I'm on Windows 7 x64 with latest updates as of current date. For a long time the Device Manager vexed me with yellow question mark icons showing "Based System Device". I looked up the Device ID on the web and it turned out that these unidentified devices were part of Intel Chipset. I couldn't get rid of them and the INF installer just fails. Things started to get desperate so I found DriverPack that updated the drivers on my system and these yellow question marks disappeared. But when looking up these drivers, I have found them under system devices (Computer Management -> Device Manager -> System devices) they report "No driver is loaded." The following list of system components report this status:
- Direct memory access controller * (Microsoft 6.1.7601.17514)
- High precision event timer * (Microsoft 6.1.7601.17514)
- Intel(R) C600 Series Management Engine Interface - 1D3A
- Intel(R) C600/X79 series chipset SMBus Host Controller - 1D22 *
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Broadcast Registers - 0EC9
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Broadcast Registers - 0ECA
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Home Agent 0 - 0E30
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Home Agent 0 - 0EA0
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 IIO RAS - 0E2A
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 Thermal Control 2 - 0EB4
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 0 Channel Target Address Decoder Registers - 0EAA
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 Thermal Control 3 - 0EB5
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 0 Channel Target Address Decoder Registers - 0EAB
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 ERROR Registers 2 - 0EB6
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 0 Channel Target Address Decoder Registers - 0EAC
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 0 RAS Registers - 0E71
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 ERROR Registers 3 - 0EB7
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 0 Channel Target Address Decoder Registers - 0EAD
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 Thermal Control 0 - 0EB0
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 Thermal Control 1 - 0EB1
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 ERROR Registers 0 - 0EB2
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 1 Channel 0-3 ERROR Registers 1 - 0EB3
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller 0 Target Address/Thermal Registers - 0EA8
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 IOAPIC - 0E2C *
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Power Control Unit 0 - 0EC0
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Power Control Unit 1 - 0EC1
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Power Control Unit 2 - 0EC2
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Power Control Unit 3 - 0EC3
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 QPI Link 0 - 0E80
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 QPI Link 1 - 0E90
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 QPI Ring Performance Ring Monitoring - 0E36
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 QPI Ring Registers - 0E81
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 R2PCIe - 0E1D
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 R2PCIe - 0E34
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 System Address Decoder - 0EC8
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 UBOX Registers - 0E1E
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 UBOX Registers - 0E1F
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Unicast Registers - 0EE0
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Unicast Registers - 0EE1
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Unicast Registers - 0EE2
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 Unicast Registers - 0EE3
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7 v2/Xeon(R) E5 v2/Core i7 VTd/Memory Map/Misc - 0E28
- Numeric data processor * (Microsoft 6.1.7601.17514)
- Programmable interrupt controller * (Microsoft 6.1.7601.17514)
- System speaker * (Microsoft 6.1.7601.17514)
- System timer * (Microsoft 6.1.7601.17514)
*: There is also a "resources" tab in properties
(Where driver is not given the Intel 9.4.0.1029 driver is associated with the device.)
What's going on? Under the driver tab in the properties dialog "Intel 9.4.0.1029" or "Microsoft 6.1.7601..." are reported as driver but under the "general" tab it says "No driver is loaded", what is going on? I cannot install using Intel INF installer; it terminates with "Unknown Error" and it did so before the DriverPack update.
I have also discovered that on other systems running Windows 7 (also 32-bit) some of these system devices have "No driver is loaded." status, in particular:
- ... chipset SMBus Host Controller ...
- Direct memory access controller
- Numeric data processor
- Programmable interrupt controller
- System timer
so this issue must be quite widespread.