Media remote control for M17x?

I'm soon to get my M17x and I'm wondering is there any remote control included with the M17x?

Is there an infra red pickup for remotes?

And will the PCMCIA remote bundles with the 1730 work with the M17x?

 

No supplied remote.

The remote I had from my XPS M1730 TV Tuner works fine (IR Ch. 6). The ExpressCard Remote shipped with most M1730's will not work with it (I tried - lol).

The IR Receiver is located in the front of the unit next to the left speaker behind the plastic.

 

That's where I was heading. Ha ha!

Oh well I'll just have to see how my old media centre remote goes.

 

BatBoy, first let me thank you immensely for your great blog on the m1730, it's truly been a HUGE time saver in locating the latest and greatest drivers. Thank you! The only two things that aren't working 100% are the camera and the built in lights. The camera works but for some reason the Dell suite doesn't pick it up, 'no supported webcam driver detected', again it does actually work in WLM and the DevMan shows it enumerated, not sure what' going on.
Also, I have all the built-in lights turned off but sporadically the lights on the trackpad and speakers turn on when I open/interface with iTunes. It doesn't happen all the time, I can go weeks with no lights and then all of a sudden I play a song or open itunes and play a song and they turn on.

Sorry for digressing , on to my point.

Speaking of IR remotes does anyone know how I could substitute the integrated m1730 travel remote with the Microsoft Media Center Remote (see picture below)?
http://www.letsautomate.com/11992.cfm

I don't have the included transceiver so that's not an option at the moment, and if possible I would REALLY prefer not to add another external peripheral to clutter things up. Not to mention that the OEM Remote is so much feature rich/sturdy.

Any ideas? I've searched Online several times but haven't found a lead yet. I thought it would be as easy as looking in the Device Manager and modifying/hacking the driver for the IR device but it's not listed.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

I use remote control from HP TX-2 1010 laptop

 

@Reallytangy

Still waiting on my m17x but I'm in the same boat. I've got the same old oem remote so it would be great to get it to work.

 

Anyone know whether the Dell Premium Remote can be made to work with the M17x

 

yeh, my room mate and i just found out last night that the remotes for his HP can control my laptop.. he has both the little media center remote and the remote for his tv tuner and they both can control my rig..

 

I see that the TX-2-1010's remote is essentially the same as the m1730's travel remote. It's pretty cool that you can use it to control the m1730 but unfortunately it too is no where near as robust as the OEM MSFT Remote. Granted, as a travel remote the integrated one is pretty cool but for a dedicated MCE 7 setup it's severely lacking.

@ Borbital

@Zaden722

Do either of you guys see a IR device (or similar) enumerated in your Device Manager?

If you do could you guys post under what category it's listed and what driver it's using?

I recall sometime ago someone mentioning that if they installed XP on the M2010 they could see the IR device but if they installed Vista it didn't show up in the DevMan but it still worked.

I'm curious, maybe if I was to run XP or 2000 on the m1730 the DevMan would show a tell tale sign of the IR device since those OS's display things differently.

 

@zaden722

Could you post a model number for the HP remote that your roommate uses for his TV Tunner. Do you know if the remote is a Windows Media Center Remote?

 

The IR Receiver is located to the right of the left speaker (behind the nice shiny plastic)

The driver is written/coded by ITE Tech. The Consumer IR Receiver function is handled by this chipset.

The current driver (as posted by Dell) is:
v5.0.4.7 A00 (for V64) and v5.1.0.1 A00 (W7), Last Updated: 10/14/2009

The Remote I am using came from my XPS M1710 era Haupage TV Tuner/MediaCenter kit (I no longer use the tuner - just not needed and its way out of date). The remote works with the M17x onboard IR Receiver and it is not necessary to use an external receiver. The remote's IR Channel is RC6.

