Dell support nothing ever changes re:xps gen2

[ricckko]

:shocked::thumbsdown:

I am currently assisting an associate that has come up against a brick wall in dealing with dell. He bought a brand new xps gen2 with the nvidia ultra6800 vid card and has been stuck with the original drivers since day one. The xps gen2 it seems to me only came out long after the version 7.7 of the nvidia unidrivers were already out and the notebook product (the supposed flagship) was shipped with the very oldest, the very 1st 7.x nvidia video drivers.

This is supposed to be a ?gaming? type of notebook, least wise it has probably a lot better configuration than a lot of desktops right now. It was advertised as having special 7/24 support by individuals that are dedicated to this product only. Also, that the support people are the most knowledgeable and on top of all the advances.

Battle field 2 came out almost a month ago and when running the BF2 program it is actually telling my friend that his driver is so old he should at least get the 7.7 version. When running BF2 the texture, detail and shadows are all full of errors so no wonder he?d just like his laptop to run the way it is advertised.

The really great part about all this is that dell support told him that the 7.7 drivers were not released yet. Either their support is too stupid to live or outright lied, blatantly to his face. When he investigated Nvidia told him they were released some time ago so he ty getting touch with dell again. They never responded after repeated attempts.

So this is where I decided to step in,?. Now I can not believe this but after getting in touch with dell support they actually were telling him to download anybody?s modification of the drivers actually ?going all out? (sarcasm) and recommending version 7.6. ?Just download them from anywhere? excuse me but if any of these drivers hyped-out your video card - dell would be the 1st one to tell you that your warranty was rendered invalid by not downloading dell certified drivers.

So not only is dell to inept and incapable to take care of delivering a solid product with good drivers, but there support function is fantastically useless!

In my inquiry to mr.dell itself I got some minion mucker saying he apologized for any problems up til now and promptly went on vacation so I guess my friend can continue to wait til hades freezes over before dell will help him.

 

[fbrdphreak]

First, welcome to AT.
Second, that is the kind of support you should expect for driver issues; unfortunately.
Third, most laptop manufacturers (except maybe IBM) do not update their drivers very often. Yes, your friend bought Dell's gaming machine; but Dell is not a computer gaming company. I would expect Alienware or Falcon to have high performance, optimized drivers; not Dell.
Fourth, just tell your friend to download the VXG Extreme drivers. They work great for desktops and I'm sure will provide a nice boost on his lappy; as well as better game support. The Omega driver's are also worth a shot.

 

[ricckko]

Thanks that's great advice and your help is appreciated

I know all about dell support from way back having delt more than intimately with their business machines and would have liked to imagine that they have developed, because their prices sure suck, and that they also could have started embracing a respect for clients, at least a little bit. Potential customers - they'll polish your apples and lick your boots, forget it once you buy anything though.

Since they have taken great pains to promote their high level of support for this flagship product and part of the reason my associate had purchased it, I call and raise them -$60k worth of PR. They may not 'understand' the need of the msg but this is the new way of doing business. Part of being a savvy "techie" is knowing how to leverage the low tech systems with the high tech ones.

We have communications on our side and we will have accountability. Just because we are too smart to get caught in this particular mislead-the-potential-customer game, does not mean that we do not owe it to our collegues; or that we are so smart we could not get fooled ourselves in some other instance.

Hiow many times have I seen some person research out all sorts of stuff for someone that poses a (?)quandary, and then they go the extra distance in helping provide a complete answer for them These same people are a little less diligent/more scared/less knowlegeable about businesses operations. When you're a hammer everything looks like a nail.

So in this case; it is not my friend's job to search out and test drivers for a company that is too lazy/too money grubbing to do it for their customers even after promising to deliver. Thats' why he spent way more than he had to on this product (XPS Gen2), for Dell's support and looking after him and thier flagship product, espcially after having boasted/PR'd their abilities, dedication and convictions all to heck.

We will take back what is ours. If you think I'm "in the wind", this is taking place all over right now and remedy is obtained in all cases.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: ricckko
So in this case; it is not my friend's job to search out and test drivers for a company that is too lazy/too money grubbing to do it for their customers even after promising to deliver. Thats' why he spent way more than he had to on this product (XPS Gen2), for Dell's support and looking after him and thier flagship product, espcially after having boasted/PR'd their abilities, dedication and convictions all to heck.

