How to find drivers and model of laptop

wazza

Friend has a lenovo laptop which he had for a while. It was causing him problems so he did a clean install of windows xp (original version not SP2 etc). Now he lost his wireless function etc. He asked me to look at it. In his device manager there are several hardware with drivers missing. Can not see anything with link to wireless. There is a wireless button at the front of the laptop. Nothing happens when i press it.

Problem is that his laptop is from japan/china. The spec on the back is not written in English so i can't find what model it is. How can i find out?

is there an easy way of finding drivers? any recommended trusted websites?

thanks in advance for the replies

superstylin

try running belarc advisor

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

it should tell you what hardware and software there is including the model of the laptop

totalsolutions

concur with above try IBM web sites also
Update to SP3, might help the driver issue.

Donnie

Unknown Device Identifier

or use the 15 day trial of: Driver Genius Professional Edition

Update to at least XP2.

esuhl

System Information for Windows might help identify the motherboard or laptop model number: http://www.gtopala.com/ (click the "download" link on the blue bar).

basmic

Donnie wrote: »

Unknown Device Identifier

or use the 15 day trial of: Driver Genius Professional Edition

Update to at least XP2.

UDI crashed when loading on my computer...then when I asked it to detect my devices, it just quit... .:rolleyes: It's just a tacky copy of Unknown Devices.

You will have better luck identifying the devices if you update the DeviceLists.zip file - but, TBH, this can be frustrating for a new user.

I've taken the time to compress UnknownDevices with an up to date devicelists.zip file. Here is a link to it: http://www.!!!!!!/file/6bad97/n/UnknownDevices_zip

All you need to do is download it, extract the file to their own folder and run the UnknownDevices program.

nomoneytoday

Usually a serial number or support id can be input into the support page of the laptop manufacturer. This will show the spec and model it left the factory with

joshm_2

IBM/Lenovo laptops usually have a 'hidden' rescue partition that you can boot into by pressing an 'access' (or similarly-labelled) button on startup.

Belnahua

On my Lenovo it's an Atheros Communications Inc. WLAN Driver (ar5211.sys). However as the above OP said, try pressing the blue button and do a system restore. Though if you've done a full reload, there is a possibility you may have trashed the hidden partition too. Did you delete all the partitions on the HDD?

Lenovo are not known for their helpful customer support. In fact I'd go so far as to say, what ever you do, do not ever ever again buy Lenovo. Even if they're giving them away. The software is only warrantied for 3 months, and if you need a reinstall disk (which is not supplied at all - company policy!), prepare to dig deep into those pockets and pay through the nose for the phone call for the privelage of even calling them. Don't try email, they'll ignore you. I have to admit these bunch of cowboys are the Ryanair of laptops!

Sorry for the bleak prognosis, but if my Lenovo goes wrong once more, it's in the bin and I don't care how much it cost!

aliEnRIK

I use SANDRA LITE for finding out whats on a computer (And im amazed no ones mentioned it on here before!)
http://www.filehippo.com/download_sandra_lite/