Sony Vaio laptop problem...

[blue4paper]

I'm using my sister's Sony Vaio laptop that i decided to downgrade from vista home premium to windows XP. The first thing i should have done should've been to get all the hardware information while on vista.... but i completely forgot. I backed up my general files but not the hardware information.

Now I'm stuck with a brand new installation of windows XP and no internet because XP isn't recognizing my NIC.

I've been googling around for some hours now with nothing.

I've gone to all the main "official" Vaio Sony sites. They all ask for model or product, but for some reason my model doesn't come up anywhere i check. There is also another option to type down your serial and product key which is a 15 digit number. Whereas the first 7 digits are the serial and the 8 other digits the product key. Still it doesn't seem to be a model of any sort... No site recognizes this Vaio model for some odd reason.

Model : PCG-5K1L.

I installed service pack 3, i thought it would at least be able to detect a network card, but to no avail it couldn't.

Everest home edition has no more luck detecting.

In hardware manager the only thing detected was the 1394 firewire port.

This laptop, from what my sister said, came with no manual or other useful information; meaning none.

I'm really stumped on what else I could do. I was thinking if there was maybe some sorta Vaio utility that could.... detect the hardware? or something.

Any help or suggestion on what to do would be appreciated.

Thanks, blue.

 

[Harper]

Please tell me that you burnt off your windows vista recovery media before blowing every thing away.

The problem with Sony is that they do not put drivers up on their website. So if you happen to
1. Loose your recovery disk
2. Have a hard drive crash and not burn off your recovery media
3. Roll back from Windows Vista to Xp
then you are up the creek with out a paddle.

 

[Jorsoft]

Try this out:
Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility - Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility support

With any luck you can get your Intel chipset drivers using their utilities.

 

[Sheepykins]

find the manual, sony should at least have that on their support page as most laptop manufacturers dont bother to give one out anymore because noone reads it and its a waste of paper, in all likelihood your sony is running a realtek(or some other NIC manu) NIC card and most manufacturers get their parts right off someone elses line so google the model of the vaio and find the tech specs if theres no manual, then go to the NIC card manufacturers site.

edit: - browsed the sony website and they have a documentation section, the model you gave PCG-5K1L doesnt appear to be on their list so you may have given the wrong number the site states sometimes its different and to input the serial number on their site to find your manual/drivers if need be.

but same as i said before, find the manual, find the name of the NIC card, go to the card manufacturers website

 

[blue4paper]

AHHH, i found the NIC! It was a gigabyte realtek. Downloaded the drivers and it worked like a charm.

Now the rest is easy

Anyways thanks! Help was appreciated!