CyberPowerPC Fangbook 4 BIOS Help

[gathermewoo159902ec]

I apologize ahead of time for my newbness.

I contacted CyberPowerPC asking for some help updating my BIOS, but the info they provided was unclear.

The motherboard is MSI, but the BIOS shows as American Megatrends E16J4ICP.107
CyberPowerPC customer service provided this link to the latest BIOS: https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GE62-6QF-Apache-Pro/support

The rev from the link: E16J4IMS.117

What's the difference between my existing "ICP" and the linked "IMS"?

 

[Nichrome]

Hi
IMS is for mass production. ICP is cyberpower specific.

 

[gathermewoo159902ec]

Hi
IMS is for mass production. ICP is cyberpower specific.

Does that mean that the BIOS firmware is the same and the linked update is likely correct?

 

[darkhawk]

It means the bios is customized for Cyberpower specific machines. Ultimately, the reality is that Cyberpower needs to provide the BIOS, even if they have to go to MSI to get it.
One of the main issues with getting a cyberpower machine is that they aren't going to update the BIOS, because it probably costs them money (since they have to get MSI to update it for them).
Yes, the machines are generally cheaper, but there's reasons for that if I'm honest. You just don't get any support with them.

 

[gathermewoo159902ec]

It means the bios is customized for Cyberpower specific machines. Ultimately, the reality is that Cyberpower needs to provide the BIOS, even if they have to go to MSI to get it.
One of the main issues with getting a cyberpower machine is that they aren't going to update the BIOS, because it probably costs them money (since they have to get MSI to update it for them).
Yes, the machines are generally cheaper, but there's reasons for that if I'm honest. You just don't get any support with them.

Thank you for the help.

The link I shared earlier was from an email from CyberPower. I asked if that firmware (the mass production one) was compatible with my actual BIOS (CyberPower specific one) but he never got back to me. Any insight or simply forget about it?

I want to find a way to enable or install TPM 1.2, so I can try and load W11 onto this laptop with a Skylake processor. Nothing is showing up in settings and the BIOS doesn’t show an option for TPM.

My laptop is having issues that likely aren’t fixable, such as some keyboard keys have stopped responding most of the time except when hot for some reason (eg, s, windows key, space bar), so I’m willing to try to cheat my way into getting Windows 11 running on it and hoping a BIOS update might help.

 

[citay]

Also see here, but you have a notebook, i don't know if you can use the flash tool there. Even then, the last BIOS is from 2018, it will not make it Win11 ready. Also, a TPM 1.2 wouldn't help at all, you need a TPM 2.0 (in firmware is enough, but needs to be 2.0). Win11 doesn't want anything to do with a TPM 1.2.

If you want to install Win11 without TPM requirements, first, create a file "bypass.reg" with the following content:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHC]
"UpgradeEligibility"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig]
"BypassTPMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassSecureBootCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassRAMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassStorageCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassCPUCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassDiskCheck"=dword:00000001

Put it on the same USB stick you previously created with the Win11 Media Creation Tool. Boot from the USB stick via F11. Start installing Windows. At some point it will say it can't be installed on your system. Press SHIFT+F10 to open the command prompt. Type "notepad.exe" and press enter. In Notepad, set the file filter to "*.* All files". Navigate to the USB stick, find the bypass.reg and run it. Now you can close Notepad and the command prompt, and Win11 will continue to install like normal.

I installed Win11 on a quite old notebook this way, it runs fine so far. No TPM 2.0 on there and officially incompatible CPU.

 

[gathermewoo159902ec]

Thanks for the help! I’ll follow your instructions.

I did see that same work around to upgrade to W11. I’ve already made the registry edit, but somewhere I read that TPM 1.2 was still required and no TPM at all would not work. I believe the article also stated that the thumb drive should be formatted FAT32, which I don’t have a 32GB or less right now. You’re saying that TPM isn‘t necessary at all? Any idea about the thumb drive format? I guess for that piece of the puzzle it’ll either work or not work. I just haven’t had time to try.

//

My current BIOS date is 2015, so a newer 2018 BIOS would at least be more secure. I don’t see anything in the patch notes about TPM; I guess it was just a hail Mary.

 

[citay]

No TPM required whatsoever with this method. Of course, we don't know what Microsoft might do in the future for system that have been installed this way. But let's hope they just let it slide and continue to supply updates.

 

[gathermewoo159902ec]

No TPM required whatsoever with this method. Of course, we don't know what Microsoft might do in the future for system that have been installed this way. But let's hope they just let it slide and continue to supply updates.

Thats great news. I guess I’ll just have to back everything up and make a restore point, so long as that’s an option to downgrade to W10 should Microsoft come after me.

Worst case, I guess I’ll have to get back into the Linux game.