Win 7 Dell Inspiron wifi issues

[LacieS]

I have a windows 7 dell Inspiron n7010 that won't connect to the Ethernet or to wifi. I checked and it says the wifi is enabled, or at least the switch/hotkey it set to [ALL] and there are 3 WPEN looking things that are enabled.
I'm thinking maybe it doesn't have any network drivers, but it only came with a charger, so what are the drivers that I would need? Only one or a few?
Also is there a location that these drivers are installed so I can check if there are any already installed?

 

[ffg7]

did you reload windows recently?

 

[LacieS]

I just got the laptop today at a pawn shop.. Is that something i should do?

 

[ffg7]

yes as you might have somebody elses stuff including software nasties.
http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/DSN_362066?c=us&s=gen&cs=&l=en

 

[LacieS]

I just got it today so I think they wiped it with a program called whitecanyon but that's all I know. The only thing in the list of programs is Microsoft visual c++

In local disk C: there is a folder dell>drivers with FK8CT, R255590, R255854 and R297612

 

[LacieS]

Ok, ive tried that before but it wouldn't do anything when I kept pressing F8

 

[ffg7]

take a look in device manager under network adapters to see what is listed there, also see if there is any unknown devices or yellow exclamation marks in device manager.

 

[LacieS]

Network controller and PCI Simple Communications Controller have yellow exclamation marks under Other devices, are those the things I need then?

 

[ffg7]

yes
netcard http://downloads.dell.com/network/R255590.exe
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/inspiron-17-n7010/drivers

 

[LacieS]

Ok, Thanks so much, its working now.

 

[ffg7]

no problem, teach & learn.