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

So... the 6550 GPU in my laptop died while I was playing Civ5. Got a BSOD mid-game. had fine ventilation and was only playing for an hour or so. I've had this computer for a week. Very disappointing. I've done a complete system reinstall and there's no display.

 

That's odd. Even if you're dedicated GPU broke, after a system reinstall the integrated graphics should make it so that you could see the display. Sounds to me like you need to send Acer an email and RMA it.

 

Yeah it's very weird. Luckily I bought it just a week ago from Memory Express, and they allowed me to exchange it for another one. Maybe I had a lemon....

 

So I replaced my CPU this afternoon ... i7 640m got installed successfully!

And the one million dollar question: is there actually any performance gain??

Well, yes ... and no: in the CPU benching, there's a gain of 14.7%, in the 3DMark tests however, there's a performance 'gain' of about 0.4% ... totally neglectable and probably just due to score fluctuation!!
Finally, PCMark gives about a 10.2% gain. You can find the excel here.



When looking at the pure CPU gain in these tests, the difference is a bit larger, but the serious GPU OC and the SSD do flatten this out quite a lot.

So is it worth the extra money spend and would I do it again? Well, I do gain somewhere around 15% of processor power but in terms of overall gain, I rather count on about 10%. For games or so it's clear the GPU is the bottleneck so there no real gain at all. Though I will have to retest as I noticed something very strange during the tests: with the i5 480m, processor was very close to or 100% during testing, where as the i7 640m mostly didn't reach but 70%!!! Must look into this (maybe reinstall everything or so)

The biggest gain lies somewhere else however: by changing the processor, I used IC Diamond 7 for both CPU and GPU ... didn't go over 74°C with CPU nor over 81°C with the GPU ... and that's A LOT cooler

 

Can you return it to where you bought it for a trade? Some % of all laptops die right up front, this is due to manufacturing flaws or rough treatment in shipping etc. It's why you should always buy from a reputable dealer with a good return policy. I know Amazon has a 30 day DOA policy for computers. Newegg too. Return it and get one that isn't broken. Don't go through the hassle of warranty return unless you were unfortunate enough to buy it from some cheapskate place that doesn't accept returns on DOA stuff.

 

I bought it from Memory Express and they exchanged it for another one. really do like this laptop. It must have been a lemon.

 

So I swapped out the HDD for a Corsair Force 120GB and cleaned and re-pasted with AC MX-2 compound.

High pitch noise is still there, and I've read it has something to do directly with the CPU going from idle to load, so it's something I'll have to tune out while at home. Work it's fine, as the servers I work next to kills out the sound.

Temps are...a bit higher. But the new compound will need a bit of time to cure. Idling around 38-44c CPU, load (3DMark06) 72-74c. GPU temps seem all right, 54c idle and just above 80c load. I expect temps to drop ~5c when the paste cures.

Also, when my battery gets to 96%, it stops charging. Says it's plugged in, just not charging...weird.

 

Hummmmmm. Very interesting. I've been waiting for the right time to upgrade my CPU and have been eyeing the i7's to help with gaming but as you've pointed out the GPU is the bottle neck.

judging by your results i'd notice a much bigger jump going from my i3 to even an i5 and i might not need an i7. I was hoping the bigger cache in the i7 would make it that much more better then an i5 for gaming but I guess i'm wrong...

 

Could you tell both idle and full load temperatures before and after the compound? And make the same test after two or three weeks?

Ps. Do you use any kind of laptop cooler under it?

Thanks!

I believe it would not change that much from i3 to i5 since your bottleneck is still the gpu. Anyway, the difference is more noticeable in stock, which would make me jump directly to i7 if I were planning a cpu upgrade.

 

Not (entirely) true as their are some very CPU depending games like SC2. In these games, the i7 will undoubtfully shine.
Anyway, benchmarks are not (always) best to compare actual gaming performance. Example: NFS Shift (the only game I've used to benchmark FPS) gave me 29.3 FPS default and 36.1 FPS with OC, now it gives me 32.4 FPS default and 40.1 (!!) FPS with OC. That's over a 10% increase though 3DMark wasn't giving me any.

 

Is Acer Going To release a New 3820 anytime soon with 6650? Or should i buy the Computer now or Wait A couple Of Months? or are They Actually Releasing Something New Within 5 Months?

What Computers Can we Find with the 6650?

Becuae i read A little Bit about the Amd 6650 graphics Card With 480Cores Instead of 400 Should Be a better Increas in Gaming perfomannce Specially when Overclocking

And Baretsu how Many Celcius Did your Cpu and Gpu Drop after Apllying IC 7 Thermal Compound?

 

So here are my temps after a 3DMark06 run, CPU stock, GPU@750/900.



