pepoluan: The IT Guy

Link: http://www.vinodchandramouli.com/2008/04/how-to-find-drives-for-unknown-devices.html

Have you ever installed Windows, only to be bewildered by the huge selections of drivers in the Drivers CD given, while there's no installer that automatically detects the version tobe used? Or worse, they don't give you the drivers so you have to find it yourself?

If you've experienced that before, stop worrying! I'll tell you how to find the drivers. More WinPowerTip goodness after the jump...

Follow up:

First, great many thanks to Vinod Chandramouli who have kindly shared his tip, how to find drivers for unknown devices. You can click the link on the left to find out how, or continue reading the rest of this article.

The first thing you should know: All devices eversince PCI saw the light of the day always have a Vendor ID and a Device ID. This is the 2 critical information we must find.

How to find the Vendor ID and the Device ID

First, open Windows Explorer. Find "My Computer", then right-click and choose "Properties":

The "System Properties" window will open. Choose the "Hardware" tab and click the "Device Manager" button:

The "Device Manager" window will open. Note in my example, there is 1 unknown device, called "Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus". Right-click on that device, and choose "Properties":

The device's 'properties' box will open. Click on the "Details" tab, and make sure that the chosen "Property" is "Device Instance Id":

Note the displayed information. You have 2 critical information here: Vendor ID (in the above example, VEN_10EC) and Device ID (in the above example, DEV_0883). Note these codes (vendor = 10EC and device = 0883).

How to find the device's info

Now, visit this site where you can find device information (www.pcidatabase.com). Enter the Vendor ID and Device ID that you have just found:

Voila! Now you know who manufactured that device, so you won't choose the wrong driver. Or, at least now you know where to download the driver(s) from

This information can be very useful if the vendor manufactured more than 1 devices of the same type. For instance, Realtek produced many LAN controllers, such as 8019, 8029, 8100, dst. Which one to use? With the help of www.pcidatabase.com, You don't have to worry about it:

Thus concludes today's WinPowerTip. May this be of much use to you!