Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

yea i figured as much. ok throttlestop it is ;p

i also saw this:

Acer Support: Specifications

it says it's a 65w adapter on there... and it's also only 0.5 lbs? I thought it was bigger/heavier from the complaints I'm reading about it


I'm strongly considering getting one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo

depending on what wattage it needs to be. acer seems to say it's a 65w adapter thats only 0.5 lbs!?!?


anyone here have the weight/dimensions of the stock acer power block?

 

That is only 3830T, no GT540M, hence only 65W is needed...

 

haha good point

vs the smallest 90w adapter size:
4.10" x 2.40" x 0.70" at approx 0.4 lbs

hmmm i guess that's not really worth it. not a big difference

i read somewhere someone was complaining how it's 1.5 lbs and massive....

 

This ?
Amazon.com: AcBel Ultra Slimmest & Smallest Laptop AC Adapter for Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG 3820T 4820T 4820TG 5820T 5820TG Series NoteBook PCs (Worldwide Safety Certificate with 3 years Warranty) + Free All-in-one Universal Plug Adapter: Electron

 

ooo nice find!

if i find the stock one too bulky i'll look into this.

considering how demanding the components are on power, i was hoping to stick with known brands (cooler master, antec, etc)

 

Haha, nevermind. Didn't refresh before I posted. Everyone already put up the good links.

The one from the Amazon link people were buying up in the 3820TG thread and everyone seemed to like it. Maybe stick a post in there asking about it?

 

what do you guys think about the 4830t build quality? im thinking of buying that but not sure since it is an acer...how do you guys think it will fare compared to like dell or asus?

also does anyone play maplestory? my brother may want to play that but worried about throttling, but i dont since i dont play games...

 

since there is no latch on the monitor, it may become loose during transportation ; it may wobble open when you carry it around. there is no chance of it completely opening but it's just annoying.
that being said, the hinge for the monitor itself looks strong, but is actually very weak. it wobbles very noticeably after opening it and if you are on a car or train.

the keyboard's keys are great and fun to type on but there is flex ONLY if you press down very hard on the keys. the flex itself doesn't mean anything, only that they use flimsy plastic/aluminum for the keyboard and most of the chassis.

im considering returning this for an HP envy because their overall build quality is far more sturdy

do not worry about throttling on the 4830t. the throttling afaik is due to the dedicated graphics card on the 3840 and does not apply to the 4830 because its graphics card is integrated. the fan runs smooth and quiet. again, if you are hesitant about buying this model because of throttling, do not be.

maplestory is not very graphics dependant AT ALL. my brother can play it on his 7 year old sony desktop with integrated graphics just fine.

 

I have the envy 15 and I was considering getting a envy 14 before I saw this. This is a much much better deal in terms of components. But you sacrifice on build quality.

I got sold on the 7 hrs of realistic battery life and the 540m

 

In my country, the HP Envy 14 price = 2 x 4830TG + 1 x USD 200 phone..

 

yea here it's about $800 after the free xbox $200 discount thing.

the acer 3830tg is only $600 after the xbox discount and taxes

 

Just received my 3830TG yesterday, they replaced the HDD (from WD to Hitachi).

It's so strange, how the hard drive affects the BT+LAN? (I complaint about BT+LAN doesn't work)

I drained the battery, then charge it to full, then the Battery Wear went down from 1.5% to 0.0% (YES, 0.0%).

 

Well, my harddrive activity can be heard over the speakers. That's strange as well. I guess they haven't really isolated the parts on the inside.

 

may i ask if how can i use the NVIDIA GT 540m for my game which is Ragnarok Online?

cause im having problem with my ACER ASPIRE TIMELINE X 5830TG cause i cannot activate the NVIDIA to be use for ragnarok

instead of using the NVIDIA, my laptop uses the integrated video card which is the intel(R) Graphic Family

i tried the following already

custom setting for the program which i clicked the high performance

put everything in the control panel of NVIDIA as high performance

set physX as NVIDIA GT 540 m

tried right clicking the porgram and set it to high performance

set the laptop performance to high and not to save battery

updated my driver into 8.17.12.7533 using the method from one of our members

but in the end i failed to activate the NVIDIA to be use for my game

hope someone would respond thank you

 

I think there's no need for nVIDIA GPU for RO since RO is very light, even my old Intel GMA X3100 (Sony VAIO VGN-CR23G) is able to run RO. Running RO with nVIDIA GPU only wasting the battery.

Do you experience lags when you play RO with the Intel graphics?
If yes, it may not be the Intel graphics' fault, since online games rely to internet connection, slow/lagging internet connection makes the online games lag too

 

but is there any way that i can use it? well later on ill try to download H.O.N. and test is the nvidia would work

but frankly i want to run the raganarok using the Nvidia cause its my primary game

well in terms of what you were asking.. the lag. i see nothing big lag but during in some clash i can feel the lack of video card
i can feel that its not comfortable haha

cause i want a smooth gaming to it haha

also i dont mind wasting the battery for the game





hope someone that solve the force use the Nvidia will reply thanks

 

just got mine. so the graphics driver that comes with it is supposed to be really outdated right?

should I bother switching to the new laptop custom ini driver? is it a large improvement?