I agree, but that doesn't mean it will change anything. Good luck

 

[kenan921]

omega drivers
Link

 

[Looney]

Battle field 2 came out almost a month ago and when running the BF2 program it is actually telling my friend that his driver is so old he should at least get the 7.7 version

First off, this isn't an iXPS2 problem, it's an nvidia problem. Other laptops and desktops were having the same issues at release as well.

The really great part about all this is that dell support told him that the 7.7 drivers were not released yet.

At the time they weren't. Dell won't recommend anything other than WHQL drivers.

Third, most laptop manufacturers (except maybe IBM) do not update their drivers very often. Yes, your friend bought Dell's gaming machine; but Dell is not a computer gaming company. I would expect Alienware or Falcon to have high performance, optimized drivers; not Dell.

Alienware and Falcon laptops are rebadaged Clevos... and they had the same problems as well.

We have communications on our side and we will have accountability. Just because we are too smart to get caught in this particular mislead-the-potential-customer game, does not mean that we do not owe it to our collegues;

Accountability for what? Because you numbnuts couldn't get BF2 to play? It plays just fine on my iXPS2, and thousands of others. The problem was a driver issue with EA and nVidia... but if you think you can get 'accountability' out of this, keep this thread updated with your big suit.

And since you're such an expert on this, in the time it took you to write these whines, you could have installed proper drivers.

 

[pulsedrive]

Yeah, I don't want to hear it about Alienware having "optimized" drivers, they haven't updated their video drivers on my 2 year old lappy from them since release. EVER. So I used omega's dangit.

 

[Tostada]

I can appreciate wanting to rant a little, but this is asinine. I know people who have had technical problems (i.e. they barely knew how to turn the thing on) with their Dell and became frustrated when they were forwarded to India tech support, but I've certainly never had anything but good experiences with them. I've only had to call them a couple times on systems that had next-day on-site support, and it took about 5 min for me to get a confirmation that someone would be there the next day to fix it, and they did.

You have to realize that Dell is a hardware company, and as much as they promise to support your laptop, you simply can't expect them to run out and code their own drivers just because NVidia isn't giving you ones to download that work right with Battlefield 2. Support for mobile GPUs is pretty notoriously bad. Pretty much everybody who has a Mobility Radeon has to use hacked drivers. I just don't see how you can blame Dell for any of this.

I certainly can't understand you complaining about Dell's prices. They're the friggin' Wal-Mart of laptops.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Tostada
I can appreciate wanting to rant a little, but this is asinine. I know people who have had technical problems (i.e. they barely knew how to turn the thing on) with their Dell and became frustrated when they were forwarded to India tech support, but I've certainly never had anything but good experiences with them. I've only had to call them a couple times on systems that had next-day on-site support, and it took about 5 min for me to get a confirmation that someone would be there the next day to fix it, and they did.

You have to realize that Dell is a hardware company, and as much as they promise to support your laptop, you simply can't expect them to run out and code their own drivers just because NVidia isn't giving you ones to download that work right with Battlefield 2. Support for mobile GPUs is pretty notoriously bad. Pretty much everybody who has a Mobility Radeon has to use hacked drivers. I just don't see how you can blame Dell for any of this.

I certainly can't understand you complaining about Dell's prices. They're the friggin' Wal-Mart of laptops.

:thumbsup:

 

[Kenmitch]

Did you bother to even check Dell support for driver downloads for the XPS ?

I just took a quick look and it looks like they release what looks like 77.24's on the 6th or so which states it fix's the problems with battlefield 2.

Get Them Here

 

[TraumaRN]

Or you could always goto guru3D.com, in fact here is a link to their page with Forceware drivers for all types of card, some are official, most are beta tho

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=10

 

[BlackBeardThe3rd]

Originally posted by: Looney

The really great part about all this is that dell support told him that the 7.7 drivers were not released yet.

At the time they weren't. Dell won't recommend anything other than WHQL drivers.

he posted this 7/11

the WHQL 77.72 came out 6/28

 

[Hacp]

Why are people picking on India Tech support? They answered questions I had with ease and were very knowlegable. But this was on the online support chat, so I don't know how their english is.