wireless card help?

[ModusPwnens]

Hi everyone,

a guy I know wanted some help fixing up a laptop he bought (got scammed?) on craigslist. It didn't have a wireless card in it when I took a look at it. I put another one in (which I know works fine) and windows 7 didn't recognize that it had new hardware.

I'm going to connect the computer to my router and see if I can update lots of drivers, but if it still won't recognize the wireless card, should I just reformat and reinstall windows?

I'm really open for suggestions. I'm not too sure what's going on yet since I haven't had too long to take a look.

Thanks
Modus

edit: sorry, didn't see the subforum

 

[iStealVCRs]

From my experience, usually finding the right drivers online, or using the disc the hardware came with will work 9 times out of 10. I've run into instances when installing windows on a new machine, it might not have the drivers for some bits of hardware.

So, try your luck at installing some drivers, and report back with what you've got.

 

[ModusPwnens]

Okay, I'm totally out of ideas.

It doesn't recognize the wireless card. It doesn't recognize any of the tablet hardware, and it won't install drivers for the monitor. If I go to device manager, it doesn't show that there's any "unknown" hardware.

I can't think of anything else to do. I downloaded all the drivers for this computer, ran all the windows updates, tried Windows 7, Windows Vista, and poked around in the BIOS. I'm so frustrated.

Well now I'm for sure not ever going to buy a computer on craigslist >.>

The battery's shot, the original wireless card is missing, and it looks like half the RAM is gone, too. I don't know if this just has serious hardware problems or what, but I really have no idea how to "fix" it.

 

[Gomezzz]

I guess if you have tried vista and windows 7 why not try Linux. But i guess if you do ever buy a computer from someone, friend or not check to see if it boots up and if its missing anything :s

 

[ModusPwnens]

Yeah seriously. I didn't buy it though, I guy I know did and he wanted me to fix it. Playing with BIOS didn't help. I give up.

Edit: if it were mine, it would be a linux box right now. But he wants to put microsoft office 10 on there
I'm so done and I'm not going to fiddle with Wine for that.

Edit 2: Wow, just did a google search, this guy totally got ripped off. He had an illegal copy of windows, judging on the product key. T_T