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Cant find drivers for wireless card

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by Hypnos, 2007/08/02.

  1. 2007/08/02
    Hypnos

    Hypnos Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi

    I recently bought a new Dell Inspiron 6400 through eBay but am struggling to install the drivers (from the supplied disc) for the wireless card.

    The card shows up in device manager as "network controller" but cant find any drivers on the disc

    Is there a program that can tell me the make/model of my card so I can install the correct drivers? Iv'e tried SIW but it hasnt helped.

    Thanks

    Mark
     
    Hypnos,
    #1
  2. 2007/08/02
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    That laptop has most likely Dell Wireless 1390 or 1490 (Broadcom chipset).
    There are several Dell wireless device drivers available for that model, so try all the Dell Wireless until one actually installs. During the install, if the device that matches the driver is not detected then the installer should quit and inform you that "no device found" or similar message. If none of the Dell wifi drivers work then try the Intel driver.
    Download the drivers from Dell:
    drivers
     
    Last edited: 2007/08/02
    TonyT,
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  4. 2007/08/02
    Hypnos

    Hypnos Inactive Thread Starter

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    The specs said it was a Dell wireless 1390 Wlan card but even installing the driver from the dell website has the same effect, it shows up in device manager as "network controller" but no drivers are installed
     
    Hypnos,
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  5. 2007/08/03
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    The Dell driver installer usually creates a directory in the root of the System partition called "drivers" and another directory inside "drivers" named for the device. Check if there is a setup program in that directory. If not, but there are files there, then go to device manager & select the devive, click on update driver & manually select the driver (.inf) & install it. BTW, you do NOT need any sort of the Dell wifi connection software.
     
    TonyT,
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  6. 2007/08/03
    Scott Smith

    Scott Smith Inactive Alumni

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    Is the "Wired" Network controller showing up in Device manager?
    Video Card?
    A lot of times windows will mis identify a device until the driver is installed. Could be a sound card too.


    Moving this thread to Hardware.
     
    Scott Smith,
    #5
  7. 2007/08/03
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    Hi,
    Use the Service Tag information to tell you the original system configuration:
    http://support.dell.com/support/top...d=33D0DB568FBDA6C9E040A68F5B28743F&l=en&s=bsd

    If there are chipset drivers available, install those first.

    As mentioned, running the file from Dell may just "unwrap" the driver files to a folder (eg. C:\Drivers), you then need to open the folder for the hardware, find instructions (it might be a .html, .txt or .doc file) or run the executable (.exe). I would not expect that you would need to "install" the .inf file, but you can, by right-clicking on it and selecting Install. When you run "update drivers" or use the Add Hardware wizard, you can then use the selection to "...choose the drivers from a list ". Select the type and model and then direct the wizard to the folder where the drivers were "unwrapped" (eg. C:\Drivers\Network Adapter).

    Use Windows Explorer to look at the driver CD. There should be a set of installation instructions.

    As I said, chipset drivers may need to be installed first, before other hardware can be identified correctly.

    Matt
     
    mattman,
    #6
  8. 2007/08/03
    Hypnos

    Hypnos Inactive Thread Starter

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    I tried this and selcted the location of the driver but it cant find it. I also tried as mattman mentioned right clicking the file and installing that way but this didnt work either.

    Yes the wired shows up in device manager and also network connections with the firewire. It cant be the video or sound card as they are allready istalled.

    I've istalled all the drivers in the order as instructed on the driver disc, chipset drivers, video drivers, comms drivers etc.
     
    Hypnos,
    #7
  9. 2007/08/03
    Hypnos

    Hypnos Inactive Thread Starter

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    Woohoo success!

    I decided to take the computer apart to check the model I had was correct and found that its actually an Intel 4965AGN! A quick search in Google found the drivers on the Intel site and now everythings working properly!

    Thanks for your help!

    Mark
     
    Hypnos,
    #8

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