Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

I ran into that during my searches on the internet, maybe you should upgrade your renesas driver as it seems this is is a corrected problem between the version that was installled by default on the computer and the last one (which is 2.1.19 i think)
I you manage to upgrade yout usb3 chip firmware, that would also be of great help i think...
I'll check this evening if i get this problem too (for now i mostly just plug the HDD, copy the data and unplug it so if it happens to me i may not have notice it...

 

Yeah~ everything is fixed perfectly now ^_^

also bought a 7200 500gb drive to replace my 5400, going to make this machine a powerhouse.

(still will probably never buy an acer again lol)

 

does anyone found which kind of s/pdif is available in timelinex 3/4/5380? i think it is not optical but electrical - as no red light is visible from that 3.5mm headphone jack - so using one of channels (maybe left?) and setting the driver will give the digital signal; but some sources affirmed that it's possible to have a special built jack. acer support gives me nothing usable as help...

my second concern is about hdmi, on models with nvidia 540/555 graphic card - is there a 1.4 hdmi? if so, is any possibility to have 3D content delivered to a capable monitor? i tested using 5830tg, an alienware aw2310 monitor and a pair of gforce 3d vision glasses - but the driver will show no 3D setup page.

thanks in advance for anyone who gives me some enlightenment over these problems

 

Have you already updated your video driver? If not, you'll find the corresponding link in my signature.

 

You can't get 3D content with machine using nVidia Optimus..

 

I don't think I'll buy an acer again either Love the specs and PRICE, but the build quality is just too bad. The touchpad is really bad imo, also the keyboard. Sometimes I have to press twice to type a letter etc.

 

The touchpad is really bad, the palmcheck is always triggered, meaning that if you play fps games without a mouse (not that you should) you'll be stopped from aiming by palmcheck. :/

No problems with my keyboard, though- you might want to try cleaning it or something. :O

 

You can disable the palm check at the Synaptics options. One of first things I did.
As for the keyboard, I actually like it much better than the 3820tg keyboard. I make much less typos on this

 

well, so much about hdmi 1.4, then... but what about nvidia says here? http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/customrel.do?easyirid=A0D622CE9F579F09&version=live&releasejsp=release_157&xhtml=true&prid=704360 ? also, acer aspire AS5745DG have optimus technology, and a mere nvidia 420m. i should mention that i'm using latest drivers from nvidia.com

as for s/pdif, seems to be electrical; using a simple pair of headphones and changing the output to s/pdif in the media player (i tested MPC-HC) i obtained the sound...of digital *so much hiss
for sure, i must test it on my own system, at home, first.
<later> tested on logitech z5500 - no signal detected. any other ideas?

 

i will switch to ultraportable in few next months maybe

 

Anyone noticed the new i5-2430 version of the 3830T coming out? The price here in europe for the new version is even cheaper than the i5-2410 version Only 36 dollars, but still cheaper

The only difference I can see between the two processors is that the i5-2430m is 2.4Ghz and 3.0Ghz Turbo, compared to 2.3-2.9 of the 2410m

EDIT: Can't help feeling a little cheated, when I just bought this machine in August. It's only a tiny bump in speed, but when it's cheaper, it's a no-brainer...

 

Don't see anything about it being released in the states yet. Hopefully they improved the some heating issues with it. If so, maybe an exchange/recall from acer would be in order. I mean, they kind of owe us...

I think I'm shooting for the stars though.

 

I agree we need a fix for the 3830TG either a cooler cpu stepping or perhaps a bios with higher limit before shutdown, maybe both...even so though the true problem is the cooling solution it's just too small =/

 

Thinner, better battery life, better design (in my opinion)

Sony VAIOs got "Battery Care Function" to stop the charging at 50% or 80%

I really like the touchpad, it's really sensitive, unlike my Acer 4740G, and it support many multitouch gestures, unlike my Sony VAIO SA (Alps touchpad).

 

Ok so I went through the PITA of upgrading to 5400 to 7200... still have 5.9 WEI score. :|

edit: apparently 7200 rpm drives are capped at 5.9 WEI, well alright then.

