First off I should say that I do not have a lot of computer knowledge. I recently reformatted my dell xps 400 with windows XP. The reformat was successful however I am unable to connect to the internet. In my device manager next to OTHER DEVICES there is a yellow question mark. Included in the OTHER DEVICES are ETHERNET CONTROLLER, MULTIMEDIA CONTROLLER, SM BUS CONTROLLER, and VIDEO CONTROLLER. All of those also have the yellow question mark. I have used my dell supplied CD to install any drivers needed and it shows that none are found. Please help ASAP! Thank you!!

hello husker

how did you install the drivers using the cd?
driver installation cd's vary per brand and model.
i would guess that there are separate folders possibly labeled for graphics, chipset, ethernet and etc?

choose which folder to open first (in this example lets go with the ehternet drivers), see if a setup.exe file exists. double-click on it and it should "install". watch the installation process. it would sometimes indicate a folder location where the files will be extracted. TAKE NOTE OF THIS FOLDER LOCATION.

sometimes, the setup.exe file only extracts the installation files, it does not really do the install for you (this behavior is true for IBM Thinkpad laptop drivers). what you need to do then is go to the device manager, right click on the Ethernet/network device that is marked with yellow, select to update/install drivers. You will be asked for the driver location, browse to the folder where you observed that the ehternet drivers were extracted.

do this for each device in the Device Manager that is marked with yellow.


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You already have the Dell CD, so it should contain all dell approved and certified drivers that you need. This page however is a link for downloading the latest drivers available for your computer

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?

You normally dont need the latest drivers, the default drivers that come with Dell CD will do fine. If you still have problems installing the drivers from the DELL cd -- if it doesnt seem to install OR the device manager still puts a yellow icon even after you restart the computer..

then try downloading the specific driver for that component on the link above. prioritize making the ethernet driver work so you can go online with that computer.

Online Dell Support may also help. Im not sure/ havent read enough on the DEll website if they offer a program that automatically checks-downloads-and-installs the drivers that you need. If there is such a program, the caveat is that you first need to install the ethernet driver manually so you can go online.

Goodluck on this, feel free to update us how it goes