Windows clean install - Do I need to install BIOS/Firmware

Hi, I have an Acer Aspire V5-571P-6631

I did a clean install of windows 8.1 using a bootable flash drive and wiped all the disks, starting completely fresh

After, I went to the Acer website to install drivers. But there was also a section for 'BIOS/firmware'
Not sure what Bios/firmware is and if I should be downloading these as well? The laptop seems to be running fine

Here are the options on the acer website for my model of laptop for BIOS / firmware:

1. "Change wording when user change the boot mode from Legacy to uEFI 2. Update K...." (version 2.18)

2. BIOS - UEFI for Windows 8 (Not for Upgrades) (version 2.17)

3. BIOS (version 1.2)

Thanks!!

Accepted answers

aphanic

Okay, I'll try to explain it a little bit, the things labelled as BIOS or firmware are what contains the low-level code that makes your computer work. It doesn't live in the hard drive or SSD, it lives in a chip that is soldered to the motherboard; that's why there are warnings that wrongfully updating the firmware could cause damage.

Now, are those upgrades necessary? Yes, and no, it depends on who you ask. Just as the risk involving applying them, it also depends on who you ask.

They (manufacturers) issue these upgrades to deal with things like tweaking the fan curves, so they start at different points, update the microcode of the processors or any other components like the power or management subsystems, security mitigations, etc. basically anything low-level enough that you can't do from an OS like Windows is done there, it's what prepares the system to be used.

That being said, the changelogs you see listed there are are vague and incomplete. Many times they state something important that was changed, but some other things were also changed as well. There are people, for example, that won't upgrade their firmware unless the computer is exhibiting some sort of problem while others jump to the newer revisions like crazy.

There are even people who resort to hacking those things in the hopes of accessing more menus to trying to get more performance out of the system or upgrade components the manufacturers seem not to care about.

All in all it's a matter of personal preference. Will the system run better with a newer revision of the firmware? Possibly, but it's also possible that it won't.

Is it possible to go back to a previous revision? Yes, but not officially, manufacturers usually don't allow you to revert back to previous versions.

Question for you, which firmware version are you running now? You can check it if you press F2 repeatedly after powering on the laptop, that gets you to the firmware setup utility. I ask because there seem to be 2 branches of the firmware for your machine, and although I'm a tinkerer I'm not sure I'd jump from a 1.x to a 2.x without have a backup of that memory chip I talked about.

Talking about risks, it's not like copying a file over another one, it requires reprogramming the chip (read: erasing its contents first, and then writing the new code) if the power goes poof before that's done that machine is in for a trip to the servicing center for example.

There are many safeguards in place though, any firmware upgrade requires you to have the batter plugged in and at 25% minimum (not that you need as much, but just in case), it also requires you to have the power adapter plugged in. There are model checks as well, so you can't flash firmware meant for a different machine than yours and the binaries themselves are signed, you can't modify them and hope to flash them using the original program from Acer in this case.

So... it's up to you really. If I were in the 2.x branch but not the latest revision, I would upgrade, why the hell not. If I were in the 1.x branch, I don't think I would, that "(Not for Upgrades)" text in there seems to imply that it's not meant for you to go from v1 to v2 using those files.

aphanic

Not at all, my pleasure.

As for that changelog... I just compared both firmware releases overall, didn't delve in too deep. The microcode, the code that controls how the processor does each thing wasn't changed in both releases, so there would be no need to upgrade in that regard.

KBC if I'm not mistaken stands for Keyboard Battery Controller, it's another embedded controller that is in the motherboard. I don't know the implications of updating its code to 1.23, that's what I meant by the changelogs being vague, they don't really say much about what's changed. The change could be trivial, or it could be meaningful.

Granted, the overwhelming majority of people using the laptops doesn't need to know these things, but I would appreciate being told, the more info we have the better decisions we can make.

Overall, if you're running 2.17, don't upgrade, I don't feel it's necessary give what I could see. If you run into problems with charging or something related to that, then give it a go because it could be related, otherwise, stay on 2.17, you're good.

As for sticking to Windows 8.1 vs Windows 10, that's a matter of preference really, I would go to 10 for example, I've been running it long enough I'm used to working with it. Performance-wise... I really couldn't say, I bet new code is better optimized than older code, but aside from that I don't have any Windows 8.1 vs. Windows 10 comparative done.

The processor is fine though, generally speaking any machine capable of running Windows 7 would do fine with 10 as well (generally speaking, there are caveats). For example, I have an old machine from 2007 with a Core 2 Duo processor and it is running Windows 10 perfectly, 4 GB of RAM (you have 6 if you haven't upgraded), but I did stick an SSD in that poor thing because otherwise it would be a tad slow.

