XP needs more drivers...

Question

Hey guys,
I own a Dell Inspiron 1721 with AMD Turion 64x2 processors. After installing XP in another partition of my disc (actually testing how XP works in my machine, since it came with preinstalled Vista version), I installed all XP drivers I supposedly needed. I guess I was wrong. After installing all new drivers in the right order, XP still asks for installation of a few things...

In the device manager, they appear as "Modem Device on High Definition Audio Bus", "Network Controller" and "SM Buss Controller", marked with the classic yellow question/exclamation mark. I was told the last device has to do with the chipset of the machine, but that was one of the first things I installed.

I installed the chipset, the nss, the display and sound controllers, the broadcom adapter, the touch pad and the modem diagnostic utility.

Here's an image link of my device manager in Windows XP:
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h290/LaraYokoshima/devicemanager.gif

Are these really necessary for the computer to work properly? Hope you can help me.

Message Edited by LaraYokoshima on 10-02-2007 04:01 PM

LaraYokoshima · Answer

Will do, thanks.

By the way, I found this site when looking for XP drivers for my Dell model:
http://www.recovery-cds.com/laptop/product.asp?product=2293&ph=search&keywords=1721&recor=1&SearchFor=any&PT_ID=all
Would you recommend it?

mombodog · Answer

Order of driver installation is important, you may have to reinstall XP clean and follow the order this time, if you did not the first go round.   http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?journalid=4ED81717490911DC84EB0DC67E2C6D57&docid=3690A8CC21FAF290E040A68F5B281A12

mombodog · Answer

'Would you recommend it? '   It is one of those things, you don't know how well it works until you buy and try.   Might be a great tool, who knows. If you do buy it, let us know how well it works for you.   Drivers are constantly updated by manufacturers, I usually want the latest available, no guarantee these disks have the latest or even what version thet are.

LaraYokoshima · Answer

I just noticed I didn't install any wireless LAN cards in XP... I can't find the driver either. Dell doesn't have all the drivers for download for XP. Such a pain, this is...

mombodog · Answer

Some times you can find the driver for XP in other model of PC downloads. You have to poke around the dell downloads site.   What model is the wireless card?

LaraYokoshima · Answer

Hey, sorry for late reply...
The model is a Broadcom 802.11g network adapter (that's what Vista says). The driver version is 4.82.28.56.

[edit] I found several drivers, but mostly from the HP website... do you think they will work on my Dell?

Message Edited by LaraYokoshima on 10-01-2007 03:35 PM

mombodog · Answer

Yes sometimes other manufacturer drivers will work, I cannot find any reference to a broadcom wireless card anywhere on the dell site, did this come with the laptop, or did you add it.

LaraYokoshima · Answer

It came with the computer... I tried to install two different HP drivers, but none of them seem to work. Device manager recognizes the driver I installed for the ethernet card, but none for the wi-fi card. I browsed through Broadcom website in the downloads section and they have this file I downloaded for NetXtreme desktop/mobile, but apparently is a .sys I can't 'install'. This the link where I got it: http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php   I am not sure if these are the drivers I need though, since I couldn't find any wi-fi specific section.

mombodog · Answer

Those are wired ethernet drivers, not wireless, I don't think broadcom even makes a wireless card, I believe Vista has mis-identified the device.   Go here http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/en/system_profiler_agreement?c=us&l=en&s=gen   hit I agree , go to the 'original system configuration' tab, enter your service tag in the box, it should show you all the hardware on that particular system, see what the wireless card is. Do a print out for your records.   Do not post your service tag in the forums.

LaraYokoshima · Answer

Hi, thank you very much for the link! I didn't know you could do that from Dell's site...
Anyway, this is what I could recognize as the wireless card:

1 PC559 CARD (CIRCUIT), WIRELESS, MINICARD, DW1390, BROADCOM CORPORATION
or
1 WN945 MODULE, CARD (CIRCUIT), NETWORK, DW1390, INSPIRON, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION

So pretty much... I dunno what to do, he he... should I use the part number to find the driver I need from Dell's support site?

mombodog · Answer

'DW1390,'  is the clue   Your driver hopefully. I found it under Inspiron model1720 XP drivers http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R151520&SystemID=INS_PNT_PM_1720&servicetag= &os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=9805&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=5&fileid=202821   This is the official Dell description:   Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard   Thanks Dell, you could have added one word to this description.   'Broadcom'  too hard I guess.   Lara do me and others a favor, go back to your first post and do an Options/Edit and include the model of your Inspiron 1721 in that post, thanks.

LaraYokoshima · Answer

Will do, thank you very much for everything!

Windows General

XP needs more drivers...

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