IT

InsydeFlash Bios downgrade.

After upgrading the BIOS of my Acer 3410 laptop, it started running hotter than usual, and more noisier …

Now I don’t know if this is specific to the newer BIOS, since the overly short description on Acer’s website doesn’t mention anything related to CPU speed / coolers, etc. It only says:

Improves battery charging performance.

And since I did not have any issue with its the battery, I was willing to try a downgrade.

The trouble ? The older 1.24 version did not want to cooperate:

The version of ROM file isn’t newer than version of BIOS.

Don’t know if all InsydeFlash BIOSes come with a platform.ini file, but the ZIP downloaded from Acer’s website included this file. I realized it is .ini file of the application and while looking through it I found the section below:

[Bios_Version_Check]
flag=1

I just had to put the flag=0 and that’s it!
I was able to proceed with the downgrade.

25 Comments

  1. fmma

    Many thanks. Was just looking for this information. Can confirm it worked

  2. TripleA

    In case you’re wondering, this still works and is still a lifesaver!

    Thanks!

  3. how can i modifier the dos version to be able to downgrade my bios from 1.36 to 1,27. thanks

  4. Did any one know how to downgrade 8471acer travemate bios from 1.36 to 1.27 in dos please I need info urgently

  5. Lee Clough

    this didnt work for me, when i changed the flag=1 to =0 the application then generated a new error saying ‘unable to delete output file’

  6. nareg26

    I’m having the same problem, except there is no platform.ini file, just something called launcher.ini which doesn’t have the same setting anywhere. I tried adding it but no dice. Did anyone solve this? Thanks!

  7. Hi Donovan,I m wondering – does this error eliminating method for Insydeflash tool would allow to flash modded bios on laptop which EEPROM is write protected, thus previously only way to flash modded bios was to use SPI programmer?

  8. Tom

    This great!
    A couple of notes from my experience.
    I needed to fallback the BIOS on my Acer Aspire M5-583P laptop from 2.30 to 2.25. As posted elsewhere, Acer does not support rollback of the BIOS. (Actually, they don’t support much past selling cheap laptops…)
    So, I did download the older BIOS from the Acer support site, but I needed to do 2 things:
    1) Use 7-zip to unpack the ZRQ_255.exe. That will give you the directory with the InsydeFlash.exe and the platform.ini files, amongst others. YOU WILL NOT FIND IT IN THE ZRQ.fd file in this directory, because of the way the self-extracting .EXE is made with 7-Zip’s SFX technique.
    2) Get the ZRQ.fd from the %temp% spot: \users\*\appdata\local\temp\*\ZRQ.fd. This is created when you run the ZRQ_255.exe and exists only while the EXE is running. So, when it complains about ROM versions. Copy it to wherever you put the extraction from step (1).
    Once the ZRQ.fd file is in the directory and the platform.ini file modified to disable BIOS version checking., it’ll work!!!!
    Thank you for this post!

  9. Radadam

    Thanks Tom!
    Your solution works great! Getting ZRQ.fd file from the 7x*** folder in the %temp% folder and copy it into the directory with the other files saved the error ‘Ther isn’t any ROM file in this directory.

  10. Morerza

    Tnx

  11. Dhananjay

    thx @Tom but while i load file in ezh2o it says program can’t find fv information in fd file. what to do ..pls help me i want to change my boot logo only.is it possible without flashing.i m ready to reflash same version of bios with modified boot logo.i have acer aspire e 431 laptop.its have a different version of bios insyde v2.17TD and acer site doesn’t have this type bios.its a modified uefi bios.how can i change boot logo.

    thanks

  12. Bharti

    I am trying to downgrade bios of my Acer w3 tablet. After modifying platform.ini file and repacking with 7zip. on running, I am getting error ” can not delete output file”
    did anyone faced and fixed this issue?

  13. Robert

    I am getting please update to the same type of bios (v2.x). I am trying to go from 2.22 to 1.15. The version 1.5 has a newer date and doesn’t state not for upgrade. I am hoping this will allow me to upgrade to windows 10.

  14. Bart

    Could sb please give a direct link to the Bios 1.13 for V3-571G that includes .ini file? I can’t find it.

  15. E Rowlands

    Tom, you are a freaking genius. Fantastic problem solving with obtaining the fd file from the temp folder.

    Thanks

  16. danwat1234

    This parameter isn’t found in the .in file of Lenovo BIOS updates. U have to open the BIOS and enable ‘the back flash’ ing option.

  17. danwat1234

    This parameter isn’t found in the .in file of Lenovo BIOS updates. U have to open the BIOS and enable the ‘back flash’ ing option. At least on a Lenovo Yoga 910.

  18. effuacer

    did acer patch this without fixing it? it doesnt work anymore

    Acer only provides 1.17 , 2.28 and 2 30 bios versios and when trying to update it errors out

  19. oggi

    not working at all. the solution is not full.
    you will get an error
    “Please update to the same type of bios (v.2.x)”
    the solution is described at the catchtito.blogspot.ru web site,
    post date Wednesday, May 15, 2013 “How to update to 2.x bios from 1.x bios (applicable for Acer\eMachines\Gateway\Packard Bell)”

  20. matej.jack

    I made a script that allows bios downgrade even if .ini file overwrites flag to 0 everytime you start insydeflash. If someone needs it in 2019+, you can write to my gmail (matej.jack@).

  21. Jerry

    Matej your email address is not visible. Can you post a link to your solution, as I need to flash the bios on Acer es1 533.
    I always get: “invalid firmware” when I run it… So annoying…
    However my problem is with just flashing the BIOS, because even I have downloaded the latest version, and I run it as admin, and I have the correct file I still got that message…
    So any solution that will force flash it will be a blessing.

  22. Value Xu

    Thanks a lot, I have suffered CVE-2017-5715, you saved my notebook’s live.

  23. Krzysztof

    Hi,
    when I want to do this operation on Lenovo G50-30, after turning on InsydeFlash.exe, prgram overwrites the default parameters for me. I tried to make the file read-only, but it doesn’t help.

  24. Matej

    I made a script that allows bios downgrade even if .ini file overwrites flag to 0 everytime you start insydeflash. If someone needs it in 2019+, you can write to my Gmail (matej.jack at gmail.com).

  25. BroadcastingCenter

    Thank you sooooooo much!

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