 

Hi All,

I owned a laptop 5830TG but I sold it and bought a smaller laptop 3830TG.

I had in notebook 5830TG battery Sanyo but I have in new notebook 3830TG battery Panasonic.
When I unbox my notebook 3830TG so I has battery wear was 3% after a few days of wear dropped to 0% (but still wrote real maximum capacity).
But today when I turned on the application AIDA64 I read still battery wear 0% which is good but now I shows the maximum battery capacity is more than can fit into the battery.

I could be someone who understands what is it?
Should I be afraid or is it just a program error AIDA64?
But it is strange that the same version of AIDA64 I do not do this with the laptop version 5830TG, but before don't do.

I want to thanks advance for your answers.

this is screenshot from aida64(before is app aida64 named everest):

 

That's nothing to worry about- your battery has several cells (usually 6 or 8) and if each of them is of slightly higher capacity than designed it all adds up to what you're seeing.
It's pretty common so no need to worry about it.

 

to downloads: Hi, really? So no need to worry about it okay, thanks for your reply.

 

This is standard practice for Acer. They just insert the higher binned CPU's as they are released by Intel. The 3820TG went from I5-420M to I5-450M to I5-460M to I5-480M. I was lucky enough to Order an I5-420M and receive an I5-450M (actually it was a short period before I swapped an I5-540M into it).

 

Tomorrow, I'll get my 3830TG back from it's second repair. They took over two weeks, so at least the battery should have been replaced. I'm pretty sure though that the throttling will still be there ^^

 

WEI is not a particularly good benchmark. It's kind of like benchmarks your grandma can read and understand without getting too technical. Look up atto or HD Tune to get a better idea of how fast your drive is. I personally could tell a diff from a 5400 to a 7200 on my old netbook (Lenovo S10) It wasn't like it was a lot faster, but it was noticeably quicker at booting up or starting programs the first time.

 

Just got my notebook back. Acer did nothing - again! I sent it in because of the throttling and battery life (Panasonic) issues. The report says:

"Machine checked, the device is technically okay. Battery okay, no error found."

So why the hell did they take 2 weeks (!) repairing it? I'm going to talk to my online shop, they need to do something about that.

 

What's wrong with your battery? does it have >10% wear or less than normal battery life? They replaced mine because the battery was >10% wear after a week and it only lasted 3-4 hours in tests.

 

My battery lasts 4.5 hours in idle mode with all powersaving options on.

My store says, they cannot take the notebook back if Acer doesn't tell them it has errors. So I need to send it in a third time now to Acer..

 

Your battery may not be faulty.
Check your power consumption, and if necessary (>10W idle), reinstall a proper OS.
Base installation is crap.

 

I'm sending it back on monday, because of the cooling system.

I cannot do anything with my device now, as they forgot to send me back my AC adapter.

 

Mine is maybe 13.3W on idle with all power options on, any tips on lowering power consumption?

 

That would not instill confidence in me. That does not sound like the Temple Texas Depot. They're normally fairly good.

 

They didn't even sign my bring-in paper with the error description.. on it. Guess they just forgot to check the package.

 

good luck bro hopefully they'll have a fix for the heating issues maybe we could all benefit from this, again best of lucks

 

2 days ago I bought a 3830TG-6494 in Canada from a local Memory Express, matched to NCIX's $669 at the time. Finally hoping to retire my 1810T SU7300, although I will miss the 11.6" form factor.

First thing I did was pull the stock drive and clone it to a 500GB 7200rpm Seagate that I had lying around. Never even booted the original drive, I used the 500GB clone to make the recovery discs, and then I formatted and did a clean Win7 Ultimate install. So, if I sell it in the future with the original drive swapped back in, the new owner can still choose the OS language, for whatever that's worth. My system also came stock in a 6GB memory configuration, 1x4GB 1333 Nanao + 1x2GB 1066 Kingston, weird. I replaced the 2GB stick with a 4GB 1333 Kingston, seems stable so far. By the way, my unit was shipped with BIOS 1.05.

