Laptop Wifi

[FarmerPug]

I am installing windows XP on my sisters laptop which is a dell inspiron 6400 (2 years younger than mine but in a sh1t state with a cracked screen, broken keyboard and tipex on the bottom).
It originally had windows vista but you get fed up reassuring you computer that you own it and it is ok to change the hard drives properties so that the word document can be saved , but i have plugged it into the back of the tv as a display and using a windows xp disk i put it on and wiped all the old rubbish and put XP on, it was SP1 so on another disk i had burned i installed SP2, and then SP3. Then i installed the various drivers off the dell website.

The problem is that the internal wifi isn't working, i am using a usb dongle at the moment for the wifi but i don't know what driver is needed for the wifi card inside:

[mjb]

Try checking dell's site for drivers again - I just had no problem finding the xp drivers for the 6400 motherboard, wireless, etc

[gumby6371]

If you're familiar with torrent sites have a search for driver discs, I got one a few months back which was a full DVD and it picks up all but the most obscure bits of kit.

I'm assuming you've tried the 'windows update' route already, it is surprisingly good.

[lozz]

Just down load the Mother board drivers, The wifi shouid be amongst them

plonk them on a disk and bobs ya tea pot


http://www.user-guides.co.uk/download/d ... loads.html

edit skip that link they want £9.99



http://ftp.dell.com/network/R117967.EXE Network driver.

[Gary406]

just go to dells website and select from there. simple and easy.

[scotty73]

Driver genius should pick that up and install it but you want a decent copy the trial ones find the driver but then want to charge you if i remember right... i got a copy here it's less than 10meg if we can figure out how to send it to ya?

[leestudd30]

Go to this website:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... PQ&cad=rja

Think you send files 1 at a time up to 200mb for free!

[Pilch]

Basically as someone said, install the motherboard drivers etc, hence then the audio will work aswell, there should be a pack somewhere for it.

Just the joys of formatting is the driver hunting - once i gave up and ran an old computer on basic colours!

[D9406]

I dont know if this may be of use to you but I recently put XP on an Acer which was designed for vista for a mate but the wifi wouldnt work on that either. I stupidly assumed that windows would load generic drivers for it but it turns out that the wifi component was designed for vista and needed the correct drivers to work. I went to the Acer website and found that they had released XP drivers for their laptops. I downloaded onto a disc via another laptop unzipped them popped the disc into the Acer laptop and double clicked the wifi driver and it installed perfectly. Once I had done that I went into device manager found all the components that were missing xp drivers installed them and job was a good one. Runs faster as well.

[Gary406]

Just the joys of formatting is the driver hunting - once i gave up and ran an old computer on basic colours!

thats why i will never use xp again. windows 7 (soon to be 8 does it all for you) .

[Pilch]

That was windows 98se days!

Googling always seems to find what i need, XP does tend to have basic drivers for most things...

[FarmerPug]

I've used dells website, you enter the service key and it shows up all the drivers, i had all on a CD put it into the laptop when XP was up to SP3 and some drivers has problems but the intel wlan one went on ok, but yet it still doesn't pick up wifi on its own.

[FarmerPug]

Problem solved, i made a bit mistake
I downloaded the drivers through the mac because i can burn them onto the DVD quicker, but on the dell website it seems to keep remembering the service tag for my old inspiron from the time xp was put onto it, but my sisters inspiron doesn't use an intel wifi adapter so the driver for it on her computer is irrelevant and confusing the computer, now with the dell driver for the wifi its working.
Now to get the rest of the stuff on it to work

Thanks for the replies

[sirwiggum]

I remember the day I took an old Vista machine and put Windows XP FLP (Fundamentals for Legacy PCs) on. Absolutely flew! Though it was missing a couple of things that full fat XP had.

[FarmerPug]

The speed is definatley much improved over vista, its only got 1gb of ram but with xp thats plenty. The sound and mouse are now working, i think the last thing to do is to get the dvd drive to burn stuff, install a few programs and thats the software end sorted, its a birthday present to her i am repairing the laptop new screen and keyboard and putting xp on. My dad is also glad of this since his laptop usually gets used.