Is there an external program that allows you to adjust BIOS settings? I have a Dell laptop, and installed a BIOS update that enabled Video Palette Snooping, which screwed with my game performance. Unfortunately, Dell doesn't offer much in the way of actually adjusting naything in BIOS, so I'm thinking of using a program so I could change it.

The chipset is an Intel i845, btw.

http://www.miro.pair.com/tweakbios/

This proggy doesn't support i845 chipsets and even if it did, I think the mobo/BIOS would be heaviliy customised for a laptop.

What about flashing back to an older bios?

Bug

Flashing to earlier BIOSes, even the one the laptop shipped with, didn't change the setting.

I'm actually writing an e-mail to Dell regarding this problem. Their dumb tech support tells me to do the usual stuff to improve performance (lower resolution and detail, cut down on background programs, etc.), none of which worked when I tried it.

There are loads of utilities on this Dell FTP-site. Perhaps you care to browse around there with your laptop-model and other info?
http://ftp1.us.dell.com/utility/