Bundled cards and out of date drivers!!

[Rob]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hi,

Why is it that ATI can regularly update their Radeon 9800XT Drivers but the
last Dell update for this card was way back in January (Dell downloads
site). Isn't Dell interested in giving us the latest drivers for their cards
or what? I'd love to be able to use the latest Catalyst driver offered by
ATI, but as its a Dell bundled card I'm stuck with Dell's driver until they
can be arsed to do something about it. I paid the extra £££'s to get the
best card offered so its not too much to expect to be able to update it once
in a while is it? This is also true of the Audigy2 card, Creative seem to be
able to offer updated drivers for this card, but not one updated driver is
available from Dell's download site. Again as its a bundled card I can't
utilise the Creative driver but am forced to stick with Dell's until someone
over there gets of his lazy backside and updates it. C'mon Dell we paid good
money for these cards now give us the support for them.

Rob

--
"A new study shows that licking the sweat off a frog can cure depression.
The down side is, the minute you stop licking, the frog gets depressed
again."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:52:35 +0100, Rob wrote in
<news:2re3g5F18t9c8U1@uni-berlin.de>:

> Hi,
>
> Why is it that ATI can regularly update their Radeon 9800XT Drivers but the
> last Dell update for this card was way back in January (Dell downloads
> site). Isn't Dell interested in giving us the latest drivers for their cards
> or what? I'd love to be able to use the latest Catalyst driver offered by
> ATI, but as its a Dell bundled card I'm stuck with Dell's driver until they
> can be arsed to do something about it. I paid the extra £££'s to get the
> best card offered so its not too much to expect to be able to update it once
> in a while is it? This is also true of the Audigy2 card, Creative seem to be
> able to offer updated drivers for this card, but not one updated driver is
> available from Dell's download site. Again as its a bundled card I can't
> utilise the Creative driver but am forced to stick with Dell's until someone
> over there gets of his lazy backside and updates it. C'mon Dell we paid good
> money for these cards now give us the support for them.

I don't believe Dell makes graphics cards so why would they offer updated
drivers if the ones from the manufacturer of the card work just as good?

As for updated drivers, why can't you use the ones from ATI or Creative? I
got my X800 XT with my Dimension 8400 and it works fine with the latest ATI
drivers. Wait, that's not true. I haven't updated to the Catalyst 4.9
drivers yet. I'm still using the 4.8's.

I don't understand why you think that since Dell installed the card you
can't use drivers from ATI or Creative.

Dave
--
You can talk about us, but you can't talk without us!
US Army Signal Corps!!

http://www.geocities.com/davidcasey98

Remove IH8SPAM to reply by email!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hold your horses, cowboy.

There's a big difference between the drivers offered on Dell's web site and
those offered by the manufacturer: The drivers from Dell are guaranteed by
Dell to work in your machine, not so the drivers from the manufacturer. If
Dell's driver doesn't work properly, or causes you problems, it's Dell's
responsibility to fix it.

The manufacturer's software will probably work just fine on your computer,
but they won't guarantee that. And if you have a problem with a third party
driver, Dell won't support it.

At least in theory, this means that Dell spends the time to test their
drivers in every supported configuration, which takes time. Also, the
conventional wisdom is that you don't need to update your driver every time
a new version comes out. (This conventional wisdom is widely ignored, lol.)
Dell, for it's part, won't update their drivers unless it would fix a
problem or unless it's necessary to support an upgrade path.
--
Ted Zieglar


"Rob" <unununium33@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2re3g5F18t9c8U1@uni-berlin.de...
> Hi,
>
> Why is it that ATI can regularly update their Radeon 9800XT Drivers but
the
> last Dell update for this card was way back in January (Dell downloads
> site). Isn't Dell interested in giving us the latest drivers for their
cards
> or what? I'd love to be able to use the latest Catalyst driver offered by
> ATI, but as its a Dell bundled card I'm stuck with Dell's driver until
they
> can be arsed to do something about it. I paid the extra £££'s to get the
> best card offered so its not too much to expect to be able to update it
once
> in a while is it? This is also true of the Audigy2 card, Creative seem to
be
> able to offer updated drivers for this card, but not one updated driver is
> available from Dell's download site. Again as its a bundled card I can't
> utilise the Creative driver but am forced to stick with Dell's until
someone
> over there gets of his lazy backside and updates it. C'mon Dell we paid
good
> money for these cards now give us the support for them.
>
> Rob
>
> --
> "A new study shows that licking the sweat off a frog can cure depression.
> The down side is, the minute you stop licking, the frog gets depressed
> again."
>
>

 

[ted]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Rob" <unununium33@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:2re6h5F18j0enU1@uni-berlin.de...
> "Ted Zieglar" <teddyz@notmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1095884198.linFeaXz2KPpBZt4ElUhiA@teranews...

