The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Updating from stock drivers.

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by Akari, Dec 29, 2010.

  1. Akari

    Akari Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    169
    Messages:
    328
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I'm running the stock drivers, bios and vbios from Dell when the 5870's first came out. I really, really am not sure on what the process is to update to the latest drivers...

    I assume the process would be A10 bios > newest drivers > Vbios.

    Could someone post a detailed process for how I would go about doing this? Like... What to uninstall, when to restart and what to reinstall.

    Also...

    1) Will this make my Windows recovery CD's the laptop came with useless?
    2) Will I need to format the computer to accomplish this?

    Thanks a lot.
     
    Akari, Dec 29, 2010
    #1
  2. steviejones133

    steviejones133 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    7,172
    Messages:
    10,077
    Likes Received:
    1,122
    Trophy Points:
    581
    Firstly, to answer points 1 and 2

    1 - no, it wont make your recovery media useless...the vbios flash will however, be permanent...unless you can reflash to an older vbios (but you dont need to be over concerned about that at this stage)

    2 - no need to format the laptop. You COULD start completely fresh by doing a clean windows install using the disc that came with the laptop - its not that hard and I will link to this below.

    The threads you should have a look at are as follows:

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...70-september-2010-incl-vbios-flash-guide.html - a great guide to flashing to the new vbios and also great info on drivers should you want to do a clean install of windows.

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...e-drivers-now-out-discussion-thread-here.html - interesting info on the latest drivers from AMD that you may or may not wish to use.

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...d-your-m17x-r2-full-detailed-description.html - another great guide to re-installing a clean operating system - personally, have used this and it worked very well for me (thanks dave!)

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...datasafe-software-respawn-faq-discussion.html - a useful thread if you want to reinstall AlienRespawn or Dell DataSafe if you DO want to reinstall your operatiing system.

    The above really are great guides to do what you want to do - flash to the latest vbios and get the latest non-Dell drivers....its not complex, its daunting, I know - but its not that bad.

    It isnt necessary to do a clean operating system install - lots of people do this to ensure that the system is as "clutter-free" as possible....the above processes work fine without having to do this - its preference really.

    Hope this helps, if you are unsure, post back or on one of the related threads above....loads of people more than willing to help out....thats what I found here on NBR :D
     
    steviejones133, Dec 29, 2010
    #2