Thread: How to find drivers for Unknown Devices

Usually, when you buy any hardware the drivers come along with it on a disc. If you lose the driver disc you can always download the necessary drivers from the manufacturer's website. But what do you do when you are not sure of the manufacturer of the hardware? This is quite a possible situation and blogger Vinod Chandramouli provides an excellent trick to deal with it.

Every device has a Vendor and Device id associated with it. If you can find this ID, you can find the manufacturer. In Windows it's easy to find the vendor and device id.

Open Device Manager (Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager)
The hardware whose drivers are missing will appear as Unknown device, so it's easier to locate the device.
Right click on the unknown device and click on Properties.
Under the Properties window click on Details tab and select Device Instance Id from the drop down box.
You should see a code similar to this

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DC&SUBSYS_30868086
&REV_01\4&1E46F438&0&40F0

The portion of the code highlighted in RED is the Vendor ID and the portion highlighted in GREEN is the Device ID. In this example:

Vendor ID = 8086
Device ID = 27DC

Once you have obtained both the IDs, proceed to PCI Vendor and Device Lists. There you can either search for the vendor from the vendor ID or directly get information about the device along with the vendor name by searching with the device ID.
Great isn't it? Now you will never have to go hunting for correct drivers.



Source:
How to find drivers for Unknown Devices - Instant Fundas

This will come in handy, I appreciate it!

Usually, when you buy any hardware the drivers come along with it on a disc. If you lose the driver disc you can always download the necessary drivers from the manufacturer's website. But what do you do when you are not sure of the manufacturer of the hardware? This is quite a possible situation and blogger Vinod Chandramouli provides an excellent trick to deal with it.

Every device has a Vendor and Device id associated with it. If you can find this ID, you can find the manufacturer. In Windows it's easy to find the vendor and device id.

Open Device Manager (Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager)
The hardware whose drivers are missing will appear as Unknown device, so it's easier to locate the device.
Right click on the unknown device and click on Properties.
Under the Properties window click on Details tab and select Device Instance Id from the drop down box.
You should see a code similar to this

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DC&SUBSYS_30868086
&REV_01\4&1E46F438&0&40F0

DEVID

Direct download drivers link

I've been using EVEREST software to get the names of the hardware because sometimes Device Manager says that the name is unknown(happens mostly with motherboard chips).

What Ra.1 mentioned is indeed the best method to uncover Uknown Devices. Using 3rd party software is convenient, but just not accurate enough. Not only that, usually 3rd party softwares require payment :(

For see what device can use also Sisoftware Sandra Professional or Aida (Aida is old like program)

Awesome post. I already knew that because I needed to find a driver to a older laptop from Toshiba on my work. It helped me a lot when I found that pcidatabase website and will help a lot of people too.

On linux you just use lsusb and lspci to list the hardware of the pc.

I usually use DevID, but apparently DriverPack Solution is quite good too. Check it out here: DriverPack Solution >> Download drivers installation software. The difference is that you install a driver pack locally along with the DriverPack software. This makes sense especially if you don't have immediate access to the net, for example if you're setting up a machine for the 1st time and don't have network drivers handy.