New BIOS update for A515-45 Series: v1.10 (2022/03/01)

ConceptIA · April 2022

Hey,

So I have seen a new BIOS update for my Acer Aspire 5 laptop model A515-45-R2A3:

- Support new battery (AP19B8K/AP19B5K/AP18C7K) - v1.10 (2022/03/01)

The Acer website states this BIOS update only offers support for new battery, but can anybody tell if there are any other changes like new unlocked options (enable or disable physical cores/SMT, change VRAM values, etc)?

I have the previous BIOS version 1.08 installed and I would very much appreciate if there were far more tweaking options as the Acer BIOS is too limited compared to Lenovo's.

Thank you!

JackE · April 2022

You should NOT assume any other options have been added that are not mentioned in the firmware brief. Any additional hidden options in any the BIOS v1.08 tabs will be revealed by pressing Ctrl+S .

StevenGen · April 2022

ConceptIA said:

Hey,

So I have seen a new BIOS update for my Acer Aspire 5 laptop model A515-45-R2A3:

- Support new battery (AP19B8K/AP19B5K/AP18C7K) - v1.10 (2022/03/01)

The Acer website states this BIOS update only offers support for new battery, but can anybody tell if there are any other changes like new unlocked options (enable or disable physical cores/SMT, change VRAM values, etc)?

I have the previous BIOS version 1.08 installed and I would very much appreciate if there were far more tweaking options as the Acer BIOS is too limited compared to Lenovo's.

Thank you!

Just as an addition and if you read the bios Manuals & Drivers page, Acer categorically warns all consumers that a BIOS updates should not be done as "Upgrading your system BIOS incorrectly could harm your Acer product. Please proceed with caution" so be warned about all this but especially what your laptops model number is and to get the 100% correct bios update for it, otherwise you will brick your laptop And make it unusable. And as mentioned above, a bios update is not like a usual OS update if your laptop works 100% but should only be done and updated to fix the initial and what the bios titles do and state that they do, otherwise you could brick your laptop.

ConceptIA · April 2022

I have just flashed the BIOS and nothing changed.

Acer could at least offer their customers the option to change the amount of physical memory dedicated to the integrated GPU, as this could potentially become an issue and/or limiting factor depending on the usage.

JackE · April 2022

It's usually a fixed 10-20% of total RAM installed for an integrated GPU. So 16GB or 20GB max RAM should help.

ConceptIA · April 2022

JackE said:

It's usually a fixed 10-20% of total RAM installed for an integrated GPU. So 16GB or 20GB max RAM should help.

Thanks for the info, but no way I'm investing any more money to upgrade the memory on this laptop, it already has 8GB of RAM. That would be stupid for the following reasons:

1 - It's a consumer-grade laptop with a relatively budget six-core AMD processor enough for light usage (not suitable for gaming and/or professional editing work)
2 - It has 4GB of soldered memory which means if I replace the 4GB stick with anything higher, I would still only have effectively 8GB of RAM in dual-channel mode which is a waste of money
3 - I can't think of any real-world advantage to having more than 8GB of RAM if you are not gaming, programming, doing professional editing or having multiple VM's so it's a total waste of money

Perhaps if the total amount of soldered memory was 8GB instead, that would make a little bit more sense but no. Not a chance! There should have been an option to change the amount of VRAM in the BIOS. Simple as that!

JackE · April 2022

Unless you actually check if the replaceable RAM socket is populated, the standard soldered memory is 4GB in the US. Some mainboards in some regions might've been shipped with either 0GB or 8GB soldered RAM. If 8GB is soldered in your system, then 24GB is possible max. Either way, the BIOS sets a fixed percentage for VRAM as per the ACER specs. We here on the ACER users forum have no control or influence over this. We're not ACER employees, developers or service contractors. It's likely that only undocumented mods can change this. But we here on the forums have no direct access to this information. Sorry.

StevenGen · April 2022

ConceptIA said:

show previous quotes

JackE said:

It's usually a fixed 10-20% of total RAM installed for an integrated GPU. So 16GB or 20GB max RAM should help.

Thanks for the info, but no way I'm investing any more money to upgrade the memory on this laptop, it already has 8GB of RAM. That would be stupid for the following reasons:

1 - It's a consumer-grade laptop with a relatively budget six-core AMD processor enough for light usage (not suitable for gaming and/or professional editing work)
2 - It has 4GB of soldered memory which means if I replace the 4GB stick with anything higher, I would still only have effectively 8GB of RAM in dual-channel mode which is a waste of money
3 - I can't think of any real-world advantage to having more than 8GB of RAM if you are not gaming, programming, doing professional editing or having multiple VM's so it's a total waste of money

Perhaps if the total amount of soldered memory was 8GB instead, that would make a little bit more sense but no. Not a chance! There should have been an option to change the amount of VRAM in the BIOS. Simple as that!

Hey ConceptIA the AN515-45 AMD Ryzen 5 5500U cpu has a base frequency of 2.10 GHz and turbo of 4. GHz with Memory type: DDR4-3200 and Max memory of 32GB and graphics of the AMD Radeon 7 Graphics (Renoir) gpu frequency of 1.80 GHz with DX12 which is a pretty handy cpu/gpu combo, its not your top cpu/gpu but its adequate and with the soldered on board 4GB you can add 16GB to make your laptop perform to some pretty decent performance but, its up to you as you have outlined your intentions which is fair enough but not what everyone does or thinks.

jcmolero71 · July 2022

ConceptIA said:

Hey,

So I have seen a new BIOS update for my Acer Aspire 5 laptop model A515-45-R2A3:

- Support new battery (AP19B8K/AP19B5K/AP18C7K) - v1.10 (2022/03/01)

The Acer website states this BIOS update only offers support for new battery, but can anybody tell if there are any other changes like new unlocked options (enable or disable physical cores/SMT, change VRAM values, etc)?

I have the previous BIOS version 1.08 installed and I would very much appreciate if there were far more tweaking options as the Acer BIOS is too limited compared to Lenovo's.

Thank you!

This bios brought more issues than benefits, my laptop began to have issues with hot adaptor, longer charge times, video timeout errors, in general I suspect laptop began to demand more energy than needed, avoid this bios as possible, Acer and Windows must dismiss this version for good

jcmolero71 · September 2022

Newest bios v1.12 released at 2022/09/14, let’s try this one to see

JackE · September 2022

Safe assumptions are that it will enhance battery performance for machines that have significant battery performance issues and that they might introduce irreversible adverse side effects in other machines that don't have these performance issues. IOW, it is NOT a safe assumption that any other options have been added that are not mentioned in the firmware brief.