Computer Guys

Dell, the computer company trying its darnest to re-instate itself
into the minds of the public as a brand that does everything better
for less, has a huge blind spot – its support page.

What should have been a straightforward driver download and
installation turned into a nightmare when, horror of horrors, all the
driver download links on Dell's heavily aspx-ed page turned out dead.

Is it coincidence that aspx sounds like an abbreviated acronym for eXASPerate?

Its a fancy interface that Dell introduces in its information pages as
being more convenient; sure, being able to shortlist the specific
drivers you want and download/email them in a package seems like a
good idea. You know what's an even better idea? Anything that works.

Now of course, you can always find drivers elsewhere on the web.
Which, incidentally, is what i wound up doing after trying the page in
4 different browsers on 2 different operating systems. But it would be
a lot more re-assuring if the drivers came from the company that sold
the stuff in the first place.

Incidentally, Dell used Sigmatel's HD-Audio chips on this mainboard,
which threw all kinds of driver errors on XP's device manager. Or at
least the drivers i got from the other nether regions of the web threw
up these issues.