I'm just about done installing all my work software and games. Video drivers are newest versions from Intel/Nvidia website, not from Acer. Tested some game settings but haven't had time to sit down and burn so nothing long enough to see if throttling would kick in.

To rbl posse and zinkk, I'm interested in doing something similar to what you have done with the ramsinks. I have 7 of those Zalman alumimium ramsinks (used only 1 long ago in my Xbox360), I think I can file them down to a lower profile.

If you want to know about an even lower profile sink than those shipping with the Gelid Icy Vision, the Thermalright T-rad2 GTX has some even lower, you could probably stick those on without filing and still have clearance. Unfortunately I can't find them for sale individually on Thermalright's site, and I am planning to sell my T-rad so I can't use them either. But if you're interested I can take a photo when I get home later.

Anyway, I've had my 1810T apart before, but seeing potential damage to a small connector I don't want to take this one apart. Could I (carefully) sand just a few tiny areas on the heatpipes - maybe with a vacuum cleaner on constantly so I don't get copper dust all over my motherboard - and tack on some shiny copper pennies with a few dabs of solder? The contact patches won't be as large but the heat conductivity should be pretty good.

 

I tried to correct it by giving advises to a fellow member of a french forum.
Failed. He had to reinstall in the end, since base installation is that crippled I would advise you do not lose your time fixing that crap !

 

Update on my 3830tg-6412 (i3 version)

Haven't go much gaming in with it, but my battery wear on my panasonic is down to 2.68, from the 7 it started with and max of 9% it hit. I haven't done anything special, and I use it unplugged fairly often, but usually not for a very long time, so I would say it rarely ever gets below 50%.

Interested on hearing some updates about this cooling solutions.

Also, I hate this bilangual keyboard

 

Turn the left backslash key into a Shift key! (turn bilingual keyboard into a US keyboard) - YouTube

 

Hi all,
a few days ago I wrote this post:

You are answered that it sometimes happens when one of the cells has a greater capacity. But today again the maximum capacity increased
I really had nothing to fear? Thank you for your reply.
here is a picture:

 

so as of today are we saying that the 3830 still has major issues with overheating and throttling during game and panasonic battery's

I note they now ship with 2430 i5's at 2.5Ghz with 3.0ghz turbo. Has this resolved the issue with cooling?

 

Well, Acer told me that throttling is part of the cooling system design in order to prevent overheating I don't think that a more powerful CPU will change that.

 

I think filing it in place would work, you probably wouldn't even need to do that as the heatsinks aren't really cooling that quickly so they have plenty of time to absorb heat, even through the paint layer. I took most of mine off because they were pushing up the cover and I didn't want that for when I carry it in a backpack. There are quite a few spots over the GPU and PCH with room so I left some there.

 

I sanded off some patches off the heatpipes, enough to attach 4 pennies. I put two tiny dabs of MX-3 on each one, then pressed them on and soldered, or tried to. They're kind of on there, but I think my iron is not hot enough, I couldn't get the solder to stick well to the heatpipes as I suppose the heat is traveling away too quickly. I might just get some thermal tape to stick the pennies on better.

I am not seeing much difference in temperatures since doing this, although honestly if the system is throttling at all, I can't notice much of the effect. Starcraft II on medium settings is the most taxing thing I have tried so far, there were no prolonged framerate drops, only slight hiccups here and there. CPU was up into the low 80s, GPU somewhere in the 70s with the machine just sitting flat on a table. I might try pushing some big Matlab scripts later, but I expect things to be fine.

I'm waiting on a Coolermaster P2, but so far I am extremely pleased with this machine, coming from a 1810T. I don't know what the complaints about build quality are based on - the fit and finish are among the better I have owned, and I have had some pretty special machines in the past. I like the colour scheme as well, it's sharp yet subdued - a real sleeping dragon.

I do have one question though - has anybody who did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit managed to get the HDMI port working? I cannot get any display detected when I plug in an HDMI cable - actually had the same problem on my 1810T...

 

Anandtech just released a review of Dynamic Switchable Graphics vs Nvidia Optimus Technology... Acer 3830TG is showed on this review.

