Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

i flashed it last week but decided to roll back the original because no matter how i changed the throttling temp it still reverted back to 1200MHz after the same amount of time.

 

Then what you need is ThrottleStop. WARNING, I already tried this, the processor won't throttle anymore when I'm playing SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED, but the 3830TG turns off suddenly, I think it is because of overheating.

 

Im not buying this laptop because its clearly poorly designed and build quality isnt great. Throttling means you arent using your hardware to max potential... and you DID pay for it. Shame on acer for screwing up this bad,,, its unacceptable.

But since you already have it, you may want to try the following:

1. Get some good thermal paste instead of the stock one. Prolimatech pk-1 is getting really good reviews and good temp drops and only costs 10$.

2. Considering buying a 20$ notebook cooling pad. These things are effective.

3. If the above 2 dont help you can always try to modify the heatsink to spread out the heat throughout the entire case. You could buy some copper foil online for this purpose (or try aluminum - it cant hurt but prolly wont be as effective).


Dont forget this... if your laptop is overheating and shutting down it wont live long. High temperatures are the only thing that can kill a notebook and you should keep an eye out on it. Speaking from experience take it for what its worth.

Good luck.

oh and btw ... if you keep temps high you will destroy your battery. Lions cant stand heat and get degraded in the process. if you keep running your notebook at max temps, maybe thats why your battery wear % is so high? (although i know there must be another reason because nothing can ruin a healthy battery this quick... but maybe its contributing to the problem?).

 

Acer - what have you done to your beautiful Timelines?

Bronsky

 

Hi ptrkhh, how did you set the profiles in ThrottleStop? Did you set it up like unclewebb explained (using 2 profiles)?

 

Went chasing new technology and tried to take shortcuts on design and pricing I would guess.

 

do sandybridge cpu s get more hot than previous core i cpu s ?
core i cpu s seriously were getting too hot.

 

And this is CrystalMarkDisk on my 3830TG with the Crucial M4 512GB:

 

The cooling solution on these Acer laptops is inadequate when you try to run the CPU at its Intel rated speed while gaming. If you are using ThrottleStop to fix the throttling problem then you should also be using the ThrottleStop alarm feature and set up a second profile so when your CPU gets up to 90C (DTS=10), you can switch to a second profile that has the Disable Turbo feature checked.

Doing this is a good compromise. It will reduce performance a little and your laptop probably won't shut down anymore. It's a lot better to manage the amount of throttling yourself based on your core temperature than to let the Acer bios manage this. Acer thinks dropping the CPU down to 1200 MHz while gaming is a good idea but that instantly kills performance. Acer should have invested a few more bucks into an adequate heatsink and fan instead of the poor throttling scheme they dreamed up.

 

m11x is actually 700 bucks, so its cheaper than the 3830tg

 

Was looking at some specs tonight and noticed that the Sandbridge CPU's actually have max temps 5C less than the arrandales. What is that about? The I3 is 85C and I5 100C for a PGA socket.

Bronsky

 

Hello again everybody,

Since my last post I've played Assassins Creed, Prototype, Dirt 2, and Civilization V too with the highest settings on my 3830TG, and there's still no throttling issues at all. The GPU went up to 76C and the CPU to 78C after 3 hours of continous playing with Dirt 2, these were the max temperatures I can remember. Compared to what you can read on notebookcheck's review (most games lags due to throttling issues except Trackmania, c'mon...) these were pretty good results for me. Though I will test games like GTA 4 and Crysis 2 to see if they can overheat the CPU, I think this little machine is a perfect compact gaming notebook, and I did not regret buying it. The bottom of it is quite warm though when I'm gaming, and I use it in a glass table which is not very good, plus there's like 28C in the room. I guess I will look for a good notebook cooler to avoid that the heating gets worse over time. Any suggestions for that?

Another thing: how can you reinstall the Windows, cause there's no install disk for it? I remember I read sg about a hidden partition where you can find the install if you want to reinstall your system, but where is it, and how to do the process? I would really appreciate if someone could explain it.

And yet another thing: the power led in the front of the notebook (near the wifi and HDD led) is like a button, but nothing happens if I push it. Does it do anything at all?
-------------------------------

Okay I just checked the power led in the quick guide, so it shows the battery status, even when it is turned off. Still curious about the Windows reinstall though...

