Upgraded Vista to 7 last day and my wireless laptop adapter is behaving funny.
First it was killing me with resource conflict issues, but I just did a fresh Win 7 installation and the thing just does not seem to register now - as if it were not plugged in at all!
Is there some utility that will allow me to see all devices physically connected to my laptop, regardless of whether they have a driver or not?
I am willing to experiment with external OSes ( via bootable USB etc ) and self contained tools - whatever will help get the job done.
Asked by PoorLuzer on October 6, 2010.
I am not sure if this is a case unique to my situation, but I finally solved the issue.
The thing is like this : All these problems started happening after I installed a 2GB RAM module into my laptop. The laptop specification says that it can handle max 3GB RAM. I have 2 slots of RAM and the 2GB RAM was installed in the second slot and one of the existing 512MB RAM in first slot ( I had to swap out the other pre-installed 512MB ).
I tested my WiFi card on another laptop to verify if it was dead - it was indeed working.
Hence, I brought back my laptop hardware configuration back to what it had been ( using existing 512MB RAM cards ) and the WiFi card started to "work again" - Windows 7 installed drivers for "PCI-PCI Bridge" and then the AR5007 driver.
Before deciding to return the 2GB RAM, I just gave a last try and swapped out the 512MB in the first slot and inserted the 2G.
It's working even after multiple reboots.
I am not sure if I will face problems in the future ( previously, the issue was intermittent before the wifi went "dead" the last week ) - but I am hoping for the best.
Thankfully, I have some more information to work with, the next time, forbid, my wifi goes dead.
However - I am still stumped that there was no software that detected the wifi card ( might be because it was some kind of issue/address conflict deep in the motherboard itself at the hardware level? )
Answered by PoorLuzer on October 9, 2010.
If you're talking about embedded devices on your laptop, then it's very likely you'll need the driver. Don't forget about the chipset driver -- I once had a fresh install that device manager didn't "see" the additional devices like SD reader, webcam until I install the right chipset driver.
Answered by fseto on October 6, 2010.
The best way to enumerate connected devices is to use any bootable linux livecd and grab the result from lspci
Answered by entens on October 9, 2010.
Will this work if I installed openSUSE? I am thinking of doing that anyways. - PoorLuzer on October 9, 2010
@PoorLuzer yes. `lspci` and `hwinfo` should be present on all linux distributions. additional realtime data can be found in `/proc/` under linux. - entens on October 9, 2010
Thanks! That was helpful. - PoorLuzer on October 9, 2010
I've used SIW (System Information for Windows) in the past.
Answered by Wagnarock on October 6, 2010. Last Edited on October 6, 2010.
On Windows 7:
Right Click Computer
Select Properties
Select Device Manager from top left
Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers section
Answered by jon3laze on October 6, 2010.
If you've got devices physically attached but not working, you should have some indication in the Device Manager.
On XP it's at System Properties > Hardware > Device Manager and they show up with "?" icons - I haven't got 7 installed to double check if it's still the same.
Answered by ChrisF on October 6, 2010.
Content from Superuser of Stack Exchange. Original article at Superuser.
My problem is EXACTLY what you described - device manager does *not* seem to "see" a device, even with a exclamation beside it or something. It's as if the device did not exist at all. But I know the device is connected, and last time before it stopped showing up, I had a resource conflict for the driver. - PoorLuzer on October 7, 2010
Best bet is to go to the laptop manufacturer website and download the drivers. - fseto on October 7, 2010