SOS: Windows 7 Clean Install.. Driver issue!

Hi!

Uh.. first of all i am an IT myself but honestly i hardly done any reformatting but i know how. It's just i am having a hard time now because of a driver. Here's my situation:

- I did a successful clean install on my Alienware M17X R3.
- OS: Windows 7 (64-Bit)
- Driver installation phase.

I successfully installed most of the drivers but one failed.. A LOT. My network controller, so i can't get wireless internet. I installed the LAN though, which is Atheros LAN. I used my resource CD and it's crap.. Windows said that 'Windows cannot configure this driver on this system. Setup will now exit.'

WTH.. i know what's my wifi card which is intel wifi link, and even the dell drivers website didn't work! I rejects the driver which came from the Dell site. I did some research and this guy said that it's in the chipset that i have to download the latest driver version which i did and successfully installed the intel chipset driver.. but still i can't install network controller driver.

I'm ashamed of myself now, and i am begging you guys. I'll just leave the laptop for now and hope and think for a solution.

 

Mmm, if you unzip the contents of the installer executable (for the wifi controller) and then attempt to manually update the device drivers within the device manager (pointing to the location of the extracted device driver files) what happens? Does it fail as well?

In addition to that what's the exact model of wifi card that you have?

 

Have you tried using the set of drivers from Intel directly? Follow what ScottyBoy says and use the Device Manager instead of the Installer, under Network Controller right-click and choose to update the drivers and point it to the extracted directory. Hopefully Windows should pick it up and install the necessary drivers for it.

 

The usual driver install order:

1. Chipset and motherboard related
2. USB 3.0
3. Intel RST
4. Display/video (Optimus systems need the Intel driver installed before the Nvidia driver)
5. LAN
6. WLAN
7. Audio
8. Bluetooth
9. Touchpad
10. Media card reader, optical drive and camera
11. Software which will give you access to defined FN keys, power management and other related services.

 

Hi,

I did what ScottyBoy said. I went to Device Manager and browsed the driver and still no good. It can't detect the driver for my hardware, oh and my WiFi is Intel WiFi Link 630.

 

Right I'm not familiar with your specific model of laptop but please can you confirm whether it has a physical switch on it for switching the wireless card on & off; if so please can you try doing that for us.

Next can you do a clean boot of the laptop and access the BIOS - again I'm not familiar with your model of laptop but please go through the BIOS options to see if there is anything related to switching on & off the wireless card.

Next with regards to the device drivers are they the latest version released by Intel/Dell (please can you confirm the specific version number) but also do you have a backup of the older device drivers, from before the laptop was rebuilt.

Finally do you have spare wireless card that you can temporarily install the laptop (do you have warranty for your laptop?) so we can confirm whether the original wireless card has a physical fault or not.

That's my tuppence worth of suggestions for you and I hope it helps.

 

@ScottyBoy - I've done it! My Windows 7 is operational now! I don't know what Dell did to my rig but somehow my true WiFi is:

DW1501 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card.

I did what you asked me to do, at the Driver manager, but this time i tried to use a different drive, which is the DW1501.

At first, it was Intel WiFi Link 6300.. and since this is my first clean install with my Alienware M17X R3, it became a LOT better than its factory install. Lots of 'crapware'.

Honestly, it really became a lot better after clean install. There a few issues back then but now, it's like i bought a brand new laptop.

The media that Dell provided for me is neat, because it is a Windows 7installer all along and not a recovery disc.

Thank you so much for helping me! I can close this topic now.

 

No probs mate, glad to hear your all sorted out.