Problem with Windows XP "product activation" and other problem

any help appreciated

ok *deep breath*, First i'd like to say forgive me if this is in the wrong section, i'm not too sure. OK I have a dell latitude d610 laptop with windows xp professional  that was given to me by my mother  she said she pieced all the insides of the laptop together online through dell and had it shipped 1...( so it doesnt come with a windows xp CD its built into the computer), she gives it to me, i've been using it for about  1 1/2 years and  its been working fine, but the laptop started running slow and sluggish, no virus or anything just alot of programs and normal wear on the laptop so i decide i wanna start fresh and reformat the hd so i have a clean slate to work with, 2...so I do and reinstall it and since it was my first reformat i didnt know you had to reinstall drivers, so i called tech support and told him why it seemed like i had older version of xp, the friendly tech support says i need to reinstall drivers, and helps me through that process. I was able to reinstall all the drivers except two of the 3...internet drivers which is keeping my wifi from working on the laptop and even when i plug my laptop in with the ethernet it doesnt connect to the internet, and their are two yellow question marks on two of the drivers (both internet drivers) so i know its not my internet because all my other computers are connected wireslessly fine. the tech support was unable to help me, they didnt know why there was an error everytime we tried and they said they would try one more thing which is to send me some disc  that would be able to help me but i never got that disk. THAT is just one of the problems, so after that i was supposed to be waiting for that disk but i never got it so the laptop was just sitting until today when i started it back up to see if there was anything I could do to get those internet drivers but when i started the laptop at the sign in screen a notice pops up and says 4..."windows Product activation, This copy of windows must be activated with microsoft before you can log on. do you want to activate windows now?". From there i select yes then another notice pops up and says "Windows product activation;  a problem is preventing windows from  accurately checking license for this computer . Error Code: 0x80004005" and it takes me back to log in screen. even if i selected "no" to the first question it takes me back to username sign in screen and wont let me on. Thanks

1.  Dell is a company that is really good about shipping a full OS installation disk with all of their new products.  Are you sure an OS reinstall disk was not included with the packaging?  (For that model and XP Pro, it was probably a Purple colored CD along with the Drivers/Utilites CD and the Applications CD).

2.  If you didn't have the Dell OS Reinstall CD, what did you use to reinstall XP Pro with? 

3.  The yellow "Splash" icons are on the Network Adaptors - wireless adaptor and physical NIC (Wireless card could have been an Intel ProWireless device, or a Broadcom device or a Dell Wireless device; the NIC could be any number of NICs - Realtek, Broadcom, Intel, etc).  You can use the Service Tag of the machine and connect to the Dell support site from one of your computers with Internet access and obtain the System Information for the laptop when it was shipped (This will tell you all the hardware that is configured on the laptop and you can use the information to find the drivers for the network adaptors - also from the support site using the Service Tag)

4.  This relates to question #2, but if you used an installation source other than a Dell OEM install CD, then then product key on the bottom of your laptop will not work and you will have to reactivate the machine.  Try getting the network adaptor drivers installed first, and then you can run the Activation Wizard when you have internet connection again.  Otherwise, you can call Microsoft directly.  You will need the OEM product key for the XP Professional install.  You explain you had to reformat and reinstall your OS and they should give you a new Activation code you can enter to then activate XP.

Ok that helps a little bit more, except i cant even log on to my laptop like i said above because that error pops up so i wouldnt be able to follow those links with my laptop. it does help a little though, thank you

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?docid=347576

Oh wait, nevermind , cool thanks ill follow through with this and keep you guys posted on what happens

Thank you for the detailed help A77guy as far as question #1 goes the laptop was built online through dell, and it did not come with a OS installation disk i asked the same question too but apparently has the OS reinstallation inside the computer, because i was able to reformat everything off he harddrive, and start fresh, and go to the dell website and reinstall the drives, it just the problem with the internet drives.