Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

Hi Nedemai
You use the same frequencies as i do, I have two profiles in throttlestop one with turbo off - 2,3 GHz, but some games still burn to 90+ degrees so the other one with 2,1 frequency and then everything runs max about 84°C. I have also read somewhere that i7 processors have less processing power then i5 when gaming but with these new games which use all cores (probably) it may not be true.

It is still under warranty so i will give it to service to re-paste. Also i have some questions about your modded bioses. I have downloaded your 1.12 pack and your Acer tools pack and i want to try the .83v version.
1. Except unlocking the bios it only modifies voltage of GT540m?
2. So if i would flash it and nothing ****s up then it will boot normally only Nvidia GC may not work but GMA will be working properly? Matt said that higher but i am asking to be sure.
3. Can they find out that i have modified the bios, if i would give it to the service because something burned out or someting similar?
4. Is there any seal inside the machine so if i would try to manually revive the bios via usb flash they could fint it out (if i wouldn't damage something of course)?

 

I did try on another acer laptop to cut a big round hole under the fan and the results where catstrophical: the fan was indeed taking more air but only on the final part of the pipe so the cpu temp was even higher than widouth the hole , in the 5830 I only remove the nets and with a nail file I've increese the cuts just with aprox 1mm (0.5mm per side).
I did try 2 i7 cpu's (i have the i5 2410) and the temperatures where lower, I guess that the processor stress is lower...

I doo have on the way the new heat pipe only 2 wheld to make, still waiting for the fan to arrive (ordered from hong kong and usualy takes 1 month..)

 

You wont nottisce anny turbo boostbut if you ran theintel turbotechnology monitor for a day always visible you'll see how it works.
You don't have to bee afraid to open the notebook just bee very carefull at each thing you undo the first time it will take you like forever but after the second it will be like a walk in the park. the only advice is to buy a good screw driver it will cost you 10-15 € but without you risc to damage the screw's. Another thing is to have a black ink permanent marker with a fine tip so after rescrewing you repaint the head of the screw, Acer service will never know (i use to work in a service and therewhere sommeof my colegues that treat client computers like personal experimenting tools, so trust me you'll make a better job openig the case yourself)

 

Thanks aurelrica, it is not what i wanted to hear that my computer would serve as lab-rat for someone's practising/testing but good to here that i can do it at home . First i will re-paste, flash modded bios and take out these plastic heat keepers . Would you tell me your results after modifications? I need to lower temps about 12 degrees to be able to use full processing power. Is it possible?

 

I recently bought a 3830 and run it as a desktop replacement alot of the time. I'm wondering with the internal battery is there a way to disable charging from the battery while plugged into AC. Also i've removed the bottom cover and am running it with the PW ON/PW OFF button turned to off, so essentially running on AC power - will this do any long term damage to the battery?

 

When the battery is fully charged the electric current goes thru it without damaging it as there is a mechanism which somehow disables the draining (sorry not a techie, dont know how exactly it works but it does), so plugged in AC should not damage it. Also those new types of batteries are mostly unaffected by charging. The biggest enemy is heat. Dont know what to imagine under "desktop replacement" coz for some ppl it means facebook but if you play high demanding games then you will probably dmg it. Not immediately but after some time it will loose some of its capacity. I am pretty hardcore gamer and after 1,5 yr my battery lost almost 40% of its capacity, but if you dont play or play games like tetris then you will be OK.

 

With my CPU repasted and running a modded GPU bios with the voltage at 0.65v (don't expect to be able to reach this I'm surprised I could) when I run the multiplier at 21 (2.1Ghz~) my temperatures don't go much above 70C when playing games like Skyrim. at 2.4ghz it wont go much above 85C. I never run games with turbo.

If you mod the video bios and do it wrong, the intel HD will still work but the nvidia GPU won't. If you however modify the system bios incorrectly while applying the modded video bios... I can't say what might happen.

If you run a modified bios its pretty easy to tell if you know where to look. I'm not entirely certain what other tricks Acer has but the system might record how many times you've flashed the bios, not that I've bothered to try and find out..

