The Official Arrandale Timeline Thread

bronsky... for the love of god... learn to post higher res pics

thanks for the write up!

 

My next purchase will be a high res camera with macro capabilities. Okay?

Bronsky

 

Canon, Nikon (SLRs only), or Sony only, okay? I was using my company's Panasonic Lumix (point n shoot) on Wednesday at our annual conference, and it's SOOOOOOO shi**y. Blurry pix, blurry screen, crappy digital zoom, no image stabilization. 10MP my a$5. My Canon does a better job and its only 7.1MP. Hell, my Nokia n78 takes better photos. Lesson: Get something with Carl Zeiss optics, Bron.

 

Bigger MP doesn't really translated to better image quality....

 

i just bought an Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG-5454G64Nks 3G, from Welcome to computeruniverse.net! , i was waiting for it to sell in Malaysia,for 2 months and no word of it, cant stand it and just bought it from the German website, it might arrive next week, but i totally forgot when i bought it, DOES THE BIOS also be in German?????
i know the keyboard will be...the OS is easy, just a clean install, but the BIOS? can i change that to?

 

The BIOS is english....

 

Lee is 100% correct. Here is a post I made about converting a German unit. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...rks-tweaks-mods-upgrades-162.html#post6465732

Bronsky

 

thank you so much for the info, i cant wait for the laptop to arrive.

 

We just got the 4820TG-5637 today for my mom so she has a laptop now. A little overkill for her since she really doesn't need the power of a dedicated GPU, but we kind of wanted to get the laptop on short notice, so you take what you can get. Looks like a solid laptop - a little flex in the palm rests and the optical drive seems a little flimsy, but overall, for the price, it isn't bad. The one major issue - too much crap installed from the get-go and being forced to make your own recovery DVDs (not necessarily Acer-specific) kind of pisses me off. Have to spend a lot of time just removing garbage and making the DVDs.

The design is pretty awesome though - consumer-grade, ultrathin . Thanks to everyone in this thread for putting these on my radar earlier this year, when I was thinking about getting a new laptop (for me, that's on hold).

 

sigh.. it still not out

 

What kind of wireless cards are they putting in these guys? I saw a while back on the i7 model they were using intel wireless cards either the 5300 or 6300 but there also seems to be an acer model? I ask because I would like to have the 5GHZ band too!

 

Hey guys, I'm back. I've been playing a lot of games lately, namely SC2 that just came out, GRID, Mass Effect 2, and Guild Wars.

You'd think that the Timeline 3820 series would be able to sufficiently handle SC2, but for me, it depends; sometimes I play it on high settings and it doesn't lag, sometimes I play it on low settings, and it lags incredibly. I mean to the point where the whole game client freezes up. Yes I've updated all my drivers, and I'm 99.999% sure I don't have any viruses or malware etc...

I recently installed a temperature monitor just in case, and took a screenshot of the readings:



Do those seem normal? I know that the CPU core temps are around 67-70 celcius during gameplay, which seems normal, but some of the other values just seem way too high. If so, is this a manufacturer defect? What should I do!?

Also, if anyone with a 3820 series plays SC2, what settings do you use?

 

Those numbers under Chipset PCH are bogus, I guess its a readout error from the program. I have never heard of RAM slots having thermal sensors and your laptop doesn't have 4 RAM slots either . The program is probably interpreting something wrong. You can always try the like of Everest, HWInfo etc.

 

I will definitely try Everest.

As for SC2, does anyone know why it lags so much? Would installing an SSD remedy the situation? If heat isn't the issue, the only thing I can think of is the HDD, although maybe the low clock speed might have something to do with it too. Even when I change the graphics settings from the option menu, it takes like 3-5 minutes for the changes to take effect. It was instant on my E7200 dual core system

 

lee_what2004 , when you ordered the german acer laptop, and shipped it to malaysia, did the custom tax the laptop?

 

You should check our gaming forum in the E14 section. Others are experiencing disappointments with their lappies as well.

 

Just tried OC'ing the GPU, to 600/900, and ran 3DMark06. I got 7893 marks, which is around 1k difference from stock!

Since I wanted to check the temps after OC'ing, I didn't OC the GPU to the max, I've heard most HD 5650's OC to about 650/1000. I will try overclocking my CPU as well when I get a legit copy of SetFSB, and try 3DMark again

Screenie

 

DL the freeware version first. The clockgen setting is mentioned in this thread. See if it will let you get past the clockgen stage without a PLL error.
Then donate and get your key.

Bronsky

 

I just looked at a DDR3 module for the pinout, and the module had a temp sensor connected to the same bus as the SPD EEPROM.

 

Maybe,

but this no problem, because the bus is able to "call" the device by name.

 

4820t w/ ATI now available in Canada from Amazon.ca (temp. out of stock, $916 CAD)
Acer AS4820T-5570 14-Inch Notebook: Amazon.ca: Electronics

 

woops, that amazon ad has wrong model number or wrong specs.

 

omg~ how do u make ur windows 7 show the tabs separate from the buttons like in XP ??

 

Do you mean the taskbar?
That's easy, just do the following:
Right click Taskbar -> Properties -> Taskbar Buttons: change the dropdown menu from "Always Combine, hide labels (Default)" to either "Never Combine" or "Combine when the taskbar is full". Hope that's what you meant .

