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Tech Geeks - please halp!

post #1 of 34
4/14/10 at 7:31am
Thread Starter 
Here's the situ:

My laptop died, and after diagnosis I realized it was the hard drive. Bought a new hard drive, loaded WinXP, and everything set up perfectly.

Problem is, I cannot connect to the internet (ethernet or wireless) because neither device is showing up in Network Places. I suspect this is because I used a WinXP boot disk unassociated with my machine, so that none of the drivers and BIOS specific to my laptop were loaded upon reformat. At least I suspect this is what happened.

Now, this is where my meager knowledge ends. What should I do? The laptop is a Dell Precision M4400. I am assuming I need to go to Dell's site and download SOMETHING (be it BIOS, drivers, ??) for this model and then USB them over to the laptop in question and somehow "load them". But I do not know what this process entails, or what exactly I need to DL, or how to "load them" (is it just running an executable and rebooting?). Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 34
4/14/10 at 7:35am
You should be having a Dell Product Key sticker somewhere on the laptop. Go to the Dell service website enter that and it should automatically tell you which drivers to download.
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post #3 of 34
4/14/10 at 7:48am
Thread Starter 
There are 81 drivers to download for my laptop model. Not sure which to download. I am assuming I need all of them. Do I really have to go 1 by 1?
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post #4 of 34
4/14/10 at 7:50am
IIRC they have an option of a zip file / installable file in which you can download all of them as a package / program and then install them in one go Are you searching by your particular prodyct number which would be unique for your laptop or by the general series number which would be same for all laptops of the series EDIT: On my computer there is a sticker with this info Service Tag - xxxxxxxx Express Service Code - xxxxxxxxx Mfg Date - xxxxxx Service tag does the trick, thereafter you need to select the drivers ( to be safe you can select all) add them to the download list and download the list in one go. You may need all the 81 files but you dont have to download them in 81 separate instances. make a list and a single download will get you all the files you need
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post #5 of 34
4/14/10 at 8:47am
What he said. Also Dell Drivers are prepacked zips that are self extracting and will automatically setup, so pretty much just double click and go once downloaded.
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post #6 of 34
4/14/10 at 10:06am
Thread Starter 
I did all that and the website took me to a place with 80 drivers for my specific machine. I downloaded the "recommended" ones, but I guess I installed them in the wrong order because some of them refused to install. There was no obvious option on the site for mass self-extraction or anything that installed more than one driver at a time. No batch install option, that is.

Good news is that I got my local area LAN connection working at least. Wireless still not showing up in Network Connections. Oh well.
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post #7 of 34
4/14/10 at 10:20am
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post #8 of 34
4/14/10 at 10:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroStyles View Post
I did all that and the website took me to a place with 80 drivers for my specific machine. I downloaded the "recommended" ones, but I guess I installed them in the wrong order because some of them refused to install. There was no obvious option on the site for mass self-extraction or anything that installed more than one driver at a time. No batch install option, that is.

Good news is that I got my local area LAN connection working at least. Wireless still not showing up in Network Connections. Oh well.

First, you have to make sure the driver for the wireless chip is loaded. Go to Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager. Scroll down to make sure there is a wireless adapter, and that it's functional, in the Network Adapters group.

After this is done, go to Control Panel > Network Connections, then click on Create a new connection. Follow the wizard to connect to your wireless network.

Reboot.

BTW, make sure to turn the wireless device switch on if there's one on your laptop.
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post #9 of 34
4/14/10 at 10:22am
Wifi can be screwey on a lot of laptops I've found. Sometimes the windows wifi manager just doesn't work. You may want to download the Intel ProSet wifi drivers and try those. Even if you don't like the Intel ProSet software, which I don't, installing it can at least get your Windows Wifi manager working so you can later disable the Intel ProSet software.
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post #10 of 34
4/14/10 at 11:58am
You dont need to download all 80 drivers. DNW already mentioned how to get to the Device Manager window, once there scroll down and expand or click on anything with a yellow question mark, get these drivers first.
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post #11 of 34
4/14/10 at 12:09pm
Thread Starter 
There is no wireless device under Network Adapters. Only the 1394 Net Adapter and an Intel driver for the regular LAN.
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post #12 of 34
4/14/10 at 12:12pm
Thread Starter 
I got the Intel wireless drivers from the Dell site, but upon unzipping the package and attempting to begin auto-installation, it fails.

"This software package cannot be installed on your system. The setup application will exit."
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post #13 of 34
4/14/10 at 12:16pm
So right now the problem is that wi-fi adapter is not being detected by the machine ? Why dont you shut don the machine, turn off the wireless switch (physical swtch), turn it on and then restart the machine. It might detect it while starting up ... Would you mind posting the service tag of te machine. I could have a look at what drivers are available ....
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post #14 of 34
4/14/10 at 12:18pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by aj_del View Post
So right now the problem is that wi-fi adapter is not being detected by the machine ?

Why dont you shut don the machine, turn off the wireless switch (physical swtch), turn it on and then restart the machine. It might detect it while starting up ...

Would you mind posting the service tag of te machine. I could have a look at what drivers are available ....

Sure. I think I have all the right driver installer files. Problem is some of them have the error when trying to install.

Right now I am getting the error with:

INTEL_INTEL--R--WIFI-LINK-51_A02_R259640.exe
INTEL_INTEL--R--WIMAX-LINK-5_A03_R262861.exe

Service tag is: 36H5GH1

That is what I used to access the drivers on Dell's site in the first place.

Thanks for offering to help, btw.
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post #15 of 34
4/14/10 at 12:35pm
http://support.dell.com/support/down...nConsent=False Download your BIOS.
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