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

By the way, the newest Synaptics drivers have options to set Sensitivity options and PalmCheck sensitivity to lowest. This fixes the touchpad not registering light taps and the stupid way the laptop prevents you from moving the mouse during or right after typing.

 

You can do it!

 

Look in my sign, is it like that? I will send in mine for a repair on Monday, a DHL ships it to Brno, in Czech republic, and ships it back in about 10 days.

You can either
- return your laptop to the reseller (if you still can)
- ask for a repair. I really hope that if all of us with brightness shifting displays call them, then they will acknowledge a common problem and it will make explanations to support in the future much easier. Are you in Europe?

 

450M @ 3.3ghz stable.

 

This brightness shifting makes me puzzled. The two facts that I just cannot explain:
- It happens only on the ATI card > means an ATI card problem
- It got solved for OC-Freak, who changed the display > means a display problem

And as I spend more and more time, it really looks that it's not brightness shifting, but gamma levels changing from 1.0 to about 0.8 then back to 1.0! I went as far as to set gamma to 0.50 in CCC and it stopped happening (ok, I just tried it for a couple of minutes). So an other proof that it's a ATI card issue.

For anyone having this issue, could you try to lower your gamma to 0.5 in CCC (I know it looks bad) and spend some time on ATI to find if it's happening?

For OC-Freak: is it possible that you changed motherboards or peripherials in a way that the issue was actually in the ATI card and not in the display?

 

I think you can be really proud of achieveing one of the best overclocks in a non overclockable board )) Congrats!

 

And actually, running dual core i5-s at about 3.2 ghz is so much fun, if you think about it, for example when all threads are at 100% use, a 720QM is running at 1.60 Ghz, and ours are running at between 3.05 to 3.2 Ghz. So it means that even in the best case for a 720qm, our dual core is just as fast, and for dual or single threaded things ours is even faster.

My 9376 Cinebench R10 results proove it too, the average score for 720QM is 9971 points at notebookcheck. It means that even in the best ever multithreaded case (3D rendering, source data in memory), an overclocked dual core is only 6% slower than a quad core throttling monster.

 

Thanks. I'm really pleased with the results. How cool would it be if the OEM I5-540M overclocked as well as the 450M?

Bronsky

 

What are you doing to overclock? My 540M made it into my staples.ca machine over the lunch hour. I can do a run to give you an idea.

before:



After:



heh... pulled the cmos battery during the upgrade. I forgot to reset clock and calendar!

 

At the moment is an update not possible without losing the switch function between the graphic cards.

 

Argh, as I suspected.

So the order now is: Acer VGA-ATI, Acer VGA-Intel, set bios discrete, ATI-10.8, set bios switchabe ??

 

We use Set FSB. Hendrickson has a section on it on the first page of this thread. For most 3820TG's you should download SetFsb's newest version and select the AsusG73jh clockgen or try the freeware version, and use ICS9LPRS365BGLF. Switch to the clockgen, hit get FSB. If you get a PLL error message or it freezes on both clockgens, you might want to look at this. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/513560-possibly-overclocking-unclockable-3820tg.html. First check to see if TME is enabled and if not, finding the right clockgen is a bit of trial and error.

Bronsky

 

Yesteray my note has arrivet BUT it's on the way back to computerunivers already because of this :

http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/7804/foto0121za.jpg

a damn huge black spot ! screen had no signs on surface, just back spot inside !
Now is on the way back to germany !

i did RMA asking for a replacement with a new laptop otherwise refund. I hope to be more lucky with the next one..

 

Temps go up to 93C and stay there with the CPU OC'd to 3.3ghz and the GPU fully OC'd.


No sign of any throttling or adverse effect. The cooling system keeps the temps pegged at 93C and no higher. It looks like this thing could run like that all day. At that temp, I can feel some heat rising through the keyboard but the palm rest is still normal temp.

Bronsky

 

docking station for 3820tg?

 

Looks like TME is not enabled, however all of the clockgens mentioned in the other threads give pll errors or bizarre results for the current settings.



Need to dig around to find a valid clockgen.

 

I was doing a search on the wireless card and correct me if i'm wrong, but people find that the wireless card for the laptop is kind of crap?

Bronsky, I noticed on your post that you have the AR8151 wireless card. Did you find that went you go and do a speedtest, it was really choppy?

Anyone else have come across this problem? I just cleaned installed this laptop =]

 

Delete This Post

 

Actually i returned the machine and now I have one with AUO122C display instead of the AUO322C i had before. So far no flickering for me. I also noticed this one has the Atheros AR5B93 wiifi and AR8151 ethernet. as opposed to the broadcom i had. everything seems to be perfect so far after 1hour of use. maybe this is finally the one ive been waiting for.....

