Why launches Dell bloatware in Alien such as Dell Support Assist Agent Version and Dell data vault ?

Why launches Dell bloatware such as Dell Support Assist Agent Version and Dell data vault ? Startup garbage ...
Why replace AlienAutopsy with this garbage? This software Stealing hardware resources and automatically starts up with windows with high wattage. Settles in the startup and running. Why not launch something as sensible as a manual fan control inside the Alien Command Center?Alienware shall be a perfomance gaming laptop .. not a quiet little mini laptop or tablet...
Soon is it only Alienware gaming laptops that do NOT have control panel for manual fan control on a gaming laptop ... Why can not Dellienware creating something like computer enthusiasts have great pleasure in(manual fan control), not this second trash?

 

We understand your concern. Dell Support Assist was pushed through all platforms. On our side, it has a small improvement on the GPU test (compared to AlienAutopsy). It's now able to stress the GPU to the max, this will help us to troubleshoot video issues and overheating. We'll submit your feedback about the fan control to the right people.

Thanks for your comments, they are highly appreciated!

 

Hi
It's great that you want to tell about this desire (software for controlling the fans) to the right people. All Alienware laptop owners have had such a desire for a fan control software a very long time now. I find it very strange that Dell not have already created such a software on a high end Alienware laptop. Most gaming laptops from other brands have it already. Mane've had it for several years now.
Thank you.

 

This new Dell bloatware makes fans going loud and system unresponsible for few seconds after startup which is really annoying. I had almost instant system start with hi-end SSD and now this. Please make possible to turn off this test on startup or I'll uninstall this crap. I'd rather stay without any diagnostics than this.
I'm also disappointed it was installed without asking, automatic updates of AlienAutopsy are fine, but not installing other products, especially crappy ones.

 

Support Assist consists of two parts: Support Assist and Support Assist Agent. Any startup delay is a significant concern, and I'd like to try to narrow it down to either the Support Assist or the Support Assist Agent part. Can you try to uninstall Support Assist Agent only, and see if the startup experience gets better?

 

Thanks for posting this, I have now deleted AlienAutopsy from my drivers folder since I just realized it installed this crap!

 

Did you have a chance to try the uninstall of Support Assist Agent only? The reason I suggested it earlier was to identify if the cause of the startup delay is the Support Assist or the Support Assist Agent part.

 

I'm experiencig more issues related to it. I restarted my system and now my touchpad stopped working just after fans hurricane - it was working for a few seconds after restart but then died.

UPDATE: I have disabled the agent service via services.msc but this still happens. However touchpad is working this time. I'll try to disable vault services now.

UPDATE: I have disabled Dell Data Vault and Dell Data Vault Wizard services and it seems fine now. I'll post in this thread if it will change.
I'm leavig the services disabled until it's fixed and I recommend others doing the same. I don't have any idea what it will cause, but I don't even care, keeping it enabled is not an option.

 

I will tell you exactly what is going to happen. You as Dell and the rest of Dell will ignore this issue, then it will be swept under the carpet while this potentially dangerous piece of garbage software is stressing our video cards to the point where they crash. Since this update was shoved down our throats this new malware has overheated the video cards on two laptops already. No, I'm not talking eventual heating, I'm talking 47 ish temperature to full freeze frame heating temps and failure in under 10 seconds, this is why the fans are coming on at full blast. What I notice is complete neglect when it came to distribution of this update, rendering two AW laptops, 18 no less reduced to stuttering messes incapable of even playing a youtube video without locking off the track pad. It is about time Dell takes this matter seriously, admits fault and re-updates before your warez destroy our computers. I am only this irate because this is my second AW, first one was replaced within 2 weeks of getting it and Dell REALLY doesn't seem to get the concept of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The temps are alarming, especially when the machines were being used for just pulling up a webpage. I had a small sticker near the power button, the heat MELTED the adhesive, what is wrong with you people? Was ignoring the whole 880m debacle not enough? I did not get an SSD boot option because I want to sit and wait for your malware to make up it's mind on whether its going to crash my $5000 machines.

