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

That sounds normal. I ran the unit with noisy fan overnight (hoping the fan noise would go away) and it maxed out at 89 C.

I just ran this one overclocked @ 2.88GHz and maxed out at 91C, but room temps are a bit higher than last time I tried.

Running an stockspeed test now.

 

OK new test: during 3dmark 06 @ stock CPU and GPU 730/980: the max for CPU was 84-85 and 77 for GPU.

I think it's really a lot for CPU, but I might need to lift it a bit from the desk or just to reapply the paste.

 

Been running prime95 (max heat /1024) for almost 15 mins at stock speed now, temp doesn't really increase more.

Core 0: 78 C (max)
Core 2: 79 C (max)

That is with reapplied paste, before I was seeing 83-84C, but as said, paste was pretty nicely done on this sample. Didn't check the other since I'm returning it anyway.

And yes, normally doing more than replacing RAM/HDD/wifi voids the warranty, although there are no "warranty void" stickers on mine at least.

 

Here you go; 3dmark06 temps.

CPU :stock
GPU: overclocked 730/1050MHz.

 

Waay over due, but it was requested a while back:

PC Mark vantage stock and overclocked scores:


Stock clocks CPU / GPU


Overclocked

As you can see it makes a difference

 

WOW i was running virus scan and LOOK AT THIS. ? is that normal?!

 

Something blocking your CPU vent? Almost 100 Degrees C is waaay to much

 

cpu vent is the one on the left side right nope nothin blocking it. to be honest i even have cold air following into there from air vent

 

and it runs on idle around 43degrees too.

I dont get it :S

 

Mine idles at 44-46 C, so that is normal. Your loadtemp is not right though. I've rarely seen 3820TG pass 95C even under stress tests. Maybe it's incorrectly reported?? Else it smells like something is wrong, incorrectly seated heatsink or something.

 

its not incorrectly reported, i only checked the temp when i accidently touched the heatsink it was pretty dam hot. if it was incorrectly seated, it would actually increase the idle temperatures by alot wouldnt it?

 

Yeah, it should. Could be poorly applied paste then, as that doesn't affect idle temps as much as load temps.

 

How warm does the bottom of your laptop get while it's idling (i.e. doing nothing)?

 

99°C is all right. You can push your i5 easy at 99°C.

 

@Myonlystar - is that a Taiwaneese unit? IMO Core 0 temp is way too high. Core 1 is still at 46C. Looks like the temp on core 1 is spiked without any real reason. I would be concerned. If it was poorly applied paste, wouldn't there be some similarity in temps between cores 0 and 1.

Bronsky

 

When its idling its not very hot, i can put it on my lap and it wont bother. Here is when i was running starcraft 2. max temp doesnt even get to 70. I wonder if something wrong with the mcafee anti-virus that the machine came preinstalled with, but i should jst remove and install avg

 

no its a staples unit. with i5 430.

 

btw what is the TZS0? is that for cpu or gpu?

 

someone want to explain what these temps are? on this particular laptop?

 

Big fun, I successfully installed TinyXP 2010 June, and inf modded the Catalyst 10.8 driver. TinyXP has all other driver included, no need to install anything manually.

wPrime @ 3.2 Ghz := 16.7 sec ))) (ok it was under MicroXP)

The weirdest part is that my temperatures are way lower than under 7. At overclocked CPU I cannot get over 84 C.

 

Forget about SpeedFan, it needs manual calibration what is sometimes -13 or -14 degrees. So it would explain the difference. Only look at HWMonitor.

 

TZS1 seems to be the GMCH.

 

Is there any way to increase RAM voltage in Windows 7? Our 3820TG's BIOS does not allow us to change our RAM's voltage (or memorty timings for that matter).

 

Voltage: No

Ram timmings are possible with the attached tool.

Was written a few pages bevor by Hendrickson.

 

I just purchased the 3820TG and was very surprised to find the Bluetooth shuts off everytime you restart. Any ideas to make it default to ON?

 

For proof. 450M @ 3.2 Ghz under MicroXP

 

Pictures please!

Wow.. What are you not replacing? If you're going that far might as well replace the screen and have the perfect laptop ever..

Better yet, I heard SanDisc has come up with this tiny 64GB SSD (the size of a microSD), which you can probably solder straight to the motherboard...

You know.. While you're at it..

I've got to say I really like this thread.

 

OK, guess about battery life under XP when overclocked.

CPU: 3.34 GHz
Display brighness level: 4
wireless on
running on ATI HD5650

Battery time: 5 hours, 45 minutes
(ok I did not do anything on the computer except for taking the screenshot)

 

Thanks. Found those pages all the way back on p 368.

I'm not sure what it is about the new G. Skill RAM that I installed, but it won't let me OC the CPU or GPU as high as I did before.

As a test, I pulled out 1 stick of G.Skill RAM and left the other in, so that I had 4GB of RAM. No change. Then I switched them. Still no change.

Then I only used 1 stick of the Samsung RAM. I was able to OC the CPU and GPU as high as I did before.

So, I put back in all 8GB of the G Skill RAM and adjusted the timings looser (i.e. higher timings). Still no change. I couldn't OC the CPU and GPU as high as I did before when I had the Samsung RAM in there.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with the new RAM, since Windows 7 recognizes it and I have not had an PC freezes or BSOD. In fact, windows and programs are opening up faster.

Increasing the RAM's voltage was my last hope.

Anyone have any other ideas? Thanks.

 

Is your bclk 167.6 stable under Prime95?

