Acer 8371/3810 Owners Thread

Hi all.

I also purchased an 8371 recently, and I've found an overclocking tool and a customised bios update that you might be interested in. As with any overclocking tool or modded bios, use at your own risk.

First, the overclocking tool increases the FSB from 200 to 250 MHz, yielding a 25% OC for both CPU and RAM. It seems to have originated on a Chinese forum and the author seems to be anonymous. Simply click OC_RTM875T_250.exe (the other exe will take your fsb down to 167). The OC occurs instantly and remains until the CPU is turned off (either by shutdown or standby; however, the OC will remain if you 'restart'). Here is the link:
http://uploaded.to/file/4hlia5
With the OC my SuperPi 1M comes down to 25.3s and my Win7 experience increases to 5.1/5.7/4.4/5.9/5.5
I've tested the functionality in both Vista 32-bit and Win7 64-bit. I've read it also works for the 3810. If it's stable on your machine, you can set it to run at start-up for a nice boost.
Link to Chinese forum:
http://ideapad.it168.com/viewthread.php?tid=580039&extra=page=1&ordertype=1&page=1


Second, I found a modded bios with advanced options unlocked (inc Hardware Virtualization), lower fan speed when on battery, the ability to select "intel only" graphics options as well as ATI only and switchable, and SLIC2.1. It comes courtesy of dragonuk on notebookreview.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...n-settings-advanced-options-graphics-fix.html
direct link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sdi1sv88b60ieuj



I'd also like to ask a favour. I've noticed that while my CPU runs nice and cool in Windows (never much above 40c), the Radeon GPU is always much hotter: sometimes touching 60c and often above 50c. Would you mind downloading gpuz and posting your temperatures? Primarily I'm interested in the temperature idling on the Windows desktop when on AC (mine is 50c). I'm wondering if I should take my notebook apart to check the cooling system.



edit -

If anyone has formatted their C: drive and thus broken the Alt-F10 functionality of the Acer recovery partition (e.g. when installing a fresh copy of Windows), you can restore the Acer MBR to your C: drive by copying the RyTools folder from the recovery partition to C:, opening a command prompt at C:\RyTools\ and typing MBRWRWIN install RTMBR.BIN. You can then delete the RyTools folder from C:. Note that this is only possible if you left the recovery partition itself untouched.
 
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My laptop seems to be making a quiet beeping noise, i think it might be the hard drive?

Havent heard it before but since it is silent in the library it is REALLY annoying ahhh.

SSD time, hmm maybe?
 

Hi mate, thanks very much for that info, very useful. I am gonna add it to the first page so no one misses it!

Few questions though:

1- How has overclocking the cpu and ram affected the battery life?

2- Have you had any instability issues at all?

3- How do you reverse the overclock and set it back to default?
 
I'd also like to ask a favour. I've noticed that while my CPU runs nice and cool in Windows (never much above 40c), the Radeon GPU is always much hotter: sometimes touching 60c and often above 50c. Would you mind downloading gpuz and posting your temperatures? Primarily I'm interested in the temperature idling on the Windows desktop when on AC (mine is 50c). I'm wondering if I should take my notebook apart to check the cooling system.

I have just installed gpuz and it shows the gpu temp as 51C, with some gaming I can see this touching around 60C. My cpu temps are generally in the mid 30s although I have seen it touch 50C sometimes so overall, my temps are the same as yours.
 
I was using the battery buddy. i understand if i was using the charger it could have been the battery making the noise(i think) but i wasnt running off the mains so couldnt have been that :(
 
Hi mate, thanks very much for that info, very useful. I am gonna add it to the first page so no one misses it!

Few questions though:

1- How has overclocking the cpu and ram affected the battery life?

2- Have you had any instability issues at all?

3- How do you reverse the overclock and set it back to default?

1. I haven't seen any drastic difference, but it must reduce the battery life a little at least (although the voltage is unchanged). I've not run any tests.

2. No. I ran AIDA64 (Everest) stability test for half an hour, followed immediately by some prime95 torture, and there were no problems. The CPU peaked at 61c and the graphics at 68c.

