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ExcaliburDragon
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May 5th, 2011 10:00
AMD Catalyst Drivers vs. Dell Drivers for Aurora R3
(got my R3 two days ago, it's been up and running for a day now with no problems )
As a person who likes to keep the drivers up to date, I see the that Dell drivers for my video boards (dual 6870s) haven't been updated since January. AMD's latest are from the end of April.
Can one install the AMD Catalyst suite on a Dell/Alienware PC, normally? Special steps need to be taken? Or no-can-do?
I tried installing the new suite normally, and ultimately the screen went black (though the PC was still responsive) during the install. After rebooting (waited 10 minutes), the machine seemed to be normal, but the CCC wouldn't open. So I initiated a system restore to the point just prior to attempting to install the drivers.
So it's back to functioning, but using the original Dell drivers this machine shipped with (device manager lists them at 9/2010, but the version # is the same as listed on the Dell site for the January drivers... so Dell's latest drivers are from last fall?).
Am I stuck waiting for Dell to get around to updating to the newest drivers? Or is there a trick to doing this that I've missed.
And I guess while I'm asking, are we not 'supposed' to use AMD drivers and ONLY use Dell-supplied video drivers?
Thanks for reading.
I think if the OEM products are still in the computer you should use the Dell website. If you have changed
to retail versions then you should use the website of the manufacturer of that product. For example if you
switched to retail versions of the video cards or motherboard or ram you download drivers etc from the
retail manufacturers site. Dell uses their own OEM versions of the components from what I've gathered
from reading on this forum, correct me if I'm wrong. Hope that helps a little, maybe someone else will
jump in and add more info.
Spamfighter
2 Intern
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280 Posts
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Posted May 5th, 2011 13:00
Like to read your posts Tesla1956!
As you can see from my post
http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19376851.aspx
I too have these question many of you have re new ATI v/s DELL OEM drivers and your link is very imformative. Note that Dell installed in my Area 51 replacement system received on Nov 10/10 an even newer driver that the Beta driver investigated by you. Now I have Dual 5970 - you list 5870 on your system so that may required different drivers - very knew to gaming - in fact not yet tried pending getting my system properly operationg - and no knowledge on the supposendly high end cards - as you can see from my qouted post.
A) I wish someone in Dell would clearly spell this out. i.e. are the cards placed in the Dell machines identical to those sold by AMD
B) Are the drivers available from DELL specifically created by/for Dell to ensure there is no conflict with other mojos Dell has put into th machines.
i.e. why did Dell list that obviously idetical driver AMD distributed as a BETA version? While it works on your machine, does it mean it will work on every DELL machine..
(New to this forum to so I hope my pasting worked.)
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
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18086 Posts
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Posted May 5th, 2011 11:00
I checked it once, and this is what I found out:
http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19340381/19801910.aspx?PageIndex=2
If you change your desktop card to a retail version, obviously, you would use the AMD.com drivers.
Not sure why you had a problem upgrading your drivers. At the least, I recommend completely uninstalling the old ones before installing the new ones. At the most, I recommend adding DriverSweeper to the procedure.
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