When I researched it previously, I could find no way of changing the onboard Receiver to a specific channel. This was why I did not opt for the Dell XpressCard Travel Remote. As long as you are able to confirm IR Channel 6 on your remote, it should work (I think)

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks Bat, unfortunately I'm looking to get the OEM MSFT remote working on a m1730 instead of the M17x. I appreciate the info you provided from the M17x, however I don't see any similar device enumerated on my m1730.

Has anyone had any success in controlling the m1730 with a OEM MSFT Remote (or a similar 'feature rich' remote) via the integrated IR port (not using an external USB IR transceiver)?

BTW, here's an interesting piece of information...

I managed to locate in my garage a 'MSFT eHome Infrared Transceiver', AKA the receiver that the OEM MSFT Remote ships with ( http://img5.abload.de/img/irnv8u.jpg) and as expected it works with the OEM MSFT Remote.

Furthermore I can confirm that I can control the m1730 with the Dell Travel Remote EVEN if I explicitly cover up the IR on the laptop and point it at the eHome IR Transceiver. However, the inverse does not hold true, I can not use the OEM MSFT Remote to control the m1730 via the integrated IR port. Also, as a test I've 'learned' some of the commands from the OEM MSFT Remote to my UC MX-500 and it works with the eHome IR Transceiver but not the m1730's integrated IR transceiver! Damn!

BTW, the back of the OEM MSFT Remote reads 'RC6 IR'

Any ideas?

 

Might want to post this in the M1730 Owner's Lounge

 

Got it, will do.

Sorry for diverting the thread .

 

not an issue - was just under the impression you were trying to figure out the M17x.

 

BTW Bat, I got the m1730's Integrated Webcam to be recognized within the Dell Webcam Center. It turns out that I had to download the 'Creative Technology Ltd. - Streaming Media and Broadcast' driver from Windows Update.

I know you've moved onto an M17x but perhaps this will help someone else .

 

I actually got the Expresscard remote working fine..I love it, especially since you can just put it in the express card slot for storage.

It took me a while to find drivers that would work for the IR receiver (for some reason the ones on the dell site didn't work) but I did eventually find some, so if you want me to upload them I can. Using Win7 x64.

 

Wow. Thats great. Can you just link to the site with the driver or post which driver it is? Can always google it. I may just order that Travel Remote now. Very nice!

 

I would link but I can't remember where I got it, I found it a while back and just saved it...sorry.

 

Well, if you can upload it to mediafire or another host, I'd love to look at it. Thanks in advance!

 

Ok, I'll upload it later on, its on my external and I'm not at my desk.

 

Not an issue - thanks again for the assist.

 

Hey, not really familiar with file uploads so here is what I think the link to my uploaded file is. Let me know if it isn't.

Link.

 

tried the file which did install an driver for an HID control but was not successful in allowing me to use the min remote from my old dell xps1530
thanks for the effort thought!

 

Which remote is it? Works like a charm for my Expresscard remote..

EDIT: Which media player are you using? I am using Windows Media Player

 

ITE IT8512 CIR Receiver with this driver http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R196531&SystemID=STUDIO1737&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=17446&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=17&fileid=271594
did install and has got my mini-card remote from the xps 1530 to work!

 

Weird, I tried that driver before I believe and it didn't work for me..maybe we have different IR receivers... we do have different laptops.

I could be wrong though, I just remember trying that driver, it could have worked..like I said, it was a while ago. Regardless, nice find.

 

well hopefully between us we have given others a driver that will work for them too

 

That would be good .

 

Thanks for sharing this. I have to order the travel remote and give this a go. Rep'd. Thanks again!

 

No problem! Glad I could help.

 

You could always get: http://www.newtonperipherals.com/mogo_mouseX54.html

Which doubles as a mouse AND a media remote. It lacks a numpad for input, but has play/pause, next, previous, vol up and down, and mute.

It stores/charges in your expresscard slot and runs off of bluetooth, not IR, which is better imo.

 

I use a VP6600. It's a bluetooth remote, and it fits in an expresscard slot.