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

The reason I want you to run some stress/heat testing on the I7 OC'd is that I suspected that it would hit its limits far earlier than the I5-450M. I'm interested in seeing what is going on thermally. It might be a lot of the stability problem. We've seen that the I7 does not have much headroom to begin with. If this is the case, an upgrade to an I7 would be a decent compomise for a unit like mine that does not OC. If the I7 can go much higher and get comparable performance increases like the I5, there is no question that the I7 option makes no sense. It's either stick with the non-OC'able unit or do the sell/buy thing and hope for the best (which I have now dubbed "doing a Hendrickson" ).

Thanks Ant.

Bronsky

 

162.7MHz is max prime95 stable FSB for me. Anything higher will crash sooner or later.

 

You can't look at FSB alone, you have higher multiplier thus your FSB limit will be lower, but still giving the same speed in CPU MHz.

So you can't expect 160+ FSB on your i7, and it has more cache. More cache usually mean slightly less overclocking potential.

 

Thanks Bronsky, after I switched my bios to "dedicated" and with few try, I got the driver to 10.7.

By the way, did any of you find out a better way to put in a backlit with an on/off switch? I really would like to have sound and backlit off at the same time.

 

Check out the backlit mod thread. We're making progress I think.

 

Now I don't feel so bad about putting an I7 into a unit that will not OC.

Bronsky

 

I'll do stress test when I wake up as I need to hit the bed now. Again thank you Bronsky for your help.ü i'll post some screens so you could compare the temps once i'm done.

Kudos!

 

Nice info. Thanks OC-Freakü

 

aspireant can you help me get the setfsb shareware key?
i also have the i7 620m version but adding money from msia /sg to paypal takes a long time i just want to test oc it

please help

 

Have you tested it to see if it can detect your fsb first?

 

Wait, what? An ATI MOBILITY 5850? THATS INSANE? In an 13 inch lappy. If it ever comes with a switchable Ill change in no time.

To be honest I think I have this too. I can hear it working even though Im not doing anything and I have the Momentus XT disk. Not WD ;(.

I, as many else, find it diffucult to the different modes (power, etc) working properly. Sometimes when I push the P(upper left corner) button on the laptop absolutely nothing happens.

 

What is this powerplay you are talking about? Did you uninstall the 10.6 drivers first or did you just "ran em over" . I must say I dont really understand all of the modes (power saving, high performance, balanced).
1. Do you configure them each to each card or is one mode for both cards?
2. Also for example if I want to have HIGH PERFORMANCE set everytime I plug in my power cord how do I do that?
3. Also, is the Acer program called ePower related to the Balanced, High Performance and Power saving modes? Reason im asking is that im finding these options on my brother´s Asus laptop aswell. So exactly what does ePower from Acer do?

 

Well, mine unit gives me the PLL Error, no OC for me. Not sad about it, I'm not that much into OC, I think I might benefit more from an SSD.

Now that 10K - congrats BTW - limit is broken, anyone for the 11k? .

 

I'm having a severe issue here. I have yet to receive my laptop from computeruniverse. My original shipping address is moving. As of tomorrow (30th), there will be no one to receive my package. If whoever decides to attempt delivery gets there and they see that the office is vacant, they're allow to deem the place vacant and send my laptop back to computeruniverse right away..... To make things worse, the laptop is being send under my name, therefore the office's address change won't forward my laptop to the new location..... I've contacted computeruniverse several times and they refuse to change my address for me because of "obligation to paypal". Therefore I've contacted paypal just now. They said they will contact computeruniverse and tell them that they're allow to change my shipping address. But, paypal told me that computeruniverse can still refuse to change my address. If this does happen, paypal said I can file a dispute for refund, but I don't want that.... I want my laptop damn it!!!

Anyway, enough of my rant. I'm currently stuck between the two, backlit mod or regular. I'm so bloody tempted because of Bronsky's new finding!!!

Bronsky, when you route power from the USB, does the USB still function normally? For example, can it still run fine when you plug in external ODD and HD that does not require external powering?

 

Edit: Nevermind.