Oh and ONE more thing: DAE tried to run Just Cause 2? I get directX fatal error code 3 (the error message says to try to run it in failsafe mode but i have no clue what it is) and theres no way to run it, even after I installed the DirectX version that came with the game. I looked for the issue and there's some suggestions to try an alternative video driver but I want to stay with the original. Anyone who was able to play it with the stock driver?

 

Did you track CPU speeds while running these? I'm wondering if you have a newer BIOS or something that throttles with much smaller steps or something. If so that's a fair solution. My core i5 460M can go up / down by 133MHz steps so I'm sure the newer ones are somewhat similar. There's no reason to just drop to 1.2 the second things get a little hot. If Acer fixed it by dropping one step at a time til temps come down / settle at something safe then they may have saved the 3830TG from the giant dustbin of history.

 

Didn't track the cpu speeds (any program suggestion for that?), the BIOS version is 1.02, which was the stock version, I didn't update it. I have a W7 widget though that shows the CPU clock real time, when the system idle, or with web browsing I noticed it drops to 1.7GHz, but that's the minimum.

 

Link? URL?

 

Is it easy or difficult to put thermal paste to the laptop? Should I get help from experienced person?

I'm using Sakar Cooling Pad, bought when in promo for US$5 only.

Hmm...is there any space left to modify the heatsink? Has anyone tried this?

After that sudden shutdown, I will not use ThrottleStop anymore except if I really need it (may be for work, not for gaming)

May be if I didn't run the temperature that high, the battery wear will not be this high..

Acer TimelineX Throttling-edition and Ultra-High-Battery(Wear)

Oops.. I didn't read that before..sorry..

They have done right in the 3820TG with dual-fan cooling system..Acer should copy-paste the cooling system from the 3820TG to the 3830TG, and not invest anymore on the cooling system.

 

@ptrkhh

Applying thermal paste is simple. Have you ever put butter on a piece of bread? Not really harder than that no joke... all you have to do is buy some thermal paste and open up the inside of the laptop. Then you take of the copper heatsink and put some paste... make sure it makes good contact and thats it.

Stock stuff is usually not the best, so this is the first thing i would do if i was you. It should drop your temps by a good margin. There are a lot of instructions online if you are still still unsure about it.

 

if you've never taken apart a notebook before then maybe it worth to ask for assistance from some friend of yours who did this kind of stuff before.

 

If you take it to your local repair tech shop, they will normally do it for about an hour or two's pay (I can do the job in 20 minutes ), depending on what they charge. I wouldn't pay more than $50. Ask them what paste they use. It might be worth it to give them what you want installed.

Bronsky

 

I have been playing with throttlestop for about a week now. I am using the settings unclewebb posted some pages back. it improved witcher 2's performance, although there are still sudden drops of framerate. In GTA IV Episodes of Liberty City, the throttling is really bothersome. It makes the game unplayable at medium to high settings. With throttlestop, it's playable but still has occasional drops in frame rate. It's probably bad optimization in Rockstar's part. Is anybody using throttlestop for the new timelinex? Can you share what settings work best for you?

 

Hi docbaca, I'm using throttlestop according to unclewebb's guide several pages back (setting 2 profiles), and everything seems OK. I haven't tried Witcher 2/GTA IV though, so I cannot say anything about those games. However, I'm quite sure that the drops in frame rate in some games are also caused by VGA driver (I upgraded from stock Acer driver and use v. 175.33 now), or maybe the game itself (like NFS Carbon, previously I got awful drops in fps, but after I upgraded to v. 1.4 of the game, the fps becomes stable above 40 almost everytime).

 

docbaca: When gaming, enable the ThrottleStop - Log File option and also go into the Options window and enable the Nvidia GPU option so hopefully it can monitor and record your GPU temps at the same time.

Exit ThrottleStop after you are finished gaming and the data collected might provide some more info about the throttling you are seeing. Upload the ThrottleStopLog.txt file to MediaFire and send the link to me in a PM so I can have a look. I don't own an Acer laptop so some more data can be very useful.

