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

This only shows you how to back up your OEM activation key and certification. Also, it shows you how to make an .ISO file from a Windows 7 disc. It does not show you how to make a bootable Windows 7 USB drive.

Go here to learn how to make a bootable Windows 7 USB drive: How To Boot And Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive (Updated) - Make Tech Easier

 

I didn't think I would get it until next week. I thought it would probably take a while for the ppl at the port to move the cargo containers around and unload them, but I'm sure glad I was at home and not out watching Inception or something.

I'll take a look at your post, I'm currently downloading the legal copy of the iso from MS and will be doing a bootable usb. I already swapped out the HDD for a 60gb SSD. I'm way to anxious to fiddle with the laptop I don't really plan on using the HDD but I'll eventually get around to making the recovery disc/iso after I get everything on the SSD set up.

As for the power chord converter I have that came with my old cell phone which is a European Motorola SLVR did not fit the prongs. I wanted to finally put them to work but the prongs on the power chord are much larger in diameter for it to fit the converters. I'm going to head over to Radioshack with the chord/adapter and see what I can do to get my battery charged for the long installation process.

 

Is the only difference from the 4820TG the weight?

 

The major difference between the 3820TG and 4820TG is that the 3820TG has a 2 vent cooling system while the 4820TG only has a 1 vent cooling system. However, the 3820TG is missing the optical drive, while the 4820TG has one. Also, there's the screen size difference.

 

Nope. 3820tg has a smaller screen, it has smaller dimensions (except thickness), and it has no dvd-drive. It has two heat sinks and two fans, which provides great cooling. The 4820tg only has one heat sink and one fan (heat issues may occur). They put the dvd-drive there instead.

 

Ahh, I prefer an optical drive and I'm going to get a notebook cooler anyways. BTW, does the 4820TG blow out hot air or suck in?

 

You might want to make the backup disk from eRecovery - it is the easiest way to put all the drivers back. Let me know if you have any problems authenticating the Home Premium.

Bronsky

@adioni - i can't find the order email - I must have deleted cause it was so cheep. I normally save the emails for anything substantial. There's no identification on it or brand name. It's just a plug with an acer plug on the other end. Here's what it looks like.



Amazon had them too.

 

It blows out hot air from the left vent, but I'm not sure if it sucks in hot air on the bottom or not.

 

Then would a notebook cooler work on the 4820TG?

 

I'm not sure if you need a notebook cooler, the 4820TG should would fine under normal usage (games, movies, Internet, etc). We should be discussing this in the 4820TG thread and not in this thread. haha

 

I guess I'll be heading over there then

 

The new replacement keyboard looks great! I ordered a regular unlit 3810 keyboard to replace the German one after hearing of the difficulty of installation due to the thickness.

I'm having trouble locating the lower replacement cable for the power adapter, does anyone have a part number or a link to share?

Bronsky, thanks for sharing your experience with us all.

 

You should be able to pick up a power cable from any computer store. The 3 prong plug is very common

@Bronksy: Does your new keyboard have much flex. Mine seems to have settled down a bit now and doesn't seem as bad as when I first installed it.

 

I'm doing my recovery disk since the W7 iso is still downloading. I using a work around method to do the eRecovery. Since the 3820tg doesn't have an optical drive, and I don't own a external dvdrom, I placed the HDD it into my desktop sata connectors and used my desktop optical drive that way to make the back up discs

EDIT: omg I completely forgot that the bios on the HDD is incompatible with my desktop system hahhaha
back to square one

 

It is springy because of that extra layer. It's not as annoying as the 1410T when I forst got it, but I can see it move. When I'm done with the power and CPU work, I'm taping it down to tighten it up.

Bronksy

 

The disk created by the lower option is the more important one. Did you use a downloader? If not, that'll take forever to DL the ISO.

 

Seek and ye shall find!

Amazon.com: Ac Power Cord for Acer: Electronics

Amazon.com: Pwr+ 6 Ft/foot/feet Ac Power Adapter Us Extension Wall Cord Power Cable for Acer Aspire 1680 2010 3000 3002 3003 3500 3600 3610 3650 3680 4520 4530 4730 5000 5050 5100 5315 5515 5520 5530 5535 5536 5580 5715 5720 5730 5735 5920 7100 9100

Bronsky

 

I am going to be returning this notebook back to staples.

