Solved Lenovo Think Pad T530 - Win7HP64 - network control driver not found

[FTLOSM]

I have a Lenovo Think Pad T530 - fresh install of Win7HP64 - all went great with windows install, went to lenovo page for this unit started to grab various drivers chipset, graphics, usb, etc everything works great I can connect to the internet via the hardline ethernet but for whatever reason in device manager I just keep seeing
"network controller" driver not found did the auto search nothing, tried everything on the lenovo site under
Networking Lan
Networking Wireless Lan
Networking Wireless Wan

I can conntect via the ethernet jack but do not even see an option in network sharing center to disable or enable anything but the wired connection, nothing showing for wifi if i go to change adaptor settings.

The thing I can't figure out too though is I am grabbing the win7 64 drivers for these basic things at lenovos site and installing them yet after reboot still nothing.

I see a side switch on left for wifi have it turned on, i see a FN F5 key combo that is also supposed to turn on wifi iv'e tried that too, I just can't even figure out why in device manager it just says no drivers found code 28 I keep thinking this has to be something simple but I've spent about 4 hrs on it rebooting installing uninstalling various things and sure can't figure it out.

ANY suggestions appreciated at this point, calling defeat for tonight, will see what anyone else suggests and try that tomorrow possibly.

 

[SIW2]

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731268(v=ws.10).aspx

What network card do you have?

 

[FTLOSM]

I don't even know honestly I can't figure out how to tell which I have i tried intel first

 

[doctore]

Try downloading Access Connection from Lenovo.

 

[FTLOSM]

Trying this, found a message about installing win 7 on lenovo i do have the old drive still says there's a folder of the drivers on it, grabbing that to thumb drive, then putting back in the newer bigger drive adding this folder of drivers into that new drive with win7 installed (same os etc) in hopes it might just let me direct to that folder and work.

For existing Windows 7 preloads there exists a "C:\SWTOOLS" folder that contains the original device drivers and apps for a re-install.

 

[dsperber]

I can conntect via the ethernet jack but do not even see an option in network sharing center to disable or enable anything but the wired connection, nothing showing for wifi if i go to change adaptor settings.

The thing I can't figure out too though is I am grabbing the win7 64 drivers for these basic things at lenovos site and installing them yet after reboot still nothing.

I see a side switch on left for wifi have it turned on

Let's pause for a review... (I own a W530, which is very similar to the T530).

You should certainly have the User Guide in PDF form if you don't already.

As shown on page 5 of the user guide, the slide switch at the front of the left edge is indeed the wireless radio ON/OFF switch. It MUST be in the ON position if you want to use wireless.

As shown on page 9 of the user guide, there is a LAN/WAN/Bluetooth status indicator light on bottom-left area of the bezel below the screen. When you have the wireless radio slide switch in the ON position this indicator should be lit. If you don't see it lit you're not going to have any wireless capability.


Next, if the slide switch is ON and you do see that wireless radio light lit up, go to Device Manager -> Network adapters. What do you see?

You should see both the wired gigabit LAN adapter as well as the wireless adapter. Depending on model of T530 you bought the wireless adapter may vary. And the appropriate driver you would need would also vary, with Lenovo providing all of them for your choosing So, what do you show?

If it has a yellow exclamation mark that means it doesn't yet have its driver installed. Right-click on it, select Properties, select the "details" tab, click on the Property dropdown and select the second item ("Hardware ID") and post the value of that hardware id here.

Obviously there must be some wireless adapter showing here in Device manager in order for you to then install the wireless driver and get wireless capability, which depends on the slide switch being in the ON position.


Finally, if you installed your Windows from scratch on an empty formatted drive, you must now take care of your own Lenovo-provided drivers, utilities, and other software that they would have bundled on the factory-provided pre-installed Windows system hard drive. You now have to deal with that yourself, as you can see.

But the easiest way to do that for your particular machine is to use Lenovo's System Update program. If you haven't installed that, you're at a disadvantage. You can get it from the Lenovo driver download page for your T530, select Win7 x64 OS, and go to the bottom of the first page and click "show all". This will give you EVERYTHING on one big scrollable page, instead of making you do 10-at-a-time.

The Lenovo System Update program is available near the bottom of the complete ("show all") display, as ThinkVantage System Update (current version 5.06.0027). Once you install it, you can use it to get all the rest of the critical, recommended, and optional updates for your machine.


