driver/ update software question/rant

[Anthony1989]

Sooooo long story short ....i got my baby in on tues and i went straight to do the updates from the dell website (sticky post no longer working in forum) and when i downloaded the updates it says "failed" After i attempted to install them. Ive already had the wonderful ( by wondeful i mean horrible customer service/tech support) tech support tell me that i do not need to update my drivers or software because it is brand new and if everything is working correctly why am i updating anything ... -.- .... so i explained that the dell website is recommending me to update certain things and he assures me im wrong .... makes me open up the computer property and read out the bios firmware number and then to read out loud the firmware number update from dell ... which were the same. He then told me he'll put a ticket in to fix the website.....sure... Now heres where im iffy about all this ... i open wow (world of ...) and it says my graphic card is out of date. I go to nvidia and sure enough there is a new firmware and the firmware on my alienware doesnt match.... After the update i now get about a constant 70 to 80 fps rather than a constant 30 from before. Another question i have is that the owners manual says to plug a mini hdmi to hdmi of my monitor but its currently taking a reg hdmi to hdmi... i have a mini hdmi but it doesnt fit anywhere. Should i be worried?

So you ask wheres the horrible customer service ... see below ....

1. hung up on 3 times
2. Tranferred/ placed on hold in about 4 departments before getting to the right one 35 mins later. ( dialed alienware tech support)
3. I explained to one rep that i purchased the computer two weeks ago directly from dell and it came in yesterday and
she said " do you have a warranty for your brand new alienware computer? if not i may not be able to help you.... "its brand new woman. -.-
4. Some reps i could not understand their english even if you offered me $100000000000000 to decipher
what they were saying, the tech guy spoke better english but he was struggling so i asked him if he would prefer to speak spanish he said yes and from there we went on.

 

[sway]

Rule of thumb with computers is if it ain't broke (drivers) don't fix it. This is mainly for bios but also for other drivers, if your having issues somewhere then try updating certain drivers and it could fix the issue. Now this does not go for the gpu, always keep the gpu drivers updated.

I'd recommend going to nvidia site for updated drivers, and I can't stress this enough, do a clean install. When your installing the driver choose custom, then clean install. There's some smart tech guys on this forum, use this to your advantage.

Imo tech support is there to replace a piece of hardware if it's broke, I never use them for software problems, but I know not everyone is computer savvy. Google is also your friend, use it.

tappin from the Note II

 

[MattyB]

I'm with Sway on this. A good google search can usually solve most problems and asking questions on sites like this is a great way to go. I have learned a huge amount from the good people here.

 

[mandomerc]

Was wondering, even though people are saying if its not broke leave it alone. my bios is A03 and was wondering if i should update to the new A12?? can anyone message me about it plz?

 

[sway]

Was wondering, even though people are saying if its not broke leave it alone. my bios is A03 and was wondering if i should update to the new A12?? can anyone message me about it plz?

If there isn't any issues with your computer don't worry about it. I had a bad bios flash and had to reinstall all my stuff.

tappin from the Note II

 

[MattyB]

I like to have everything up to date so I usually would update but that's more of an OCD thing Make sure you read and research what the update will do first though. Sometimes they can actually reduce performance like the A10 BIOS update on the M17x R3 which took away SATA 3 speeds.

 

[andrewgill67]

Hi - what X51 configuration did you get? The wow fps sounds encouraging.