Acer TimelineX 3820TG Owners Lounge. Info, benchmarks, tweaks, mods and upgrades

[Bronsky]

The AES function is a part of technologie, which will become important in the next releases of a few programms for cryptologie. But at the moment it is very useless because you need a few special commands to load the hardware AES unit and this didn't happen at the moment.

The cpu is not able to detect an AES operation which is written in an "old style" and transfer it to the AES.

VIA has also a processor with AES function but no great software company have had a look at it.

I understood that it was already in use in my proprietary GIS software which is designed to Mil Spec.

Bronsky

[Hendrickson]

Just a thought, is it possible to underclock the CPU to save battery power?

Maybe clock it down to say 1.6Ghz just for basic email tasks etc?

[Just_a_Nick]

Just a thought, is it possible to underclock the CPU to save battery power?

Maybe clock it down to say 1.6Ghz just for basic email tasks etc?

With the standard settings the cpu speed goes down to 1,33GHz.

A BClk of 120MHz crash the system.

[OC-Freak]

Also posted this in my 5820TG review thread, but here goes:

A few shots to show difference between 3820TG and 5820TG.



The 3820TG on top of the 5820TG to illustrate the size difference. Notice that the 3820 has silver alu finish while the 5820 has dark gray alu finish, this is a big plus for the 3820. Fingerprints are almost invisible on the silver finish, but very visible on black/dark gray finish.



The right side, 3820 has fan/vent for GPU instead of ODD.



Left side.



Tried to get an image of the thickness difference, but it was hard to illustrate, 5820TG is about 2mm thicker than 3820TG.



With screen open.




Two different shots illustrating the screens. Both are at max brightness. I rate the Samsung screen in the 5820TG as a lot better than the AUO screen in the 3820TG. 5820TG viewing angles are better, colours are more natural, contrast feels better and most importantly, it doesn't have a pixel pattern that gives a feeling of stripes from upper left corner to lower right corner of the screen.

[ngaw]

FYI - Some discussion of the new lithium battery regulations that came into play in 2009 in the US: Lithium Battery Shipping Regulations - Nexergy

Short story is you can send them air no problem, but the units have to go through a UN testing process and be packed according to the regulations. If they haven't yet, the shipper can still get the USDOT to give them a waiver. It's very possible that your german company simply didn't have the correct documentation to prove acer's compliance.

[OC-Freak]

A few 5820TG vs 3820TG tests (specs are same, HD5650/i5-450m).

3dmark06 stock speeds:



5820TG scores 7602



3820TG scores 7483

3dmark06 at 720/1100MHz GPU speeds:



5820TG scores 9545



3820TG scores 9443

I noticed especially that CPU scores were lower for the 3820TG, so I did an quick test with passmark as well.



5820TG got an overall score of 2735.8



3820TG got an overall score of 2623.9

So with same specs, same (or at least very close) drivers the 5820TG performs slightly better, for reasons unknown. Both computers are running the default acer win7 install. I have installed intel turbo boost driver (I don't know why, but I feel the CPU performs sligtly better after installing it), latest wireless driver and ATI 10.6 suite on both.

[Bronsky]

The wifi in my 1410TG has a better range than that in my 3820TG. I will probably be changing that, since I like to sit outside my house early in the morning or on occasional weekends and catch up with a work a bit. I had a few dropped signals and went around testing the reception in my yard. I was surprised by the short range of the wifi. I had my 1410T right next to it and had no problems. I could still pick up signals 30% to 50% farther than the 3820TG. I guess it's time for a new wifi.

Bronsky

@OC-Freak - link to the turbo driver? I have the turbo driver from my backup, is the Intel one any newer? Notice any improvement from the wifi driver? It would be nice if my problem was just a crappy driver.

Re: your pictures - my 3820TG is the dark color, not the silver. I like the lighter color. Mine shows prints as much as the 1410T plastic did. The 720 resolution seems okay on teh 13.3" display. It is richer. It really fades by the time you get to 15.6" No wonder we are hearing complaints even from the 4820TG owners. I'm struck by the difference in size.

[OC-Freak]

The broadcom wifi that is in both my 5820TG and 3820TG has S H I T T Y range to be honest. in my bedroom I barely have signal (is at level 1 of 5, but has not dropped out yet), my asus X77JA is at level 3 of 5 with atheros wifi, my old acer 5930G had intel wifi and was at full 5/5 in same room.... Yeah go grab some intel wifi if you are having signal issues.
And nope latest drivers didn't change anything.

I use the latest intel turbo boost drivers from here intel drivers pour chipsets (yes I know the ty site has an million popups, but they have many up-to-date drivers available.)

[bestis]

3820tg UMTS / 3g modem owners, hows the software. Can you make voice calls or send SMS messages via the software?

Software is the same Huawei software (Mobile partner) that comes in huawei usb sticks. SMS is possible but no voice calling. Don't know does the module even support voice in hardware.

[hardcor]

I don't think it's been posted yet, but here's a link on ebay for a replacement glossy and matte displays that are supposed to fit the 3820tg......Bronsky, I'm looking at you

http://cgi.ebay.com/LCD-Screen-Acer-...item5adada88e0