Generic wireless driver?

halfmileduck · May 30, 2008, 04:36 AM

Hi,

In a spontaneous attempt to purge my laptop of the virus that is the most popular home os, I inadvertently wiped my onboard wireless drivers without taking note of what the wireless chip was.

Does anyone know if there is a generic wireless driver available (802.11g equivalent to basic vga graphics driver) OR if there is a utility that can tell you what wireless adapter you have OR is there a way to find a driver if you can figure out what the chipset is?

ideas welcome
thanks.

***temeteus82*** · May 30, 2008, 04:47 AM

Hi there and welcome to DriverHeaven!

First I moved this thread to correct part of the forums.

In general there isn't generic WLAN driver for windows. Since the chip's that are used in WLAN cards are from different makers so they don't have common way to control them. If you have laptop then the laptop maker would provide the driver for WLAN. If you have desktop PC then you should look what company has made the WLAN card that is installed.

longo213 · Jun 17, 2008, 07:15 PM

You can also try tool named Unknown Devices (latest version 1.4.20 beta) which is able to look for hardware device's ID in PCI or USB ID database and reveal the concrete device name or at least manufacturer. Which will help you to find the correct drivers.

Here's the difference between plain info from Device Manager and revealing full device name in Unknown Devices utility. After this search for the correct drivers is much more easier.

Btw - the latest beta version from June 2007 has outdated device databases, simply update the pcidevs.txt and usbdevs.txt in the ZIP archive. You can get the most recent versions of those file from the sites mentioned on UD's website.

procupine14 · Jun 18, 2008, 10:22 AM

I would definitely go to the manufacturer's website first and attempt to download the drivers through them. It will save you a headache if you can find them there.