BIOS Bug found? Helios 16 won't turn on properly after deactivating E-Cores

philneitz_

Hey there,

this one drives me nuts and I almost thought my Helios 16 died on me.

Specs:

Helios 16

BIOS v1.15

i9-13900HX

32GB 5600MHz DDR5

RTX 4080

I disabled the E-Cores in BIOS to tinker around with VR frametimes, shut down my laptop, get some sleep, just to found it unbootable on the next morning (power cycling, almost looks like "memory training").

Can someone confirm this maybe? My only changes in BIOS where:

Deactivating E-Cores (Settings called Efficient Cores)
Graphics mode to dGPU only

It should restart without problems and get back to windows.

Then just shut it down normally. Unplug your charger, wait 10 minutes, replug and try to start your machine.

It should turn on, off, on.. stays there and then it should stay off.

To get around that you have to press down the power button until it restarts a few times and then let it do its thing - it should BIOS Reset itself and work normally a gain… with E-Cores enabled of course.

Accepted answers

All comments

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/698739/bios-bug-found-helios-16-wont-turn-on-properly-after-deactivating-e-cores

If you can't boot to BIOS with F2 anymore to reset BIOS you have to bring the laptop to Acer Services in your country to reset the system to factory defaults, possibly reprogram the EPROM.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/698739/bios-bug-found-helios-16-wont-turn-on-properly-after-deactivating-e-cores

Hey philneitz_, modding or tinkering with the bios on a new laptop voids the Acer warranty. why would you want to do anything to a bios? As you will NOT get better performance out of your Acer PH16-71 by doing anything in the bios, you will find if you send your laptop to Acer Tech Support that they will void the warranty on your laptop.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

philneitz_

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1253375#Comment_1253375

I'm sorry, but disabling E-Cores, as well as using the MUX switch (dGPU only) is an official BIOS option, available without any "tinkering", and is in fact NOT voiding any warranty - I created this post to maybe shine some light on a potential BIOS bug, with those exact dialed in (official) settings, as I mentioned in my original post

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1253376#Comment_1253376

Its funny but you are the first to point this problem out with the MUX settings that makes the bios fail, so you must have done something else that has caused this issue, as a bios doesn't fail just on its own and out of nowhere from an MUX setting change. Consult Acer Tech Support for further advice as the bios needs to be reprogrammed.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

oilumiun12

There were quite a few errors when pressing the power button but it seems to have been fixed 😀

philneitz_

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1253377#Comment_1253377

Please read the whole original post - its the combination of MUX (dGPU only) + E-Cores deactivated.

And its not the BIOS "per se" it's a setting or value that gets triggered in this scenario, which will result in a power cycle loop.

To be completely clear - this only happens with those two official BIOS settings - with only dGPU mode and ACTIVE E-Cores my machine works like a charm