M17x R1 System BIOS A05

Agreed. I have done the same.

 

Hearing the list of "improvements" I never even bothered with A05 frankly....it was just to fix A04 which was not really needed either. So I am on A03 as well right now

 

Answer to cueball - I started system on Battery only, ran for a little bit until battery at 89%. Then plugged in adaptor. 1st message said plugged in Not charging, but < 1 minute later - it said plugged in, charging. Thought I'd post this now before I restart (because I need my HDMI external monitor & can't enable it without Discrete Graphics because I started on Batt power (this drives me crazy)

 

Anyone else with battery not charging issue?

 

Can anyone post the link for the A03? ... thanks

 

If you click on the A05 download then you'll see a link to "other versions":

Dell - Support

 

The A05 Update fixed the power problems, but is seems to have taken a toll on the gaming performance. I'm using the Nvidia drivers and there seem to be a stuttering issue. I'm about to try the P07 drivers, but I doubt they'll help.

I'm thinking the best option is to downgrade the Bios to A03. Can anyone tell me how? I've tried to install it before, but it wouldn't go through b/c i'm running a later version.

 

I did it after A04 was published: I had to to install A02 first. After this A03. Then it worked. Have a try!

 

Update on battery charging after A05 - my system continues to work after several times running on battery then switching back to AC - battery charges fine.
Also another update: Video drivers - I know this isn't the real thread for this, but a few posts ago someone said that they were having problems with the new P07 nvidea driver version & I said that it was working okay for me. Update: I had to back this driver out - went to P06 after several seemingly random Video failures (a couple of screen goes blank & stays that way until hard power down & a couple of screen freezes & again, I had to hard power it down.

 

That is so weird. On A05 it does not charge unless i drop the battery and reinsert it. But then it only stays charging for 30 seconds or so then back to not charging. Reverted back to A03 and all works fine....

 

I am going back to A03 tonight after I get off of work.
I can't believe how the bios gets worse with each new version (well.. actually I can but hate that fact that this is now normal with alienware[dell]).

Hopefully all will be 'semi' normal when I go back to A03.

D.

 

still testing mine, will try discharging and recharging for a few cycles and see what happens

I am using the Delta Adaptor here

 

Back to A03 also. When battery discharges and charging is disabled, it will not start charging when enabling it.

 

well I tried a few discharge cycles and it seems to always start re-charging after about 20 seconds or so.

So then I tried Alt F2 to cycle the battery on/off and it seem to get stuck in the no charge but a few more attempts and it came back.

The only issue (Still) I see is when you turn off the adaptor warning in the BIOS and your plugged in it still tells you your not using the AC adaptor and will run on the 9400 GPI - which of course is not true.

 

I gave A04 a try and quite frankly felt A03 was better, at that point I applied the IIABDFI mindset.

 

i want to revert back to A03 can anyone tell me how? i checked dells website and it is not up for download anymore.

 

did you read this thread? it has been mentioned more than once.....

 

yes i read the entire thread before posting. OK let me rephrase my question. is ther a way i can acquire the A03 revision? its not up for download on dells website.

 

jonat1992 - This is what we were talking about on the previosu page (6):

"If you click on the A05 download then you'll see a link to "other versions":"

you have to click on the A05 ISO download link! Then you'll see an option for previous versions

 

Hello fellow A05 users,
I would suggest using the following video driver instead of the beta found on the Dell support website.

NVIDIA DRIVERS 258.96 WHQL

Thanks,
Gabe

 

thats the one I am using, it seems very stable to me so far

 

I had problems with the new 258.96 nVidia driver & had to uninstall it. My system just froze a couple of times within the first six hours after installing it (had to hard power down both times). Both times it froze I was doing routine stuff (email, calendar, web site related). I had the same problem with Beta P07. Went back to Beta P06 which has proven to be quite stable for me.

 

I had freezes problem with every single nvidia 2xx drivers too (must hard reset), exactly same as San_Diego_7697

 

Im fine with bios A05 and Nvidia driver beta P06.
If I install the P07 i get freezes and black screens.

Anyone tried bios A05 and nvidia 257.38? those nvidia drivers shouldnt be beta, any problems with them?

 

my problem was 258.96 & P07. I have not tried the 257.38 & A05 combination

 

The latest Bios has been doing ok for me but any driver above 2xx has caused issues. I am back running the 197.84 drivers with no problems so far.

