Unknown Device In Device Manager

Sky

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 26, 2006
Messages
434
I have a unknown device listed in the Device Manager, when I checked it with an application it came back as a usb device from Microsoft...

This is someones computer I'm working on, they had spyware and viruses on it, and they were messing with the registry.

None of the USB areas in the Device Manager show anything in question, only this unknown device which is listed under the System Devices.

http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=91857605cc8.jpg

Not really to sure how to go about finding what driver this is, I've already installed the chipset drivers and reflashed the bios.

This is a Dell XPS 410:

http://support.dell.com/support/dow..._PNT_9200_XPS_410&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=

Besides the chipset and Bios not sure what else this could be unless it's related to SATA...

For me the box runs great, and personally I'd love to disable it, and not keep getting the wizard popup when you restart, but it has a checkbox to not prompt you anymore for the software for the device, but when I check it, it just prompts you again, LOL, stupid thing won't stop prompting you to install drivers. Is there a way anyone knows how I can disable the driver prompt?

THANKS
 
In the future, if you encounter devices in Device Manager with the "Unknown" label on 'em, here's how to track down info that could lead to identifying it. First, open Device Manager, then bring up the Properties for the device in question, then the Details tab. What you're looking for will be on the Device Instance ID entry, looks like this:

pciinfoyl9.png


What you're looking for is the 4 digit VENdor ID code and the 4 digit DEVice ID code, which for the device in that picture is:

10EC for the Vendor ID code and 8136 for the Device ID code (VEN_10EC and DEV_8136 can be seen plainly in that device identifier string). Take the 4 digit codes and go to:

www.pcidatabase.com

and put 'em in (both at the same time) and then hit Enter or click Search (I find that putting the values into box search boxes and pressing Enter gets a two-field search instead of single-field by clicking one or the other).

That will get you at least on the road to identifying the hardware, but if you're lucky it'll ID the specific device in the search results. Always nice to have this method of tracking down those pesky Unknown device drivers...
 
THANKS Joe, well I am a geek and a Tech, can't say I know everything, heheh...

Cool made this into a TUT...

By the way how up to date and accurate is pcidatabase.com, and will you always find something?

Before this I just used the 'Unknown Device Identifier' I found here:

http://www.zhangduo.com/udi.html
 
Well, I'd say it's fairly updated but, honestly I can't say that with any absolute certainty. All I can say is that if I don't actually locate useful info to go on from that site, I will copy the text of the device identification string (easy to do, just highlight the line of text in the dialog window in Device Manager and copy it with Control+C - right-click/Copy doesn't work, you get the "What's this?" popup so use Control+C to copy it).

Once copied, I'll past the portion that matters into Google, like so (keeping with the Realtek NIC example from my pic above):

PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8136

And that usually finds something of use. I just dropped that into Google and the first hit is:

"REALTEK driver for network chips" which provides a link to the Czech website for Realtek. It's enough to always get you started, and that's the whole point.
 
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