 

I didn't know that, but now I'm angry. I have to test my GPU now.

 

anyone know how to uninstall or disable this ???

what if we just uninstall Alien Autopsy?

dell australia still have no idea, there just sending me techs when i just spoke with them now .................

 

There is how to disable it: go to Start Menu, type services.msc, then find following services on the list: Dell Data Vault, Dell Data Vault Wizard and Dell SupportAssist Agent. Then right click on every of them and select Properties, then set Start Mode to Manual (it may be called differently, I don't have english Windows at the moment to check). Then reboot.
Uninstalling Dell SupportAssist and Dell SupportAssist Agent may also help, however I'm not 100% sure, as it seems that Dell Data Vault is somehow hidden from Add/Remove Programs.

 

You can use Autoruns.exe to disable all of the launch software or processes that start with windows. Very effective against all garbage. Run as administrator and you get rid of anything you do not want running all the time. Msconfig can not find everything you want to disable. USE AUTORUNS.EXE ...

 

We have identified the root cause of this fan issue already and are working on several fixes. The issue is actually a BIOS issue. Fundamentally, SupportAssist just identified it. When SupportAssist reads the fan sensor, the M17xR4 BIOS is keeping the fan turned ON after the first read which is not the expected behavior. It appears to happen only on the M17xR4 although we are still exploring other Alienware models for the issue. We have initiated work with BIOS engineering to address that issue. In the meantime, we are also testing a configuration change in SupportAssist that will prevent it from triggering on the M17xR4. We should have that available very soon and will update the forum.

SupportAssist should not be a wildly intensive application for Alienware systems. It is designed to be extremely unobtrusive and we are committed to working through any issue with the software or system hardware to give our customers the best computing and the best support experience. SupportAssist proactively detects issues on customer PCs and tablets then initiates a support case or an automatic parts dispatch when a failure occurs without users having to spend costly time on the phone with Tech Support. The SupportAssist team welcomes any issues and feedback from the community and will strive to address them openly and quickly.

If a customer does not find value in SupportAssist – they may simply uninstall SupportAssist Agent and SupportAssist from their Control Panel (that will uninstall all underlying components such as the DDV services). They may also reinstall it at any time if they wish to gain the benefits of proactive, automated support by simply downloading it from http://www.dell.com/supportassist.

We appreciate the forum members bringing this issue to our attention so quickly.

 

Do you mean that the issue had already existed in the BIOS or that this update caused this BIOS issue? I have the latest version of the AW 18 and this issue creates a complete lock up, rendering it useless until a minimum of 3 boots is required to get the machine working correctly again (with an additional freeze when it works), at all times, my screen goes completely black. I know it's doing something with the video card because right now, where the power button is, I'm registering temps as high as 35 degrees Celsius, and that is with a cooling pad with 3 fans, quite bizarre. I highly doubt the power button LED would put out that much of heat.

As of now, with the conditions that I'm facing due to this Dell Assist software, I feel this change is quite obtrusive, I think you folks should have left this as default off, there are those of us who do not use these laptops on networks all the time, I am on a satellite wifi box, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, if money was an issue I would have balked at your statement as cost of satellite internet can get exorbitant, I highly recommend your software allows the user to give the go ahead before releasing any information to support. We at least should be offered an option, the evidence supporting that is quite clear with the reactions to this. I have paid for the full coverage warranty so the cost is not mine to worry about, yes the machine is that new, since November so you can imagine the layers of frustration involved in this, furthered by the fact that I'm typing this with a MACbook Air that I absolutely hate and will be tossing overboard once this issue has been fixed. We need options at the very least, the scenario under which this Dell Assist malware was created does not apply to everyone here now, does it?

Again, this software seems untested based on your admission, why was this not tested on Alienware M17xR4s as you said BEFORE release? I feel this software should have been tested on all Alienware platforms before release as there are reports of this issue happening with the current 17 as evidenced on this thread ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-strange-freezes.771156/), I highly recommend that testing is done on ALL platforms before release and if possible a ROLLBACK should be released immediately.