OH and No graininess on this panel compared to the AUO322C

 

My problem were not the same as you were seeing, I had constant pulsating backlight along left side of screen, no matter if I was on intel or ATI. Only noticeable at 60%-90% brightness though.

I only changed the screen (and "CCD board" since that is inside the screen module).

And the problems you are seing might be software related, not hardware related.

 

I just read a spec sheet that said the 3820TG can do 2560x1600 over VGA. Do you think you could give that a try? Maybe a quick comment on image quality if you have the time...I haven't used VGA in ages.

 

I like to use BatteryCare - You can download it here :
BatteryCare

BatteryBar is also very popular

 

So far my screen is perfect. I did a complete reinstall of Windows 7 with only the Acer drivers installed. Gonna see if I see any more garbled screens.

 

Guys, I'm thinking about buying this laptop (with these specs ACER 3820TG i5, Kannettavat tietokoneet, Kannettavat tietokoneet, Tietotekniikka ONOFF ) I have a few guestions though.

1. Is the lack of optical drive really bad thing? I mean in gaming (I use Steam, but I also have a lots of old games that require cd in play - would no-cd patches fix that?) I'm thinkin about buying external optical drive, it should be able to run both CD/DVD, right?

2. Is 13,3" too small for gaming/movies? I'm sure that 11" is too small, and 15" maybe too big. I thought about 14" but it has some heat problems?

3. Owners, do you recommend this laptop? I will use it at home mostly for gaming/internet/movies, and will take it once a week/month to college.
(Games include SC2, BC2, JA2, GW(2), BF2, CoH and so on.)

 

Yes, the wireless card is crap.

 

It's amazing how much variation there is within the same brand. Glad you got a good one this time.

 

I actually prefer no optical drive because how often do you use one? As you said, getting an external one is the way to go. Check out the Samung ones on that page. It'll serve it purpose.

Movies may be small on this screen, but I had no problems playing games on it. You're buying this machine because you can tote it around. If you want to watch a lot of movies, perhaps the 4820TG would suit you.

Heat problems on the 14" is if you play games for a long time and you OC your GPU. Regular day-to-day things would pose no problem.

 

So has someone over clocked a i5 540m OEM CPU? Tgoode?

Got my OCZ Ram, windows rating is for RAM is still 5.9 not sure why it doesn't go up with better timings?

My overclock with the OCZ ram has only gone up slightly from 169.3 to 173 BCLK so not much of a difference there. Not really worth it!

I was running 175, 3.5 Ghz turbo. But after 20 mins it crashed at that level.

 

ATM he's working on finding a clockgen that works. Funny, no one seems to have a clockgen that has TME enabled. Theoretically, all of the 3820TG's have been OC'able.

I will be putting in the I5-540M soon, since I'm not changing my motherboard. My unit is now OC'ing very well. http://forum.notebookreview.com/6666758-post4484.html If the clockgen had more room on the slides, it could go higher. I'm at the clockgen's max settings at 3.3ghz. I will still be tinkering with others to see if I can get that speed up a bit more. At 3.3 ghz I get no instability at all. The CPU has room.

Don't think the ram is worth it ... hmmmmm. Interesting.

Bronsky

 

Hi guys!

Yesterday I bought a Benq 24", with 1920x1080 resulotion, but when I connect my 3820tg to it thru Hdmi, the screen isn't filled up, I get a big black frame around the screen. Do anyone know what can be wrong?

 

1: nope, I do not miss optical drive. iso files + daemon tools works in most cases. Or an external drive if really needed - but so far I've not had the need for one.

2: It's great for gaming and since it has same resolution as most 14 and 15" computers the smaller screen size is not noticeable.

3: it's the ideal laptop, it's small, has good battery and powerful enough to run everything.

 

How long are you running prime95 for? I'm had OC settings for the CPU crash even after looking good for the first 3 hrs of prime95.

 

I only use WPrime as a thumbnail while OC'ing. I looped it for about an hour while I stepped up the clockgen settings. I always test out any hardware/software modifications on my company's software benchmarks before using it at work.

I've already run modeling benchmarks in Matlab overnight without a problem (we have the model/simulation testing package). We also have proprietary software for our aerial image editing that has hardware certification. The OC'd 450M passed all of the stability certs.

This clockgen is perfectly stable on my current CPU. The more I use it, the more I am impressed with this 450M. If the new 540M does not run perfectly, I am going to be dissapointed with it.

