Dell XPS m1710
A while ago I got myself this fantastic piece of computer hardware. I love it. But I’ll tell you what I don’t love. Proprietary video connectors. 
You see, the xps and alot of other Dell laptops are equipped with a 7-pin mini-DIN connector. Which is fancy enough if you just use a standard 4-pin tv-out cable. The other pins do however magically also output component, composite and (my favorite) SPDIF digital audio.
For some reason the pinouts of this specific connector in the system maintenance manuals of XPS and Inspiron laptops specify four of the pins as the S-Video, and the last three as composite. Where did the component and SPDIF go you might ask, and dell has the answer. By using the dongle you got with your laptop (as specified in the users manual) you can conjure the signals from the mystical connector.
Problem is, the connector was not shipped with laptop and since its proprietary only dell sells the damn thing. So I contact dell sales department. They’ve never even heard of SPDIF, they ship me to Technical support, this guy was a nice fella, although he had no idea the dongle even existed (it’s in the manual!) much less how to find and send me one. After a while I give him a manufacturer # with which he finds the item, only to discover, it doesn’t exist. After kicking his collegues a couple of times he happily and proudly announces that the spare parts department has one of the component/spdif cables I want He kicks me over to them.
By this time I’ve been put on hold for about 20 minutes combined. This was doubled before I got hold of the guy in spare parts. I give him the part #, and he says “Thats the wrong kind of number”, after some time he finally finds a part that is named SPDIF m07 or something. “That’ll be $35″, most of which is shipping. “Oh, and it’s not component, it’s composite and s-video”. So basically what I’m paying for is a cable that provides me with SPDIF, a basic connection that is usually made using either optical or an RCA cable, both of which I have shitloads of.
Oh well, it’s on it’s way, and soon I will be able to listen to my digital audio the way im supposed to. So what have I learned this time, Dell has crappy inhouse communication and notebookforums.com is a goldmine of information. I found most of the good info here. American customers should search for the dongles on ebay and elsewhere, to save money and time. My dell call lasted an hour 
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This is the cable I wanted and this is what I’m sure they’re sending me. Although the specific part # was not revealed.