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

Its not really that bad, normally i just end up with a few extra screws =] lol. I always reapply thermal paste on new laptops normally drops temperatures by 5 degrees!

 

That is exactly my concern should I attempt this (ending up with extra screws, or even worse, a laptop that doesn't work!).

 

Simple take a picture after every step and put the skew on a glue tape. These means, you can put them back to the laptop at reverse direction.

 

I use one of those senior citizen pill cases Medicine Tablet Drug Pill Box Case Container 7 Day List - eBay (item 320579972402 end time Sep-21-10 23:10:11 PDT) I drop a small note to identify each new area ...

Bronsky

 

lol I LAUGH nice ebay link

 

Did you also find the WiFi wires difficult to deal with?

On the good side, at least I could use the opportunity to install a 3rd WiFi antenna for my Intel 6300 Wireless card. But then I'd have to find a way to get it into the laptop screen!

 

Just don't eat the pills

But a nice idea.

 

Hey,

the wlan wires are not difficult it is only important, that you reminder the exact way of the wires. If you use another one, it could possible, that a screw will not fit. (My error, and yes it was the last screw )

 

I think maybe the 620Ms are using 1.15 as well? I just got a 620M model and CPU-Z is showing my BIOS version as 1.15, date 14/07/2010.

 

Question: which do you prefer to use with your 3820TG:

A wireless travel mouse like the Logitech VX Nano or the 3820TG's trackpad?

Which would you use if you were traveling with your 3820TG?

 

Hi!

I can't let go the possibility of an extra SSD drive in such a small laptop. Would it be possible to remove the internal wifi card and replace it with a pci-express (mini?) ssb. And to still have the wifi possibility, use this one:
Edimax EW-7811Un - 150Mbps Wireless IEEE802.11b/g/n nano USB Adapter
With the loss of an USB port? And if I understand correctly, the bluetooth will be downgraded to 2.1?

I'm of course well aware that I will most likely have much less range of the wireless network but I will probably use the wirelss mostly close to my router and when I'm playing online or downloading, I will use a cabel connected to the router.

 

Can someone share the service manual? I try to search for it and I only can find it on ebay.
This will be the first time I open up the laptop and I still not sure do it or not since I have the 1 year international warranty, but I already order a backlit keyboard and the switch, also I really want to change the thermal paste and add in one antennas.
BTW can you change the BT to 3.0?
And do you guys know is there a warranty sticker somewhere?

 

Hi guys. I just got my 3820TG with 5650 yesterday and I worked with it for a few hours and was very happy. Until that shift in brightness occurred which some of you have experienced.

It happens every once in a while, but only when the ATi card is being used. The display is fine with the Intel gfx card. I have tried a reinstall and other drivers, but I guess that it is hardware related? Do I have to return this laptop to Acer? Will the shift in brightness only get worse in time?

I would rather return the laptop to where I bought it and get my money back than endure weeks of waiting on Acer. This downright sucks.

 

Nice, thats a huge increase. It just shows how much faster that ram is then. Can you overclock more now with that ram?

Its not always blue on mine. Orange when on standy or charging. Wifi light flashes too.

 

You are the 4th or 5th person with brightness shifting. You described the problem exactly just like me. I returned the laptop on the 2nd day, and at the moment I am going to the laptop shop to buy a new one.

Two things:
- The shop did accept my laptop without a question; I think it looks pretty obvious for someone who tries it
- The ATI thing is very very strange. First I though that it's just me who thinks that it's OK on Intel and shifting on ATI, but then you described it exactly as mine. It looks like a panel or inverter issue. I wanted a replacement, because I think it's the combination of the video card, inverter (or LED something) and the display and it would be hard to figure out what component to change.
- The HDMI out is good all time with no artifacts.

Here is a video I made if you need to explain your problem to the shop / support:
YouTube - Acer TimelineX 3820TG display problems

 

Sorry, but I just haven't seen anything Where's the problem? Maybe I need to look more attentively..

 

Motherboard is ordered. If you deal with Shark Technology, make sure you send an MSN messenger address to them so they can talk to you. It speeds things up. Payment was sent today. How come it costs twice as much to ship something from Germany than from China? Now lets see what arrives. I'm crossing my fingers.

I have to face the CPU choice dilemma.

Bronsky

@Just_a_nick - well, it looks like I was able to order from Shark afterall. Thanks again.

 

Hendrickson sweet keyboard switch mod !! Couple questions about it:

1. Is the mod more diffcult than the first keyboard mod?
2. Any chance you will post some sort of a guide for it xD
3. Where iis your backlid taking power from ?

Again thanks a lot!

 

He's taking power from the USB. It's a nice steady source of power. 5V, 500ma. Have you seen the keyboard mod thread? http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/491169-acer-timelinex-3820tg-backlit-keyboard-mod-14.html

 

Its easy, easier than the CPU swap infact.

