Strange CF-31 Hotkey & Misc Driver Issue

Okay... There isn't the level of action here as there used to be so someone needs to be asking questions here... lol

I'm building identical CF-31s... On mine I just got the Sierra MC7750 working (thankyouverymuch) and on the one in question here... The original GOBI is still installed. Both machines are CF-31JBGGA3M laptops that are fairly maxed out for what they are.

I have upgraded both to Win10 and have mine working perfectly now. The only thing showing in Device Manager are PCI Serial Port & PCI Data Acquisition & Signal Controller. From what I have read... This is going to stay this way with Win10... I'm okay with that.

So I am now working on the 2nd one for my Brother-In-Law. His was the first one I tried on and was the experiment that I learned from in order to get mine working. I couldn't get his brightness controls working as I did mine... So I nuked it and started over.

When I finished the upgrade yesterday I ended up almost in the same place. I eventually did get it all working as I did mine... All Fn keys work as they should.

Here's the weird thing. There is no Hotkey or Misc driver listed under System Devices. However... There is a new tab showing System Devices for Panasonic PC. Under that there is System Interface Device - 0019 and System Interface Device - 0021. When I look up Driver Details on this one... It shows sid0019.sys and sid0021.sys instead of Hotkey and Misc. I have tried pointing the driver update to the correct drivers but Win10 won't take it... Saying it already has the best driver installed.

Anyone ever see this? Hotkey and Misc being "renamed"...

 

What I ran into was I recovered a 31Mk1 using Windows 7 and the driver bundle. Everything was there but the hotkeys did not function properly. Restore with the Panasonic disc and problem solved. Never saw the renaming,however. Maybe use the factory disc then upgrade to 10 would work?

 

That's the weird thing... Everything works! It's just weird! I don't want to hand the laptop off and find out something else is up...

 

I just recently wiped the hard drive on a CF-31 MK1. Just for kicks, not expecting it to work, I used a generic install DVD made from an ISO created with Microsoft's media creation tool. To my surprise, I did not have to load any Panasonic software at all. Everything worked "out of the box". I did have to wait for it to download the video driver after the basic install, but I did not have to hunt for anything.

This CF-31 has no special stuff in it, except touchscreen, and backlit keyboard (if those are not now standard). No fingerprint reader, WWAN, Webcam, or GPS.

Conclusion: song and dance to do new install (including drivers) with Windows 10 is over, at least for a basic machine.

 

Yes and no.
On a CF31 mk1 you can get away with a generic install. Things get tricky with a mk2 due to the Versapad touchpad. Do the hotkeys work on the CF31 mk1 with a generic install?
You can not do a generic install on a CF19 any mk.
The generic install does not install the Panasonic power management software. I feel this component is very critical in a fully rugged Toughbook. Cooling and battery life are dramatically affected.

 

Now that you mention it Shawn, I did install Panasonic Power Management to get switchable graphics working. I also tried to install Brecal, and PCInfo in compatibility mode, but neither worked so I uninstalled them. (Probably needed Panasonic Common Components, and Panasonic MISC driver). I decided that neither of those utilities were that important to me.

The hotkeys I use work (KB backlight, external monitor, screen brightness, and audio).

But this is still a far cry from installing Windows 7 without a Panasonic Recovery disk.

 

Yup...

battery recal is useless to me. PCinfo is handy

 

Interesting... I knew there was something different about the touchpad! I'll have to dive in more on that.

 

Shawn,

Are you saying that without the power management program under Win10 in my CF-31... The fan won't operate as it should? I didn't even think of that part of the equation...

 

I imagine it will operate, but not as well as Panasonic tested and designed the hardware and software to operate together.
The heating, cooling, power curve of a businessman's Dell is much different than a fully rugged Toughbook.

A few years back there was a brew ha ha between Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft rewrote a portion of the power management control for Intel CPU's.
Microsoft did not trust that Intel knew what they were doing. Intel was correct in what they wanted.
I trust Panasonic and/or Intel plan much more than Microsoft. Panasonic and Intel ENGINEERED the hardware.

 

I wonder what it is in Win10 tht doesn't like the Panny Power Mgt software. I've tried different things to get it to play nice... But it won't work... yet!