How to identify "Unknown Device" in Device Manager?

[BigToque]

There is a device in my Device Manager (in Win2k) listed as Unknown. Its been there for a while and I have no clue as to what it might be. How would I go about finding out?

I noticed today that my Maxtor HD is running in UDMA mode (device manager says so), but the drive is only getting transfer rates of 5mbps and an 80% cpu utilization.

 

[igiveup]

Are you at SP2? If not, update and then delete the item. More than likely there will be a driver for it in the updated service pack. If you are already at SP2 and you installed the device before the update, I would go ahead and delete it anyways. It might just work.

Only last way I know of is to inventory your system and find out what devices are listed and which ones aren't.

For your HD: prior to SP1 or SP2 (don't remember which) there were issues with DMA and drives saying they were running in DMA and not, or not running in DMA and saying they were.

Bottom line: Make sure your service packs are installed . Thats all I got. Sorry I couldn't help more.

 

[BigToque]

I have SP2 installed. All my hardware (individual components) are accounted for (sound card, modem, nic, etc).

I've deleted the device many times, and tried loading a bunch of different .INF files, but I just have no idea what it is looking for. I done hardware detection and everytime it just says its an unknown device.

 

[BigToque]

Ok, I just managed to figure out it is some kind of "Sound, video and game controller".

Unfortunately when the list of available hardware comes up, there are like 20 things listed. Here's the list:

Microsoft Audio Compression Manager
(MCI) Sound
Microsoft RLE Codec
Cinepak Codec by Radius Inc.
DSP Group TrueSpeech(TM) Audio CODEC
MIDI Synthesizer
(MCI) Midi Sequencer
Microsoft Video 1
Microsoft GSM 6.10 Audio CODEC
Microsoft CCITT G.711 Audio CODEC
Microsoft ADPCM Audio CODEC
Low Level Wave, MIDI and AUX support
MIDI Mapper
(MCI) Microsoft Video for Windows
Indeo codec by Intel
IMA ADPCM Audio CODEC
(MCI) CD Audio

On each device I select to install, I get a warning message that says its not recomended to install this device driver because Windows cannot verrify that it is compatible with my hardware.

I have a SB Live X-Gamer (non 5.1)

 

[Allanv]

now do you think it could be an onboard sound card and its NOT disabled in the bios....?????

just a thought

 

[BigToque]

its not an on-board sound card. I have an Abit BX6-R2 board, so nothing is integrated.

 

[Harvey]

Regarding your hard drive, I had a similar problem in Win 98. You could try booting in "Safe Mode," going to Device Manager and deleting your drive and hard drive controller. The system will recognize it and re-install them when you re-boot. Make sure you have your Windows disk when you do this, in case the system asks for it.

The problem could be that there are other drives/controllers in the system that don't show in regular operating mode. Delete all of them, not just the unused ones. Also, check for multiple installations of anything else. I found that extra device listings slow down some systems.

Clearing the system of unknown, extra devices may also help your system recognize the one you can't identify. Your unknown device may just be an older non-PNP device. Even if it appears again, you may be able to identify it just because you will have a new listing of everything you know is there.

Hope that helps.