I have a Dell Latitude XT2, which includes the Mobile Intel GM45 Chipset (and the Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD). On occasion I’ve experienced display corruptions issues that  working with the laptop somewhat difficult.

Here’s an example with Calculator, but picture this across the whole screen:

This has persisted between BIOS and firmware upgrades and display driver versions (even when using the latest display driver- Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family driver version 8.15.10.2119) so there currently appears to be no fix.

The workaround at the moment, is to disable Enable VT for Direct IO (or VT-d. To do this on the XT2 (and I presume other Dell models), go into the BIOS setup and remove the tick from the following checkbox:

• Virtualization Support  / VT for Direct IO / Enable VT for Direct IO

Display corruption with Mobile Intel GM45 Chipset is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2005-2010 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

I’ve been looking to get a tablet PC for some time now and I’ve just recently picked up a Dell Latitude XT2, which includes multi-touch support. It arrived the same day as the Windows 7 Release Candidate, so the default Windows Vista install, disappeared pretty quickly.

I must say though, it’s a little disappointing to see the amount of packaging the laptop was shipped in compared to what you’re actually left with. Here’s a couple of photos to give you an idea of the packaging – here’s what’s in the box, and here’s the wasted space inside the accessories box. Surely Dell could do better in the packaging department.

Hardware

My main aims for this machine is to go with something in an ultra-portable form-factor for good battery life and prability and the tablet PC screen for reading. Here’s the hardware:

• Mobile Intel 45 Express Chipset with Intel vPro
• ULV Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 (1.4Ghz, 800Mhz FSB, 3MB cache)
• 3GB DDR3 1067Mhz RAM
• 64GB Samsung RBX series SSD
• 6 cell battery
• Intel 5300 WiFi card
• Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth module
• Dell Wireless 5530 3G/HSDPA module
• Broadcom fingerprint sensor
• Broadcom TPM 1.2

Windows 7 (x86) installed from a USB memory stick in a little under 10 minutes and the laptop has a not too shabby performance rating – I’m pretty pleased that the hard disk gets a rating of 6.7:

Drivers & Software

Windows Update offered the following updates:

• Driver for Mobile Intel 45 Express Chipset family (beta WDDM 1.1 display drivers)
• Dell Tablet PC key buttons

There were a few drivers and updates that I’ve had to download. Keeping to the absolute minimum, I installed the following:

Broadcom USH CV w/ Fingerprint Swipe Sensor. This was marked as an unknown device named 5880 in Device Manager. Download the ControlPoint Security Manager driver for this device.

Dell Wireless 5530 HSPA Mobile Broadband Minicard Device. Dell Wireless 5530 broadband package is a part of the ControlPoint Connection Manager. I’ve avoided the Connection Manager itself and have installed just the driver package.

Windows 7 will enable touch input for the display by default; however the N-trig DuoSense Multi-Touch package for Windows 7 (information page here) beta drivers are required for multi-touch input. The beta driver package ran a firmware upgrade on my screen – oddly enough only after several installs (I’ve reinstalled Windows a few times while checking the drivers).

Until you install the beta drivers, an unknown device will be shown in Device Manager. Once installed, multi-touch is enabled:

After loading the driver for the screen, calibration is required to improve accuracy. Whilst pen input appears to be fairly accurate out of the box, touch input improves with calibration.

Two devices, listed as PCI Serial Port and PCI Simple Communications Controller, are the Intel AMT SOL and the Intel AMT HECI respectively.

The Dell ControlPoint System Manager is required for various functions including managing the screen orientation, the ambient light sensor, additional power settings, keyboard hot keys and

Dell ControlPoint

The ControlPoint software encompasses a number of modules – System Manager (control of the tablet and display & other devices), Security Manager (manages the TPM, fingerprint sensor and other security functions) and Connection Manager (controls wireless LAN and broadband functions). As is usual for most of this type of software, it contains many components that mimic functionality already built into Windows Vista and 7, making the software largley redundant.

Why manufactures continue to include second rate alternatives to the far more elegant tools in the OS, I can’t quite fathom. Perhaps they’re worried you’ll forget what brand of machine you’ve bought and want every possible opportunity to shove their logo in your face – user experience be damned..

