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

Really? My fan only comes on every now and then if I have the discrete graphics on, and I have an i5-430m. I'm guessing it'd be even less if I had the i3 version then?

I'm content with my 5470 I guess, I'll upgrade to an SSD and that'll be all.

PS. To turn off autoswitch of discrete to integrated graphics, do you disable PowerPlay within CCC? And does Launch Manager have a GUI? Everytime I try to load it nothing happens, I want to reprogram my P key.

I don't think i'm going to upgrade to that computer - I'm content with my 3820tg for now.

 

I did it this weekend and the hardest part for me was getting the old keyboard out. Took me a good 20 to 30 minutes lol. There's a couple tabs at the top of the keyboard, but there's also two, one to the right and one to the left respectively. Installing it was a piece of cake. Just push down with a bit of force, bend the sides a little, and voila, the tabs automatically pop back out.

Still failing with that BIOS update....

 

Hey! I can confirm this, ordered 460M got 480M. 460 was in the specs on the website as well as on the sticker on my unit itself. However, it is definitely a 480 .

Have fun!

 

Low 30s? Damn man, even applying IC7 my idle is sitting ~40c at 23c ambient temp.

 

Just ordered an Intel 6230 with a/b/g/n and Bluetooth. Will let you know if it successfully allows the use of bluetooth for those of us that weren't fortunate enough to get a unit with it.

 

Maybe they are using a different temp report tool? I replaced paste with AS5 and get 40C idle at 22C ambient on 430M CPU via HWMonitor.

It is not really a guide but a series of rough steps and requires some technical skill. You should wait a few days, I will write an easy-to-follow click-and-run guide.

Not sure what the problem is. My rough guess is that it fails to start the service that is needed for Switchable Graphics to work. Why? I don't know.

Wait a few days. I will write a complete guide and include my modded BIOS. If you really cannot wait, send me a PM.

 

Why do you need to go into DOS mode? Acer's official BIOS comes with an executable. Just double click while in Windows and it will auto install and reboot the system for you. This is the download link for the BIOS v1.19 for my area:
http://global-download.acer.com/GDF...3=Aspire 3820TG&OS=722&LC=en&BC=Acer&SC=AAP_6

 

Yea I did click on the install.bat last time, but it didn't do anything for me. Running the program with admin privileges didn't help either.

Plus you want to avoid flashing in Windows as much as you can. I've seen a lot of BIOS corruption come from flashing in Windows.

 

I actually use a few different temp monitors. I have 3820Tray resident. When testing, I usually run PC Wizzard in background (see upper right)

and when I want to measure temps over time I use hardware monitor.

IC Diamond 7 produces the lowest temps I've seen on my unit (I've had my I5 in and out about 4 or 5 times). One application got my temps down to the high 20C range.

I think those temps reflect an exceptionally good application of IC Diamond 7. My current installation idles in the low 30s. I think the I5-540M idles a bit cooler than the I5-4xx chips plus, I have applied this paste so many times that I think I'm starting to get good at it.

Bronsky

 

Has anybody a list of the SMBus devices inside the 3820TG on the SMBus?

 

I think HWDirect may print out all the SMBus addresses, I can't check because it is expired on my machine. I was using a tool to print out all the addresses to get my keyboard switch to work.

 

I believe in this hypothesis too... IC7 is the hardest to apply ever... It's really easy to see people with bad results because of a bad application.

 

I just did an update on my BIOS a few days back using that. I don't know if you meant the BIOS.bat as your install.bat, if no then try BIOS.bat, if yes then maybe you wanna try running the JM31119.exe manually since all the BIOS.bat ever does is check battery level and run that. I don't think Acer would purposefully put up a BIOS installer that is very fragile and causes problems. Well that's for me as far as it goes, and it worked so far so... yup =)

 

Sorry, anybody have an input? I've been trying to figure this out for weeks. I've reinstalled LM and everything to no avail.

 

What! I am 37 degrees! How dare the cpu be cooler than me.
Edit:
Where is the GPU readings?

 

The adresses are not the problem. I have used linux, for that. But the information about the connected device and the usage of the registers would be nice.

At the moment is it just a little digging at the black night.

Thanks for the informations.

 

PowerPlay wouldn't have anything to do with it. Its probably built into the acer drivers or bios...

 

Hey folks! With all the bios talk I had a look at mine and I have 1.13. Acer website says 1.17 "adds" support for 2GB for VRAM so I assume I've never used VRAM for my 5650??? I wonder if VRAM can improve in game FPS a little? I downloaded the BIOS 1.17 update but cant get it to run. I've never flashed a BIOS before and just need steps to quickly and easily update to 1.17. I'm not looking for custom BIOS, just a stock update.

