Nick

Hey folks,

Wanting to get some feedback on a couple of questions.

1. How often do you or your company preform BIOS operations such as standardize setting or update to the latest version?
2. What role does the person/s that carry out the work for 1 play in the organization?

The reason I ask is that I received a call yesterday asking me those questions.

This all is surrounding the perceived demand for an updated version of the DCCU.

My responses were.

1. VERY infrequently. The companies I have worked for do not consider BIOS update maintenance to be on the radar. Standardization is something that is done as needed but typically handled from the vendor.
2. Desktop technician or Altiris administrator.

I then followed up explaining that I always like having as many tools as possible in the preverbial "toolbox" but still didn't see where I would use a stand alone utility if I had access to the Dell Client Manager.

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jenifer.arnold

No Dells, but HPs...

1. We very infrequently make setting changes on deployed units. We make the necessary changes on new units when we image them. But we do keep the BIOS updated. HP BIOS updates are windows based and can be done through DS.

2. Our Helpdesk staff (all two of us) are responsible.

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Jenifer Arnold
Information Technology Division
Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility

acallahan1

We RARELY update BIOS. Our desktop (5) and (1) hardware analyst perform these actions. Now that I have Altiris at my fingertips, and since we are moving to an all HP environment, I would like to update BIOS on at least an annual cycle. I have experienced many situations when hardware starts to respond oddly, and a BIOS update resolves the matter.

jpkishere

As others we update the BIOS regularly as part of our imaging process but vary rarely go back and update existing machines..

I would say that DCCU offers other options that might happen, such as rolling out WOL options or setting asset tags, ownership info, boot order, etc...

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dfrancis

We don't really update the BIOS on machines unless we're troubleshooting an issue, but with Dell Client Manager installed in our Altiris solution, the BIOS settings get standardized automatically on the initial imaging tasks and on whatever default schedule the solution uses.

siocnarf

We are managing our BIOS everytime we are reinstalling a computer. And once a year we are revising the BIOS versions.

chopper18

1) Only to fix certain issues that were addressed in a newer BIOS version, when those certain problems arose. Also, on the master PC before creating images for deployment.
2) Desktop Support Technicians


As an aide, I feel the DCCU could use certain features such as:

- A silent mode that neither reboots the system, nor shuts it down. Rather, it would stage itself on the O.S. for installation upon the next reboot. This would not interrupt clients’ PCs where they have applications open and such.
- Standardization of the BIOS values. I’ve seen where, when I set a global setting such as ‘WakeupOnLANMethod’ – ‘Enable with boot to NIC’ do not set the desired ‘On w/PXE’ setting in all Optiplex models’ BIOSes say, from a Gx150 all the way through a 755. I had to create separate packages with different settings for some models.

As far as the silent mode goes, I tried automating the DCCU using the –noreboot and –nopause switches. They did not work. The PC will invariably reboot itself.

I brought this to the attention of our Dell Engineer contact back in 5/2007 and his reply was:

“The –noreboot and –nopause switches do exist. I have never used those switches before, so I am not able to explain exactly how those switches are intended to work and which systems they apply to. I am trying to get more information and I will let you know what I find out.”

In my opinion, the times when BIOS updates become front-and-center and are needed are times like the CPU LOB problem that prompted me to automate mandatory BIOS updates in the first place:


Affected LOBs (Line of Business):

OptiPlex, Precision, Latitude, Dimension, Inspiron, and PowerEdge Servers


Issue:

·Intel recently discovered a condition with its current generation of dual and quad core processors
·Issue spans across all LOB products that use these processors
·Probability of occurrence is low
·Potential results could include potential for blue screen/kernel panic or data corruption


Fix:


·New microcode that fixes this issue is available from Intel & is incorporated in a new BIOS update for all platforms on 4/10
·Intel & Dell strongly recommend all customers with the affected platforms upgrade their BIOS accordingly
·This update has no performance impact and is a complete solution.
·This update is designated a Class A image impact on ImageWatch i.e. considered mandatory
·Imagewatch will be updated to reflect this change in the next revision refresh


My two cents worth on this oldy but goody,

Mike

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Windows Server 2003 R2 Ent sp2
MS SQL 2005
.NET 1.1, Helpdesk 6 sp5
NS 6.0.6074 sp3+R7
Deployment Solution 6.9.164
All other solutions in Client Management Suite I
3,000 PC nodes

carync

Well I guess Dell doesn't see the need to update the DCCU.

That's unfortunate because I need to update the BIOS for PXE booting on nearly every computer in the college. This is going to require a good amount of manual labor that I would like to avoid.

However we are not currently using the Dell Client Manager or NS. Maybe we will in the future, but our primary needs are for DS functionality. It meets 90% of our needs right now - with an exception being these BIOS updates.

So a new DCCU utility would be great for my purposes, and I would assume for anyone else that's just starting to roll out DS across their college/company. If anyone knows of an alternative I'd like to hear.

carync

Ok, kept searching and searching and finally found the Dell Client Configuration Utility 3.0.

Here's the link for those that are interested:

Drivers and Downloads