>> [] If
>> Dell's driver doesn't work properly, or causes you problems, it's Dell's
>> responsibility to fix it. [] At least in theory, this means that Dell spends
>> the time to test their drivers in every supported configuration, which
>> takes time.

> [] I mean its not Dell who actually produce the Drivers
> is it? It's the manufacturer of the card isn't it? Don't Dell just approach
> the manufacturer and ask them to provide a driver update specifically for
> the OEM cards?

Yes, it would be really nice if Dell shipped their systems with the lastest
versions of apps, drivers, service packs & patches, etc. However, there
is an adage in business... "change costs money".

First of all, Dell needs to make sure that the new software works, and
works in all configurations that they will be shipping. Which means
someone has to do alot of testing, and even if Dell doesn't do it all, I
would expect them to do some acceptance testing. It is very much
their ass on the line, and PC margins are reported to be pretty tight.
If everything is fine, the manufacturing process is changed so that new
systems are loaded with that new software. So the system that Dell
uses to put images onto drives must be updated. If the system ships
with software CDs, new ones willl have to be acquired. If the new
software has implications for manufacturing test, those folks have to
get up to speed and possibly change their software or procedures.
Likewise, the Dell tech support folks may have to come up to speed
and/or change their procedures. The Dell downloads database will
need updating. Documentation, at least internal, will be generated
and/or changed. Etc, etc.

Exactly how complicated and costly a particular software change is
to Dell, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a trivial
change costs them tens of thousands of dollars and a major change
costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and think of all the
software updates that would be available over the course of a year.
With that in mind, it doesn't suprise me that they are selective about
what & when they release.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Thanks, Ted. That was a great post.
--
Ted Zieglar


"Ted" <nothanks@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:4151f7f0$0$2653$61fed72c@news.rcn.com...
>
> "Rob" <unununium33@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2re6h5F18j0enU1@uni-berlin.de...
> > "Ted Zieglar" <teddyz@notmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1095884198.linFeaXz2KPpBZt4ElUhiA@teranews...
>
> >> [] If
> >> Dell's driver doesn't work properly, or causes you problems, it's
Dell's
> >> responsibility to fix it. [] At least in theory, this means that Dell
spends
> >> the time to test their drivers in every supported configuration, which
> >> takes time.
>
> > [] I mean its not Dell who actually produce the Drivers
> > is it? It's the manufacturer of the card isn't it? Don't Dell just
approach
> > the manufacturer and ask them to provide a driver update specifically
for
> > the OEM cards?
>
> Yes, it would be really nice if Dell shipped their systems with the
lastest
> versions of apps, drivers, service packs & patches, etc. However, there
> is an adage in business... "change costs money".
>
> First of all, Dell needs to make sure that the new software works, and
> works in all configurations that they will be shipping. Which means
> someone has to do alot of testing, and even if Dell doesn't do it all, I
> would expect them to do some acceptance testing. It is very much
> their ass on the line, and PC margins are reported to be pretty tight.
> If everything is fine, the manufacturing process is changed so that new
> systems are loaded with that new software. So the system that Dell
> uses to put images onto drives must be updated. If the system ships
> with software CDs, new ones willl have to be acquired. If the new
> software has implications for manufacturing test, those folks have to
> get up to speed and possibly change their software or procedures.
> Likewise, the Dell tech support folks may have to come up to speed
> and/or change their procedures. The Dell downloads database will
> need updating. Documentation, at least internal, will be generated
> and/or changed. Etc, etc.
>
> Exactly how complicated and costly a particular software change is
> to Dell, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a trivial
> change costs them tens of thousands of dollars and a major change
> costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and think of all the
> software updates that would be available over the course of a year.
> With that in mind, it doesn't suprise me that they are selective about
> what & when they release.

