Alienware, don't we deserve an updated driver for AMD 6990M?

Long story short.
Currently available video drivers by Alienware for 6990M are ancient! 8.851.2.0, which is 100% compatible, is almost 3 years old. With another Alienware driver (9.3.0.0 = almost 2 years old) I could not install CCC and some of my programs became broken (refuse to launch). And brightness control on AMD card is broken.
Wishing to keep my system as updated as possible I have tried 10 different drivers - betas & WHQL by AMD and some modded drivers by Leshcat & LeeKM. Every time installation was clean, with Driver Sweeper & CCleaner (both AMD & Intel cards were shown as Standard VGA adapters in Device manager).
Modern drivers show much better perfomance in 3dMark benchmarks (tests results attached), but all of them are NOT 100% compatible and have similar issues:
- brightness control when on AMD card does not work (Brightness fix by Leshcat does not help);
- waking up from sleep leads to black screen -> hard restart;
- switching from Intel HD3000 to AMD 6990M leads to black screen -> hard restart.
The difference beetwen 8.851.2.0 Alienware drivers & some modern drivers in real life (gaming) is up to 6 fps, which is a lot !
So, my question to Alienware is:
don't we, who paid over two thousand USD 2-3 years ago, deserve an updated video drivers at least once per year ?

 

Simple solution... Uninstall all your AMD drivers and install the ones from the below link... Uninstall your Intel Drivers too and use driver swepper and get rid of all old traces of the drivers.. Install these

Modded Catalyst 14.4 WHQL (switchable graphics fix) - Guru3D.com Forums

And then you shoul be able to install the Intel Drivers such as this one...

Driver Details | Dell US

 

Thanks TomJGX for your advise.
Result is the same: brightness control on AMD card is not working, laptop not waking up from sleep & black screen when switching from Intel card to AMD.
The question to Alienware about update of graphics card drivers remains opened.
Does the community agree?

 

We usually don't release driver updates unless the current ones are buggy. If you would like to get that you could post your idea on ideastorm.com

 

8.851.2 Alienware drivers have no bugs and are 100% compatible, but they are 3 years old & give poorer perfomance, than modern drivers.
Alienware notebooks are not cheap and when buying them we expect high-quality service, incl. up-to-date drivers.
I'm not asking for monthly or quaterly updates. Once per half-year or even once per year would be enough.
I think every Alienware owner would be greatful for such service.

 

I understand your point, the best way to get this request to our engineers is through that site. You just need enough votes from other users for it to become true.

 

Its quite rare to have a company representative following customers on public forum today and I think its nice.

However with all due respect, I think your answer is more business management friendly than customer friendly.

Alienware is used to be a high end gaming computer manufacturer. You provide great hardware but your support regarding software, especially drivers, is really bad.

Everyone knows how important graphical drivers update are to get better performance in game. If you look at this forum you will see thousands of posts speaking about this kind of topics.

Dell strategy is to provide one stable driver when the a new version of the gaming laptop is released and then leave the community alone trying to figure out how to make their high end computer evolve in time. We you try to in touch with Dell to discuss this issue you are basically facing some kind of technical representative telling to download the last stable version on the support page or try the last ATI mobile driver at your own risk without any support. Now it looks like you created a new website ( ideastorm.com) where customers submit and vote on next Dell development !!! This looks nice to the customer but the reality is that this website is just another way to not provide mid term developement on all your high end computers.

I am sure all you people at Dell have smartphones: iphone, Android or Blackberry. Would you be happy if these smartphones companies would never release any update or new OS for their smartphone? Would you be happy if your contact one of these smartphone company asking for a crucial new feature and the customer service will tell you to download the only available two years old OS on their support page?

This is exactly what you are doing to your Alienware customers.

 

+9999999

I own a thinkpad X220, and Lenovo ALWAYS keeps drivers updated, and even includes an application that monitors and updates hardware/software should updates be put out. The last 7970m driver that came out form Dell, is dated October 2012........This is supposed to be a boutique brand, bring some boutique software support to back up that boutique hardware.

 

Totally agree with this but I will add one thing Dell have to cost in and that is, international, on-site NBD warranty - for up to four years. By sticking to known hardware and the same driver versions machines can more easily be diagnosed.

Before Dell purchased the AW brand the market was totally clear - enthusiasts who wanted a laptop they could keep up-to-date. Something that they could do the same stuff to as a desktop.

Whenever dell do publish an updated driver the support teams need research it and build up their KB because it is now assumed to be supported on all the same models - expensive stuff!

For me, Upgrading is way harder than it could be but it's not the same market that AW is aiming at today (IMO). Now we have the console players with disposable cash and a one-box solution for a PC is very attractive - especially when you can just plug it into your big screen TV and away you go with a wireless controller . But it's not to the point yet where it's 100% reliable so make sure problems are sorted, and try to assist even when you might have to hear the dreaded 'Can we put it back to factory sir?' When you just know that is not going to help .

Of course it does not happen as smoothly as we would like all the time but on percentages I've had my money's worth many times over

IThankYou

 

We have escalated the issue internally because we have seen those threads, we know that it's important for some customers to get at least the video driver updated from our side however that's something that only engineering can work on. They are the only ones who can say for sure why it is like that and can do something to change it. The reason why I'm suggesting Ideastorm.com is because the internal escalation was already done and we did not come up with a good resolution. On the other hand, if a customer does it and many customers agree with him/her through their votes, I'm sure that the engineers will do something about it.

Give it a try, you won't regret.