Drivers Lacking

Question

Ok, i just received my Inspiron e1705 today, and have been having some difficulties with the drivers. Having previously purchased a dell desktop, i did not like a lot of the stuff that comes preinstalled on it (free offers, mcafee, dell notifier, not being allowed to access certain parts of the computer, etc) so after playing around with the computer for a bit and making sure everything was working, i reformatted the HD. I've gotten most of the hardware to work, however the driver CD seems to be lacking some key drivers that are really preventing me from doing anything useful with my machine. It didn't have the driver for the geforce go 7900 graphics card, but i got that off the website with another computer and transferred it over with my external HD, so that was fine. However, as of now i have six unidentified 'other devices' in the device manager. Three of them are labeled 'base system device' one is an 'Ethernet controller,' another is a 'network controller' and the last is a 'SM bus controller.' Im guessing that the lack of functionality in these devices is the cause of several problems i am currently having, namely not being able to access the internet, either wirelessly or through a CAT5. not being able to run the 'dell wireless WLAN card utility.' (The file is there, both in the start menu and in the control panel, but nothing happens when i run it). Also, for some reason when i go to network connections, it says i have an active Lan connection named '1394 connection' It has zero traffic, but the speed is constantly at exactly 400 mbps. When i try to repair it, a message immediately pops up saying 'TCP/IP is not enabled for this connection' though it is listed in the items the connection has. All in all, im pretty convinced that the CD doesn't have the drivers for the devices, and that not being active is the cause of these problems. Is there any way i could download the drivers like i did for the graphics card, or possibly get a new cd from dell that actually contains everything its supposed to.

parkerti · Answer

Have you installed the notebook system software and the chipset driver?

deaf_hobbit · Answer

NSS: Kind of. I did install them, but after the install it says "please wait while your system is being updated." If that means it has to connect to the internet, then i haven't installed them, i guess.

Chipset: The CD had check marks next to all the chipset drivers, as well as a few others, so i thought that it meant those drivers were not really needed. However, ill go through and install all the checked drivers, and see if that helps.

Thanks

EDIT: Well, i think that fixed it. The chipset drivers didn't seem to do much, but installing the drivers for the 10/100 integrated controller (which the CD said was already detected), wired internet has started working. However, i still havent gotten wireless to work, and "other devices" still lists three "base system device"'s and one "network device." However, i think ive figured out how to fix it, just install drivers for things the cd says i already have.

Thanks. If a sudden burst of inspiration comes to you all and someone comes up with another cause of these problems, tell me please. Otherwise, i should be fine from here out.

Message Edited by deaf_hobbit on 06-17-200607:35 AM

deaf_hobbit · Answer

Actually, i still need some help. Ive installed every driver on the CD (even redundant ones, just in case) and thsoe four devices are still unrecognized, and wireless stil isnt working. Any ideas how to fix this?

deaf_hobbit · Answer

Thanks. That site had the correct driver for the intel wireless card in my laptop, that apparently was also not on the CD. I still have three unrecognized base system devices, but ill just use that site and find the drivers for them eventually. Thanks a bunch, its working great now.

parkerti · Answer

A couple of things you might try, I'm not sure which devices are troublesome. Uninstall the offending devices and reboot - now that the chipset drivers and system software are in place, they might reinstall themselves properly. Failing that, try this link where you can find all of the drivers available for download if you haven't been there already:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/devices.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=INS_PNT_P4_9400&os=WW1&osl=EN

Tim

ScYtH · Answer

FYI, your '1394 Connection' is your IEEE 1394 Bus host controller, more commonly known as a Firewire port. ;) It's purpose is mainly for extremely high-speed devices, such as video cameras and some external hard drives. Just thought you'd like to know. :)

deaf_hobbit · Answer

Thanks, ive been wondering exactly what that thing was. I knew this thing had a firewire port (and i really like that, since my external can use either usb2 or firewire) but i was just wondering exactly what that connection was for.

Entropy42 · Answer

@deaf_hobbit wrote:
Actually, i still need some help. Ive installed every driver on the CD (even redundant ones, just in case) and thsoe four devices are still unrecognized, and wireless stil isnt working. Any ideas how to fix this?

I don't know if Dell has rectified this, but the drivers CD that was sent with my system in March *did not include the E1705*. It included similar systems that had drivers for much of the hardware, but not everything. In addition, the drivers that were present were extremely outdated.

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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