compatibilityone minute to an answer
Is your Acer one we can do?
Every Intel Acer laptop that still starts Windows can be worked on. What changes is the price and the wait. Five kinds of machine are refused outright, and it is worth knowing which before you spend an evening on this.
The usual case. $100 with a proof of purchase, most done inside 24 hours.
dearer Core Ultra, and 11th gen and olderStill done, at a higher price and up to 72 hours. Not a refusal.
refused Five kinds of machineAMD, Chromebooks, desktops, on-screen-code models, and anything not running Windows.
free Not sure? Do not guessThe free check gives a firm answer and an exact price at no cost.
1Find your processor, in under a minute
Everything on this page turns on one line of text. You do not need to open the laptop or reach the BIOS to read it — Windows will tell you.
- Press the Windows key, type About, and open About your PC.
- Find the line marked Processor.
- It will read something like
13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700HX, orIntel Core Ultra 7 155H.
Then read it like this:
- If it says Core Ultra anywhere, that is the Core Ultra row. Stop there.
- Otherwise the first two digits of the model number are the generation.
i7-13700HXis 13th generation.i5-12450His 12th.i7-1165G7is 11th. - Some machines spell it out at the front —
13th Gen— which saves you the arithmetic.
If the processor line says AMD, Ryzen or Athlon, skip to section 4. That is a refusal rather than a price.
2The table
Prices are per machine, paid only after the password has been recovered. A proof of purchase lowers the price because it settles the ownership question quickly; without one we do more checking, and that is what the difference pays for. Nothing is owed if we cannot recover it.
| Your processor | With proof of purchase | Without | Turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core 12th, 13th or 14th generation the usual case |
$100 | $150 | Usually within 24 hours |
| Intel Core 11th generation and below older |
$150 | $200 | Up to 72 hours |
| Intel Core Ultra newer, and dearer — see section 3 |
$200 | $250 | Up to 72 hours |
| AMD, Chromebooks, desktops, on-screen-code models, anything not running Windows | Refused. Not at any price. Section 4 explains each. | ||
Model line — Predator, Nitro, Aspire, Swift, Spin, TravelMate, Extensa, ConceptD — does not change the answer. The processor generation does. A Predator and an Aspire of the same generation are the same job.
Which of these are proven results and which are reasoned expectations is set out honestly in evidence and limits, graded claim by claim. Most enquiries land in the first row, and most of that row is inference rather than a machine we have personally done.
3The Core Ultra trap
This is the single thing people get wrong, so it gets its own section.
Core Ultra is a different processor family from Core i7. It is not a newer version of it.
The consequence is counter-intuitive: a laptop you bought last month can sit further from the cheapest tier than one bought in 2022. People read the table, see their brand-new machine in the dearest row, and assume it is a typing error. It is not. What decides the tier is the platform family, not the year on the box.
So: if the processor line says Core Ultra, read the $200 / $250 row, whatever the machine cost you and however new it is. If it says Core i5, i7 or i9 with a number after it, use the first two digits.
4What is refused, and why
These are genuine refusals rather than a dearer tier or a longer queue. We will not look at them, and sending a file for one costs you an evening and tells us nothing we can act on.
AMD Acer laptops
The method needs an Intel platform. On an AMD machine there is nothing to attempt — not slowly, not expensively. This is a flat no rather than a "not yet", and we would rather say so now than take your money and discover it later.
Acer Chromebooks
Different firmware entirely. If you are locked out of a Chromebook, the community project MrChromebox is where to look, not here.
Acer desktops
Predator Orion, Nitro N50, Veriton, Aspire TC and the rest. Also different firmware. This service is laptops only.
Older Acers that show a code on the screen
If your machine displays an 8 or 10 digit number at the password prompt rather than writing a code.txt file to a USB stick, you do not need us and you should not pay us. That is a much older lock and free generators — pwgen-for-bios and insydious — solve it in seconds.
We would rather send you away with a working answer than sell you something you do not need. If you have already tried those and your machine writes a code.txt instead, here is why no generator will ever solve that file.
Anything not running Windows
The BIOS password blocks the setup screen, not the operating system, so on almost every locked machine Windows still starts normally — that is the situation this service is built for. But if Windows will not start, or the drive has been wiped, swapped or encrypted beyond reach, there is no way to run the capture tool and nothing can be done remotely.
5If you are unsure, do not guess
The table gives you a range. The free check gives you the answer: whether your specific laptop can be done, the exact price, and how long it will take. It costs nothing, the tool is a free download, no email address is needed to get it, and the answer does not oblige you to go ahead.
That is the sensible first step for anything in the second or third row, and for any machine whose generation you could not work out from section 1.
If you are in the first row and confident about it, you can go straight to the order form.