Why is it so hard to update the BIOS on a Gateway DX4870???

billsey said:

Maybe there isn't an update from what you have already?

problem with this is people NEED a bios update to take full advantage of the motherboard, it's labelled as having an LGA 1155 socket but this is really false advertising as current BIOS doesn't support it, current bios can only do sandy bridge not the newer but lga 1155 compatible ivy bridge, it's really annoying. What they do is for example DX4860 they have 3 different versions of that based on the time it was released, windows 7, windows 7 with ivy bridge, and windows 8.1

despite the motherboard for all 3 re-inditions being the EXACT same they made the newer bioses not compatible for no reason, if you wanted one you'd have to buy a new Gateway, probably a marketing scheme, all 3 dx4860's use IPISB-VR rev 1.01 motherboards, for the dx4870 i assume it's the same

DavidCleveland said:

I have searched the interwebs for a week straight to find out how to update the BIOS, apparently it's impossible.

Brother I'm in the same boat. Wasted 150$ on a new LGA1155 intel i7 cpu only to find out bc acer didn't push a bios update, it's incompatible.

I found out a way I think to do it but it involves a lot of technical knowledge, the 2nd and 3rd bios versions won't work because they're different sizes than the original bios so it's impossible to write it with software for some done reason

You need a CH341A & SOIC8 test clip which will allow you to read/write to the physical bios on the motherboard, you can find these on amazon, you also preferably need linux (Ubuntu is easiest) or shady 3rd party windows software.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OttN8wQ1HhE a simple tutorial on how to read from bios from it, pretty sure after learning that it's straightforward to write to it. Effectively you're completely overwriting the bios on a physical level, not sure how much this compares to doing it with software, when trying to update the DX4860 with normal software means it gave me "Error: ROM file size does not match existing BIOS size.", I assume to change the size as-well you'd need this physical hardware

I'm too lazy to do this so I'm just keeping my bad i3 CPU and getting a refund on my I7. Not purchasing from Acer again, this is ridiculous, why would you put LGA1155 on a board and not even support it, I guess this is a lesson to not buy prebuilt PCs, at-least not ones that use custom parts that easily lose support...