Dell Dimension- my embarrasing problem! 1

[pilihp]

A friend has a Dell Dimension 2400 on which I have had to reinstalled Win XP using the supplied disc after a mains power failure corrupted the OS.
But how do I load the drivers?? I have all the original discs supplied by Dell including one which says it contains drivers but when the disc is opened there are no instruction as to how to actually install them - just a lot of information about what drivers are on the disk.

I looked at Device Manager which has a whole series of yellow question marks. The monitor is at minimum resolution due to the lack of drivers and cannot be changed.

Please could someone tell me what to do.

 

[BadBigBen]

Usually you can RIGHT click the Items that have the Yellow exclamation mark, then a menu pops up with choices, one is called UPDATE DRIVER choose it, it will then ask you where and how to install the drivers, go with the manual install of the drivers and point it to the CDROM (where the driver CD is waiting) and it should search the CD for the correct driver...

do this for all of them...

if by chance it can't find any driver, then navigate to the CD there may be an installer for all the drivers (setup.exe)...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[pilihp]

BadBigBen - thanks, but i have tried this in Device Manager. I have steered the update window to every single folder on the CD, in turn. None of these folders satisfy the OK button which remains greyed out. Making Device manager search the whole CD has the same non-result.

 

[pilihp]

There is no .exe file anywhere or anything to initiate an instalation that I can find either; but there are a number of zip files.

 

[stduc]

Things to try.

Take a look at Dells website. You can download drivers from there.

Take a look a the installation CD and see if there is any helpful documentation on it.

Install a trial copy of winzip and take a look at those zip files.

Should you have re-installed from the CD, or is there a recovery partition?

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[paparazi]

Go to Dells website, insert service tag number to get to the download drivers specific to that model.

Choose the operating system:
Download: Chipset (Intel) board driver
Graphics card (onboard or addon) driver
Sound card (onboard or addon) driver
Modem (although probably not used any more) driver
Ethernet driver
TV tuner? or whatever (probably hasn't get one)
SATA or Raid controller (again if listed) driver.

Once downloaded, transfer to PC in question and install in same sequence.
Until yellow marks have all gone.
Martin


On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[goombawaho]

Put the Dell cd in and do the installation routine, then launch the application that it added to the Program menu. Then the Dell driver CD will extract the files for you, but you have to click on them and choose which ones you want - one at a time. They will extract to a folder like c:\dell\drivers\R134643

Then you do your thing in device manager.

 

[pilihp]

goombawaho - thanks but that is my point; putting in the CD just opens a start page which gives all sorts of options and menus all of which relate to information about drivers with some driver names ticked and others not ticked. There is no button or link to click anywhere at all to either download files to the PC or to install them on the PC. The opening paragraph in the web style type page says something like "You do not need this CD to install drivers but it is useful to read about them...."
I got the model number wrong - sorry, it is a Dimension 3200 with XP home - and without SP2.

paparazi - thanks too, yes certainly I can see a list of drivers specific to the machine in question on Dell's site. Strange that there is no graphics card driver mentioned in the list - the one thing I really need to start with. There is a section called 'video' but I don't think that is what is needed.

 

[Freestone]

I can not find a Dell Dimension 3200 on their website. Are you sure this is the correct model?

The video section should contain the graphics driver required for the machine

As far as the drivers CD, I just placed mine into my Dell laptop and I get the same menu as you, with some items checked and others not checked. When you left-click on one of the checked items, a new page is presented describing the driver and there is a button at the bottom of the page, which, when clicked, will extract the driver files and start the driver installation process.

I suggest the online drivers as they will be the latest and most updated.

 

[pilihp]

Freestone - thanks so much and yet again I have given the incorrect model number! It is a 2300 NOT 3200 - so sorry to you and all others. OK the video section. I have no access to the machine for several days but will look with great interest again at the page with ticks - if mine does the same as yours I should be ok but don't know how I could have missed this! Point taken on the online drivers.

I shall report back later in the week as to progress.

 

[Freestone]

pilihp - If the system is using the Intel integrated graphics chip, then the Video section of the online drivers has the file required, otherwise you will have to do some investigative work and determine the chipset used on the discrete video card, e.g. ATI or nVIDIA.

 

[pilihp]

Thanks everyone, the Dell is now working splendidly with all drivers loaded. Freestone was spot on with the solution. I did not see the button at the bottom of the page to initiate the loading process partly because the resolution was so low.
I'll know better next time. Thanks again!