Now my question, the real meat and potatoes that everyone in this thread and possibly others are waiting for: IF SupportAssist Agent and SupportAssist are uninstalled from the Control Panel, will this also remove the BIOS modification that this software has put into our BIOS or is this mess still going to be sitting in the BIOS?

I will however, congratulate you on your professionalism despite me being a ball breaker regarding this, for this I salute you. Bryan H. V has good work mates.

 

I think what he was trying to say was Support Assist revealed a flaw in the BIOS long before Support Assist came into existence. Alien Autopsy didn't reveal anything, so given that SA found something on a 3 year old laptop, then the BIOS Alienware has used may have some bugs that are related to the fan control.
SA isn't implanting anything into the BIOS. It's just showing the flaws in the BIOS that Alienware just found out. Given that they found it on a 3 year old laptop, I would assume every laptop between 2012 and 2015 would receive a BIOS update to fix this issue (assume, not certain).

 

I really doubt there will be a BIOS update.. Considering how cheap AW has become, it wouldn't be worth the cost for them to fix it.. I couldn't care less tbh.. I don't have this Bloatware installed anyways..

 

I have Alienware 17 2013 with GTX 780M and I have issues.
The fans don't stay at full power but they turn on for about 10 seconds and system is unresponsive during this time - even mouse cursor is not moving.

 

I would like to add that since this update my M14X R2 has been having start-up issues. When I turn on the laptop the fan runs like crazy and the mouse stops working for up to a minute. I have uninstalled Support Assistant.

 

I think it might be a little bit deeper than that. I find it interesting that I'm facing an issue that is also evident on a 3 year old laptop, on my 2014 laptop. It is dismaying I must say, these machines are beautiful to me, fit and finish, performance, everything top notch, save for this one issue.

 

Absolutely frustrating! Have the issues ceased since you uninstalled Support Assistant?

 

After uninstalling Support Assistant the problem is gone.

 

Reading on Dell forums, SA is causing issues on other Dell computers, and some even think it may have malware.
So the software may need some bug fixing.

 

I jest that this software was not tested extensively as it should have. I just got a popup saying "Support Agent blah blah blah" no further action required, no click here to hit okay, an AD for SA on my computer! The fun part, it was while I was on a video conference (I had to use the AW18 as I had files I on it that I had to Skype over to an associate), LOVELY, just what I needed, an intrusive, badly designed piece of software that is just the latest to deep six Alienware's reputation. This software fits the very description of malware down to a T hence I am not surprised that it's being seen as malware.

What is interesting is that I do not see a single Dell or Alienware rep say "Sorry, we screwed the pooch" albeit with a different choice of words. Thus far all I've seen is fluff talk, not impressed at all with Dell and AW's modus operandi.

Excellent, this is a course of action I may be pursuing shortly, thank you for your answer. My respects.

 

We are in final testing of a hotfix for the fan issues with Alienware M17r4 and should have it available tomorrow. The issue is an existing issue in BIOS so we are working to get that addressed as well. SupportAssist only sends data to Dell when failures are detected on your system and you will be notified when that happens. You can also adjust this behavior in your settings if you prefer. SupportAssist is the latest version of software previously branded Alien Autopsy on Alienware PCs. The software contains user-selectable settings that enable customers to receive updates. Only systems with that setting were updated to SupportAssist. Dell does not push software to customer systems without their permission and you can change these settings at any time. You can find more details including our FAQ at www.dell.com/supportassist. Again, we appreciate your help in identifying these issues so that we can resolve them quickly.

 

I'm fine with upgrading to SupportAssist, it is indeed a new version of AlienAutopsy. But I'm not fine with what has installed a day after - this whole SupportAssist Agent and Data Vault. Installing new components, background jobs, Windows services without asking for a permission is not nice. It is not an update, it is installing whole bunch of new things. You must understand that people will be concerned about their privacy and stop trust you if you do such things. I agreed to automatic updates but not to installing new spyware!

