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

, then I lose no matter what.

I've been doing a battle between 3820 and Vaio Z, for a long time now.

The major goal, was to find a 13'' With powerful graphics, and power, that would still be mobile, and allow me to do video editing, and type a lot.

"The low weight and good battery life is pleasing for daily mobile business. It wasn't possible to keep the Timeline 3810's record-breaking endurance qualities, but it's still within a good field. The only thing in the way of an unlimited mobile use is the contrast poor, too dark and reflective display. Thus, outdoor use shouldn't be considered.

The workmanship and material quality have a high quality, but then again, it's dimmed by the yielding and coiling keyboard. Nothing for frequent typists." - Notebookcheck: Review Acer Aspire 3820TG Timeline X Notebook


The Vaio Z in comparison has a good keyboard and good screen. It also costs three times as much.

Vaio Z gets very hot, it has in-removeable SSD's in Raid that I don't care about, their driver support is horrible and limited to their non-Optimus graphics solution making GPU driver updates something horrible. It also has a full HD display on a 13'' Which I think is downright silly.
I have to pay a horrible sum of money for features I don't care about.

But it's the only other powerful Subnotebook in the world. Every single 13'' has a Nvidia 310 GPU, which is basically useless. Vaio Z's 330m is downclocked by 20%.


That's why it annoys me that Acer have not been able to get these basic things right. Couldn't they have spent a little bit of money on making something that is just a bit useful? What's the point of powerful graphics if the screen is to dark and reflective and you can't see what is going on?


sigh... frustration.

 

Ok, so I updated the BIOS to v1.13. That seems to have fixed part of the HDMI problem I was having. The picture looks good now (no more washed out blacks), but it still does not fill the entire screen. However, HDMI output works fine on my Benq 24" monitor at 1920x1200. It did also before I updated the BIOS.

Next I updated to the latest graphics card driver as explained in the first post of this thread (set dedicated graphics in BIOS, install driver, set switchable in BIOS). Also, before I installed the Catalyst driver, I uninstalled the one that was already installed. Should I not have done that? You see, after setting back to switchable, I checked Device Manager, and I had a yellow exclamation mark at the Intel Integrated card, saying the drivers were not right. So I uninstalled the drivers for the integrated graphics and got the Intel VGA driver from Acer's driver download site. When I ran the setup, it told me it was installing Intel Turbo Boost driver. (I thought that was a little weird.) After installing and rebooting, the integrated graphics card is only listed as "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter". I can't switch graphics. (Switchable graphics manager used to be available when right-clicking on the desktop. Not anymore.)

Before I did any updating, I noticed that the Intel graphics card was listed in device manager as using the same driver as the Ati card. I thought that was a little strange, but I guess it has something to do with the switchable graphics capability.

I obviously must have done something wrong. Hendrickson, could you explain in a little more detail just how you installed the Catalyst drivers and got back to switchable graphics?

 

I was wondering how well would this laptop handle pcsx2? I am pretty sure the gpu is good enough but I am not sure how good the i5-520m is consideirng pcsx2 is very cpu intensive. I am guessing i-5 580m would be great for pcsx2

 

1. Set discrete graphics in the BIOS
2. Uninstall all ATI Drivers/utilities
3. Install the original driver from Acer
4. Install the 10.5 version over the original one
5. Set back to switchable in the BIOS

It's also useful - maybe even necessary - to have the BIOS version 1.13 installed!

In order to get rid of the black border you have to get rid of ATI's overscan correction. You can find it in the Control Panel->Desktops & Displays->right click an the TV-Screen and Configure. There is an option - I don't remember how it is exactly called, but I think it's on the third chart - in which you can reduce the correction to 0%.


Edit: The i5-430m is even slightly faster than a Core 2 Duo E8200, so pcsx2 should run perfectly.

 

Hendrickson said the screen was alright, not the best but decent, not "bad". If you choose to interpret that as something that is not even "just a bit useful" and that it is "dark and reflective [...] can't see what is going on" then I think it's not Acer's fault you're so damn picky. We have at least two 3820TG users in here posting their experiences and they haven't complained much about the display.

 

Intel has it's own drivers iirc. You can get them from the acer europe site.

 

I read it as he was agreeing/not disagreeing with what is being said in the review. Perhaps spoken in a more damage-control, way.

I'm just venting out of frustration, in the hope that maybe someone had another suggestion, or opinion.

 

omg i just installed cod modern warfare 2 on my 3820tg i7 620m 5650 hd and its entirely disappointing! i get dizzy by just looking at the screen more so when you move and shoot! would that be acceptable under this machine? i thought it would be able to handle pretty heavy graphics but i think i am mistaken. however, i used the AMD GPU Clock Tool and checked for the set clock rate of the card and its showing below 100/200 mhz! is that the reason why im lagging pretty bad? and also, when i rated its WEI, it was only 5.5 considering its an i7 procie. could it be because the usable ram out of my 4 gigs is just 2.30gigs? not really an expert when it comes to overclocking and tweaking so if you could help me out with this, i would really appreciate it! thanks a lot!

