New Acer R7-572G, i7, BIOS crash bug, BEWARE!

whazzup
whazzup Member Posts: 15 Troubleshooter

This is an ongoing repair.

 

Last Friday, I purchased a R7-572G, i7 with Nvidia card, from a retail shop in Singapore. 

 

I used the machine for 2 days with no issues. On the third day (Monday), I wanted to go into the BIOS to see what are the settings. I exited the BIOS without saving any changes. The next thing I knew, the machine wouldn't boot up, even though the power LED lighted up.

 

I went down to the retail store's service centre to request for an exchange the same evening. Upon receiving the 2nd unit. I tried the same thing. And similarly, it didn't boot up as well. The service guy saw that they have no more new units, and that I had to make a trip down the Acer's service centre.

 

Fine.

 

The next day (Tuesday), I did so. The technician tried swapping ram. Didn't work. I told him about the BIOS issue, that this is my 2nd unit, and I suspect a bug with the BIOS. He said he will reflect this to his superior.

 

Later on my way back to my office, I looked at the service request document and realised that he didn't really mention the persistent BIOS issue. I called the service centre. Another technician received the call. I repeated my belief about the BIOS issue. He said he'll update it in the service request.

 

Fast forward 2 days. After seeing my case updated as 'waiting for spare', the 'under repairs' for 2 days, this afternoon I received a call from a technician. He told me they could not fix the issue, and will send me a new one. I told him to hold on. And specifically test the BIOS for this 3rd unit. And call me back.

 

2 hours later, no call came. I phoned the service centre because I wanted to know if the issue could be solved. The technician finally called back and told me that this 3rd unit had the same issue as well and couldn't boot up.

 

Great.

 

NOW they finally see the issue and will be 'escalating' it to 'HQ'. Meanwhile, they've wasted 2 days on repairing a non existant issue.

 

Please. LISTEN carefully when your users talk to you.

 

And sorry for the rant, but it's really hard to feel good when you pay good money and get such problems in return. I'm still waiting to use my NEW purchase.

Answers

  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    Fwiw most of us are seeing the battery drain issue also.

     

    It seems no matter sleep. fast start or hibernate, the battery slowly drains.  This could even be a problem with a full shutdown, haven't really tried that.

  • -jan-
    -jan- Member Posts: 1 New User

    Exactly same happened to me!

    New unit, used just for an hour or so, then I went to BIOS, exited without saving... and that was it.

    Black screen, does not respond to anything.

     

    So I sent it back and I am expecting the new one.

    It does not seem to be a problem with that.

    However, after reading this, I am afraid that the same thing will happen again.

    Any idea whether there will be a fix for this?

     

    Like this, I am worried even to start using that computer when it is likely it will shut down for good once I enter the buggy BIOS. What a shame!

     

    Any suggestions?

     

     

     

  • qqqq
    qqqq Member Posts: 2 New User

    Hi,

     

    there is a Bios-update 2.04 now:

     

    BIOSAcer1.Add NVIDIA GTX850M VBIOS. 
    2.Revise system can't boot when "Exit Discarding Changes" was selected in BIOS menu.
    2.045.2 MB2014/04/17
  • Bitfox
    Bitfox Member Posts: 11 New User

    Hi,

     

    Attention!

    If you upgrade to this BIOS you will lose the VT-X setting in BIOS!

  • vulture
    vulture Member Posts: 12 New User

    >If you upgrade to this BIOS you will lose the VT-X setting in BIOS!

     

    Can someone from Acer confirm this? Why is this?

    And what is the default setting now? Enabled or disabled?

     

     

    Also an anyone confirm 2.04 indeed solves the problem...  Please?

  • qqqq
    qqqq Member Posts: 2 New User

     

    Hi,

     

    which problem exactly to be solved  should anyone confirm?

     

    And yes, if you mean this, 

     

    2.Revise system can't boot when "Exit Discarding Changes" was selected in BIOS menu 

     

    this problem is solved according a post in the german forum.

     

    But I am not a Acer Guy. Acer should confirm this, of course...

  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    Not sure what v2.04 does (or doesn't do) but I've been running it for a couple months, no issues for me.  Love this laptop!

  • Bitfox
    Bitfox Member Posts: 11 New User

    @vulture

    It's so :-(

    here the link:

    http://community.acer.com/t5/Ultra-thin/Aspire-R7-572G-Finger-Touch-keine-Reaktion-in-obersten-ca-4/m-p/228262#U228262

     

    Perhpas there is an option to enabel th vt-x - any hint?

  • vulture
    vulture Member Posts: 12 New User

    @Bitfox:

    Strange thing is... I have v2.04 installed, but still I don't dare to go into the BIOS.

