Problem upgrading my Notebook aspire 5940G to WIndows 8

I have an Acer Aspire 5940G from year of 2010. This machine has an Intel Core i7 processor ( http://ark.intel.com/products/43122/Intel-Core-i7-720QM-Processor-6M-Cache-1_60-GHz) and this CPU supports the Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x).

Acer Aspire 5940G has a dumbed-down configured H2O rev 3.5 BIOS because there is a hidden menu (advanced menu) and not enabled the CPU features like VT-X ot VT enabled mod thats why could not upgrade to Windows 8.

I'm very sad I bougt a premium category Notebook than with many CPU features, like these:

Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x) ‡ Yes
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) ‡ Yes
Intel® VT-x with Extended Page Tables (EPT) ‡ Yes

but Acer not enabled VT-x in the H2O bios. Why did not ?

I confirm this version of Acer product (5940G) is a windows 8 compatible with this CPU and included devices.

The problem is the dumbed-down H2O v3.5 bios with disabled CPU features.

I installed windows 8.1 onto a Toshiba NB100 notebook successfully on last week (product made in 2008 - I included a SSD with upgrade) and this machine is older and has more weaker hardware devices than Acer Aspire 5940G, but Toshiba has enabled the VT-x feature of CPU.

Conclusion: H2O bios with hidden menus and disabled CPU function has prevent the operating system update.

I hope Acer will publish a newest bios version to Acer Aspire 5940G/5942G shorty.

Actualy bios version is : 1.07 4.1 MB from 2010/06/14

It has disabled CPU feature (VT-x).

Acer Please upgrade the v1.07 bios with enabled VT-x mod.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Szabolcs Illes

CEO at NETKEY

Accepted answers

All comments

Vince53

Iszabi, that was a good, informative post. I advise people not to upgrade the operating system on their laptops, because they are more specific than desktops. When you upgrade, you delete all your drivers. New drivers can operate with the new OS or the old equipment, but some can't operate with both.

If Acer does not include certain features on your laptop, it is possible that your machine can't handle those features. I have seen upgrades work on old XP machines that won't work on Windows .

As you correctly pointed out, your Acer machine is one of their better products. Since it is working well, I would leave it alone.

iszabi

Hi ACE!

Thank you for your opinion.
I do not agree with you in this case, because this serie of Notebook has a strong HW devices that compatible with Windows 8.x and you can found drivers for this devices (such as ATI video card, and LAN, etc.)

The main shortcoming and failure problem in the dumbed-downed H2O bios with VT-x disabled mod.
When this bios has flashed, Acer didn't know ever be needed for this function, but Intel(r) supported this funcitions in Corei7 CPU.
Please read http://forums.mydigitallife.info/ forums bios mod guru's posts and you'll see the lot of problems by dumbed-downed bios...

I think this problem with dumbed-downed H2O bios version give an opportunity to buy a new notebook in every three years...

Best Regards,

Szabolcs Illes

ap3x_2005

Hello,

I have an Acer Aspire 5940G-724G50Bn which I bought in January 2010.

Since late 2012 I have installed Windows 8 and then 8.1 after it's release but since then I can't use the fingerprint scanner. I know that Windows 8.1 handled biometric scanners in a different way but I want to know if there is a software that runs on Win8.1 for this laptop.

Also, you said, if I'm not mistaken that you have drivers for Win8 but I couldn't find any. On the official website we can find only for Win7 which some of them don't work at all or only work after being used in compatibility mode.