WiFi problem Dell Inspiron 8600

teach nua

I'm having difficulty activating WiFi on my Dell Inspiron 8600. I never had a need to use the WiFi facility until now and have accessed the internet using a dongle and mobile broadband. When I got the laptop new about 10 years ago I can remember it searching for wireless networks when I used to turn it on. It was sold as having WiFi. Since then I have gone through a few hard drives and installs of Windows XP, which is currently installed (service pk 3). Currently when I switch on my phone as a WiFi hotspot I can not access it using my laptop. I have another newer inspiron and it finds the WiFi network so problem. I have attached a screenshot from my device manager. I am not sure exactly what section of the device manager I should be looking in, concerning a WiFi card. Under PCMCIA adapters there is a reference to Texas instruments PCI 4510 card bus controller. Would this be my WiFi card? According to device manager the correct driver is installed for this device. Should I be looking elsewhere checking drivers? Also on laptop Fn F2 is supposed to connect/disconnect from WiFi? When I press Fn F2 nothing happens. However when I do the same for FnF3 which has a battery icon on it, nothing happens either so maybe there is something wrong with the whole Fn thing? Any help would be greatfully appreciated as i'd really like to get this old girl connected to WiFi

bonzodog2

You need drivers for LAN,wifi and graphics, all listed under unknown devices. The wifi one is listed as Network Controller. Get the properties of that, find Vendor and Device ID (4 hex chars each) to help find driver if manufacturers site doesn't help

teach nua

the manufacturer for the network controller is coming up as unknown under properties.

is the device id the same as 'device instance id'?

device instance id is PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4220&SUBSYS_27228086&REV_05\4&39A85202&0&18F0

I tried putting in the original drivers and utilities cd-rom that came with the laptop to search for drivers but it did not find any.

I searched online under the device id and it said that this id could be for several different types of devices that use the same chipset. I found a site 'members.driverguide.com' that had a 'driver updater'. It scanned my laptop and found 27 out of date drivers including the ones you mentioned but it is looking for payment before it will update. To be honest i'm a bit dubious about this site...

I'd imagine there is a site that dell/intel would recommend where this could be done as a free update

bonzodog2

Thats an Intel card, Intel PRO/Wireless 2200. Try this driver: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20307&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%20XP%20%20*&DownloadType=Drivers

teach nua

i'm wireless!!! that worked a treat, thanks bonzodog2