XPS 420 Bios A07 ICH9R sata raid controller does not support SSD, why won't Dell release an update?

Dell will very very rarely update bios on out of production systems.  It is just not cost effective for them. Your option at this point would be to buy and add in controller to handle the raid setup.

Chances are you won't see any driver or BIOS updates for the XPS 420. The product is beyond end-of-life, so updates are minimal.

--Another XPS 420 owner.

I called our Dell rep today, and he is going to escalate this.  Either we will see an A08 bios for the 420 with newer SATA ICH9R firmware, or I will be selling it to one of my friends because his current box won't run Black Ops and I will buy something else, or build a new machine from scratch. 

I disagree that the product is beyond end of life, I still have warranty left on it, and I assume many other customers do as well.  Its a quad-core with 8GB of ram, and has at least 2 years left of usable life from my usage point-of-view.  From a business standpoint, I concur it is EOL, because of newer processors, chipsets, etc.  But, I also maintain that the XPS is marketed to enthusiasts, and not mainstream consumers that will never crack the box and replace components in it, and therefore, Dell should provide support inline with the customers of that segment.

Thanks for doing all the leg work on this one Brian. This is my first Dell system and will definitely be my last if this is the type of support they are providing for one of their mid range systems. I do understand how this is considered to be EOL, however there were plenty of opportunities in the past to update the BIOS to A08, maybe 09.

I'll be doing the same as yourself and getting rid of this system and build myself a new one from scratch. I bought this system initially because I thought Dell made decent quality units.

I won't be holding my breathe but hopefully a new BIOS update will come. At this point my new SSD that I've installed in my system is now sitting in disabled mode until a new update becomes available or I save up enough funds to build my next system.

I've read through my fair share of forum posts about people having issues with their SSD's being recognized at cold boot. The cause is actually with the BIOS which most people have remedied by downloading a BIOS update for their motherboards. I wouldn't bother wasting any more time online if you are having problems starting an SSD from a cold boot and own this system.

I'm about to start a new thread on my old (2007) Dimension E520.  If units later than this date are considered by Dell to be past life, then why do you think they have offered another extended warranty?  Maybe they just don't wan't to help unless they are paid even more.  I had a 3 year warranty that expired recently - just before the trouble began and these people won't even accept an email enquiry from me even though I sought no support for well over two of the three years.. 

Worse, they issued me with a maunual and specs for a different configuration than they supplied - but it must be my fault 'cos I have to pay to get accurate information even?

Like you folks, I have bought Dells (3 early models followed the E520 and the a Vostro Lap top) that look like being my last Dell purchases ever if this is the new disinterest shown in customer service and product support.  .

Oh well, off the Office of Fair Trading I guess - Dell must (or should) get some complaints through that office.

Best of luck

I've been doing a lot more research on this issue lately, as I have an SSD drive that's just sitting in my desktop disabled at the moment. I looked everywhere online to see if someone has modded the BIOS and it seems that there were a couple of people who've tried but had no success with it.

I was told from numerous people to try to contact Dell and see if they had any unreleased BIOS updates that were never made public. This is where I'm at a stand still. I went to the Dell support page (Canada) and tried to look for an email support address and couldn't find one. I tried to do online chat with an agent and found out that it's not offered in Canada. Then I tried to call in to Dell support and was told that I had to pay for the phone call.

Has anyone else been able to contact Dell support to see if they actually have any unreleased updates?

Thanks

I installed an SSD (OCZ Vertex 2) yesterday in my XPS420, and it finally worked. I use BIOS A03 (no problem: no update).

It was quite difficult to make it work at first. I read all the threads I could find (the scariest was this one), but after reseting BIOS to the default settings (except fast boot, which I disabled), I managed to make it boot and install windows 7.

I'm not sure it's relevant, but the SSD is on the first SATA port, and when I installed windows, all other drives (except DVD) were disconnected. I reconnected the other HDD later, and it worked fine. TRIM and NCQ are enabled on the SSD, windows recognized it as such and disabled defrag.

If the BIOS A07 doesn't officially supports SSDs, I guess A03 doesn't either, but in practice, it works smoothly.

dbertho,

Interesting post. I too am an XPS 420 owner and want to install an SSD from OCZ in my 420. 

Reading all the negative info about Dell Bios problems makes me shy away from an expensive but risky upgrade. 

How do you know Trim and NCQ are enabled? Is ACHI operational on your computer and if so how?

Also, have you done any tests to be sure the SSD is actually running at it's supposedly much faster data transfer rate?

I appreciate your information.

kapalua

I used HD Tune to run speed tests : 215MB/s max read speed, 190MB/s average. It seems consistent with other benchmarks I've seen. I didn't run write tests

It also told me that NCQ is enabled, and for TRIM I had to run a command (I don't remember it). I assumed that AHCI is enabled, since it's a requirement for NCQ.

In the BIOS, I set RAID mode to "autodetect". The other option "ATA" doesn't seem to enable AHCI.

It doesn't seem very risky to me. If it doesn't work, there is always the possibility to return the SSD because you're not satisfied with it.

Good luck !

dbertho,

Do you think your install of the SSD was successful because you were running bios 03 or would it work with a more recent bios if the same steps you followed 

were performed? I'm glad it's working so well for you.

kapalua

I don't know what has changed in newer bios versions, so I can't tell you for sure, but a regression this big is unlikely.

Fast boot is still disabled. If I enable it, it stops working.

It's not a problem for me since I almost never reboot, and as you said the SSD is very useful when the system is already running.

@dbertho

Do you still have fast boot disabled? Or did you just disable it for the windows installation? The reason I ask is because I am able to boot into the SSD with fast boot disabled but doing this really negates the idea of having a ssd for fast boot. I realize that the ssd is still very useful once it's completely booted but I want to be able to use it natively. Looks like we won't be seeing any more updates to this bios and as of right now my ssd is still sitting in my case, disabled at the BIOS. I'll keep it handy for my next computer purchase which definitely won't be a Dell. I'm glad to see it's worked out well for you.

Has anyone managed to get any further with this?  Real downer considering I have now got an SSD in the post.  I'd waited until the drivers were  compatible with TRIM when you have a RAID set up (as long as the SSD is not a member) but didn't expect Dell's firmware to be so outdated :(

The thought occurs that I probably wouldn't flash a bios randomly presented to me by a complete stranger.  If it helps reassure you I'm a superuser at Crucials SSD forum: http://www.forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/bd-p/ssd  as is lsdmeasasp who made the flash file and he is also an expert in memory and motherboards (admin of the gigabyte forum at tweaktown) so he knows what he's doing. :D  But like I say... at your own risk. :)