The guide here: First post. Look to the bottom of the post for the switch mod.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/491169-acer-timelinex-3820tg-backlit-keyboard-mod.html

 

awesome!

quick Q, is the usb still usable while backlid is on/off?

 

I might have missed something, wasn't it better to take the power from the speaker? How are you otherwise suppose to be able to turn it off without the switch?

 

Thanks for your answer. I called Acer support and they made a priority case of it, yet the woman I talked to had no idea what was wrong with the display. She said up to 3 weeks for them to look at it and send me a replacement unit.
If I decide to send it to them I will send a link with that youtube video of yours to help them see the problem. Thanks for making that video.

I would ideally like to return this unit as I have a 14-day full return right and just buy another one.. but then I see that the 3820TG is out of stock until far into September. Jesus what a dilemma this turned out to be.

If there are only 4-5 of us reporting this problem then we are truly unlucky!

I regret I bought this online. If only they had one identical in a local store (live in Norway).

 

Yes. Perfectly usable for me.

Bronsky

 

What color is your WiFI light? that was the original question.

Mine and others are orange, but Hendrickson's is blue. My Wifi flashes too now and then, even though it's at 5 bars strength.

 

@Hendrickson - I just received my Motherboard Order confirmation with a shipping date of Monday . Estimated delivery time is only 2-3 days. Why does shipping from Germany take so long? Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting the rest of the work on my 3820TG done.

@Banker - Looks like the original proforma got lost. As soon as they got my latest email they resent it. Payment was confirmed right away and shipping scheduled for the next business day. They've been fine ... I'm being impatient.

I'll order the switch, thermal paste and 540M CPU today. I am still wrestling with the prospect of an I7-620M, which would be the better move if the board does not OC. The difference is so small, however, and, hopefully, the I5-540M will OC well if I get lucky with the new board. I'm 95% sure I'm ordering the I5.

Bronsky

EDIT: now I'm 100% sure I'm ordering the OEM 540M. It's on its way. Doin' at all at once.

 

The light on my Timeline X is orange as well and it flash's when it has the full 5 bars of signal.. I think it just depends on which LED's they had available etc.

 

Aspire 3820t service guide - Google Search works for me. Make sure, you are not redirected to your local google search (there is a firefox add-on for this).

Michael

 

Thanks mate and to all who answered my question.

I'm just nitpicking here. I really like blue LEDs!

 

Wifi On = Orange LED

Wifi + Bluetooth On = Orange LED

Wifi + Bluetooth + 3G On = Blue LED

Wifi + 3G On = Blue LED

Just tested...3G is what turns the LED to blue

 

I'm fine with the LEDs, good thing they dosen't glow so strong that would bother my eyes.

 

That's right - Hendrickson has the 3G variant.

Thanks and excellent find!

 

Look at the description and click on the times.

 

Full ack

10 chars

 

Okay ... it looks like everything is ordered.

Acer Replacement Speaker
Shark Technologies Remanufactured Motherboard
I5-540M OEM
Alps Switches
IC Diamond 7

Have I forgotten anything? Looks like I have my work cut out for myself once all this stuff gets here.

Bronsky

 

Yes of course! Otherwise the mod would be just silly.

If you don't wish to use a switch, use the speaker as the power source. You can turn it off but it disables your sound.

Nothing, but to cross fingers that you get an overclockable motherboard I look forward to seeing your OC results. Once I get my RAM I will let you know if its worth it or not with overclocking.

 

I've been playing with the SetFSB some more and I think I could eventually get this board to operate stabily if I worked with the program's creator to adjust the lower slide settings.

When I pull the board, if the new board does not OC, our company's tech said he can repair the speaker socket for me. That way, I have an OC'able backup. It would be a helluva lot easier if the new board OCs. We'll see.

Thanks for all your help.

Bronsky

 

I went to the shop this morning to buy my 2nd 3820TG. I am installing it at the moment, but there are three amazing things with this one:
- display seems to be OK (but with grids, like the 1st one)
- SetFSB seems to work with G73 profile
- 6 cell ))))

The 6 cell and the good display in reality is such an amazing big difference that I really feel that this laptop is somehow so much better. Weight, form factor, good display, oh what a change! For anyone with brightness shifting I would suggest to ask for an in place replacement, and order a different one.

 

What tool do you use for ATI overclocking? Ati Tools and AMD overdrive doesn't work for me.

I don't know if it was like this before or not, but now the switchable graphics depending on battery is switchable. You can enable or disable automatic switching with one checkbox.

