Ways to find the Company/Manufactuer That made your hardware(s) 1

[Karl Blessing]

If any peice of your hardware has an FCC ID(It should if it were being sold in the US) you can easily find the people who made that product, or let alone the people who had to register the FCC ID.<br><br>This was very useful when I had a TV Tunner card dated back to 1995, I needed software for it, looking on the card I seen brand names from NEC, Sony, Panasonic, KDS, Texas Insturament, and a bunch of othercompanies, that had made a part for the Card, or one of the Chips, using the FCC ID , I found out the manufactuer was really yuanyuan.<br><br><A HREF="

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/</A><br><br>if

you goto that URL you can type in least the First three letters of the FCC ID. and it should get your the manufactuer, and the data the FCC ID was registered. <p>Karl<br><a href=mailto:kb244@kb244.com>kb244@kb244.com</a><br><a href=

http://kb244.com>

</a><br>Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)<br>

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

 

[Alt255]

Cool data, Karl! <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href=

http://www.vorpalcom.com>A

plain black box</a><br>

 

[Karl Blessing]

Yea that url is kind of hard to find now if you were just going to thier site, it used to be on the oppening page til they moved it, also If you cant seem to find the URL for the manufactuer, there is always Search engines, you could also try going to pricewatch.com and typeing in any of the visible model numbers, usally they may show up somewhere if someone on the net is selling that item (try ebay search even, they sell alot of old stuff from time to time, and that model number might even show up) <p>Karl<br><a href=mailto:kb244@kb244.com>kb244@kb244.com</a><br><a href=

http://kb244.com>

</a><br>Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)<br>

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

 

[ladin]

I was wondering what that link was. Once you find out the manufacturer is there any sort of list associated with it on that site where i could get drivers if needed? <p>Ladin<br><a href=mailto:matchu_14@hotmail.com>matchu_14@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Tech support for 1 1/2 years, build computers, messed with C, HTML, Working on Flash, Role-Playing Game Junkie (Diablo2)

 

[Karl Blessing]

The FCC only list the company name and Document numbers that the product was registered under, typically you could just type manufactuer.com and get something, but knowing the name can be a big step for some of the hard to tell cards or hardware (every peice of legal eletronic in the US is sold with an FCC ID)&nbsp;&nbsp;For that reason is why I sugested using search engines, or searching through some of the mojar product sale sites, like Ebay or Pricewatch <p>Karl<br><a href=mailto:kb244@kb244.com>kb244@kb244.com</a><br><a href=

http://kb244.com>

</a><br>Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)<br>

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

 

[tomw]

I've used the FCC id many many times to identify a card, but they only provide the first piece of the puzzle. You still need to then find that manufacturers site, and then locate the driver for the model number you uncovered. A place like driverguide.com, or others (there are a lot of driver sites)has links to most manufacturers sites, but even better a lot of the links go right to the support or driver download pages, saving you the time of having to search for them manually. One caveat to be aware of is that manufacturers/OEM's sometimes have a series of an item made to their specifications, which will make selecting your driver a more critical process. Compaq, Sony, and in the old days Packard-Bell caused me the most problems with this. For instance, an LT Winmodem (Lucent Technology chipset PnP Modem) should be straight-forward, and there are generic Lucent drivers all over the web for it. But if it came from a Compaq Presario...not so fast, their are special drivers for that, and generally those &quot;Compaq&quot; LT winmodems don't support the flash upgrade that a lot of driver sites instruct you to do before using their driver. This is just one example...and I hope, further reason to heed the advice given above...Do the research, search everything, consider all the options, then keep track of what you are doing, in case you have to &quot;un-do&quot; any of it.

Good post kb244, anyone who has to do this kind of stuff needs a well-thought out &quot;toolbox&quot; and that link is a real keeper in my opinion..

 

[Karl Blessing]

Thanks for the reply, I realize it's only part of a puzzle, But hey thats the point, it's all about research hehe. What I would like to see happen is that the FCC include an optional &quot;Parameter&quot; so to speak, so that when manufactuers register any new products, they can include URLs, or other information in their registration profiles.

 

[tomw]

I agree totally...it doesn't &quot;need&quot; to be this tough to support all these cards. We already have the law saying they need to file to get the ID...seems a perfect time to &quot;make&quot; them provide just a little more information.

 

[bytemaster]

Unfortunately, the FCC has relaxed their requirements. Most new boards simply state &quot;Tested to Comply with FCC standards&quot; or something to that effect. These have not been submitted to the FCC and do not have an FCC ID number. I belive this was done to help the computer industry release products faster.

Jeremy Hannon
Brainbench &quot;Most Valuable Professional&quot; for Computer Technicians

 

[Karl Blessing]

hmm good point, but usally those newer boards that are fortunate to throw out boards like that will make their company name big and clear.(most newer items advertize on their own products to ensure people will buy future products)

 

[Lightspeed1]

I have been using a bit of freeware from Belarc.com that is great for identifying hardware. It creates an html profile of all hardware and software including hardware model and manufacturer, processor speed, disk space, memory, bus speed etc etc. check it out.
Obviously, this track is only viable if the hardware is functional. I use it a lot to determine upgrade paths for folks.
Regards,
Lightspeed1

 

[madtech]

Thanks, I was going to ask how to deterine the manufacturer for a CD Burner I picked up. There was nothing on it and the store had no clue. I would like to get the proper dirvers for it.