 

Hi
I've tried to get Dell reps help to fix the crippled bios / Ec in long time now. When or will DELL fix the crippled fan profile inside the bios on Alienware Alienware 17Ranger and 18 Viking? I and several have waited for the Dell engineers fixing this problem for a long time now ..

You said: We are in final testing of a hotfix for the fan issues with Alienware M17r4 ... YOU MUST BEGIN TO LOOK AT BIOS / EC PROBLEM IN ALIENWARE 17 AND 18 ALSO.
Fan profile in bios for Alienware is crippled. Fans starts too late and too little aggressive when the temperature and wattage increases rapidly. The fans start after the temperature has gone down(same noise). A delay of several seconds. What good is that fans start when the temperature has already gone down? The fans start eg not when the temperature has reached 65 degrees. Cpu fan starts when the temperature is stabilized down at low 40-45 degreesafter the temp increase. Total idiocy. Cpu fan should increase speed instantly with temperature increase and increased wattageand not when the temperature has already gone down. This is an unnecessary delay of the fans. This applies especially CPU fan. You get just as much noise of the fan when it starts after or before the temperature rise. idiocy..Remember that all Alienware laptop owners in several laptop forum have complained about this in all the bios / Ec versions. Too little agresive and delayed start of the cpu fan for over 1.5 years. In addition, other manufacturers have created their own software with possibility of manual fan control to their gaming laptops in addition to the fan controller in bios / ec. This should Dell managed to create inside the Alien Command Center long time ago. This should have been done faster than you might think ..
greeting
Pausan

 

Sooooo Dell support assist was what caused the intermittent freezing + GPU fan going crazy!
I had to re-install Windows to fix this ****

Glad it's over now.

 

I had weird fan behaviour on my r1, uninstalled alien autopsy and support assist and had no more problems all day yesterday. A bit cheeky that this software arrived on my alien without my knowing so. Simething I missed i guess

 

You did not ask my permission to install this software, it simply showed up in my start menu without any kind of notification. Now I have a laptop which sounds like a jet engine and seizes up regularly, which is doing who knows what to the hardware.

Now I want to know:

1)How to get rid of this and get my laptop running the way it was. I do not mean hanging round waiting for a hotfix to this unauthorised garbage, I want my laptop back EXACTLY the way it was before you installed this without my permission.

2)How to block you from pulling a stunt like this in the future.

3)Why you thought you could install something like this without any kind of notification BEFORE it was installed.

 

Regardless, I do not trust this service that Dell is providing, this weekend I will be checking my system for Citrix clients and unauthorized open ports, if there are any, it will be openly posted here. I notice that Support Agent is now not running on the machine when checked on Task Manager, this was not disabled by myself or any user of the machine, interesting...

 

You're welcome. I think uninstalling is the only option right now.

 

I was happy to find this thread this morning as I noticed my M17x R4 started this problem yesterday. Same symptoms as everyone else. Boot up, get into windows, it hangs for a second or so, the fans start going at high speed etc. I had to close the lid to the laptop (hybernate) and open it again so the fans would go back to normal.

I did the Services.msc fix to change the Dell Data Vault and Support Assistant to manual and all seems fine now. I'm not one to flash my BIOS as I don't want to take the chance of bricking this laptop as its my primary work laptop. Sure, this Support Assistant may have found a flaw in the BIOS but up until now, I've had zero problems with it so I'm not too worried. I greatly appreciate everyone sharing the work-a-rounds!

 

I wonder. Did Alien Autopsy have an auto-update function? I don't recall since it has been some weeks since I used it.

 

I have the same problem with my alienware m17x r4, I´ve disabled any service related with dell or alienware, and the problem is fixed.
I´m looking forward to a bios fix soon.
Regards

 

Dell has disabled automatic installation of services part, it is also no longer available to download from drivers page.

EDIT: I also noticed that the services part is installed only after system reboot, maybe you haven't restarted them yet?

 

For the record, my Alienware M18 purchased in May, 2014 recently started freezing for several seconds when playing games such as Far Cry 4 and Elder Scrolls Online. It's never done that before. Then I noticed a message at startup which mentioned SupportAssist, a program with which I wasn't familiar. Checking it out on-line I ran across this thread. Disabling the Dell Datavault, Datavault Wizard, and SupportAssist Agent seems to have solved the problem.

