QUESTION FOR ACER SWITCH 10 SW5-012 BIOS

I have a question

Recently I did mistake and bought for my daughter that garbage Switch 10 SW5-12 mini laptop for school, but when I wanted to install her x64 bit Windows 8.1 on it....It is NOT possible because wrong bios which supports obsolete ONLY 32bit UEFI system...there is no legacy in bios menu.
I also managed to warn all my friends and others all over the internet not to repeat my mistake and to NOT TO BUY that device because of that mistake, because if they buy it, they will stuck.
ON Acer website there ARE drivers for x64 bit systems (???) , therefore, why we have drivers on website for UNSUPPORTED SYSTEMS and why there is NO BIOS support for that operating systems ??

Acer....please consider to upgrade BIOS system for that device because chipset SUPPORTS x64 systems, and there are drivers as well in x64.

Thank you

Accepted answers

StevenGen

TIN2404 said:

I have a question

Recently I did mistake and bought for my daughter that garbage Switch 10 SW5-12 mini laptop for school, but when I wanted to install her x64 bit Windows 8.1 on it....It is NOT possible because wrong bios which supports obsolete ONLY 32bit UEFI system...there is no legacy in bios menu.
I also managed to warn all my friends and others all over the internet not to repeat my mistake and to NOT TO BUY that device because of that mistake, because if they buy it, they will stuck.
ON Acer website there ARE drivers for x64 bit systems (???) , therefore, why we have drivers on website for UNSUPPORTED SYSTEMS and why there is NO BIOS support for that operating systems ??

Acer....please consider to upgrade BIOS system for that device because chipset SUPPORTS x64 systems, and there are drivers as well in x64.

Thank you

That is impossible TIN2404, I've had Win-10 Home 64bit on an Acer Aspire One-Happy-2 (Atom™ N570/ GMA 3150 that is much slower and worse than your Switch 10 SW5-012 with the i3-7100U/Intel HD 620 CPU/GPU) and Win-10 Home 64bit worked, well it worked but it was as slow as a snail with its 2GB ram due to a lack of ram to run Win-10 64bit.

Which 32bit operating system do you have installed? And which BIOS are you trying to install, what version? As the Acer Switch 10 SW5-012 came OEM with an Acer installed Win-10 64bit OS and the last bios update on the Acer site is the titled “Improve system performance” version 1.20 dated 2016/03/23 (that you should install) and follow the “Readme” guide that says: How to update BIOS: Click P0JAC2_BIOS_V1.20_A3.exe and that will install this bios update within the OEM Win-10 64bit, you should have no problems if you have the OEM 64bit OS Win-10.

All comments

JackE

Try pressing Ctrl+S in each BIOS tab to see if any hidden options appear. The main problem with the SW5-012 running any 64-bit Windows vs 32-bit is the 2GB RAM max limitation of the mainboard, not its CPU. Jack E/NJ

StevenGen

TIN2404 said:

I have a question

Recently I did mistake and bought for my daughter that garbage Switch 10 SW5-12 mini laptop for school, but when I wanted to install her x64 bit Windows 8.1 on it....It is NOT possible because wrong bios which supports obsolete ONLY 32bit UEFI system...there is no legacy in bios menu.
I also managed to warn all my friends and others all over the internet not to repeat my mistake and to NOT TO BUY that device because of that mistake, because if they buy it, they will stuck.
ON Acer website there ARE drivers for x64 bit systems (???) , therefore, why we have drivers on website for UNSUPPORTED SYSTEMS and why there is NO BIOS support for that operating systems ??

Acer....please consider to upgrade BIOS system for that device because chipset SUPPORTS x64 systems, and there are drivers as well in x64.

Thank you

That is impossible TIN2404, I've had Win-10 Home 64bit on an Acer Aspire One-Happy-2 (Atom™ N570/ GMA 3150 that is much slower and worse than your Switch 10 SW5-012 with the i3-7100U/Intel HD 620 CPU/GPU) and Win-10 Home 64bit worked, well it worked but it was as slow as a snail with its 2GB ram due to a lack of ram to run Win-10 64bit.

Which 32bit operating system do you have installed? And which BIOS are you trying to install, what version? As the Acer Switch 10 SW5-012 came OEM with an Acer installed Win-10 64bit OS and the last bios update on the Acer site is the titled “Improve system performance” version 1.20 dated 2016/03/23 (that you should install) and follow the “Readme” guide that says: How to update BIOS: Click P0JAC2_BIOS_V1.20_A3.exe and that will install this bios update within the OEM Win-10 64bit, you should have no problems if you have the OEM 64bit OS Win-10.

TIN2404

I will try Steven..Actually I have LTSC 2019 Windows x64 system that was her...and I tried to install it but nothing so far...I did install 32 version and it runs perfectly.

Also...when doing upgrade of BIOS should I install all previous versions of it or just latest ?

billsey

If you feel the need to update the BIOS you just use the latest version. No need to deal with older ones. Do make sure you are plugged into AC power and fully charged before starting though, a failed BIOS update can be pretty devastating. As noted above, running the 64bit version of the OS on a laptop with only 2GB of memory isn't typically a good idea, the 64bit version will take up more room on the drive and use more memory when running, and both drove space and memory are important on these smaller systems.

TIN2404

billsey said:

If you feel the need to update the BIOS you just use the latest version. No need to deal with older ones. Do make sure you are plugged into AC power and fully charged before starting though, a failed BIOS update can be pretty devastating. As noted above, running the 64bit version of the OS on a laptop with only 2GB of memory isn't typically a good idea, the 64bit version will take up more room on the drive and use more memory when running, and both drove space and memory are important on these smaller systems.

Is it possible to install Windows 7 Pro x32, because I didnt succedeed eather to install.

JackE

Win7 will only boot under BIOS from an MBR partitioned HDD/SSD. Jack E/NJ

billsey

Windows 7 sp1 supports UEFI, though the older version does not. You should have the best luck with Windows 10 Home 32bit...

JackE

billsey

Win7?? Do you mean UEFI in Legacy mode? I think it still only boots from MBR partitioned, not GPT, HDD/SSD?? But Win7 can access a GPT disk. Just not boot from it??? Jack E/NJ

billsey

Starting with sp1, Windows 7 supported booting in UEFI mode from motherboards that supported UEFI. UEFI requires a GPT drive, just as Legacy requires an MBR drive. Intel and Microsoft were getting everything in place to make the switch to UEFI by default, so it was rolled out in that service pack. Prior to sp1 Windows 7 only supported Legacy boot with MBR drives. Remember that when Window 8 was released you had the option to run Windows 7 instead, and those systems were booting Windows 7 in UEFI/GPT.

JackE

It surely was a hodgepodge transition since many of the same laptop model numbers had legacy BIOS only, or UEFI bootstrap only or a combo BIOS-or-UEFI. Jack E/NJ

billsey

Yeah, it really depended on the design timing. If the design was new enough to realize that UEFI was the way to go they built them with both options.

TIN2404

In summary, It is flaw in Acer BIOS.
As I read on internet only simple cheapest devices have that flaw preventing LEGACY bios mode because of cheaper motherboards production which doesnt support advanced BIOS.
Anyway...I should listen my frends before, and I throw that Switch garbage away, and bought full fledged HP Pavillion with full fledged BIOS.

Never again Acer "computers".