Thanks!

EDIT: It says I should be able to run it in windows but I keep getting "Flash BIOS Fail. (0x4D0)"

 

VRAM is your dedicated video RAM which you have 1GB of. Adding support for more video RAM than you have will not do a thing not to mention that even if you had 2GB of DDR3 it wouldn't help a bit.
What's needed is GDDR5 or 256bit DDR3 - meaning more bandwidth not more RAM.

 

Thanks! I believe you, just still a little confused. So your saying the BIOS on the Acer site isn't specific to the 3820TG and is also available to other laptops that may have graphics cards with 2GB dedicated ram over our 5650M with 1GB. Correct?

 

My computers are all cooler than me. Looks like I was running on the Intel GPU at the time. I was using Driver 1010e, modded from the desktop catalyst and my unit did not autoswitch with that driver installed. ATM, I am playing with the Firepro drivers for the HD 5650.

Bronsky

@damarious25 - I think that Weinter has a guide to flashing your bios from Dos. That is the way I prefer doing it as well. Maybe he'll be kind enough to link it. You have to make a dos-bootable USB drive.

 

@ Damarious25
That's the interesting part- my initial thought was that there's gonna be nVidia version because they tend to put 2GB for no reason, but it clearly says AMD/ATI.
There's no 5650 with 2GB and support for 6550 was added in the next BIOS.
It would be interesting to know but still irrelevant as you have 1GB VRAM so support for 2GB doesn't mean a thing to you (or me for that matter as I also have a 1GB HD5650)

 

I meant avoid flashing in Windows.

Ok I'll keep that in mind and hope all goes well I guess. I still prefer flashing not in Windows though, whether it be in DOS or EZ Flash or w/e.

Is anyone's US keyboard extremely nasty and ugly? I installed mine last night and used it for like 5 hours so far. It's so nasty and ugly I don't even know how to describe it. When it was brand new it was clean and glossy, but you can tell it's really cheap and plastic looking.

 

No ... I love my KB. It looks great and types really well. I currently have the regular one in my 3820TG as I haven't hooked up the backlit KB since I had some warranty work done on the webcam. The backlit version is even nicer.

Bronsky

 

It does a really annoying thing, where, If I load up a video say on youtube, while its plugged in, but then unplug it, it switches the graphics card, and the video dissapears.

How do I stop it switching the graphics card when I unplug the thing. Im sure ive seen it, just cant figure it right now for some reason.

 

I've been asking about this issue and I can't seem to find an answer that fixes it. This might be a hardware issue that forces the graphics to switch when the power adapter is plugged/unplugged.

 

It's not hardware that does it. I dual boot Ubuntu and Win7 and only in Win7 does it autoswitch. It's so annoying that I only ever use windows for gaming and some simple web browsing.

 

Which one did you buy? Mine was this and I can't believe how bad it is. Here it is after a day of usage. You can see the fingerprints and everything >.>

 

I'm just amazed there doesn't seem to be an option to change the settings of such a basic thing.

Basically it means I cant unplug my laptoo if Im streaming a video, or playing games, otherwise it will make them unwatchable/playable when I unplug it.

Often, I like to load up a long video on youtube or somewhere, to watch later, if I want to do that now, I have only a few hour window to load it up and watch it, before the battry gets to low and I have to plug it in again (thus resetting the graphics card)

 

With Acer drivers installed after a clean install of Windows, I find that the default configuration is to prompt you to switch graphics with a pop-up and a countdown timer (from 300 seconds). There's a check-box at the bottom that says "Don't show this warning again. Switch automatically." but as long as I leave that unchecked and click "Cancel" (to prevent switching), then it won't switch. Once you check that box and switch the graphics, it will automatically switch every time without the prompt.



Though it's not as seamless as NVIDIA's Optimus, I still have total control over the switching of the graphics card.

Also, I noticed if I were to install the latest Catalyst Mobility drivers over the Acer drivers, one of the directions switches automatically without the prompt (I forget if it's discrete to integrated when unplugging or integrated to discrete when plugging back in).

 

I am interested. So with your modded BIOS, you can actually get the brightness even dimmer than default, which could add to the battery life?

 

Disable Hardware acceleration and the video will not breake down.

 

Anyone put a 3G module in their 3820TG? Does it work the same way as the 3810 showed in another thread? Which modules would be compatible and where can I get an antenna for it? Thanks!

