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

I might just hop on the 3820TG bandwagon. I returned the E14 due to crappy trackpad and fan noise. Screen was definitely breathtaking but not enough to keep it

 

what i think i amgoing to do, is buy this acer from computeruniverse, ship it to my cousin on vacation in greece @ his house, and then he can bring it on the plane with him as his personal laptop as taht is allowed still and just leave the box down there

 

Who else have ordered the i5-450M/5650 combo from ComputerUniverse. How much did the total come out to be? I'm wondering if I should get this or the 1830T...

 

This computer looks pretty good to replace my sister's cooked W7S (f*#$%$ nvidida 8400M), but alas no decent models available in Canada. The only Timelinex 3820 here is Intel GMA.

 

I'm pretty sure there are 3820TGs with the HD 5470 at Staples in Canada. I've read about it in this forum. There are none with the HD 5650 in the US or Canada though.

 

Wow thanks they do have the 3820TG with i5-430M 2.26Ghz and 5470 on their website for $799. It says out of stock but I might call them.

That's weird the Acer.ca website has only the 3820T with i3-330UM 1.2Ghz (bleh) and Intel GMA (double-bleh).

 

Hmm my sister might not really need the 5470 but I wouldn't want to give her the weak 1.2 Ghz processor. She doesn't game but it wouldn't want it choking on heavy web pages, Youtube HD, HD videos and such.

But looking at the 3820T-5821 there are different specs abound. Acer.ca says i3-330UM (1.2GHz), Canada computers says i3-350M (2.26 GHz), NCIX says i3-330M 2.26 GHz (?).

A review here though says i3-350M (and you can barely see the 2.26GHz spec on the sticker in one of the pictures) so it must be available with the faster processor.

$650 for that CPU and 8 hours battery life seems a good deal to me. Review says it can chew through 1080p video and that's about the most stressful thing she'll do on it.

 

Hey, Im looking to buy a 3820tg in China(beijing or shanghai), On taobao. com and using google translate you can find them but I was hoping i could pick one up in person in a city and not order online, Has anyone living in beijing or shanghai seen the i5/5650 3820tg version ? Would these be the same units being shipped out to europe and the rest of asia?(Build quality wise,Same motherboard/screen quality ect?)

 

here are some teaser

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6498/img0373gt.jpg

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4961/img0371llc.jpg

 

Can those on i7 and i5 compare battery life? i've been thru the thread but most people just post a broad range like 6-7hrs.

Im thinking if i should get the i7 or the i5. If battery life doesnt take a hit then i'll get the i7. According to the results on Notebookcheck: Review Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Processors ?Arrandale? it looks like the i7 consumes much more power, but i just wanna confirm coz the difference seems too great.

 

I got 2 address as follows:
1:公司地址；北京市海淀区中关村E世界A座A1110A
淘宝: Ê×Ò³-ºê³ž°²°²×¨Âô-ÌÔ±¦Íø

2:地址：北京海淀区中关村大街11号E世界财富中心6楼A617A
淘宝： Ê×Ò³-ƽ°²Ò»Éú±¾±¾×¨Âô-ÌÔ±¦Íø

on there website, they have phone number, maybe helpful

 

Wow, thats not too bad Would love to see how the transaction goes

 

that is right, so for example if you have to pay 50-70 USD more it is better to buy i3 and for example after some time to buy more memory (after 1-2 years probably 4GB will be not enough)

 

What is different about my Sig? Pics to follow later. Off to work.

Bronsky

 

Great so your the second now with the backlit mod completed. How did it go? Did you take the power from the bluetooth as planned?

 

I feel as been left out .

 

This is a great mod you developed. I wound up taking both ground and power from the USB. My hope is that I can figure out a software way to disable the USB and shut off the Keyboard that way. I left enough wire in their to wire in a switch if I decide to put one through the left side of the case.


I actaully went to the USB as a backup plan when my initial plan failed miserably. I had the right idea but got impatient. I was going to splice the KB wires into the blue and white wires from the left speaker. When you remove the speaker, they are about 2" long. You can cut them in the middle and solder/splice the wires together and then shrink wrap them. When I tried to do that, I did not have a stripper that would strip that small a wire (I was only 1 size off). Instead of waiting until I could get the right tool, I decided to take apart the plug and solder the wires on the base of the plug prongs. As a result, the left speaker currently is on vacation. I will try to find a replacement for it or I will have to solder the wires onto the prongs. Luckily, I don't use the speakers at all. For now, they are both ported into the right speaker. I'll write the whole thing up on your backlit thread when I get the chance. I still like the idea of making a harness. With the right tool, you can splice the wires and you have both power and control built-in.

Once I decided to solder the USB leads, it took 20 minutes to finsih up the job. IMO, that's the easiest place to draw power and ground. Here's the power lead.

