Bios 3224 now available for Aspire 5672

Just noticed a new bios for the Acer Aspire 5670 series has been posted on the UK site.

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5620_5670/bios/3224.zip

Below is a cut/paste of the updates since the last BIOS 3219:

Code:

Intel Calistoga Chipset
;+------------------------------------------------------------------------
;
; Date            : 4/18/'06
; ZB1 BIOS Ver.   : v1.3224 (3B24)
; INTEL VGA BIOS  : cal_1256.dat 
; ATi M52         : br18861.bin
; ATi M54         : br18860.bin
; ATi M56         : br19743.bin
;
1. Update new M56  VBIOS.

2. Update to support Merom CPU.
        zb1.tc1\bcp.asm
	base\cpu\m2706f1.asm

;+------------------------------------------------------------------------
;
; Date            : 4/12/'06
; ZB1 BIOS Ver.   : v1.3223 (3B23)
; INTEL VGA BIOS  : cal_1256.dat 
; ATi M52         : br18861.bin
; ATi M54         : br18860.bin
; ATi M56         : br19107.bin
;
1. Fix the CRISIS function can't work by Hotkey "Fn+ESC".
        base\bootblok\crisishk.asm

;+------------------------------------------------------------------------
;
; Date            : 3/9/'06
; ZB1 BIOS Ver.   : v1.3223C (3B23)
; INTEL VGA BIOS  : cal_1256.dat 
; ATi M52         : br18861.bin
; ATi M54         : br18860.bin
; ATi M56         : br19107.bin
;
1. Update new M52/M54/M56 VBIOS.

;+------------------------------------------------------------------------
;
; Date            : 2/27/'06
; ZB1 BIOS Ver.   : v1.3222 (3B22)
; INTEL VGA BIOS  : cal_1256.dat 
; ATi M52         : br18432.bin
; ATi M54         : br18431.bin
; ATi M56         : br18558a.bin
;
1. Adjust DVMT size only by CMOS, the default value as below:
	System Memory	DVMT size
	<512MB ==>	64MB
	>512MB ==>	MaxDVMT
        zb1.tc1\oemcode.asm(modified)
        zb1.tc1\template.asm(modified)
        intel.600\oemhooks.asm
        base\chipset\memtot.asm(modified)
        base\chipset\mem1tot.asm(removed)
;+------------------------------------------------------------------------
;
; Date            : 2/24/'06
; ZB1 BIOS Ver.   : v1.3221 (3B21)
; INTEL VGA BIOS  : cal_1256.dat 
; ATi M52         : br18432.bin
; ATi M54         : br18431.bin
; ATi M56         : br18558a.bin
;
1. Update new M52/M54/M56 VBIOS.

;+------------------------------------------------------------------------
;
; Date            : 2/20/'06
; ZB1 BIOS Ver.   : v1.3220 (3B20)
; INTEL VGA BIOS  : cal_1256.dat 
; ATi M52         : br17999.bin
; ATi M54         : br17021b.bin
; ATi M56         : br17983.bin
;
1. For Windows Vista, Adjust DVMT size by System Memory as below:
	System Memory	DVMT size
	<512MB ==>	64MB
	>512MB ==>	MaxDVMT
        zb1.tc1\oemcode.asm
        zb1.tc1\template.asm
        intel.600\oemhooks.asm
        base\chipset\memtot.asm
        base\chipset\mem1tot.asm

2. Fix the Swap-ODD can't display on Windows Vista.
        zb1.tc1\oem_bay.asm (modify oemGetSwapBayId)

So its been thru 2 new revisions of the ATI BIOS (M54=x1400) and now has support for Merom (yay!)

Steve

 

Wow, Acer is really on top of their BIOS updates. Both the 8204 and 5672 now have Merom support.

 

Nice find!

 

what better will this do for our 5672's? sorry for such a noob question.

 

It adds Merom support bassically. Doesn't do anything for performance.

 

But a Merom will help performance

 

Just installed BIOS 3224. One thing that was immediately apparent was that the fan is now working like I suspect its supposed to. For the first time since I've had the 5672, I could actually hear the fan kicking into high gear and the air flow was stronger than normal when the cpu was working under load. Whereas the prior cpu temp was in the 50-mid 60's its now in the mid to high forties. Could have been a glitch in my particular machine but I'm happy to see it.

The flash also updates the video bios from bios 3219 but I haven't had the time to find out if that's significant. We'll see.

 

I must say from all the companies i don't see many releasing bios quite as regually as Acer. I mean Kudos for them, Merom support, actually think about what the customer wants.. Unlike the other companies that would prefer if you brought a whole new computer from them.

 

so is the hot palm rests and burning touchpads no longer a problem with the new bios update?

 

The problem with this BIOS as well as the last is that Acer locks out the possibility of booting from anything other than DVD/CD drive. I checked with Sisofts Sandra and the BIOS report confirms this. I'm gonna try and hack this so you can, which you should be able to. Acer must have some sort of agreement with MS involving this. Why would they give you four USB boot options in the boot order screen? I'll bet no one here has been able to do this with a UFD.

 

This is incorrect. I have booted from USB devices numerous times.

