Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

On a hungarian forum i read that the best price\value coolers are the Cooler Master NotePal Infinite EVO and NotePal E1. They say that actually in a test the E1 beats the U2.

BTW, yesterday I tried to just put some plastic bottle cups from a fruit juice under the notebook and guess what, playing with Dirt 2 (hours, not jus a few mins) instead of 71 and 76C I have constant 63C GPU and around 65C CPU temperature (!!!), which is almost 10 degrees less simply by letting the air flow under the machine! Previously as I said it was on a glass table. So I guess if I buy a cooler too, I won't have issues with throttling even when I play GTA or Crysis 2.

Any help for me about Windows 7 reinstalling and Just Cause 2 issue?

 

Never!

ThrottleStop is a powerful tool that is used to unlock and overclock the world's fastest Core 2 Extreme and Core i7-920XM/940XM mobile CPUs. Some user friendliness has been sacrificed for improved performance and a small CPU / memory foot print. Extreme overclocking or changing how much your CPU throttles is not intended for novice users.

To add ThrottleStop to the Windows startup do this.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6865107-post2.html

or drag a Short Cut link to ThrottleStop.exe into your Windows startup folder. Click on the Windows logo at the bottom left of your screen and then click on All Programs to find the Windows Startup folder.

Instead of a graphical tray icon showing temps, why not just turn on the ThrottleStop feature that shows you the highest CPU core temperature in the system tray?

I'm not a fan of tool tips. If you don't understand something, push the F1 key on the keyboard while ThrottleStop is high lighted and read the manual. It covers most of the basics.

Throttlestop already has an Alarm feature that many Acer users are using. Just set an Alarm at a DTS value of 10 which is 10 degrees away from the thermal throttling point and tell ThrottleStop to switch to a second profile that has Disable Turbo selected and a lower multiplier if needed to control heat. This should help prevent your laptop from getting too hot and shutting down. ThrottleStop will automatically switch back to your main, full speed profile when your CPU temperature cools off. This feature works great to control this problem.

The Intel specified thermal shutdown temperature is 125C. I have no idea why some laptop manufacturers have decided to do a thermal shutdown at 100C. You might want to ask the Acer engineers why they don't trust the thermal management capabilities of an Intel CPU which are first class.

You have some good ideas but unfortunately NBR does not allow solicitation of donations so ThrottleStop development has mostly ended.
Have fun playing StarCraft2 at a decent frame rate.

 

I already tried the Alarm-Feature. Problem is, that as soon as the temperature falls below 90° for a moment, it immediately switched back to Turbo. This happens twice a second. The temperature rises slowly then, one moment it has 87°, the other moment it's at 95/96/97°. Is there no way to tell the program to use Turbo only when the temperature has fallen below 85°?

 

3830tg appears in Canada:

700$ for: i5-2410M (2.3GHz), 6GB RAM, 750GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M 1GB

NCIX.com - Canada's Premier Computer Store - Online PC Discount Store, Buy Computer Accessories

Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3830TG-6494, Notebook (Blue) - Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz), 13.3" HD (1366x768), 6GB RAM, 750GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M 1GB, No ODD, Wireless BGN, Bluetooth 3.0, HDMI, Webcam, USB 3.0, 6-cell, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bi

I wonder if I made the right choice getting the 3820tg 2 months earlier for nearly the same price!

 

ATTENTION STUDENTS:
Amazon.com: Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3830TG-6431 13.3-Inch Laptop (Cobalt Blue Aluminum): Computer & Accessories


for us buyers on amazon
3830tg for 749,99 free shipping and a FREE XBOX 360

just sayin....

 

Maybe, maybe not. But the throttling troubles and inadequate cooling with the new 13'' timelineX's seem worrying.

 

You have the option of replacing the CPU on your own. Just buy an i5 CPU from ebay.

 

Based on your signature, may I ask you is VAIO Z better than 3820TG, is it worth the price?
What's the plus of the Z over the 3820TG? And the minus?

 

I've got the 3830TG and I don't think replacing your i3 with an i5 changes anything. The CPU has 2,3 Ghz (2,9 with Turbo) and the best I can do is running it at 1,9 Ghz.

It's a bad design by Acer. With ThrottleStop it's bearable, but far from optimal. It's like selling a Ferrari with a Vmax of 150 km/h. So I'm gonna wait some months for a better model to come and then call the Customer Service to replace / improve mine.

 

can you guys recommend an effective cooling pad for my 4830tg? thanks

 

Every cooling pad should do it. Even placing four cigarette pakets below the laptop to lift it helps.

 

i already have a cooling pad. but my temps still reach 90 degrees. i tried playing the same game and the same settings earlier with a diy setup of lifting the back of the notebook and focusing a small fan. it wouldn't win any awards for looks and neatness but i never reached a temp above 80 degrees - spectacular. if only i can find a cooling pad that does the same.

 

Sounds amazing! When you focused the fan on the back, did it run at Full Turbo Speed with 80 degrees?