 

How can you disable hardware acceleration

 

Run a flash video and do a right click inside the video. Open the Flash configuration and disable Hardware Acceleration.

 

Yeah, mine does that too. I just tested it out. But I swear there are sometimes when I plug in my powercord and my screen blinks a few times and then my discrete graphics are on, and vice versa.

 

Many 3820TG don't have the PCI-e slot for adding a 3G module. If you really need it, read this post of this same thread.

 

@ those with graphics switching in the middle of tasks while unplugging. (I dont have my battery with my and can't test this)

Start>(type in search)Edit Power Plan>Change Advance Power Settings

From there you have the option to edit the settings separately for both Intel and ATI graphics. Set both the maximum performance on battery. This might not work but it's worth a shot.

 

Doesn't work.

The Windows powersheme doesn't control the graficcard switching.

 

Keep us up to date on how long it takes to ship to you. What country are y'all in?

Hey all, has anyone's Windows 7 successfully "auto-recognized" SP1 yet and got it through Windows Update?

I know this is not a problem specific to our notebook, but in fact, its specific to Intel switchable GPUs...of which our notebook is one of the few. I know I can override Windows Update and download SP1 manually, but I don't want to risk compatibility issues.

Microsoft says Intel switcheable GPUs present technical issues at this time with SP1 and that Windows Update will not install it until that issue is resolved.

 

Can you give us the source?

I have installed SP1 and it works very well.

 

No problem with SP1 here either. Not on the 3820TG or my Slate 500. I was using 10.10e at the time and am experimenting with firepro drivers ATM. I think I'm going back to standard to the Acer driver to load 3820Tray and Afterburner again.

Bronsky

 

For everyone who got the 6550m version with the crappy ALPS Multitouchpad:

The ALPS Drivers are utter crap, with synaptics it works fine but u dont have mutlitouch...

ive found new ALPS Drivers which work at least a little better than the acer ones but not as good as the synaptics, but at least u have multitouch:
ALPS ALPS Touchpad Driver | Catalog - News, articles, free drivers and firmware catalog: X-DRIVERS.COM

the newest one:
Download ALPS Touchpad Driver v.7.6.303.106 | ALPS Touchpad Driver | Catalog - News, articles, free drivers and firmware catalog: X-DRIVERS.COM


for my part... im installing synaptics again.... if there is a way to enable multitouch on this ALPS-Pad with synaptics driver teach me!

 

my box is also unchecked but it doesnt stop it doing it automatically when I unplug it

 

Do you happen to be running the latest Catalyst Mobility drivers? Like I said, one of the directions (I forget which!) switched automatically for me with no warning when I had newer drivers installed. With any of the Acer VGA drivers, this never happened.

 

To those that changed out the bilingual keyboard for a US 3810 keyboard, I notice that the Fn keys are different. Will the Fn keys be what they actually are on the new keyboard or will they be what they were on the old keyboard? if so then the Fn keys will be confusing.

 

Hey guys, I'm having problems overclocking my i5-480m cpu with the ICS9LPRS365BGLF clockgen. My slider is negative. Can somebody explain me how to sliders in setfsb works, because I see 2 of em which confuses me. I've overclocked my gpu to 800/1150 very easily.

Here's my capture:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

^This......

 

What factor changes to a faster cpu clock? I get 3.2ghz now
Nvm got it change the 97 to lower value eg 96

 

There must be a way to disable automatic graphics switching, we just have to find it. On another forum, someone mentioned that it is possible to disable automatic switching by installing a modified driver. That is all the information I have.

The service that is responsible for graphics switching is called AMD External Events Utility (C:\Windows\system32\atiesrxx.exe). If you do not want your graphics to autoswitch (and disable switching functionality completely along the way), then you can:
1. Click on Start and in the search box type Services. Double click on Services that comes up as the result of your search.
2. In the list, find AMD External Events Utility, right click and select Properties.
3. There is a button to stop this service, and a drop menu to disable it from autostarting. The idea is to stop the service, plug in/unplug the cable, and then enable the service back. Maybe that will prevent graphics from autoswitching? If that will work, then maybe we can add it to the event manager, write a small program to automate, or ask inteks to add some sort of control to his 3820tray.

NOTE: If you stop or disable AMD External Events Utility then BOTH automatic and manual graphics switching will NOT work. The power consumption will go up too, since your unused card will not be properly disabled. To enable switching functionality back, simply re-start the service. You might have to restart the computer.


Everyone please give this method a try and post your results!


It may also be possible to make some changes to configuration files and/or registry to disable autoswitching. If anyone has some spare time and can look into, that would be wonderful.