 

With the 5672? How? Which flash drive mfg? What files were on it? The BIOS report from Sandra shows "No" for support in booting from anything other than the DVD/CD. I DL'd the 3224 from the Euro FTP. Could that be the reason that my laptop doesn't see the flash drive under BIOS? I'm not talking about an external USB harddrive enclosure, I'm talking about a pen drive. Not that it would matter. Which USB device is it being read as? HDD, Key, or Floppy? I assume it isn't being read as a USB CD drive. Now I'm thinking my unit is defective. Is there a "secret" key combo to enable this? Because [Shift+1] as the help screen mentions, does not enable anything. Anyone else beside k310 been able to boot from a UFD using the Aspire 5672 with 1.3224 version BIOS?

 

Well, that ends the guessing. I just got off the phone with Acer tech support and after much placing on hold so the representative could talk to her supervisor, it was reported that Acer made revisions in the new 3224 as well as in the previous 3219, so that one could not load a pre-installed environment using windows system files due to liability concerns!!! Can you believe it? MS got Acer to disable their boot options. Now, all you can load while in the BIOS screen is USB devices such as mice and keyboards, BUT not USB flash drives with operating systems on them. This blows. because if your system OS becomes corrupt and you use the eRecovery disk, it will wipe the entire drive preventing you from saving valuable user data. Strangely enough the tech support advised me to check out Knoppix which installs a Linux environment for the purpose of saving files. This is definitely the work of MS because I asked a techie at Staples the same question and he got very hush-hush with me even as far as almost whispering to me to check out Slax stdf which is yet another way. He told me he couldn't say much because of liability. Wow, MS really has these people on eggshells.

 

Just curious

k3l0, is your BIOS still pre 3219?
(it should show in first BIOS screen)

If so, everyone cab just reflash BIOS with a pre 3219 version.
I guess the other 'new features' in the newer BIOSs are just support for processors that aren't even available yet, so no-one would lose much would they.

Talon_Sr, glad for you that it isn't a HW problem.

This would indeed be a bit ridiculous, to say the least. I'll check if the newer BIOS for my model has the same crippling effect on booting from USB.

Cheers

Drio

 

Hi,

I have an Aspire 5672 1GB RAM/100GB HDD. BIOS v1.3219. I am able to boot from a USB stick into (Windows 98) DOS. The USB stick is actually also an mp3 player - Transcend 1GB USB stick/mp3 player, though I don't think it has anything to do with the USB stick itself.

Cheers

 

That's a good idea, anyways. For clarification in regards to others, Knoppix installs nothing. It is simply a bootable CD (or DVD at this point?) which loads the Knoppix kernel using the RAM as a virtual hard disk, accessing the CD drive for files and swapping them into RAM when needed. There are many linux distributions that are like this: Knoppix, PCLinuxOS (Good native Wifi support), Mandriva, etc etc.

As said, nice to hve a copy of this around anyways to access a corrupted windows partition to salvage those remaining documents, pictures, and music files.

It is hard to believe that MS is forcing their hand on something like this. Definately something to worry about.

 

Acer themselves also provide a LiveCd
see
http://global.acer.com/support/download.htm
The Linux software box has an option Notebook Lived CD which kicks you to
ftp://www.linpus.com.tw/pub/source/livecd/
where directory
ftp://www.linpus.com.tw/pub/source/livecd/b060419/iso/
has
livecd060419_quanta.iso (about 250Mb)

But back to booting and BartPE
I tried booting a BartPE environment from CD with the latest BIOS for my TM8106 (version 3F06, just released a few weeks ago). Didn't have any problems. Haven't tried USB yet (will need to build one first for my USB stick, and wait for my next reboot (will be end of the week probably).

What are others experiences?
I know that MS doens't like BartPE (you only have to read some of the stuff on Bart's site, including remarks from MS managers), but before we build the next conspiracy theory I would like to know if Talon_Sr's experience is shared by others. So please try?

Drio

 

Hi Talon_Sr and all

I finally got around testing a bartpe boot from an USB stick.
After some experimentation I got it to work

I don't think there is an Acer+Microsoft conspiracy to prevent booting PE environments. It is merely a matter of how the machine operates and how different USB sticks work.

For some machines, especially the centrino paltform, the USB bus is reset during boot. This causes a boot from USB to fail.

A way around this for BartPE, from Bart himself, is described here:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=10806
apart from the two W2k3 server files you need to get from microsoft everything is already implemented in the latest PE builder releases.

In plain English it's just loading the BartPE ISO image in a ramdrive before starting it.


particular sticks
For installing it may be necessary to make sure the stick is recognised as a boot device
See here for sorting this out:
http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t69211.html

In plain English it's just tricking Windows into believing that your stick is a non-removable drive.


Actually installing Windows on a USB stick?
See here:
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176
and for more confusion here
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181

I wouldn't suggest going along with the latter experiments, actually I think it is a bit of an exotic crap. It will ruin your stick very fast if you don't get it right with the EWF filters.
But it may be useful for installing XP on an external USB harddrive, although it is probably easier just dumping a cloned image of a working install in a partition of the external drive.


Apart from all this it should not surprise if a BartPE build for 'older' machines simply doesn't work with a newer machine. It probably just misses some drivers.


hth

Drio

 

Thanks for the info and links Drio. I will try some experiments and let you know.

Talon_Sr