 

I would contact the post office and file a forwarding address under your name at your dad's old office address. I would also explain your situation to the local postmaster and ask that they, at least, hold the package for you to pick up. I'm sure something can be wroked out.

The USB works perfectly. I was charging my BB from it today.

 

Forwarding the address under my name is a no go because it's a business address and other complication. I've already talked to USPS and the postmaster, they can't hold the package at the post office, it has to be delivered. The problem is that since an address change is filed, good chance they will deem it vacant right away before they deliver. If they decide to attempt delivery, like I said before, if the driver deems it vacant, it will be automatically sent back to the sender right away. I just hope they take care of this stupid address change by tomorrow. Or I would have to stake out on the old office whenever I get an update on the tracking. But knowing USPS and from other people's experiences here, there could be a delay on the tracking status update. So, even if I decide to stake out, good chance I could miss the truck if anything. AARGH, this frustration is annoying me. It would me off if I can't get my laptop after waiting over 15 days and me purchasing all those extra peripherals.

 

omg.. all the best bro...

 

Slip the person working the desk at the post office distribution center a $50 and have them call you when the truck heads out on delivery.

 

Gah. Sick of FedEx. They can't even deliver my shirt.woot purchase on time. Same with my IronGym bar, lol.

Brown all the way. If only IPS existed in real life, I wouldn't mind Kevin James delivered a package to my door--he's funny as hell in that show.

 

Got a question! Do i have to set OC every time I restart or it will stay right OC?

 

You have to turn on HD 5650 when you want to OC

 

hendrickson chk pm about setfsb version id please

 

Where can I get the latest version of SetFSB?

 

After installing ATI 10.7 driver, i tried running Windows Experience Index and it came out BSOD. Anyone of you encounter this problem ?

 

@ Bronsky

can you post a as ssd benchmark screenshot from your crucial ssd?

i get these results with my C300 256GB

 

So after 3 hours of torture test (not sure if that's enough) with prime95, I got a maximum temp of 92C no errors, with cpu running at a disappointing 140 mhz. I tried to overclock beyond this rate but i'm receiving errors few minutes after starting the torture test. BTW, tested this both on large fft and blend, no errors after 3 hours on both tests. Wasn't able to try the small fft test. Will try furmark later as well.

 

Guys, I finally got my 3820tg today!

It is still in its pristine state (i.e. not yet powered on), and as I can be a bit anal with these things, I’d like to have an exact replica of the HD in its factory state. I would normally do this with Acronis True Image, but this would be a bit of a hassle as it would require both a USB DVD drive to boot True Image and a USB hard disk to store the disk image. Reading this thread I see that the system offers to create a system image upon first boot.

So my question is, is this image a real factory image of the disk? If I ever want to sell the notebook, could I restore this image and have my system in the exact same state it was the first time I ever booted it? In particular, will I be presented the option to create a disk image again?

Thanks!

 

No it isn't that are only the recovery DVDs and not an image of the HDD.

Create an USB Booot stick with Acronis True Image and use the stick instead off the cd.
The tool to create the stick is called "Bootable Rescue Media Builder".


just a hintz do never open the box and turn on the notebooks, because all of this decrase the price, if you sell your book later.

Have fun.

 

Ok, thanks for the info. I'll try this. By the way, can the medium used to boot be used to store the image as well?

Hehe... Point taken

 

Dam you ... you just convinced me to put an I7-620M into my unit this winter when the I7 prices come down (already creeping down to $280 for reputable OEM seller). Not enough improvement to make it worth trying to exchange my unit for another. Especially given how much I love my display.

Bronsky

 

No you'd want to exchange your 3820TG for the next timeline model with sandy bridge based CPU (less power consumption) and next generation ATI gfx, hopefully with GDDR5 memory for increased performance the coming winter

 

I would have stayed with my Dell 1500 if the 8600GT didn't completely bog down when I began to DL and manipulate Aereals and Satellite imagery. The HD5650 can easily handle any of the graphic work I give it and seems to be performing all of the GPU accellerated tasks with ease. The I5-450M is clearly up to the task as well.

