Unknown Device: Intel(R) ICH10 LPC Interface Controller - 3A18

Hi All
I have been pulling my hair out for two days trying to get this problem solved. I have stopped installing or customizing my computer because I don't know if I'm going to have to reinstall or not. Here's the scoop.

I just did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro 64 from a freshly formatted hard drive.

I am using an Asus P5QL-EM main board with an Intel Core2 Duo 2.8GHz with 4G RAM and an older 80G IDE hard drive and an LG IDE DVD burner (all the SATA ports are empty).

Other than the keyboard and mouse the only other thing installed in the computer is the Radeon 4870 PCIE Video Card.

I have completed the install, and everything works perfectly. I have a web cam that I did not plug in, but I tested it and it doesn't work....wow $8 down the tubes

I was so happy I could have just...well you know...

Then I made the mistake of checking Device Manager to make sure there were no problems. Whoever said "Ignorance is bliss" had it right.

I have an unknown device (The Horrors!).

When I check the properties it says: Location: on Intel(R) ICH10 LPC Interface Controller - 3A18

I have checked into this and it appears to be a part or the Intel SATA hardware. This board uses the G43 chipset, so I downloaded those drivers from Intel and tried installing them, but no luck. I tried following their instructions, but they're a little convoluted. I used the "update driver" from Device Manager, and navigated to where the Windows 7 directory was containing all the drivers for this chipset, but it didn't install. I also tried the setup.exe but it didn't help. I went to the Asus website and downloaded the Win 7 64 chipset drivers for this board and tried the setup.exe but got the same results.

I found one other guy with this same problem in the Asus forums. Apparently he did an upgrade, so he dumped his install and did a fresh one and his problem is gone now. He was thanking the guy who gave him a link to the Intel site with these chipset drivers, although I don't know why (I tried those drivers...no joy).

The funny thing is that I only got Win 7 because I thought XP was getting a little old, and I didn't want my fairly new hardware running a fossil operating system. Now I'm actually pining for Windows XP. To top it all off, I don't much care for Win 7. They've really dumbed down the o/s, and the start menu really sucks bad now. It reminds me more of a kids toy than a professional o/s for adults.

Any help would really be appreciated. I'm all worn out from spending 10 hours straight (other than bathroom breaks) trying to solve this problem.

I was under the impression that, with Windows 7, problems like this were a thing of the past. To top it all off, it's an Intel driver causing the problem....go figure....

If you don't like the Start menu, you can change it back to what you're pining for... the interface evolves like everything else. MS can't please everyone... people complain about "dumbing down" while others find things are overly complex. If you prefer Windows the way it was in the old days, switch to the Windows Classic theme.

I appreciate the effort, but after installing the driver package you recommended I still get the same results.

When I execute the exe everything seems to work, but the unknown device is still there.

Sigh, it looks like I might have to try reinstalling Windows 7 again. It's too bad there's no way to tell ahead of time if that will make any difference.

Think I'll take an image if this install, so after installing again if I get the same problem I can restore this install.

I'm afraid I don't know how you converted your device manager list to text.
I have a screenshot but I can't paste it here, and it would be pretty big anyway.

If I "View Devices by Connection" and "Show Hidden Devices", open the PCI bus and then the Intel(R) ICH10 LPC Interface Controller - 3A18 I get the following list:

Direct memory access controller
High Precision Event Timer
Intel(R) 82802 Firmware Hub Device
Motherboard resources
Motherboard resources
Motherboard resources
Motherboard resources
Numeric data processor
Programmable Interrupt Controller
Standard Floppy Disk Controller
System CMOS/real time clock
System speaker
System Timer
Unknown Device

The only unusual thing about my system is that it's using an older hard drive. It's a Maxtor 80G IDE drive, but the system recognizes it fine under the hard drive heading.
As I mentioned above, there's nothing else connected. There were no problems with Windows XP. This is a fairly common chipset, and I don't read anything from other people having the same problem, so there must be something different here.
Last night I updated the BIOS to the latest version. I have tried about four different driver packages from both Intel and ASUS. I tried both the Setup.exe and the manual install methods to no avail.

Help me before I Install Again! AAAaaaaa.....

Edit Nov 18 2009:

I have given up fixing this problem. I have gotten an email from ASUS telling me that if the system is working fine I'll just have to wait and see if there's another driver update.

Out of all the things that could go wrong, I never dreamed it would be an Intel main board driver for the newish main board.

(Place Mac owner laughter here)

Thank the Powers that Be someone at the ASUS forums knew what was going on. A simple "check the optional windows updates" solved the problem. I have never bothered with optional updates, and did not think a system driver would be considered "optional", but it was. Kills me that the Asus tech didn't know this.

Thanks to the other two Tom's members for their attempts.