 

it works worse than in this vid?

430+5650 stock
YouTube - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on Ati Radeon HD 5650 gameplay:Heart Of Darkness_Intro

rec the video low fps obvious

with your i7 and with a little oc, should be playable cool

your graphycs driver updated? and new bios?

 

^ yeah it is much worse than that! its even laggy with dirt2 and nfs shift. not sure if the driver is updated i think it is the stock driver used. ill check later coz im at work and the lappy is not in front of me. would you mind giving me links for the updated driver? and screenshots for overclocking the gpu/procie if its not too much thank you!

 

- Did you have the Laptop plugged in power plug?
- Have you set the machine to performance mode, instead of battery-saving in bottom right corner?

 

In first page

Common issues and solutions

Poor 3d performance / PCI-E runs at only x1 not x16. Installing the latest ATI Catalyst drives fixes this. See below:

Installing the latest ATI 5650 catalyst drivers. First much sure you install the stock Acer ATI vga driver. Then go into the systems bios (F2 on boot) and set the vga mode to discrete in the second screen. (See screenshot below) Install the driver and then reboot and go back into the bios and change the options back to switchable.



if your problem persist, update your bios

 

Well in the 1st post of this thread he says in his mini review

I take that to mean it is a good or at least average display for a glossy. But I guess I can understand your frustration. I myself have been lurking here more than half a year now just looking for a "perfect" laptop that fits my needs.

 

will you plan to upgrade the proc?

 

got it! thanks vaio z power and luffytubby. ill update you once i get it corrected.

 

Wauw mate, I had not seen that. Makes me a bit more happy,



Will you belive that I have been looking after the right portable for me, since 2006? Even before I had signed up for this site I was lurking like a maniac. Always at the Sony Vaio's and at the hope that the Netbook with gaming power would emerge.

Horrible representation in my country, delays, lack of support of marked, incredible higher prices, and delayed features(I think I waited for Nvidia Ion for two years.. then it turned out to be crap)... And then I found out that Netbooks where to small to be good gaming computers(simply to little screen estate).

The idea for me was always, to that major power, but be able to carry it around for 12 hours a day. My storage for film, music, work, pictures, documents, games... internet, writing, photoshoping, editing, encoding.. I mean, what I've been looking for is the desktop replacement, in a incredible light package.


In a sense 3820 is the closest I have seen. The power on display here, is almost revolutionary. It's downright incredible. This incredible-ness is further elevated by the fact that supposedly temperatures are not crazy like the ahead-of-its-time-LG310, but very modest and good. It's actually something you could do serious cranking on without... needing a laptop cooler or putting it in a freezer
Another amazing thing is the battery life. It's moving fast.


And the fast technology keeps us down. I bought a 800 USD laptop around 6-8 months ago.. even at the time, it's performance was not really adequette but I needed something while waiting for the perfect laptop.

And now I get the sense that new announcements about Optimus technology and more companies hopefully getting rid of the useless integrated Optical drive(we don't need it around with us all time. put in that powerful GPU instead! or even a small SSD, next to the HDD.. ) and maybe someone will make a similiar configuration like Timeline 3820 but with a better display or keyboard... but then it will most likely be worse in other areas.


I waited for Vaio Z, to upgrade from 9300 to 330 for two years. meh. Still no engraving, still no blu-ray option, and you're still paying over 4000 USD, for incredible technology, but something that will grow old soon.


The best thing about 3820 being so affordable for me is not to save the money. its to know that, its not so expenssive that I have to worry about it all the time.

I would have a hard time letting my friends use my Vaio Z for ten minutes, because it freakin costed over 4000 Dollars. A scratch on that, would annoy me for half a day... and that would mean that the technology would not help me, but sort of.. take over me, or become a liability at least.


Still though, it's a hard situation, because your looking for a laptop that can do anything. your asking for a swizz army knife, but it can only be half the size, and it has to run on much longer... battery that is reasonable for its features and power cutting.
weird stupid example.


forgive my incompetence I want to throw myself of a building in pure anger. also just the fact that I feel like I've wasted so much time just looking, debating, speculating about which to buy and which not to buy. The main thing is not the money.

the main thing is that you have all your stuff, and your building your computer, preferences, programs, internet related things... from customizing the kernal, to name tagging correctly in your itunes library, to...
it's a lot of time, in a lot of areas to truly make your own laptop your own!

 

I've used this program here http://www.simtel.net/pub/dl/61876.shtml

To calibrate the monitor Red green and blue one by one. Through both the intel gfx color options and the ATI card. Screen seems even better.