 

Ok guys, thanks for your responses. I will try your suggestions and report back if it helped, but right now and in near future i won't have much time so don't expect quick answer . I have a lot work so may be i will let it be till summer coz then my warranty will be expired... but who knows may be i will try it earlier...

 

Thanks,

Although I have read several pages I am still not sure about some things.

Basically if you experience throttling you first use Throttlestop to downclock the CPU or the first step is just disabling TurboBoost?
If that still doesn't work you downvolt with a modded BIOS. Do you still have to downclock as well? (is the default voltage 0.9V?)
I would think Mass Effect 3 is pretty demanding (maybe even Mass Effect 2 on fullHD), but I dont think I had throttling.

I do however experience pretty serious DPC latency problems, haven't been able to figure out the problematic driver yet. Anyone else with this?

How do you check battery wear? Aida64 says that for mine it's 0%. Is that possible? It is 1 year old.

 

1. You can adjust frequency as u wish, it depends on you personal choice only. It doesn't really matter which method you choose, u can even combine them but i have never tried it so not sure if it would work, but your goal is to decrease frequency to temperature friendly lvl. In my case it is mostly 2,3 GHz (2294,8 MHz), that corresponds to turbo off, so in my case the easiest way to adjust the frequency is by disabling turbo. In your case it may be different so u have to test right setup and then save it so you won't have to set it every time.

2. downvolt affects only GT540m (your high performance graphic card), not your processor, so downvolting has nothing to do with downclocking (except both can rise/lower temps).

3.+4. ME 3 is for me enough to trigger throtling but it runs great maxed out with 1366x768 with turbo off. If you are experiencing DPCl problem when gaming, like weird or deformed sound, then it may be caused just by throttling - your GC overtakes all resourses and for sound there may not be enough to be computed properly in real-time. Otherwise it may be causing too many background programs- try gamebooster or ir may be caused by drivers.

5. Finally last answer there is dark like near in edge of black hole so am typing pretty slow with many errors ... try batterybar it is free utility not sure how much reliable it is but i am sure that you dont have 0% of wearness (- does this word even exist? Not sure now ). Your battery is more likely decalibrated. Try to calibrate it and you will cry .

 

Thanks, I will try these.

Deformed, staggering sound usually appears when watching videos, only rarely during games. When I have a browser opened sound and image quite often lags, desynchronizes when watching videos (BSplayer). I'll reinstall Windows first and see if that helps.

Instead of wearness I think it is just wear

 

If these things happen when you are watching videos then it may be codecs. Search google for CCCP (Combined Comunity Codec Pack)as it contains every necessary codec, There is also very good video player included so you don't need to download anything else. It also uses many advanced technologies to sync sound and video... i am not advertising it a just use it and i have never had any problem with it. Except playing .rm file which's playback is little slowed down don't know why, but there is new 2013 version and it might be corrected.

 

Has anyone installed a touchscreen display for your laptop? I have a 3830TG-6431, changed the HD into a 500gb Samsung 840 and installed Windows 8, now a touch screen would be awesome.

 

I want to appologise first of all to all the professional people that work in the service centers, i was in romania at the time (and wee all know that russians and romanians are the crazyest electronics modifiers ).
That been told from my experience so far: repasting and nets go down the temperatures with even 15 °C but you will not be able to use full processing power without propper cooling and by proper cooling I mean 2 nasty coolers (as I said before I've applied on the bare motherboard 2 old processor coolers from the old p4 and WOWWWWW the machine was just crazy, turbo going up to 2.9Ghz and the temps under 50°, playng for ours starcraft 2 on ultra settings... but I want a laptop so )
the fan switch, for now, is the best compromise... instead of using throtle stop just disable turbo from bios and you'll see your temp stable as the processor don't go over the nominal speed...

