Hi,
This may be old news to many here, but if you see a BIOS update, download it directly from Dell and run the update that way.
I haven't had my system for that long, but yesterday I ran the Alienware update and it attempted to update the BIOS but hung for over an hour. Don't reboot if this happens to you. The support tech closed Alienware update then installed the downloaded BIOS update. The update process takes a few minutes and reboots a couple of times, the update applies and you are good.