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The Abomidable Upgrade

D

DESHOOTER

Junior Member
I have a presario laptop model 17XL265 it came with windows 98 but I upgraded it to XP. I cannot for the life of me get it to acknowledge its onboard ethernet card or accept a wireless pcmcia card. Any help on drivers where i can get em or fixes.. Thanks in advance this laptop belongs to an older person who doesnt have the loot to upgrade and Im trying to fix it for them it came to me slicked. 😱
 
Check Device Manager for the make and model of the ethernet card, and find the manufacturer's site for generic driver for your model number/range.

Check HP/Compaq's site to see if there are XP drivers for your laptop. If they have only Win 98 drivers, they may give you the make/model of the LAN card. If not, you could download the Win 98 driver.

HP's installable executables are usually ZIPped files, even if they have a .EXE extension. If that's what you find, you could use WinRAR, or any other unizipping utility that allows you to look inside of the file without running it as an executable installation. In it, you'll probably find a Read Me file that may help you determine the make and model.

You can also search Google for the model + driver to find it.

Of course, there's always the possiblity that there is no XP driver for a machine old enough to have been released with Win 98.

Hope that helps. 🙂
 
Yah thats part of the problem I cannot find the exact model of the network card I think it may be a Conexant combo with the modem but all the drivers I find are from somewhere you have to join etc. Ive never had this much trouble finding info or drivers/
 
pull the card out and look at the label, do a search and see if you can find what chip was used in it... then do a search for drivers of that chip.

Or, post a pic of the card and we'll see if we can help
 
Does it show any yellow questionmarks for unknown devices?

Start by searching Google for the exact model number + drivers. If you find anything, you can narrow the search by adding + XP to the search parameters.
 
The Downloads and Product Specs pages don't even list a wired or wireless network adapter for that laptop. Just a dial-up modem. So unless you have an expansion card, it doesn't have the ability to connect to a LAN, which is why the Device Manager doesn't list any network adapters.
 
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No yellow marks it doesnt show up at all. There is a port in the back right beside the modem port thats a ethernet port. Im not familiar with exspansion slots in laptops. If I was to open it I guess it would have some info on the chip. Y do some of these old ones give us so much grief? I wish I had a way to go back to 98
 
At that time (11 years ago) things were done differently.

They put Network plug on the chasis but a it was an option and most of the models that use this Chasis/Mobo (including the XL265) came without NIC.

PCMCIA at that time went through changes too and it might be that will not find a Wireless card that is compatible with the specific port that is on the laptop.

There are very inexpensive Wireless USB cards try one that comes with XP drivers and downward compatible wit USB 1.1.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=100010074 600014288&IsNodeId=1&name=USB 2.0

P.S. If you look on the Downloads you see that a lot is available for Win98 and only one driver for Win XP.

That means that at the time of release Win XP already included all the drivers that are needed for this Laptop.
So if everything is switch On in the BIOS and it does not come up in the Device Manager it usual y means that it does not exists.


😎
 
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Crap That's what I was afraid of cause I remember the old IBM notebooks all used the same chassis and some ports were null. Ive tried this belkin 54G pcmcia wireless card but it locks up mouse or prob whole maching everytime It's in the slot as soon as I remove it all goes back to normal. SO it makes sense that the card is prob too new to be compatible with the pcmcia slot. Ima try the USB option but there are only two ports I wonder if I could use one for wireless card and the other for a usb hub. Dang thing prob too old for that too LOL
 
DESHOOTER said:
Crap That's what I was afraid of cause I remember the old IBM notebooks all used the same chassis and some ports were null. Ive tried this belkin 54G pcmcia wireless card but it locks up mouse or prob whole maching everytime It's in the slot as soon as I remove it all goes back to normal. SO it makes sense that the card is prob too new to be compatible with the pcmcia slot. Ima try the USB option but there are only two ports I wonder if I could use one for wireless card and the other for a usb hub. Dang thing prob too old for that too LOL
Click to expand...

At some point, it's time to upgrade. That thing is lucky to be alive after all this time.
 
DESHOOTER said:
Ima try the USB option but there are only two ports I wonder if I could use one for wireless card and the other for a usb hub. Dang thing prob too old for that too LOL
Click to expand...

It will be USB 1, which is pretty slow, just like the rest of that machine by today's standards. I agree with ch33zw1z. That thing is ready for the big blue bin.

Recycle responsibly. FYI, Best Buy and some other stores offer free recycling of electronic gear such as old computers, TV's, etc.
 
I know thats the first thing I said but this person doesnt have any loot and wants to get on the internet. I think I may just give them one of these inspirons or lattitudes I have laying around prob be better cause of docking station anyway. Thanks all you folks for taking the time out your days to help me.
 
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