 

Ok now let demistify somme of the metropolitan legends about the battery:
as you all know the batteries are LIion that mean there are not subject of the memory effect so in theory you can discharge the battery with 10% and after the charge you'll have full 100% of the battery instead only the 10% like it use to be on the NIMh. the charging graph of an Liion batttery ....man I'm getting too technical an I coud write for ours on the subject getting all of you bored... i'll cut the crap and just give you somme of my personal conclussions:
-the battery charging system does not influence the temperatures of the cpu/gpu, just drain more from you're socket adapter/charger and that only under the 90% of charge since the last 10% of charge is donne with a current so small (like 60mA = 2 light leds) with a longer time
-I never reccomand taking the battery out since it act like an UPS buffer so you keep the hardware protected if the power go down or just flash... and sommetimes the damages from a cutout power are catastrophical
-the heat on Liion batteryes is indeed a danger for explossion but the power management and the surge protections work realy well- i even got a short on mine and the protection did work (i had to put the battery in freezer for 24 ours so the memory reset itself)
-the lifetime of a battery is around 2 years (look at all mobile phones) and you have to live with that... i did not spare even for a second mine, I have this laptop for 2 years now and I'm like 49% whear level but i disconnect the charger to go in the chitchen for a cigarette, then when comme back just pluged just back, go to the bathroom and the same thing ecc (this happens like 20-30 times/day) when the batt will last under an our I'll just change it,and I did not use acer power management system not even for one day, my power scheme is all 100% battery or not with turbo activated that mean that the battery form the first day last like 4 ours at max- i want speed on my machine
-the IC that manage the charging of the battery use somme charts with values that give the number of charges and tell you the whear level usualy there are like 1000 charges when that limit is reached it tell you that the battery is dead, not all true tough (putit in the feezer for 24-48ours under -14°C) if the IC dont die it will reset itself and after a full charge you'll have like 60 % whear level an will buy you a few monts untill buy another battery, beware of the riscs of damaging the charging micro and the riscs of battery explossion-- never happent to me but it might
-When you have the laptop pluged in all the power is drain from the charger so the battery just charge or if it is fully charged just sit there in stand by and act like ups (i've put an Amperometer series on the battery cable and I can assure you that it not drain anny power from the battery)

 

just a nice gadjet from my favorite supplier:

Retractable USB 2.0 Air Cooler Cooling Fan for Notebook Laptop - Black - Free Shipping - DealExtreme

not doing anny publicicity, not working for them, do not want to break anny rules, sorry if that post did, admin fell free to delete the post

That seems like a nice ideea for the people that have machines on wanranty... and it could work better than a cooling pad since the air flow goes where it suppose to... i did not ordered one because I think my fan alredy does the max on full power...
If annyone gets one pls tell us how it works...

 

Does that thing actually work? It looks as if it would block the air vent more than anything.

 

I bought one of these from ebay for a cheaper price (around $3-5). That was a while ago so I don't remember the exact price I paid. Anyway, from my personal experience that thing was useless and barely moved any air nor helped lower the temps in anyway.

If you want to try it for yourself just don't pay more than $5, I don't think it's worth it.

Here's an eaby listing that has it for ~$4 Mini Vacuum Air Extracting USB Case Cooler Cooling Fan Idea for Notebook Laptop | eBay

 

To Aurelrica:
So there is inside enough space to insert another fan? And how did you managed to attach it inside so it wont move around ? Sorry i wont do it mysefl coz i would probably not be able to put it back together , but i cant imagine how you are attaching it to motherboard without damaging anything. No offence i trust u that u can but i have no idea how .

Also sorry for slow response i am preparing for final highschool exams... so i have a lot of stupidities to study

 

That fan will likely do nothing- I've got a big fan on my cooler, and turning it on only decreases max temps by about 1-2C. The difference between elevating the laptop and not is much greater.

 

Strange thing, today... Just found the battery state LED glowing orange, when the AC power is connected. Even the battery is at 97%, as reported by BatteryCare. If AC is disconnected, led is off.
Any ideas? I suspect the AC power brick, which isn't original. But maybe the battery?
I'm on stock bios 1.12, no overclock, previous notable event was a 12-hours session with Aliens - Colonial Marines...
---
later edit: broken capacitors in power brick, not enough amperage to charge the battery in good conditions. was thrown over balcony, dammit!