Also comparing this screen to wifes Acer 5xxx i3 system the 3820TG screen is much better. Like I said its an acceptable screen in both color and brightness. After calibrating it its slightly better now too.

I guess some people will never be happy. Unless they designed there own LED screen

 

Hopefully soon posibility of identify the ICS id

 

is there a way for me to increase the usable ram on my 3820tg? what's appearing on my system is 4.00 (2.30 usable) im not sure if this is the reason why im getting laggy when multi-tasking especially when there is zip extraction going on...

 

Nice cant wait to run this baby at 2.93 ghz like a i5 520m Let me know and i can email the setfsb support guy.

Also i clocked 9064 3dmarks today running 670 / 1040 clocks. With a CPU overlock im sure we could get into 100xx range.

 

Whoa 2.30 GB usable? Is that a typo? I have normally 3.8 GB usable. I think the 200 odd mb taken up is the intel hd gfx controller.

Also to other 3820TG owners do you notice that 2nd core is always 3-4 degrees higher idle? Or is that just an i5 core thing?

 

not a typo hendrickson that's really what's showing on my system 2.30 GB usable ram. That's why when I rated my WEI it was only 5.5 considering it is an i7 procie...

I'll have to check on the core temps if that same case happens with i7.

 

is there a way for me to correct this ram usage?

 

Only 3-4? Mine is 8-10C higher. I don't think it is a big deal, though. Fantastic overclocking results, btw.

 

Sounds like you are using a 32 bit operating system. You need a 64 bit OS to utilize 4 GB of RAM.

 

Just saw your sig. You need to change your name to "Compulsive Notebook Buyer".

Bronsky

 

I can quit whenever I want , or when I find the perfect laptop.

 

Ah, thank you. I'm so used to uninstalling old drivers before installing new ones. Didn't catch the fact that I had to install the new driver on top of the old one. It works now.

HDMI also working, finally. If anyone else has this problem: The overscan setting is in Catalyst Control Center. Graphics (upper left corner) -> Desktops & Displays. Right-click on the display that you need to adjust overscan settings for and click on "Configure". Enable GPU scaling in the first tab, apply, and then the overscan can be adjusted in the third tab (down to 0).

 

I am using win7, original os that comes with the package. I think I have this sorted out, I will try it later though. On msconfig under boot tab I think the option "maximum memory" is ticked.

Excited to see my lappy!

 

Stalker overclocked GPU results Big increase over the stock drivers btw.
Going to test BF:BC2 for a bit are report back fps and temps.

Got the resident evil 5 benchmark to do too and heaven..ahhh lots of work. Oh yeah running the OCZ vetex now and it faaassst.

 

good, let us know of any news

as soon as you get oc, this machine will be a genius

very cool your 3dmark results, 10.000 soon hpe

 

Did the OCZ cost less than the X25-M?

 

Have you noticed any performance improvement in gta with OCZ SSD?

 

This just in from the Acer Guy ...

Timeline X will be available end of June at Amazon, New Age, Tiger, Walmart.com, D&H, Fry's, J&R, Brandsmart, New Egg and Costco.com.

Looks promising. I think I'll pass on Singapore and wait a few more weeks to see what shakes out.

Bronsky

Thanks Acer Man ... Thanks Insider.

 

Ok I just have to say I'm 110% impressed this laptop is a mighty little beast in camouflage. No doubt in my mind the 3820TG is a great buy. Good size,weight and its a sleeper.

Playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 on high settings and its smooth. No super lag. I couldn't get damn fraps to run so I don't know the fps. But it was very playable. Fans are quite too, not screaming or anything

I played a bit online and that is also 100% stable/playable at my overclock of 675 / 1090!!. This was with a server of only 7 people online I will need to test some more.

Oh and whats more impressive: After all the benchmarks, stalker 3dmark and now BFBC2 temps are amazing. Note I don't use a notebook cooler (never have never will). But my system is propped up about 1 inch with a notepad underneath. Today ambient temps are a bit lower. say 26 degrees in the room here.

I'll see if i can get a video up tomorrow. I need to head to bed...

Now I'm thinking we really need to overclock that CPU a bit. A little more bus speed wouldn't hurt.

GPU clocks / Heat screenshot.

 

Henrickson, what about some screens, of the laptop in your home enviorment, taken with your setup? Just so we can see how it looks when its in use... with the screen on, and in a dark room and stuff like that?

I would love to see that at least

 

The end is upon us.

 

Yes I think so, 300U SD of ebay

I've haven't installed it again, 15GB download Btw I have already completed it so I'm not sure i will install it again just for a 30min test.

Oh and for you people that think running furmark + prime + intel burn test non stop for 4 hours+ is a "average users CPU and GPU load test" I don't get you..

