TC-1660 with i5-10400 bios bugs. might swapping i5-11400 fix?

the TC-1660 with i5-10400 has bugs with PCIe and DMI configuration.
it bottlenecks poweron peripheral speeds to be sub- PCIe 2. like PCIe 1.
it mis-programs the x16 slot power (0.075W instead of 75W) in violation of PCIe spec.
many x4 cards won't work, probably that's why, they're supposed to self-disable in that case.
Acer has never fixed these i5-10400 bios bugs in 5 iterations of the bios.

the i5-11400 has those equivalent config registers at different offsets in the cpu.
it's odd Intel did that, moved them, but that is probably what caused Acer bios to bug-up.
the TC-1660 with i5-11400 uses identical bios as -10400 model.

Question:
would it be a good gamble to swap out the i5-10400 with -11400 to fix the bugs?

Accepted answers

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All comments

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/688863/tc-1660-with-i5-10400-bios-bugs-might-swapping-i5-11400-fix

These are the listed 11th Gen CPUs fitted to the TC-1660s desktop model and listed by Acer in the TC-1660 SGs, the i5-11400 CPU is in the list so the answer is "Yes", also update the TC-1660s bios to the last version R01-B0 - Enhance system stability - dated: 2022/06/21

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billsey

The SG shows both 10th and 11th gen CPUs, but they often ship models to locales we don't have access to with options that aren't reflected in the SG.

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billsey

Yes, the SG we have access to only shows the i3 as a 10th gen option, but other locales often ship with completely different configurations. Since you have a 10th gen i5 in yours they must have shipped that SKU in your locale. I believe every SKU uses the B560 chipsets. Intel says the B560 chipset supports both 10th gen and 11th gen CPUs. I would expect a 10th gen on a B560 chipset to do the PCIe 3.0 spec instead of PCIe 4.0, but I can't be sure without performance testing such a system. I don't know your source for BIOS bugs, so I can't comment on them.

I expect the block diagram you refer to matches mine:

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1218077#Comment_1218077

fugadug, the Aspire TC-1660 desktop is not a high-end be all gaming desktop and is built to a budget, it seems to me that you are a smart and pretty computer savvy user, so and if you found that this desktop was defective you should have taken it back to either the retailer you bought this PC from or and if you found the cpu/bios problem out later and within the 12 months warranty of this desktop, then you should have taken/sent your desktop to Acer Support in your country. The Acer community can only give you advice and post some technical service guide assistance, but we have no further authority in regard to Acer design and/or production specs of any Acer product(s). Your complaint/problems that you have with the Aspire TC-1660 desktop is going to be read by users who need reference to your problem of this desktop, and also may or may not be passed onto Acer, so that is as far as this community has its reach, so please be aware of all this.

Community members are people just like you and are users of Acer products helping each other, getting upset about your product and being critical of this community will achieve nothing as saying this "I'm surprised none of you guys commented something like "Wow that's really something if that's true” at least, I think I'm surprised. maybe not” would be contrary to being constructive and solving anything, as its not necessary.

Myself and billsey have given you as much technical information that you asked for, as ranked community members have access to all the TC-1660 service guides and diagrams to help you out, but that is as far as we can go. As far as I can read above, you have gotten a solution to upgrade and flash the bios to the i5-11400 cpu or to the even more powerful i7-11700F cpu, which is not a big deal. Enjoy your Aspire TC-1660 desktop and sell your 10th Gen i5-10400 so that another PC user can enjoy that cpu also, cheers and keep smiling always😀