I found lots of solutions on the internet about various Microsoft hotfixes like kb888111 and kb835221 neither of which made any difference.

The solution which may also work for any modern Latitude E series with Intel Video is as follows.

In my case the “audio device on high definition audio bus” was really Intel HDMI audio and the drivers for this can be found in the same folder as the video drivers that you can download from Dell.

To update the driver  just go to the yellow caution and choose update driver and point it to the HDMI folder of the intel video driver (as pictured below).

I could not find this documented anywhere so I hope it helps.

It gets 4 out of 5.

The E6400 is probably the most popular choice for your average business user and is a direct replacement for the old Latitude D620/D630 range.

My only aversion to the 14.1 inch model is the size I like small computers. That aside the E6400 would be ideal.

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333831,00.asp

In my case the 1.4 Ghz CPU on the Latitude E4200 is apparently causing the delay of up to 35 days.

As you can see above this isn’t just isolated to one machine or product family. Hopefully this will resolve itself soon as this represents a significant percentage of Dell’s Business offerings and must be forcing consumers to consider other options.

It can be difficult to disseminate what the difference is between these two types of storage  technologies available on Dell Laptops.

Both the 32GB and 64GB are available as “Ultra Performance”

While the Larger 128gb is described as “Dell Mobility Solid State Drive”

So what is the difference between the two types?

Over on the Direct 2 Dell Blog they claim this about the Ultra Performance model.

“Our labs benchmarked this drive in a Latitude notebook and saw a 35 percent overall system performance increase over a standard 2.5-inch 5400rpm notebook hard drive using SYSmark ‘07.  That’s even more impressive when you realize that the difference between standard 5400 rpm and performance 7200rpm drives (in the same generation) is 10 percent on average.  And just for fun, we did a shootout between the new SSD and a few desktop drives and, well, let’s just say that the performance gap is becoming a thing of the past.  Preliminary tests showed that this drive outperformed a 10,000 RPM desktop drive in overall system performance!”

Link: Direct 2 Dell SSD

So it seems the larger capacity but less expensive 128gb drive is based on the slightly slower technology.  I could do with some definitive confirmation of this – please use the comments.

It’s a Size Thing

So why not save some money and get the 32gb and utilise other external storage?

That’s all well in good and may be “do-able” for an average user but over the life of the machine I want some future proofing. No one knows for example the footprint size of Windows 7.

This choice between performance and capacity is a hard one for the consumer.

If you have any links or additional information on this topic please use the comments.

Dell have announced on their Direct2Dell blog they will be offering extended warranties for those customers affected by Nvidia GPU issues.

I have previously written about these issues here and here.

From their Post

“Dell will offer a 12-month limited warranty enhancement specific to this issue. For all customers worldwide, we plan to add 12 months of coverage for this issue to the existing limited warranty up to 60 months from the date of purchase.”

The affected Dell models are the:-

Dell Inspiron 1420

Dell Vostro Notebook 1310
Dell Vostro Notebook 1400
Dell Vostro Notebook 1510
Dell Vostro Notebook 1710

Dell Precision M2300

Dell Latitude D630
Dell Latitude D630c

Dell XPS M1330
Dell XPS M1530

Considering Nvida caused this problem Dell are taking a lot of heat for it. So are HP and the other OEMs.

Reading the comments on the current announcement this is still not considered a satisfactory solution by the majority of users. A product recall/replacement is.

Link: Direct2Dell (Comments)

Another Interesting Link on this topic: Link

It was a really smart move not launching their Dell Mini’s yesterday. As it turns out this launch was for their business Laptops only.

These are laptops in the Latitude and Precision family.

The launch event got more coverage than normal because people were interested in the mini.

The good news the overall perception of the revamped Latitudes was very positive and Dell get to put on another show when the mini’s do eventually launch.

I watched the events unfold live and it was fascinating watching all the links appear on the web within moments. The whole event was well organised and the tip of the hat to new media (twitter) was a nice touch.