 

I have uninstalled dell assist for 3 days now, it fixed the fan issue and everything seems fine, what do we need that for anyway?

 

I have a 2013 alienware 14 with the 765m and I also have noticed these same problems; pc freezes on startup and blasts the fans for a minute or so, touchpad stops working, etc. I thought I had viruses or something, but all scans came up clean, now I stumble on this thread and it all makes sense, these issues started after alien autopsy upgraded to this assist program. Alienware, is there going to be a BIOS update for the 2013 alienware 14 as well? I think I will just uninstall this dell assist nonsense, the freezes and touchpad disabling is ridiculous and unneeded.

 

Just uninstall this Dell stuff.. I have 0 dell programs installed my computer and have had no problems.. This bloat will only cause problems!

 

So will this update be released soon? I have disabled the services of Dell Data Vault for the mean time. Hopefully this did not cause any damage to my system as the warranty has expired (This is also happening on my Alienware 17 2013) I thought as first that it was a problem with the RAM or the hard drive when it would go unresponsive and the fans would spin up really loud after start up.

 

A fix has now been developed and successfully tested internally for this issue, however we feel it important at this time to assist customers with this hotfix to ensure it addresses the problems they are seeing in their particular configurations before posting the fix for wide distribution.
We have already contacted a number of customers who reported the issue on this forum and thus far, results have been positive. If you would like us to work with you to implement this hotfix, please send email to [email protected] and we’ll contact you as quickly as possible.

 

So this software is responsible for lock ups during gameplay? Recently I started experiencing complete stuns when playing games. The game stops responding for several seconds and sound stutters totally.
I also noticed this happens outside of games. During this time fans become really loud and mouse is unresponsive.
I tried to uninstall this Support Assist. What happened is after a few minutes my laptop just shut down itself. I tried to turn it back on but it shut down itself again. Then I noticed the tempreture is abnmormally high so it's probably because of overheating. Is this thing somehow manages GPU and CPU fans? Really?

 

Not really I regularly turned the computer on and off for usage. I noticed something INTERESTING on my machine as I was uninstalling Support Assist, I saw a PC DOCTOR banner, hmm, most interesting considering that installing that software, the system SHOULD have asked me for permission as it normally does for even Malwarebytes. I did not notice any Citrix clients (at least as of yet) but I did notice that Dell Data Vault is missing even before the uninstall, even more interesting.

 

I would love to contact you guys regarding this, however, my confidence in this fix is marred by this failure of the last update, what I, as any user would like to see is an official fix with official documentation on what is installed and what to expect with the new software, this is not much to ask of from a 21.8 billion dollar company, as a matter of fact, this might actually be a business requirement.

 

Dell manages and get the new software (Dell support agent aka Alien Autopsy) to allow the fans to go on maximum speed that the fans are intended to do. But you fail to make a fan profile in bios / ec that containing the maximum fan speed of the processor fan (max 4600 rpm now) when the processor becomes very hot. Both Dell Support agent and under bios flashing manages the processor fan far above 5300rpm. What is this nonsense? Fix the fan profiles in both Alienware 17 and 18 now... When diagnosis software manages to get processor fan to go on the real rate (over 5200rpm), as should the fan speed also be the same when you use the laptop as it is intended ..We have waited over 1.5 years to get this fixed ..

 

I would love to test it, I'm going to make clean install anyway I've already contacted Dell and waiting for answer.

 

Thank you for the feedback Papusan, I'll definitely send the info over to the team in charge.

 

I confirm that hotfix resolves my issues on Alienware 17 2013. I would advice anyone of you having the issues to contact Dell, to make sure all issues will be resolved.

 

Driver download pages to Dell is hopeless. It shows not all drivers longer. Take for example Intel Lynx Point HM87 Driver Broadcom wifi and Nvidia driver .. It is away from Alienwate 17r1 Ranger's driver Downloads page. It has been that long .. Get it fixed ..