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

No, I didn't change the partitions.

I already tried them, the clean installation seems to work now after cooled down a little bit?
Still have the annoying Western Digital HDD clicking sound... aw...
Installing drivers now...

 

I think you need quietHDD to get rid of the clicking sound.

 

My battery gone nuts, or worse, it's dieing on me!

Yesterday I've started charging it when it had 74% remaining (wear level always have been between 4-5% according to HWMonitor and Battercare), after like 2 minutes it claimed to reach 82% - a sudden increase in charge level.
After the battery charged to 97%, I've started to work on battery, did so like 15-20 minutes, when the charge suddenly dropped from 90% to 82 % with the wear level increasing from 4% to 14% !

After a restart, the charge level remained the same, but the wear level "reduced" itself to 8%.
Batterycare continued to claim the wear level to be 8%, HWMonitor is acted more generous with it's 7%.

Today I've decided to calibrate the battery, so drained it, than had it fully charged, but nothing changed, wear level is now 8.80%.

Funny thing is both HWMonitor and Batterycare states a lower Full capacity than the indicated Actual capacity, with HWMonitor showing a charge level of 104% - superbattery I have, with TurboBoost !



Don't know if it's just a software issue, the whole thing started like from out of nowhere with the battery suddenly losing like 10% of it's charge, kinda weird IMO.

Anyone experienced anything similar?

 

I think the confusion is coming from the bit numbering. I think it is 76543210, not 87654321

 

How to backup your recovery patitions:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...discrete-images-your-recovery-partitions.html

 

Darn.
Really not possible to make the isos somehow bootable with the usb stick?
I mean the recovery partition is basically a copy of the OS, drivers and the Acer utilities.
And you can make a bootable OS with an USB stick.

 

I think you are correct. That makes sense. So, it was the second digit from the left afterall and we all have that digit clear. Even you?

Bronsky

 

It would be possible to put whatever image you want on a USB stick prepared as described in the thread I linked (3 posts above) and then use Diskpartitioner and gimagex to re-write whatever .WIM file you like to the HDD.

 

I don't how this works for the registered version, because i don't have it. For the register editing you lower the 0x10 and after that lower 0x0f. The you need to calculate the difference from the old MHz Value to the new one. Now you need to think about if lowering 0x0f once more is possible or if the oc gets to high. If yes you need to lower 0x10 again. It really takes some time, but it's like gambling and is a lot of fun

 

Checking in to see Bronsky's progress with the 3820 build, also looking forward to your OC scored on the 540M Bronsky

Too bad the MB from Shark is a no-go.

 

Actually, they did me a favor. I had given up trying to OC this board and it seems to OC very well afterall. Saved me $170. Sent the board back and they indicated that there would be no problem with the refund.

Bronsky

PS: Is there a maual for SetFSB anywhere?

BTW, I have everything ready to do the CPU swap. All I need is about 3 or 4 uninterrupted hours which I'm having a hard time finding.

 

By the way, does any of you use Linux as a main OS, for instance? I'd like to know how's the switchable graphics is working for you, if at all.

Right now I use VMware to get a distro working, but it should be better and faster to have its own partition.

Thanks

 

just wondering, those of you who overclock the GPU what clocks do you use?

I myself have been using 650/1050 it's been stable for a week or so.

 

(bankgolfer,lastdon, hardcor) Guys this thread is about the 3820TG, not China/Taiwanese/USA politics. Take it outside this thread and P.M each other......No one else is interested in your waaaaay of topic discussion.

*Cough* Back on topic, any chance to try that i5 540m Bronsky? You must be itching to try it out. I know I would be.

@Current, I've found my max is 680 and 1070 stable for gaming. I use this 100% of the time. I finished Mafia II with these clocks, running on high settings @ 1080p on my external monitor.

If the other time-line models are getting bios updates surely we can't be too far off?

 

So much info in this thread seems to be wrong, or does not apply to all.

Video is one example.

During battery tests, I accidentally pushed the special "P" button above the F1 key, and it works great! I thought you had to install an app, and even then switching with the "P" was messed up? Not at all. No other Acer app other than Launch Manager was installed. "P" correctly switches between ATi and Intel video modes, and correctly consumes much less power when the "P" is pressed and is lit up. Or, you can still simply right click desktop to change.