 

Ok, I hate to ask this as it's probably already been covered but does anybody have some steps or guide to replacing the hard drive in one of these? I can't seem to make the search tool work for me with this forum... I'm looking at the 5830TG model and was thinking I'd pop in a SSD drive for better performance after the fact. I guess I could just use a drive imaging software.

 

Hi, i have an issue with throttling on my 4830TG(core i3) too even though i use throttlestop. The CPU temperature reaches around 80C before dropping speed to around 1300 Mhz. I ran burn test using AIDA64 and Furmark. The GPU temp is around 72C(Max 75C). Is throttlestop working or i set incorrectly? I just check the 'Chipset Clock Mod' and disable Alarm feature. I am posting my screenshot and log here -> My Acer4830TG.rar

 

If I set the multiplier to 23 (not Turbo), the temprature is constant around 90 Celcius.
But, there is a bigger problem:
I'm using the ThrottleStop (multiplier=23) when playing SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED, then, I accidentally clicked the "Turn Off" button in ThrottleStop, then the 3830TG restart suddenly (without Logging Off, Shutting Down), and the Windows can't boot up, then the system goes into "Startup Recovery", it takes almost half a hour, and failed!
Then I restored using the F10 command in BIOS, and the system restored successfully.

Typed this on the just-restored 3830TG

 

hoyhey: Try putting a check mark in the Set Multiplier box too. If that doesn't help then try setting up a second profile with a reduced multiplier and set the Alarm temperature to DTS 10 so the CPU will switch to this slower profile when it is 10C away from the Intel designed thermal throttling point.

ptrkhh: I'm not sure what happened but glad to hear that you were able to recover. When you use ThrottleStop to disable throttling, you need to keep a close eye on your CPU and GPU temperatures. You might have to reduce your multiplier a couple of more notches so your laptop can run reliably while gaming.

 

Hi ptrkhh, below I attach the screen captures of ThrottleStop I set based on unclewebb's suggestion (more below).

This is the 1st profile:



And this is the 2nd profile (I set it with a multiplier of 20, not 23):



Then this is the settings in Options window:



Lastly, this is unclewebb's post which explains the use of the 2 profiles:

Hope this helps.

 

even worse, today it happens again, by just updating Windows using "Windows Update", I haven't touched ThrottleStop after restoration, but the "Startup Repair" shows up again. What should I do?

But this time the "Startup Repair" takes almost half a hour and success!

Typed this on 4740G while the 3830TG is in "Startup Repair"

 

3830 4830 5830 are lost cases

 

thanks man, but i'm already using the latest nvidia drivers. GTA IV is just too demanding. in the graphics settings it only uses 650 mb of my 2 gb video memory. i reckon that it abuses the cpu instead. even if i lower the settings, there are still drops in frame rate. also, i noticed that i have virtually the same experience when using unclewebb's configuration and when completely disabling the turbo without profile switching. the benefit of the latter is that temperatures don't reach the 90 degree mark. i think the cpu's temperature rises rapidly within a few minutes of GTA IV, so unclewebb's configuration switches to profile 2 almost immediately. i'll keep using the completely disabled turbo and see whether there is any difference.

 

I plan on getting the 3830TG in a few weeks when i get the money, is the throttling issue a reason NOT to get this?
I'll be doing some moderate gaming on this, Portal 1 (maybe 2), Team Fortress 2, maybe Bad Company 2. And I'll probably do some photoshop and some music production software.
I can get this on Amazon for $750 plus the free XBOX deal since I'm in school.
I've been reading this thread the past couple days and it seems to be a big issue you all have been discussing. I just wanted to see if I should pull the trigger on this or not.

 

Hey guys! I'm a long time lurker and because of this forum purchased a 3820tg last summer. Unfortunately my house was broken into and my wonderful laptop was taken.

Question: I can pick up a new 3820tg, i5-480m, 6550 for 680$ CAD. Should I buy this or instead opt for the 3830tg?

RRhaire.

 

From my 3830TG(i5 cpu, 4GB ram, 750GB hdd version) experience:

Stalker, Powerdrome, Test Drive Unlimited, GTA San Andreas, IL2 Sturmovik, HalfLife 2,Portal 2 - played fluently even without the ThrottleStop

But once I setup the ThrottleStop with 2 profiles I'm enabling it everytime I run a game. So far it runs fluently also will these more performance hungry games: GTA4, Test Drive Unlimited 2.