When I had my old Samsung RAM in, I was able to run wPrime tests with a bclk as high as 171 Mhz. However, the highest stable bclk under Prime95 was 164 Mhz.

Now with the new RAM in, I can only go as high as bclk 150 Mhz.

 

It seems stable. I did not test for a long time, but wPrime 1024 seems to run OK.

The stock Samsung RAM's seems to be of exceptional quality, they run at 7-7-7-20 @ 670 Mhz!

 

OK, at least under XP my computer works really well.

wPrime 1024 @ BCLK 168, final temps: 83-82 C, completes without error, 542 seconds (but I was doing stuff during computation)
wPrime 32, 17.0 sec

 

I've had bclk settings pass both wPrime 32m and 1024m, but fail with Prime95. I usually run Prime95 for 3 hrs at least to ensure stability. Others run it for 6+ hrs, but I'm not that patient!

Did your laptop come with 2GB or 4GB of Samsung RAM?

What did you use to measure the Samsung's RAM timings of 7 7 7 20 at 670 Mhz? Was that from the spd tab of CPU-Z?

Mine came with 2GB of Samsung (in the laptop) and 2GB of PQI were free.

 

How were you able to run PCMark Vantage? I thought the minimum resolution that it supported was 1280x1024.

 

never heard of using an external monitor?

PCMark vantage and 3Dmark vantage is two different test programs as well..... in case you mixed them.

 

And this is why I tend to not buy laptops second hand LOL!

 

LOL! I think I did mix them.

 

Funny thing is that I started all of this because my unit was one of the few that would not overclock and just a couple of days ago, I got SetFSB to work. Hoping for a better clockgen on the new motherboard.

Yea ... it's a fun crowd.

Bronsky

 

It came with 2x2 GB. To get the values, I used the memory tab of CPU-Z, under XP it writes it correctly. Under Win 7 64-bit it's just grey.

My system is only stable under XP with freeware setfsb "96" (BCLK 168) Under Win 7 only "97" works.

 

Good news: it is possible to install the new Catalyst 10.8 on a clean system, without having the Acer one installed first.

Good news 2:


Bad news:
We still need to wait for Acer to make this driver into a release, as with this solution it seems that even if the adapters are not on, they are always running. Discharge rate is about 18000-20000 mW on Intel!

But:
We don't need to switch to discrete in BIOS, our card is supported in 10.8

 

I thought the whole point of installing the stock ATI driver (v 8713) first, and then the updated ATI driver, was so switchable graphics works.

We could always install the updated ATI driver without the stock ATI driver. But doing so would mean not having switchable graphics.

 

It seems that we can switch from ati to intel gpu, but not from intel gpu to ati. Not sure about the rest of them. But that's the way in my case.

 

Congrats on Your 6 cell notebook! I know how that feels!

Could You please tell me how the Samsung RAM WEI score, and maybe the HDD's score and type if possible, thanks!

I'm curious what type of unit does the hungarian market has nowadays, I might be buying another one and giving this to my friend - this one has Hyundai RAM, Seagate 320GB and an AUO322 panel.

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi Bronsky!
How did you manage to get SetFSB to work?
I've basically given up but your post shed me ray of sunshine...so would you mind sharing your story?
Also what FSB did you get it up to?

 

I now sit in the living room about 3 meters from the wireless router and I get a connection speed of 36MBit? That is just lousy. I am using stock wireless drivers. Anyone else have similar problems? The router is capable of 300MBit so this is highly disappointing.

 

Kiskapu, I would wait till september for the 460M models. Acer.shop.hu already lists one and its no more expensive than the 450M ones.

The replacement notebook I bought came from a different warehouse, different shop, different everything, but it was produced on exactly the same week as the one before. What means that overclockablity is really nice, but that the display still has issues.

I can confirm two different display issues:
brightness shifting: sooner or later the brightness of the display gets one level brigher or darker

brightness flickering: on low levels, on battery, when doing something HDD intensive, the screen flickers a bit.

But I think I am going to keep this one, as it seems not that bad, and I am quite happy with my overclocks.

 

I have spent the night figuring out what sequence of driver installation does what. It was possible to switch back and forth, but windows thought I got 4 displays connected and the mouse left the screen all the time.

But the biggest issue was that switching from one to the other did not really switch the chip off, even on intel I got discharge rates of about 18000-20000 mW (or three hours battery life).

 

It's a still a work in progress. It's complicated by the fact that the clockgen that works on my CPU adds a lower adjustment bar that alters (no one else seems to have it) the RAM speed, PCI-E and PCI Frequency and I have no idea in what range the adjustments should be. I don't know if this matters, but I have a registered copy of SetFSB (the contribution is only 500 Yen ($5 US). I have had the CPU clockspeed up to a measured 3.1ghz but the OC was clearly unstable. WPrime and SuperPi both showed checksum errors. Last night I started to figure out the lower slide enough to be able to get a stable 2.8ghz that passed WPrime. That's as far as I got. I know there were a few of us that had non-ocable units. A lot of them were early models from Computeruniverse. What unit do you have? Model #.

I'm toying with starting a thread on this because it is of interest to only a small number of owners (since most units seem to OC) and such a technical discussion will get lost in a thread that moves as fast as this one. We could get Hendrickson to link it to the first page of this thread.

Bronsky

 

Guys, I am getting 7 hours on battery while surfing the internet on the stock battery (intel with power saving profile)!!! I love this laptop, it's light AND quick AND good on battery.

 

So now after the release of Catalyst display driver 10.8, what is the correct install method? Same as the one before? Bios, install and bios again? =)

Kevin