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01-20-2013, 01:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-20-2013, 02:06 PM by samspin.)
I too have this laptop stuck on the V2 BIOS series, I bought it from Comet (just before they died into administration, so there's no taking it back) thinking that I could mod the BIOS to ensure it will work for my needs. I want to put MAC OSX on it, the only thing holding me back is the fact that Acer preset the pre-allocated video ram to 128MB in the BIOS. The OSX Intel HD graphics driver refuses to work unless the pre-allocated video ram is set to 64MB (you just get a white screen freeze after POST, even in safe mode). Other than that, the hardware is fully compatible. On a separate Toshiba laptop I have, the pre-allocated video ram is set to 64MB in the BIOS and works beautifully with OSX. On BOTH laptops it is impossible to change the VRAM setting, even though it is listed in the BIOS as information! This just seems another example of laptop manufacturers deciding "what we set so, STAYS so!" without thinking of the consequences... so it seems luck-of-the-draw that my Toshiba one will work without a BIOS mod, and the Acer one won't... all I need is an option in the BIOS to set the pre-allocated video ram to 64MB and it will work. My Gigabyte desktop PC has this option in the BIOS, and OSX will work on that once set correctly... [censored] laptop manufacturers and Microsoft Secure Boot blocking BIOS mods! If anyone can find a way to downgrade the BIOS on these Acers to V1 to allow unlocking advanced options, I would love them forever! Rant over... anyway, you can add me to the list of people praying for a way to work around these "unmodifiable BIOSes".
EDIT: Also, I have figured out how to turn off Secure Boot in these Acers. You first need to set a BIOS password (supervisor password), reboot, and THEN it will stop greying out the secure boot options. You can even remove the BIOS password afterwards and secure boot will stay disabled, though it won't let you edit the field unless you set a password again. This isn't listed in any instructions anywhere on Acer's site nor the instruction booklet, so I hope it helps. At least that way you can install Linux or whatever and still use native UEFI booting, rather than set it to "legacy BIOS boot". That way you could dual-boot Windows 8 and Linux a lot easier!
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