Perhaps the CoolerMaster Notepal U3 could be the right choice.
Link: NotePal U3 - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply

 

Nope, i disabled turbo via throttlestop. Without my diy setup and with my old cooling pad, temps reach about 89 degrees, turbo disabled. The fan i am using is like a miniature industrial fan made of steel, which probably explains the drop in temp. The drop in temp translates to a better gaming experience in witcher 2. In gta iv, not that much - it's really a poorly optimized game. Thanks for the recommendation, but i don't think shops sell that product in our country.

 

Temps of 90 are still okay, I think. At 100 the CPU switches your laptop off, so everything under 95 should be okay, if it works stable. I'm trying the Notepal U2 the next days and will report here.

Currently, without any cooling and the laptop being traditionally on a wooden table, a multiplier of 19 without turbo works stable for me. Lifting the laptop 4 centimeters above the table allows for a multiplier of 21. I wonder if a cooling pad could make the Turbo-Dream (x29) come true

One question I do have though: Is it possible to control the fan of the 3830TG? I think, the notebook just doesn't run it at full speed, because it's always really quiet.

 

Try to install the latest bios.

 

3820TG: Better GPU, both GPU and CPU are OC'able
Vaio Z: Better, high resolution screen, backlit and nicely tactile keyboard, DVD drive, dual-SSD

If you have to pay full price for the Vaio Z, I would say that it's not worth it, but since I bought it as a refurb for only $1000, it's a worthwhile alternative for me.

 

Does anyone have the 3830T model (the one without Nvidia!), not the TG!

I wanted to know about the temperature when using the cpu 100%. I might buy the 3830T in august.

 

With turbo on, I reach temperatures of 91 for games like witcher 2 and gta iv. the multiplier reaches about 27, but it switches to profile 2 with multiplier 21 which i set in throttlestop to prevent further increases in temperature. however, i noticed that disabling the turbo altogether results to similar, even better gaming experience. furthermore, the cpu and gpu do not heat up too much. i have never reached a multiplier of 29 though. from experience, i came to believe that a cooling pad directly in contact with the notebook's base doesn't perform well.

 

The 29 multiplier is only used when 1 core is awake and 1 core is in the C3/C6 sleep state. When gaming, this is rarely the case so that's why you won't see the 29 multiplier. If you run a single threaded benchmark like Super Pi Mod and lock it to a single thread of your CPU using the task manager Set Affinity... function, you will see your highest multiplier on that thread as reported by ThrottleStop. You still won't see 29 though because there are always Windows background tasks that wake up the second core on a regular basis. You might see an average of 28.0 or so during this test.

Download Super PI Mod v1.5 | techPowerUp

 

Does anyone know how to install a newer Nvidia driver on the 3830TG? The official ones from NVidia do not support the Hybrid-Setup of the machine and those from Acer are really outdated.

 

Lots of mobile drivers here to choose from when testing.

NVIDIA & Laptop News | Latest NVIDIA drivers and related news | laptopvideo2go.com

 

My review: Acer 3830tg: i5-2410m, 6 gb ram, 750gb hdd, 540m 1gb

I had to decide between the 3820tg and the 3830tg... I had my mind set on the the 3820tg but when i saw the specs and the beautiful case design in person, I made a split second decision and bought the 3830tg.

I owned the 3820tg up until a couple weeks ago (it was stolen) so I have had a chance to play with both laptops.

1. I dont care what people say about the "flimsy keyboard", the keyboard on the 3830tg is a HUGE improvement. If you press on the keys reasonably there is barely any flex.
2. The screen/lid is much sturdier than the 3820tg, hands down.
3. Touchpad is a huge improvement on the 3820tg. A bit smaller but much more responsive. I also noticed the page down slide thing on the right side of the trackpad worked a lot better
4. The first time I played starcraft 2, I was disappointed. The cpu does throttle, no matter what. However, throttlestop completely solves this issue. Turn it on, set multiplier to 20 and SC2 gets 50fps avg at medium-high settings even in big battles. (100+fps early game, 30fps during big battles). Cpu temp holds between 70-80 C even after 4 hours of playing. Hopefully acer releases a bios update to completely solve the issue.
5. I haven't noticed any clear sign of battery wear. It varies between 4% and 8%, back and fourth.
6. Speaker system is much much better.

So if i could go back and choose? I would probably buy the 3830tg. Throttlestop allows for better gaming performance than the 3820tg and the increase in ram and HDD are great.

my 2 cents.

RRHaire.

 

I already knew the site, but they don't have any newer driver compatible with the 3830TG. I read somewhere else, that the 275.33 could be installed by using a custom inf-file. This driver should have a huge improvement in speed. It's a shame that Acer provides only the old driver.

 

Don't agree here! With Throttlestop, what is your max 3dmark11 score?

 

I think the 3820TG might have been the better choice. RAM-Amount is the same (4GB), the GPU is almost quite as good (Radeon HD6550M 1GB vs Nvidia GT 540m 2GB), the HDD-size is the same with 750GB. The significant difference is the better cooling system (2 fans) with a Core i5 running at 2,93 Ghz Turbo-Speed (no throttling).

