Acer Aspire Desktop M5640/M5641/M3640/M1640 BIOS Update for DOS/Windows

For those of you who have been looking high and low for a BIOS update for the Acer Aspire Desktop Series, look no more. Some known issues with the firmware R01-B2 are the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) interface and the ability to switch between OS Support (such as Linux.)

As I chanced upon this PC during troubleshooting, it was really difficult to update the BIOS because all of Acer's updates were in *.exe and I had no idea how to extract the files using a Resource Hacker! So I decided to scourge Google..


All thanks to http://one-sick-psi-guy.blogspot.com/2009/01/another-bios-update-for-m5640-m3640.html for the fix!

Sneaky Acer released another two BIOS updates for the M5640, with the latest being revision R01-B4 for Windows platforms only and its a large one in comparison with older revisions (over 2MB this time round). I totally missed the B3 revision 'cos I haven't been checking the sites for sometime.

What's changed? No documentation or readme was provided to list down the changes or fixes. The only major thing I notice is that the 'AUTO' option has been removed from the 'Installer OS select' parameter and now only lists 'Windows' or 'Linux'. I wonder if this will affect my attempts later to install MacOS ...

The other thing is the automatic shutdown option upon overheating has been removed from the PC Health Status section. Funny thing about this update is the default settings turn off all the options for wakeup using keyboard/LAN/mouse upon standby but that's easily changed. Anyways, BIOS downloads for these BIOS updates are only found on the European site. Direct links here:

R01-B4 for Windows only (Acer Euro site)
R01-B3 for Linux only(Acer Euro site)

P/S : The colour scheme hasn't changed and remains the same yellow text on blue. The pic above uses the alternative colour scheme obtainable by pressing F3.

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UPDATE 5^th June 2009!!!

TWO bios releases for Acer Aspire desktop models M5640/M5641/M3640/M1640 to version R01-C2. No noticeable changes to the BIOS in terms of menu options - so this might be a stability fix release (no documentation about features provided in any Acer site).

R01-C2 flashes in Windows using the AFUWIN executable whilst R01-C2L has a larger BIOS binary but only provides the MS-DOS flasher. Both work and don't seem to be any different other than version number ... so download the C2L version for the newer BIOS binary and C2 for the Windows flasher if you're not comfortable flashing with a boot device. Direct links to Acer servers as follows

Download R01-C2 with Windows-based flasher.
Download R01-C2L with CLI based flasher for DOS boot disks.

Skip Valve Logo Video For Half Life 2 / Team Fortress 2 / Left 4 Dead

PROBLEM ONE: VALVE VIDEO INTRODUCTON

PROBLEM: Everytime you start Half Life 2 / Team Fortress 2 / Left 4 Dead or practically any other Steam game, there is bound to be a Valve video that pops out each time.

A very common scenario is that when Steam is running in the Windows background and you are awaiting a slot to get into the game and you actually finally get a slot, shit happens. As soon as you launch the game the Valve Introduction Video plays, you press Esc, and once the game is finally running, you get the error, "Server is Full."

Someone just stole your slot! "FUCK THIS SHIT!", you might say. Life Sucks. Now here's the solution.

SOLUTION:

Step 1

Open Steam then Right click on ‘Team Fortress 2. Then click on the properties button.

Step 2

Click on ‘Set launch Options…’

Step 3

In the box that comes up, Type ‘-novid’.

Step 4

Press on ok. Now your all done and TF2 won’t load the video when playing.

All Credit To: http://ripegamer.com/team-fortress-2-how-to-stop-the-video-introduction/

Introduction To Totally Tecky Stuff

Ever get the irritated feeling whenever something crashes on your PC and you don't know how to solve it? Scourge Google for hours and not being able to find a solution?

Well.. fret not.

This is a medium set up for everybody to troubleshoot any problems they might have irregardless of software, hardware, etc. Now I'm not trying to go and say that "Hey, your problems WILL be solved here" but rather I will post any interesting articles about practically anything.

From the latest software news that I get to the latest gossip, I will post basically anything that will be of interest. Let's start the ball rolling, shall we?

Welcome to Totally Tecky Stuff (Where Not Just Geeks Unite)