I'm going to try Crysis 1/2 soon and I believe ThrottleStop will help as well if needed.

The CPU is at 90-95°C max when playing the more recent and complex games so no problem with dnagerous owerheating. Moreover I still can go down with the frequency from 2.2Ghz on the second profile if necessary as I haven't seen any big visual difference in the framerate when the freq is dropped for couple more hundred Hz down.

For other tasks (programming, graphics editors, browsing etc.) the temp is usually between 40-50°C and power consuption between 6-7W.
My battery capacity seems to be ok as well. The wear level increased up to 13% during the first few weeks of usage and now it is dropping after every cycle (currently at 7.75% according to BatteryCare tool).

So overall I'm happy with the machine and can live with the throttling without problem.(unfortunately I have not enough time to play games these days ;-))

The only weak spot is probably the glossy display. It took me some time to get used to it as I had ThinkPad T30 before with matt LCD.

BTW Anyone knows about some good solution how to make matt from the glossy LCD? I bought relatively expensive screen protection matt film but I failed to apply it on the LCD properly (it made bubbles on every small grain of dust :-/)

 

I play portal 2 without any lag. Bad Company 2 I haven't tried, but I think it would because I heard it's CPU intensive. I bought my 4830tg with full knowledge and consent that it would throttle even if my main reason for buying the laptop was to play new games. I thought a bios fix would do the trick, but acer still doesn't have a patch and i'm not expecting it anytime soon. even so, i wouldn't say that throttling is a sufficient reason for not getting this because it does have a lot of good qualities. it has nice and loud speakers; long battery life (at least in my case); usb 3.0; great specs and a sleek design. but then again, there are alternatives out there for you to choose from. the thing is some of them also have throttling issues and all sorts of problems. at least here we have a nice workaround for the main problem (throttlestop to solve throttling) and a supportive community ready to answer your questions.

 

are you playing the original gta iv or the episodes in liberty city? what settings do you use in-game and what configuration of throttlestop? i've been playing gta iv episodes from liberty city (medium to high) but i'm always experiencing sudden drops in frame rate. i am using unclewebb's advised config. maybe you can help me improve the game performance.

i faced virtually the same decision between 3820tg and 4830tg, but i opted for the newer one. i am experiencing lag in some new games. throttlestop helps but i bet with a 3820tg or a 4820tg, it wouldn't be necessary. but then again, i do have a usb 3.0 port and a next gen core i.

 

My 3830TG now keeps "Startup Repair" everytime I restart after a Windows Update. Anybody help!

Typed this on 4740G

 

I tested on original GTA IV (with update 1.0.7.0)

I created two statistics using the built-in benchmark mode.

This one is with basically everything at low quality:

Code:

Average FPS: 39.22
Duration: 37.33 sec
CPU Usage: 89%
System memory usage: 65%
Video memory usage: 37%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1366 x 768 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Low
Shadow Quality: Low
Reflection Resolution: Low
Water Quality: Low
Texture Filter Quality: Tri-Linear
Night Shadows: Off
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

And this one is with everything maxed up.

Code:

Average FPS: 26.32
Duration: 37.57 sec
CPU Usage: 94%
System memory usage: 65%
Video memory usage: 84%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1366 x 768 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: Very High
Water Quality: Very High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x16
Night Shadows: Very High
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

Some more notes:

-Using these two stats as limits you can get some real idea what performance you can achieve and tweak different options to get some compromise here.

-I personally doesn't notice big difference between 26 and 39 FPS while watching the benchmark (this is probably known fact as human eye is satisfied with 24fps used in movies.) but I can tell you there are no sudden drops in the framerate no matter if I play or run the benchmarks.

-The only parameters I kept always at full settings were 'View' and 'Detail' distance as I prefer to have good view of everything So maybe you could get some fps with lowering these values.

-I'm using ThrottleStop with the 2 profiles setup that has been suggested to me by the ThrottleStop author couple of pages back here in this thread. Which means: profile 1 - turbo on, profile 2 - turbo off, cpu [email protected]

-The CPU max temp during the tests/game and with ThrottleStop on was 91°C

-I'm using the original Nvidia drivers from Acer website.

