). TBH I've been an nvidia fanboy for years. This 3820tg is my first time using ATI since 1996. I just assumed by now they had something comparable (to optimus) that at least let applications decide weather to use ATI or integrated graphics.

Either way, the SSD did solve the issue ;-)

 

I've downloaded the free 3dMark06 version and run a test- 7326. My amd clock tool still says I'm at 650-950 and ccc still says 550-850. Is that normal for the i3, or am I doing something wrong?

So will the largest cpu that fits be the i7-640m, or will the new Sandybridge processors fit as well? What will the effect on battery life be, as I'm only getting 5 or so on battery saver mode while surfing the web?

 

The thing is switchable graphics has one purpose- power saving. AMD solution is better in this respect because dedicated GPU can be totally switched off and is not powered at all while Optimus has to power both cards (although one is in low power state). I stand by AMD in this- it's power saving feature and as such is working great.
That's an engineering point of view though- never bothered to compare battery times of ATI and Optimus based notebooks of otherwise identical specs.

EDIT: The more you dig into it the more complicated it gets. I'm gonna do what I should have done in the first place- rest my case and go to bed.

 

I just installed MSI Afterburner and it looks like I can't increase the clocks any further. Can't control fan speed as well. Tried to unlock it too but I couldn't save the cfg file.

 

Yeah. I tried to update the video drivers one day, and my computer has been hell since then. restored twice, and finally just did a clean install. Before any of that happened I was booting quickly, well under 60s (usually 40-50 with the odd 60 if there was an update or something). after the restores it was 180s on average, clean install it was about 100, dropped to about 70-90 lately though. frustrating. -_-

 

Well, I did.

And I'm quite happy so far. The only real concerns I have are

1, CPU temps reach the low 60Cs when I'm only at 50% CPU load.

2, The Hitachi drive is making a very annoying high pitched squeal, whenever it's accessed and most of the time even when idling.

So looks like I'll have to throw in some of my own paste (recommendations? Think I have a tube of the classic AS5 lying around) and throw in a SSD.

Other then that, scored an impressive 7938 on '06 with no overclocking whatsoever. Very impressive from the price/performance stand point.

 

What have I done wrong?

I'm trying to install the latest catalyst drivers but after doing so I can't go back to Intel Graphics. I first uninstalled all the drivers, then installed the acer stock drivers (which include the ati and intel graphics right? I switched graphics after this and it went ok), then reboot in discrete mode, installed the latest catalyst drivers, reboot in switchable mode and now I can't go back to Intel graphics.

I can get to the switchable graphics menu but if I press the button for Intel graphics nothing happens . I've done this before with previous versions of catalyst drivers and never had this problem :S

EDIT: Weird... I disabled the AMD drivers in device manager, that forced the notebook to use the Intel graphics and since then I can switch normally between the two. Problem solved I guess

 

Event viewer shows me high boots times, when in reality my 3820tg boots up amazingly fast.

For example, my last boot Event Viewer says it took 84.2 seconds. But really my boot took at most 35 seconds.

 

OK, so tomorrow I'll probably be upgrading my portable to the i7 640M ...

To be able to really see the difference, I ran quite a few benchmarks, both at stock speed and overclocked ([email protected], GPU@850/1140). I've put everything in an Excel file which you can download here as I can only use images with a maximum width of 500px

After upgrading the processor, I will first test the stable OC potential, after which I will rerun all tests you find in the table (or image). The delta's (calculated in percentage) will give a good overview of the actual gains. As you can see right now, especially the GPU overclock is great with an average gain of about 40% (against 10% for CPU and 34% overall).

 

Has anyone installed Windows 7 SP1 on this notebook yet? It doesn't show up in Windows updates on mine because of the driver version for the intel graphics card. According to what I read there is an update you need before SP1 shows up and that update will not install on certain versions of the intel graphics driver.

My questions:

1) Is it possible to update the intel driver? If so how does one do it.

2) If you can't do that is there a work around to install SP1?

 

Read through this. I've updated both the ATI and Intel drivers this way so I didn't have to install the Acer drivers. But now I have to select "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement" at boot up but it doesn't bother me that much since I don't reboot very often (only when an installation requires it). PeterDLai says he can run the drivers without selecting "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement" and it worked for me too when I tried several variations of his guide but I haven't been able to reproduce it.

PS. I think the update you're talking about is KB-2454826 which caused problems for me with the Intel driver 8.15.10.2141 from Acer and Windows Live Messenger. I started a thread about it here. The update doesn't cause any trouble after updating the Intel driver to 8.15.10.2189 from the HP Envy 14 display driver pack.

 

Got Windows SP1 installed here...had to download manually though. No problems so far

 

You'll be happy with the upgrade. I've been running the i7-640m for about 6 months now and it's fast

 

Any advantages with SP1? I know there some thing for playing flash from windows server but other than that?

