Notes for Dell Vostro 3700

[Thomas]

Hi,

I own a Dell Vostro 3700 and found the page http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201001-4961

I miss really some notes there:

- Fingerprint Sensor is not supported
- Freefall Sensor is not supported
- Brightness regulation is not working
- Bluetooth must be switched on in Windows to work in Linux
- The original Wireless Card need the broadcom-sta-source Package which not work really good. (I replaced it with a Intel Card)

Regards,
Thomas

[Ara Pulido (ara)]

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

What version of Ubuntu are you using?

[Thomas (t.c)]

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS Desktop

[Thomas (t.c)]

please remember, that I replaced the wifi card.

[Thomas (t.c)]

there is the lspci information from my old bug report #557847

user@pc:~$ sudo lspci -v -s 12:00.0
12:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell Device 000e
 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
 Memory at fbe00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
 Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
 Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information <?>
 Capabilities: [48] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
 Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
 Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting <?>
 Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel <?>
 Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 17-c4-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX
 Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?>
 Kernel driver in use: wl
 Kernel modules: wl

[Daniel Manrique (roadmr)]

To compare results, here's what I get on our test Vostro 3700:

- Not equipped with fingerprint sensor.
- Unable to confirm on the Bluetooth report, as we don't have Windows, so it might be that our system is not equipped with Bluetooth.
- Unable to confirm on the freefall sensor, no way of testing that.
- Brightness control works fine on our system.
- The card using the broadcom-sta driver appears to work reliably.

This is using Ubuntu 10.04.2.

[Thomas (t.c)]

Fingerprint Sensor is a Validity Sensor (VFS300):

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 138a:0008 DigitalPersona, Inc
Device Descriptor:
  bLength 18
  bDescriptorType 1
  bcdUSB 1.10
  bDeviceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass 16
  bDeviceProtocol 255
  bMaxPacketSize0 8
  idVendor 0x138a DigitalPersona, Inc
  idProduct 0x0008

http://<email address hidden>/msg01431.html

The Bluetooth Module can be found in lsusb

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp. BCM2046B1 USB 2.0 Hub (part of BCM2046 Bluetooth)

[Thomas (t.c)]

- Brightness control works fine on our system.

You use nvidia or nouveau driver?

[Thomas (t.c)]

Thats the details from the Free Fall Sensor

[Thomas (t.c)]

Its a ST Microelectronics (ST Micro Accelerometer)

[Thomas (t.c)]

Any update on the Certification Website?

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

Beyond the Bluetooth, there seems to be two outstanding items:

Fingerprint Reader
Free-fall sensor

We do not currently certify fingerprint readers. That may change in the future, but for now, certification does not extend out that far.

As for the free-fall sensor, as Daniel pointed out, there's no way to test that, aside from maybe shaking the laptop to see what happens. Unfortunately, there's no automatable way to test that right from an OS perspective.

[Thomas (t.c)]

I see that there are no drivers for this sensors (freefall and fingerprint) - so no test needed - just look around... you will find some ppls calling for this drivers...

All what I want is, that somebody write the notes to the given page. Not that so many users think, this laptop is FULL Supported!

I think, thats the meaning of a certification?!

And Bluetooth and Brightness regulation is already a problem, I cant see a resolution?

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

Agreed, but that's not going to happen just yet ;-)

Here's the issue as I see it. Dell shipped us a Vostro 3700 to certify and that system appears to be significantly different from your Vostro. I've also seen a separate issue on Vostro 3700 as well.

So I'm wondering just how many different hardware configurations are being sold as Vostro 3700?

Can you let us know the full model number? Vostro 3700 is fairly generic, there musit be a more specific model number that indicates the hardware makeup...

Thanks for attching the lshw output as well... we appreciate that.

[Thomas (t.c)]

I can give you the service tag (GNK77L1), with it you go to the homepage to download your drivers.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&ServiceTag=GNK77L1&SystemID=VOS_N_3700&os=W732&osl=en&catid=&impid=

Dell sells Notebooks most every time with the same mainboard - different is the notebook mostly in GPU, CPU, Mem, HDD, WIFI and BT

Take a look at this site:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3700/fs

[Thomas (t.c)]

Oh, I forgot the Optical Drive is also sometimes different (you can select to have a BlueRay device)

But the FreeFall Sensor and Fingerprint should be on every model

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3700/pd and than go to "Tech Specs"

[Daniel Manrique (roadmr)]

Hi Thomas,

Looks like the Vostro 3700 comprises a whole line of machines with different (although not too divergent) specs.

There are two 3700s in the certification lab and none of them have fingerprint readers. One of them even has a detailed spec sheet that specifically says "-" on the fingerprint reader field.

So it should be kept in mind that, despite the model number being identical, there might exist slight variations in actual components used.

[Thomas (t.c)]

Ok, but u have read the page* from DELL. There they write that the model has a fingerprint reader. All current models have one.

I think, DELL send you only versions without a reader, because they know that the reader is not supported (so they can fake the certification)

* http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3700/pd and than go to "Tech Specs"

[Thomas (t.c)]

some updates:

New address: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201001-4961:201004-5579

To see what hardware is included visit the follow dell website and enter the service tag there:

http://support.dell.com/support/DPP/Index.aspx?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz&ServiceTag=GNK77L1

so you can check if your system has a build-in Bluetooth module.

The USB Bluetooth Module is also not visible in Windows Device Manager (Also no unclaimed device or something else) when the driver is not installed. First after installing the windows driver it is like somebody attached the device.

On the same position on usb port there comes a device which was not there before.

So after install the driver in windows the device exist also in linux.

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

Old bug and not much we can do with it, really. Closing.