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"David Casey" <sgtcasey@IH8SPAMcableone.net> wrote in message
news:19sayxfly67mw.dlg@sgtcaseycableone.net...
> On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:52:35 +0100, Rob wrote in
> <news:2re3g5F18t9c8U1@uni-berlin.de>:
>

> I don't believe Dell makes graphics cards so why would they offer updated
> drivers if the ones from the manufacturer of the card work just as good?
>
> As for updated drivers, why can't you use the ones from ATI or Creative?
> I
> got my X800 XT with my Dimension 8400 and it works fine with the latest
> ATI
> drivers. Wait, that's not true. I haven't updated to the Catalyst 4.9
> drivers yet. I'm still using the 4.8's.
>
> I don't understand why you think that since Dell installed the card you
> can't use drivers from ATI or Creative.
>
> Dave
> --
> You can talk about us, but you can't talk without us!
> US Army Signal Corps!!
>
> http://www.geocities.com/davidcasey98
>
> Remove IH8SPAM to reply by email!

Hi David,

Well as it happens you may of just answered my next question!! I have always
been led to believe from posts on here and on Dells forum that because I
chose an OEM card from Dell that I could ONLY use Dell's drivers. As I said
I would love to use ATI's catalyst driver or Creative Audigy2 driver but was
always under the impression that only Dells drivers would work. So are you
saying that I can actually use the latest Catalyst driver and Creative
driver?? If so then that would be great. But wait how do I remove all the
Dell drivers do I have to use ATI's "smart gart" tool or "cat-uninstaller"
tool? Do Creative have their own removal tools too?

Cheers

Rob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 21:22:51 +0100, Rob wrote in
<news:2re58tF16lkr7U1@uni-berlin.de>:

> Well as it happens you may of just answered my next question!! I have always
> been led to believe from posts on here and on Dells forum that because I
> chose an OEM card from Dell that I could ONLY use Dell's drivers. As I said
> I would love to use ATI's catalyst driver or Creative Audigy2 driver but was
> always under the impression that only Dells drivers would work. So are you
> saying that I can actually use the latest Catalyst driver and Creative
> driver?? If so then that would be great. But wait how do I remove all the
> Dell drivers do I have to use ATI's "smart gart" tool or "cat-uninstaller"
> tool? Do Creative have their own removal tools too?

Dell doesn't make the cards, it just puts them into a computer case for
you. The OEM card only means Dell bought it without the fancy packaging
and without the company which made the card having to provide any support
to whoever buys the card from Dell.

You can buy OEM stuff on the 'net if you look hard enough and if you don't
mind not getting a cool box to throw away. I've seen Windows XP
Professional OEM for $76 a couple months ago online.

Yes, you can use the latest Catalyst driver if you have an ATI Radeon
graphics card and same if you have the right product from Creative. Many
people do without any problems just like many people do with some problems.
The choice is yours to make. If your machine works fine now then why
bother updating drivers unless you're looking to play the latest game?

Dave
--
You can talk about us, but you can't talk without us!
US Army Signal Corps!!

http://www.geocities.com/davidcasey98

Remove IH8SPAM to reply by email!

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"WSZsr" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Kxl4d.463$q67.375@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
> You do not read very well. Ted did you say you couldn't use ATI drivers.
> Do so. Most people do. But do so at your own risk as Dell will not help
> if you have a driver issue
>

Hi,

I know what Ted said about Dell not supporting third party drivers but
that's not my issue. If ATI's driver does go tits up then I'm quite capable
of reverting back to Dells driver, I do know something about this black box
of tricks in front of me. What confuses me is that some people say NO they
definitely wont work and some say they have been using ATI drivers with no
problems for eons. I just don't want the hassle of going through all the
process of removing Dells driver only to find the ATI driver definitely wont
work. Really I should just bite the bullet and do it and see what happens.
But if it turns out that ATI's are no good then it brings me back to my
original question of, if I MUST use Dell's own driver then why won't they
update the driver once in a while. So what if the latest one isn't broken,
I'd of thought increased performance was a good enough excuse as any to
offer an update.

Rob

 

[Molly]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I would suggest you make a restore point.Then if you you don't like the
drivers go back to the old ones. I updated the ATI drivers on my card a
while ago when I was using windows SP1. I might have updated the sound card
drivers too.

