Thomas Zumbrunnen Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Hello 2 days ago my new R4 arrived and will replace my good friend M1730. One of my first task, checking for updates. and then I discovered a strange thing. My R4 has a Bios Version A08. I checked the delivery slip and all components build in. No It's not a R3 it is a real R4 (check my signature). To prove this I uploaded a picture from the Bios Page. How is that possible ? Did missed something ? cheers tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder Brian Posted September 25, 2012 Founder Share Posted September 25, 2012 Hi, welcome to T|I! So what is the issue with it having A08?Edit: Ok I see why you're wondering since A05 is the latest on their website. The answer is that Dell tends to issue bios updates internally that go to the manufacturing line but sometimes are not available on the website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Zumbrunnen Posted September 25, 2012 Author Share Posted September 25, 2012 As a nerd I just like to understand what is the reason and maybe the benefit of delivering different Bios versions. My best pal ordered the exact configuration one month ago and retreived the rig with A05. Well, as always only Dell knows the mystery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder Michael Posted September 25, 2012 Founder Share Posted September 25, 2012 Might be some internal version but why the jump from A05 to A08? Weird indeed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikecacho Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Unless there was a tweak recently added to A08 that we have not heard of yet... Making it a great candidate for R4... Or simply a misconfiguration bios wise, very plausible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alienware-Natalia_J Posted September 26, 2012 Share Posted September 26, 2012 When BIOS versions are released in the lab, usually it´s put in the systems that are in production at the moment, and it takes about a month for the official release on the Dell´s driver site after that. With that being said, I still do not understand the jump either, I will definitely look into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Zumbrunnen Posted September 27, 2012 Author Share Posted September 27, 2012 Thank you Natalia for your investigation on that topic. Maybe you even can get the release notes for that version 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tseng Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 I don't understand why Dell takes another month before posting to the web.If it is good for new build system, it is more important that M17x R4 owners would need it as it could fix their issues or enhance their user experiences.At least, when Dell decided to implement on new build system, they should be ready for current owners as well.So, when can we expect to see A08 on Dell supprt site? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Zumbrunnen Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 If some like to have a dump of the A08 Bios, just let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 Another Swiss member Welcome to T|I [MENTION=6018]Thomas Zumbrunnen[/MENTION] ! Interesting... A08, I don't know (yet) what they changed but it seems AW revised all the bios of the current systems. Dell / AW recently started with the really bad habit of not posting any changelog for the bios updates anymore... this really sucks. I really hope [MENTION=4664]Alienware-Natalia_J[/MENTION] or another Dell rep can give us some more information, not only about this new, upcoming release, but also about the past updates. It really doesn't make any sense posting an update without telling what it fixes. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mw86 Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 Another Swiss member Welcome to T|I [MENTION=6018]Thomas Zumbrunnen[/MENTION] !Interesting... A08, I don't know (yet) what they changed but it seems AW revised all the bios of the current systems. Dell / AW recently started with the really bad habit of not posting any changelog for the bios updates anymore... this really sucks. I really hope [MENTION=4664]Alienware-Natalia_J[/MENTION] or another Dell rep can give us some more information, not only about this new, upcoming release, but also about the past updates. It really doesn't make any sense posting an update without telling what it fixes. I agree its pretty important to know what the bios update fixes or changes in case it ever was an issue in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemesis Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 If some like to have a dump of the A08 Bios, just let me know.It would be great if you could make a dump of it.I would like to take a look at it.Thanks for your efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Zumbrunnen Posted September 30, 2012 Author Share Posted September 30, 2012 It would be great if you could make a dump of it.I would like to take a look at it.Thanks for your efforts.Here's the link to the Dump : - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 The dump probably contains your service tag... I temporarily removed the link, if you don't care about people knowing your tag, feel free to put it back online. Just wanted to warn you. I'll take a look at it when I find time, might be able to provide a "clean" version. Not sure how it behaves when it comes to flashing a dump, but it could cause issues for users if they accidentally delete their own service tag by flashing your dump Edit: If someone else has A08 and is willing to dump it, let me know. Would help a lot with cleaning up the dump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marty1984 Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 [MENTION=6018]Thomas Zumbrunnen[/MENTION] - Have you noticed any new / changed settings when comparing it to your friends A05 BIOS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Zumbrunnen Posted September 30, 2012 Author Share Posted September 30, 2012 [MENTION=6018]Thomas Zumbrunnen[/MENTION] - Have you noticed any new / changed settings when comparing it to your friends A05 BIOS?Good point. We did not compared the bios screens yet. I may ask him next week. Or I post all the pictures here in the forum and everyone can compare. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tseng Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Anyone from Alienware / Dell can follow-up on this one?Is it really necessary for Dell to take so long internally just to publish working new BIOS on the web? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwoof Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 just received my M4 last week and it had the A08 bios as well. any news on what has changed? also, is there an unlocked version?I noticed that I could select the overclocking options but that all the GPU settings were not selectable. It was possible to tweak the CPU and memory settings but not the GPU settings.My laptop has a 680M b.t.w. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mw86 Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Its likely to prevent scenarios like like the following, if a major prob slipped through and x amount of systems shipped with that bios it is still less than if they also released it on the web. The whole would be hurt rather than the few systems that shipped, which likely would be taken care of at a much smaller cost. It's the liability and accountability my guess... plus a great reputation to maintain. Sent from my Paranoid Samsung Galaxy S3 on Sprint using Tapatalk 2 Jelly Bean flavor included Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack34 Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Maybe it's a minor upgrade to the next Windows8. License validation system, etc ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemesis Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 I just called the Alienware-Hotline, but the employee couldn't tell me anything about a new A08 update. He means the A05 is the most actual BIOS for the R4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tseng Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Dell is pretty inefficient in this kind of things. Guess we will have to wait "one month" till the Dell people to finish all their internal processes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Dell phone reps are usually pretty ill-informed, especially in Europe. They're just call center agents mostly with no technical background... you have to set your expectations pretty low before calling them Anyway, I guess we'll see the new bios in the next one or two weeks. I'm not exactly sure what they all changed, is there a 'secure boot' option in A05? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemesis Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 What a timing...Dell just released the A08-BIOS on their homepage.The link didn't work for me, but I could found it on their FTP-Server.Here's the link: ftp://ftp.dell.com/FOLDER00790406M/1/M17R4A08WIN.exe 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Cool, thanks a lot for the news!! Same for the M14x R2 and M18x R2. I'll see that I can mod those as soon as possible, tomorrow or Saturday.... and still no change log from Dell. I mean 'BIOS for Win7 / Win8' - you don't say oO Seriously Dell... put a stop to this non-sense. It can't be that hard to release some information. And by the way, I'm sure the BIOS works for Linux as well... lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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