Fingerprint Sensor

Setting up and configuring the fingerprint sensor appears to be a little convoluted. I’m not sure why Windows hasn’t enabled functionality on the logon screen with just the driver installed, maybe I’ve missed something. I am keen to stay away from the bloated Dell ControlPoint Security Manager, so I’ll have to do without the sensor for identification/authentication.

Bluetooth Module

To get the bluetooth module working, I’ve had to install the Widcomm bluetooth software – I was unable to load just the driver. This bluetooth stack includes some extras that I really don’t need such as Office integration and the ability to share files over bluetooth.

Windows Virtual PC

Windows Virtual PC works just as you would expect; however to get it up and running you will need to disable VT for Direct I/O and Trusted Execution (not to be confused with DEP) in the BIOS.

Usage

Windows 7 runs very well on this laptop. There’s not really much that you can say about performance – it’s quick (even with the low voltage CPU) and does exactly what I need it to do.

Switching from pen to touch input is very quick and responsive. The digitizer does have an issue that appears to be caused by the beta drivers – an intermittent phantom touch or pen input is received, usually on the right-hand side of the screen. This does go away eventually, but reappears regularly after resume or boot.

The pen is great for writing input (obviously), but also more pinpoint accuracy than you would get with a finger. Using touch input however, is great for scrolling through documents in Word or a web browser. Internet Explorer does a better job of being controlled by pen or touch than does Chrome or Firefox. You can use touch input to move the page up and down directly, whereas the other browsers can only be controlled with flicks (which will page up/page down).

FeedDemon works well with both touch and pen input; however it would be nice to be able to make the FeedDemon UI a little larger to better accommodate touch input. Thankfully I’ve got skinny fingers so it’s workable.

Being able to control the computer with touch input is very convenient, especially when you are reading documents or RSS feeds. Whether touch is just a bit of a gimmick or a valid method of input a little more usage will reveal, but it certaintly is convenient.

Windows 7 on a Dell Latitiude XT2 is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2005-2010 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

I’ve just purchased a new SATA-based external hard drive to use with demos and I thought I would share some details about the performance gain over my older ATA-based hard disk.

I’ve been doing a few demonstrations of Microsoft SoftGrid using VMware Workstation on my laptop with an external USB attached hard drive and I’ve also got a couple of user group presentations coming up. So I wanted to squeeze some better disk performance out of this setup because every second counts during demos.

Before I read Mark’s post about USB attached hard drive performance in his notebook, I was hoping to add a second internal hard drive to my Dell laptop, but unfortunately Dell doesn’t provide a media bay type disk enclosure for this model. I was looking into using Firewire until I considered eSATA. I found this review of the Belkin SATA ExpressCard very useful when looking at what I might expect from eSATA.

Here’s what I ended up ordering:

• Seagate Momentus 7200.2 200GB SATA 300 7200RPM 16MB 2.5"
• Akasa Integral 2.5"  IDE/SATA External Enclosure
• Belkin SATA II ExpressCard

To power this drive I have to connect the included USB power lead. I’m not sure if I used a better quality eSATA cable that it would provide enough power, but carrying the extra cable is not too much of a hassle. I’ve performed these tests on my laptop which has the following hardware:

• Dell Vostro 1400
• Intel Core 2 Duo (2.2GHz, 4MB Cache)
• 4GB RAM
• Windows Vista x64

To test the performance of my disk setup, I’ve used HD Tune because they offer a free version and it’s easy to use. I tested the performance of my original hard disk (Seagate Momentus 5400.3 80GB ATA/100 5400RPM 16MB 2.5") connected to this laptop via USB. The result stays consistent right up until the end of the test:

When I performed the same test on a desktop machine the throughput was about 5MBps higher and was consistent to 100%. This is the performance of the new hard disk over a USB connection:

And the performance of the same hard disk over an eSATA connection using the Belkin ExpressCard:

Overall I’m pretty happy with the performance of the new disk. It more than doubles the performance of my older disk yet still in a portable package and my VMs feel much much snappier.

Comparing eSATA To USB For External Drives is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2005-2010 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.