"Rob" <unununium33@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2re7rpF19n5opU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
>
>
> "WSZsr" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Kxl4d.463$q67.375@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
>> You do not read very well. Ted did you say you couldn't use ATI drivers.
>> Do so. Most people do. But do so at your own risk as Dell will not help
>> if you have a driver issue
>>
>
> Hi,
>
> I know what Ted said about Dell not supporting third party drivers but
> that's not my issue. If ATI's driver does go tits up then I'm quite
> capable of reverting back to Dells driver, I do know something about this
> black box of tricks in front of me. What confuses me is that some people
> say NO they definitely wont work and some say they have been using ATI
> drivers with no problems for eons. I just don't want the hassle of going
> through all the process of removing Dells driver only to find the ATI
> driver definitely wont work. Really I should just bite the bullet and do
> it and see what happens. But if it turns out that ATI's are no good then
> it brings me back to my original question of, if I MUST use Dell's own
> driver then why won't they update the driver once in a while. So what if
> the latest one isn't broken, I'd of thought increased performance was a
> good enough excuse as any to offer an update.
>
> Rob
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Molly's on the right track, but there's a better way: In Device Manager you
can "roll back" to a previously installed driver with one click. Okay, one
click and a restart.
--
Ted Zieglar


"Molly" <ctalia4000@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:quadnaSs7Opec8zcRVn-sQ@comcast.com...
> I would suggest you make a restore point.Then if you you don't like the
> drivers go back to the old ones. I updated the ATI drivers on my card a
> while ago when I was using windows SP1. I might have updated the sound
card
> drivers too.
>
> "Rob" <unununium33@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:2re7rpF19n5opU1@uni-berlin.de...
> >
> >
> >
> > "WSZsr" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:Kxl4d.463$q67.375@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
> >> You do not read very well. Ted did you say you couldn't use ATI
drivers.
> >> Do so. Most people do. But do so at your own risk as Dell will not
help
> >> if you have a driver issue
> >>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I know what Ted said about Dell not supporting third party drivers but
> > that's not my issue. If ATI's driver does go tits up then I'm quite
> > capable of reverting back to Dells driver, I do know something about
this
> > black box of tricks in front of me. What confuses me is that some people
> > say NO they definitely wont work and some say they have been using ATI
> > drivers with no problems for eons. I just don't want the hassle of going
> > through all the process of removing Dells driver only to find the ATI
> > driver definitely wont work. Really I should just bite the bullet and do
> > it and see what happens. But if it turns out that ATI's are no good then
> > it brings me back to my original question of, if I MUST use Dell's own
> > driver then why won't they update the driver once in a while. So what if
> > the latest one isn't broken, I'd of thought increased performance was a
> > good enough excuse as any to offer an update.
> >
> > Rob
> >
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hi!

> of tricks in front of me. What confuses me is that some people say NO they
> definitely wont work and some say they have been using ATI drivers with no
> problems for eons. I just don't want the hassle of going through all the
> process of removing Dells driver only to find the ATI driver definitely
wont
> work.

The simple fact of the matter is that both sides are correct. Sometimes
(most times) drivers supplied by the manufacturer of the device work just
fine. This is the case with most cards that go in a slot of some kind...Dell
or any other computer builder putting said cards into their systems usually
don't change anything about the card except the "branding" of the drivers.

Things that are on the motherboard can be another story. These may be
implemented in special ways that only the OEM-supplied drivers can
understand and work with. Usually these work fine *if* you can get the
drivers from the chipset/hardware maker, but sometimes there is a little
strange behavior (tolerable in most cases) or the hardware won't work at
all.

You just don't know until you try.

> Really I should just bite the bullet and do it and see what happens.

Yes, you should. Unless somehere has done exactly the same thing you want to
do, that is the only way you will know for sure.

> But if it turns out that ATI's are no good then it brings me back to my
> original question of, if I MUST use Dell's own driver then why won't they
> update the driver once in a while. So what if the latest one isn't broken,
> I'd of thought increased performance was a good enough excuse as any to
> offer an update.

It is hard to say what reasons Dell might have, but they are certainly not
alone. I would guess that maybe Dell or other OEMs do not want to be
following the manufacturer of the device in question around all the time
asking if they have new drivers available and then going through the effort
of distribution and any "branding" that might occur in such a scenario.

You might also consider the time it would take to update tech support on the
new drivers as well...and that alone might be reason enough to Dell not to
update their drivers as often as the manufacturer does.

