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

Arriving in America:

The single, large diesel groaned from the depts of the SS Rotterdam as the Captain eased the linkage into reverse. At the same time he eased on the throttle swinging the rusted old bow of the frieghter alongside the mooring lines in Port Elizabeth. The Captain's shirt was drenched with sweat. He could not believe that it was 39 degrees. This was New Jersey, not the tropics.

Down in the cargo hold, a container jerked skyward as the stevedore's claws pulled if off the ship and had it on the back of a USPS tractor trailer before the crew could finish tying up the Rotterdam. Inside the container, a small notebook was treated to the combined smells of New York Harbor, Bayone, New Jersey and the tractor's diesel stack. I thought the United States would smell better it thought.

The truck left the port terminal and and started up the overpass that would carry the cargo through the meadowlands and onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Through a small split in the container seam, the laptop could see the statue of liberty. I'm an immigrant, in a way, it thought, quite pleased with itself. The truck rumbled through the toll booth and continued past the oil refineries that hung heavy in the air.

At Exit 11, the truck crossed over to the Garden State Parkway and continued down the coast until the notebook could smell the sweet smell of ocean air. "It's funny how different it smelled from the land," he thought. Finally, the truck pulled into the regional post office and the packages were let out in small groups.

Inside, the notebook overheard the workers talking about delivering these packages tomorrow. "That's exciting," it tought to itself. "Tomorrow I'll be at my new home and starting a new life." It's thoughts were interrupted, however, when a postal worker came over and picked the package up.

"This little baby came all the way from Germany" the worker said. The other worker nodded. "I hear the new owner has been waiting for this for weeks," the first worker added. It's the first of its kind here in the US.

The Owner asks me about it every day I deliver mail there. The second worker just mumbled un-huh, a bit distracted. "He's going to do major surgery on it he says." The notebook stopped. "Its the damdest thing. Spending all that money and he's gonna rip it apart and shove a whole bunch of new parts in there before he even uses it." The notebook stared on in terror. Just as abruptly, the postal worker went back to his chores sorting the packages for tomorrows delivery.

After everyone went home, in the darkness, the notebook stared at the ceiling. Surgery, it thought. Surgery! It stayed that way all night, frozen in that postition, until dawn. Surgery, it whispered as the sum came up on a new day.

Bronsky

 

Up.
Thanks for info, next question, for right moment the best spec's are i5-450, hd 5650 ? or poly tech school still sell i7&5650 ?
BTW, where have you converted usd to eur ?

 

Actually, I think there are I5-520Ms in Singapore. I don't know about the I7s. There is an I7-620M 4820TG being sold in Germany. I think Computeruniverse just got them in.

I bought the 3820TG with an American Express Card, they give you the prevailing exchange rate.

Bronsky

 

No i'm interested only in 3820tg, if you don't mind post or send me please web sites of Singapore stores which sells with i5-520m.
I don't have American Express Card how much did it cost you in USD ?

 

$875 for the unit and $75 shipping. The only one I know of that had them was Firdouse. AspireAnt for his in Singapore. There are a few others. Firdouse has a website if I recall. They are +12 hours from east coast US. They don't respond to emails. I spoke to them once. I recommend calling them. There are others.

Bronsky

 

I'm confident these 3820TGs will come to North America in a month or two. Gotta have faith.

 

But you haven't got it in your hands yet. A lot can happen. Fire in the Post Office. A mailman who reads this and decides to be the first in US to own one ;-)
Or I can walk in to a NetonNet store and buy one today and take a flight to U.S.

 

^ OMG that could actuallyhappen

 

@Bronsky

If I was your editor at "Tekwiz News " magazine I`d be asking for an explanation of the passage:

"oil refineries that hung heavy in the air"

I think the heat has begun to affect your brain!

Just funnin with ya and I hope ya git yer new TG on friday.:yes:

 

hmmmm... does anybody know of a good notebook wiki where we can share the important information.

With 131 pages in 5 weeks and an average of >50 posts per day, it's quite impossible to keep track of the useful stuff

In the last few days I've seen the same requests (especially availability) over and over again. You can't force new people to read all that pages before asking their questions

I think Hendrickson's first post in this thread could be a good starting point...

Perhaps we could create a sub-forum or even different threads, but even then it's hard to keep track of the good information since the op has to update his post regularly.

 

The answers could be right in front of their faces but users will still ask the same questions over and over.

That's the nature of a message forum lol .

 

@Bronsky

I can't wait to see the photos and review on your 3820TG. All that waiting should be worth it.

 

I'll give it a go and post the results here

 

People are selling away their i7's

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2828570

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?p=47103618#post47103618

 

Would you spend $1400 or even $1600 for a laptop from Singapore from someone you don`t know?

 

Ponjornoh

Perhaps for starters you could be a bit more specific as to what is "important"to you.I`m sure if you ask correctly you`ll get the answers your looking for.

As well,there`s just no substitute for doing your homework.

 

No, cause i already have one.