AnandTech - Mobile GPU Faceoff: AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics vs. NVIDIA Optimus Technology

 

I installed my 7200rpm HDD (WD3200BEKT) the other day and I am finally getting settled into my fresh install. So far I'm liking it and speeds are noticeably faster than the stock 5400rpm. Applications load faster(Itunes loads in a speedy 6 or so seconds ) and it seems programs install faster. One thing I really noticed was how much better the USB 3.0 performed. I was using a 3.0 external hard drive and it took about 10 minutes to get my 11gb of music onto the external hd from the stock hdd. After installing the new hdd and w7, it took about 3 minutes to load the music back on. And lastly after installing some of the hotfixes from the link below, my boot times have been around 40 seconds, with my best being 38. Hopefully this helps anyone on the fence about getting a 7200rpm hdd.

 

does anyone know how to get the sound to work through hdmi/ the usual right click sound and select hdmi as default doesnt work.

 

I bought a 3830TG a few weeks ago and I'm looking for a case and skin for it. A smaller case would be better, I have to carry it with me all day at school. Any ideas?

Any tips on how to get the battery to last in Linux? I got like 1-2 hours with Arch...

 

Interesting article, thanks. 2.1 ghz is a pretty good clock for an unmodded 3830TG, I can only run that when elevating the laptop in games like Dead Island or DX:HR or else it will shut down after 30 minutes or so.

 

Guys, i'm looking at pre-ordering Battlefield 3 and i'm wondering if my 4830tg could run it well. Here's the posted system requirements:

Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core (Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 2.7 GHz)
Memory: 2 GB
Graphics Card (AMD): DirectX 10.1 Compatible with 512 MB RAM (ATI Radeon 3000, 4000, 5000 or 6000 SERIES, with ATI RADEON 3870 or higher performance)
Graphics Card (Nvidia): DirectX 10.0 compatible with 512 MB RAM (Nvidia Geforce 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 or 500 series with Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT or higher performance)

I am betting that these specs are for desktops and i'm not sure if the 'mobility' counterparts of these cards perform as good. Can anyone help me on this? I need to make sure that I could run it at least on medium before I pre-order, considering the problem with throttling (which I am now containing with throttlestop) and the probably weaker 'mobility' versions of the cards.

 

Yes we can.

Go for another distrib ? I heard people say they're getting 4-5h max on linux.

 

If you're using Linux, you should disable your Nvidia Card via the BIOS. Linux has no way to use it so far, but cannot disable it as well. An active Nvidia uses up to 35W - and just drains your battery.

Got a reply from Acer Support on facebook. They tell me that throttling is absolutely normal on todays' laptops and as long as the machine is not labeled as a highspeed-gaming-machine I cannot expect the CPU to work on 2300mhz all the day while gaming. Well, the funny thing is, the machine was advertised as a perfect gaming machine by Acer in Germany

I am now confronting my store with this. In Germany, I should now have the right to get my money back, as the laptop had no label on it, telling me that the device almost constantly throttles. They received my letter today, should take no more than some days and be fairly safe

 

Yep, throttling is a safety feature, triggered because of a defective design, I can't believe they're trying to make it standard !
Well actually I can easily understand, otherwise they'd had to accept any return, would be such a huge loss.

Also, 2 people were told by Acer that their pana batteries with 25% degraded capacity were normal. Their laptops were sent back with nothing changed.

Acer is looking forward to a class action, again

 

This were almost the exact words, Acer used on me. "Throttling is no bug, but prevents your notebook from overheating." (Oh, how cool! ^^)

And they mentioned that all Sandy Bridge notebooks have this problem, only highspeed-gaming-machines will work without throttling.

Well, the thing is, as a consumer I don't care. I don't care if other manufacturers have the same problem. When buying a machine I want it to work as expected or else I want my money back. I don't care if it's labeled Acer, Sony, Lenovo or Apple. Just because other manufacturers have the same problem, it doesn't mean the the problem is "okay".

If the can't do anything about the throttling, they need to relabel their devices, saying "Core i5 2410m, 1.2-2.9Ghz". But then I guess, they would have to worry about Intel killing them xD