William

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"WSZsr" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Kxl4d.463$q67.375@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
> You do not read very well. Ted did you say you couldn't use ATI drivers.
> Do so. Most people do. But do so at your own risk as Dell will not help
> if you have a driver issue
>

<snip>


I second this. On many of the Dell OEM cards, third party drivers will work
fine. In some cases, they may not. While I don't own a Dell OEM ATI card,
I wouldn't hesitate to attempt to use the latest catalyst drives for such a
card. So far as I know, Nvidia detonator drivers work as well on Dell OEM
NVidia cards and I have done as much myself w/o incident.

Some of the Dell OEM Creative sound cards can tolerate driver updates from
the Creative website, and from reading posts here and in other groups, some
may not.

One only has to test and verify. The OP seems to be a bit over-worried in
my opinion.


Stew

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In article <1095884198.linFeaXz2KPpBZt4ElUhiA@teranews>,
teddyz@notmail.com (Ted Zieglar) says...

> At least in theory, this means that Dell spends the time to test their
> drivers in every supported configuration, which takes time. Also, the
> conventional wisdom is that you don't need to update your driver every time
> a new version comes out. (This conventional wisdom is widely ignored, lol.)
> Dell, for it's part, won't update their drivers unless it would fix a
> problem or unless it's necessary to support an upgrade path.

New drivers are not always a great idea. NVidia's new unitized driver
that runs with every NVidia card just hauls along a lot of extraneous
code. As near as I can tell, it doesn't actually perform any better
than the old card-specific drivers.

However, if you pay big bucks for the latest and greatest hardware, it
often ships with crippled or buggy drivers, and updating can help.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hi Everyone,

Okay thanks loads to all that replied. Yes I was under the wrong impression
that ONLY Dell drivers would do, but now I'm confident to try others. It
would be a bonus if Dell could occasionally keep us supplied with latest
drivers but I do understand that they deal with alot of hardware and regular
updates would be a huge undertaking. Anyway I still love my Dell and always
will, its a superb machine.

Cheers

Rob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I think you've come to the right conclusion, based on quite a few years of
servicing, refurbing, upgrading, tearing down and scrapping Dells and many
others.

Certainly by the time Pentium III computers were introduced, and maybe even a
few years earlier, many companies realized how stupid and expensive it is to use
highly proprietary chips in their boards. Major chip producers like Intel,
VIA, nVidia, Creative, ATI, Matrox and others reinforced this idea by pricing
commodity chips are rock-bottom prices and jacking up the prices of proprietary
chips. The ever-downward spiral in street prices has contributed to the nearly
exclusive use of commodity chips.

A few years ago, back in the Pentium I timeframe, Gateway had its infamous
Gatrox scandal. Seems that Gateway convinced Matrox to build graphics cards
with slower-than-usual electronic components and no possibly memory upgrade, so
the cards were less functional than a retail card. Still, even with parts
having lower speed grades, off-the-shelf Matrox drivers worked perfectly with
the "Gatrox" cards. Today, a board manufacturer is unlikely to make a deal like
that, because it costs more money to stock non-standard ICs and retool the
production line, than to simply produce run-of-the-mill cards. Exception: Dell
uses Intel-designed boards with different connectors than generic ones, but Dell
buys the boards probably by the millions.

The bottom line is that Dell (like just about every other name brand) uses
boards with commodity chipsets with standard drivers. So with any Pentium III
or 4 system the odds are near 100% that the chip manufacturers drivers will work
just fine in a system. If the newer drivers offer some improvements, either
defect corrections or improved performance, then it's OK to install them. If,
on the other hand, a system is working just fine, why fix something that is not
broken?

If a system shows up at my doorstep and I have to reload the operating system, I
simply find the drivers which correspond to the chipsets in the system, because
it is often the case that some drivers will be missing from the operating system
CD... Ben Myers

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:00:33 +0100, "Rob" <unununium33@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Hi Everyone,
>
>Okay thanks loads to all that replied. Yes I was under the wrong impression
>that ONLY Dell drivers would do, but now I'm confident to try others. It
>would be a bonus if Dell could occasionally keep us supplied with latest
>drivers but I do understand that they deal with alot of hardware and regular
>updates would be a huge undertaking. Anyway I still love my Dell and always
>will, its a superb machine.
>
>Cheers
>
>Rob
>
>