Here is my temperature log for my OC stability test:
2upecnn.png


3. The overclock is reset when the CPU is powered off, either by normal shutdown or by standby.

I have just installed gpuz and it shows the gpu temp as 51C, with some gaming I can see this touching around 60C. My cpu temps are generally in the mid 30s although I have seen it touch 50C sometimes so overall, my temps are the same as yours.

Thanks. I wonder if the GPU sensor reads high compared to the CPU. I was just running on batteries, on Intel graphics (as set via switchable graphics), and my CPU was in the mid 40s, and I switched to ATI to check the GPU temperature (gpuz can't see the ATI sensor when set to Intel). It was at 62c, despite not having been used at all (since graphics had been set to Intel). So, either the GPU sensor can give falsely high readings or it remains powered on (and hot) even when the switchable graphics are set to Intel.

I've not run any games at all yet, and I'll be interested to see the GPU temp when I do. If it's exceeding 60c when under negligible load in Windows it could easily hit 80c under full load.
 
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Thanks for the overclocking info. Don't think I'll use it in earnest unless I install a game and find performance "just that little bit low and could use the boost" :)
 
Just tried the OC tool that Faction posted, and can report back that it works perfectly. Probably the easiest overclock you will ever do, just a double click and its done. I have just run prime95 torture test for almost half hour and it seems very stable, cpu temps hit around 61-62C.

I will post comparison benchmarks on the first page in a few minutes, but I'll probably be leaving it set to 1.75Ghz now. :)
 
It'll be interesting to see what actually happens when the 3810 is over-clocked since it has a slower processor to start with. Will it aim for the 1.75Ghz that the 8371 processor is hitting or will it try for something eminently more sensible.
 
It'll be interesting to see what actually happens when the 3810 is over-clocked since it has a slower processor to start with. Will it aim for the 1.75Ghz that the 8371 processor is hitting or will it try for something eminently more sensible.

Only one way to find out... ;) Just download and double click it and then check the cpu speed - if you wish to go back to default just shutdown and once you start back up again it will be reset.

Is the boost noticeable with the OC, is it safe as i was under the impression laptops shouldnt be overclocked due to cooling!

Normally an overclock requires slight increases in voltage to keep it stable - which in turn would affect the cpu temperature, but in this case the voltage stays the same and from general net browsing the cpu temps looked pretty much the same. I even ran prime95 for almost half an hr and it was stable, I ran it for a similar amount of time last yr on my main system [email protected] and thats been rock solid ever since.

Stability wise at 1.75Ghz its absolutely solid.
 
Hi all. I'm new here, and have a travelmate 3871 on order after scouring the web for over week for the best laptop for around £300-£350. I believe I've found it! £330 delivered for one with a core 2 su9400, 320gb hd, 4gb ram and a hd 4330 is amazing.
By all accounts the screen doesn't have the best viewing angles in the world but it's matte, which was what really stopped me from paying about £100-£150 more and getting a lot more processing power. Whoever decided it was a good idea to put a glossy screen on a laptop should be shot. "Fantastic. We've got a portable pc that can be used anywhere, but there's something mssing. I know, we'll stick a glossy screen on it, so, um, movies'll look a bit richer, although, er... you won't be able to use it outside. Or near a window. Or a bright light. And you'll often sit watching your reflection typing. How does that sound?"

I'll definitely be overclocking both the cpu and the gpu - I've always overclocked every pc that I've ever owned, as it's 100% safe provided you keep voltages and temps within spec and stress test adequately for stability. In this case the only drawback will probably be slightly reduced battery life, which is exceptional in the first place so isn't really an issue for me. It'll be used for some light gaming, web browsing, office stuff and if it's sufficient maybe a little bit of audio production when I'm away from the desktop.

Anyway, enough waffling from me. I'll be sure to post some gaming and performance results when I get both the laptop and enough time to play with it (in the middle of moving house. aarrgghh!)

@tbz_ck

If the 3810 that you are referring to has a 1.3ghz cpu, then it'll run at 1625mhz. The overclock is of the fsb, which increases from 200 to 250. The clock multiplier would be 6.5 (6.5x200 = 1300), so the overclock would be 6.5x250 = 1625.
 
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