I'm starting to worry

[Belly]

Hi,

I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser and have a hazard sign against:

Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Base T controller.

The updater says I should download the latest driver and install it after installing Windows 7.

There doesn't seem to be a driver for windows 7 - unless I'm looking in the wrong place.....

Having done a Google search and read the thousands of horror stories connected with Ethernet Drivers I'm starting to worry.

If I buy Windows 7 Professional (for the backward compatibility) and do a clean install (if that's the correct terminology) and Windows 7 doesn't accept the driver forcing me to buy a new mother board would I be able to use the OS I had bought on the newly purchased mother board, or would Windows class this as a new computer?

I'm currently running Windows XP Home, Service Pack 3 on an Intel (R)Core 2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3 GHZ. 3.00 Ghz 2.00 GB RAM. The motherboard is an Asus PK5 SE/EPU.

Additionally if I bought a new computer with more modern features would there be a noticeable improvement in speed etc. I don't use my computer for games just for browsing, MS Office and Photo Editing.

Thanx

 

[marc2003]

i'm running windows 7 and if i search the LAN card drivers manually, it already has it built in. no need to go looking for drivers...

as for upgrading, there's probably no need - unless you're really serious about your photo editing but i imagine you would have already mentioned if you felt your computer was too slow for what you're doing. a bit more ram would help. you can pick up another 2GB cheap as chips (2nd hand that is ).

 

[Belly]

Thanx Very Much Marc

 

[LOAM]

Worse case scenario surely is you would need a new NIC, not a whole motherboard surely?

 

[linktoinsanity]

Also, install the 64 bit version of Windows 7 if you are going to upgrade the RAM as well, then you can use all of it.

Except memory, your computer seems fine for what you are using it for.