 

I have had a Vodafone 4830T for a year (it's actually now exactly 5 days out of warranty). It's worked perfectly all that time apart from being sent back to Acer early on for a screen defect. I was using it this morning and left it for a short time - as usual it had gone into sleep mode; expecting it to just come back to life I touched the keyboard, nothing. When I hit the start button it just flashed 5 times. I tried holding it for a few seconds with the same result, also connecting the power cable didn't help. I phoned Acer who basically said they could do nothing except charge a small fortune for courier and an out-of-warranty repair "Company Policy" . 5 DAYS outside warranty... compare and contrast my experiences with Apple who fixed my daughter's iPad nearly 2 months out of warranty!

Anyway excuse the rant against Acer, I was just a bit annoyed at the time. I'm guessing 5 flashes indicates a Motherboard failure or something serious but is there anything else I can try before I give up and get another machine?

If it can't be economically fixed (I'm not optimistic TBH) what machine should I get for a replacement. Despite my treatment by Acer's customer service, I'd probably still get another Acer if only because I've upgraded the 4830 to 8GB, a 500GB hybrid HDD and Windows 8 Pro (on the MS upgrade scheme), I'd like just to just transfer my old HDD straight to the new machine so I don't have to mess around setting stuff up all over again (and reinstalling my software including MS Office etc). Probably an ultra-portable 13-14", probably i5 or i7 CPU.

 

The reason Apple fixed the iPad so long after the warranty expired is the extremely high profit margins on all devices they sell. In contrast Acer runs on razor thin profit margins, so they use any excuse they can to get out of their warranty obligations. I know whenever I buy an Asus or Acer I am on my own. If I want warranty, I buy Lenovo, HP or Apple, but then you either get lower specs for the same price or higher prices for the same specs. Something has to pay for the service.

Sorry, somebody else will have to chime in here, but so far you did not try much in terms of troubleshooting. Try keeping the power button pressed for at least 30 seconds. Try removing the battery, leaving it out for a minute or so and booting on AC power alone. Try another AC adapter. Try taking out one of the RAM modules, and then the other. Try booting without the HDD. When ALL these things fail, consider buying another motherboard before buying another laptop.

I've had good luck with transplanting HDDs without reinstalling Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. My current Intel SSD moved from an Asus G53SW to a Sager NP8130 to an Alienware M14R2 to an HP 8530p to an Acer 3830TG. Different chipsets, video cards, screens, etc, and it still works just fine. Only when you go into device manager and display disconnected devices do you see all the drivers left behind, but Windows 7 doesn't seem to mind. And until I run into actual problems, reinstalling is not high on my list of priorities.

 

Although I couldn't tell you exactly what is happening that sounds really suspicious. How heavy did you use your machine? My machine has been out of warranty for about half a month now but it is a 3830TG and it still is working pretty well.

Maybe leave the thing powered off for a day then plug it back in and see if it works?

I know some of the batteries shipped with these machines are terrible and maybe yours has died completely?

Either way if it is a motherboard failure you could probably make a fair amount of cash selling the individual parts if it came to that.

Also I feel your pain with Acer tech support. I told them off pretty badly when I called in to 'ask' why my games would slow down after first 5 minutes (was acting like a stupid innocent customer). They had the most retarded response of the games I was playing weren't authorized by Acer. Its like they are trying to be apple without their own proprietary OS and the cheapest hardware available. Honestly I don't even think apple would give a response like that either.

 

Many thanks for your replies.

Yes that's pretty much what I thought - it's a shame but not the end of the world.

Those would have been the normal things to do except that the battery of the timelineX 4830 is embedded. There is a battery cut-out switch on the base (you have to insert a pin) but it's much better to take the base cover off and physically move the switch. The customer service agent (wrongly as it turned out) said that the flashing start button indicated a possible MB failure and service was required. Then he noticed it was out of warranty and rather too gleefully said it'll be a chargeable repair. Sigh!
When I got home I decided to try again and lo and behold it started first time! I'm guessing the power point I was using at work was defective, the battery was low and it just failed to come out of hibernation - basically, user error. [Aside: I may have missed the low-battery indication since I'm on Windows 8 and the battery icon doesn't show on the desktop. Apparently that's a feature of timelineXs running W8; there is a work-around but it has to be applied every time you restart.]

