Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

I have the 3830TG, and I definitely would buy another if anything happened to my current one. I used to have the 4820TG and loved it, so it was only natural that I continued with the same series.

This thing does get pretty hot. However, seeing as you're looking at the T-models instead of the TG, I'm going to assume you will never intend to game on it. In that case, heat should not be an issue for you. That being said, I wouldn't recommend getting a T-model at that price. I'm not sure, but there must be cheaper work laptops with roughly the same performance for about $500? Just for comparison, Staples often has the 3830TG for sale at $500. With a couple coupons stacked on it, it comes to ~$470. It only has an i3, but the 2nd generation i3's are nothing to laugh at.

Thought about the flaws long and hard, but couldn't come up with any. The 3830TG is a fairly solid laptop with minimal flex. Nice screen and speakers, although I haven't had much to compare to. Battery life is great. Some have complained about battery wear. Fortunately, I haven't had that problem, even with a Panasonic. The one flaw is the one that's been said a million times: you can't run both the CPU and GPU on full-load on the TG-models. However, by using Throttlestop, you can pretty much run any game at decent fps with no problems. If you are bent on getting the T-models, then I don't think the throttling problem applies.

I don't find the laptop hard to work on at all. The back cover pops open with one screw, and from there, like any other laptop, you can swap out the RAM, HDD and I THINK the wifi card and the bluetooth. After about 10 more screws and some light prying, you basically have the whole thing disassembled.

If you shed some more details on exactly what you're looking for, I think it'll help us into giving your more advice.

 

As in the entire back cover. Not the one that covers ram and hdd (i think u mean it)

 

nobody got this problem? Can anyone help me?

UPDATE:

when on battery the system powerdown immediately if i close the lid of the laptop (also if i have configured do nothing when on battery)

the same thing appen only on battery when i leave the computer idle.

It seems that it appens when my laptop is on battery and the display turn off (like when you close it or when it reaches the turnoff display timer).

 

You do not remove the base to remove the mesh or add coins. Neither do you actually remove the base at all. You remove components FROM the base.

Reaching the back base is pretty much the last step.
1) Remove back cover
2) Remove keyboard panel
3) Remove motherboard from back base

Google "3830TG disassembly for further details.

 

I don't care about gaming but I DO care about the design of the laptop and how well it cools.

I DO care that Acer doesn't have the best rep. I've seen Acer laptops in Walmart stores and sometimes in Staples and they are the only ones which are missing keys. Almost every time, too. I am not sure which models they are but probably some sort of Aspire model.

It makes me reluctant to consider them but many of these OEMs are sharing parts but maybe Acer just doesn't do a good job of assembling them? Or the criticism is a bit overblown? Maybe it is only the lower lines or? But, it is a big risk when you are spending $500 to $800 with a few other brands available as an alternative.

What will I do with it? Not gaming. Watching videos, surfing, maybe programming, video editing (maybe)... I haven't decided yet on the entire combo of tasks but the cpu is probably good enough. I am more worried about the quality of the laptop rather than whether it will do what I want.

I think most of the ones that are similar to these Acers will do everything I need. There's a few concerns like quality overall of hardware, quality of LCD screen, ports (I'd like at least two USB and a bonus if it has a usb 3.0), 13 to 14" size of screen because most laptops have the crappy standard resolution - ppl say it sucks on a 15.6"....

So????? I hope I provided enough info. The Acer TimeLine series looks ok to me in stores (I've only seen it in FS) and online but I don't know about whether the design is good for cooling.

 

I was trying to do the same. I was only able to remove the cover from the ram and hdd. In order to remove the other cover you have to remove the blue band with the mouse track, then the keyboard, only after that you can remove the other side.

I have a 4830.

Only the 3830tg has only one back cover. The 4830tg has more than 10 screws and the keyboard must be removed before getting the back part out.

 

When you reapply the paste. It can take up to 200 hours before it spreads properly.

Where you able to disassemble it? I got stuck after I remove the keyboard and the fan. Is it require to remove the wireless as well?

You are reffering to the 3830 model Our problem is with the 4830

 

You can change the behavior in the windows 7 settings. Just hit the
windows button and search for "laptop lid" or just "lid".

 

Sounds difficult, may be i shdn't do it. 4830TG is my primary working laptop (in fact it's my only laptop)...
Thanks for ur reply though!

