Windows XP can not install network adapter, Help!!!

Question

We had an Internet connection problem because that my husband attempted to set up home networking. My husband removed all the drivers related to the network card, including the drivers Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller, Broad scheduler, WAN scheduler and WAN mini-port scheduler among many others. Before he removed it, the Broadcom 440x10/100 integrated controller was working properly. The only devise we had problem was the wan miniport scheduler. The Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller is plug and play. Every time we start the computer, it will reinstall itself. However, on device manager, there is a yellow '!' next to it. Error code c31. We have checked the BIO, the network controller is enabled. We tried to use the drivers from the resource CD and the more current one downloaded from Dell site with no luck. We are pretty sure the network card is OK. We did the hardware diagnosis. Everything passes. At this point, only the  Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller driver install itself with error code, other network related drivers even does not self-install. Update, we brought a brand new, windows XP compatible NIC with driver. Disabled the on-board adapter from bios. Windows XP cannot recognize the driver for the NIC. List is as unknown device. (Error code 31, again) My guess, there is some configuration settings in Windows XP preventing us from re-install any network adapter drivers. We need someone who is the expert of Windows XP registry. Please help us! Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated!!! Sincerely, June

jmwills · Answer

Did you also reinstall the Chip Set drivers?  If not, they are located on your Resource CD.

June 08 · Answer

Thanks for reply. I tried to re-install chipset driver from the resource disk. It was 90% complete and gave me the message, the chipset driver can only be installed on a supported device and for supported operating system. Now, my device manager does not show any devices. Apparently, the chipset driver was not re-installed properly. Please help!!! Thanks again!

jmwills · Answer

What type of system?

June 08 · Answer

Demension 2350. It is down to one single problem, Windows XP keeps loading the network adapter as unknown device. The driver was not properly loaded although we have used the right driver.

jmwills · Answer

Here's your correct driver:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/type.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=DIM_PNT_CEL_2350&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=3597

I would uninstall the old one reboot and then install this one. Be sure to extract the driver first.

June 08 · Answer

Thanks again.   I have this version. I down loaded it from Dell web site and installed it. It did not work!!! I have three versions of Broadcom drivers, original one from the resource CD, this one downloaded from Dell.com and another one downloaded from Broadcom.com. None of them works!!!   I always have a yellow ! next to my network adapter which is listed under unknown device in the device manager. The modle of the adapter is correctly identified though.   Any advise? Thanks a lot!!!

jmwills · Answer

You have to intsall the chip set drivers.  It is not going to work with it.

June 08 · Answer

Thanks. Jim. but how?

What I did was, from the resource CD, download the chipset driver and reinstalled it. I did it several times. I believe that the driver was re-installed successfully at last. This did not help! Is there any aother way to do it? Thanks again.

jmwills · Answer

If you are sure the chip set driver has been installed, then I would have you uninstall the NIC card via the device manager and reboot. Upon the restart the machine will ask for the driver and you can point ot the correct location.

Here's how I download the drivers. You will download a file name R12345 (for example) and when you open the file a path name will be given such as C:\dell\drivers\12345. Since you are not going to remember what all these files are , I add the type of file at the end so my path now looks like:

C:\dell\drivers\12345\NIC and it is much easier to find your correct driver this way. Now with NIC drivers, you will have three folder (most likely) in the package. One for 98, 2000, and XP. Open the XP folder and there will be a setup program in there. Run it and reboot. You can either do it this way, or when you first rebooted, you could drill down to the exact folder/file needed.

Hope this makes sense.

John

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Was this post helpful?