Never in my years of computers have I had my cpu - gpu taxed like that when I use my computer. I would be trying to run task manager and kill the crashed app taking up 100% cpu.

So I think its a very unrealistic temp test...Sure running that for 4 hours I might get temps to 95+...But in my daily usage of my 3820TG would I be doing that? Not useless there was something wrong with my head

 

Sure, bad photos I know (Its late ) You can't tell from the photos that the 3820TG screen is better than my gateway 6831fx's. For some reason the digi cam can't get the screen good. Just comes up white.

I'm off to be its 2am..work tomorrow!!!


None of these photos does the screen justice!

 

thats what i wanted to hear bad company 2 is by far the most demanding game and if it performs as you say than im pleased. maybe o/c CPU would help that lag. Im tempted to get i7-620m but some say it runs much hotter.. What resolution have you played it on ? Could you try lets say 1280x800 to see if it plays a bit smoother? I dnt mid as its HD very nice temps while o/c without a cooler, you might get better if you replace your thermal paste for better one. I've got LG p310 with zalman cooler and it cools all components by 10 C while heavly o/ced gaming. Do you have UMTS module in your model ?

 

Oh yeah, I can totally see that it's much brighter than the other one. Are both set to max brightness?



I was thinking, Hendrickson - About the keyboard. I guess it often depends on what type of keyboard, you are used to. Some people like chicklet keyboards, others like Sony/Apple types, some like thinkpads.


Could you just describe a bit more about how the keyboard is? I mean, if you press a K, is it like that the surround keys, sort of give in-and goes down as well, or does it feel like, that you might press through the keyboard(yeilding it into the sub-construction)?

How is it for gaming. Can you use WASD comfortable? Also, have you tried typing on it, in complete dark. Do you think it will get hard to get used to if you know blind typing... Since it doesn't have backlight I wonder how hard it will be to memorise(of course thats impossible to say... depends on the individual.. just asking about your thoughts)!


thanks for the pictures.

 

God I love acer. I have been eying the envy but this unit looks sweet. It helps that all I have ever owned is acer products, except for one hp laptop that lasted almost a year(yay?). I have never had an acer die, just retired from old age. lol. I wish you could customize them direct instead of just buying the pre mades though.

 

Will there be a 3820TG with a larger screen res like 1600x900?

 

I know it doesn't have backlit keyboard

 

Hendrickson pics looks sweet, ei your other laptoop is 17"? looks next big to

 

Cool man! Thread started last nite, and 10pages already!

Can't wait till Fry's/Walmart carries this, lol. Walmart? That's just plain ol' amazing for me, since I shop there regularly

 

yummy, how far will you push your gpu overclock?

 

The HD5650 is an icerock! Never got hotter than 65 c during GTA IV.

CPU temps during BC2 are good too.

@Hendrickson: could You please tell us Your CPU temps while playing GTA IV, temps might be a bit higher than BC2.

Since Your running on BIOS 1.13 I'm curious how does it perform compared to the BIOS 1.08 which runs GTA IV on 84/87 C max core temps (notebook tilted a bit due to 9 cell battery).

Thanks in advance!

 

I played it on the native screen res, sure I'll try x 1280 x 768 (800 we cant do) I'll redo the thermal paste with some Arctic Silver 5

Yes both computers are set to max, the Acer is about 20-30% brighter I would say than my Gateway.

Ok the keyboard is fine, take a bit to get use too. WASD keys are good to use for gaming. Remember in till my backlit US keyboard arrives I'm using a german one and its a pain because of the smaller shift key and Y - Z transposed. And the ";[][ keys are messed up ;( I hope to have my keyboard before Saturday as I leave next week to travel up north for a week. Hence why I needed this thin and light notebook before 2nd week June.

The keys are the floating individual style. There is no give in the keyboard on the outside, but the middle tends to flex or move up and down a little if you press hard (1-2mm move movement, not much). I plan to fix this with a peice of double sided tape to hold the middle of the keyboard against the metal frame underneath. The keys are not loud and the mouse buttons are good too. Over all the keyboard is good I would say. Not a Sony or Thinkpad quality of course, but fine in my books.

Yes its 17"

Not installed it again, but since I've never seen higher than 83 degrees, it was either 83 or below. I played for about 1 1/2 hour only. Maybe after 2-3 hours it creeps up, I don't know yet.

 

Need some help guys re installation of ati 10.1 catalyst driver. I cant seem to make it work? I tried updating it through device manager but it keeps saying that i have the latest which apparently is not as it is the default installed? Help hendrick pls,how did you install the driver?
Also the switch graphics option disappeared...

Another question, if i change my os win7 from 32bit to 64bit,would that guarantee an increase in the usable ram coz what i still have is 2.3 out of 4 gigs. Or is it possible to increase that on 32bit? I dont really know how to tweak it. Thanks!