MX-2 paste seems to be working nicely. Going to up the GPU to see if I can break the 9000 threshold.

 

The drop is pretty significant:

While using Prime95 for about 1 hour, I got following temps for the CPU:

• No OC i5: 84°C max
• No OC i7 with IC 7: 75°C max

• OC i5: 88°C max
• OC i7 with IC 7: 77°C max

While stressing the GPU with ATI Tool (always OC'ed so no standard test performed):

• OC no IC7: 89°C
• OC with IC 7: 81°C

Above temps are all at a room temperature of about 22°C. I don't use a notebook cooler; well, tried a borrowed one but it really doesn't make much difference ... but when stress testing or benchmarking, I usualy put the notebook on a "hotplate" platform (you know those iron constructions you can put a thealight underneath to keep the dish warm, but without the thealight of course )or put something in the middle of the notebook to elevate it.

So yes, it's a pretty nice temp drop, especially as I suspect the i7 may be a bit hotter by default

 

When I replaced my I3 with my I5-540M, I used IC Diamond 7 and saw similar 10C drops. The Acer seems to love that paste.

Bronsky

 

That is Some Magic Results just for Changing Paste.. Did You ut JUST a Little Bit of paste on the thermal tejp for the Memory on gpu? Or just stock Crappy Tejp? Maube We can get some good Increase if we get the memory To Run Cooler???

YeehThe i7 should Be a little Hotter ! Well have to say that Ic diamond Does the Trick and should Beat Mx-3 ! Thoretically !

Seriously Do Anyone Know If Acer is releasing something now within 5 months on the 13,3 inch market? i really need to know otherwise im ordering a computer Tomrorrow. .dont wanna order and se A brand New Realse one month later with a New Platform !!

And Can Anyone Confirm that 6550 Has Higer Vcore then 5650? If it is why not put the Bios From 6550 into 5650? Or is It possible To Biosmod the Card anyone tried That?

And What About 6650? why isnt that Card In The acer 3820 !

Altough do anyone Know if there is a 13,3 inch with let say 5850 or something simiiar and not to expensive?

 

If there were any 13" 5850s, a lot of these owners would have one.

Bronsky

 

To disassemble and apply paste to both the CPU and GPU, is this the guide to use 3820TG_Processor_Upgrade_Directions.pdf - posted by kidan

 

Yes it is. Also in his post, there is a link to more pictures that he took during the upgrade.

 

well done!! now should be helpful a direct comparison with a good 3mb cache cpu like an I5- 580...
Bronsky any test-results to post???

 

Awesome! I may be going the same route, did you choose the 620m or 640m? What was the effect on battery life?

Can anybody help me? I've just downloaded the new 8.72 catalyst and now I am getting artifacts around my cursor??? I tried reinstalling but it didnt help, only restarting the computer makes it go away for a couple hours, only to come back again.

Also I'm having trouble with overclocking. The Catalyst control center graphics information doesnt change, and I'm still getting a score of 7325 in 3mark06?

 

Hey folks. My wireless adapter seems to have taken a nose dive. Connection is weaker then normal and there's not as many connections available. It's not my router as all other LAN (wired and wireless) are working fine. I ran netstat -a to see if I might of had some malware or spy ware trying to send out some siht but I didn't see anything unusual. I lastly tried to update the wireless adapter driver through windows but it said it was up to date.

Ideas? Atheros wireless

 

Has anyone received service pack 1 yet through windows update? I've seen it on a good few laptops but its still not available on mine....

 

From what I have been reading it won't show up at all on these laptops at all unless or until Acer updates the Intel graphics drivers. Apparently there is an update that needs to be installed first before SP1 will show up. However that update will not show up on this laptop because that particular update will not install when certain versions of the Intel graphics driver are installed. It requires an updated intel graphics driver. Until that update is installed there is no SP1 in windows update.

I have read one post where a person downloaded SP1 from the Microsoft web site and installed it without any problems. I am thinking about doing that although its a pretty big download. However my understanding is that unless or until the graphics driver issue is sorted it won't show up on Windows update so the only way to get it may be to download SP1 directly from Microsoft and install it that way.

 

Oh right I see. Is it worth getting though? The download is massive because it includes a load of previous updates. There doesn't seem to be a lot of change with it

 

Is there anything that is not in this guide that we should know before reapplying new thermal paste?

Also, how can you tell if the heatsink is poorly seated?