    (also no direct need to do so)

     

    VirtualBox is working with Genymotion (to emulate Android)

    With Elementary OS (Linux) 32-bit

    And with Linux Mint 64-bit

     

    Vt-x is enabled in the settings, and no complaints from VirtualBox.

    It does run slower than on my desktop, but that is a Desktop Core i5 which is way faster than my latop core i7,

    for me it's workable.

     

    So it seems enabled... Only thing is that the 'securable' tool says:

     

    Hardware Virtualization

    This processor does offer advanced hardware support for virtualization. However, while running under a 64-bit version of Windows this program cannot execute its 32-bit kernel code to determine whether Intel's VMX virtual machine extensions are being locked on, locked off, or neither. Since there's a chance that your system's BIOS may be deliberately disabling support for hardware virtualization (some do) you should re-run this program, if possible, with administrative privileges under a 32-bit version of NT, XP, or Vista. That will allow SecurAble to run a bit of kernel-mode code in order to determine exactly what's going on. (Note that you can also poke around in your system's BIOS to see whether you're able to find any references to "hardware virtualization" or "VMX", etc.

     

    So I might want to check that... (no XP boot USB stick lying around...)

     

     

    Technically there are ways to re-enable the BIOS setting by pathing the BIOS.

    Some people did this in the past... 

     

    In the end, I think Acer should re-enable this. Some people bought the laptop because of Vt-x support,

    so it should be delivered...

  • Bitfox
    Bitfox Member Posts: 11 New User

    @vulture

    thx for you answer. BUT ...

     

    The strange thing is following:

    As I bought this Laptop I tested it, also Hyper-V (I need this for software development) and I was able to enable VT-X in the BIOS!

    I only had  looks like Monitor hardware error because moving mouse with finger in the upper right site of the laptop did not work (with pen was working). If I flip the screen the not working are was flip too. So I made the decision to RMA.

    After close to 4 weeks I got back my laptop and there was a information only that the touch device firmware and BIOS was updated to fix my touch problem. Everything looks good. I reinstalled my image of the system everything looks again good BUT

    Error on starting Hyper-V .... then the surprise VT-X was gone in the BIOS!!!!

    I would say it’s very heavy what Acer did in this case ... you ship to repair and you get a non working system as before back. So I cannot use this R7 for my projects!

     

    I called the hotline and said what the hell is going on???? Thy said only there is no promise that this feature is enabled on this system .....

     

    unbelievable I think!!!!

  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    Understood, that is annoying...

     

    As far as bios, the R7-571 supported "Intel Rapid Start" in bios, I will they would also enable that for the R7-572 models.

  • vulture
    vulture Member Posts: 12 New User
    @pds: do you mean enabling Intel Rapid Start could 'solve' this. I don't know if the feature is there, also don't dare to check. On my R7 572G i7-4500u I can make all the virtual machines I need.
    @BitFox: Maybe you can try if VirtualBox works for you? (if you're not already using it)
  • vulture
    vulture Member Posts: 12 New User
    BTW I have BIOS v2.04 installed.
  • pds
    pds Member Posts: 7 New User

    I meant I WISH they would add it.

     

    No it won't solve your issues.  Just another thing they've left out of the bios.

     

    -Paul

  • vulture
    vulture Member Posts: 12 New User

    Can it boot even faster? It's only a few seconds now...

  • Bitfox
    Bitfox Member Posts: 11 New User

    @vulture

    Virtual Box is running! Only the vhdx must be convert to vhd.

    Thx for your hint.

  • Razvan
    Razvan Member Posts: 1 New User

    Hi,

     

    I got to this topic after this also happend to me I guess as almos everbody else here.

     

    Now I see the topic is a bit silent. I'm not sure if some solution was eventually found. 

     

    From what I can tell the only aparent way to fix this AFTER you already Discareded and Exited bios and broke the laptop is to bring the laptop back to have the EPROM replaced and after that install the update 2.04 and hope for the best. 

     

    Has anyone tryed BIOS reset? ... or maybe not assuming that the R7 model is quite new and opening it will void the warranty.

     

    Is there any other recovery method that can be done at home ? I really don't have the time to wait weeks for the repair. I had the laptop for 30 mins and since I work with virtualization technologies, trying to activate the virtualization option in BIOS was among the fist things wanted to do after i got it.

     

    This is really frustrating

     

    Regards,

    Razvan

  • vulture
    vulture Member Posts: 12 New User

    I guess the only solution is to bring it to Acer.

    (or your reseller if still under waranty)

     

    I have BIOS v2.04 but never dared to go into the BIOS (also no need to..)

     

    Still I'd like to hear somehting from Acer about the missing VT-x / VT-d settings in the bios.

     

This discussion has been closed.