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

[Hendrickson]

System specs.
i5-420M to i7-620m processor*
13.3-inch display with a resolution of 1366×768 pixels,
Switchable ATi Radeon HD 5650 graphics
4GB of DDR3 RAM
640GB of hard drive
Atheros Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (Can do 300mbit/s)
Bluetooth 2.1 or 3.0*
3 x USB 2.0 ports
100/100/1000 Lan
Multi card reader
6 or 9-cell battery*
8 to 12 hours of battery life.
Windows 7 Home Premium

*Various according to spec.

My mini review:

Display:

I was expecting a dull and dark display reading some reviews, However the display is bright and the colors aregood. While it could be brighter its certainly not the worst display I have seen in terms of brightness. Its very reflective, so using this is direct sunlight or bright environments would be difficult. Vertical viewing angles are average. The screens response time seems very quick. I don't feel let down by the display.

Touch pad:

The touch pad is good, multi touch gestures make it easy to scroll down webpages etc. No complaints in this dept. The single styled mouse button has good feedback and isn't loud.

CPU/GPU Performance

For a 13.3 thin and light notebook this unit exceeds in this department, even the i5 430m preforms very well. No notacible lag and
with 4GB of ram its plenty for most users needs. The ATI 5650 is excellent, the performance is top of its class for a notebook this size. It also loves to be overclocked and this further increases the frame rates in game and 3d applications.

Keyboard:

Acer's floating style keys and keyboard take some getting use too. The style of the keys is prone to dust and muck getting in underneath them. Nothing a quick vacuum couldn't fix however. There is a small amount of keyboard flex.

Connectivity

With 3 x USB2 ports, HDMI, bluetooth 2.1, gigabit LAN, N wireless its well covered. The wireless card running on my N wireless network runs at 300Mbps flat whereas my P6831's Intel 5300 AGN connects between 200 - 300 Mbps.

Portability:

At 1.8 kilos or (3.9 lbs) this isn't the lightest 13.3 notebook, but its still an acceptable weight for its thin size and fits into a backpack
or briefcase no worries.

Heat management

My 3820TG running the i5 430m runs cool and temps are around 77-81 degrees on the CPU and maximum 82 degrees on the when running Furmark and prime95. Normal gaming the GPU normally sits at around 73 - 74 degrees. Office use the CPU is around 44-50 degrees. The exhaust ports are hot to the touch when gaming and using furmark.

All in all its a cool running unit even when the GPU is overclocked. Fans rarely make much noise at all and the system is very quite. (Compared to my gate P6831fx) Note I'm running bios 1.13, other bios might have more aggressive fan profiles, I haven't tried them. The fans only kick up in speed after playing demanding games like Battlefield BC2 etc. The the seem to pump out the heat nicely.

----

Pros:

Light weight, good size and very powerful for its size. Runs cool. Good build quality. Great battery life around 7 hours surfing the web.

Cons:

No eSata or USB3, glossy LCD. Finger print magnet, specially black the Aluminum lid.

Drivers if going a clean Windows install:

All drivers can be found here Acer Europe - Service & Support, Drivers & Utilities, Downloads Search under notebook then Aspire and find the 3820TG.

Latest Realtek HD audio driver: http://www.realtek.com/Downloads/dow...&GetDown=false

Latest ATI 5650 catalyst drivers (Fixes PCI-E x1 issue

Over-clocking the 3820TG ATI 5650 GPU

Since the 3820TG features a ATI 5650 1GB graphics card that loves to be overclocked, why not boost up the GPU and RAM clock speeds a bit for a nice increase in FPS during those gaming sessions.

AMD GPU clock Tool is used for increasing the clock speeds from default. (Use version 0.9.26+) Read this post from Mac on how to overclock the gpu on start up.

Around 650 core clock and 950 ram is considered a safe over clock. I run 670 / 1040 personally, your GPU may or may not support these clock rates. If you see glitches or the system locks up. Lower the speed.

Over-clocking the i5/i7 CPU

Yes its possible on some units and depends on which clockgen Acer used. So its random. Using SetFsb newest version and selecting the AsusG73jh clockgen or try the freeware version, and use ICS9LPRS365BGLF. if you don't get an error when clocking get FSB. You can overclock. PLL error = you have a locked TME clockgen.

You can reach speeds of around 3.3+ Ghz (turbo) I have seen on the i5 450m CPU's. I5 520-540m's and i7 620m's don't seem to overclock as much. The higher the stock clock = less FSB you can push. Ram timing on the i5 5xxm & i7's might have something to do with this.

More details on overclocking and the results here: Acer TimelineX 3820TG Owners Lounge. Info, benchmarks, tweaks, mods and upgrades

Benchmarks
My 3820TG has the i5 430m.

Windows 7 rating after fresh install (Stock)


3Dmark06 stock clocks on 10.5 Catalyst drivers



3Dmark06 OC @ 680 / 1065 clocks



OCZ 120GB vertex upgrade:





Stalker overclocked GPU



Heaven 2.1 benchmark results:



Resident Evil 5 fixed benchmark - Default game settings.



