Please help me determine which wifi hardware i have?

Hi i am completely new to this forum and most computer related tasks.

I have recently bought a dell 1720 and got rid of Vista for XP, nearly everything is working apart from my Wifi....

I have tried many different drivers but i cannot find the correct ones...

Could anyone tell me how to find out exactly what Wifi hardware i have so i can search for the right drivers?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Cheers

 

the time to tell you that was when Vista was installed--then we could pulled the device ID from the driver information.

If I had a dime for every time someone with a Dell asked me what freaking hardware is in my computer, I'd be rich. Unfortunately, dell slaps whatever hardware is sitting on the shelf the day they assemble your laptop.

the Inspiron 1720 had 6 different wireless cards, but Dell at least this time put all the drivers in only two packages, so you should be able to get it from the Dell site

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...NS_PNT_PM_1720&hidos=WLH&hidlang=en&TabIndex=

go to the above, and choose XP under operating system and download the Dell wireless driver package

Pick DELL Driver or INTEL Driver.

You can also look up your invoice by plugging in the service tag on the bottom of the laptop and see what wireless card is in there

 

To try and pin point the exact brand/model you could try going to control panel-->system-->hardware-->device manager and expand the network adapters section, and look for the wireless adapter. The name of the adapter should let u know the model #. It's either Broadcom,_Dell or Intel.

 

In case that the driver is not installed, then you will see nothing, then open the right back cover of the laptop to see the brand of the wireless adapter. Look at your manual to know which cover to open exactly.

 

Thanks to you all but im still no closer to getting this sorted. I have installed intel pro wireless package and the Intel wireless icon on the taskbar tells me that the drivers are not installed.

In the device manager it says my hardware is broadcom 40/100

I have only tried drivers from the dell site, is there another place i can get hold of them?

Thanks in advance

 

The Broadcom is most likely the LAN adapter. Download Everet home, it will tell you what wireless adapter you have.

 

Thanks wireless man but i cant find Everet home... could you post a link?

 

Here you go;

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Everest-Home-Edition.shtml

 

Thanks, i realise this is getting tedious now.

i have a broadcom netxtreme bcm4401 adapter

but i still cant find the driver for it, i keep getting directed to zip files that are around 33kb big with no drivers in them.

anyone have any ideas? i really do apologise

 

I am missing the installer apparently

 

If is a zip file then you have to unzip it, once is on the download area, just click again on it and unzip it.

 

In my original post, I said there were TWO driver packages.

I suggested you download them both
DELL-DRIVER
APPLIES TO
-wireless 1390 WLAN Minicard
-wireless 1490 Dual band WLAN Minicard
Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Minicard
Wireless 1395 Minicard


INTEL-DRIVER
APPLIES TO
Intel(r) Pro/wireless 3945bg NEtwork Connection
R Wireless Wife link 4965AG

One is 60+ mb and the other is 80+ mb in size. If you double click the file you download it installs the driver and wireless utility

If you installed the Intel and your wireless card is still now working, go to add remove and uninstall. Then download the Dell wireless utility/driver package and install that.

 

No, no, no...the broadcomm in the NIC (wired) adapter.

This laptop does not come with a broadcom wireless card

 

Thanks guys, sorted now

 

Glad to hear it--isn't the collective wisdom of the internet a wonderful thing? I had a real stinker of a problem today and couldn't find a solution anywhere, but the gestalt of all internet wisdom (a clue here, an 1/8 of an answer there, and an unrelated piece of hardware but eerily similar set of circumstances) enabled me to work out a solution where none existed.