Learn how to update the BIOS from the official site of Acer

Mr_Helper

Hi Acer Community

Dear customer,

Today i will explain to you how to update the BIOS from the official site of Acer ( as exemple i will choose Acer Acpire 5500 )

Please follow those steps :

 

1- Get into this link below

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers

 

2- Follow steps in this pecture

 

 

Hope helps you

Leho

Mr H

 

OK, I'm going to ask the (silly?) questions.

Just what is this BIOS thingee? What does it do and why is it needed?

 

I have noted a lot of threads on this forum that deal with folks trying to update their BIOS and running into all sorts of difficulties.  So, if my computer is running just fine, why would I want to (need to ?) update BIOS?

Leho

 

 

 

Alan-London

The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) is required to interface with your keyboard, screen and storage devices etc to facilitate boot up. Without a BIOS, it would be impossible to 'kick start' or use a computer. It is hardwired and thus requires no action to begin running.

 

It is the first program to run and, once it has established connectivity between hardware components, it executes specific bootstrap code which then begins the execution of the installed OS. From this point, full control is passed to the OS and the BIOS plays no further part in the running of the machine (all input/output becomes the responsibility of the OS (thus the need for hardware drivers)). If no OS is installed, it can be configured to execute bootstrap code which will attempt to execute code from other hardware sources (floppy, cd, usb etc).

 

Ordinarily, there would be no requirement to update a BIOS. Unless a bug has been found and addressed, or additional functionally has been added (that you require), it is likely pointless to upgrade. Unfortunately, Acer appears to give zero information as to why they have released an update. No release notes at all (or have I missed it?). Rather lax in my view.

 

It is a popular misconception that problems which manifest themselves in the OS can be cured by updating the BIOS. It should be obvious from the above that this is unlikely to be the case.

 

I would say 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

 

 

Mr_Helper

Hi,

I totally agree with you Mr Leho.

We don't need to update the BIOS like other drivers and its not necessary When our machine is running fine. But there are some cases that require the update of bios in order to solve the issue encountered, such as:

- When we get from time to time some errors BIOS;

- When we encounter some issues during upgrading of our computer's hardware (e.g : the system become slow)

- When the POST (Power On Self Test) failed intermittently ...

Hope asked you.

Alan-London

Without wishing to appear contentious, I must disagree with you.

It is my view that not one of your reasons for update is valid.

Having worked in IT for some 30 years, I have never needed to update a BIOS for the reasons you give (neither have I heard of anyone who did).

I do wish I could get across exactly what the BIOS does and I had hoped to some degree I had succeeded in my earlier post.

 

Mr_Helper

May be you are right Mr Alan-London, but could you answer me this question.

Why the BIOS versions are always in constant renewal and Why did the company only one version of one as long as sufficient ??

Please accept my respect.

Alan-London

Well this is the 64k$ question.

 

It is a major failing by Acer that they omit to give a reason for the many BIOS updates.

Without informing customers of the BIOS changes it is simply impossible to know whether there is a good reason to attempt an update. Clearly it is obvious to most why there was a need to produce an update following the introduction of Win8.

Over the years I have seen updates that simply add eye candy to the setup pages and others as trivial as correcting spelling mistakes!

 

Of course there are those that add functionality or correct bugs but without a detailed description of what has been addressed it is impossible to know whether an update it needed or not.

 

Blindly updating the BIOS of a problem free computer is not to be recommended in my view. Where a machine is not working as perhaps it should, it is unlikely to be caused by the BIOS. Do remember that the job of the BIOS is to interface with the hardware to enable the boot process to complete.

 

All input/output that is initially performed by the BIOS is relinquished in favour of the OS drivers once running. It should be clear that if problems are encountered once the OS is running, it is the OS that we should look at and not the BIOS. Updating the BIOS in the hope that doing so will cure OS ills is pointless.