Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

Another 3830TG-clone with the same symptoms:
The Packard Bell EasyNote NX69HR-127GE

Exactly the same specs, similar case, "professionally tuned" sound system, P-button, throttling at 80°C. Does sound familiar?

 

So what software should I download on their site

 

Okay, well its over and done for me. Been great hangin' out here. On second thought I might stick around and see how things turn out.

 

Throttling Fixed.......so here is how I got Bad Company 2 to run well on my 3830, I live in Canada, and in the last week it's been getting cold at night....all I do is game in my car....the laptop heats up and keeps the car warm, the cool night air keeps me about 65degrees...its a perfect combo....it's a 13.3" so its a piece of cake to game in the car.....wifi reaches.....there you go everyone, you need to move to Canada.........

 

LOL


/cap limit

 

Just got contacted by Acer's public relations department. They wanna find a solution for my throttling problems. Maybe I'll finally get a refund.

 

Hi folks,

I would love some of your input on this question.

I'm trying to decide on a laptop to buy. Money is an issue, so price plays a part in my choice. I've narrowed it down to 2 - the Asus U36SD-A1 and the Acer TimelineX AS3830. The Asus has an i5-2410m (2.3 ghz) cpu and a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M Graphics card. The Acer has an i3-2310m 2.3 ghz and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M with 1GB dedicated memory.

The Asus is $699.00 (Cad) and the Acer is $499 (both on sale). Both are thin and lights, with the Asus noticeably more so.

Anyway - this is my issue. I want something that can handle tasks like photoshop and such, so it has to be able to handle that sort of thing, but I suspect it won’t' be a issue for either. However, I like to play games from time to time, and while I know neither is a gaming rig, I think they should be ok with lowered setting. My question is this:

Would performance in gaming (Fallout 3, Call of Duty, etc) be better on the i5 with the lower quality gpu (gt 520m) or the i3 with the better quality gpu (gt 540m).

AS WELL: I have been reading all about the throttling issues here and other places, but would a throttled i3 at 1.3 ghz be slower than the asus listed above? (the asus does not suffer from throttling, at least as far as I can find out). Would the incresed gpu of the acer still put it ahead or at least on par with the asus, even with the acer throttling and the i3 instead of an i5?

What's more important at this level - the cpu or gpu?

Thanks for your opinions and info.

 

If you use ThrottleStop, the 3830TG runs at around 1.9/2.0Ghz CPU just fine. It may void the warranty, however. If you don't wanna use it, the 3830TG with nvidia enabled runs at 1.2Ghz and is really really slow (around 60 frames in WoW, compared to 115 without throttling). Even the integrated Intel GPU will run faster (with 2.9Ghz cpu-power, of course)

The throttling occurs only when using the GPU, as it primarily depends on the GPU temps. So the best choice for you might be a 3830T without the Nvidia card built in.

I haven't used the ASUS models yet, so I cannot comment on them.

 

Asus laptops have a much better rep than Acer. If you want a higher quality product and much better support go Asus. If you want cheap, go Acer.

 

I'm pretty sure the U36SD throttles as well.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/7948641-post390.html

I'd go with the Acer. The GT520M isn't all that great. Not worth it to spend the extra $200 unless gaming is more of an afterthought.

 

Your my hero!

 

I bought this laptop on Amazon with the "free" Xbox 360. It came with the upgraded i5 2430M which is nice. After replacing the thermal paste I haven't run into any throttling issues although I don't really do much gaming on it, not til Diablo 3 comes out anyways. What I really want to do is replace the LCD on this laptop with another matte screen or maybe even a better IPS screen. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we can get the Apple 13.3'' IPS screen onto this bad boy? Has anyone tried to "upgrade" the LCD? Please share your experiences.

 

I don't know where you get that but Asus service in the USA is crap IMO. I'm not alone in that opinion. I have had great service from Acer on the other hand.

Asus products have issues too. The 1215B has a defective touchpad but the company keeps selling it. You should check out the owners thread. I think have to look at each product and compare them head-to-head.

@Zbeck - funny post.

