Intel’s production graphics driver for the 945GM chipset on Windows Vista has some bugs. I thought I should report this to Intel. Trouble is, you can’t. At least, the “Contact support” options here don’t tell you how, not unless you are signed up as an Intel reseller or partner. Nor does the general contact information page give any clues. Intel would like my pre-sales questions, or my website feedback, or any number of non-technical enquiries, but bugs? Forget it.
Can it really be that Intel gives you no way to report a bug? I dialed the support number. Note: I am now paying for this call. I explained to the support person that I wanted to report a bug in the Vista driver for the 945GM chipset. He said he was sorry, but the support line was only for Intel boxed product. Even though I had downloaded the driver from Intel’s site, my bug report should go to Toshiba.
Clearly I could report it to Toshiba – perhaps I will – but will the feedback ever thread its way back to Intel? Who knows.
By the way, I get the same bug with the slightly older driver on offer on Toshiba’s site for this laptop. Further, the same hardware is stable in Windows XP, which suggests that the problem lies with Intel’s driver, or conceivably in Vista, rather than than in the hardware.
Bottom line: there is no way for an end user to report a bug to Intel. I think that’s silly.
Update
Toshiba won’t accept the bug report either. Reason: the driver was downloaded from Intel’s site. Nor will they accept the bug report on the older driver downloaded from Toshiba. Reason: it is a US site and my machine is UK. Maybe if I would care to wait until I can download the same driver from the UK site, it might take some interest. Frustrating.
Further update
Ah, there is a way (sort-of). You go to this page, and complete the form. The only link I can find to the form is via the form for website feedback. So you complete the form, and the bot emails you a bunch of links to articles. At the bottom of the email is an “escalate” button which claims to “escalate your question to a technical support representative.” I’ll keep you posted…
This is why people buy Apple 🙂
Regards,
Rob..
(and no, I don’t have a Mac!)
Tim,
Please allow me to apologize for the problems you experienced trying to report your issue to Intel. Let me assure you that we value all feedback on our products. You can always reach Intel support through email by selecting the “Contact Us” link from any Intel web page, then selecting “Contact Technical Support by Phone or email,” “Additional Support Services,” and “Email support” Once submitted, you can expect a reply from one of our support technicans within 24 hours.
At this time, we have no other reports of problems with the 945GM chipset on Windows Vista like the one that you mentioned, but one of our representatives will be contacing you shortly to gather additional information and attempt to replicate the issue.
We strive to provide quality support to all of our customers and I hope that should you need help with an Intel product in the future, you’ll let us prove that to you.
Thank you,
Ron Raymond
Intel Customer Support Manager
Ron,
First, I appreciate your comment; and as I noted in the update, I did find a way to report the problem.
I do think the web site could be more helpful. Why isn’t “Email technical support” a direct link from the “Contact us” page? As it is, you go to a second page which offers:
– Channel support
– Software partner program support
– Additional support services
– How to buy
As you say, “Additional support services” is the correct choice; but it is described as:
“Learn more about available support services and contact options”
That sounds to me like an invitation to buy support, or possibly an article about support services, not an email link.
Even then, you get a web form with only one line for “a short description of your problem or question”. Intel is not making this easy.
One final comment: I spoke to a Toshiba service provider who is seeing exactly the same issue on their test machine so I don’t think this is an isolated problem, though at this stage I can’t be 100% sure it is a bug in the Intel driver itself.
Tim
Tim:
Did you ever receive a fix for the driver? I read your other blogs and am just as frustrated as everyone else with the Vista upgrade I did on my Toshiba. Everything but gaming works fine.
Thanks,
-Kevin
Kevin,
Yes, Intel has updated the driver and it is an improvement. I still have some resume problems but the video driver isn’t necessarily to blame for those. Games are better.
Download from Intel’s site.
Tim