 

I didn't order it, Malaysia don't have tax for importing laptop...

 

It's letting me get past the clockgen stage without any errors but I'm broke this month... I guess I'll wait until my next payday Are there any programs like SetFSB that don't require a "donation"?

Thanks
J

 

Thanks for the response, but this doesn't really apply to me. I have no idea what the numbers actually mean, and have nothing to compare it to Also, I don't think OCing will solve the SC2 lack of playability. It's SC2 being problematic with ATI HD cards I think. Someone posted it in the E14 gaming thread, and provided a Yahoo answers link. Maybe ya'll should post in blizzard forums. Apparently the game crashes ATI cards. Maybe that explains why it's crashing my dinodesktop

 

You can run it as freeware. If you don't get the PLL error you can just OC.

 

Unless you want the quick launch?

Add the Quick Launch Bar to the Taskbar in Windows 7 - How-To Geek

 

THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!
but I just realized it's going to take some time to get used to the old style LOL

 

I just overclocked the GPU again, and ran it at 650/1000. I got 8360 on 3D Mark 06, without having the CPU overclocked at all Love this machine!

 

I don't get it. People keep OCing their machines, and getting these higher numbers in all these benchmarking progs. But what do those numbers mean, exactly? And how do they translate to real-life applications, like video-gaming?

Please do tell, do tell!

 

Well, *supposedly* the higher marks should equate to higher frames per second. I've been able to play all the games installed on my HDD in high quality settings, at the default resolution on the notebook, except for one game: Starcraft 2.

For some odd reason, the game freezes constantly, and I think it has something to do with the hard drive, because that's the only bottleneck I can think of. I will see if I can download Fraps and show you guys different games, and post it up on Youtube

 

My use is not gaming. Programs that I use at work can benefit from GPU accelleration. OC'ing the GPU is an inexpensive way to get a 25%-40% power increase which, in-turn helps the CPU and the program do its job smoothily and efficiently. I use the GPU in its OC'd state all the time.

Benchmarks are only there to give you an indication of how well the GPU will perform in its OC'd state.

Bronsky

 

Much thanks to the both of you. Now, if only 3820tg came to California, in 450M+5650 form...

 

I'm still getting massive, excessive lags whilst playing SC2. I have tried the settings on low, with low resolution, and I'm still experiencing random lagging.


Where's the bottle neck, anyone know? Would it be the HDD? I have been able to compare 3d mark points, and came to the conclusion that the HD 5650 would perform roughly similarly to the Nvidia 9600GT, which was released a while ago, but this graphic card seems capable of running SC2. with the 3820 having 4 GB's of RAM, I don't really see an issue there, and the same goes for the CPU. I just don't want to jump right into purchasing an SSD based on my "guesses"...

 

Do you overclock the GPU to heavy?

 

It's the ATI drivers...they're not optimized for SC2 for some reason. People been talking about it in other threads. Just try playing on medium, and/or editing the .txt file and capping your fps. Good luck.

 

drivers 10.7a beta is the SC2 fix

 

It's already come to California for two forum members. You should check out the North American purchase thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/501992-acer-3820tg-north-america-purchase-options-12.html

 

Really? So does that mean the 5650 can play SC2 on high/ultra???

 

I get lag whether I play on stock clocks or OC to 650/1050

Thanks! I'll have to try this version out

 

The lag spikes are usually caused by your HDD. Had same and changed to an seagate momentus XT hybrid HDD and no more lagspikes.

 

What's your opinion of the hybrid?

 

I'm interested too.

 

x2.

I've just done a quick read-up, and it seems like this hybrid drive uses both an SSD and regular hard disk, but stores system files and regularly accessed files on the SSD. According to Seagate, users only have to use their computers around 3-4 times in order for the hard drive to fully show it's potential.

If Seagate really claim a 40% increase from 7200rpm drives and up to 100% increase from 5400rpm drives, I'm hooked!! Seems like you can get a 500GB hybrid drive for around $150 here

[edit]
http://www.pcworld.com/article/196998/seagate_momentus_xt_pairs_ssd_and_hdd_with_impressive_results.html

So studies seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of the hybrid SSD, as speeds were measured as being faster than a velociraptor

Now to find out what the multitasking capabilities are, as well as find out if the difference in the SSD being SLC or MLC matters when multi tasking (although most probably yes...)

 

I think the hybrid drive will speed your periodic programms like Windows boot time, internet browser, mail client and office. But I think it will not speed up all the other work like copying great files, using virtual machines and starting a programm which is used only one time per month.

 

Hi All - I got my 3820TG in May and it's been fine. Quick question: I upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate when I got it to get on corp domain, and seem to have lost all the Acer controls (like when I hit any of the Fn keys, they work but there are no onscreen prompts. I tried re-instaling the Acer drivers from the disk I made off the system before doing the Win 7 Ultimate install, but doesn't seem to make any difference. Is there a place online I can get some software or drivers that would help? Thanks much, RobLiv

 

Install the Launch Manager to get OSD...

 

Lee - Done. Worked great. Thanks. All the onscreen Fn icons work well now, except for brightness, which is no big deal. Any other Acer applications you would suggest I should install? The disk is full of them, but I'm guessing most/all are crap.

Thanks, RobLiv 3820TG i7-620M HD5650 4GB RAM 640GB HDD