It depends on the machine I guess.

 

Doesn't the newest bios fix the Win8 battery glitch?

 

I don't run windows 8 (I almost typed windows 98 ha) but I am under the impression that version 1.12 of the bios does fix that issue.

 

the last part of the charge like from 85 to 100% on liion batteries is realy slow with currents so small... on the other side if you had the ac adapter pluged in and it was a power drop even for 0.5 sec while gaming the charge goes down with like 3-5% instantly (based on the wear level of the battery)...

 

I've got the fan but it is not powerfull as I thought it would be the plan is to cut the right side where the gsm simcard should be and place it underneeth... even got the copper conetting plates but untill I'll find a nice fan I would not wheld and separate the gpu...
I was tryng to use a fan 40mm diameter with open case around, I'll post a picture when I'll be back at home...

 

well, popcorn-like capacitors aren't good news either, eh? but, anyway, on the second thought - orange light at 98% isn't good news also, it usually appears at 25-30% or so.

another thing - anyone installed a third antenna inside display? just interested to acquire 450mbps with intel 6300.

 

Lol sepparating the GPU?! I thought it is hardtied to motherboard or have i had misunderstood you? It sounds like you would be able to change GT540m for better model... what about changing it for nVidia Titan xD that would be awesome , but the chassis would meltdown probably xD.

Orange light doesn't necessarily need to mean anything bad. When your battery is not full charged and you plug in charger it lights orange and when battery reaches 100% it turns blue. If it happens even without charger with more then 25% (not sure about the exact charge lvl) of charge, then the battery may be decalibrated. Also try pressing the orange color button indicating battery lvl (u may have even missed the fact that it is a button). When i bought this laptop this button was stucked or something and it was shining all the time. It looked like it was working like it should. One day i tried to push my lappy a little more to the center of my table. I pushed exactly where the button is situated and it made a sound like if it had broken or something and i found out that it really was a button xD. So try to press it if it is not stucked.

 

separating the gpu cooler from the main cooling rail (the gpu and cpu are on the same cooling rail) and in heavy gaming the temperature of the processor rise so much that throtle, what I'm working to do is placing another cooler for the gpu with it's own fan... just for you know it is possible to change the gpu but you'll have to rewrite the video bios too, but realy who want to do that, gt 540 is so nice, I like it better that the video card from my desktop : radeon 5450 with 2 gb ddr3.

 

does annyone find a keyboard with backlight like the macbook? man i want one of thoes...

 

Well i am excited to see your result coz it sounds pretty interesting... btw my friend bought crApple (new MacBook Air) last month and it is already in service xD. I love my Acer even more now - one and a half year without any problem (when not counting stupid Windows which causes problems all the time, but hell, it is windows so i was expecting that) xD.

 

I am new to the forum ..
I have had this laptop (5830tg) for at least 16 months now.. Never had any problem with it..
I recently upgraded to windows 8 and I am having a really bad heating issue .. It heats up for no reason.. The fans are on at all times.. I play any game, it burns up.. I m really bummed out about it.. .. Any suggestions?

And I had an amazing battery life of about 8 hours when I first got it.. When I had windows 7, it used to last for at least 5 hours.
When I installed Windows 8, the first week I have got a battery life of 4 hours.. Now its dropped down to an hour(mostly think its the heating issue) ..
Please help

 

Welcome
I would say, that your problem is not the heating, but what is causing it. When you have reinstalled your windows, did you installed again acer PowerSmart Manager and that intel turbo boost utility? Coz, i think without these two things, the processor runs in full speed all time, without any reason, because there is no app, which would tell him to settle down. This may cause your problem. But also you may have dust inside of chassis, which can cause some heating too and your battery may be weared, because of the heating, so it may have lost some of its capacity and its result may be shorter battery life.