 

Dude I don't think Poonjornoh is a starter in this forum. In fact, he's a source of essential information about this notebook. You might wanna back read to check his posts.

Also, i don't think he is looking for something specific, he is just suggesting if we could compile the essential info posted on this thread and dedicate it to a new thread so that people who would want to look for answers can read those and not ask again. You can't just say, "do your homework" as for sure everyone's doing theirs.

 

I have a question concerning the 430m models and cpu overclocking:
Hendrickson wrote on the first page, that the fsb is locked. So besides
not knowing the exact PLL, is it generelly impossible to overclock due
to the locked fsb speed or is there a chance that setFSB will support this
first model someday?

 

Hendrickson have to update his posting.

Yes, is it possible with SetFSB and a stable FSB is 160MHz.

 

Thanks for your support Ant

That's the point... I'm not looking for something specific, since I can figure out most things on my own. At the moment I'm interested in this notebook in general and am enjoying figuring out internals and helping out if somebody has a problem.

But I'm slowly getting tired of posting/reading the same stuff over and over again. Additionally I'm active in a German forum as well (same topic ).

I'd like to have all the stuff in one place. If I put all nice posts into my private knowledge base, it won't help anybody else.

My only intention was to discuss if we shall use separate threads or could make use of a existing wiki, since collaborating this way is much easier and you can keep the documentation clean from requests: We can provide and discuss solutions and information here as well, but creating a great community documentation would be outstanding

Wikibooks could be a feasible platform, e.g.: How To Assemble A Desktop PC - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

 

Are you sure it is working with the 430m models (3820TG-434G64n) now?
Because though I downloaded the newest shareware version of setFSB,
I still get the PLL ID Error when choosing ASUS G73JH.
Is it the wrong clock generator?

 

AspireAnt

You missed the point I`m making.If you`re going to suggest compiling a list of things of "important", or as you say, "essential" information then it becomes necessary be specific as to what they are.If you go on the record at a board meeting by saying ,"let`s do something",you should`nt be surprized if the board asks you to be specific and spell out what you mean.

For instance I would consider Bios information to be important.How about you?I`d like for someone to compile a list of essential information somewhere so that i don`t have to run around all over the place looking for it.Maybe you could say,"this is what i think would be of value to know",and make a list.Then once someone else knows what you`re talking about they will be able to determine whether the stuff on your list is important to them.

 

I just tested the new Metal of Honor Beta.

Maxed out settings; approximately 20 fps. 10 fps in the middle of an explosion, up to 25-30 fps when the surroundings are not to active.

Advanced settings (no changes) ; approximately 25 fps, lowest about 15, highest around 30.

High settings (no changes) ; about the same as above.

Medium settings (no changes) ; about 40-55 fps constantly.



No overclocking.

 

Can please ppost the link? I'm also a german.

There a few models where an other PLL is used, where you are not able to overclock it.

 

Ponjornoh

Just read your most recent post and I understand where your going with this.I don`t like wasting time any more than you do.Sorry if I sounded irate it`s not personal of course.Perhaps I didn`t understand the Wiki thing exactly.

Would you be kind enough to give me name of the German forum so that I can check it out? Thanks

 

Man, gaming laptops suck sooo bad. My three years old computer would easily play all of this at 1920x1200 with 60 FPS and all the details maxed out. Guess this is what's inevitable with so little available wattage.

Anyhow what about the Acer rep on Twitter who swore it would be ready for the beginnings of the back to school promotions in late June? What bullocks.

 

Dude, the whole concept of a wiki is that anyone puts the info he retains important. I am in favor of doing it, I am also a bito lost with all the info. In fact I suggested to do it in the owners lounge but no answer.

It should have anything, from where to buy to mobo part numbers to drivers to prices to overclock etc..

Let's do it!

 

I guess you got your answers.

 

Here we go: Acer Aspire 3820TG-434G64n (TimelineX) - 13-Zoll Timeline noch Xtremer - Notebookjournal.de - Forum

Perhaps I'll kick of an article with a basic structure at wikibooks in the next days. I'm thinking of hard facts like general information, hardware mods, oc, tools, software related configuration, some words about availablitity etc...

 

Low resolution, no OC, no gaming optimization around 1600 points.

450M Ati mobility HD5650

The game seems to be GPU limited and not multicore ready.

 

I couldn't wait for the mail to be delivered. On my way into the office, I stopped by our post office and caught the mailman before he finished loading the truck. The package looks like it's traveled half way around the world. but Computeruniverse packed the Acer in there very well and the box is perfect.

I can't believe it's actually here. The Acer packaging itself looks completely undisturbed and in perfect shape, so I signed for it. I have to be at a proceeding all day, so I won't have time to unbox and really spend any time with it 'till tomorrow. I'll do a short unboxing video and get the unit up and running over the weekend. If everything is okay, I'll backup everything up, make recovery disks and install both the keyboard and the SSD that have already arrived.

I am not going to hook up the backlighting yet. I'll do that when I change the CPU. I'll try to get my review up after the weekend. Dam ... it just feels good to have it in my possession and know that it is not lost somewhere around the world.