I'm thinking about returning the 3830TG (cooling system fault) and getting myself a 3820TG.

 

you should check the earlier posts, if i remember correctly, it was through this forum that i was able to update mine to 275.33.

 

Nothing on this forum, already checked that. One guy of another used a custom inf file, but the link he posted was dead. Some advise to use the inf of 275.xx (an earlier version), which works on some machines, but this has no support for our notebooks.

LaptopVideo2Go points to some 270.xx drivers as the latest, which are already outdated. Seems the site just wants to promote their DriverAgent.

Guess I'm stuck with the old driver forever.

EDIT: I found a solution. Ironically, laptopvideo2go didn't have the 275.33, but the newer 275.50 driver to download, which works great so far. Here's the link: http://laptopvideo2go.com/drivers?dev=0DF4&sub=054E1025&whql=0&lang=0&orderby=version&dir=desc&os=

 

What would be the difference in performance between an i5 first gen and an i5 2nd gen running at the same clock?

 

Just did a quick test on my 4830tg ( I know youve asked baout 3830tg but since they have the same specs I think this also works) with oced 540gt to 800/1000 mhz and i got 1274 points on 3d mark 11 quite good I think

 

If I read the signature correctly, the 3820TG had 1455 Points in 3DMark.

I really like the design of the 3830, but it's a shame that Acer made it so slow. I'm glad, I didn't buy the core i7-version, though

 

Is PCHome now the only place left to buy a 3820TG? The Canadian supply seems to have dried up.

 

Clock to clock, Sandy Bridge could gain on average of 14% against first gen!

So, if you compare between 3820TG and 3830TG:

i5-480m (2.66GHz) vs i5-2410m(2.3 GHz)

2.3 x 114% = 2.645 Ghz, which is still a little lower than i5-480m

Oh, i5-480 can probably overclock 15% more... and u cannot OC i5-2410m (yet)

 

In Germany, there are still plenty of 3820TG.

 

The NotebookCheck review of the throttling 3830 had a 3DMark11 score of only 991.

Review Acer Aspire 3830TG Subnotebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Your strong running 3820TG lays waste to that.

Sandy Bridge bus speed / base clock overclocking, when possible, is very limited before you lose stability so that's not going to help.

Hopefully some more 3830TG owners will post their 3DMark11 results.

 

You all forget intel quick sync which is only available in Sandy Bridge, when you're comparing the cpu from 3820. When doing video encoding/decoding the 3830 will smoke the 3820

 

QuickSync will be bound to the same thermal restrictions as the rest of the cpu. When encoding h264 (haven't done other codecs in a long time), your cpu cores run at 95% - 100% the whole time. Without capping CPU use in your encoding program, the 3830TG will just throttle down to 1.2 Ghz after 10 minutes.

 

I have 3dMark Vantage, which uses Direct X 10/11. I got over 4000 points using the tests of the free version.

 

3DMark Vantage, uses DirectX 10, no DirectX 11 in it.

 

Will the throttling issue on the 3830TG be an issue for simulations/data analysis that run on MATLAB or with CUDA? So far it seems that most of the performance discussions have been in relation to gaming. I am assuming that performance issues will translate over to other applications as well?

 

Thanks! thats great info. I have another 10 days to play with my 3830tg before the return period expires (i've kept it in return-worthy conditions)

Its hard deciding whether or not to keep it. I'm really liking the improved lid, keyboard, trackpad and sound bar in addition to the 6gb of ram, but the processor still has me worried. *sigh*

 

I just got a P1069 result in 3DMark 11, using v. 175.33 nVidia driver.

 

Most likely Acer is trying to fix the problem???? i really hope they are i wanna keep this laptop

 

How much is the 4830TG in U.S.A?

 

750-800 usd

 

So why are people still buying this if owners left and right returning it for a refund and when there is throttling issues?

Shed some light please!

 

Well, I can only speak for myself. I bought it, because of its great look und because I could believe that the throttling could be such a great issue. The throttling has also its good side: I can return the machine anytime, because its a design fault.

 

Does PChome have any more either?

I haven't seen them in stock on PChome in a while now.

 

Wrong! Go read up on intel quick sync... Intel quick sync uses on average 20% cpu, which means that it will never hit the thermal limit

 

I don't think any of the online retailers carry them anymore. I've seen the 3820tg sold in stores but they are pretty much the same price as the 3830tg. Your best bet is to find a 2nd hand one on auction sites like Yahoo auction.. so you'll probably need to know someone who speak/write chinese in taiwan. I've seen it sold for 13,000 to 16,000 ($430-530) for the i3 model with Hd5650

Yahoo!????

EDIT: I found other websites that are selling them. I don't know if they will ship overseas, but you can probably ask them in English.

http://www.gohappy.com.tw/shopping/Browse.do?op=vp&sid=0&cid=37514&pid=1260193

http://www.pcstore.com.tw/sya572/M08010035.htm

http://www.beephone.com.tw/showallbuy.php?category=notebook&brand=Acer&model=Aspire+3820TG&page=1