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New Box Blues

Steve Hogan

All Brand New and Ready to Roll

Yep, when I plunk down $500.00 to $1200.00 or more, I'd like to think I'm getting the latest and greatest. We all know electronics become outdated faster than potato salad at a Texas picnic, but I would at least expect to get the darned thing out of the box before having to update it. Our recent comparisons found just the opposite.

How many of us have bought new computers, spent an hour or two removing rucksacks full of adware and trial programs, only to find that the original equipment needs driver updates before being ready to roll. I'm not talking about home built units or motherboards only. I'm talking in the box, operating system installed, complete with factory guarantee, brand name computers.

To find out how up-to-date "new computers" really are, we gathered these suspects: HP desktop and laptop, Gateway desktop and laptop, Dell desktop and laptop, Acer laptop, and E machine desktop.

All computers arrived with Vista Home Premium installed with the exception of the desktop E Machine. It came with Windows XP Home. While in line buying the E machine, the gentleman in front of me was also buying one. Reports of "Vista Blues" had convenienced him to stick with XP on his current purchase.

The testing procedure was simple and straightforward. The test computers were unboxed, plugged in, and booted without any changes or tweaks. Internet connections were attached before power was supplied.None of the settings were changed in spite of prompting by Windows, Norton, and other freeloaders. The only non-factory program installed was PC Pitstop DriverAlert.

My hope was that at least one of the test boxes would come with all drivers up-to-date and show me the Pitstop Checkered Flags on the very first run of DriverAlert. I didn't get that result but the results I did get were surprising in a lot of ways.

Not one computer passed the DriverAlert scan. The results showed from one driver update to as many as 5 driver updates needed. Even more telling was the age of the out-of-date drivers.

The winner of the "Most Out Of Date" award goes to Gateway. Their out dated drivers were the most out of date, with an average of 7 months. The E machine had the single oldest out-of-date driver with one that was over a year old. Since E machine is owned by Gateway and the Pitstop Test actually shows it as a Gateway, the win adds to the leaders column.

Computer Model	Driver(s) Needed	Avg. Driver Age
Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop	1 NIC	3 months
Emachine(Gateway)	2 Vid/Aud	7 months
HP Desktop Slimline	2 NIC/Audio	3 months
HP Laptop DV6500	2 80211/MCP	4 months
Dell 531S Desktop	3 NIC/Audio/Vid	6 months
Gateway Desktop GT56554	3 NIC/Audio/Vid	7 months
Gateway Laptop	3 NIC/Audio/Chipset	7 months
Acer 5315 Laptop	(5) 2 NIC/1 Audio/2 Chipset	4 months

I expected most of the outdated drivers would be for Internet and Audio devices because of the previous October test figures. These results also go along with what I saw during the laptop comparison exposing wasted drive space, slow boot times, and crippling junk programs.

Although newest isn't always the best with drivers, some models were in dire need of some help. The Acer in particular needed updating. DriverAlert found 5 devices with drivers that were out of date and since one of the drivers needed was the chipset driver, I would consider it a major update. Also it was a good 5 months out of date.

I wonder how these results change from month to month and how much this impacts the buyers of these units. I'm not a big fan of updating for no reason, but certainly some of these updates were needed. On computers that have been in use for a couple of years there could easily be as many as 20 outdated drivers on a single machine.

Another major point of interest was the operation of the DriverAlert Home program. All program installations went smoothly and without a hitch. In total there were 21 drivers needed between the 8 computers. All 21 installed easily and in short order. Considering there wasn't one computer received with completely up-to-date drivers it's nice to know there's a way to update quickly and without a hitch.

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duanester: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:52:18 GMT)

most common problems i have noticed ! many update before removing the old driver, now this isn't mentioned anywhere, i have had major problems mainly when i knew nothing about pc's.

its like ati, they have a driver cleaner, i am sure many of you know this, but still many are informed with said "update drivers" i never just update, i clean out the crap first, it eliminates potential conflicts within windows.

even if there are cleaners out there in reality its better that something like that is done manually

shogan191: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:14:11 GMT)

Thanks, dark.

dlsayremn: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:06:35 GMT)

Running (HP) Compag Presario SX2180NX Vista32 Home Premium with Intel 82945G chipset. Not at all surprised by results. Also. newer is not better.
HP Support still has their 09/30/2007 update (08/24/2007 Intel Update) which I got from MS 09/15/2007. If they are still using this chipset and driver combination any thing built today is already 6 months out of date.
Intel has had two updates since then. Driver Alert showed both. Could not get either because my computer is not authorized (never had that problem before) for downlod from Intel.
MS had released an update in January (Intel November update), but it causes problems with my system. Video output is out of range.

dark41: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:22:45 GMT)

Can't say I'm surprised at the results. As a system builder, the components we get have outdated drivers upon delivery to us (vid cards mostly). I'm sure every system builder has the same problem. Even if they update immediately (like we do), it's likely that by the time a consumer buys the PC from a major manufactuer the drivers are again outdated. We're custom and build to order, so once updated the systems are usually good for a couple of weeks and well after our customers get the systems.

What surprises me more is the amount of customers who, even after instructed on how to do updates for drivers, anti-virus/anti-spyware definitions/windows etc., still don't do them at all. Then they expect to have us remove their viruses under warranty a year or 2 later. Er.. right.

Windows updates is another story. We try to stay on top of most updates and copy them to a batch file on CD for easy installation. But with the amount and frequency of updates, it's hard to stay up on top of it all. I've found it best to update via our CD (updated about every 3 months or so) and then do the rest via the internet.

