wireless network adapter gone missing

Anonymous

Hi -

I've seen a number of similar questions but no solutions to my problem.

My system:

Toshiba A505-S6980

Windows 7 Home Premium - 64bit

Realtek WLAN driver

Problem:

After resuming from a sleep, the network adapter dissappeared. This happened before and they replaced the computer, after trying a system restore and then full recovery. Apparently, it's not the computer.

The Wireless adapter is missing from device manager, much less the network and connections area. In troubleshoot, the computer simply says a network cable needs to be plugged in. There is no wireless choice under network connections. There is no wireless adapter tab upon right click of Network Adapter in Device Manager.

The Realtek WLAN driver DOES appear in the Programs & Features list. I uninstalled, reinstalled, and also found/installed a patch for the driver. This did not work. I also started/automated the Autoconfig scripts for wireless. Nothing works.

Any help is appreciated.

-Tucson56

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Anonymous

Hi '

This just happened to me and I was able to get past it by doing several hard reboots. I had to fully charge the battery , and after three attempts with increasing intervals of time, the system appearently turned the wireless adapter back on.

After the card reappeared, I was able to find it in device manager again, in my case Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 2200 under network adapters . Then a right click, to properties , within properties you chose power Management tab. There you will probably discover that by default the computer is allowed to turn off this device to save power. Uncheck the box , click ok and reboot . Hopefully this will prevent it from happening again.

Hope this helps

Art Master T

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Anonymous

This same thing happened to me. What causes it to happen is a very low battery but found a simple solution to turn back on the wireless network adapter.

Hold down the Windows key and press x

menu should come up

click device manager

should go to a list of devices on your computer

expand network adapters from list

might be a few to choose from but look for 2 with the same name. one for wifi and one for ethernet

double click on the wifi network adapter

click on power management tab

click off the tab that allows the wifi to be turned off with low battery

click on drivers tab and enable device

should be good to go from there

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Anonymous

Hi tucson56, A. From how long do you face this problem? I would suggest you to check for the power management settings for your wireless adaptor and see if that help. 1.Open Network and Sharing Center (click the Start button, type Network and Sharing in the Start Search box, and press Enter) 2.Click the Change adapter settings link in the upper left of the navigation pane. 3.Right click the network connection you want to enable/disable power management support on and click Properties. 4.Click Configure. 5.On the Power Management tab, check or clear the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power check box. A. When checked, power management is enabled on the network adapter. B. When cleared, power management is disabled on the network adapter. 6.You can enable Wake on LAN for all wake methods or just enable magic packet WoL: To enable Wake on LAN for all methods, check the Allow this device to wake the computer check box. To enable Wake on LAN for magic packet only, check the Allow this device to wake the computer check box and then check Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer check box. 7.Click OK. Additional information:

http://technet.microsoft.com/zh-cn/library/ee617165(WS.10).aspx

Hope this helps. Let us know the results.

Thanks & Regards,

Vijay B – Microsoft Support

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92 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-02-06T09:16:55+00:00

This post has rather lost its way. In my (way) previous post the problem was very clearly a Win7 update problem. The suggestion to do auto updates are about as useless as telling me to check I plugged the power lead in. The suggestions that it is fixed in Win8 are as useless as telling me to plug into my neighbour's power supply. I father discount broken hardware, which while interesting is not how this post started and is diagnosed very differently and much more easily (no disrespect intended). I remain totally convinced that the problem was in some combination of software confer changes, each valid on its own and then triggered by the update from Microsoft. It’s just a shame than Microsoft never (as far as I can tell) even bothered to respond to the issue. They host this post I guess but it is a one way communication process.

After one year my friend turned on auto-update again and I guess it got a major SP release. The problem did not return. Oh, what a surprise, it was not hardware, power supply or using an outdated Win7 that was the problem. What we will never know is whether Microsoft actually did anything deliberate to resolve it, I’m guessing not

I recommend new posts to start off comments on the set of different issues now all merged together here.

Good luck all
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Anonymous

2014-02-06T04:41:48+00:00

"I'm thinking a cheap USB WIRELESS ADAPTER WILL WORK. "

(Sorry for my late solution to my own problem but somehow forum replies did not work.)

The problem of the disappearing WiFi adapter in device manager on my Asus X53E turned out to be a flaky then dead Atheros AR9285(AR5B95) adapter card. When it fails, the wisdom of the PC OS fails it out then removes it from view. Solution: replace the adapter - I got 2 for under $10, US and China. On the X53 there is a little panel underneath - easy replacement (observe ESD precautions). My Asus eee HA1005 uses the same radio so I have a spare.

There are many good low cost USB to WiFi adapters. Before my Atheros card cam I bought a TP-Link TL-WN725N wireless N micro adapter. It has better speed performance than the built in WiFi yet protudes only about 1 cm. from the USB port. The range is not as good as with the laptop antenna of course.

Hope this helps someone else. Local shop quoted about $150 to fix. P.
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