I feel sorry for Microsoft.

Above is Dell showing off their latest August 2008 hardware designs running a 2001 Microsoft operating system.

Why I care about Latitudes?

The Latitude E Series replaces the Latitude D Series. I supply and support the D-Series and have done so for many years. So the E Series and I are bound to get acquainted. I like everything I see so far.

At 5pm UK time Dell should be knee deep in announcing new products.

Update: No Mini Netbooks in today’s announcement.

If you want to follow the madness in real time try:-

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=dell

On the subject of twitter. Dell have opened a twitter account to solicit questions about these new products.  See: Digital_Nomads

I shall update this post with a summary of the announcements.

First up CNN money have released some shots of the new Dell Latitude re-design.

Latitude Links:

http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/dells-latitude-redesign-photos-14/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10014386-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave

Engadget: Dell announces new Latitude E series

http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/08/dell-outs-ult-1.html

Direct2Dell Blog Contains Video: Link

Latitude Product Page is up (contains some nice video): http://www.dell.com/latitude

Dell Latitude Press Kit: Link

Sounds Bites

“Latitude now comes in various colours including red, blue and even pink”.

“Latitudes with backlit keyboards”.

“Latitudes to have “Latitude On” For instant access

“Dell Claim to have a Latitude Battery that can last > 19 hours on the E6400″.

The smaller E4200 and E4300 will be available in the coming weeks.

E4200

E5400

E6500

Precision Mobile Links:

Link: Dell Mobile Precision Laptops Get an Update

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2327896,00.asp

Sounds Bites

“Precision Mobile now has Quad Core and Terabyte options”.

When companies revamp their product lines they change product names which make it difficult to figure out which new model replaces the old one.

So I made the table below mapping the old to the new.

This comes from some early information and is subject to change/error.

The Latitude product line is due for a refresh very soon. The D-Series family has served me well and is a great choice for a business user.

Visit www.support.dell.com and select "I’m Looking for Drivers and Downloads".

Select your machine type (Laptop / Desktop) Then your family model, then the specific model within that family.

Once you arrive at the main page for your hardware expand the bios section and click the link Dell – Bios

Next Download your Bios file.

Bios files are typically small so should download quickly.

Once downloaded, come out of everything and make sure your laptop is on mains power. Then run the bios file you downloaded.

It will confirm the current bios level and tell you want number it’s going to upgrade too.

The last prompt you will see is this one.

When you click ok your laptop will immediately reboot, it will then perform the bios upgrade on a DOS like white screen and then reboot.

It may take longer than usual to load the Bios the first time it’s run, So leave it. It should only be a moment or so.

Then your laptop will boot windows and the upgrade is complete.

I posted here about the Nvidia mobile graphics cards that Nvidia themselves reported as “failing in the field at higher than normal rates.”

Dell have now announced the list of possibly affected laptops and has issued Bios Upgrades that change the fan profile.

These include the

Inspiron 1420

Latitude D630 and D630c

Precision M2300

Vostro 1310, 1400, 1510 and 1710

XPS M1330 and M1530

What do end users need to do?

Well you basically download and install the Bios update. The change to the fan profile will probably mean the fan’s kick in earlier to keep the system cooler. Step by Step Instructions are here.

Some people have commented (on the direct to dell blog) that this isn’t really an acceptable solution.

Tip1: If you purchased one of the above laptops with only 1 years warranty I would definitely contact Dell and upgrade your existing warranty to 3 years to give you some additional protection. Upgrading the Bios can only do so much.

Tip2: Normally I would recommend installing this immediately but in the comments of the conversations below there have been some people with bios install problems. I would hold off for a couple of days then check for any known problems.

Link: NVIDIA GPU Update for Dell Laptop Owners

Other online Conversations about this topic.

Dell explains NVIDIA GPU issues, throws out BIOS updates to help

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10090995/Replace_All_Faulty_Nvidia_Laptop_GPUs

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx#comments

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=dell+nvidia