Notebooks & Netbooks

[alz]

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Craigrostan wrote:

I used it for less than three days and after taking a look in the bios....mind you not making changes, when I exited from the bios and tried to reboot, nothing.

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Craigrostan wrote:

it's not whether you save or not, it is just exiting the BIOS.

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Did you tried to exit bios with saving indeed?

[vulture]

The problem is... You can't really test it on one machine.

- If you first go to the BIOS and exit and your system dies, there is no way to flash the new BIOS version.

- If you first boot (so NOT going into the BIOS) then flash the new BIOS and then enter it and exit without saving, and it doens't die you don't know if it is now fixed or wasn't broken in the first place.. At least you have a system without the problem now If it does die, you know the fix didn't work

One way to test it, is to get 2 machines from the same batch (same vendor).

Boot both and check bios version is the same during boot.

Now on one machine flash the BIOS with the 'whazzup' version.

On the other do nothing.

Now again boot both machines and check the BIOS version.

If there is no difference, both already had this newer version.

Now with both machines enter the BIOS and exit without saving.

1. If both die -> The new BIOS does not help.

2. If both work -> The machines did not had already a problem to start with

(most probably there is not version difference in the BIOS-es)

3. If one dies -> The new BIOS fixes the issue.

[Craigrostan]

That would be very difficult to do as the system was dead with no way to flash the BIOS. If I could have went back in and tried to save on exit, there wouldn't have been a problem as the system would have been still functioning. It is the fact that once you exit from the BIOS the system goes faulty.

[Craigrostan]

lol yep that would work the problem with that is, the cost of buying two system just to test for a fault that shouldn't be there, but your suggrstion would work :-)

[vulture]

The suggestion to try this was ment for Acer Support  

Not for others to buy multiple systems and test this 

But the best suggestion I have is:

Please Acer Support, contact the Acer engineering department and ask them the BIOS versions + release notes for the R7 572. Maybe you'll find something in there that helps...

Next issue a warning:

When booting check if BIOS version is >= xxx

If not, do NOT enter the BIOS, but first install this ... update

[Craigrostan]

Phew I'm glad of that, the thought of saying to my wife, darling I need a couple of grand to do some testing on Acer laptops to save them the bother was a bit worrying :-).

Your suggestion would be the best, but will they do so that is the question :-). 

[Acer-Cory]

Hi Everyone,

I've talked to engineers in both US and Europe. The Europe team has been giving Craigrostan's information and they are looking towards a review once it reaches the repair facility.

We've also alerted the Engineer's at our headquarters and they're following as well. BIOS 2.03 was released a few weeks ago on our download site, however I've been told that's been in production for some time.

Finally, I've tried to duplicate the issue anyway I can think of, we've tried a couple systems here in the US (our support and engineering samples) and we've been unable to duplicate the issue. We're both running 2.03.

I know it's sort of an odd issue that people aren't really looking for until it happens to them, but I'm interested in any additional information you may have. What version of BIOS were you on when this happened, are there steps to replicate it (I know that's a tough one)?

[alz]

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Acer-Cory wrote:

BIOS 2.03 was released a few weeks ago on our download site, however I've been told that's been in production for some time.

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I've just downloaded it and found that though the archive is published on download site 03/28, the internal file with the bios update is dated 01/10. Thus it is possible that notebooks produced before 01/10 have old bios with defect (assuming that this new bios has the bug fixed indeed). The one whose S/N I posted above, had production date 2013/11/22.

Also I found that whazzup's update he received from Acer engeneer, is named 204HK. Looks like it designated to mean v2.04. And the file itself is dated 01/27 i.e. later than v2.03 from the Acer download site.

The questions are why v2.03 bios is published for download only 03/28, if it is released 01/10, whether it fixes the bug, and why v2.04 is still not available publically for download.

[Craigrostan]

Update to the status of the repair, the system was received at the repair faciity on the 10th April sometime before 10:01am.

[rufaz]

if you guys check acer's website for the drivers, 2.04 is released and the description seems to state something like fixing the bios problem.