 

anyone having pci-e issue again? i had no problem for 2month (after fixing pci-e fixing guide in page 1) and suddenlty sometimes about few days mabye weeks ago when im in switchable mode pci-e setting goes to x1 instead of x16. when i reinstall catalyst in discrete mode it shows x16 but as fast as i shut down windows and switch to switchable mode it pci-e goes back to x1

 

It looks like the GPU idles at 100/150 and X1. Did it stay there when you stressed it? If not, it's probably normal.

Bronsky

 

I did it! Afraid to damage anything I didn't want to open the 3820TG, but having one unit with defective fan and one unit with flickering backlight (that acer didn't accept as faulty) was annoying the heck out of me.

So I went for it! Pulled both computers apart, took the LCD module from the one with defective fan and put the "less good" LCD module on the one with defctive fan (noisy fan).

Two things were really annoying:
1: prying the top and bottom covers apart, I don't like prying thin plastic.
2: Routing those antenna cables.

Rest were piece of cake, just took time.

So now I have one 3820TG that:
1: Has an good Samsung SEC3030 LCD panel
2: Is overclockable.
3: Has fans that isn't noisy.

I reapplied thermal paste of course, but for my sample the original paste seemed good and well applied so temps dropped by only 1 or 2 degrees when running prime/furmark. Used my favourite paste; Noctua NT-H1. Which has given same results as Arctic silver and IC for me, while being easier to apply.

Also noticed noisy fans (defective?) were made by adda, while the good ones in this one are sunon.

So in the end; all came out good No major mistakes (forgot reconnecting touchpad cable, so had to loosen keyboard again and do it - but else no mistakes) and no screws left after assembling both computers. And yesh both works

 

OT:
Hei OC-Freak, sendte du inn PCen til Acer borti Oslo? Regner med du har samme problemet som ble vist på den youtube videoen? Jeg er skeptisk til å sende den inn og lurer bare på om jeg skal heve kjøpet. Hadde satt pris på om du ga meg tilbakemelding om det er vits å sende den inn. Hvis Acer er vanskelige så orker jeg ikke en lang retur prosess osv. Setter stor pris på svar.
/OT

zsero:
Did you notice any other differences with the display of the new laptop? I mean brighter display, better colors or anything like that? I am happy to hear you got a new and better working laptop

 

afraid not i first saw someting is wrong because my starcraft 2 with my current settings stayed at 59 fps but when in switchable mode fps stays 25 fps so i used gpu-z and saw pci-e was at x1 and i tested reinstall catalyst driver and played in discrete mode and it is back at 59 fps

 

It seems all better, bit it has a _slight_ brightness shifting. Not as bad as before, but it happens sometime. Sometime it happens a few seconds after I start Furmark. I think I will leave it alone, I really like this laptop. In the future, I can still change the screen to a better one, for example to a Samsung one. But it's not that annoying at all.

 

For videocard overclocking:

I was able to run 3dmark at 740 / 1100 without any problem, got a bit over 9600 points with stock CPU. I could have run higher, but I had an idea to do artifact scanning.

Did you check your card with ATITool artifact scanning? I mean I didn't notice any error but my card seems artifact free only at 730 / 980. Did you check yours? Check overclocking just the core and just the ram in two separate sessions to find the max. I think if it's artifact free in ATITool for 10 minutes, then I would consider it's stable for everyday use.

 

Oh, that's quite a big thing what you have done. Could you send back one of the computers?

 

OT:
Jeg har ikke samme problem som er vist i videoen, på min maskin har jeg konstant svak flimring i bakbelysningen på venstre side av LCD panelet.
Jeg var hos elprice på sandnes der jeg kjøpte maskinen, og de klarte ikke se flimringen i butikken og mente derfor at det ikke var noen vits i å sende inn maskinen til acer da de ikke ville finne noen "feil".
Samsung skjermen har ikke de "skråstripene" som AUO skjermen min hadde, det var det mest irriterende. Fargemessig er de ganske like.
OT

As for differences between the samsung SEC3030 and AUO122C screens:

Samsung:
Bit cold coluors, a bit too much blue maybe?
Slightly lower brightness?
NO "pixelation effect"
NO strange lines when looking at the screen close.

AUO:
Warm colours, pretty intense colours.
Slightly higher brighness?
Pixelation effect when looking at grey/white areas.
Strange "lines" going from top left to bottom right on screen when looking close at it, probably some effect from how AUO manufacures the display.

Overall the samsung monitor is a lot better in my opinion, even though the AUO might have slightlly better details in colours than samsung.

 

What kind of temps are you getting with a 4 threaded wprime 1024m? I am a bit afraid as at _stock_ speeds mine gets a max of 89-90 C!

How could I overclock it then? I think I need to reapply the thermal paste. Does it mean voiding the warranty?

 

I'll return the one with defective fan and see what acer does yeah, If they are really good at inspecting, they can see that the computer has been opened. If that causes them to return it as "warranty void" then so be it.

Hopefully they replace the fan and I can then sell it (although with an not perfect display).