Fix Base System Device Not Found in Device Manager

Get rid of those annoying question marks

I recently did a clean install of Windows 7 on my PC and downloaded all the drivers from the manufacture’s website and thought everything was good to go. I happened to go into Device Manager and noticed that there was a problem withBase System Device.

Actually, there were several Base System Device driver errors, all with question marks. I was surprised because I thought I had downloaded the important drivers for the system such as the graphics card, touchpad, network adapter etc.

Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to have downloaded all of the drivers. I eventually figured out what the problem was and didn’t get the error in Device Manager anymore. In this article, I’ll show you how to fix the driver issue in Windows.

Even though I installed most drivers, there were a couple that I didn’t install thinking that they were not necessary. The Base System Device is usually related to one of three pieces of hardware: the chipset, bluetooth or the SD card reader.

Go to the manufacturer website and find the drivers for your specific model. Make sure to download the chipset drivers and install the latest version. Also, find the the drivers for bluetooth and SD card reader, if you have those on your system.

Also, you can figure out what driver is needed by finding the hardware IDs for any device that shows up as unknown or with a question mark inDevice Manager. To do this, double-click on the Base System Device and choose Details. Then click onHardware IDsfrom the drop down.

It should look something like this:

Now you can go to a site likePC ID Repositoryand search their list using the Vendor ID and Dev ID. Where are those numbers? The part after VEN_ is the Vendor ID. In the first line above, it’s15AD. The device ID is the part after DEV_, which is0405in the above case.

I clicked on 1 and then did a search for 15ad got the following results:

As you can see above, it’s related to VMware. If you click on the link, you’ll then see some device numbers. 0405 is listed at the top as SVGA adapter, which is the graphics card.

Since I have installed Windows in a virtual machine, VMware is the the vendor. The device is the graphics card installed on my host PC. Pretty neat huh? The next time you see a big question mark or Unknown Device in Device Manager, you can now figure out exactly what piece of hardware is missing a driver.

Now just go through all the Base System Device listed there and figure out exactly which driver you need to download. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications.Read Aseem’s Full Bio

Welcome to Help Desk Geek- a blog full of tech tips from trusted tech experts. We have thousands of articles and guides to help you troubleshoot any issue. Our articles have been read over 150 million times since we launched in 2008.

HomeAbout UsEditorial StandardsContact UsTerms of Use

Fix Base System Device Not Found in Device Manager#

Fix Base System Device Not Found in Device Manager