Latitude D820 +Virtualization

[Art Fore]

I Purchased as new D820 w/T7600 Core 2 Duo processor and 2 Gig ram 3
weeks ago with the intent of using Xen virtualization under Linux to run
WinXP under Linux. The reason for purchasing this machine was that I had
read many articles on the internet thhat this model had virtualization
capabilities built in. So far, that seems to be false.

I have tried both Suse 10.1, 10.2, and Fedora FC6 both 64-bit and
32-bit. Xen kernel starts fine etc. but installing another operating
system is a no go whether Windows or another linux distribution in the
full virtualization mode. The Linux virtual machine does not even
complete installation in the paravirtualization mode. In all cases, the
installation gets to a certain point, then hangs.

I upgraded the bios from A03 to A04 with no change. I ran the Intel
firmware check program supplied on the Suse 10.2 installation DVD and it
came up with 6 errors in the bios implimentation. Do not have the
knowledge to know if these are the cause of the problem or not. Tried
saving the report to USB disk, but like other things on this machine, it
does not work. I also noted that the one time boot function (F12) is a
hit or miss process. It will go to the CDROM to boot, but then just
hang. Have to reboot and hit the F12 key several times usually to get it
to work.

Tried contacting the Dell Tech support, but here in Taiwan, the chinese
english from the Dell support here is unintelligible. Called tech
support in the states, they could not find the service tag or express
service # on their system, even though I can see it from my account
there and it shows the configuration of the system. When asked about
virtualization, they ask what is virtualization? Does not say much for
Dell tech support. BTW, the virtualization is enabled in the BIOS.

Does anyone have any suggestions or should I just return the machine and
search for one that works with Virtualization?

Art