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

One thing this little beast of a notebook is begging for is an SSD, I gave into its demands and brought a 120GB OCZ vetex.

This is a very easy install that most people should be able to handle. Unless your dangerous with a screwdriver!

First take out the battery, and flip the unit over. Use something under the lid so you don't scratch it. Unscrew the 5 screws half way up. Remove the middle screw.



Remove the expansion cover, be careful. Pull from the top part towards you.



Very easy to replace the Wifi mini card as you can see.



Slide the hard drive back, not too much force is needed here.



OCZ vetex next to the 620GB drive.



Remove the 2 screws from the HDD mount, remove the old HDD and remount your SDD drive.



Place the drive backinto the system and place the panel back again, bottom first then top. Don't over work the screws.



Finally boot up the system and press F2 at the same time to enter the bios. Enable boot mode as shown and your ready to boot to a usbdrive and install windows 7.

 

You have a scale to weigh with the SSD? much difference in weight between the SSD and HDD?

great beast is building!

 

I didn't weight them but the SSD feels much lighter.

 

Does the notebook support SATA III? I would buy a SATA III SSD.

 

Nop, only sata2 3Gbs

 

sata is coming in huron river 2k!!

 

Is it possible to replace with a SSD if I have no external DVD?

 

You can use a bootable USB.

 

Txs, then how to clone the SSD or install W7 please?

 

I just read your other post about installing W7. So I should be fine on that front. Then how about cloning the HD. I think it will save me a lot of work.

 

try Acronis.

 

Does anyone have any trouble closing the expansion cover? Mine doesn't close properly unless I apply quite a bit of force.....

 

First, make sure the Hard Drive is seated correctly. There are 4 pins on my SSD that have to go in a track to make the drive sit properly.

When you put the cover plate back on, I find it helps if I squeeze a bit at the sides to seat them first. Then, I press near the center screw on the top edge of the plate to set that clip. At that point, you can put the screws back in. Never force the door, you can break the clips.

Bronsky

 

How is the performance compared to HDD? Worth $350 for 128GB?

 

$209.95 Amazon 120GB OCZ Vertex2:
Amazon.com: OCZ Technology 120 GB Vertex 2 Series SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G: Electronics

as for performance..

hdd: YouTube - Western Digital Black 640 GB HDD - Loading 10 Programs Simultaneously - Testing for on3network.co.nz

sdd(same pc): YouTube - OCZ Vertex 2 SSD - Loading 10 Programs Simultaneously - Testing for on3network.co.nz

 

I think I paid close to $200 for my Crucial 128GB SSD. It really improves the performance of the notebook. In the $300 range, I would want twice as much storage. I've been making due with a 500 GB external conventional HD.

Bronsky

 

hello,

first, sorry but my english is very bad :-(

i have some questions.

i have an acer aspire 3820tg timelineX with ocz vertex 2 120gb. first one problem. my seq write rate om as ssd benchmark is only 58,36 mb/s. the read rate is 216.08 mb/s. waht can i do to get better write rates ? any info for me.
and now the secound question. how can i hoverclock my i5 ?

best regards


chris

 

What about battery life? If I'm not mistaken SSD only requires 1/10 of the power of a HDD, but I never hear about better battery life with SSD...

 

The draw of the HD is such a small part of overall power use that any improvement is not noticeable. At least not to me.

Bronsky

 

hi everyone
can i use my 3820tg with vertex 3 ssd?
thx

 

Has anyone had trouble with the Mushkin Chronos SATAIII SSD? (MKNSSDCR120GB)

I've tried installing Windows 7 x64 on this drive but always ran into problems with the system freezing on boot after POST.

Installing Windows 7 and first boot is flawless for the most part but subsequent reboots tend to fail. There are two parts at which the system gets stuck (HDD light on, but not activity for about ~1.5 min and then HDD light off and system continues to hang):

- Right after the Acer boot screen (presumably after POST)
- And right before the Windows logo pops up (Windows text shown, windows logo not yet on screen).

I'm pretty confident its not a driver issue since I've had problems with it sporadically during first reboot of Windows install, and on other bootups without Chipset/AHCI drivers, and with Chipset/AHCI drivers.

I'm on Phoenix BIOS v1.19 and SATA mode is set to AHCI.