Hope that helps someone...

 

What kind of battery life have people been getting?

That's the main thing holding me back on getting this over the Asus U36SD, and build quality. The Asus does have a much better build quality, but is it worth ~$225 and losing the gaming capabilities the 3830 has?

 

I think you would be insane to buy a machine with a botched design after you already know about the flaws. You really want to sign up for this and then sit there for hours trying all of these programs and settings just so your hardware performs how it was supposed to from the get go?

Whats your budget and what are you looking for?

 

hi! I've been reading this thread for a while and i'm interested in buying the 3830T or 4830T. I have no plans of playing games in it, just surfing and watching movies. If this is the case, should i be concerned about the throttling issue? also, i know that the battery is built inside the case. should this be a concern? are there still any battery issues similar to what i've read in the first few pages of this thread?
i'm hoping to buy a laptop with the specs and price of this new timelinex.

 

Thanks! It does seem to work now! I made the throttlestop to switch to profile to with speed of 1.8ghz and the actual speed won't go below that

But the max temp(Tjunction) for core i3 is only at 85C (unlike 100C of i5). The laptop will shut down should the temp exceeds. I ran another burn test last night and yes, the temp did exceed (and it shut down). I should have gone for core i5

Guess i will have to buy a cooling pad

 

Seeing there are some issues with the 3830TG I would opt for the 3820TG if you don't need USB 3.0 and a slightly faster sandybridge cpu.

 

if you're just gonna use it for surfing and watching movies, then it should be fine. your temperatures wouldn't even be near the throttling point so no worries. i am typing now at a temperature of 48 degrees Celsius. in my 4830tg, the battery doesn't have any problem. but a lot of users already complained about battery wear on the 3830tg. maybe it's a 3830tg thing, not a 4830tg. even though it is inside the case, it is replaceable, but you have to open the whole thing i think.

 

Just sent my 3830TG to the ACSC (Acer Customer Service Center), complaining for the battery wear problem (the last time in the ACSC is 34%.
They said it needs around 5 workdays.
I said to them not to replace the battery with Panasonic.

 

I don't know why, but every BIOS download for the 4830 Series has been removed from the Acer website (3830 and 5830 downloads are still there).

 

in ACSC where did you service your laptop, please tell me your solution when you got it back from ACSC

 

I never noticed that before but you're right. Some Core i3-2310M CPUs are limited to a maximum junction temperature of only 85C which isn't much in a laptop with an under designed cooling solution.

Intel® Core™ i3-2310M Processor (3M Cache, 2.10 GHz)with SPEC Code(s)SR04R, SR04S

Paying a little extra for an i5 is money well spent to avoid this problem.

 

Copied from Acer Support:
ACSC Mangga Dua Square Address 1: Ruko Mangga Dua Square Blok. A No. 1-2 Address 2: Jl.Gunung Sahari Raya I City: Jakarta Telefon: +62-21-2650 7777 Fax: +62-21-6231 2997 [email protected] Monday - Saturday 8.30 am - 4.30 pm

Sure, I will let everyone here know

 

Anyone can recommend a good cooling pad? I am looking at Cooler Master NotePal U2

Anyway, my battery wear still at 3% It's 2 weeks since i bought (4830TG). Though i use it most of the time on AC power. My battery is Sanyo.

I recently noticed too Too bad, else i would have spent a little more (i did research and think core i3 shd be fast enough for my usage)...

 

ThrottleStop saved my day! Playing Starcraft 2 with sudden slowdowns wasn't really funny at all. I do have one request though. Could you make the program a little more user-friendly?

What I have in mind:
- A simple autostart-option without toying around with the windows tools
- A graphical tray icon, showing the temperature state, perhaps with some bars.*
- Explanation of the buttons inside the program. A simple tooltip would do best.
- An auto-adjustment of the multiplier. When a certain temperature (96°) is reached, the multiplier is adjusted until the temperature stays under 95°.

Yesterday, I used a multiplier of 21, leading to a shutdown of my CPU at 100°. (Standard clock is 23, with Turbo-Boost it should be 29!).

*like this one from ZoneAlarm: http://audible.custhelp.com/rnt/rnw/img/enduser/everest/-firewalls-ZoneAlarmIcon2-2913.gif