If you didn't know it, there are alternative approaches from Lenovo to getting the proper software for your particular machine. All you need to know is the 4-character "model" (e.g. my W530 is 2438). With your 4-character model you can use Lenovo's automated tools for batch retrieval of everything you need for your machine.

Read this post (from me) in the Lenovo User Community Forums (in this case it's for the desktop M83p, because that's what the user was asking about). It will describe the tools available from Lenovo in addition to the System Update program I already mentioned, that you can also use for your particular model machine if you want and if you're interested. Otherwise, System Update is perfectly adequate to get everything your machine needs.

 

[FTLOSM]

This is the ODDEST thing, I think the driver for lenovo is goofy, I took that folder off the old drive, moved to new hard drive with fresh windows install directed the network driver to search the folder and bam everything lit up like a Christmas tree!

Wifi is working fantastic now I am cordless and free!

I am grabbing those other utilities mentioned and will run update them all of course and thanks for the tip about how to get only what your machine needs based on the 4 charactor model info, this is my first lenovo, it was given to me basically as a boat anchor (FULL of viruses) I just put in a new drive to start fresh and everything went well except this network driver stuff and it was driving me bonkers over 7 hrs total I spent googling digging reading pdfs other help forums till I found that blurb about the drivers location and thought hum pull those off the original drive install in same place new drive point network to search there and bam it worked (I got lucky), but I will do the other stuff mentioned and save the pdf of the info manual etc.

I can actually get some sleep tonight i spent 4 hrs first night and another 3+ last night tonight VICTORY!!!

 

[dsperber]

... over 7 hrs total I spent googling digging reading pdfs other help forums till I found that blurb about the drivers location and thought hum pull those off the original drive install in same place new drive point network to search there and bam it worked (I got lucky)

Glad you got past this initial problem. That's the objective.

But remember... the \SWTOOLS folder is only where the initial Lenovo-provided version of drivers might have been expanded to, and from then where SETUP.EXE or whatever would then be run to get that particular piece of software installed. However it is inevitably almost immediately out-of-date and obsolete, with newer versions available from the Lenovo download site. This is no different than for any other vendor, e.g. Dell, ASUS, etc., all provide download sites to get the most up-to-date current versions of everything pertinent to your machine and model.

So, again the easiest way to keep yourself current and up-to-date is simply to use Lenovo System Update to do the searching, downloading, and installing for you automatically. There's really nothing for you to do except to run the program and let it discover what, if anything, might be available and which is not currently up-to-date on your machine. Same as you'd do with Windows Update to keep your Windows system up-to-date, and also to let it find updated versions of drivers for your hardware (if you've checked that option to be enabled).

Or, you can use "Update Retriever" and "Repository Checker", or "Driver Grabber", from Lenovo (as discussed in the Lenovo Forum post I previously pointed to) if you want to be your own "system administrator". These are essentially power tools for tech-savvy enterprise administrators to maintain a "driver repository" folder (aka something like "\SWTOOLS") on local hard drive but for all of the unique Lenovo machine types under their control, uniquely segregated and maintained by their 4-character model number. Very powerful, like a manual power central version of System Update.

Anyway, glad you got your wireless network adapter driver working. I am sure whatever driver you ended up installing automatically (by now pointing Windows to that \SWTOOLS folder on the old drive) was actually also available for download in its latest up-to-date form on the Lenovo driver download page. Windows simply drilled down through the folder and located the proper INF driver to install using that "Hardware ID" for the "yellow question mark network adapter device" that I asked you to post the value for, so that I could then tell you exactly which driver from the Lenovo site was the right one to download. That's exactly how driver installs work... with the Hardware ID of the supported device imbedded in each INF. Windows simply reads each INF looking for a Hardware ID match for the device in question until it finds the right one.

Since the original \SWTOOLS provided by Lenovo in their pre-built pre-installed Windows C partition on the original drive clearly contained a usable INF driver for that wireless adapter, your current use of that same folder really just did what Lenovo had done at the factory when they built your hard drive with its pre-installed Windows. But I'm sure it may not be "up-to-date", something which System Update would discover, and which you yourself could now for sure download the most current version of from the Lenovo driver site.

If you now go into Device Manager -> Network Adapters, what do you show? Again, if you will right-click on the wireless adapter, select Properties, select the Details tab, click on Property dropdown and select Hardware ID, and post that Hardware ID value here, I will point you to exactly where on the Lenovo site you could download the latest driver for it... which very likely is newer than the one you found and installed from your old \SWTOOLS.

Nevertheless, glad you got this resolved.