Samsung x10 Ethernet Drivers...

Guys Im having real problems finding Ethernet drivers for my samsung x10! I have check all the relevant websites (including, obviously, Samsung's X10 driver page), but whenever I plug my work's ethernet cable into my laptop nothing happens.

I have looked in Device Manager and Ethernet drivers still have the dreaded yellow '?' next to them.

Does anyone know where I can find some drivers that will make my X10 ethernet friendly!?

 

It appears from the X10 specs that the wireless card is mini-PCI and may be either Intel or Agere (Heremes-I?). Do you know which you have? The card may be under a cover next to the RAM or it may be less accessible, such as under the keyboard. It may be worthwhile taking a look to check the make / model.

This list of drivers is definitely for the X10 and this list may be for the X10. However, both those sites only list drivers for the Intel card. This Agere driver might work for the Agere unit.

The yellow exclamation mark usually designates a driver problem. Did you try uninstalling the device in Device Manager than then let Windows re-detect the hardware? Or you can manually choose a driver.

John

 

Hi John,

Thanks for your swfit reply. Yup I have tried to re-install, but to no avail. Also, I have tried to rollback drivers, but again no luck.

I know the Ethernet card works! Before a format recently our work based IT company (who I now can't get hold of) had trouble, but managed to get it Ethernet compatible!

I can't have a look at the card itself at the moment as I don't have the laptop on me. I have tried all the drivers on the first link you had listed John previously, but to no avail! (My wireless works for connection to the net, but, as i said, connection to anything via Ethernet just doesn't happen!).

Isn't the network card the bit listed as 3Com? Or am I being thick?

ShouldI try the Agere driver then?

Thanks for your help!

 

You are correct. I'm trying to solve the wrong problem - the wireless connection.

John

 

Heh! No problem - you are the expert!

So... I can't find the suitable 3Com drivers... is there something similar or does someone know where I can find an alternative!?

 

More an enthusiastic amateur.

The specs say the network card is 3Com 3C920, so Google for other drivers. This one appears to have a new date.

And don't try looking for the card. The network is a chip on the board.

John

 

Perhaps!

That download is for a driverdetective.exe and not drivers themselves, per se. Should/can it be trusted as a download?

I googled till I was blue in the face previously John but to no avail - so infuriating!!!

 

The Google hits point to drivers for the 3C920 from Asus and Dell. You could directly go to those sites and have a rummage. Sensibly, the best place to look should be 3Com. surprisingly, there's no 3C920. It may be worthwhile trying the 3C900 or maybe other 3C9xx series. In theory Samsung's driver should be fine.

I do wonder whether the underlying problem is in the driver installation, rather than the driver itself. I'm not sure of the best way to clean this up. However, if you are running XP then you might want to try the latest beta of XP SP3. It might fix the problem during installation. This ancient Dell support page doesn't mention XP.

John

 

Tried the SP3 installation and... !!!!

Completely messed the laptop up, it wouldn't restart (well it would, it just kept cycling restarting itself...) so I had to boot from the XP disc and do a repair install.

Everything working fine again now, except of course the Ethernet drivers!!!

Wits end!!!!!!!!!

 

I'm short of other ideas for a fix. You could try using Everest or Sandra to identify the hardware, which would help the driver search. I'd also be interested to know if a Linux live CD could identify the network hardware.

Otherwise it may be time for a workaround?

John

 

John - Thank you ever so much for your help. I figured out my problem over the weekend and was so frustrated to see how obvious it was!!! I don't own a Samsung X10... I own a Samsung X10 (plus)! This seemingly small oversight was enough for me to be looking for the wrong spec list and thus the wrong drivers! The x10 plus requires Broadcom drivers which I found and installed, and got it working!!

Regardless of my error, this thread still has some validity because the drivers on the Samsung X10 Plus website, don't work anyhow!!!

Thanks for your help anyway.

 

Thanks for the update.

The "plus" versions of notebooks cause problems, even for Samsung themselves. They make some subtle changes to the hardware and don't make a big enough change to the model number or the label to avoid confusion. For a long time they were trying to get me to shove an X60 BIOS down the throat of my X60 plus. Whoever was in charge of the download site didn't have the right files in the right places.

At least my X60 plus has a small plus by the name under the keyboard, but it's easy to overlook. It's also shown that way on the label on the bottom.

One nearly reliable way to check the version of a Samsung notebook is to look at the last two characters of the BIOS version number. This will indicate the notebook version by searching through the list of BIOSes.

John

PS: A suggestion for the future. Round up all the latest drivers you can find and put them on a CD ready for next time.