Acer Aspire Switch 11 - Installing Windows 10 - No input being recognised

Onticom
Onticom Member Posts: 24 Networker
edited November 2023 in 2020 Archives
I've decided to try and get some use of of this strong contender for "Worst Tech Purchase Ever" and final nail in the coffin of the case for ever buying Acer products again.

It's bricked, and until today has never got past the Acer splashscreen since I tried to update this "Windows 10 Ready" machine to Windows 10.

Earlier today I thought I'd made progress, by finally getting it to recognise a Windows 10 installer USB, and I went through the process of installing Windows 10.

However, now it's stuck on the screen:_

"Let's start with region. Is this correct?"

...And nothing works - the keyboard, the touch-pad, any keyboard or mouse I plug either into the micro-USB in the side of the tablet itself, or the USB port in the detachable keyboard.

So...

Does anyone have any suggestions?

(Other than kicking the thing squarely out into the road, which, to be fair, I should have done years ago)

Answers

  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    edited July 2020
    OK, let's try to keep our calm shall we? I have suggestions and ideas ;)

    First question, which version of Windows 10 are you trying to get installed? The question may sound trivial, but some touchpads, keyboards, etc. are wired differently and may require drivers for them to work out of the box during Windows setup. For example, the touchpad of the A515-54G is wired through Intel's Serial I/O, and I believe there weren't inbox drivers for that until 1909 or 2004 I'm not sure. Before that if you were to boot a Windows installation disk, unless you just used the keyboard you wouldn't be getting anywhere with the tochpad.

    I would like to know what your full model is, it'll tell me more of its components and whether I'd need to do something special (like integrating the Serial I/O drivers into the boot image) to a default Windows install media for it to be recognized. For example, mine is an A515-54G-70Y9.

    In any case, regarding creating bootable USB sticks, there are 2 technologies for lack of a better word right now: Legacy and UEFI. Given the day we live in I'd wager to say yours is UEFI, and to create UEFI bootable disks they have to be partitioned using GPT (MBR for legacy). It's not needed to understand what all of this means, don't worry if you don't, because the tool we can use to create bootable media, Rufus if I create something for you and the Windows Media Creation Tool if yo go standard will take care of that for you.

    In the meantime, if you wish to have some light reading, I wrote a guide on installing Windows 10 cleanly a while ago that may be of use: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/893916/#Comment_893916
  • Onticom
    Onticom Member Posts: 24 Networker
    aphanic said:
    OK, let's try to keep our calm shall we? I have suggestions and ideas ;)

    First question, which version of Windows 10 are you trying to get installed? The question may sound trivial, but some touchpads, keyboards, etc. are wired differently and may require drivers for them to work out of the box during Windows setup. For example, the touchpad of the A515-54G is wired through Intel's Serial I/O, and I believe there weren't inbox drivers for that until 1909 or 2004 I'm not sure. Before that if you were to boot a Windows installation disk, unless you just used the keyboard you wouldn't be getting anywhere with the tochpad.

    I would like to know what your full model is, it'll tell me more of its components and whether I'd need to do something special (like integrating the Serial I/O drivers into the boot image) to a default Windows install media for it to be recognized. For example, mine is an A515-54G-70Y9.

    In any case, regarding creating bootable USB sticks, there are 2 technologies for lack of a better word right now: Legacy and UEFI. Given the day we live in I'd wager to say yours is UEFI, and to create UEFI bootable disks they have to be partitioned using GPT (MBR for legacy). It's not needed to understand what all of this means, don't worry if you don't, because the tool we can use to create bootable media, Rufus if I create something for you and the Windows Media Creation Tool if yo go standard will take care of that for you.

    In the meantime, if you wish to have some light reading, I wrote a guide on installing Windows 10 cleanly a while ago that may be of use: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/893916/#Comment_893916

    LOL. Don't worry - I'm calm. I've got nothing invested in the thing luckily - learnt not to rely on Acer a long time ago!

    I worked around that latest problem myself, by attaching a mouse to my OTG USB connector, and I've nursed the machine through setup, and updates. At one point the keyboard and touchpad actually worked albeit very stutteringly (Every success is relative, and with Acer you really have to celebrate the little things) but there's no sound, and in following guides from these forums and installing drivers, those have stopped working now too (and still no sound).

    Don't get me wrong - I'm very grateful for the community for proving these sorts of guides - which come in the vacuum left by the utter lack of any sort of Customer Service from Acer - I thought Acer might have some software I could install that would help install the correct drivers, but no.

    Acer seems to have the opposite ethos to Apple - every product just doesn't work.

    I'm running Windows 10 Pro, 32-bit, Version 2004.

    The machine is a TP-SW5-111-13SW

    If you have tips on how to get the touchpad and keyboard working, and how to get sound out of the thing, that would be awesome.
  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    Ohhhh... old machine, Atom based and with memory soldered onto the motherboard, it's one of those MMC kind of things right? With 32GB of memory? Good thing I like challenges haha

    Let's see if we can get you sorted, I'd need some details from you regarding the hardware, IDs to be precise. Open the Device Manager and locate the Hardware IDs for the following devices: Graphics, Audio, Network, everything under the HID category (human interface devices), Mouse and any unknown device / yellow triangled-one. Being an Atom based I think there ain't much of an RST solution in there but default/standard interfaces.

    Those IDs lie in the Details tab of the properties, like this:



    Get me all of them hahaha

    We may end up reinstalling Windows, but that's to be decided later, for now I just want to assess the situation.
  • It would be interesting to know the version of windows that is installed. Windows 8.1, Windows 10 x86 or Windows 10 X64. Also, see that there is a firmware for the touchpad: https://www.acer.com/ac/pt/BR/content/support-product/5678?b=1

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