shanenin

If you do some gaming, a graphics card would be a great upgrade. The next best upgrade would be more ram. You could also add a second harddrive and use if for backing up purposes. It may also make sense to get a quality power supply.

You could try resetting your network stack

Have you installed your video drivers yet? The problem sounds as if they are not yet installed.

is thier a different device using letter "G'?

I have had great luck with smitfaudfix, vundofix and combofix with Windows XP. Do you know their are any plans to make these Vista friendly? Are their any similar tools that are as effective that play well with Vista?

If its working, I would not even mess with it.

I may have given you bad advice. If I remember correctly, I installed the ethernet drivers manually. If you goto the device manager, then try to manually update the driver. When the wizard starts choose "install from a specific location", then point to this directory. C:\Drivers\WIN\Ethernet\PRO100\WS03XP32. The above advice is assuming you are using 10/100mb intel pro Ethernet.

Have you looked in the device manager, under networking, is your card installed?

I am not sure why that happened. I personally would not load that driver. Mainly look in the device manager and look for yellow. They indicate needed drivers. Other then those, they are probably not necessary. As Jsky mentioned, you mainly need the following: Ethernet, both wired and wireless, audio, video. Also make sure you install the chipset driver I mentioned previously.

I just reloaded a r40 laptop. All the drivers used the same procedure. First double click on the driver package. This will extract them to a folder in the directory c:/drivers/win. For example your audio drivers will be extracted to a a directory called c:/drivers/win/audio. In that directory their is a file called setup.exe. You just need to run(click) that file.

Even though XP has generic chipset drivers, I would still install these drivers also.

Just curious, where does the harddrive go on the model? I am looking at an r40 type 2897, and I don't see it from the outside. I am assuming it must be under the keyboard.

Cool. It sounds like the project is coming along nice :-)

After reading another post of yours, I see you got your laptop running. Did you need a caddy to make it work?

You may be going about this the hard way. Do you know the model of the computer, if so, that info can be used to find the correct driver from the computer manufacturer. The next easiest way would be to take the side of the computer off and read the model number off the motherboard. With that info, you can get the driver for the motherboard manufacturer. If you can get either of that information, post it here and I can help you find the driver.

I personally have never found a good windows based program that will tell the chipsets of the hardware I have. Most every program like belarc advisor only will tell you the hardware if you have the device installed. I have never tried Sandra, if it works let me know. That would be a great tool to use. I use the following method

I am moving this to pc support. It is a more appropriate place. You may get a better response in this location :-)

My understanding is logemin works without port forwarding. That adds a layer of security that VNC does not. Since logmein is making all the connections for you, you are very safe(no holes in your router). I suppose the biggest risk would be if logmein its self would be compromised

not really. I just use it a bit. It is very simple to use.

it is as if you are sitting in front of her computer. You can do all of those things. It will be a bit laggy, since you are limited by your bandwidth. I would recommend Logmein free edition. It is very safe and works with a firewall and a router without opening any ports.

it is probably the motherboard, but I would not be so sure until trying a new power supply

Fear of the unknown is my worst enemy. Almost always it is never as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Breaking stuff is how things are learned

You definitely want to check what TT said, but I think those were used in older dells. I think anything newer then 5 years old uses the standard PSU. As to the sparkle power supply, they have a great reputation for quality.

From what I know of you, you are very handy :-) I don't think you would have any problem with it. Like me, you only suffer from lack of confidence. Just take notice of what plugs you remove then plug the same ones in from the new supply. My only word of warning, make sure all the wires are away from the fan. With Dell computers, that is not even an issue, since the heatsink fan is at the back of the case. Just be confident and take your time, and you will do good.