 

Since yesterday I've been having problems using the dedicated GF540 card in games. It's visible in the control panel, but when I run any game the GPU activity is none, even when using the "run with dedicated graphics" context command. I've tried re-installing the video drivers as well as ePowermanagement, still nothing. Don't know what could have happened.

My only thought is a couple days ago Avast! detected a rootkit which I used combofix and tdsskiller to remove.

 

Asus customer support for laptops (nothing else) has lots of positive feedback in Canada. I don't know what the situation is like in the US.

 

Didn't notice you were Canadian. IMO, service here is deplorable. On the other hand, I have had nothing but great service from the Acer repair folks in Temple Texas.

Your lucky if you have good service across the border. Asus does have some decent products at good prices. Here in the US, I will only buy an Asus notebook from a reseller like XOTICPC so that I have someone locally to deal with if there is a problem.

 

the only program I can get to use the Nvidia is the nvidia control panel. It uses 1%. Nothing else, even when forced to run with it, will use it.

 

Hello fellow people!
i'm new here and this is my first post. And i'm from sweden so spelling is not 100%

I was thinking about buying the 3830TG But i read about the throttling issues.

So how are they today? Still many problems?
i have read that changing cpu cooling paste could decrease the temp with around 10c, have anyone tried this?

If i'd buy it and then change paste and maybe Mod the bios to change the throttle temp to 85c maybe? Or in worst case use Throttlestop?

I was thinking first about buying a Asus u36sd but the 520M doesnt make me hungry.

So... Help would be good. Thx

 

Just broke 10k on 3DMark06

i5-2520M @ 2.9ghz
GT540M @ 800/1600/1025

Not bad for a $500 13.3" notebook.

 

You dont have any problems with throttling?

 

None.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/553306-acer-timelinex-3830-4830-5830-t-g-280.html#post7950727

 

None? and you dont use any programs? And you have the GPU Oc? Wth! So there is no problem anymore?

 

Did you even click the link? I have done quite a few modifications to the cooler.

 

Yea srry about that. I read it. Well i got a i5 2420M So i dont need to upgrade?

 

Well the main reason I upgraded my i3-2310M is because the 2310M has a max temperature of 85C, and the i5 has a max temperature of 100C. The i5 uses less voltage at 2.5ghz than the i3 did at 2.1ghz, so that made a big difference too.

 

Well i was thinking on buying like those ramsinks to put on the cpu and maybe the Gpu, would you recommend changing thermal paste also? Artic silver 5!

 

If you like to redo the entire laptop, the 3830TG might be a perfect choice. If you're like me and want to get a laptop that "just works for gaming out-of-the-box" it might be one of the worst choices.

 

Cant be that bad? Change paste and add some heatsinks?
If not, can you name another good and small notebook? 13" not expensive.

 

Well if you change the paste you have to take the cooler off, and if you take the cooler off you can easily add ramsinks on the underside of the heatpipe. So yeah, not hard.

If you can get some ramsinks low profile enough to put over the CPU, and if you cut away a small amount of plastic over the GPU to add ramsinks over it, you can drop temperatures significantly.

I play COD: Black Ops on mine and get 70-90fps all the time, even in servers with 18 people. 1366x768 medium details.

 

I'm trying to see if I can buy this lcd panel and replace the default screen with it. Link

Let's hope the manufacturer responds and sell me a panel.

 

WEI can't access the nvidia card, seems only the nvidia control panel recognizes the card, when showing the rotating images. 3d WEI Score went from 6.7 to 5.5

 

The 3820TG might be the best choice, if you don't wanna redo the cooling and void your warranty.

 

Well I've owned this laptop for 2 months. I've had to have the battery replaced (with a new sanyo, still only gets about 4 hours), taken it in for heat-related repair 3-4 times, and now the video card has stopped working for no reason at all. I am seriously considering selling it to a 2nd hand shop for 1/3rd the original price. I cannot believe I, a reasonably informed consumer, was so completely suckered by Acer for this high-tech engineered garbage.

 

I sent the 3830TG three times to acer service because of the throttling and the battery (2nd & 3rd time only). Battery was running 4.5hours in idle mode. The first time, they told me the throttling is completely normal and part of the cooling system. The second time, they found no error on the system or the battery. The third time, they couldn't reproduce my throttling problem, battery was still okay. The 2nd time they lost my AC adapter, the 3rd time they forgot to send it along with the notebook.

