Latitude E6500 Wifi Connections issues

Ive had my Dell latitude E6500 for a few months now and i love it. i ended up getting a malware virus on it. I used some virus protection and other malware software and it got rid of it. Even after all of that, the computer still seemed to be running slower than usual. So i made the decision to format the computer since i had my Vista disc. Ever since i formatted the computer, i havent been able to connect to my wifi. It says "windows can not connect to a network". I want to know what going on, is it because drivers or missing or what? If so, which ones?

Specs:
Cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26Ghz
Gpu: Nvidia Quadro NVS 160m
4 Gb DDR2 Ram
Windows Vista 32-bit

 

Look in your device manager and see if there are any exclams (!s)? I presume you don't know what wifi card you have?

 

How would i go about checking that? And no i do not

 

Open the device manager.

Just in case: start menu -> right click on computer -> manage -> device manager will be in the left pane tree. You can then check for devices with an exclamation mark. If Windows is aware of what your wi-fi adapter is, it will be listed under network adapters.

 

I see an exclamation mark on: Base system device, broadcom USH, Ethernet Controller, Network Controller and SM bus controller. Not sure what all of those are for, i dont even see anything for network adapters on the device manager

 

You are missing the drivers for Ethernet, wi-fi, the USH and something else or they are broken. without the drivers, you definitely can't connect to the Internet. Do you have access to a tablet or computer where you can download the necessary drivers?

Select the right OS: http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/ca/en/cabsdt1/Product/latitude-e6500 and get the Ethernet drivers to start with, that will at least allow you to get the laptop connected to a network through cable. For the wireless adapter, check the hardware ID, if it's VEN_8086, it's Intel, if it's not, get the drivers for the Dell card.

 

Yeah i do have access, ill certainly be going on the website and downloading everything, thank you so much. And for the wireless adapter, how do i find out what the ID is and what driver to download?

 

Right click on the device -> properties -> details tab and display the hardware ID.

The device listed as network controller should be the wireless adapter by the way.

 

I figured it out and i do have that intel wireless card. Which driver should i download now?