July 2008 - Direct2Dell

Note from Lionel: Here is a link to the fourth and latest post on the NVIDIA GPU issue. It explains how Dell is supporting our customers who are affected by it.

Earlier this month, sites like Ars Technica and ZDNet blogged about NVIDIA’s statement regarding a potential issue with some of NVIDIA's Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) used in notebooks. According to NVIDIA, these affected GPUs are experiencing higher than expected failure rates causing video problems. Though this issue is not unique to Dell, some of these affected GPUs are used in certain Dell laptops. That's why I wanted to take a few minutes here to explain the issue and to let customers know what to do next.

The issue is a weak die/packaging material set, which may fail with GPU temperature fluctuations. If your GPU fails, you may see intermittent symptoms during early stages of failure that include:

• Multiple images
• Random characters on the screen
• Lines on the screen
• No video

Dell recommends that you flash your system BIOS (see links in the table below). Each of these BIOS updates listed in the table below modifies the fan profile to help regulate GPU temperature fluctuations. Note: if you are already experiencing video-related issues like the bullet points above, updating the BIOS will not correct them. Dell will provide support for customers who have experienced GPU failure according to the terms of the system warranty.

These BIOS updates will help reduce the likelihood of GPU issues. New systems are being shipped with the updated BIOS revisions. Here's the list of the latest BIOS versions. Click on the links below to download them.

Update: As Direct2Dell reader foduekid noted, the A09 BIOS update for the XPS M1530 was made available yesterday after I published this blog post. I've updated the table above with the link.

Update 2: I'm getting e-mails and comments that are similar to those of Direct2Dell readers like Customer, fr and barryd. Like I mentioned in one of my responses, this will not be the only blog post on this topic. When I have new details to share, I will share them here. Several of you have expressed concern over potential battery life issues. The reality is that these BIOS updates will not have any noticeable effect on battery life or overall system performance. These updates do not make the cooling fan run all the time. The fan may cycle on more frequently, but when it does, it will run at half or quarter speed.

Update 3: Since Kara Krautter unveiled the Vostro 2510 on the Small Business blog yesterday, we've gotten some questions about it since it uses an NVIDIA GPU. Take a look at some of the comments in the Vostro 2510 Engadget post to see what I'm talking about. The Vostro 2510 will ship with the latest BIOS updates.

If you need help flashing your system BIOS or experience any of the video-related issues listed above, please contact Dell Technical Support. Our teams are committed to working with affected customers to resolve issues on a case-by-case basis.

After months of testing and development we are ready to release Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on select Dell consumer systems. For consumers in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom and many Latin American countries (like Mexico and Colombia) Ubuntu 8.04 will be offered on the XPS M1330N and Inspiron 1525N notebooks and the Inspiron 530N  Click on any of the country links above or go to www.dell.com/ubuntu to place your order. :)

In early August, we will also add the XPS M1530n and Studio 15n to the line-up. This is just in time for LinuxWorld where we will participate in a number of the conference sessions. That will be your chance to hear directly about what’s been accomplished over the last year and where we see it going in 2009.

In her post, Anne Camden mentions some of the new features the Ubuntu 8.04 brings. Beyond that, we took steps to make our Linux images more accessible to a global audience by including the ability to select your language during the first boot process. While this does not mean we’re shipping in every country (yet) it’s a step in the right direction. Stay tuned for a technical details post from John Hull will provide a good overview of the work we did on the new release. Similar post from him on Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 releases have proved to be pretty popular with the Linux community.

Last year, we experimented with a new type of service. Lionel blogged about it back in April It was provided to about 30,000 customers in the New York City area. The idea was to provide a more personalized support experience to them by designating a team of highly skilled technicians they could call anytime. It was very successful, running about 90% customer satisfaction, as the technicians are more familiar with their circumstances, require fewer explanations and are able to solve a broad-range of issues beyond just the basic warranty.

