How to find vendor and model of unknown drivers

windows drivers device-manager

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Use PCI database (online website)

go to the device manager
open the properties of the unknown device
click on details → Hardware IDs
extract the vendor ID and the device ID like shown in the screenshot
search on the PCI database for the vender and database ID.
The database is regularly updated by users. Scroll down Intel's page as an example.
The results will show a driver name which can be googled

Use Unknown Devices (portable offline tool)

The portable tool even shows old drivers which are normally only visible if you type SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 in an elevated CMD prompt before opening the device manager.

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Use DriverIdentifier (offline tool with online database)

Install it or extract it with UniExtract if you need a portable version. It will scan your drivers and compare them with its online database.

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Duncan Krebs

I get software development probably at a level more than others because I know that all languages do the same thing, full stack understanding when to know to use the right language or write one (which I've done) makes the most sense and spending as little time as possible on outside blockers like DevOps makes a project more aligned for success which is my personal perspective. I'm also a DevOps guru, Kubernetes watch out its great hard to learn and use in production.

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Duncan Krebs over 1 year

I reinstalled windows on a new machine and the drivers are not present for the product network card.

When in device manager all I get is the question mark and I am unable to figure out the actual name of the vendor or model of the card. This is making my search to find the correct driver hard.

Anyone know how I to find out more about the hardware that does not have drivers?
Hampus Andersson almost 11 years

My driver hardware ID shows up as ms_ndsiwanbh and is not found on the site you recommended
nixda almost 11 years

@Yvette Sorry to hear that. I already had the same issue with a laptop. What exact PC/laptop and what operating system do you use? It seems to be a WAN miniport network driver
Hampus Andersson almost 11 years

Samsung 64 bit i7 - windows 8 pro thnx Nixda
nixda almost 11 years

@Yvette I guess you mean a Samsung laptop. You need the exact model number. Something like "Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A-A02US". Have you tried all recommended network drivers from their support page?
Hampus Andersson almost 11 years

thnx for yr help nixda where would i find the model number (apart from on the bottom of the laptop- which I can't read) thnx