 |
 |
On Thu, 28 Jul 2005, Steve Bogdanski wrote: > I have also noticed that getting updates (patches, BIOS updates, etc) from > many vendors is a pain, the problem being either that they don't > regularly post them or their support sites stink. Getting updates for > Dell systems on the other hand is a breeze and they update systems for > quite sometime (3+ years). I only have one complaint/contradiction here. We have Dell Dimension 4400's and 4500's that _continuously_ lose their boot settings in the BIOS. Intel made a fix for this in their BIOS, but Dell never implemented it. We have gone back and forth on this for 3+ years and still no fix. Their reply as always been, "no one else has complained". We still have a couple of labs that have machines that still lose their boot settings (we use the PXE boot), but we finally got Dell to replace the 100+ tech carts that had that hardware and continuously lost their boot setting. Also note that you can't just use the Intel BIOS upgrade either. It doesn't work and could damage the machine and void the warranty. One other thing, Dell also said that the PXE booting on the Dimesion line wasn't supported but it was on the Optiplex line. They also told us that with the Optiplex line, they could guarantee the motherboard parts for 3-5 years. We bought ~100 machines in May that came in two shipments and we got two different motherboards within the same model (gx280). Maybe this isn't a big deal for most, but it's huge to us when trying to create an image to put on "like/same" machines. Well, I've vented enough, and put in my .02 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Besko Phone: 517.432.5335 Systems Programmer Fax: 517.353.9847 Michigan State University E-mail: [log in to unmask] 515 Computer Center E-mail Page: [log in to unmask] East Lansing, MI 48824-1042 (please limit page to 3 lines)