This week we are launching the new premium warranty service called “Your Tech Team” modeled on our experiment. The new service will be an option for customers in the United States who purchase a system directly from Dell—it’s not available to customers who buy from retail. The service will cover all Dell-branded devices under warranty in your house-hold, gets you rapid access to specialists, allows you to schedule calls with your favorite technicians, and if you desire, can provide technical support options well-beyond what is covered under your warranty without needing to transfer you to a different group.

Your Tech Team costs $99 and provides hardware warranty support for your new system and all other systems in your household (that are still under warranty). Other technical support options, like performance tuning, wireless network set-up and anti-virus support are available for a fee but can be purchased while you are on the call with your favorite technician.

At this point, households are determined by billing address. This means if your daughter is away at college, but you bought her an Inspiron and it is still under warranty, she can call Your Tech Team  directly. If her system is out of warranty, you would need to purchase an extended warranty for her system before she is covered

Finally, there is one other piece of information you’ll want to know about Your Tech Team—the agents are based in North America. Now, I know this can be controversial for some people but we have 2 critical customer needs to meet that are in direct conflict with each other. First and foremost, customers want low prices. We see time and time again, that when we increase prices to cover certain costs we drop in sales. We also have a great deal of research that corroborates that PC decision making is largely influenced by price and customers expect low prices from Dell. On the other hand, we must balance that with many suggestions that we provide North American support. Dell’s philosophy is all about providing customer choice and this service is no exception, rather than adding cost to every system for something that many people aren’t interested in, we will make it optional.

Your Tech Team is not just about North American support, it is a different offering focused on your relationship with our technicians and ultimately it is about giving our customers the choice to prioritize what matters most to them.

I'd like to follow up our Ubuntu 8.04 post with a quick update on the technical details for what we have added with this release. We have continued to build and improve upon on what we did for our Ubuntu 7.10 offering, and here are some of the highlights:

• We have added Fluendo GStreamer codecs for mp3, wma, and wmv playback. This will allow you to play media of those types in your favorite media player on the system. These codecs are in addition to the LinDVD DVD player application that we're continuing to offer as a standard part of every Ubuntu 8.04 system.
• Biometric fingerprint readers are now supported on the XPS laptops. We have all of the necessary software installed and ready to use; you just have to easily configure the software to recognize your fingerprint.
• ATI Graphics options are available on the Inspiron 530n, and will also be available on the Studio 15n. We're using the close-source fglrx driver to give full OpenGL support
• HDMI audio output is now supported with NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards, so you'll now be able to output both audio and video to your home A/V equipment. As many of you know for HDMI, the audio output is directed out what is essentially an HDMI video port, so the graphics drivers need to know how to interact with the audio controller. We worked with both NVIDIA and ATI to get their graphics drivers to work with the HDMI ports on our systems, and we find HDMI to work well with both. Unfortunately, HDMI audio does not yet work with Intel graphics cards.

I'll add more in a few weeks once we start selling The XPS 1530n and Studio 15n with Ubuntu 8.04.

Earlier this year, sites like The Consumerist and Gizmodo showed us that we still have a lot of work to do to reduce packaging. Regardless of steps we take to protect the environment, as an industry our work is far from over.

But when the printer company from Palo Alto packs 32 pages of A4 paper in 17 boxes, it deserves a conversation. How did it happen and why?

You may recall that when we had an issue with one of our suppliers, we sent a team to Dallas the next day to sort it out. We also put in place specific steps to address excessive packaging head on. As a result of great customer ideas and feedback, we're planning to reduce packaging by 10 million pounds over the next year. It underscores the value of listening. And green IT is also something lots of folks at Dell take seriously. That's an area where lots of companies can do more.

It's disappointing that HP has yet to respond. We can all learn a lot by listening to customers and uncovering ways we can improve the planet.

So, let's get to the bottom of it. Send us your pictures of HP's excessive packaging and we'll share them with their head of corporate sustainability.  You can post them here or e-mail them to regeneration@dell.com.   And if you have ways that we can improve, let us know. Let's have a dialogue about why this happened and how we can all work together to improve packaging.

(BTW, today's incident reminded us of a comparison we did earlier this year between our M-Series blade server and HP's C-3000 "Shorty"...see below for a brief video showing the differences).