Bronsky

 

Just picked up the 3820T, (Not TG as I am a poor student )

Just wondering if someone could give me some tips on the first things I should do with it? I think i'm steering clear of a clean windows re-install, unless someone can give me a quick guide on how to do it without fyring my computer. Is it worth doing?

I've already uninstalled Mcafee, Norton, all the games Acer gives you for no apparent reason and basically anything else I didn't recognise under the control panel.

But yes, some tips on first other things to do! What Windows 7 bits I should turn on or off or change etc??

 

Well, I got my 3820T and it's by far the best of the crop of laptops I've been trying in the last few weeks bearing none of the problems I've experienced in that time. No cosmetic damage, great responsive keyboard, great screen, great battery life, good touchpad and touchpad buttons, doesn't get hot, quiet and doesn't vibrate much.

The only thing I've noticed is a problem I've had with an 1810t I've tried a few months ago (the problem was much worse with the 1810t) where the arrow keys don't always respond when you press them. The Left, Down and Right arrow keys appear to have something like a dead zone close to the right edge, and the Up arrow key close to the left edge. This isn't much of an issue during normal use, but when I'm coding I often find myself repeatedly hitting an arrow key with no response. None of the other keys exhibit any such problems.

My question is, and I'm presuming somewhat by posing it I realize, would replacing the keyboard with a 3810 one have a good chance of fixing this issue? Thanks, Nir

 

Here is a quick guide and you will not fry your computer. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...rks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-162.html#post6465732

Bronsky

 

Yeah, that sounds like a problem in the KB itself. A replacement should do the trick. No 3820T KBs yet on ebay?

Bronsky

 

It's so weird. When my 3820tg goes to sleep automatically at night, it refuses to come out of sleep in the morning. I see the HDD indicator light blinking on and off as if it were reading ready to come out of it, but nothing appears on the display and caps lock/numlock don't respond.

But if I were to put it to sleep, I can wake it up just fine. Anyone experience this or is there a fix for this?

 

So whens the i5 540m install set for and re doing the thermal paste ? Can't wait to see the 540m OC'ed. I hope it hits 3.9 Ghz for you.

 

I have everything here ... I just have to make some time and get motivated. Yep ... new ICD paste, I5-540M and switch, all at the same time.

I am really pleased to discover that my computer oc's so well. It saved me the price of a new motherboard. Shame about the clockgen topping out. Maybe I can get one of the other similar clockgens stable like that.

I really like the increased performance and speed. It runs my ususal daily software much faster. Now if I can only get a break with the 540M.

Bronsky

 

No, there isn't a real docking station.

Just a fake USB docking station.

 

Is the trackpad supposed to have blind spots around the edges? I've tried changing the odd setting in synaptics, but I'm finding it really awkward at the moment.

This is the first new laptop I've bought in a few years so I may well be missing something, but I much prefer the old fashioned trackpads without all theses bells and whistles. Is there any way to revert it to a simple pad that tracks all the way to the bottom, left and top edges and has a vertical scroll on the extreme of the right edge?

Thanks

 

Tell us how it goes Bronsky, some pictures or a video won't hurt =P

I'm gonna install my i7-620m soon. So far computer seems pretty stable after a reformat... Not gonna do anything until Monday probably though.

Btw.

After I did a clean install, I installed the Bluetooth suite, but I don't know where to go to add bluetooth devices and the bluetooth itself doesn't show up under devices either...

 

Bought this laptop today. Very happy with the purchase so far.

 

Hello Guys,

i've found out that there are new drivers that could possibly work with the 3820 on the Acer support page. Just search for the TravelMate 5742. There is a new VGA_AMD_8.741.0.0_W7x86W7x64_A.zip, as well as a buch of other new Drivers that could work. I did try to install the VGA Driver but the installer claimed that my 8.713.3.3000 is up-to-date. Maybe it would have worked on a clean system without any drivers preinstalled.

 

I figured out what was wrong with my Bluetooth.

I had to turn it on via Fn + F3 to let Windows see that it's there. Problem solved. =D

 

You beat me to it.

I read the first post and was about to answer when I saw the second one.

 

So where can one get this 'Yadi' keyboard protector for the 3820?

 

Yahoo!©_¼¯Áʪ«¤¤¤ß:¶gÃä,NB¶gÃä°t¥ó,acerÁä½L«OÅ@½¤, YADI §ÜµßÁä½L½¤-ACER-TimelineX 3820TG
Finally found it

 

I have a YADI keyboard cover. I dunno if I would recommend it. It's really thin that's awesome, but it doesn't fit perfectly, some areas of the cover kinda float up, dunno if it's cause of the heat expansion or if it's because it's new. I'll take a pic of it later to show you what I mean. It feels nice despite that though, almost like it's not there.