Dell Deleted my post about the X51 and Broken A07 and A08 Bios

cc:d : Michael Dell

The Alienware Team is fully aware of the issues with the Bios. They are investigating it. When I hear something, I will post it. I did delete one of your post due to the profanity you used. We do not allow profanity on our Forum.

Found this thread Googling to see if anyone else had issues with their X51... Apparently I'm not the only one.

Similar issue as described above with the shut down/sleep/hibernate thing. I shut my X51 off today..came back home a few hours later and the light on the side of the case was white. PC didn't respond to pushing the power button and only shut off after holding the button down for a while.

It's upsetting because I have a high-spec X51 and I managed to avoid the graphics card issues but apparently now I have to put up with these other issues... Absolutely disappointing Dell/Alienware...

Running BIOS A07. I found Chris-M had posted a link to download A08 (which hasn't been officially released so I'm wondering if he was even right in posting that for download on a public forum..) but I won't attempt to install it after reading that these issues apparently persist there.

Since it's obviously not finished, because it isn't released, I can only hope Dell will correct all these issues in the final A08 build/release and this stuff can get resolved so I can get a PC with quality that matches what I paid for it..

Chris-M,

How will you be reaching out to us with progress on a BIOS fix? I'd like to know how I can be made aware of a fix ASAP.

Thanks.

Chris-M

While I do appreciate your response to this thread, I am a little disappointed as well.

I still have the emails with the updates and what I wrote in the previous posts

 that you claim were deleted for profanity, except, I hadn't posted ANY profanity.

I will take it that Dell was not happy about what was being written, but to this time

still holds true. As well as you hadn't even responding to the Personal message I

had sent to you.

The most obvious fix is to repackage Bios A06 and change it A09. That way, the

issues that we are having are downgraded and functionality returns to working.

Perhaps escalating isn't the answer at this point. Both A07 and the unreleased A08

have the same issues. In all honesty, who/where/what are they doing to test it, and

shouldn't more people be actually working on it?

I was having the same issue with my X51 not shutting down all the way on a new system.

When I received my X51 it had BIOS A08 on it. After many hours troubleshooting with a tech on the phone and him remoting in. The problem still existed. The Tech tried changing all the settings and power settings and also updated the bios to A10. Nothing worked... Then he had me do a fresh install of windows and had another tech call me back to load all the drivers. The problem still existed. (I'm also missing Respwn now, not sure if I need it, but it seemed kind of nice)

Call back to Alienware support the next day and they confirmed that it must be a motherboard of power board issue. However, everything that I read in the support forums was leading to a BIOS issue, anything after A06 not working right.....

So, within a couple days Dell got the parts to a local technician to come out and replace the parts. He replaced the motherboard and graphics card (Graphics card?!?!) not sure why the graphics card, I think he may have received that instead of the power board. He thought is was odd as well. Upon boot-up after replacement BIOS version was A07 and I thought for sure, here we go it's not going to work, because supposedly it should be only A06 BIOS that works correctly for most users. However, It worked! It now shuts down correctly the way it was meant to.

I'm pretty sure anyone having this problem, you're going to need a motherboard. - No matter what the BIOS.

This is my 3rd Dell/Alienware product in the last 2 years. I have a XPS15z, Alienware M14X, and this Alienware X51.

I had no problems with the XPS15z. I had a couple issues right off the bat with the M14X (missing parts and MOBO failure, which lead to a stripped out screw on the battery) and now the Issue with the X51 (not shutting down). I see many things in the forums reguarding Dell's tech support, I would have to say that I have been fairly pleased. Other then all the time spent on the phone or waiting for a repair, they ultimately taken care of the problems and stand behind their product and get things fixed.

I was not too impressed with the technician that came out to my house to replace the motherboard. He had issues getting the cover off and on. Didn't get all the connectiions back together the first time, then it was making a fan noise that I could clearly hear but he couldn't - turns out a missed connection cable to the mobo was hitting a fan. Missplaced the GPU bracket - causing noise. Then he had some trouble  with the BIOS. He must have taken it a part 6 or so times to fix his inital mistakes. This whole time he was spinning it around on my desk marking up the cover and he also never wore a wrist strap....... He was having such a hard time getting the cover on he was  hitting it and forcing it I could hear snaps and cracks everytime he was trying to force it on. I'm not totally sure that the covers are ok. I know the one side is definently all scratched up . I also hope the components are not going to be affected from him not grounding himself.... He was also using a magnetic screwdriver I thought that was a no no with electronics..... After seeing that I would have rather replaced the parts myself or sent it to the repair depot, however from a time standpoint it is nice that they come to you.

Scorp

The latest A11 BIOS (12/28/2012) did NOT fix the hibernation/sleep problem but only made the machine louder. Come on Dell!

Wow! How many revisions since A06 and still no fix for this?

This has played a direct part in my not ordering another DELL machine

over the holidays, as they are unable to produce or fix a working BIOS for

their current machines.

Keep it up Dell, sooner than later, you may have to do proper coding and

testing and actual support the clients who buy this crap.

Did it come with A07 and are you running Windows 7 ?

yes, mine has A07 and works fine.

New mother board only fix.

That is whythere have been so many without any problems. BIOS won't fix. call Dell and have the board replaced, problem solved.

There support hase been great for me and they are willing to do what it takes to fix the problem. This one seems confusing for most since not a lot of people have had it and most think it's the BIOS.

The Replaced motherboards (as I have had mine replaced) come with A06. has anyone then had the balls to update to a newer BIOS?

New board came with A07 Running win 7.

As I have had this problem I have also talked with others that have had many different versions of the BIOS for all the people I have talked to changing BIOS doesn't seem to fix only changing the board which in most cases will have a different BIOS. Until we hear more from Dell on this I'm not going to touch my BIOS since it is working with A07. My bet is still on the motherboard.

Scorp9: I think you're right. Thanks for the info. I just got off a debug session with Dell support and the net result was some tech will call me to schedule the replacement of, to quote, motherboard, power board, front i/o board, and AC. Apparently a repair this extensive is still cheaper than replacing the machine. During the session, the guy ran the program that tests the lights and it said "no board found"; he tried to change front light's color and it didn't change. So apparently A11 is big time incompatible with the HW I have, because I used to be able to change colors at will.

I had always thought that I didn't have time for this (the session was >1hr long) but now I'm glad I did it. I pray I get a good technician after reading the story above (it would be ironic if I don't, because I'm in the middle of silicon valley.)