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Unknown Wifi device ID on Gigabyte Aorus B450 Pro Wifi board
Hello all,
This is related to the following thread, on which a definite fix was not yet found: Intel Wifi AC 9260 driver fir Win7 x32 x64 . Since it's fairly old it seemed better to make a new thread, and my issue is a bit different anyway.
I recently built the following machine and installed Win7 Pro on it: System Builder - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core, Radeon RX 560 - 896 4 GB, Core V1 Mini ITX Desktop - PCPartPicker
After fighting with the USB drivers for a couple days (thank you SIW2), I finally got it booted and set up. My goal now is to load it up with basic drivers and make a "base" image I can go back to if anything goes wrong. The one device that's refusing to work for me is the Wifi card.
Doing some research on it here and elsewhere, it seems like Intel has ended Win7 support on newer cards such as the 9xxx series, and those can only be installed on Win7 by modding those drivers (to mixed success at best). In my case, the difference is I literally don't know which card I have and every effort I've made to figure that out has so far been flustered.
The device shows up as "Network Controller" in devmgmt. Its IDs are:
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2562&SUBSYS_00148086&REV_29
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2562&SUBSYS_00148086
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2562&CC_028000
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2562&CC_0280
I've downloaded several versions of the Intel driver - from Gigabyte's website as well as Intel's - and run the installers for each. All of them failed to get the device out of unknown state (I removed them after they failed). When I browse to their folders in an attempt to update them manually from devmgmt, it fails to find a driver.
Attempting to auto-load it from Windows Update over LAN also fails (perhaps predictably).
The Gigabyte website does not name which card my mobo has - it just lists several drivers, all of them for Win10. But the CD which came with the mobo tells a different story. Most importantly, it does have driver information for Win7 as well - specifically a folder for \Network\IntelWIFI\Win64\Drivers\Win7, and the Netwsw04.inf file within is clearly intended for Win7x64. I searched that file but my device ID was not found.
When running the CD's launcher, the option for installing the Wifi driver (which of course fails) specifies it as being a 3165/8265 card. But the thread I linked above mentions the 8265 as the base driver for its (unsuccessful) modifications, and yet even there, the 8265 listed in that thread has a different install ID than my own.
So I tried to search my Netwsw04 for the install ID listed in that thread, which I found. I copied and pasted both lines which referenced it and changed the install ID to my own. This time when I tried to install, Win7 claimed it wasn't signed (maybe because I modified it?). I installed it anyway, and it came up as "Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265," but the device would not start. I believe that name only comes from the string listed later on in Netwsw04 for the line I copied, anyway (specifically NIC_8265_2x2_AC = that name), meaning I can't trust its use of that name as any actual proof that I own a 8265. I've since uninstalled it.
Even searching on Google, etc. for the device ID returns nothing at all.
Anyone have an idea where I can go from here? If it turns out I have a 9xxx series which really doesn't have a Win7 driver (at present), then I guess I can live with an external one. But at the very least I'd like to know for sure which one I have.