Network Adaptor wont work after Clean Install

Did you check the connection to your router and/or modem? Maybe the ethernet cable is not plugged in properly. A network card like yours is not a wireless card. It will not search for networks. After plugging in the cable from the card to your broadband modem or router, it is always on and always connected as soon as you turn the computer on. Just start your browser to connect to the Internet. Use the Network and Sharing Center in Windows for more help.

BTW, how are you connecting to the Internet now?

Did you reinstall everything in the correct order?

The System Software (Dell Utilitiy) should be first after Vista, followed by the chipset driver, then video, audio, network drivers, etc., in that specfic order.

If you didn't install the System Software and chipset (first, or not at all), download them on any PC and copy to the desktop of the 730x. Then reboot in Safe Mode. Install them in the correct order and reboot normally.

If the network adaptor still doesn't work, you may have to uninstall its driver in Device Manager, reboot and reinstall it again.

Ron

thanks for the replies, i left for work after making the thread so I haven't been able to test anything out. (I'm still at work now actually, just on break) should be off soon to get home and play around some more with it.

@mary the ethernet connection is fine, and I've gone over the physical hardware a few times so everything seems to be fine there.  I am using a laptop at home to do my net scouring and driver downloading.

@Rich. I had no idea the order of installation was so important, the last  time I clean installed it came with a handy system cd that did it all. The separate files I have to download thing is a bit of a pain, heh.  I think just by the numeric order of the files I may have come close to the order but I can't say for sure that they are done correctly. I will try what you suggested. thanks for the tip!

So after going and reinstalling everything again in the correct order, the problem is NOTgone. I still get this error.

When I look in the Device Manager this is what I see

You suggested uninstalling and reinstalling a network adapter driver. Where do I do that from? In the device manager I can only uninstall the entire device, also I don't know which one of the many adapters from the list I should edit. Where do I uninstall the network adapter driver from?

The device manager diagram above does not show a listing for the broadcom network adapter. You may need to open the case reseat it and reboot the driver might then load..

Matthew_D - The ethernet controller is on the motherboard, so it can't be "reseated", so just ignore that comment.

Look under Network Adaptors Ethernet Controller in Device Manager for Broadcom 57XX Gigabit Integrated Controller.  You need this <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> driver for it. And you can use this tool to test the 57XX circuitry to see if it's working correctly after the driver is installed.

Ron

Thanks again for the help everyone.

After formatting and doing another clean install of windows vista 4 Ive now started over with the correct order of installing drivers. But im now noticing a strange thing. There is no executable for installing the network driver.    After extracting the file, there is a folder with three folders each a different OS. I go to my vista64 and this is what I see:

I must have skipped past this the first time and installed the utility thinking it was the driver since it actually had an exe that did something inside. On the dell page for this driver the install description is no help, it reads :

"Install

1.Double-click the new icon on the desktop labeled R201626.exe.
2.The Self-Extracting window appears and prompts you to extract or
unzip to C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R201626. Write down this path so the executable (I.e.
Setup.exe) file can be found later.
3.The Self-Extractor window appears.
4.Click OK.
5.After completing the file extraction, if the Self-Extractor
window is still open, close it.
6.Click the Start button and then click Run.
7.Type C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R201626 in the Open textbox and then click OK.
8.Follow the on-screen installation instructions."

this does nothing since the main folder for this is empty other than 3 folders (Vista, Vista64, Xp). none of them have exes. Where should I put this files, and do I need to make entries myself? WIthout an exe to install this Im a bit lost. After installing and running the utility it says that there is no broadcom adapter installed, which I can believe since there has been no installation of any kind of these drivers. They are just sitting there.

any ideas?

thanks!

If it's a self-extracting file archive, you can put them anywhere and then execute them. Or, if you have a spare network card, you can install it temporarily so that Windows can connect to the Internet, where it may find a Broadcom driver automatically.