 

will install an ssd when i get mine back

 

Hey guys i jut got myself the 3830tg and im very very happy with it its a small yet very powerful laptop. i only complain about 1 thing, which is the touchpad that came with it. the ELANTECH is cheap crap and i was unlucky to get it. did you anyone notice laggy unresponsive touchpad on their 3830tg?

my specs are as follow:

i3 2.1ghz
4gb ram (upgraded to 6gb)
760gb harddriv
560m gt 1gb video card

 

I've done it, but it is not the behaviour, the system goes down immediately (it's not shutting down or entering sleep mode) when the lid is closed or the monitor power off, and yesterday the computer was not able to power on again, so it is a defected laptop.
I called the customer support and they are going to take and repair/change my laptop tomorrow

 

Can someone comment on the cpu throttling and heat/fan cooling?

Is there still problems prominent with the laptop regarding these issues?

Also, is there any difference between the 13" and 14" other than screen size? Will they have the same lcd manufacturer or is there anything relevant to comment on the screen?

Anything else?

I'd like the i5 cpu version, too. Thanks for any info!

 

Hello,

On my 4830tg the temp goes up to 98 when I run something on both cpu and gpu. However it still stays at 2.7GHz since the limit is 100 C for my i7 cpu. I do not know how to check if the turboboost was still on, probably not, since I used at full. I can try a game if someone knows a game on linux which is very heavy.

 

Anyone else having issues with keyboard?

My ctrl key sticks until I press both ctrl keys at same time and hold for a few seconds. I've gone through accessibility keyboard settings unchecking and checking to no avail.

Hardware or software issue?

Going insane and about ready to sell this and just buy a Macbook Air...

 

yay ssd installed finally

 

ssds slower than i thought

 

Actually, I prefer the Elan touchpad over the Synaptics model. The Synaptics one(comes on models with the i3-2330m) has much more friction on its surface and is harder to move the cursor around. The Elantech model is silky smooth. Try reinstalling the drivers.

 

Hi guys, I just got my new 3830tg last night, and wow, I'm going to get a ton of use out of this little beast. I was looking things over, and I see that on the Acer Canada website that pretty much all the drivers were updated last april. Is this right?

Also, I went to the nVidia website, and saw that my drivers are very out of date compared to what they have. if I get the drivers off nVidia's site will that mess up the optimus graphics? I thought I read somewhere that can happen.

Thanks,
Falross

 

Nope, just activated now and things are fine.

 

Hello,

Does anyone knows how is the warranty handled? DO I have to register the lapotp to acer? Also I bought an extension of warranty for 2 more years. How do I conenct it to my laptop?

 

I registered my original warranty on the Acer site. When I sent in my extended warranty I got a confirming email. I had to send it for repair once when the web cam shorted. No problem.

 

Does anyone encounter problem with Dolby Home Theater V4? When i turned it on, the sound from speaker is not smooth and has 'shizz' sound quite often. Did not really notice it when I off the Dolby

 

Hi guys, I have a new 3830tg, and according to my acer updater, there have been no new updates since April 2011. Is this correct? Also, can I update the drivers for my gt540m graphics card off the nvidia website, or do i have to wait for Acer to make their own drivers for optimus?

thanks,
Falross

 

You can use the driver from nVidia website. If the installer doesn't recognize the card, just replace the original .inf with the modded .inf file (from laptopvideo2go).

 

You can also download them from nvidia's site.

 

Hellom everyone.

I am new here since I just got an 5830tg.
The problem is that, compared to my previous 1640z, the fan runs almost constantly and it really makes me worry about it, because it seems that even if the temperature is not hot inside, the fan tends to blow strongly.

Could anyone give me any suggestion on how to counter this problem? I tried to search on previous pages, but I have not yet found the exact solution.

Thank you very much!

 

Is it possible to boot operating system from SD card on 3830tg?
On asus eee901 when i entered boot menu i was readly available here i just dnt see the option.

 

No such option on Acer, sorry.

 

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I'm assuming you can't use a mSATA SSD in the (what I think is the) WWAN slot?

Oh, I'm referring to the 3830TG motherboard,

 

You won't be able to boot from it- that's for sure- and that kind of spoils the fun if you ask me.

 

what were the changes in bios version 1.08? I did not recognize changes.

 

Hello,

Did you try changing the power options. Maybe it is always on performance mode and it force it to always run at max speed or maybe the optimus does not run well.

 

Hello,

I am having some problems with my wireless card on linux. I would like to change it with something else. Does anyone knows which other wireless card will work on the 4830tg models. I can try to choose one which from the list which works with linux.

 

Which one do you have? Atheros is pretty good with Linux drivers as far as I can remember.

 

Drats, yeah it pretty much does, I see there are possible hardware mods to install the missing mini pci-e, but to do that and then make it run msata would cause me nothing but blood, sweat and tears.

