Alienware m17x R2 and Win 10 - Serious network adapter and other driver issues.

[cory733]

Not sure if anyone out there is still using this computer but figured id ask.

Im trying to get my m17x R2 working properly on windows 10. I can install and upgrade it no problem. A command center setup.exe from like 2010 works no problem.

Trying to install an Nvidia graphics driver led to nothing but problems.
On windows 7 i managed to get the drivers after a fresh windows install last year. they appeared in device manager like this:

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M G
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M

and everything worked fine. I upgraded to windows 10 and they became the standard vga graphics or whatever windows puts by default. I havent noticed any problems at all though but wanted to put the nvidia drivers just to be safe when it comes time to install my games. This just led to black screen when windows logs on with nothing but the mouse pointer so i had to fresh install windows again.

I think ill just leave the default ones on there for now.

The main problem is the network adapter. On windows 10 I get like .1 mbps on the built in wifi card.

If i put in a usb wifi i get normal speeds.

I tried to update the driver from dells website and it led to blue screen everytime it would connect. I had to turn off my router just to log into windows. After uninstalling the new driver, It left something broken with the old drivers so i still got blue screen every time and had to reinstall windows again.

Now im back to a fresh windows install with the default network and display adapters.

Actually I have two fresh installs on two hard drives, one to test and one is my brand new ssd, i dont want to reinstall windows over and over again on it.

Any ideas on how i should go about trying to get this network adapter to work?

I'll keep experimenting in the mean time

 

[cory733]

got it. For anyone searching:

my wifi card is y488r. Checked this in the build specs on dells site.

the driver that worked was the broadcom driver here:

http://www.driverscape.com/manufacturers/alienware/laptops-desktops/m17x/1323

theres different files in here. Idk exactly how it worked because i tried opening the "install cd" in the windows 8.1 folder but it failed.

I dont know exactly how it worked but this is what i did:

extracted the zipped folder. now there are two folders on the desktop, one zipped, one normal.

pulled out "asus setup" from the main unzipped folder to the desktop.

went to device manager. right clicked on the broadcom driver under network adapters . clicked update, browse computer, selected the desktop, I didn't select anything else, just desktop.

It installed and now i have 56mbps on speedtest.net. My speed is supposed to be 15mbps with time warner so idk how that is happening. oh well, about to put in my ssd and try it again.