 

i upgraded mine.. i tried to upgrade through NVIDIA downloads but it says incompatible hardware

and i ended my 2 days search here haha

look at page 114 of this thread on how

or click here http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/553306-acer-timelinex-3830-4830-5830-t-g-114.html

they say in the that version of yours some games that needs nvidia doesnt show do its job..

in the later updates it says to their description that there are several improvement in to its games hope i helped you.

its up to you if you want to upgrade

if the games that you wanted are doing well.. why bother right haha

 

A link to the most current driver can be found in my signature

 

i think i got mine haha thanks because the codes are familiar haha

its from the device manager right?

thank you for link

 

so i guess i should probably update the driver then? i just tried starcraft 2 and dawn of war 2 at high settings doing around 50 fps. bad company 2 is updating so didn't get to check it yet.

 

hmmm can't seem to get vantage to run at all... it gives me an error message each time....


what software do you guys use to monitor gpu temps? i'm using hwmonitor and the 540 doesn't show up. is that because of the optimus?

 

so the 3830 throttles, some people report that the 4830 with nvidia graphic doesn't ?

 

Only the TG models are known to throttle. The T models apparently don't make enough waste heat to have a problem. Currently in the US only the 3830 is available in a TG form, the 4830 and 5830 are both plain T models here. Given the larger volume of the 4830, then 5830 progressively, I'd expect there to be less of a problem with throttling but I haven't seen a lot of info one way or another.

 

The 4830 doesn't have more space than the 3830, because of the optical drive. Haven't heard any reports about throttling 5830s so far.

 

anyone know how to turn on bluetooth?

 

Fn +f3 for bluetooth.

 

ok the throttling took a bit to kick in but it's definitely there. cpu temps never went above 88C and the throttling started happening around 80C...

hmm

 

on power saver mode, doing some light browsing, windows estimates around 4 hrs of battery life.

i know others are getting around 7 hours of battery life browsing on wifi.

*fingers crossed windows battery estimate is way off ;p

 

Wait 5 minutes and check again. It takes a while for Windows to get the correct estimate.

 

also my battery came with 4% wear according to hwmonitor. a full discharge should clear that up right?

correct me if i'm wrong but isn't it really bad to fully discharge li-ion/li-polymer batteries?

i'm down to 9% atm and the wear is still showing 4%...

 

you only need a calibration (fully discharge) every around 30 cycles..
and for the other cycles, you're right, it's bad to fully discharge the battery.

 

does acer aspire 4830TG have throttling issues? what are the solution to it? and how do we encounter this in this model of laptop?

thanks

Also i would like to know how would i improve the speaker of this model. does anyone know how?

 

used my laptop down to the 5% critical level last night. it hibernated. turned it on today, and my wear went up from 3.3% to 5.3%

:'-(

EDIT: i just checked my old Envy 15's battery wear. After 1.5 years of use, only 8%. granted i use it as a desktop replacement and maybe drain the battery once a week at most. but still... wow....


is the sanyo battery supposed to have drastically better wear? if so, how long does it take for acer to replace the battery?

 

Yes and no, basically what you can do is to apply new thermal paste, and one user here even removed the grills on the bottom case. He stated that temp dropped significantly after grills are removed, but until more users confirmed this, I don't believe you can drop more than 5-7c. I have done these two things to the acer 4820tg myself and the temp drop around 5-7c. If you read some notebook reviews you will hear that sandy bridge processors seem to be heat up easily than previous processors. Thus, you will see throttling across all major brand of laptops, or the laptops get really hot. You will see this for sure in laptops that have dedicated graphics such as Nvidia or ATI. In this case, you can't do anything about it. The acer 3830TG and 4830TG in particular, as stated by users, uses cheap plastics and poor cooling design, might be the reason for its premature throttling. Some people use a program called throttlestop to prevent throttling, but i don't recommend doing this. If you are looking to buy a laptop for gaming I don't recommend any sandy bridge laptops, especially the 3830TG.

 

Why don't you recommend ThrottleStop? It can help turn a miserable laptop experience into something that works great. It gives a user far more control over this throttling problem compared to what Acer is doing about it which so far is nothing.

No matter how you set ThrottleStop, it is not possible to push your Intel CPU beyond the specifications set by Intel. ThrottleStop does not disable the built in throttling designed by Intel at the hardware level so your CPU will still be safe and running within specification. All ThrottleStop does is it prevents the premature throttling that Acer is using.

Intel rates their CPUs to be able to run 100% reliably right up to the throttling point that they set at 100C. If they didn't believe in their CPUs, they could easily lower this throttling point but they don't.

 

To fully discharge the battery, you have to turn it on (without plugging it) after it hibernated, I got around 1-2 hour of use after that. Strangely, my other laptops (Acer 4740G and Sony VGN-CR23G) won't turn on if you turn it on after it hibernates (wihout plugging it).

The Panasonic batteries that have high wear. My Panasonic battery went from 0% to 40% wear in just 2 weeks, while my Sanyo is 0.6% since I got the battery, and after discharging it completely 2 days ago, I got 0%.

