Finding working drivers for an older PC

Topic

New Reply

LANGALIST By Fred Langa Drivers are the software ‘glue’ that connects your PC’s hardware to its operating system. Without drivers, nothing works. Once
[See the full post at: Finding working drivers for an older PC]

1 user thanked author for this post.

lmacri

Reply | Quote

Replies

Hi guys..

May I gently suggest that a turn to the dark side may help to establish whether the hardware is working or not?

Linux distros have OUTSTANDING old hardware support (esp Debian), and most have a live-boot, don’t-touch-windows option. Make a bootable CD or USB drive, boot in LIVE mode, see if the hardware is OK. If it IS, return Fred 🙂

Best, Andre

 

3 users thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa, doriel, Ascaris

Reply | Quote

Aw, you beat me to it!

I saw the newsletter and came right in to write the same thing. And if Linux does work nicely with the things that do not work in Windows, maybe give that some thought, heh!

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

First check should be to see if the microphone and camera are enabled in the BIOS!!!!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

Your advice skipped the very first step: Go into BIOS setup and make sure the devices are enabled.  Many people who weren’t using the camera/microphone tend to disable them there for security reasons.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

Also, make sure the microphone and camera are turned on in Window 10’s privacy settings. I ran into this when recording software was not recognized due to the microphone being turned off.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

I’m glad this was easily resolved. Lenovo does a good job of keeping driver’s available. BTW, I use  T450S on a docking station as my every-day home office tool and it still carries the load.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

ditto for Dell as they too (like Lenovo) keep drivers available for older Dell PCs as well

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

Most Laptop OEMs do a poor job matching the Driver Documentation Explicitly to their exact makes and models of Laptops and I have an Old First generation Intel Core i3 Mobile/laptop processor based  Toshiba C655 S5061 laptop. So if the Notes for the drivers do not explicitly list that Make model laptop in the driver’s installation notes then I’m unsure how  to proceed and Toshiba(Now Dynabook) has some very difficult to match Driver software.

 

No under Linus the Drivers ship with the Kernel so that laptop’s fine there on Mint 20.0 and I’ve kept the windows 7 partition there for offline Windows 7(EOL) usage only but Laptop OEMs are not as good as Say PC Motherboard makers for providing dedicated driver USBs/DVD for that MB’s/Devices Chip-sets and other hardware that needs drivers and firmware as well!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

[EP]

speaking of drivers, there’s this recent blog from Microsoft about a new deployment service for driver and firmware updates for enterprise users:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/introducing-a-new-deployment-service-for-driver-and-firmware/ba-p/2176942

wonder what patch Lady Susan, Woody & others think of this MS article

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by EP.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

To the original writer:

The T470 family is plenty recent.  It shipped with Windows 10 support and should have no problem supporting it. Relatively speaking, it isn’t “old”; I use my still-powerful T470p on a regular basis (quad-core i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, and nVidia graphics).  They use Intel Coffee-Lake processors, and are still well-supported.

I recommend starting by downloading the Lenovo System Update software and using it to find drivers for your T470s. If it does not find them, I would then download them manually.

Useful links for you:

Lenovo System Update:

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds012808-lenovo-system-update-for-windows-10-7-32-bit-64-bit-desktop-notebook-workstation

Lenovo Downloads Page (select your T470 family, there are two different sub-families of the T470s)

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/

 

 

 

We are SysAdmins.
We walk in the wiring closets no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no malware may pass.
We engage in support, we do not retreat.
We live for the LAN.
We die for the LAN.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred Langa

Reply | Quote

Good Day,

I had a similar issue recently with an older HP workstation laptop in which Window no longer saw the camera/microphone array.  The items showed in Device Manager but were no longer active.  Devices were enabled in BIOS and Windows privacy settings were allowed to use them.

Uninstalling/Reinstalling drivers did not resolve issue.  Getting into the laptop’s startup diagnostics produced errors when testing the camera/microphone array.

As a last resort I pulled up disassembly instructions on YouTube for the laptop and proceeded to carefully remove the screen’s bezel.  What I discovered was that the camera/microphone array had one of those tiny ribbon-style connectors and it was very loose; practically fell out of the connector when touched.

After plugging the cable firmly back into the connector, but before putting bezel back on, I got back into the startup diagnostics an, lo and behold, the device was passing tests.  Booting back into Windows now showed an active camera and microphone array in Device Manager and they worked perfectly when tested in Zoom, Skype, etc.

Carefully put the bezel back on and tested again to make sure that I did not disconnect cable during that process.  What I think happened is that after years of opening/closing the laptop by gripping near that area the flexing caused the ribbon cable top work its way out of the connector.

Good luck with your fix; hope you get it working.

Kind Regards, B.

1 user thanked author for this post.

SueW

Reply | Quote

Just go to Device Manager, Other Devices, right click on whatever needs a driver and Browse my computer for driver software and choose the system32 folder from your old windows

Reply | Quote