I have 4830TG, so not sure how much different 5830TG is, but i would bet on PowerSmart. I have had to reinstall it one time too, because powersaver stopped working. Give it a shot.

 

Well so you recommend not to use powersmart manager ? And I haven't installed turbo boost technology. . But isn't that there by default?
Anyways mostly think it is the dust .. guess I ll have to get it serviced

 

if you want long life for the battery use the power smart manager, and is not there by defaut you have to download it from acer.
If you have it for more than 6 months you can be sure that the radiator is full of dust under the fan, just compressed air will not be enough to cean it, you have to open the computer (it's very easy, take out al the screws ant once you took out the mouse and keyboard you have access at the fan screws- then you'll see what i mean when I say that compressed air is not enough).
Once you open it you might want to repaste the cpu and gpu and take out the nets under the motherboard. On the acer manual the pictures for opening the computer seems so complicated but once you open once you'll see how easy it is.

 

Guess what happens today.. Laptop gets way too heated.. And battery's all messed up..
It showed 95% (plugged in, not charging) and when I removed the charger, it switched off .. I called up the service center and told them about the problem.. Later I also realized that the battery LED blinked orange.. The service center picked up the laptop today .. Hope I get it back soon

 

No i advice you to install it. Normally it should be there by default (at least i have had it in OEM), but u have said, that u have installed W8, so no original Acer delivered OS, no? There may be some software differences. Just a guess.

Wish you good luck with fast repair .

 

Have you upgraded your bios to version 1.12? This will fix some issues with the battery in windows 8 and may fix other issues as well.

 

Hello,
I am looking for the same answer. Anyone tried soldering a mini-Pci? Have you made it?
Thanks

 

I am really sorry for the late reply .. I did upgrade the BIOS that morning .. Fixed the battery bar issue of not being seen when the laptop was on BIOS 1.10 .. But that was it .. Did not notice anything else

 

just curios why do you need a mini-pci? there is one for the whireless card inside. Although I'm god soldering and I have all the gear including a hot air soldering gun I would not try to do that for two reasons:
1- the bios and embed controller need to be rewritten also drivers for the extra pci would be needed
2- is alredy crowded inside the laptop case, I do not know where you'll put the extra board (or what you try to connect)
If you realy need to use a mini pci take out the whireless and use the mini pci there. Then to have a wifi conection use a usb adapter (and if you want you can even strip it down from it's case and solder internaly the 4 usb wires- it's more simple to sorder the 4 usb wire) mine does not have a bluetooth integrated for example so I could use the internal usb connector that is ment for bluetooth to do that without losing an usb port...

 

There's this:

 

How hard is it to remove the keyboard? Do I have to remove the motherboard or not? Thinking about doing an LED mod for the fun of it, I'll post pictures if it works out.

 

I swapped the French keyboard that came with my 3830TG to the English version.

I can honestly say it was THE most difficult laptop disassembly I ever had to perform. Pretty much everything has to come off, and then you're left with the entire upper plate that contains the touchpad and keyboard in your hands. Then you have to rip off a plastic sheet that protects the motherboard from the keyboard aluminium bottom in order to reach all the keyboard screws. Only then you can remove the keyboard proper.

If I knew how stupidly difficult it was, I would have never started.

 

WHATTT it is not realy simple but once you took out all the screws, take out the mouse you only have the speaker connector, the power connector and then the keyboard connector... as all the things the first time is the hardest... now i disamble completly mine in under 5 min

 

let me know how it worked out, I was searching for a keyboard with backlight for mine. The sad thing is that the keys are printed with white letters (not like the mac that has the transparent letters) so even with smd white leds you will be able to see the light only around the keys not the actual letters

 

Yeah, that's a part of the reason I want to switch, I don't like my shift yet. I remapped the extra "\" key to shift as well, but it's still distracting at times.

Hmm, that's discouraging. Will probably pass then.

Actually what I wanted to do was buy white keys that would act as a diffuser, with no lettering on them. Then I would create a matrix of LEDs that would interface with USB and light up when I hit the key.