PC Mark Vantage stock and overclocked scores (Not this is with a SSD not the stock HDD)

Common issues and solutions

Poor 3d performance / PCI-E runs at only x1 not x16. Installing the latest ATI Catalyst drives fixes this. See below:

Installing the latest ATI 5650 catalyst drivers. First make sure you install the stock Acer ATI vga driver. And then Intel HD Graphics driver. Then go into the systems bios (F2 on boot) and set the vga mode to discrete in the second screen. (See screenshot below) Install the newest ATI driver over the top of the existing and then reboot the notebook. Go back into the bios and change the options back to switchable.



Upgrading components

The bottom access panel gives you easy access to the hard drive, ram modules and wireless adapter. So upgrading the hard drive to an SSD or swapping the atheros wifi card for an Intel 6200 AGN is very easy.

Kindan has posted a great guide here on upgrading the CPU with photos and pdf guide.

• Tutorial: How to replace the 3820TG with a new SSD/HDD (Photos inside)

Modding

3820TG Keyboard swap and backlit mod (With on and off)

Make that 3820TG glossy screen look and act like a matte screen with an anti-Glare matte screen protector semi-mod

Videos of my 3820TG in action

YouTube - Acer TimelineX 3820TG Battlefield Bad Company 2 - ATI 5650 benchmark [HD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LmErx2iun8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G36MiwZNWVA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGExHM0yr_Y

Good protective case for the 3820TG

A popular case is the ZeroShock III

More info and buy links here: Acer TimelineX 3820TG Owners Lounge. Info, benchmarks, tweaks, mods and upgrades

Some photos are requested...




Buying a 3820TG from Germany

Bronksy has posted a good write up on buying a 3820TG from German and whats needed to get it running in English etc. Read about that here: Acer TimelineX 3820TG Owners Lounge. Info, benchmarks, tweaks, mods and upgrades

[OC-Freak]

Please post the LCD panel ID whenever possible. Interested in seeing if you got the most common AUO panel - or something else.

[Hendrickson]

Please post the LCD panel ID whenever possible. Interested in seeing if you got the most common CMO panel - or something else.

I have an AUO panel (AUO322C)

[OC-Freak]

Yap, typing mistake on my side, ment AUO.

[Vaio Z Power]

Can post pictures of how you see the screen with the brightness max?
I want to see pictures of your baby

the manuals are multi5 language? or only germany

thanks!!

I have NVIDIA xD

[bydus]

heavy o/c 3dmark06 score would be awesome , can you try bad company 2 and post fps under o/c and settings plz :P congrats on your new baby lol

[Hendrickson]

Can post pictures of how you see the screen with the brightness max?
I want to see pictures of your baby

the manuals are multi5 language? or only germany

thanks!!

I have NVIDIA xD

Yes they are in many European langauges (English,Spanish etc). And I can't get a good photo of the screen brightness as the camera senor always adjusts to the screen and the background looks dark. I'll try again soon.

heavy o/c 3dmark06 score would be awesome , can you try bad company 2 and post fps under o/c and settings plz :P congrats on your new baby lol

I just got almost 8800 3dmarks with 650 / 1050 overclock This is with firefox open and other stuff running too.



I will test bad company 2 when I get steam installed and download the 6GB....

[bydus]

Yes they are in many European langauges (English,Spanish etc). And I can't get a good photo of the screen brightness as the camera senor always adjusts to the screen and the background looks dark. I'll try again soon.



I just got almost 8800 3dmarks with 650 / 1050 overclock This is with firefox open and other stuff running too.



I will test bad company 2 when I get steam installed and download the 6GB....

not bad not bad, why do you think i7 would be running much hotter? its the same 35W like i5 is it cause higher clock? The temps seem quite safe as you say, i think you could push it up to 10k like some guy did with 4820 that had single cooling fan for both cpu and gpu. Let us know everything :P hows the battery during wifi browsing/listening to music ? do you have the HSDPA in your 3820tg?

[mmmw]

Looks good so far. Doing a clean install, what drivers did you install? The acer-europe driver site lists many drivers for the 3820TG, I don't think all of them are applicable (there are 3 3G drivers and 4 WLAN drivers ).

Edit: Also, could you post an in depth guide on overclocking the 5650, with temp comparisons and other possible cons of overclocking. I mean, if there's no cons to overclocking, why do manufacturers gimp their own products?

[Hendrickson]

Looks good so far. Doing a clean install, what drivers did you install? The acer-europe driver site lists many drivers for the 3820TG, I don't think all of them are applicable (there are 3 3G drivers and 4 WLAN drivers ).

Edit: Also, could you post an in depth guide on overclocking the 5650, with temp comparisons and other possible cons of overclocking. I mean, if there's no cons to overclocking, why do manufacturers gimp their own products?

I installed the latest ACHI intel drivers, chipset and turbo boost driver. Sound card and card reader later. Also downloaded 10.5 Ati drivers and installed them.

I've clocked my gfx to 660 / 1060 without any issues and got 8860 points. Its very easy with the ATI GPU tool, just set that clocks speeds and your away. So far the GPU temps are nothing short of amazing with such an overclock.

Whats your windows experience rating? I think my ram is low at 5.9?

Also I can't get the HDMI to output audio any ideas?