 

It's most likely one of two things. Either an antenna has come loose / broken a wire, or your wireless card transmitter / receiver / antenna switch assembly is dying. The good news is both are usually easily fixed. First, power down, pull the battery, and flip your laptop over. Using a #1 phillips screwdriver, remove the screws holding the bottom access panel off. The wireless card will be the one with two or three wires coming off of it and having little gold connectors. If one has popped off, very carefully reposition it and snap it back into place. If both are on, twist them around a little in case some mild corrosion is causing a poor connection. Put laptop back together and test. If it's not better, the most likely cause is a dying wifi card. You can try the hassle with warranty return, or order an exact replacement for $10 or so on ebay. Keyboards and wifi cards are the kinds of things I buy an extra of when I get a chance for any laptop I own, as they're both things that can die quickly and easily, take a week or two to get a replacement, and they pretty much take you out of the loop while they're dead.

 

Just one little thingy: in the first step, it isn't mentioned there actually are 4 screws shorter than the others and 2 even shorter ones.

• The 4 screws are from the cover giving access to the RAM and HDD (all shorter except the middle one which is normal size).
• The 2 little screws are from the top.

Oh, and the GPU cooler doesn't come off that easy so be extra carefull with that one

 

I'm getting an error while installing latest VGA_AMD_8.741.1.6000 drivers :

ATI Display Driver
Final Status: Fail
Version of Item: 8.741.1.6000
Size: 90 Mbytes

Any ideas ? P.S i have HD 5650

 

Great advice! First laptop here so not aware of failing wi-fi cards. Before I go ahead and open up the laptop I'm just gonna order a new card just to have... Even if it turns out not to be the cause. Speaking of which, seeing how I'm gonna replace the wi-fi card anyways is there a better one I could buy that would work with the 3820TG?

 

I can recommend the Intel Advanced-N 6200. I exchanged my Broadcom with it and it works like a charm. The Ultimate-N 6300 would be useless unless you wire a third antenna.

Here's an article about the Sandy Bridge refresh presented at Cebit (german, sorry): Acer: Neue Timeline-X-Serie bald mit Sandy Bridge - Golem.de

To sum it up:

• USB 3.0
• NVIDIA GT540M
• 9 hours on battery
• available in April

 

If you haven't seen this, you probably should. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/558780-3820tgtray.html Looks great. For those of you who never had a 1410T or 1810T, the author's tray program was an incredible utility.

Bronsky

 

OK, so I'm still checking out the outer limits ... just gave CineBench 11.5 a try and try to push it as far as possible (settings are really getting crazy) ... man, I just LOVE this portable

 

Thanks, nice find!

 

Ah, finally! Been using that on my 1810 much to my pleasure and ease! Too bad he's not including the quite fan anymore though ...

 

Humm. Not sure what to do. I plan on upgrading the CPU soon and from what I've read I'd need to move the wires during disassemble/reassemble so to throw in a third wouldn't be hard. I'd just need to know what track to add the third wire too? Or if a third wire could even be next to one of the original two (interference)? Just asking but chances are I'd buy a 6200 like you've mentioned.

Surprised there hasn't been more discussed about this seeing as how many posts pop'd up here about the 5650 vs 6550 models.

 

Yes - that is why it would be nice to have it show up in updates as it seems on most systems its about an 80mb download through that medium.

As to whether its worth the huge download I am not sure. I have read others who say its made their system more stable and responsive and I have seen the opposite reported. I have installed it on two of my other computers (an Asus G73JW laptop and and some flavor I7 HP desktop) and both seem fine. The Asus laptop actually seems to run a little quicker but that is by no means a scientific assessment. However I haven't notice a whole lot of difference with either. Both systems were working fine before and both continue to work fine.

I will probably wait a bit to see if Acer fixes the driver issue although I am not holding my breath on that front. The laptop is running fine and so its not urgent in my view.

 

Hi, I thought there might be some people on this board more knowledgeable than myself on the subject, so I wanted to ask a question. Here's the thing, I installed a different keyboard (from the 3810 model) with backlight mod. Everything went smoothly, except now the little pictures on the fn keys do what the old keyboard said. The only problem with this is i'm a bit ocd, so I need it neat. Is there any way I can change what fn buttons preform which functions?

 

Don't think can..

 

Damn, that sucks...

 

Core i3 330M
3GB
320GB hd
5650
3820TG

Was 490$ at some store in Turkey 2 days ago and I missed it... Ahh damn those one day deals and they had still 50more to sell nobody even knew about that...

://

 

Sweet price. Shame you missed it.

Bronsky

 

Anybody have an opinion on whether the SSD is worth the extra cash, or if it should be fine to settle for the Momentus XT (on sale for $100). I don't do anything too intensive (gaming, video editing, etc.) if that helps. I'm just looking for inexpensive upgrades that can help boost the power in this mean machine - hoping to have this laptop (my only computer) for a while.