Now I was considering to take a lawyer, because in Germany I have the right for a full refund. And at once, Acers PR department want to talk to me about a solution

 

It's the wrong aspect ratio. It's 16:10. It won't fit.

 

My HDMI out is working after a clean install.

 

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let yall know that I gave this "coin trick" a try (from Overclock forum) and am blown away at the temperature results. By far the cheapest and easiest mod to do:

Acer 3830/4830/5830 thread of awesome. - Page 11 - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

For about 15 min I've been running Furmark with ThrottleStop locking the cpu at 2.8Ghz and both my i5 CPU and GT540 maxes at 83C (this is 3830TG).
Haven't tried reapplying TIM yet and don't think I have to anymore with the coins.

EDIT: I should also say the coins are held in place by the door being closed with just friction alone. Tried shaking it around a good bit but the coins seem to be firmly held in place.

 

Looks really funny. Why did all those Acer engineers never come up with such a cool solution?

 

Are the coins glued together and to the heat pipes? What coins did you use? I thought I saw something about using pennies too.

 

I should also say the coins are held in place by the door being closed with just friction alone. Tried shaking it around a good bit but the coins seem to be firmly held in place.

Bottom coins are nickles, top coins are dimes.

 

I wonder if it's more they make the heat sink sit tighter or if they're helping heat escape the laptop better. Could be both.

 

Haha, the coin mod was originally my idea :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7872480-post2493.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7872570-post2495.html

Glad it worked for you. In my testing it wasn't as effective as adding ramsinks, but it's also easier to do and is reversible. You should try adding thermal compound in between the coins and the heat pipes. It transfers the heat a lot better and keeps them stuck on. When I used dimes and thermal compound, they would be absolutely scorching hot during testing.

All they do is absorb a ton of heat from the heatpipes. They aren't great for heat dissipation, because they are flat and don't have much surface area compared to a heatsink, but man do they ever get hot.

I honestly didn't think the coin mod was that effective when I did it. Maybe I'll add some coins to mine.

 

FYI I just saw the first ever driver update on the Acer download page. It's 5 days old, but I don't believe it's been posted here? I know it may not be newsworthy, but this is the first update from Acer since the original drivers back in April.

 

Acer does not update drivers unless there's something seriously wrong with version that's already available- so it's newsworthy.

 

Would it help to add more sets of coins?

 

If they only absorb it then they'd do nothing in the long run, it's how much they can radiate that matters. Simple laws of thermodynamics at work.

 

I just played BC2 for about an hour after putting 6 sets of coins along the heat pipes and removing two of the mesh vents. I started with my multiplier in throttlestop at 23x and it was good for a while but the cpu slowly crept up to 96c after about 30 minutes with the gpu around 85. I turned it down to 22 and temps went down to ~93c and I finally settled with a 20 multiplier and temps were around 89-90. If you start with this I'm sure it will take 30-40 minutes to get all the way up there. I was playing on a 1600x900 monitor and my oc settings are in my sig. It seems like the coins are a good help with the heating issues but they're still there.

 

The point was that they basically just post-pone the overheating, because they don't dissipate heat very well.

You should consider adding heatsinks in this spot:



There is a fair amount of room, and air is pulled in through vents around that spot so air will basically be forced across the fins.

 

What you can do if the heat creeps up is have a standard gaming multiplier (mine is x20 for flat surface no cooler) and then a "failsafe" profile at x17 activating at 7dmt/90C gpu which you know will cool it down. Can't wait to try putting on coins tonight.

 

Of course if Acer had spent just an extra hour or two of engineering time they could have done that for you in the BIOS. My 4820TG does that. If it hits 95C it throttles down a step at at time til it gets below 95C. Either that or the linux kernel does, but I've watched it happen under max load in linux for sure.

Any chance of you running a test for > 15 minutes, or until the temps completely stabilize? 15 minutes of gaming isn't gonna be worth the hassle. OTOH, if you get stable temps 5C or so lower after they've stabilized, that's impressive.

Well we don't seem to have enough evidence to say one way or another right now. i'd like to see what majinwu gets if he really burns in his system.