Anyway, a good read.

shogan191: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:09:57 GMT)

Sorry, didn't think that was the one.

Thanks.

Bruce: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:22:49 GMT)

QUOTE

Bruce, have you got a pit test on this computer. I'm interested in seeing the specs. Doesn't sound like you had a very good experience wth DriverAlert. When was this?

Umm yep I have a test for it. There was a tech express link right in the very post you quoted.

shogan191: New Box Blues (Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:50:37 GMT)

QUOTE(Bruce @ 9:52am Wed Feb 6 2008) [snapback]1469936[/snapback]

Your software didn't offer a driver at all Rob unless I paid for it. I simply won't pay for what is freely available. That said I downloaded the Sigmatel driver your software said was out of date, it was incompatible with my system. It didn't work. Then uninstalling it put the Microsoft driver in place which was very old, however your software said that was a good driver, thumbs up and gave me a checkered flag.

The driver Microsoft installed didn't work with the advanced audio utilities and was a very basic driver.

The only driver that worked and with full functionality and worked with the advanced features of the sound device was the latest one from Intel's web site, however your software refused to recognize it as the latest driver for my hardware.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_res...mp;submit=Go%21

Your software simply repeatedly told me that was too old.

The only way to get checkered flags with driver alert and pcpitstop tests was to use the clunky Microsoft driver that removed most functionality from the device. I assume it ended up getting a checkered flags because that driver removes the sigmatel signature.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=0TNJSWSB3SGSUEZG

Bruce, have you got a pit test on this computer. I'm interested in seeing the specs. Doesn't sound like you had a very good experience wth DriverAlert. When was this?

IanG: New Box Blues (Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:21:39 GMT)

14 days return policy...

Someone (PcPitstop) is still paying a 15% restocking fee....

Bruce: New Box Blues (Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:52:53 GMT)

QUOTE(chengrob @ 4:47pm Tue Feb 5 2008) [snapback]1469689[/snapback]

First answer. We return the computers under the manufacturer's warranty. Man, on the bloatware one, we didn't get them all back before the 14 day windows, so we had a few extra PCs.

Bruce,

I agree with you. It was not my expectation that the drivers would be up to date. In fact the opposite. We did this experiment for the following reasons:

1. To draw attention to the fact that drivers need to be updated frequently (in some cases).
2. To better understand the variance between manufacturers. A system made in the US (Dell) theoretically ought to have more up to date drivers than a off shore brand that has been sitting at Best Buy for 6 months.
3. I was also curious to see the difference between desktops and portables.

Lastly, it does not make sense that we would offer an older driver over a newer one. I wrote the code, so you must be running into a strange bug. If you can provide some information, like the conID or your driver Alert log in (via PM), I'll look into it.

badbinary: New Box Blues (Wed, 06 Feb 2008 04:04:30 GMT)

it's 90 days now.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/announcements/c...orse-239924.php

shogan191: New Box Blues (Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:33:47 GMT)

That's not far off Porthos.

Bruce, the accuracy of the DriverAlert Program is what I paid attention to more than the Pit Test. I was impressed with the accuracy of the drivers being suggested by the program. If it had been suggesting older drivers or the wrong drivers then there would have been install problems. I found just the opposite.

If anything it convinced me that keeping a closer eye on my drivers might be a good idea. Normally, because of overclocking, I just watch the video drivers. I'm a firm believer in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" axiom but this made changes so easy that in the furture I'll keep a closer eye on chipset and NIC drivers.

Ax, I heard that a while back but more recently I heard they changed that policy. I'll have to google it.

PORTHOS: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:40:09 GMT)

QUOTE

The Acer in particular needed updating. DriverAlert found 5 devices with drivers that were out of date and since one of the drivers needed was the chipset driver, I would consider it a major update. Also it was a good 5 months out of date

And then Vista wanted reactivation

Ax Slinger: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:21:31 GMT)

QUOTE(chengrob @ 1:47pm Tue Feb 5 2008) [snapback]1469689[/snapback]

We return the computers under the manufacturer's warranty. Man, on the bloatware one, we didn't get them all back before the 14 day windows, so we had a few extra PCs.

14 days? You should be shopping at Costco, Rob. They have a six months no questions asked return policy for new computers. All you need to say is that you were not satisfied with the product and they will give you a 100% refund.

chengrob: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:47:48 GMT)

Bruce: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:25:14 GMT)

With drivers being released on just about a monthly basis and sometimes more often, how in the world is a computer sitting in a box in a warehouse supposed to be updated?

Seems like an unrealistic and silly expectation.

Not to mention, the simple fact that the latest driver isn't always the best driver.

then there is the problem of PC Pitstops test not being very accurate.

I recently set up a Vista machine and installed the latest audio driver for my motherboard from the manufacturers web site.

PC Pitstop insisted I did not have the latest driver for my hardware, so I uninstalled the driver, rebooted, and when windows booted up it installed a 2 year old microsoft driver.

I then tested at the pit again and I got a checkered flag.

Apparently the 2 year old Microsoft default driver was newer then the 3 week old driver I got from Intel.

Needless to say, I usually tell people if you are not experiencing problems with any of your hardware, then leave the drivers alone.

If it ain't broke don't fix/break it.

KrazyKooter: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:19:59 GMT)

I'm curious to see if any Gateway employees show up here and complain that this article has cost jobs there...

badbinary: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:14:18 GMT)

what do you do with these systems? just curious.

cmunson: New Box Blues (Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:15:34 GMT)

To find out how up-to-date "new computers" really are ... we purchased 8 systems and documented the results:

http://www.pcpitstop.com/news/newboxblues.asp

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New Box Blues