Dell laptop - replaced hardrive and reloaded xp - do I need drivers ?

sallen2

the hardrive failed so I have replaced it and loaded xp from an xp disk with the licence key thats on the botton of the laptop
its running xp ok, but I can't get an internet connection
do I need to download drivers using another pc and install them on the dell ?
no, I don't have a dell recovery pc !
thanks

Belnahua

Dell has all the driver's on their website, and I suspect you'll need the Broadcom drivers from there, but while you're at it, grab all the drivers for the PC.

Yes you will need to download them on another PC, and burn to CD or memory stick.

sallen2

THANKS
I have put in the Service Tag of the Dell model from the bottom of the laptop on the Dell site and it says there are 70 items for english / xp - shall I go for them all then ?
when I have saved them to memory stick how do I load them into the Dell please ?

sallen2

there is a Broadcom application, driver, and diagnostics utility

sallen2

wow, I downloaded the driver, copied it to the dell and I am on the internet

THANK YOU !!!

Belnahua

You won't need most of the drivers, just mainly chipset, video, modem, audio. Possibly the CD burning drivers.

The downside is there may be 3 or 4 for each type, and sometimes it's a case of trial and error which one!

However if you download Aida32, that can identify the hardware, and give some clues as to which driver you need.

The rest can be downloaded if needed, but I've never bothered, and it's been fine for me.

Networkguy

As others have said, the important ones are Video, sound etc but the critical one (or your laptop will run like a dog) is the CHIPSET UTILITY (or similar). Make sure you have this one then go to device manager in control panel and see what has a yellow exclamation mark next to it. Those yellow exclamation marks typically mean that the driver is missing in this case :-)

basill

Networkguy wrote: »

As others have said, the important ones are Video, sound etc but the critical one (or your laptop will run like a dog) is the CHIPSET UTILITY (or similar). Make sure you have this one then go to device manager in control panel and see what has a yellow exclamation mark next to it. Those yellow exclamation marks typically mean that the driver is missing in this case :-)

Windows will load default (not particularly good) drivers for the chipset, there will not be any warning triangles for this in device manager. Always install the chipset utility/drivers first. Then the video driver after that work through the yellow triangles.

B