Hi Dan
After some application compatibility issues I also decided to go down the XP route.
Dell provide some XP drivers for the 1521 but for some reason not all. Fortunately the Lattitude business models share a lot of the same hardware and have more extensive XP support.
The following are available from the Dell Drivers & Downloads section for the Inspiron 1521 running Windows XP:
Chipset:
Ricoh - Driver
Applies to:
R5C833
(R141246.exe - for SD/MMC card reader)
Communication:
Conexant - Application
Applies to:
D330,HDA,MDC,v.92,modem
(R148605.exe - Digital line detection - warns you if you connect to a digital switchboard. Useful if you travel but not vital for home use. For driver see below)
Mouse & Keyboards:
Dell - Driver
Applies to:
Touchpad / Pointing Stick
(R155586.exe)
Network:
Broadcom - Driver
Applies to:
440x 10/100 Integrated Controller
(R149798.exe)
Dell - Driver
Applies to:
Wireless 1395 WLAN MiniCard
Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card
Wireless 1490 Dual-Band WLAN MiniCard
Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard
(R174291.exe)
You can find the remaining drivers in the download list for the Lattitude D531:
Audio:
SIGMATEL - Driver
Applies to:
STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio
(R171789.exe)
Chipset:
AMD - Driver
Applies to:
Processor Driver
(R135384.exe - Support for AMD PowerNow! and Cool’n’Quiet)
ATI - Driver
Applies to:
SMBus / Chipset Driver
(R134875.exe)
Communication:
Conexant - Driver
Applies to:
D330,HDA,MDC,v.92,modem
(R147115.exe - This is the actual driver for the modem)
Video:
AMD - Driver
Applies to:
Radeon Xpress 1270
(R163694.exe - This complained that .Net was not installed when I first tried so I suggest installing everything else first and running Windows Update to get all the .Net 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 updates before running this)
I have not used the modem or card reader but the drivers installed without complaint and appear correctly in the Device Manager list. I have tested everything else and it works perfectly!
Hope this helps.
