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Peter Sheldon
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July 18th, 2005 12:00
Inspiron 9300; SD Card Reader.
Help !!
I have just spoken with technical support in India and I am now totally confused.
My question was, and still is, a simple one.
I have an Inspiron 9300 with an SD card reader, I also own a Kodak Digital camera, an Easyshare 6230, I also possess a NEC e616v video phone. Both the camera and the telephone take standard, over the counter SD cards, both of these cards are 64 Mb.
I would like to know if these cards will fit directly into the the SD card slot on my inspiron 9300, The reason that I ask is that the slot on the Inspiron is twice as wide as the SD card and I don't want to look foolish if the card should be lost within the Inspiron !!.
Technical support at first beleived that I was talking about the PC card slot and when I finally pointed out it was the slot on the R/h side thay had to call me back, I was informed that my 2 year old Kodak camera was state of the art and technically advanced and so my card would not fit in the laptop !!.
I only know of 1 type of SD card so I am confused, I had a look in PC World today and the only cards I could find were the standard SD cards and Compact Flash Cards, So I confused myself even more, even dell's website (UK) only sell the standard SD Cards.
Regards
Peter
651
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Posted July 18th, 2005 13:00
I notice you are using a digital camera. I don't know about your laptop but my recent purchase of the Inspiron 700m surprised me that it doesn't support any SD card above 1GB. Dell has not been forthcoming for months with regard to updating the driver. I have several 2GB SD cards for my camera.651
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Posted July 18th, 2005 18:00
see what type of card will work on your 9300 by clicking the link!
651
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Posted July 18th, 2005 18:00
I didn't see any useful information at the link, unfortunately. All it says is that if your SD card doesn't work it may be either defective or not formatted correctly and try it in another machine. What I don't see is that standard 2GB Secure Digital cards are currently not supported in Dell laptop SD card slots, at the very least the Inspiron 700m. I have called several times and inquiries to various sources were not able to yield any information as to whether Dell plans to release drivers to bring SD card readers in Dell laptops up to date.651
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Posted July 18th, 2005 18:00
I have a 1 gb SD card in my 9300 and have no problems.680
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Posted July 18th, 2005 19:00
The problem occurs whenever you use an SD card above 1GB unfortunately. The Dell laptops that I have used cannot read them. From my research it seems more likely that this is a driver issue than hardware and Dell will have to update their drivers.680
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Posted July 18th, 2005 20:00
I have a 6000 which I believe uses the same Standard Compliant SD Host Controller as the 9300 and according to device manager the driver supplied is provided by Microsoft.
680
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Posted July 18th, 2005 20:00
hmm, if that is the case then this is a Microsoft problem as the drivers for the card reader are provided by Microsoft.395
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Posted July 18th, 2005 20:00
Interesting -- thanks for your detailed posts. I took a look at what is now installed in my laptop at the moment and interestingly enough it says the following:
Texas Instruments PCIxx20 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
Driver Provider: Texas Instruments
Driver Date: 5/16/04
Driver Version: 1.0.2.3
Perhaps they are not the same. I'm curious -- have you tried using a 2GB SD card or have access to one? I'm wondering what would happen if I tried loading another driver such as the one you have installed and seeing whether it will work and recognize the hardware as a "standard" SD device.... Hmmm.... nobody wants to take credit for providing drivers...
680
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Posted July 18th, 2005 20:00
The 2GB SD cards are recognized in any standard card reader and apparently other built-in SD devices. I spoke to a representative at Texas Instruments, the company that manufactures the SD hardware for the Inspiron 700m and I believe several others. They told me that they sell this reader to various manufacturers for inclusion within their products. Each manufacturer -- Dell in my case -- would be responsible for developing the drivers for this specific SD card reader.Thinking about it further, it would be impossible task for Microsoft to "guess" hardware that is produced by the myriad of manufacturers. It would seem that the manufacturer or company that sells the hardware should have the knowledge to create a driver that will allow Windows to recognize that the card reader is installed. Furthermore, Dell has a specific driver for this SD Card that you can download but it hasn't been update since last year.Message Edited by mikewex on 07-18-2005 04:26 PM
Breathless
19 Posts
651
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Posted July 18th, 2005 13:00