new hardware found unknown device

[glenrose]

hi:

win98se on a compaq desktop en P7333

all hardware is installed and shows up fine in the device manager however opon startup i always get the

unknown device found, no idea what it is and therefore cannot find or install any software.

i read that this might occur if you do not have a device plugged into one of the usb ports.

has anyone heard of this or possibly another problem.

thanks

[EzyStvy]

Try booting up in safe mode. Look for duplicate entries in device manager and delete the extra ones. Reboot.

[GaryRouth]

. . . and if the Safe Mode cleanup doesn't do it:

Press F10 while your computer is starting to enter your Bios Setup screens. Double-check that there aren't any onboard devices that you're not using [that might not have any drivers installed]. If it's an older Compaq, some of them had strange combo devices (like a combo sound/modem card) that gave Windows hardware detection fits. It might be detecting a chip on the card that you aren't using & don't want to use [and possibly may never have been aware it was even there].
Disable any such devices.

The USB situation might occur if you have a USB device plugged in that's not yet installed: but this doesn't sound like your case.

In some cases, there is no way to disable the onboard device causing the problem. In this situation, to remove the error messages occurance: you let Windows try to install the device, after it flails around a bit you can then cancel it's futility, and then in Device Manager disable the Unknown Device = voila, no more error messages.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[mike breck]

What specific model is the Compaq?

From what CD are you installing Win98SE - Compaq or Microsoft Win98SE CD?

[glenrose]

thanks gary:

nothing weird, all devices are assigned irq numbers and there appears to be no onboard or pci devices that are not present.
have used your method to stop having unknown devices detected but just curious. thanks anyway.

mike
all i can tell is that it is a deskpro en P733, used all the drivers from compaq website designed for this model. Using windows version of 98se.

thanks

[GaryRouth]

Do you have this computer on a network? It comes with an network adapter onboard, via either a 3com 3C905B-TX wake-on-lan, or a Compaq NC3121 network controller. For your model, Compaq has a note on their support pages that these devices are not usually recognized by Win98 during installation. If you aren't using a network, you may have never noticed. Here are the Compaq links for those two network devices:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...odTypeId=12454
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...odTypeId=12454

The only other "Unknown Device" that might be detected at startup (that I can think of) might be the onboard Infra-red = could be enabled in one of the hard-to-find Bios settings. Or perhaps a digital camera or scanner - but you've accounted for those already.

Mysterious!
. . . Gary