Driver install went like this.
Bios in normal switchable video mode.
Installed latest Intel mobile drivers first. (from Intel website).
Rebooted.
Back into Bios.
Set video to discreet.
Installed latest ATi 10.8 drivers.
Reboot.
Back into Bios.
Switched Video back to switchable.
Done.
At no time did I install any Acer video drivers.
Everything works excellent, all switching perfect, games score correctly, overclocks fine.

In other words, it works like it is supposed to with the buttons it comes with, the way it was supposed to work.

Don't know why so many have issues with the 10.8 drivers or switching.
Ever think that just because something does not work for you, that it might be something on your end, and not the fault of drivers or hardware?

And, the screen is AWESOME!! Much better than my Dell i9200 which supposedly had one of the best ever.
Keyboard is the best I have used in more than 15 laptops owned.
Atheros Wireless N also kicks butt, with great signal and range.
Heck, even the heat sink compound was installed correctly from the factory, and replacing with the good stuff did nothing here, since it was already good to go.

Any flaws? Just read this thread and you would think everything is wrong and needs replaced, disabled, or ignored, (words like "that is crap" are used a lot), otherwise no real flaws with the laptop.

Rant over..

 

_______________

 

Recovery partitions are special. You cannot just restore them that easily, BIOS boots them in a specific way. An Acronis full drive backup image would have worked.

Just disable recovery option in BIOS, and clean the whole hard drive with all partitions! If you need recovery for warranty, use an external DVD drive, I used it two times before returning my computers. Booting an OS requieres much more than just a partition with files on it.

 

I'm very interested in this as well! I have an 3810 keyboard coming from eBay to replace the one on my 3820T which has problematic arrow keys. Would be great to know anything about it before I try the swap myself.

 

I tried it from a USB external drive, and the setup said something like "Optical drive not found for recovery."

 

Overclock core and memory separately and check with ATITool artifact scanning for at least 10 minutes.

 

OK, it's your way of installing 10.8. Everyone installs 10.8 differently, sometimes over-installing older drivers without uninstalling before, and many times the result is a system consuming 20000 mW of power or having different problems. Maybe your guide is the one to use. BTW, what kind of battery life are you getting using ATI?

And no, please don't tell me that the keyboard is of decent quality! I still need to push some of the buttons two or three times till I get feedback, because I don't exactly push them at the center. Someone in the 90s would have had his head cut if he made a button like this on any ThinkPad. Any of my friends who have seen my 3820TG was simply laughing at its keyboard, and all I could say was that's the price of putting the best components in a good looking chassis and selling it for cheap.

 

To prove Acer that it's not a software issue, all you could do is to restore the factory backup images from DVD, and see if it's happening there too. If it is then you could send it to Czech Republic for a repair.

So far the repair process seems way better than anything I have experienced before. I arranged a pickup time yesterday at 2PM, a DHL guy picked it up at 5PM and today at 8AM I got a text and an email that my notebook has arrived at the repair center in Czech Republic. I phoned them and asked to please try and fix my keyboard flex, and they just added it to the repair list. I will post as soon as I get some more information. They promised 10 days, but I hope it will be much shorter.

 

I for one LOVE my 3820TG even though it only has the "crappy" 5470 GPU. This laptop is capable of things that most high end laptops were incapable of a year ago. It's the perfect blend of weight, size, performance and style. The only problem I really have with it is the french canadian keyboard mine came with, but that's hardly a flaw that Acer can be blamed for, other than the decision (probably born from ignorance) to sell it with that keyboard across the country.

 

You can use the p switch only in one direction on AC. From Intel to the ATI. A switch back will not work.

On DC both direction a working.

On the other side post facts like wlan card model, display model ....

 

Shhhhhh! His is perfect.

Bronsky

 

Sorry my mistake.

If you press 3 times the p botton, the services will come in with a hot cup of coffee and a slice of the cake.

If you press the button 4 times, the services will come in with a beer bottle.


To continue ...