 

Baretsu, does your daily setting of the GPU (700/1000) include gaming?
Or is gaming an exception where you will OC higher?

 

It includes gaming as well though I have to admit gaming is actually limited to Dragon Age (which runs very smooth with all maxed out).

 

i've installed a new windows and have a couple of questions about graphics drivers: i need to follow next steps ?
1) ATI VGA Driver 8.713.3.3000
2) Intel HD Graphics driver 14.​46.​64.​5313
3) Catalyst 11.2

 

I know this thread is getting ridiculously long so no one seems to be bother searching through anymore but anyway, about 6 pages ago, I wrote the following:

OK, done some more research. Let's start by making clear this post is about the HD6550. Also, we should make a distinction between display driver and catalyst version.

The link contains the download location of the AMD 8.741.1.6000 driver for Windows 7 and is Acer specific (the previous Acer driver was version 8.713.3.3000).
The update will however give you the latest version of Catalyst Control Center 2 which also comes with AMD's Catalyst 11.2
When installing the Catalyst 11.2 "driver" from the AMD website, this one contains the ATI Radeon display driver 8.821. However, install fails on the HD6550 (at least in my attempts), with or without switching to discrete, uninstalling ... as it doesn't recognize the HD6550 as being a compatible videocard (so it only updates the CCC but NOT the driver!).
This driver does however seem to support the HD5650 so people with this videocard in their notebook may have other experiences (and they may have to switch to discrete and so on).


So first of all, if anyone has any more questions about their videocard, please first specify if it's a HD 5650M or an HD 6550M as this may require different procedures (that is, the 6550M is NOT recognized by the 8.821 driver while the 5650M might be).

I've also written an email to AMD Support why the HD 6550M isn't even in their list of hardware ... no idea if they'll actually will respond but I'll sure let you guys know

 

I have 5650. So, there is no need to install Intel vga drivers ?

 

No. The ATI/AMD package already includes the Intel drivers, so do not install the Intel package separately.

Someone should tell Acer to remove the Intel drivers from the 3820TG page to avoid confusion.

 

How hot does the top (keyboard and palmrest) and bottom get on this laptop,
a)when gaming and b) when just browsing?

I'm curious as I see various reports of people saying it doesn't get too hot but on the other hand I see CPU temperatures of 80C when gaming.

Will it get uncomfortable on my lap or hands?

edit: PS I'm talking about the newer version with 480M i5 and ATI Mobility HD 6550, I believe this system runs cooler than the previous version.

 

My notebooks's palmrest remains cool to the touch even when gaming.

Browsing dosen't make the notebook run hot.

The CPU reaches 83-87 C when playing GTA IV (GPU's max temp is around 74 C), those are maximum temps, avarege temps are like 72-76 C.
I don't game with the notebook on my lap, it sits on a cooler and is hooked up with an external display, however, it didn't feel extremely hot to the touch right after a gaming session, though playing with the notebook on Your lap might not be the most comfortable feeling.

 

I game a lot, and I play with the laptop on my lap, though I use a small cooler that I don't even plug in, more of a mat really. It never gets hot. I have owned many gaming laptops and I have always left a palm heatstain on the top of every rig where my palm rests. I seriously doubt that will happen with this laptop. It's perfect for gaming IMO. I'm a very very happy 3820TG owner.

i5 480 with hd 6550m.

 

Thank you. I had the same issue and it was bugging me. But this fixed it. Great to have latest ATI Drivers and still be able to switch GPU's.

 

Thanks guys, think I'm sold.

 

I was playing civ5 and the game crashed in the middle of it. I'm unable to boot my comp without getting the BSOD. The error code is 116. Anyone experience this error code with their comp?

 

Seems it's my GPU. I disabled the ATI card in safe mode and it started. The problem now is that the ATI card has disappeared from my device manager. How do I get it back and reinstall the drivers? Where do I get them?

 

Hej guys, I've recently noticed a few issues about my acer which are bothering me.
1) the icons that normally pop up when some Fn key is activated (sound, wireless, turning off touchpad) dont work, they have just dissapered. is there any file i should download?
2) The hard drive makes weird clicking noises, especially while not doing anything (at idle), is there some software or hardware solution?

Thx, cheers from czech republic

 

So, I figured I'd just create the reg values myself, and the bootmgr finally ran all 6 stages.

Is there anything that needs to be done after this, or what should I expect?

Cheers.

edit: down to consistent 55-60s boot time after running that - I guess that's better than it was before, but still could be better. I'll work on that - possibly invest in a new HDD/SDD, we'll see

 

These are controlled by Launch Manager from Acer. You probably disabled LM in startup of something along those lines. You can either check msconfig or you can just download the application again from Acer support site.

 

Search function was broken a long time ago.

Bump on this.