 

Have you ever opened laptops and felt its components right after the temp went around 85c? I'm telling you it is extremely hot. I don't recommend going anywhere over 87c. I'm not saying it will affect the CPU, but other components in the laptop will negatively affect by this heat. Apply this same heat to your laptop around 7 -9 months everyday and you will see what happen to the gpu and the usb board. The Acer 3820tg never goes over 85c with prime95. I'm telling you this from experience, but I it's irrelevant to me whether or not you take my words.

 

i see. i was scared of fully discharging cuz over-discharging is supposed to be bad for li-ion batteries.

i'll drain my battery to 5% then leave it on bios till it completely dies tonight and see if that resets the wear.

a few questions:

1. how long does it take if i send it in to have acer replace it with a sanyo battery?
2. does my battery wear have to be really high for them to replace it?
3. did you notice any battery life changes after getting yours switched to the sanyo?
4. how do i tell which brand of battery i have now w/o opening the case? i know there's supposed to be a software that tells you. batterybar doesn't say it even though someone else said it does... ?

i'm starting school in august, and if i need to replace anything i want to do it before school starts

 

What I fear most is that the cheap plastic parts of the 3830TG begin to melt, way before the CPU

 

related to heat that you people are talking about..

i tried playing HON. its like DOTA with high graphics

and i see that its using the GPU via GPU Activities which is the 540m NVidia

well this is my Question/s

1.) is it normal that the RAM temperature reaches 92C?

i used the gadget provided by the laptop.(right click add gadget and temperature)

2.) is it bad to play that kind of game due to the temperature?

sorry for a continuous question.. im just being safe
well thanks by the way for some questions that are answered

 

The thing is, the 4820 had a larger single fan setup and already had plenty of flow, removing the grills would have minimal gains compared to the removal in a more restricted system like the 3830tg. You are just speculating, while someone who has already performed the modification on the system in question has yielded good results. When I get my 3830tg I plan doing a before and after comparison myself.

 

I would worry more about the components surrounding the CPU. If the capacitors are running too hot they will start to leak and then fail. If they can last 5 years at 70C they might last 2 at 80C and 1 at 90C etc... It's quite possible that Acer did a continuous hot run test on a batch of x830TGs and decided that the maximum safe internal temp was reached when the CPU ran at 70C continuously or so. Anything after that might have statistically increased failure rates enough they'd want to limit the temps.

I don't know if they did the same test on the 4820TG and / or the dual fan 3820TG or not, but my guess is that the 3820TG will have a longer life than the 4820TG if they're both worked pretty hard.

If you game every now and then the temp might not be a big issue. If you game on it for hours a day, then the heat of the 4820TG or the newer x830TG machines is enough to shorten their lives by a few years.

The other common heat induced failure I've seen on motherboards has been bad solder joints coming loose when you pick up a hot laptop by the corner and it flexes a lot. Lenovo's T40 series suffered from such a failure. I've run my 4820TG REALLY hot (95C CPU for an hour or more, 82C GPU as well) and purposely picked it up by the corner to try and break it, since if it breaks under warranty I'm covered. It never freaked out or anything so the soldering job seems solid on mine.

There is a history of Acer laptops that don't pull in quite enough air to stay cool. 5738G I think was one? Opening up a few slats under the fan allowed many to run 10C or more cooler. That and repasting made a difference there.

 

Glad you figured out that I was speculating. Can't wait for your results. Just bear in mind that most users out there will not do the same thing you are going to do.

 

after a full recharge my wear seems to have dropped back down to 3.3%...

 

That is a very good point.

 

One thing people need to keep in mind is that a 90C core temperature reading is the peak temperature measured at the hottest point on the core. A CPU that is working can have temperature gradients of 20C or more from the peak core temperature to the center of the core. The entire CPU is not glowing red at a constant 90C so the capacitors closest to the CPU socket are not going to be continuously baking at 90C just because the peak core temperature is 90C.

There's a good picture about half way down this web page that shows the significant difference in temperatures that occur across a CPU core.

IDF@Intel Innovation in Integration: Developers, Devices, and Platforms

 

Acer's imperfect 2011 product line is putting the company into freefall. HP and ASUS have just passed it in EU, one of its strongest market, based on its falling market share. Maybe it will convince its engineers to design products that work.

Bronsky

 

Most users won't notice the throttling especially if they don't play game, have the T version or the 5830TG. However, Acer can't hide the cheap plastics. I don't have the 2011 models, so the plastics are poor compare to last year's models?

 

I know this is an old post but:

AMD, in the past, their mobile chips were always one or two nodes behind Intel, however, they needed to get near Intel in performance, so AMD clocked them higher, making them space heaters and power suckers all in one.

However, the new llano APU, AMD has, for once in a long time, matched Intel in fab node process for their mobile chips, and with the new C6 (AMD never had this before, Intel has for a while) power state, AMD chips can now finally power gate parts of their APU to use zero power


So finally, AMD has come close/matched Intel in power consumption and battery life. However, they haven't matched CPU performance (bright side: AMD is much better at GPUs).