Ethernet controller driver issue on T42p in Windows 7

[tysong]

Hi,

I had Windows 7 RC (build 7100) installed on my T42p (2373-GRU). Everything was mostly fine, except the keyboard was a bit unresponsive, and I didn't plan on using a beta copy of Windows forever. Upgrading to a full release version of Win 7 has proven tricky, though...

The machine itself, I should note, has a few upgrades, including the 802.11 hardware, I believe. In Device Manager, I see:

Atheros Wireless Network Adapter, driver date 5/2/2007, driver version 4.1.2.156
Intel(R) PRO/1000 MY Mobile Connection, driver date 5/28/2008, driver version 8.4.1.1

Both appear to be working fine. Trouble is, now my "ethernet controller" device has stopped working. Windows can't find a driver for it, and neither can I. I had the same problem when I installed Windows 7 build 7100. To get around it, I installed an older driver as recommended here:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... 297#M44638

That worked for 7100. Trouble is, Win7 full release now refuses to allow drivers that aren't fully signed for Win7 or whatever to be installed. So, my perfectly adequate old driver no longer works. Clicking "upgrade driver" in device manager does no good.

I've looked here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... networking

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... -BETA.html

...to no avail. Win7 isn't letting me install a new driver.

Does Lenovo simply not support Windows 7 on T42p machines??

Any other ideas?

The symptoms are: My wired ethernet still works fine, but wireless ethernet doesn't work at all.

[dr_st]

Obviously Lenovo does not officially support Win7 on T42. You cannot expect them to support an OS that was released about 3.5-4 years after the T42 series was moved out of production...

With that said, usually it is possible to get almost everything to work.

First, which device you say that isn't working? You mention both wired and wireless network controllers. Which is the one that has problems?

When you say "stopped working" - does it mean that the device is missing from the device manager? Is it recognized as unknown device? Or is it there but with some yellow bang and an error code?

I was under the impression that the requirement for signed drivers was only in place in the 64bit versions of Vista/7.

[tysong]

Hi dr_st,

Thanks for taking my question.

The symptoms are that I cannot connect to a network wirelessly, but I can connect with a cable (wired).

The two adapters I mentioned (The Atheros and the Intel PRO) both appear in Device Manager and both appear to have adequate drivers installed, and neither is flagged with a yellow bang. HOWEVER... Under "Other devices", there is an "ethernet controller" that has a yellow bang. Under "properties", the "ethernet controller" says it doesn't have a driver installed. When I attempt to "update driver", Windows can't find one. When I attempt to manually update the driver, Windows won't accept the driver. I was only guessing as to the reason (I was guessing it had to with the driver being "signed"... I don't actually know that to be the case. Note I have been unable to find a driver that is officially a "Win7" driver, so I've tried older drivers like a Vista driver and an XP driver... I think I even tried a W2k driver... but Win7 rejects them all, whereas build 7100 accepted the same driver. Under 7100, the Vista driver solved both the yellow bang issue and my wireless connectivity problem, but not under Win7.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Tyson

[tysong]

Ok, finally got this to work after banging on it for a while... I'm not sure what all I did exactly, but the best advice I can give you is this:

1) Update everything with Windows Update and Thinkvantage Update
2) Disable the "ethernet controller" in "other devices"
3) Download all the ethernet drivers you think you might need (I think it was this one:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67255

referenced here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... networking

4) Install or update some other drivers (or skip this on your first try)
5) Enable "ethernet controller"
6) Within "ethernet controller" properties, select "update driver" and the folder "C:\drivers"
7) It will probably tell you it can't find any Intel PRO/1000 devices or something... Click "ok"...
Then, when Win7 comes back and says "Your driver may not have installed properly" and prompts you to try again with "recommended settings", DO IT. It should eventually come back and say it was able to install the proper drivers for "Atheros" something...

If this doesn't work, play around with some other combination of the above, with more drivers downloaded from IBM and expanded into the C:\drivers folder. The critical steps seem to be 6-8.

Thanks for everyone's help on this... Hope this is the end of the story!