Need Help Finding D610 Drivers

Question

I am in a testing lab scenario where my company ordered almost a dozen Latitude D610 laptops. As many as 5 or 6 operating systems will be tested against our product using these laptops. I know Dell has not tested these laptops in all the operating systems. However, I find it hard to believe that drivers do not exist somewhere. I've looked for 2 days for drivers for Win98SE and WinME systems. All I found were drivers for the NIC and chipset. At a minimum, I also need video and audio drivers. Can anyone help me find these drivers?

Video - Mobile Intel 82915GM/GMS/910GML Express on Win98SE and WinME

SigmaTel C Major Audio on Win98SE and WinME

Thanks,

Blake

Message Edited by BamaFeva on 09-13-2005 11:05 AM

Message Edited by BamaFeva on 09-13-2005 11:09 AM

Flooby · Answer

@BamaFeva wrote: 'It was certainly not my choice to test with these operating systems. However, the powers that be here like to advertise everything works with everything; so, they tell us to test the product against everything available,'   'Available' is a relative term.  You can't purchase Windows 98 or ME from the hardware supplier (Dell) any more, so in that sense, it's no longer available from the people who built the hardware.  98 and ME are also no longer practical or secure (once again, from a 'state of the art' standpoint), thus the absence of any signifcant level of support for those operating systems.  The 'powers that be' apparently enjoy making their customers believe that anyone in his or her right mind would be trying to run a business on a Win98/ME platform in this day and age, which is at the very least impractical, and at the most, downright foolish.     'So since the D610 was made pretty much after the life cycle of those operating systems, you do not think I will ever find the necessary drivers?'   I don't think you'll find then AT the host of this site.  Have you tried Intel and SigmaTel?

Flooby · Answer

@BamaFeva wrote: However, I find it hard to believe that drivers do not exist somewhere. I've looked for 2 days for drivers for Win98SE and WinME systems. All I found were drivers for the NIC  and chipset. I don't, particularly given the fact that the life cycle for both of those (virtually identical) operating systems was practically anecdotal, at the point at which the D610 was released.  Why on earth would anyone be testing against such obviously extinct (from a state-of-the-art standpoint, anyway) standards?

BamaFeva · Answer

It was certainly not my choice to test with these operating systems. However, the powers that be here like to advertise everything works with everything; so, they tell us to test the product against everything available, no matter how old it is or how few people are using it. On the bright side, at least they didn't include Win95 versions this time :)   So since the D610 was made pretty much after the life cycle of those operating systems, you do not think I will ever find the necessary drivers? I just find it sorta strange that I could find a few of the drivers, but not all of them. The chipset has Win98SE and WinME drivers, but not the graphics even though both are Intel and from the same family. I would have thought SigmaTel would have a generic driver that would work too, but I haven't been able to find it.

BamaFeva · Answer

You are correct in that you cannot purchase those operating systems any longer; however, they remain in households. This product is a consumer product, not a business one. We are using the D610 laptops because we have a contract with Dell for all our PCs, and these are the ones I was allowed to purchase. We are not testing the laptops, but a software program that, from our standpoint, is supported on those operating systems.   I understand that Dell does not support or sell these OSes anymore. I posted on here in hopes someone else had the misfortune of wanting to put 98SE/ME on this laptop and had found drivers. I have looked on Intel and SigmaTel's websites, as well as numerous other driver websites I found with no luck.   My only other option is to use really old Inspiron laptops for 98SE/ME. However, as slow and as much trouble as those old laptops are, I thought I'd try to find the drivers for the nice new fast laptops first.

Flooby · Answer

@BamaFeva wrote: ...however, they remain in households.   Just as they remain in mine, however, I'm not impractical enough to believe that I should expect to find support at either a hardware or software level for operating systems that are, for all practical intents and purposes, unsafe and/or obsolete.  Much like products such as Bon Vivant Vichysoisse soup and the Betamax Video Recorder, common sense tells at least some of us that it's time to look for alternatives these days.  If we don't, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  One might even get away with Windows 3.1, if all one wants to do is play Solitaire and store recipes, but is it a very good idea to try to do much else with this OS?  Most probably not.

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Need Help Finding D610 Drivers

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