Also, about UEFI and Secure Boot. UEFI is the current standard for the firmware of machines, kind of tells manufacturers how features are to be implemented, before that it was kind of the wild west, there were de-facto standards but not much parity in certain things.

Secure Boot is one of its features that is optional (for us). What it does is verify that what you are booting hasn't been tampered with, it's meant to be a security feature.

It does that by verifying digital signatures in the code that is to be booted. The problem is that while Microsoft's signature is present and accepted by default people using Linux for example have a hard time getting things signed, that's where the recommendation of disabling Secure Boot probably stems from. Because you were installing Windows, and 8.1 at that (not 7, I think it wasn't made with UEFI in mind) it wouldn't have mattered if you left that feature enabled.

Even now that you have it installed, you can get into the BIOS with F2 and enable the feature, you'll see it keeps on booting as usual (and if it didn't it'd be a matter of disabling it again).

Because the system is pretty clean for now I assume, (just Windows, drivers and a little bit more), it would be the perfect time to 10 a try. If you didn't like 10 for example you could always come back to 8.1 without any difficulty since you have a bootable flash drive for it.

If you do wish to do the jump, I think you should do it in place, that could help in regards to licensing (meaning you would end up having a licensed version of Windows 10, and after that point you could reinstall it anytime you liked that it would be valid).

I wrote a guide not long ago on how to perform clean installations of Windows 10, I'll link you to it but what you'd need to do is following the steps until we are about to create the bootable stick and choose to upgrade that machine instead. Or you could follow it fully, it's dealers choice, but I don't know how licensing would work afterwards, it may require you to purchase a key instead of having it for free (the free offering has supposed to have ended many time ago, but it still works for some reason).

Here is the guide: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/893916/#Comment_893916

All comments

aphanic

Okay, I'll try to explain it a little bit, the things labelled as BIOS or firmware are what contains the low-level code that makes your computer work. It doesn't live in the hard drive or SSD, it lives in a chip that is soldered to the motherboard; that's why there are warnings that wrongfully updating the firmware could cause damage.

Now, are those upgrades necessary? Yes, and no, it depends on who you ask. Just as the risk involving applying them, it also depends on who you ask.

They (manufacturers) issue these upgrades to deal with things like tweaking the fan curves, so they start at different points, update the microcode of the processors or any other components like the power or management subsystems, security mitigations, etc. basically anything low-level enough that you can't do from an OS like Windows is done there, it's what prepares the system to be used.

That being said, the changelogs you see listed there are are vague and incomplete. Many times they state something important that was changed, but some other things were also changed as well. There are people, for example, that won't upgrade their firmware unless the computer is exhibiting some sort of problem while others jump to the newer revisions like crazy.

There are even people who resort to hacking those things in the hopes of accessing more menus to trying to get more performance out of the system or upgrade components the manufacturers seem not to care about.

All in all it's a matter of personal preference. Will the system run better with a newer revision of the firmware? Possibly, but it's also possible that it won't.

Is it possible to go back to a previous revision? Yes, but not officially, manufacturers usually don't allow you to revert back to previous versions.

Question for you, which firmware version are you running now? You can check it if you press F2 repeatedly after powering on the laptop, that gets you to the firmware setup utility. I ask because there seem to be 2 branches of the firmware for your machine, and although I'm a tinkerer I'm not sure I'd jump from a 1.x to a 2.x without have a backup of that memory chip I talked about.

Talking about risks, it's not like copying a file over another one, it requires reprogramming the chip (read: erasing its contents first, and then writing the new code) if the power goes poof before that's done that machine is in for a trip to the servicing center for example.

There are many safeguards in place though, any firmware upgrade requires you to have the batter plugged in and at 25% minimum (not that you need as much, but just in case), it also requires you to have the power adapter plugged in. There are model checks as well, so you can't flash firmware meant for a different machine than yours and the binaries themselves are signed, you can't modify them and hope to flash them using the original program from Acer in this case.

So... it's up to you really. If I were in the 2.x branch but not the latest revision, I would upgrade, why the hell not. If I were in the 1.x branch, I don't think I would, that "(Not for Upgrades)" text in there seems to imply that it's not meant for you to go from v1 to v2 using those files.

cairaine

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for taking the time to explain that to me. I tried googling for answers and nothing came close to explaining it as clearly as you have. I was able to figure out how to create a bootable usb drive to do a clean install since recovery mode wouldn't let me, so I am not entirely technically challenged. but the BIOS firmware part really stumped me.

