Aspire 5 A517-52 bios update bricked audio

Gwendys
Gwendys Member Posts: 5 New User
I just purchased a A517-52-34E0 (snid 14713799534) and upgraded the bios from 1.20 to 1.26.
Now I get acpi errors and the audio doesn't work anymore. Linux's dmesg shows plenty of acpi errors, one being specific to the audio chip.

I want to rollback to the previous bios but I face multiple issues:
1. The Acer's website give me an error when I try to find the drivers using my snid or my serial number. It was working fine 2 days ago, but since yesterday, I get error 100.
2. I need Windows on this laptop to perform a bios update, thanks Acer not providing anything for Linux. But I can't reinstall Windows anymore because the internal m2/ssd is not recognized by the installer. I need to provide a driver disk, but as I said, I can't get any drivers anymore from Acer because of this website bug.

So basically, I can't download the bios 1.20 and I can't install it because I can't install Windows. Any idea before I send it back for refund?

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Answers

  • Gwendys
    Gwendys Member Posts: 5 New User
    edited April 2022
    A little update: I could restore a backup I made of the whole nvme drive before I installed Linux, so I now have access to Windows again.
    But I still can't fix that bios issue without getting access to Acer's drivers.

    Is this working for anyone of you?
    Download Acer Support Drivers and Manuals
    SNID: 147***************
    {Thread was edited to add model name to the title}

  • wascas
    wascas Member Posts: 1,228 Overclocked Contributor WiFi Icon
    Answer ✓
  • After updating the bios, it is recommended to restore the bios settings. Access the bios and then press f9 and then f10. I also advise resetting the battery:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfhgnxUJoZo&list=FLVBqwtBw09_Z9tXo1Injakw&index=7
    Then check if the problems continue to occur.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
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  • Gwendys
    Gwendys Member Posts: 5 New User
    Thanks for the advice.
    I actually already did a Load Setup Default and put a paperclip in that reset hole. It didn't change anything.
    I inserted the paperclip for 3s but the cmos didn't reset. I did it again for 20+ seconds, same. I then did it while the laptop was on and it rebooted, but the cmos was still intact. Doesn't seem to reset anything :)

    I restored the Windows that was shipped with the laptop (I'm glad I backed up the whole nvm before installing Linux). Sound is working ok on Windows. I guess Linux's firmware is incompatible with the latest bios for this laptop, throwing errors while reading the acpi table.
    So my only hope is downgrading this bios and pray for the sound card to be working again on Linux.

  • Can you send a photo of the errors that appear?

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
    Para usuários da comunidade inglesa, espanhola, francesa e alemã, usarei o google tradutor! :)
    For users of the English, Spanish, French and German community, I will be using google translator! :) 
  • Gwendys
    Gwendys Member Posts: 5 New User
    I've attached the whole dmesg log to this post.
    Here are a couple of pictures showing the issue: acpi errors and audio device not detected (becoming "dummy output")





    Note: on Debian (kernel 5.10), wifi doesn't work while on arch/manjaro (kernel 5.15) it does.
    With bios 1.20, sound was working (as far as I remember) but with bios 1.26, I get no sound (both debian and arch).

    Dmesg gives a nice clue:
    error: sof firmware file is missing, you might need to
            download it from https://github.com/thesofproject/sof-bin/

    I'm currently trying to find a firmware that works. I'll let you know if I find anything.

  • Gwendys
    Gwendys Member Posts: 5 New User
    I think it's a win!
    I've installed these sof-bin firmwares and now the sound is working again on Linux.
    If I remember correctly, kernel 5.17 broke the support for WiFi but kernel 5.15 LTS is fine.

    To sum up:
    - Aspire 5 A517-52, bios 1.20 was working out of the box
    - bios 1.26 broke support for audio on Linux
    - adding modules from the sof project fixes the audio on bios 1.26
    - wifi does not work on kernel 5.10, it works on kernel 5.15, and it doesn't seem to work anymore on kernel 5.17 (need confirmation)

  • About the acpi problem, have you tried adding this command in grub? acpi=off
    The problem is that this can interfere with sleep and hibernation.
    About the problem with the wireless network card, what is the model of the wlan card?


    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
    Para usuários da comunidade inglesa, espanhola, francesa e alemã, usarei o google tradutor! :)
    For users of the English, Spanish, French and German community, I will be using google translator! :)