Hi

I purchased a Huawei E355 Mobile wifi dongle (usb plug and play) but for some reason, it is not self installing on my xp, sp3 machine.

When I insert it into a usb port, nothing happens. I know the usb port works, because other usb plug and plays installs automatically. In other words, the found new hardware wizard appears and it gets installed, but not with this dongle, nothing like that happens.

When I look in device manager, it is not shown there, and there are no yellow exclamation etc and it is also not shown as "other" It is, according to the manual, suppose to show up under mobile devices, and under network cards, and under usb in device manager, as well as in "my computer" as a drive, but nothing like this, because it does not start the installation process.

I tried the "install new hardware" from control panel, but it does not show on a list of hardware to install.

There are no driver downloads from the manufacturers website either.

I have search high and low, and found many similar problems people experience with XP, and even followed some "solutions" on microsoft support website where I had to edit some stuff in the registry, but no luck.

What else can I try for windows to recognise the device and install the drivers?

The device is working fine, when I plug it into a laptop or anywhere else, so it is not a faulty device, but something on my pc.

Any help will be apreachiated.

It may be a usb power problem. Not all ports on some PC's provide adequate power for such dongles - WiFi devices have a pretty high power cost. Try other ports on your system. At least one probably has a higher power load capability.

Kudos to you rubberman, you were spot on, I am getting old now and forgot the obvios. Thank you!

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.