Using f2 at startup I was able to see that I am running version 2.17. So based on your advice, it would not hurt to upgrade to version 2.18. But if you were me, would you? I am going to keep my windwos 8.1 and not upgrade to windows 10 since I figured my laptop is optimized for best performance at windows 8.1 and it runs great since the clean install and I don't want to create unneeded issues by trying to upgrade to windows 10. That being said, I did read somewhere that a BIOS/firmware upgrade would be needed it I want to upgrade to Windows 10.

I also got more detail on the acer website about the 2.18 update, it reads:

1. Change wording when user change the boot mode from Legacy to uEFI
2. Update KBC to v1.23

Now I really have no idea what either of those things mean (KBC, uEFI) But I am sort of familiar with boot mode / legacy since I did have to disable 'secure boot' when I created my bootable USB drive.

So two remaining questions for you:

1) Would you upgrade to the 2.18 version which includes those changes to 'boot mode from legacy' and 'update KBC' (what is KBC?) Keeping in mind I am happy with the performance of my laptop currently but if it will help my laptop run more efficiently then I would

2) Am I correct in assuming I should stick with Windows 8.1 and not upgrade to Windows 10 (this is an older laptop with an intel i3 CPU 1.9GHZ) and that upgrading could create more problems as opposed to improve performance

Again thank you so much for your detailed and easy to understand explanation!

Angela

aphanic

Not at all, my pleasure.

As for that changelog... I just compared both firmware releases overall, didn't delve in too deep. The microcode, the code that controls how the processor does each thing wasn't changed in both releases, so there would be no need to upgrade in that regard.

KBC if I'm not mistaken stands for Keyboard Battery Controller, it's another embedded controller that is in the motherboard. I don't know the implications of updating its code to 1.23, that's what I meant by the changelogs being vague, they don't really say much about what's changed. The change could be trivial, or it could be meaningful.

Granted, the overwhelming majority of people using the laptops doesn't need to know these things, but I would appreciate being told, the more info we have the better decisions we can make.

Overall, if you're running 2.17, don't upgrade, I don't feel it's necessary give what I could see. If you run into problems with charging or something related to that, then give it a go because it could be related, otherwise, stay on 2.17, you're good.

As for sticking to Windows 8.1 vs Windows 10, that's a matter of preference really, I would go to 10 for example, I've been running it long enough I'm used to working with it. Performance-wise... I really couldn't say, I bet new code is better optimized than older code, but aside from that I don't have any Windows 8.1 vs. Windows 10 comparative done.

The processor is fine though, generally speaking any machine capable of running Windows 7 would do fine with 10 as well (generally speaking, there are caveats). For example, I have an old machine from 2007 with a Core 2 Duo processor and it is running Windows 10 perfectly, 4 GB of RAM (you have 6 if you haven't upgraded), but I did stick an SSD in that poor thing because otherwise it would be a tad slow.

Also, about UEFI and Secure Boot. UEFI is the current standard for the firmware of machines, kind of tells manufacturers how features are to be implemented, before that it was kind of the wild west, there were de-facto standards but not much parity in certain things.

Secure Boot is one of its features that is optional (for us). What it does is verify that what you are booting hasn't been tampered with, it's meant to be a security feature.

It does that by verifying digital signatures in the code that is to be booted. The problem is that while Microsoft's signature is present and accepted by default people using Linux for example have a hard time getting things signed, that's where the recommendation of disabling Secure Boot probably stems from. Because you were installing Windows, and 8.1 at that (not 7, I think it wasn't made with UEFI in mind) it wouldn't have mattered if you left that feature enabled.

Even now that you have it installed, you can get into the BIOS with F2 and enable the feature, you'll see it keeps on booting as usual (and if it didn't it'd be a matter of disabling it again).

Because the system is pretty clean for now I assume, (just Windows, drivers and a little bit more), it would be the perfect time to 10 a try. If you didn't like 10 for example you could always come back to 8.1 without any difficulty since you have a bootable flash drive for it.

If you do wish to do the jump, I think you should do it in place, that could help in regards to licensing (meaning you would end up having a licensed version of Windows 10, and after that point you could reinstall it anytime you liked that it would be valid).

I wrote a guide not long ago on how to perform clean installations of Windows 10, I'll link you to it but what you'd need to do is following the steps until we are about to create the bootable stick and choose to upgrade that machine instead. Or you could follow it fully, it's dealers choice, but I don't know how licensing would work afterwards, it may require you to purchase a key instead of having it for free (the free offering has supposed to have ended many time ago, but it still works for some reason).

Here is the guide: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/893916/#Comment_893916

cairaine

Thanks so much! I won't update the BIOS and will definitely look at your link and consider the windows 10 upgrade for sure. You've been very helpful, and it is much appreciated!

I will post again if I have any issues with the windows 10 upgrade

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