Device Manager - Finding Unknown Devices

Find and Identify Unknown Devices through Device Manager​

   Information

This guide will show you how to locate the unidentified hardware in your device manager by using Hardware Identification. The goal of this tutorial is to help identify an unidentified device.

   Note

Prerequisite knowledge includes opening windows device manager, surfing the internet, data entry and basic windows navigation skills

   Warning

• Installing the wrong driver can crash your system, this technique revolves around the use of a 3rd party online hardware ID database.
• Some devices (such as legacy devices) may not have hardware ID's. See the "But what if there's no Hardware ID in the drop down box?" for tips on finding out what these devices are.

Here's how

1. Open Device Manager and find the device. It most likely has a yellow exclamation mark on it like the one in this screenshot below.
   
   
      Tip

   You can open Device Manager quickly by typing devmgmt.msc into RUN or SEARCH and pressing ENTER.
   
   
2. Now that you've found your device, right click on it and select properties.
   
3. Click on the Details Tab.
   
4. Drop the 'Property' box until you find 'Hardware Id's".
   This picture shows my webcam, but unknown devices have hardware ID's too
   
   
5. You'll find some number-letter combinations, here's what they mean:
   HID = Hardware ID
   PID = Product ID
   VID = Vendor ID
   
      Note

   The Vendor ID may also be called VEN, so look out for this too. If you're having trouble locating these then please take a look at this great Hardware Identification tutorial by Dwarf
      Tip

   If you need a driver for this unknown device, then you could do this below by Kari:
   
   Copy the Hardware IDs value.
   
   
   
   Go directly to a driver database site, for instance Drivers Lookup and search there with the hardware id.
   
   
   
   
6. In my screen print I've looked up my Webcam again. My PID=0804, My VID = 046D.
   
7. We need to reference these, so open your browser of choice and navigate to the www.pcidatabase.com website.
   
8. There are other websites, but I think that the PCIdatabase.com team has put together a great site with a lot of information should you need to know more about devices and drivers.
   
   
9. Type your PID where it says Device Search and press SEARCH (e.g. for my example I type in 0804 and click on the Search button to the right of the Device Search box).
   
10. All Devices with that PID show. This is usually enough; but sometimes multiple devices will show.
    
    
11. If you have multiple Devices, then you need your VID, so look back to your details column under Hardware ID's and reference it against the Vendor ID column with your VID. Mine was 046D and you can see 0x46d in the Vendor column. That's a match.
    
12. You've now identified your device and can now search for the correct drivers for it.
    
    

But what if there's no Hardware ID in the drop down box?

With older legacy devices, some virtual devices, non-plug and play devices, and some viruses there may not be a hardware ID, however there there are other things you can do to find your unrecognized device.



Have a look at these entries in the drop down, there are others, but these are the most common that you will find when the Hardware ID is missing.

• DevNode status - This will tell us the current status of the device and differentiate between a driver existing and a driver loading. If the driver exists you can look at it's *.inf file (the inf file name is in the Inf Name drop down)
• Device Instance path - Often contains Vendor and hardware information, if not than it may contain an ACPI linking it to a processor group.
• Class Long Name - It's group name (e.g. Processors)
• Class Short Name - It's short (actual) name (e.g. Processor)
• Class icon path - The path to a dll that houses this devices icons. Although this is likely to be windows generic, it;s worthwhile taking a look at the icons in the *.dll, the easiest way to do this is to change an icon on any shortcut or folder and navigate to that *.dll to browse the icons.
• siblings - Any related siblings
• parent - any related parents

If you are trying to find a Legacy item, it will likely be at this registry address
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\. It should begin with the LEGACY_ (e.g. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CPUZ132)

The Windows Registry Editor can be opened by typing REGEDIT into RUN or SEARCH.
Some other locations that you may find this information (with thanks to WindowsStar)are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\Root\

   Warning

Edit the registry can crash your machine, use this as a research tool only, unless you know what you are doing

Enjoy!

TimStitt

REFERENCES







These References have been added after additional information was provided. The added dates refer to when this tutorial was updated with the additional information.

• WindowsStar - Additional Registry Paths in the thread Unknown Device (added 8th and 9th July 2010).
• Dwarf - Hardware ID's called VEN and color coded fining of PCI and VEN in the thread Hardware Identification (added 9th July 2010).

Related Tutorials

---

• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73420-hardware-identification.html
• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77614-device-manager-hidden-devices.html
• How to Uninstall a Device and Device Driver in Vista and Windows 7
• How to Roll Back a Device Driver in Device Manager
• How to Uninstall a Device in Windows 7 and Windows 8

 

[dew1]

Hey

thank you but I don't understand how can I get VID and PID ?