257.38 caused a system freeze when using my regular programs, CS5 and X-Plane, hence the rollback to 197 drivers.

 

Interesting. I tried all the above and then some. Contacted Dell/Alienware support and reported the black screen issue some have posted. I was, at the time, on AO4 and 257.21 drivers. Tech had me udate the BIOS to AO5. Ran it for a day and had 2 more black screens. Have to hard reset(bad for HDD) to correct the problem. Called back, updated drivers to 257.38, and had a few black screens since. They are replacing my unit now. Since my last contact with tech suport, I have had 3 black screens while doing nothing but surfing. Just Monday, I was at my NBR control panel, clicked my see all msgs link and-Black screen. It's not site or task specific, but it seems to happen more often when on the internet. Oh well, we'll see how the R2 does. Just my thoughts...

 

and i thaught i was the only one with the freezing problem!
I curently use the A03 BIOS and the 197.84 drivers! everything is stable and NO SPIKES in DPC Latency V.

 

interesting, considering mine is doing the same thing, I just have not bothered to call Dell about it yet, kinda been waiting for the next release with the NVIDIA GPUs


I really do not want ATI

 

Neither did I. Just wanted to make sure they didn't have some magic fix in the works or something. I jumped through the hoops for em, and now they are sending an R2. I've had ATI b4, it was good and my home computer has ATI card, so it's not that big a deal to me either way.

 

I'm running the 258.96 drivers with A03 BIOS. Getting the occasional black screen but not too often. Haven't installed A05 yet coz it needs to be burnt to cd, etc. Since A05 has more to do with fixing A04, I'll skip these two. And wait for A06. Was hoping around "one year later", we'd get a BIOS which let us modify vcore.

 

I have also found A03 to be the best BIOS so far. Although when benching I revert back to A02 as it has a much higher power limit before throttling the CPU performance

 

A02 doesnt make a difference to mine. It still throttles when running the likes of furmark multi-gpu or as soon as my kill-a-watt shows 225w draw and above.

 

That is odd. With A03 I throttle around 225 but with A02 I am able to go clear up to 255W. That is with my power brick in the freezer though, so it is running a little more efficiently due to the cooling

 

Can this be flashed onto the Area 51 M17x.

 

not at all, unless your looking for a paper weight

 

A05 and the latency fix did the trick in my R1. Now I am glad that I haven't faced any issues with the system lately.

 

can i know what nvidia driver u all using for Bios A03?

 

It appears some of you are no longer having the "Adapter not being recognized" problem after flashing A05.

I am experiencing this problem with both A08 and A09. My adapter is Delta 240w. Is anybody still having trouble with their adapter after updating to the latest BIOS? Wondering if this issue is "resolved" and there is something I am missing here that I should have done.

Sandy

 

You are in the wrong thread.....you have an R2 and this thread is about the R1 (you must know what that means as it is even in your sig)

 

I do - I did a search about the adapter issue and this thread came up - should have looked more closely. Sorry, my bad.

 

No need to apologize. I always encourage learning I just do not want you to get mislead or confused by what you read here

 

So true - I don't want to compare something that has no business being compared. It was 103 degrees today and I have no airconditioner - I am not surprised I missed it. Too hot to do anything "relevant"...

I am wishing my blue keyboard felt as "icy" as it looks ...

Sandy

 

I like the teal color, reminds me of glacial ice

 

Not surprising - a perfect match with your avatar...

 

just a quick word about the fans on startup. quickly put that is the computer making sure everything is running ok. there is no way (there will be no bios update) to stop that. but really, what is the problem, a second of fan noise? "meh"...

 

well I have had several cases now where after running on battery, then powering up oin AC the laptop would not charge the battery.

Had to do the reset to get it to work.

 

Hello;

I have Bios A5 and 257 Nvidea Drivers

Everytime I start my laptop I have a message about the adapter warning, I didn't had those in the previous versions.

I also have once a day or 2 have to do a hard reboot, because the PC Freeze with horrible sound distortion. I never happened during a game so far. Mostly while watching videos and surfing the web.

PS: It's the first time I have so many problems with a PC/Laptop. Is it common for Alienware to release such crap service ?

 

Try newer nvidia drivers with a clean uninstall/re-install. Some drivers are buggier than others.

 

That bios also generally sucks. I recommend going back to A03