 

And if you don't press it, after 10 minutes, it will prompt you to do so

 

Hi,

So I just recently bought the i5 460 5650 version of 3820tg on PCHome. Its gonna be arriving by Friday I believe. I was wondering if someone could point me to the instructions to get a clean install of english windows 7/ make all the back up files/ get all the acer programs back while deleting all the bloatware.

I understand that all the information is all over the thread.. but with over 100 pages its hard to pinpoint all of them. So thank you for your help.

Oh btw, where can i get a legitimate iso version of windows 7 to install with my usb stick?

And I've also read in this thread about people looking for the type of monitor they have on their 3820tg.. i was wondering which type of monitor is considered good or bad. Thanks.

 

Anybody have SSD problems with the 3820TG? I put a OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD in mine and started to install Windows 7, but that was a short lived adventure. At some point during the installation it froze and the SSD is no longer detected (and it takes 5 minutes just for the computer to not detect it).

I do a lot of work that involves reading (but not writing) a great number files, so I thought an SSD would be great. Plus, I was hoping that it would make it boot faster. I've never owned an SSD before, but I was optimistic...

 

has anyone found a fix

for the Acer Recovery problems?

that some people have gotten with errors after burning the first disk etc?

 

Hi, these are my AutorunX drivers list:
list1, list2, list3, list4, list5
Note that I have ALPS TouchPad Driver instead of Synaptics. I haven't install any of them yet, is it better for me to use Synaptics?

Also, I install these drivers in this order (BIOS is in Switchable mode):
ATI VGA Driver
Intel Chipset Driver
Intel Turbo Boost Driver
AHCI Driver
Realtek Audio Driver
Alcor CardReader
Atheros LAN Driver
Foxconn Atheros Bluetooth Driver
Foxconn Atheros HB97 2x2 BGN
? ALPS/Synaptics? (not installed yet)

Applications:
Launch Manager
Intel MEI (to get rid off the Unknown device in Device Manager)

I have i5-460M, but the WEI is only 5.8 for Processor ( link), how come? Should it at least have 6.7 score (same as 430M)?

Also, when I switch to discrete and try to run WEI, I got this blue screen ( link)

Should I follow this?

Switchable -> install Acer ATI VGA from APPDRV1 DVD -> Discrete -> ATI Catalyst 10.8... should I??

Thanks for any reply...

Update: I got 6220 on 3DMark06... and the CPU score is only 1375... wow, now I think i5-460M is actually worse than 430M?

 

Well, this is stupid. Im getting a black scren whenever I change to discrete graphics, or start windows with discrete graphics. I tried rolling back drivers, reinstalling them, uninstalling them, but NOTHING SEEMS TO WORK. Not even system restore. This happened suddenly too. Not cool.
on a 3820tg with 54xx graphics

 

Here is my write up on converting an imported unit to an English version of windows. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...rks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-162.html#post6465732.

As far as monitors, all models and brands seems to have good and bad units.

Bronsky

 

After 3 reboots, the issue seems to be gone.



Good that I don't have to go through all the hassle proving Acer it's a hardware issue.

What discharge rate do You usually get with WLAN on? I can't go below like 10.4, and it increases to 14-22 when browsing, so I get nowhere near 6 hours of battery life.

Glad to hear the repair proccess going well, looking forward to Your experiences.

Speaking of Your query fixing the keyboard flex, if redoing the thermal paste voids the warranty, would it be possible to ask the repair centre to do that for You - among other warranty repairs?

 

After I installed my current SSD (Crucial M225), my computer would not detect it. When I opened the bottom panel, it was clear that the drive had worket itself loose.


I cut a small piece of eraser and wedged it in behind the drive to keep it snugly fit into the ESata socket.

Check to make sure that your drive is firmly fitted in the connectors.

Bronsky

 

You just need to read back 10 pages, all your questions are answered. Can you make a screenshot of autorun when you finished creating your 4th DVD?

 

Does anyone know where I can get one of these with the specs stated in the original post? I am UK based and all the models of this laptop sold in the UK seem to come with a lesser model graphics card than stated at the beggining of the thread.

 

I don't know I strongly suggest everyone to use ISO files to back up. If someone really made some problem, I might try to upload them, but I have a monthly limit on my connection and it's not really easy to upload 14 GB of data...

They could still burn recovery media in a shop on any 3820TG or on a friends machine. Just don't use physical media, you can never trust what's actually written on a disk before you try to read it back.

