Yellow Errors - Hardware Not Recognized by Windows

One of the new Terry's Computer Tips readers, wrote me this week about his "yellow error icons" problems after reinstalling Windows XP on his computer, and I responded:

Terry, I'm a new reader and enjoy your letter a lot. I just put a fresh install of XP Pro Sp2 on my Pentium4 Alienware computer. All is well but in device manager. I have 3 yellow error icons in front of 'Ethernet Controller', 'Multimedia Audio Controller', and 'PCI Input Device'. At first I thought I just needed simple driver updates but so far I'm not having any luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated

I responded that it sounded like he needed to install the drivers from the CDROM that came with the Alienware computer.  Most motherboards have a a special set of drivers -- often optimized for that particular motherboard, not the standard driver for that card.

He did not specify, but it sounds like these are embedded items on the motherboard instead of cards.  If you are lucky, you can find your Alienware CDROM.  If not, you'll probably have to contact Alienware's tech support, as most vendors only have updates/patches on their websites -- not the full drivers set.

His' response:

THANK YOU!  You have given me a very good path to follow. I have the Alienware CDs.

Another happy reader!  I love this!

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