(Tech Tip: Hardware) How to detect what kind of card is in your computer
If you look at device manager, you may see '?' items next to cards that it doesn't have drivers for.
Here's how you can use the ID info from PCI devices to figure out the model of the card. From this info you can search and find drivers.
Start Device manager (Control Panel… System… Device Manager) and look for those yellow question marks.
Look at the properties... Details... Hardware Ids and you will see vendor and device codes like this:
Do you see …VEN_10EC&DEV_8169&…
So the Vendor ID is 10EC (the company that made the device)
the Device ID is 8169 (the code for the device)
Now go here to look up these numbers:
PCI Vendor and Device Lists
In this case I entered the device ID and had to guess that I really needed the Netgear vendor since realtek simply makes the chip on the card.
In reality, either vendor probably has good enough drivers. Now you can go get the right drivers!
DriverMax
If all the above sounds too hard or you do this type of thing ALOT (we do) then you should definitely check out DriverMax from Innovative Solutions. It automatically detects your missing hardware and even offers to download the correct drivers.
What’s more it will let you know if your drivers are out of date and will keep track of your system on-line.
