You might see if you have all the current driver updates. There was an Intel driver update that came out the same day as the A04.

Thanks, Boyd

 

I did update the Chipset from the dell Site, no difference yet....

 

Just wondering if what I did was right, I

1. Downloadeded Bios A04 to Desktop,
2. Double clicked on it,
3. followed the prompts to finish,
4. restarted Computer, & found it had a problem,
5. restarted Computer went into Bios & reset Bios Factory Defaults
6. restarted but did not find new hardware to install drivers from Drivers & Utilities CD

I'm thinking  now maybe I should take the battery off the motherboard and take the jumper off the password reset jumper and boot up the system.  Then shut it down, replace the jumper and battery.  The settings should be back to default.

 

Or maybe reinstall the Opperating System from the CD

 

Has anyone else had a similar problem installing the A04 bios?

 

any ideas much Appreciated, Thank You.

 

 

Wayne2196,

Backflash to A03. Does the card reader and rear USB ports now work?

Wayne2196,

 

I received this error on two of 3 420's I updated, however it was with the Chipset Driver install, not the BIOS A04 update. 

When I did the BIOS update all 3 worked fine, but I did the Chipset update on two and had this error, so I didn't bother updating the 3rd one.  It was a USB failure error.  On one of my systems, all I had to do was reboot the system one more time and they are working fine.  On the second one I had to download the card reader drivers and let windows find the new hardware and install the drivers.

 

By reading your post I see you have tried both of those, so unfortunately I can not be of much help.  This was more a post to let you know that it has happened to others and you are not the only one.

 

I would do as Chris suggests and go back to A03.

 

Be aware that the card reader disappearing is a big issue with these particular card readers and the 420 systems.   Do a search for disapparig card readers and you'll find a bunch of threads and posts. 

 

 

Hello Wayne2196, Sorry to hear of your issues. I had absolutely no issues with the A04. As a matter of fact, it cleared up several issues I was experiencing with A03. I have read where some have had issues with their card reader but it has occured with A03 as well as A04. I don't think a reinstall of the OS would solve your issues since you didn't have them before the A04 update. It could be possible that the update did not go as expected. You might try another download and install of the A04 and see if this has any better results. Hope this helps. 

I had this problem as well.  When I upgraded to A04, I immediately started getting "this device can perform faster" warnings from Vista (in reference to the USB ATI Digital Cable Tuner that I had connected at the rear.  I also noticed a change in Vista's startup behavior... after the startup progress bar disappears, my desktop would usually come up within 10 seconds or so.  With A04 I would have to wait about 1.5 minutes.  I also lost the card reader.

 

Reverting to A03 corrected the USB behavior.  Startup behavior is mostly corrected... I occasionally see the 1.5 minute delay in starting, but not often (my computer did not exhibit this prior to the attempted A04 upgrade).  I had to manually re-install the card reader.

 

I have since found an update to the Intel Chipset on the XPS 420 and have installed it.  It may correct the USB issues with A04, but I haven't had the courage to go through this exercise yet, as my system is working well for a change!

 

XPS 420

2.4Ghz Quad Core

3Gb RAM @ 800Mhz

2x 500Gb Hard drive (RAID 1)

ATI HD3870 512Mb graphics

19in1 Card Reader w/Bluetooth

Dell1505 Wireless N card

Windows Vista Ultimate, SP1 +Updates