Here's the ground.



I've kept all the wiring taped down and looped the wire that I left in there back past the fan and back so I had enough room to add a switch if I can find one.

Soldering the KB leads were a breeze after all that nerve-wracking work.


So, for now, I'm looking for a small microswitch that i can mod on the left side of the case and a left speaker. Once I put them in, I'll tape down the KB.

I love it though. It looks great.

Bronsky

 

Great,shame about your speaker. But it does look awesome and rewarding once completed. As I mentioned a while ago I used USB at first. But struck many issues.

• No way to disable the light via software
• It was too bright for my liking (Emits a high pitch noise as if the LED are overpowered)
• The worst issue, in sleep mode (hibernate too?) its still powered!

Due to the above I opted for the 3.5v from the speaker.

When my new unit arrives, I think I will try and implement a touch senor like the
UL30vt users did.

 

No hum. I had a much better power signal from the USB ports than I did from the Speaker lead. The speaker was really variable, the USB was a steady 5V. I'll put a switch in there somehow. The speaker should not be hard to replace. I wanted to try making a harness. It sacrificed itself on the alter of innovation.

You get your new unit yet?

Bronsky

Hey Insider ... haven't heard from you in awhile. Looks like I need an Left Speaker, part no. 23.40749.011. Any chance they have one of these in Texas?

 

my i7 620m 3820tg shipped will receive hopefully in 3 days

the price i paid for you will be jealous and green with envy if i tell you i got it so cheap

hendrick you are getting another 3820tg?

if i dont like my 3820tg or the 13.3 inch screen i will opt for asus ul80jt hopefully with a 660um/680um

 

another question i wanted to ask was how many colors were the 3820tg available? most coomon is reddish brown but i like the titanium grey or silver color it really looks cool sexy and expensive i hope my unit ships silver or titanium grey

 

Hello all! Im new to this forum. Earlier today i ordered an 3820TG + Momentus XT so I felt the need to register on this forum since the stuff you can find out here is very nice .

Sorry for quoting an old message. Havsbaden Im also from Sweden and I also ordered the same setup as you. How has it been turning out for you? Have you seen any problem so for in switching the harddrives etc?

Btw, question for everyone... Is it not possible to send private messages on this forum? I cant seem to find that option .

 

bronsky

did you remove just the keyboard to access the usb port or did you have to take apart the entire laptop?

 

You need to take the top part of the computer off so you get access to the motherboard and the USB card. no room to work any other way.

Bronsky

 

I think he meant second after him. Don't feel left out.

 

will a tutorial to remove the top part also be included in your post?

if not, can you give me a quick rundown on how to remove the top part? i imagine it will be similar to the 4820tg

 

Yea. I took pictures of that in detail.

Bronsky

 

I've replaced the original harddrive with a Momentus XT already. Swapping is very easy and straight forward. I just cloned the factory drive to the new one, because I was to lazy to install all that stuff again and was very satisfied even with the stock image... after cleaning up a little bit

 

Not yet, tomorrow they will try delivery it. I hope to catch it before or after work.

Yes - I'm mad, I got a UTMS unit that I wanted and more for the overclockable clockgen. Which I later discovered is random . So I hope my new ones overclockable after all this hassle...

Of course I will be selling my first unit. I don't need two.

 

How important is it to make an entire backup of the harddrive? I intend to put one of the Momentus XT in my machine instead of the default drive. Is it enough if I only backup drivers? Whats your thought about it? As far as I understand Bronsky copied the _entire_ thing?

 

I recommend Acronis True image, disk tools and use clone disk. Makes 100% perfect copy of your drive and its great for making a back up.

 

Ok, thanks. Is this possible without an external DVD (how big would the actual backup be if I choose to go that way?) Is it solveable in any other way?

 

So when's Acer getting this out in the US?

 

@ Hendrickson

Yup, thinking about a format and reinstall. Not really that sure however, that I would be running this thing clocked even if it worked w/o problems, it does ad a bit of extra heat. Don't seem to be a concern for anyone else though (and some of you are even thinking of adding a i7 which will likely run 5-10c hotter than an i5), but I'm seeing temps up in the low 90s on hot evenings unclocked. Don't seem to be much overhead cooling-wise. In the winter it'll probably be 10c cooler though (I live in a old and very, very hot building with no a/c). Still want to figure out what causes this issue I'm having though, the curious nerd that I am Maybe when I'm back from our vecation in a couple of weeks I'll get to it.

Mac

 

Ill be running the same hardware as you (Momentus XT) and I have the intention of playing alot of different games. BF2 for will be fun to try out. I hope wont experience the "glue" effect that was very noticable in the video you posted.

Btw, you wouldnt mind posting those pics of your silverish 3820TG? Also, M4cr0s did you backup your system before throwing in the XT disk?

