Category: Dell

I only have my domain administrator account on a smart card to improve security in my domain, but this is not working as one can expect in Vista. Sometimes, especially when I wake the computer from sleep but also at other times, the credential tile for smart card authentication vanishes as the Smart card service stop working somehow. The only solution to this issue is to reboot the computer unfortunately. After becoming sick and tired of the problem I called Dell from which I got a beta driver. This driver seems to be somewhat more stable but not 100 percent stable. SP1 makes no difference either.

Anyone that has tried to integrate the SigmaTel audio driver that Dell provides for Vista in an install.wim has learned that the sound does not work after deploying that image. The effect is that the device seems to be installed correctly in the Device Manager but looking at the speaker’s icon in the notification area or from the Sound control panel just say ”No audio output device is installed”. This is a known bug in the SigmaTel drivers for all Latitude computers utilizing the SigmaTel audio chip, meaning all laptops from Latitude D610, D620 to D630 and all D4xx and D8xx versions as well are affected by the problem . Dell has given me a beta driver dated late July this year but they seem unwilling to give this to the public or to release a new stable driver. I suggest that anyone that experience this problem contact Dell and demand they release a new audio driver for SigmaTel audio cards as soon as possible. The driver  package number is R164710.