Bios A06 on the new 17?

Greetings all,

So I have my new 17 and I was checking to make sure that everything was up to date which of course includes the bios but the computer is telling me that it has A06? Alienware's website says that the most current version is A05 :S so I am a little confused. Needless to say I am a little hesitant to install 05 over an 06 in case of problems if it is indeed A06.

Thoughts?

 

If you just bought it then it's an update coming out for all of us.

 

If there were going to be any problems, you probably would have already encountered them. I doubt it's an issue, but it is strange...

I've never seen a system have a newer BIOS than what is already released. Usually, Alienware systems come with older versions, like the A03 BIOS and 311.48 NVIDIA driver. Perhaps they installed an M17x R4 BIOS in your AW 17 by accident, if that's even possible? I doubt it is, it wouldn't boot, right? I've never tried this before, so I have no idea.

However, I've had two AW 17's and both came with A03. I've also owned several Alienware's and they've always came with older versions of stuff. I've always had to update everything myself. Are you sure it's A06? That's definitely odd. Hopefully it is a new BIOS which hasn't been released, but it may not be.

 

According to the bios info it is A06.....which is just odd.....

Would trying to install A05 cause any issues?

 

No, it shouldn't, as long as you download the correct BIOS. Just follow the same routine as you normally would. It will shutdown your system and reboot, making the fans go crazy, which is normal. After which you'll need to enter the date & time into the BIOS, among other things.

 

A06 is coming publicly soon i guess

I would strongly recommand you to stay in A06, and not downgrade your bios to a05.

 

I don't think this is that 'odd'. When they are built and the motherboards may be months old. I assume one of the build processes is the latest BIOS. I think the factory gets them a little sooner than public release.

My two previous AW laptops had the latest bios and this R4 was the same as you, a later, unreleased version. Came out a couple of weeks after I got it.

Why would you want to downgrade it? If all is working fine then I'd say wait for the release notes. Although back-reving is almost always fine, it's a risk you don't need at this point

 

Maybe you could save your actual bios A06 with the flashing tool and share it to us

 

haha...yeah I understand your concern....

It isn't that I want to overwrite a new bios with an old one, I am just paranoid I have something that I shouldn't as in the wrong bios because I can't find any mention of A06 , I am not going to touch it for now. My main concern was the GPU really wasn't pulling any more on Firestrike then my 7970m and the GPU fans seemed to be spinning up with little to no load, but that seems to have gone away and my FPS is still higher then my 7970m so I dunno. I have read that the vbios on the Alienware 780's is a little conservative I just am not all the comfortable with flashing it as why fix what isn't broken right? It isn't like I am having any trouble running anything, just weird that my scores are 700 points lower then my buddy's Sager but meh. Being that this is my first dip back in to the green side of GPU's for the last few years I need to re-familiarize myself with them again.

 

I guess you are an unwitting early adopter, it will come.

You can post it for members by saving a copy in GPUz. Click on the icon to the right of the bios version number, if anyone asks to try it?

The latest beta (331.93) is looking good and would be worth a try. I haven't followed the vbios mods for the 780 so I have no idea how that is going...

Not the best time to be returning to NV since the last 7 months have been driver hell but they seem to be getting very close now.

 

Just had mine for a few days ill check my BIOS to see what version I have.

 

If someone would like to tell me how to do this , I am all for helping out.

 

From what I've seen Alienware are indeed a little conservative with their VBIOS, they like throttling at lower temperatures (& possibly lower power thresholds), than some other makes. I think they don't want them to run hot with lots of fan noise. I personally think it's quite safe to flash a modified VBIOS to it, I think these chips can take it - they're based on desktop chips that have higher frequencies & voltages. As long as you're not exceeding 100W by a substantial amount, and not getting crazy temperatures, and still keeping voltages within the the stock realms of desktop GPUs then I reckon you could be OK.

(I guess the main argument for NOT flashing a modified VBIOS is that if your card fries, then warranty cover could be a bit tricky if they find out you flashed a modified VBIOS - that's the only risk really).

 

Honestly the card plays everything that I throw at it with ease so I don't see any point in doing anything with it like OCing or flashing anything.

 

I'd flash it regardless due to the 78*C throttling limit in the default vbios*

 

Not gonna lie....screwing with that stuff scares the crap out of me, I have very bad luck when it comes to electronics. It would probably light on fire and explode....

 

Hahahaha I have horrible luck as well, but if you don't try, then you can never truly have any fun. Hehe XD. My girlfriend when I was having all these bios overclocking problems was like just give up. I said if I did what fun would I be having with the computer?! Lol but anyway flashing the bios on a video card is safe mostly because you have two cards in the system an integrated and the discrete. So you can still boot of integrated even if you accidentally bad flash the nvidia card. And then you can just flash her again. With the correct steps. It's a very safe process . It does require I
a near by fire hydrant though...