 

[Dwarf]

Hi dew1,

To find this information, please see my post on this topic (link at bottom of above Tutorial).

 

[TimStitt]

Hi dew1,

To find this information, please see my post on this topic (link at bottom of above Tutorial).

Hi Dwarf,

I feel like I've tried to reinvented the wheel and didn't know that you'd already written one of these. I searched but didn't find.

I like your use on RED and BLUE to show the VENDER and DEVICE ID's and it points out that Vender ID's can be called VEN as well. I'll make a few edits in regards to the later and link to yours in regards to colors.

Good Post mate.

-Timo

EDIT: Updated with some new info that you provided and referenced.

 

[TimStitt]

Hey

thank you but I don't understand how can I get VID and PID ?

Hi Dew1,

I've updated the tutorial today with a little new info from Dwarf, if after looking at this and his tutorial you're still lost, then please let me know at which step you lose you way and please post a screen shot of what your looking at. I'm quite happy to help.

 

[Lomai]

Thanks for the tutorial

 

[TimStitt]

Thanks for the tutorial

Bula Lomai!

You're welcome mate.




EDIT: To meet the forum regulations I need to translate Bula into Hello for other readers

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

Great work Timo ! Just found this one now.

 

[NoN]

Thanks TimStitt, knew some of the registry edit for hardware legacy, you made it as a tutorial to refer.

 

[TimStitt]

Thanks TimStitt, knew some of the registry edit for hardware legacy, you made it as a tutorial to refer.

Thanks Non

 

[braydog92]

Just subscribing to this thread. And thanks, it is very helpful.

 

[quickdraw2011]

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?


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.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73420-hardware-identification.html

1. Open Device Manager (Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager)
2. The hardware whose drivers are missing will appear as Unknown device, so it's easier to locate the device.
3. Right click on the unknown device and click on Properties.
4. Under the Properties window click on Details tab and select Device Instance Id from the drop down box.
5. You should see a code similar to this
   
   PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DC&SUBSYS_30868086
   &REV_01\4&1E46F438&0&40F0
   
6. 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
7. Once you have obtained both the IDs, proceed to PCI Database. 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.

 

[jraju]

Hi,
I have tried to find the solution to my unknown device drivers from your post. But i was not successful till now. It has no hardware id, the device that has exclamatory mark is my computer name , which is shown as an icon in hardware and printers in control panel .
I have tried your second part, where some details are given.
I enclose the details and would like you to find my unknown device
I have speccy as a system information tool but that is software . What should i do if i have. expecting your reply..pci z tool does not show the unknown device in its show list.
and one more information is
device info path is ROOT\LEGACY_MFESAPSN\0000

 

[jraju]

Hi, Why no reply to my query?

 

[torchwood]

Its a MCAfee driver, try running thier own uninstaller to remove it.

Roy

 

[jraju]

Hi, I tried their installer. successfully done. But unknown device problem still exist
I mean i still have their mcafee problematic driver in the problem device in the msinfo32.exe. How to get rid of it

 

[jraju]

Hi, Is there any other way of knowing what that unknown device. I have unplugged all the usb printer scanner etc etc. But still has this error. Would it be controller drivers

 

[jraju]

Hi, I resolved the problem and thank you for guiding me that it is mcafee product residue.
I also knew that after surfing, and tried to uninstall. But it would again appear in the next boot and show as unknown device.
Then i tried to troubleshoot the unknown device main tab,in safe mode by right clicking it. It then triied to install two drivers, one for the i/o controllers and another for unkown device. It succeeded in the first and but failed in the second.
Then i boot in normally and found that no unknown device was shown in device manager, device and printers.
Then i checked the msinfo32 tool in the run command and checked the problematic device in the "components" tab. There is no problematic device shown.
I also wish the article owner to incorporate this in his article as an additional help.
The device info path: is where to look for the culprit device .
How software device could be shown as hardware device, is still a mystery. Will any one guide me on this?

 

[Vineet Garg]

Hi All,
Greets,
Like many other light weight 'NirSoft' apps, this is another good app. It explores Device Manager's important sections without any effort! I use it just for information purposes & don't consider it a real Device Manager Alternative!

The Utility DevManView offers options to load & analyze Offline OSs as well!

Alternative to device manager of Windows

Thanks & Regards. ...

 

[file3456]

Are these suppose to be disabled? My case fans are working.