Ok so i’ve got an older hp laptop that had a hd crash on it over a year ago, and finally picked up a new hd for it. Anywho, I replaced the drive, and got a copy of windows installed. Everything appears normal, but there are 2 kind of important things missing lol In the device manager i’m missing the drivers for the Ethernet Controller and the Audio Controller. I went on HP’s site but didn’t really find anything, anyone know where else I can dl these from to throw on a cd so I can get them installed? Oh fwiw i’m using Windows XP w/service pack II , and its an HP Compaq nc6000 “business” laptop.
Ethernet.
problem solved…thanks to mr ryanmcell :tup: definitely not as smooth as it should have been tho, those links lie! lol
windows update?
yea that didn’t fix it either lol i’m still unable to get online with the wireless card… i have to have it wired in to get online. whenever i plug the card in it goes to the new hardware wizard and says it can’t find any software for it
does the device manager at least recognize the make/model of the ethernet controller? Like maybe something along these lines “Broadcomm 10/100x ethernet controller”? If so you could always google what that says.
nope, the device manager just said “ethernet controller”, which i fixed from the hp site so that i could get on with the ethernet cable plugged in. when i put in the wireless card it also comes up in the new hardware found as “ethernet controller”.
Look on the wireless card and get the make/model. Go to that companies site and look for the support section. In there you should find a downloads section that will let you download the drivers for the card.
Once you have all your drivers burn them all to a cd so you have them the next time.
Sounds like the wireless card is not build into the computer, so follow JayS’ instructions.
The wireless and the wired ethernet are completely independent of each other.
ok that worked for getting it to recognize the card… did a scan and it found my network, but when i go into edit the encryption to add the key, it only lets me choose WEP, or none. Mine is setup as a WPA, so now what? lol
only thing i can think of is i had my network security set up different before… looks like its time for a new card that will support WPA
Your card is too old and does not support wpa would be my guess. We had a large problem with that when we upped the security on our internal network and people having shit fits that they couldn’t get on. I can not remember if we had to replace all of the cards or just update the software…
buy a macbook jay
im not buying anything 
it cost me $40 for the hd and another $30 for the card, i don’t have money burning a hole in my pocket for a whole new laptop! unless your donating yours haha
so wait a minute, you would use a mac computer if one were offered to you?!?!
you can always put windows on it.
Are you sure you’ve got service pack 2 installed? XP supports wpa natively once SP2 is installed.
Also, are you setting up your wireless password through windows or through a utility program from the wireless card company?
I usually run belarc advisor to figure out exactly what hardware is in the system, then find drivers that way.