I tried to like it, which i do, like it, the quality is great and all..

Though when the brightness is turned down all the way or at least 20-30% you can see some flickering in the screen i have video that i took while at boygeniusreport.com at low brightness and scrolling you can see the screen change like some active solution.

and the fact that blacks dont look black at all

 

Quick question : Is it possible to control the RPM of the cooling fan (speedfan etc...) ?

 

Have anyone the service manual for 8372TG (TimelineX Travelmate) to look for a non glare screen?

 

Congratulations!


I have 9 more days to wait until I hit day 15. It may be more though as I live on the West Coast so if they ship via a non polar route, I will have to add in a cross country delivery.

 

@Bolt.pt

I uploaded all the files in my DRV directory here. If you want any of the programs that would have been in the app. folder, let me know. These were too big to email. As you can see, not all the driver files for the 3820TG are on the Acer site.

Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

Bronsky

 

Wow thanks I was actually going to order one from newegg but for $0.99, that's dirt cheap. $6 with shipping is a good deal

I got slowed down in the installation process. I was getting into German windows on the HDD when my battery died. I tried Target, Radioshack, Bestbuy and a few mom&pop electronic shops, they all had the power brick/chord combo which was over $100. BB had a universal plug converter but it was $25. I'm going to head over to my cousins house and use his power chord.

Start > Computer > right click Manage > Storage > Disk Management > View of all the partitions

The HDD has a 596.17GB capacity
-583.38GB for C:\ (Windows 7)
-100MB for System Reserved (guessing this is a HDD cache or the MBR boot manager file)
-12.7GB hidden partition for the system restore

I'm trying to figure out how to clone or copy the system restore as an image on to my 32GB USB thumb drive. I think I can find a way to unhide the hidden factory restore partition.

 

Do I smell a display mod?

 

It'll take awhile to walk your package across the US.

 

Hi Bronsky, thanks but seems like it's a link to mediafire's homepage..

 

So if it blows hot air out from the left vent, I think it's safe to assume that we have continuity conditions such that air must enter somewhere, ie. bottom

 

Hehe yeah, that's the link for the MediaFire homepage, you must've mis-clicked or mis-copied the link .

I got my last exam tomorrow, I'm gonna dive onto the notebook once I finish it and start modding some simple stuff at first.

PS: The damned WLAN screw is a b*tch to take, I hope I'll be able to unscrew it before the fissures wear out.

 

For now you could always just cut the wires and splice them to a US cord and tape it with electrical tape until you find something cheaper

E55943 is the part number on the cord on my Canadian 3820.

http://store.luluusa.com/18awgx2c.html

 

Don't mess with the hidden partition unless you don't care about boot factory restore or have readily available backups.

Just use some free backup software to clone it or something, like this one.

 

I didn't feel like messing with the registrys to unhide the parition and I was looking for a good cloning program, thanks for the link, I'll use that.

Thanks bolt.pt

 

Hongee, where did you buy your 3820 from in Singapore? Funan? can you PM me the exact store? as i will be in Singapore around next week

 

Yes, but I would like to have the service manual with the non glare display numbers first and test for display model.

 

I used G4L, it's free. Made an USB bootable stick with it and it uploaded 28G image (lzop compressed) to my ftp-server

 

About ATI driver upgrades? I've read people have done it but I downloaded the package 10.6 from ATI's page and it said that everything is up-to-date. Is that 10.6 just marketing number and the real number is 8 and something?

Also about the ABR oem license backup thing. Noticed that it didn't got the cert file because the directory is a little bit different. Last directory is different where it looks it. I made the directory and copied the token file there and then it worked.

Yesterday I installed Win7 Pro and was really suprised of how easy it was to install the drivers with the driver DVD.

I have had couple of hangs which I cannot explain. It just hangs, display stays the same and nothing does anything (except the power switch). Anyone seen that?

Also I'm really supprised that the German keyboard has right amount of keys, especialy öä, those are needed to say ääliö (idiot in finnish I think if I would have gotten the laptop before I ordered Finnish keyboard to it, I would have not ordered it.

