Member Avatar for Katana24

Hello all - been awhile since I've been on here :P

My brother recently upgraded an Inspiron 1525 from XP to Vista to Windows 7 (32bit) Home Premium. The installation went smoothly but now the laptop cannot access the internet. It can see the various wireless networks in the vicinity and connect to them but displays a red X in between the Network and Internet link in the map.

Before anyone suggest the obvious I will outline what I have done:

- Updated driver for network card, restarted computer - Failed
- Disabled Windows Firewall, restart - Failed ( P.S. There are currently no other antivirus or firewall service installed on the computer )
- Uninstalled wireless adapter and reinstalled the driver from a USB pen drive, restart - Fail
- Ensure password was correct, Fail ( Perhaps redundant but I was becoming desperate )
- Tried connecting via ethernet cable - Fail
- Attempted to connect to another wireless network - Fail
- Deleted the Bonjour services and program ( Created by Apple for iTunes ) as it was suggested it could be interfering with the connection.
- Manually inserted the IP address into the Network settings, restarted computer - Fail

I'm well aware that many people encountered this problem when upgrading to Windows 7 but is Windows 7 the real problem? Is there an inherent problem within it that causes this? Or perhaps the laptop is simple incapable of running Windows 7 correctly with the hardware it has installed?

P.S. One last question - I checked the Dell website for the necessary drivers, for the Network adapter, for Windows 7 but there are none. Instead it contains the drivers for Vista. Am I correct in stating that it isn't a driver issue as the adapter/laptop can see all wireless networks in range and connect to them?

Apologies for the wall of text; I was being thorough!

Thanks
Katana24

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Member Avatar for dimsums

I remembered this one from few years ago, the onboard hardware is really Broadcom rebadged, the beta drivers for Windows 7 actually worked quite well with it, but for some unknown reasons, it stopped working after RC1 or RC2, the best you can do is to find the Hardware ID from your device manager and then post back here or search the Broadcom site and try the 'n' drivers one at a time.

Member Avatar for benmar

meaning your laptop is only for windows vista...

Member Avatar for Katana24

If the laptop was only for vista then why did 7 install then? dimsums the hardware ID - can you clarify? I looked up the BroadCom site and it describes a list list of drivers for their Ethernet NIC. Is this what you are talking about?

Thanks

Member Avatar for Katana24

dim sums can you answer this please - I tried the Broadband website but the laptop doesn't contain any Broadcom hardware - the network adapter used are:

Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card
Marvell Yukon 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller

Im going to try to update the driver again. Let me know if you have any other ideas please

Member Avatar for hotmatrixx

If the laptop was only for vista then why did 7 install then? dimsums the hardware ID - can you clarify? I looked up the BroadCom site and it describes a list list of drivers for their Ethernet NIC. Is this what you are talking about?

Thanks

to get the Hardware ID's, (Win7)
start menu

type in
Device Manager [enter]

go to network adapters, find your offending one,
rightclick - properties
Details (across the top)
pulldown menu to "Hardware Ids"

you will see:
PCI\VEN_XXXX&DEV_XXXX

the ven_xxxx is the vendor ID
the dev-xxxx is the device ID, you need both.

go to here

http://www.pcidatabase.com/index.php

and do some poking around in their search engines. It will tell you who actually made the thing. Then you can search from that information for the drivers.

All else fails, Post the
PCI\VEN_XXXX&DEV_XXXX

here and I will see if I can find them for you.

Member Avatar for hotmatrixx


http://www.pcidatabase.com/index.php

they will probably work. Just make sure you get the right architecture (x64=64bit, x86=32bit).


We are of course presuming a driver issue, rather than a settings issue, here.

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