Gateway 7330GZ Network Controller

I think I have done my due diligence here and am now asking for help. Here's the situation: brother-in-law's computer was in bad shape. I had to put new memory in it, replace the CMOS battery, reinstall the OS (WinXP SP3) and find drivers.

Current situation: everything is working well except wifi. The device manager shows no drivers for "PCI Modem" and "Network Controller." I only care about the Network Controller - I assume this is why the wireless capability is non-existent.

I have tried installing all the drivers that everybody says have worked for them. Although they all say that they installed correctly, none of them seem to be what the Network Controller is looking for. What am I doing wrong??

I think I have a Broadcom 440x 10/100 NIC, but am not confident in anything anymore. Plugging in to the network works, so it's only the wireless part that not working.

The actual chip on the NIC reads:

Broadcom
BCM4318EKFBG
HA0534 P20
752856 N1

I have attached the report from Everest. Any help anyone can provide would be fantastic. Thanks in advance.

 

Hello,
Here is the driver page for your computer. There are two drivers for you wireless. Did you try these drivers? The one that is 145.4KB could be installed by right clicking the device in Device Manager and then pointing it to the inf file.


http://support.gateway.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?partNumber=4997

 

I am pretty sure I've tried both of those before, but tried them again just now. The smaller one doesn't complete b/c it says it can't find the right software for the hardware. The bigger one completes and requires a restart, but I still have the yellow ? next to Network Controller in Device Manager.

Many of the drivers I've tried seem to install properly, but don't solve the problem.

Thanks for the help, tgell. Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

Did you reboot your system in each driver installation ? :wave

 

The first one (smaller file) didn't complete, so I didn't think it was necessary. I will try that now and let you know what happens.

So you guys think that the drivers on the Gateway page are the right ones?

 

Yes is the right drivers you need !! :wave

 

Ok - I uninstalled "Broadcom Wireless Network Adapter" from Add/Remove Programs, rebooted, installed the larger of the 2 drivers from the Gateway drivers page (3.30.15), rebooted and still have the same situation: yellow ? on Network Controller in Device Manager and no wifi.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet - there is an icon for "Broadcom Wireless Utility" in Control Panel that goes away when I remove the driver (3.30.15) and reappears when I reinstall the driver. If I open it, I get a window with a tab in it that says "No Adapters" and OK/Cancel buttons. There's no other text. When I try to close it, I get an error message that I have attached as well as a screenshot of the window. Does this mean anything?

I wonder if there's a problem with the hardware. I've never had so much trouble getting any devices up and running.

Thanks again.

 

I actually downloaded the small driver and it is for a Realtek chip. The number is

;; NET8185.INF
;;
;; Realtek RTL8185 PCI/Cardbus 802.11g 54M Wireless LAN Network Interface Cards.
;;
;; Copyright 1996-2004, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation

So, try this driver and see if it works.

Windows XP(32bit/64bit)/2K Driver Only 747k

http://www.realtek.com/downloads/do...=35&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true

 

I noticed that you have two wireless adapters one is a,

300Mbps Wireless 802.11b/g/n USB Adapter with a Ralink chip.

The other is a Broadcom 802.11g Wireless Network Adapter which I think is using the Realtek chip.

Are you using a USB network adapter on this computer?

The Broadcom 440x 10/100 NIC is your ethernet.

 

Didn't work - I got the same message as the smaller file from the Gateway driver page (4.100.15.5). It's says "The hardware was not installed because the wizard could not find the necessary software."

Thanks for the idea, but no luck. I am totally stumped on this one.

Is there a way to tell if the wifi NIC is toast?? This just doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks again.

 

Okay, can you do this. Under Network Controller, can you right click and under properties get the Vendor and Device ID.

http://www.askdrtech.com/solutions/image.axd?picture=2010%2F3%2Fhardware-id-02.jpg

In my previous post I asked about a USB wireless network adapter. Are you using one on this computer?

 

Ah - sorry - I missed your last post. yes - I am hijacking my wife's usb wifi adapter when I can to work directly from the computer in need of attention.

Now I understand why you wanted me to use the Realtek driver.

Here's what I have under HardwareID for the Network Controller:

PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4318&SUBSYS_044914E4&REV_02
PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4318&SUBSYS_044914E4
PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4318&CC_028000
PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4318&CC_0280

Thanks again for all your help.

 

Okay, it looks like Gateway put the wrong driver on their website. According to the Vendor and Device ID it is a Broadcom BCM4318.

Try this driver.

 

That one didn't work either. I uninstalled the Broadcom Wireless Network Adapter, rebooted, unzipped the driver you recommended, went to update the driver for the wireless network controller, pointed it at the driver and got the message that the hardware could not be installed because the proper software was not found.

I hate emoticons, but :cry.

 

Okay, I guess we will try the following. It was referenced at PCI database.com but I wanted to use a smaller file.

Download this file unzip and install. If this does not work, I would have to say it is a hardware problem.

http://www.wireless-driver.com/broadcom-wireless-windows-driver-utility-ver51009142/

Edit: what is kind of weird is that the vendor ID is for a company called Pantelis but uses broadcom chips.

 

Unbelievable!! You are the man, tgell! I don't know how you knew to look where you looked, but you are quite resourceful. Thank you for your help.

 

Glad you got it working. Thanks for the feedback. If you every run into the problem again. Find the Vendor and Device ID's and then go to PCIdatabase.com
to find the Vendor and Device.