Thanks for the info though.

 

Are you having issues connecting to WPA2 enterprise networks? I did on the latest Ubuntu (11.10). The fix I found was to update the card's microcode from Intel's site. Details here on a post I made a while back:

Ubuntu Forums - View Single Post - [ubuntu] Thinkpad X220 Intel 6205 wifi stability issue

As for what works, anything will, really... Acer does not have a BIOS WiFi card white/blacklist like HP does...

 

Well i tried 10 different drivers from both elantech and synaptics and the toucpad is indeed faulty. i sent it to Acer and they replaced the whole armrest along with the toucpad circuit. this one IS smoother and i think it is also elantech. but it works fine now.

 

Hello,

The linux shows an Atheros card. My problem is that periodically the connection is lost and when it works the reported speed is below the one I get on mac or windows. It is difficult to do remote work when it happens. The wireless network is open and I have to log in on a webpage in order to get to internet, so there is no encryption.

My only guess is that Ubuntu loads the wrong module, and I want to get one which would be loaded correctly.

Does the Atheros supply some dirvers to downlaod and install manually?

Linux shows me that I have this card AR9287. Is this the card people see on Windows?

It loaded the module ath9k.

 

I have a used 3830TG that I bought about a week ago and I'm having the same problem. I did a fresh install of Windows 7 but the fan keeps running contantly no matter what power profile I use or even if I run it in safe mode. I even updated the BIOS to 1.08 and still no luck.

I love the machine so much that I throw in a 120GB SSD and 8GB of RAM into it and it runs every game I throw at it like butter. But the constant running fan even when idle is driving me nuts.

 

Hello,

How loud is the fan when idle, compared to the the case when playing some heavy game?

 

Thank you very much for your reply, I will try that now!

 

The difference is barely noticable. When it's idle it's loud enough that I can hear the fan spinning even from 3-4 meters distance. I think it's about as loud as my slim Xbox 360. When I play a game (e.g. Crysis 2) I think the fan is running at full speed but it's just a little bit more noisy than when the laptop is idle (which is really noisy).

Do you think downgrading the BIOS is possible? Or could that help solve the problem?

When I got the laptop it had 1.04 and I updated it directly to 1.08 thinking that would fix the fan issue.

Edit: I just disabled the nVidia GPU in the BIOS and still no luck! The fan is as loud as ever.

Edit#2: Downgraded the BIOS to 1.07 and still didn't fix the problem. I'm starting to think that either it's a faulty fan or a bad controller. Hopefully this can be fixed this without having to deal with Acer's customer service.

 

Hello,

I got the same after I installed linux and there was no optimus support. So maybe that is the problem. On the other hand even with the optimus enabled the fans are always on also on mine, but they are not so lou d and there is big difference between idle and loud. I wonder what are your temperatures?

 

Just in case this might help, I have the i3 2310 version.

I'll try booting Ubuntu from a USB drive with the nVidia GPU and see what happens.

The temps are quite good, when idle (ThrottleStop Off) it's around 45C and when playing Skyrim (ThrottleStop On with a 20x multiplier, High, 720p, 4xAA, 8xAF) it goes to a maximum of about 83-85C

 

Hello,

If the optimus is working it should be not so noisy. My guess is that the i3 processors have so low max temp that the fans are always on to ensure constant temperature. My temp on idle is between 46 and 55, while on load goes up to 97. I have a i7 processor. If I could lower the temp on idle below 40 the fan would not run at all, I think .

 

I ran Linux with the nVidia GPU disabled and it was no different it was still noisy. I tried to lower the CPU temps by having the laptop in an ambient temp of 14C which lowered the CPU temps to around 35C but it still was as noisy as ever.

So, since the laptop is still under warranty I thought I'd go the bumpy road and contact Acer's support. Then, I opened a case and they immediately approved it and sent me the instructions to ship the laptop. I shipped the laptop today, we'll see what they say when they get it.

P.S. Do you have a quad core i7 or just the dual core one? Was the upgrade hard to do? I'm planning to upgrade mine to a quad core i7 when I get the chance and turn this little lappy into a beast.

 

Hello,

I have i7 at 2.7GHz. I bought like that. I made several tests on linux, running programs on cpu and nvidia in the same time and and it never throttled, but the temp went up to 97 on big load. I read some people put quad cores. I was not able to open the laptop up to the point I could change the cpu.
The fan is on all the time, but the level is not so big.

 

Anyone else have issues with the keyboard? It times out for 5-10 minutes at a time. Really the word keyboard I've ever used.

 

Never had any problems. Yours is problebly broken.