Thanks for all the replies Ive gotten so far on my questions It means alot!

 

As I've only seen it in some slightly older games, there are good chances you won't have it in BF2 for one. Secondly, it only happens when the CPU is clocked. Not the gfx alone (which gives the biggest boost, no doubt).

I did not make a complete disk image, just the hidden Asus partition. Probably a bummer, should have copied the bootsector and the 100mb hidden windows boot/rescue partition too.

Oh, and I'll see if I can get some proper photos made tomorrow.

Mac

 

Ok, thats sounds "good" .

Is it possible to copy the bootsector and the hidden partition onto a usb memory through Acers eRecovery?

Edit: You were from Norway right? If so, hej granne .

 

I don't think so. You'll need a software such as Acronis or similar, working from DOS or Windows. Best way to do it is to make a disk image, a compressed one containing no "virtual space", i.e. it won't be 320/500/640gb, just 10-20gb This image can be dumped on another drive or for instance a usb memory thingy.

This image can later on be restored to a clean drive and should contain the bootsector too. In many cases unless you tick the right boxes and so forth, just making an image of a partition, even if it's the first one on a disk, won't copy the boot sector. Disk imaging softwares are often quite vague on if they copy the bootsector and it's often different from software to software.

Edit:
Btw, following Hendricksons instructions in the first post of this thread I had no problems getting a clean install up and running with everything working. I'm not personally that freaked out over "loosing" the Acer stuff. Dunno if it's possible to activate the Win7 license that came with the laptop with a clean Win7 install though. After all it's a valid license, as long as you use the same version of Win7 (I used a different license as I need Win7 Pro for work).

Mac

 

I had to manually insert the Cert and key but really had no problem doing an off-line authentication with a clean install of home premium. The steps I took are in my German Option thread stickied to the first page.

BTW, if there is anyone still getting a german unit, the US 3820T keyboards are now available from Acer USA. PN is KB.I140A.229.

 

Yes it does work, but you might have to phone verify it. I installed a English version over the German one and use the laptop key. Just had to phone verify my license. It works and updates etc no worries.

P.S I recommend a clean win7 install. Acer adds to much rubbish in the install. Games and rubbish you just don't need. Or at least I dont.

 

Yeah Ive read through Bronskys guide which was very good and I also found another "doing a clean install guide" on this forum made by some moderator. I feel ok with that process .

However Im crap at the backup/clone/image or whatever you call it. Questions like, should I save everything or just the drivers? Stuff like that . Its something that Ive not done before as this is my first laptop ever. I appreciate the alot!

 

Save the driver and the Acer application.

All the other thing is not very necessary but nice to have.

 

Acronis True Image is really good at the clone disk part. Super easy. Just plug up an external drive and it lets you do a 1 to 1 clone.

I've used it for moving from HDD to SSD and moving up in disk sizes without having to redo everything. I also keep a mirrored back up of my SSD incase it was to fail.

 

hey bronsky and everyone else, how do you think the 3820TG weight would differ from the Toshiba R700? has anyone here lift both of them in a PC shop or something like that?

 

Ok Ill have look at it. Worst case scenario is that Ill only be able to backup drivers and the Acer stuff, not being able to clone everything.

My problem is that I only have the preinstalled drive and the empty Momentus XT - nothing else except 2 usbs sticks ala 2gb /each. Is it somehow possible to remove the installed drive, put in the empty XT, buy a "holder" for the disk that I take out and make it external. Then I hook it up to the Momentus through USB and clone it ONTO the XT? Did anyone get that? Or will that not work since there would be another Windows 7 already installed on the usb drive (first but now former 3820tg preinstalled drive).

 

That's what I did... putting one disk into an external case and cloning the Acer disk to my Momentus XT. I did it with gparted and dd from a live linux, but if you have Acronis already, it should do the job as well

 

Hey Hendrickson, I took your recommendation and got the same case from this seller. Loving it

 

There exist things that you just plug normal internal drives into, a kind of docking. They are normally USB based, but e-sata and firewire might exist too. Check komplett.se or any of the other large web based shops for instance, I think they might have one. There are probably different versions for "2,5 and "3,5 drives, as well as SATA/IDE. A drive plugged in this way should work as any external USB drive.

Mac

 

Ok, very nice... You put the old drive into a docking-station and used it as an "normal/everday" usb drive right? No problems at all? Id imagne the comp turn crazy if it found out that my USB drive had a Windows installed to it aswell?

Yeap! Exactly my plan. I was going to buy an external drive at first but then I saw that the cost wouldnt be much lower so I bought an XT drive instead and then ill turn the old drive into an external through the help of a docking advice as you mentioned!

Thanks alot .

 

Yep, that's it. It's no problem if there's a windows installation on the usb drive. Currently I don't use the usb drive... just because I've got enough external storage