[deanhills]

After a very positive Dell experience with upgrading my BIOS and chipset today, I have to agree with those who insist one shouldn't use a third party for upgrading drivers.  It could be the worst thing you could do for your device.  This weekend following developments in the "beep" thread, I just by accident landed with the Dell Support Assist service and it is brilliant.  I was nervous initially, as my computer doesn't really have problems other than with Windows 7 updates and it is probably slightly slow for its 16GB RAM.  Today I took the plunge and went for the BIOS upgrade directly from Dell, and I immediately noticed a change in the performance of my computer.  Dell has a very good system of when you want to upgrade your drivers, of making recommendations for the exact computer that you purchased.  You need to provide it with your serial number.  It then recommends which drivers you need to upgrade.  I only went for the critical recommended ones, which was my BIOS and Chipset.  I may go for others later.  But the moral of this story is that it makes complete sense that you should only work with the support of the hardware provider and not a third party.  Besides which I'd be nervous as the third party may gain access to the heart of your computer and create serious problems for you.  Maybe even infect it with something.