Network adapter not recognized after win7 install. Lenovo T430

Lenovo T430 running win7 home premium 64bit.

Wife purchased new in 2013 and it has been problematic almost from the get-go. The machine was very slow to operate, slow to execute various mouse commands and such. The machine had some sort of warning message pop up in constantly the lower left corner that said something to the effect of the back-up section of the drive was full and needed addressed. It would not allow any modification to the drive(s), the files, or the partitions via the OS tools.

Wife got frustrated with it and took it into the local computer repair place to have it fixed. They 'cleaned it up', saying it 'should run faster now', but the error message was not eliminated and the machine ran only marginally faster.

Wife purchased a new laptop and now I have the Lenovo. I used it for a month before becoming completley frustrated with it. I tried some things like scaning for viruses, malware etc but found little to nothing in that regard. The slowness kept getting worse and worse to the point that the machine was pretty much unusable.

In a fit of frustration and short of just throwing the thing away, I formated the drive using Darik's Boot and Nuke. Then installed a full version of Vista, then an upgrade version of win7 home premium. These two installs seem to go ok and the machine is booting up fine in win7. The error message is gone, as is the slowness as near as I can tell.

I managed to get the wireless printer installed ok but the network device is not being found/recognized. The error message reads "No connection available. Windows did not detect a properly installed network adapter. If you have a network adapter, you will need to install the driver". It would not work on either our wireless system or using a network cable directly from the router. When I plug the rj45 into the laptop both the green light and the blinking amber light are lite.

I can't find the original build documents so I don't know what type of device is in there. I hooked up a usb wireless device and it connected right away. On the Lenovo site I found the following potential options for the network adapter on the T430:

• Qualcomm® Gobi™ 4000 LTE Sierra Wireless MC7750 LTE/EV-DO WWAN Minicard
• Qualcomm® Gobi™ 4000 LTE Sierra Wireless MC7700 LTE/HSPA WWAN Minicard
• ThinkPad 1x1 b/g/n
• Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200 (2x2 BGN)
• Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 AGN
• Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN

ThinkPad T430 Laptop | Lenovo US


Also on the Lenovo site I found a boat load of drivers and such but I don't know where to start.
Laptops and netbooks :: ThinkPad T Series laptops :: ThinkPad T430 - Lenovo Support (US)


I tried using Belarc Advisor to determine the network adapter but it just shows the USB adapter I'm temporarily using to get online.


I'm used to Dell products where I can go to a website and put in the serial number and find the specifics on the configuration when it left the factory. I haven't been able to find a similar site for Lenovo?


Notes:
I have done all the required windows updates.


It looks like there is a later version of the bios available on that lenovo site:
current bios = UEFI version 1.16, 2012-05-25.
available on website = version 2.66, 9-19-14.


I thought maybe I could just pull the bottom off the laptop and maybe the adapter would be exposed and labeled enough that I could tell what it is, but that looks a bit involved with this model.



Any input on how I can resolve the network adapter issue would be appreciated.

Pauly said:

Check hardware manager for any items showing a yellow caution symbol ie a piece of hardware that is present but not configured/has no driver installed
if so you can look at properties to get the device id which will tell you what exact piece of hardware it is

Device Manager - Finding Unknown Devices

Thank you, almost there I hope.

There are 6 devices listed.
fax
printer
document writer
dvd
the usb wireless lan when it's plugged in

name-pc
The name-pc has the yellow triangle. I found there were perhaps a dozen devices under that which had the yellow triangle. I found that windows update was not set to include all updates so I changed that and had it update everything (non-important items). This was quite a long update which included a service pack of some sort.

Now, after that update the machine works with the network cable plugged in just fine, but the wireless adapter is still not recognized.

Now there are only four items with yellow triangle on the hardware list:
Base system device
Network controller
SM Bus controller
Universal serial Bus (usb) controller

Windows was unable to find drivers for any of these four items:
"Windows was unable to install your network controller. Could not find driver softwrae. If you know mfg website go there... Manufacturer unknown.
Location: PCI bus 3, device 0, function 0."

Sorry, jumped the gun with this info. Looking at your link in detail now. Network controller properties hardware ID list four items.

Ben Cartwright said:

Network controller properties hardware ID list four items.

Exactly. That is what we must see, in order to tell you which driver from Lenovo matches the particular wireless NIC in your T430.

Please post a screenshot of those four Hardware ID values in the "details" tab. Or, simply transcribe them typed. But we must know what the Hardware ID is.

Anyway, Lenovo provides the "wireless LAN" driver that covers ALL of the possible wireless NIC devices that might be in your T430. Just download and run it.

Now there are only four items with yellow triangle on the hardware list:
Base system device
Network controller
SM Bus controller
Universal serial Bus (usb) controller

All four of these are missing their drivers when you reinstalled and upgraded, not just the network controller.

I would guess these are covered by the "chipset driver" also available for download from the Lenovo support site, along with the "USB" driver from Lenovo also available for download.

Again, download and run both of these as well as the wireless LAN driver I mentioned earlier. Should clear up all your yellow exclamation marks.


You should visit the Lenovo driver download support site for the T430, and be sure you've got all the mandatory drivers downloaded and installed. If you have yellow exclamation marks showing up in Device Manager you need to get the proper driver installed for that hardware. There are other lesser important or optional or unnecessary items also available for download, like BIOS updates (which actually IS important), utilities and software, etc., that are mostly applicable and appropriate for new reinstalls.

Note that the Lenovo System Update program is designed to semi-automate this process for you. It shows you critical, recommended, and optional items, but will pick up the missing driver items and handle it all for you. It's conceptually the same as your manual pass through the complete Lenovo Driver/Software Download site with the utility detecting what you have that's needed but not yet installed correctly, which is a nice piece of software assistance for something you absolutely should do one way or the other.

This System Update utility is also available for download from that same site... it's under "ThinkVantage Technology" category, but will also show up if you work your way through "ALL" (don't forget to click on the "show all" item at the bottom of the first page you see, else you'll have to work through 10 items at a time over many pages, which is a real PITA. The "show all"option puts it all on one long scrollable page for you to easily navigate down through.)

dsperber said:

This System Update utility is also available for download from that same site... it's under "ThinkVantage Technology" category, but will also show up if you work your way through "ALL" (don't forget to click on the "show all" item at the bottom of the first page you see, else you'll have to work through 10 items at a time over many pages, which is a real PITA. The "show all"option puts it all on one long scrollable page for you to easily navigate down through.)

Thanks, I just went this route and it worked. It loaded a bunch of stuff and now things like the access connections management are through a lenovo menu interface, but that's ok as long as it's working. The near continuous disc-out-of-space error message in the lower corner is gone and there are no speed issues. I can once again actually play a complete youtube video without having to sit there and move the cursor around and around to keep the video from stalling. The drive now has only one partition with plenty of free space.

Once again this forum proves itself to be one the absolute best computer/software help resources on the internet.

Thank you Pauly and dsperber!