In hindsight, the delivery took 15 days from shipping to pickup. I guess it could have been worse. I have to compliment Computeruniverse on their packing of the notebook. Even though the outer packing looked beat-up the notebook looks like it was protected inside. From initial order to delivery, other than the fact that they use a slow service that doesn't let you track in real time like FedEx or UPS, Computeruniverse made the transaction very smooth. My compliments to them.

BTW, the box is incredibly light. I can't wait to see how light the notebook itself is.

Bronsky

@Ponjornoh - I like the idea of a techincal site. I'm as much an offender on this thread as anyone. But, it has been helpful to let off steam while waiting to get my unit. A technical site would be a good way to keep the information to useful technical discussions, upgrades and improvements. There is also a lot of information on the other Arrandale threads that could be brought together and digested. So yea, I agree wih you. I would also be nice if you retained the ability to delete repititous posts. One thing I would suggest is that a technical site be linked to the first page of this thread.

 

Congratulations dude! We want more pics! We want more pics!

I ended up cancelling my 4820TG order after reading more about the heat issues. Guess my Xbox 360 will continue to be my game machine for now. (But Modern Warfare 2 looks horrible compared to PC! )

I am going to wait a little longer for the 3820 or maybe if Amazon gets the 4820 I'll take another look.

I guess I'm just not the market for Acer. All of the stuff I want they don't bring to the US. The last one I wanted was the tablet that Microsoft gave away at PDC.

Anyway, glad your computer arrived and kudos to Computer Universe for the packing.

 

Weeee Congratulations Bronsky! you got yours finally! Awesome! After waiting so patiently, your sig has finally changed!

 

Hehe, congrats Bronsky, we'll all be looking forward to hear from you these next days .

By the way, do these notebooks come with SATA II enabled? I'm asking because apparently my 4810TG comes mysteriously with only SATA enabled, even though both Southbridge and SSD support SATA II.

I've tried to contact Acer on this matter, but no luck so far.

 

Congrats Bronsky, finally you have yours !!! Can't wait to see your i7 620m swap. I did the backlit keyboard swap now its your turn

@ the FSB on the first i5 430m models. No i don't need to update the thread, thats a fact that my i5 430m can't be overclocked.

It comes from the setfsb dev himself after I submitted all the info he requested. My model doesn't have a PLL we can use to overclock. Its pin locked and the "only" way would be hard modding and soldering to get an overclock via a pin mod of sorts. Which is just not worth the hassle or risk. Better off just upgrading to a i7 620m


I would not buy a i7 model from a 16 year old Singapore forum user. Your just asking to be ripped off. You send the cash, then no answers. No cash and no notebook. And your screwed.

 

Congrats Bronsky, Finaly, finaly
enjoy your laptop

 

Omg...I can't believe you finally got it Bronsky. Time to send my dv6tse back and get one of these lol.

 

Mazal tov!

.. Oh, how I envy you.

 

CONGRATS BRONSKY!!!!

Now I'm confident on ordering my 3820TG from Computeruniverse!!!

 

Seems like the price via Computeruniverse has gone up from 707 to 899.... Hmmmm

 

WAIT! You don't have to order from any other country, the 3820tg is available at Staples.ca. I saw it in this week's flyer and I had one in my hands less than an hour later! (Couldn't open the box until last night, though, it was reeeally hard waiting for two days...)

LOVE it so far. Only thing I noticed was that the area under the touchpad gets a little warmer than the rest of the deck. Also the texture of the lid does not look as "brushed" as the pics I have seen on the website, and being a hot day, fingerprints did show up on it quite well.

Cheers,

Megan

 

Can someone tell me is the US keyboard listed on ebay made from third party or they're actually acer parts?

Here's one for example:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Acer-Aspire-381...em&pt=PCA_Mice_Trackballs&hash=item4aa15cef1e

 

Megan,

There's a different model with a better video card. Yours has the 5470, while the other has the 5650. Not a big deal unless you're a gamer.

 

Nope, not a gamer, just wanted a light-weight portable laptop with some decent graphics and a big enough screen to work on. Is there a problem with this particular graphics card? If not, I think I will be happy with it.

I will be doing some photoshop, and I just bought a book to learn Flash development, but I also have a quad core desktop with a geForce 8800gt that I built two years ago, so the 3820tg is not a desktop replacement...my 9" acer aspire one was feeling very limiting and I wanted something in between.

 

Nope, that video card should be fine for you. Looks like a great laptop!

I was just saying that's why some crazy people (Bronsky!) are importing from over the pond. ;-)

 

Bronsky, congratz!

 

Allright Bronsky!
Congrats man, whoever delivered it looks like they sat on the box the whole time it was shipped
Your input about this laptop will be welcome.
YAY!

 

surgery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

@Bronsky

So you opened it to look for damage before you signed it?

If you guys are interested in starting a technical site, I'm a web developer. I could stick a nice wordpress theme on my hosting account, and away we'd go.

Let me know if you are interested!

-zeem