M4400 internal card reader cannot read some SD card

I have a brand new M4400, running W7pro x64. The M4400 came with an internal SD card reader. Now this card reader cannot read some standard SD cards (other work fine). Especially, I have a Transcend SD 4GB 133x (http://www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com/images/products/45/transcend-4gb-133x-speed-sd-card-detail.jpg) that is problematic. When I put the card in the reader, W7 tells me to format the card. This I do not want to do, of course. If I open Disk Management, it takes ages to open, and eventually shows the card as "Unallocated".

Putting the card in a cheap external USB card reader, works fine, no problem. In other devices the card works fine, no problem.

Dell support now simply tells me that they cannot guarantee that the internal card reader can read cards from all manufacturers! I find this startling, to say the least. What's going on here? Dell's high-end business laptops cannot perform work that cheap (€15) USB card readers do with no problem? What kind of lousy electronics do they build into these system?

Any ideas about this anyone? And with "this" I mean two things, 1) how to get the internal card reader to work, and 2) Dell and their defunct electronics and lousy support...

 

I've had no issues with the SD card reader in my E6400 which I think is the same hardware.

Did you download and install the Ricoh driver from the chipset section of the M4400 Win 7-64 downloads? If not, do so.

John

 

Yes, yes... that was Dell supports first question and I had already done so before contacting them. New BIOS and new Ricoh drivers, in fact I re-installed all drivers, but to no avail...

 

If the software side is fine (the card reader should be listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in Device Manager) then it's time to look at the hardware. I once had a problem with a card reader which proved, upon close examination, to be caused by one of the contacts in the card reader being bent out of line. There's a small chance that your problem could be caused by this problem, with manufacturing tolerances resulting in some cards working OK in your reader, and some not. And a contact problem could result in the type of confusing error message that you are getting.

So it's time to find a small flashlight and look carefully inside the slot.

John

 

I took a flash light and peeked into the slot. Couldn't see anything that was obviously out of order... Since Dell themselves mention that they cannot guarantee that it will work with cards from all vendors, I guess they know the problem already, juts don't want to admit it.

As soon as my current work-rush is over, I'll have them replace the mobo, or whatever. The machine came with three years on-site service...

Thanks

PS BTW, also the CD player is dysfunctional. Some commercial CDs it cannot play without lots of crackling, buzzing and noise...