 

If it happens on a freshly restored factory image too, then you should just send it back to the shop or send it in for a repair, if you run out of time.

 

Yesterday I was actually thinking about that what would happen if I send in my computer including a quality thermal paste like MX3 or IC7 in the box, and asking them to please reapply the paste. But if you are not really cautious and caring when applying thermal paste, you can actually make things worse, so I don't know if it's a good idea. Including a thermal paste applying instructions would be a bit impolite thing to do with a service mechanic.

kiskapu, I would just save the whole system as it is with any free backup utility (like Macrium Reflect Free, what has a bootable live CD/USB), and just restore the original factory system, and check what kind of power usage are you getting there. I think you system has some driver conflicts what makes it use that much power.

 

Thanks for the answer concerning fans loudliness.

So finally I got my unit. So far it's being great (except the bloatwere).
Doing backup right now, though I wonder if the eRecovery factory disk create image of the whole HDD and all partitions. So if I get my 4 isos (DVDs), I don't need to use any other backup software (like VirtualCD, DriveImage xml), right ?

 

Computeruniverse.de? The swedish shop? Amazon.de with a 750GB model?
Acer AS3820TG-5464G75nks 33,7 cm Notebook: Amazon.de: Elektronik

Within EU you don't have to pay import duties or VAT other then the one in the source country.

 

Look, you got a ALPS touchpad and a different webcam (or maybe it's just a rename)

 

Recovery worked fine for me, burnt all the DVDs, tested them, autorun works fine as well.

 

Am I crazy?

Maybe...

I've just ordered a Mini PCI-E slot and a Kingmax 64GB Mini PCI-E SSD

I figure I've already voided the warrantee by swapping the processor...

My old Processor (i5-430M) and 4GB RAM are up on fleabay. Search for username airsoftguy1

 

Hi, I am very interested in buying this notebook, but I have some worries maybe you could help me with. If some of them were already discussed here, I am sorry, but its hard to proper search 475 pages of text.

So, first, I have seen and read few articles about display brighteness flickering. Are every units affected by this, or is it random or even just driver problem?

Second, I have also read about WLAN problems, do you experience any?

And last, I would like do to fresh Windows 7 install, do I destroy waranty by doing so?

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry, I missed one question. Is the Atheros Wi-Fi card bad, when on the first side on this forum is written that you can simply change it for Intel 6200? Thanks.

Second EDIT: Well I know I must look like pain in the for you guys, but I am searching and serching for all the info I can find, nad now I found a mutation of 3820TG which should have wi-fi Intel Link 5100. Is this real option, I mean is there model with this card or its just bad description in my e-shop? I ask becouse you write there is either Atheros or Broadcomm and they both suck. Thanks.

 

Thanks! I will do so the moment the notebook's gonna be in my hands when not working.
Does this mean I'm right about my laptop being power hungry with it's avarege 10W idle (with WLAN) consumption?

About the thermal paste, You're right, although I might give it a try if there'd be any warranty repairs.

1. Random.

2. Random. My WLAN is fine, it's an Atheros one.

3. No clean install voids any warranty.

4. Again, no problem with Atheros here, although many members swapped it with an Intel one. One of the offices I work in has the router located one floor away and I still get max signal strength and bandwith.
WLAN is not a problem since the card can easily be accesed through the service panel.

 

szero how did u manage to get 8hrs out of 6cell ?

 

The flickering issue may be a driver problem. I think the jury is out on that one though. I have not experienced the problem, and I think a majority of users have the same experience.

I never had a WLAN problem - again, I think the issue is overblown.

A fresh Win7 install shouldn't void the warrantee, however, Acer support is the final authority on this. Some recommend taking the original drive and storing it to put in a better/faster/bigger HDD. I recommend a better/faster/bigger HDD and taking an image. If you use a winPE boot and gimageX you can save seperate, editable images of each of the recovery partitions if desired.

The wifi card is just a mini PCI-E card. You can change it for whatever you want - just make sure you have drivers for whatever it is you want to install.

 

Take a peek:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/488205-acer-timelinex-3820tg-owners-lounge-info-benchmarks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-437.html#post6656882