 

And we'll dominate E14 "scene" in Cali I'm even sportin the NBR HP Team logo nowadays

 

im curious what your 3820tg desktops look like wanna upload screenshot ? Ill go first, there its is, win7 ultimate with some nice umbrella corp background xD

[/URL] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

 

I obviously don't have this this figured out yet ... when I click the link it takes me to my files. So, now I have to figure out how to share them. Never used this site before.

 

If you would write up the changes you made to make the ABR work, I'll put it in the "German Option" post.

Yea ... the driver directory is really easy and well worth the effort before starting a fresh install.

Anybody use any of the apps on the original Acer after the fresh install, like the Video conf app?

Bronsky

 

I bought it at an IT fair in june, but I believe similar models can easily be found at Funan or Simlim(though not recommended). They have been even popping up in small hardware shops in my neighborhood. So dont worry =)

But anyone with this laptop willing to comment on the screen? Hell even some weird netbook has a better screen than this.

 

I would really like a matt display on this 3820TG. If you figure this issue out soon, I would think about doing it at the same time I do the CPU and KB wiring.

Bronsky

@Hongee my display seems fine. Do you have the AUO322C?

 

Do you know if pixelQI will be making displays for this size? I'd rather change to a dual-mode display if I decide to chage...

 

@ zdanee Only the 10.1" display for netbooks. They can't keep up with demand for their only model and they haven't indicated any production of any other display sizes. Perhaps in the future there will be larger LCDs. Other companies have licensed their patent to use their technology. In time we will see the 13.3" and other various sizes. You can read their blog

 

I really don't know what to comment, as laptop displays go the one on my 3820 is fine. The blacks aren't superb, but it's very bright and has reasonable but not great contrast. Colors are quite ok with a slight tendency to gravitate towards purplish/reddish.

I judge screens all the time, being a photographer and working with graphics I notice pretty soon if a display is terribly off. Honestly seen much worse, but also better. Wonder how it would turn out color matched, but have a feeling it won't make much difference on a low-end display like this.

I don't know if it hints at me being blind (actually I am vision impaired ) or you having a "monday morning" display. Guessing though, that there are individual differences and some displays are worse than others. At least me, Bronsky and Hendricks seems to have gotten "ok" ones judging by the statements of the last two. If you feel and experience that yours is really off, you should seriously pester Acer about it if it's obviously bonkers.

Mac

 

um...has this happened to anyone else in the U.S. who has tried ordering an 3820TG recently?: The notebook was shipped out, but was promptly returned to computeruniverse.net a few days later. I'm going to contact computeruniverse once more to see if there is away around this, but in the meantime, did I just chose the "incorrect" shipping method or is this a brand new restriction?

Thanks for your message.

Your parcel has been delivered... to computeruniverse.net.
It was returned by DHL.

Unfortunately, we can not offer to ship the notebook to Canada.
As there has been a restriction, that it is not allowed to transport batteries/accus by plane to USA/Canada, there unfortunately is no possibility to ship the notebook to you.

As soon as the reshipment is proceeded in our returns departement (approx. beginning of next week), we will cancel your order and transfere the money back to your paypal account. Sure, you will get a seperate confirmation by e-mail.

We are very sorry about the inconvenience and hope for your understanding.

Best regards

Customer Service

 

Wow! What is that all about? Has the path from the EU to the US been shut off? Can't ship batteries? Does that mean that no computers can be shipped internationally anymore? That doesn't sound right. I do know that the Canadian units were initially returned. Looks like you made it under the wire Hotwax. Feel lucky?

Just to get this right, you live in the US not Canada, Right?

Bronsky

 

I think it's a new restriction. A few members here got the 3820tg to America without a problem. I think they found out that you could localize the 3820tg to an American keyboard+software.

@Bronsky: The email says cannot be shipped to US/Canada so I think they block the US now.

 

delete please.

 

@ bronksy Yes, I'm in Massachusetts, USA not in Canada...don't know why their reply first mentions "we can not offer to ship the notebook to Canada" specifically.

 

Maybe your unit would be routed in through a canadian location? I don't understand it at all. The two of us who got our units in the US had no problems getting through customs. My package has a customs stamp on it. But I do know that Lvivier's unit was returned. Man, that sucks. WTH? At least we know that these things did go airfrieght and not on the SS Rotterdam.

Bronsky

That means that there are currently only 2 - 3820TG's in North America?