I am only considering the I7 for the CPU driven tasks that I have to perform like DB analysis, statistical analysis and analysis of modeling data. The I7 will probably extend the obsolence period of my 3820TG by a year or so. I am done buying notebooks for now.

Now, when HP comes out with its 8.9" Win 7 slate multitouch tablet with the dedicated Wacom Pen and 3G, I will probalby be retiring my 1410T .

Bronsky

 

@Bronsky - I would definitely love to see an i7 on your unit! The temps do not differ much on an i5 overclocked though the fsb i tested is somewhat near the stock clock. I only got 140 fsb stable, anything higher will give erroneous processes. But i think i can go until 145 fsb, that's up to 3.8 ghz turbo. As long as i'm running non threading apps then i won't crash it.

 

Thanks for the hint!

It gives me the PLL Error with the HD5650 as well. Although it dosen't show any error messages on the first given profile, but guess that won't work, thanks anyways.

 

i7 620m is totally worth it for the first time in my life i am not feeling any lag or slowness in a laptop everything is so smooooooooooooth

i have a question should i upgrade to ssd? i am totally noob at this but intel x-25m 160gb g2 beats all ssds currently right ? in terms of random reads/writes and loading programs and boot ups??

 

does anyone know where i can get a keyboard protection like this ?

http://cgi.ebay.com/TPU-keyboard-Gu...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b256518d

but for the EU version ? i really want this badly

 

The Crucials may have an edge on one or two of the statistics but the difference is one that a human can probably not detect. The Intel is a great SSD and extremely reliable. The 160GB size is nice to have too.

 

Hi all

1st post here ... been following this thread for awhile and went for the 3820TG after much consideration



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Have a slight problem now. Been trying to update the latest ATI drivers ..

Step 1: Flash to bios 1.13 - Done!
Step 2: Update Acer ATI drivers - Done!
Step 3: Update Intel HD drivers - ERROR! This version is not validated for this computer!

Do I skip and go straight to installing the latest ATI ver 10.7?

 

No go .. tried installing the latest ATI drivers and it aborted. Hardware not supported ...

I have also lost the 'Switchable Graphics' settings ... it's blank.

 

You have changed the bios from Switchable to descrete graphics first right? And the option has dissapeared?

Bronsky

 

Hi

Yup ... it's already changed to 'discrete' in bios. Can't update ... and yes I can't change anything in the 'switchable graphics' panel anymore after running the latest Acer ATI drivers.



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The only thing I can do in that screen is to either press High Performance GPU or Power saving GPU. Other than that I cant do anything either and mine is also blank in the middle.

 

Well, It is supposed to go like this:
1. Goto bios and switch to 'discrete'
2. Update ATI drivers
3. Goto bios and switch to 'switchable'

And everything will work as before. Did you try to update with downloading that big package or the small installer one which download the drivers if it can upgrade? If you didn't test the small installer try that.

 

It has always been blank in the middle. It's the same on my preinstalled Acer Windows 7 Home Premium on the 4820TG.

 

Thanks guys, I was not sure what the question was.

Bronsky

 

ok, guys, I just finished doing a clean install of win 7 on my newly acquired 3820TG . Had to use the telephone activation service though, since nothign else worked.

What's bothering me now, is that the i5 cores reach up to 88°C while playing Battlefield BC2. Are these temps normal for the 3820TG or did I receive a faulty model? :/

 

These are not unusual temps. BC2 is one of the most demanding games out there. You are still 15C under max temps. It's fine. What CPU do you have? In fact, it might be a good idea to put your specs in your sig if you can. If you were running those temps with an I7, I would wonder why your unit was running so cool.

When you did telephone activation, were you able to do it electronically or did you need to speak to a rep?

Bronsky

 

yep, had to talk with a rep over the the phone after the automatic system had failed.

as you can see from my new shiny sig P) I have the same version as you, i.e. the i5-450m/5650 combination.

 

Hi! How is your battery? Mine has a 7% battery wear :/ Can I fix it somehow? Maybe charge fully for a day, discharge and repeat this sometimes? Is 7% good? I'd be more happy with 0%