Should I just keep the stock WD and wait for the drop in SSD prices, or just invest the $100 in the Momentus XT?

edit: also, does anybody know why my Launch Manager won't load? Nothing happens when I click on the program, and I've tried reinstalling it a few times? I'm looking to reprogram my P key, and when I press Fn+up it doesn't unmute my speakers, so I need to Fn+F8 then adjust the volume, or vice versa - kind of annoying.

 

Everything is possible.
1. Read description of format MMKEYBD.CFG (see below).
2. Download Launch Manager for 3810 and see what are the differences in MMKEYBD.CFG compared with 3820. You may need to just change some keycodes described in 3810 .CFG file to match those of 3820 .CFG file.
3. Open file C:\Program Files\Launch Manager\MMKEYBD.CFG in Notepad, make your changes and save.
4. Restart computer.
5. Test. Repeat step 3-5 as needed.

Description of MMKEYBD.CFG taken from here. You may find more info on google.

Code:

;; Description of "C:\Program Files\Launch Manager\MMKEYBD.CFG" format
;; -------------------------------------------- ;;
;; Key {A} = {B},{C},{D},{E},{F},{G},{H}
;;                |___ C-F ___|
;;
;; Where:
;;
;; {A} is an auto-increment number
;; {B} is either 1 or 0.
;;     If 0, it returns the key AFTER EXECUTING ITS FUNCTION.
;;     If 1, the Launch Manager doesn't return the key to the OS.
;; {C-F} may be the key identifier (exemple: E0,2E,E0,AE)
;; {D} appears to be linked to scan code (€ 34, scan key 134)
;; {G} is the function identifier (replacing F5F8 in play/pause with F508 caused the play/pause to €)
;; {H} is the key description.
;;
;; Invalidating this string (eg: setting H to 0000) appears to prevent the launch manager from handling the key press.
;;
;; -------------------------------------------- ;;
;; Main credit for the note goes to FineWolf from the Winamp forums
;; http://forums.shoutcast.com/showpost.php?p=2013629&postcount=12
;; -------------------------------------------- ;;

If you end up fixing all the hotkeys can you please share the modded MMKEYBD.CFG so that others with 3810T backlit keyboard can have their keys fixed?

Thanks!

 

I think I will be ordering and replacing my CPU with an i5-580m pretty soon. Well as soon as I get my next paycheck from work in a week or so. Looking forward to it and hopefully the antennas won't be as bad as I'm imagining looking at the guide. Just trying to make my notebook the most ideal machine possible and this should be the last upgrade I have to make on it until I am perfectly content.

 

I have the momentus XT and what I'd say to you is its quite noisy. If you can get away with the storage capacity of the ssd I'd go with that. Its definately better than the stock though. A few people have had problems with the xt freezing at times although there's been 2 firmware updates now so it should be better. My first one died and I had to get it replaced. It all depends how you would be using it. Windows and applications load faster but if you run multiple OS's or virtual machines you start to lose the advantages. Plus its only read SSD so if you do a lot of writing it wont help you. That being said it is a great bit of tech and a worthy upgrade, just a pity about the noise...its like having a constant fan

 

I wanted to get a Momentus XT but the computer shop guy with whom I'm on pretty good terms with said that Seagate hard drives sucked ever since they acquired Maxtor, so I got a WD Scorpio Black instead which he said is way better, and at half the price of the Momentus XT as well with the same capacity (S$102 vs S$200+ at another shop)

 

Yes my 3820 just arrived, what a sweet notebook. Let's figure out how to install an english version of windows on it

btw, is that acer sticker just a sticker and can it be removed or is it indented or attached with nails or something?

 

I was previously informed that the logo on the lid would be slightly engraved.

 

Hi dudes!

I am the proud owners of this lil beast since yesterday too. Thanx to the informations given in this thread.

For me the easiest and fastest way to install windows on this machine without disc drive is to copy the content of an original windows DVD (assuming you have another desktop/laptop with dvd drive and original W7 DVD) or the content of a mounted iso (for me the latest W7 x64 with SP1 in my language) to the first part of my USB external HDD (Fat32 formatted), and activate it with diskpart (making it bootable). Then boot from that via the bios.

10 mins to install with the SSD.

Making some OC GPU test, the 6550 seems to handle well at 800/1100 giving me ~10100 3DMark06 score. Temps reaching 82°C with this Benchmark. Didn't try long time stress test so I assume this clocks may be unstable in games.

But when using furmark, temps reached 101°C within 2 minutes. My question is, Are this high temps possible to reach when playing some games? is it safe to keep those?

I was amazed when I saw Arma II was playing smoothly in medium/high details with native res. WOW! The 480m is useful there, with this CPU intensive game.

Thanx new homies!

 

Has anyone removed it? Would someone be so kind to upload a picture I'm wondering how it will look