Windows 8.1: WiFi dropping and/or "Limited"

Hi,

I have struggled all day with my Dell Inspiron N4050 laptop with the same problem. Wasting almost 20 hours and trying every bit of chances I have atlast found the solution of this limited connectivity problem for my laptop. Here it is how:

Going to the Network Adapter device's properties, I have clicked "Update Driver". There I've selected the option to browse my storage for hardware drivers. Locating the folder of all drivers which I got from Dell's website extracted in that folder, Here, Windows showed only the compatible driver in the list, though that was been installed automatically. There is check box denoting something like "show incompatible drivers". I chose that and there I got the name of my adapter's manufacturer Broadcom. The thing is, Windows detected a driver which was actually supposed to be the driver of my adapter which is Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter driver which in this case been installed automatically by Windows as I saw driver's name and adapter's name to be the same. But from the list of all drivers, I tried Broadcom 802.11 Multimode driver which favoured my luck. I installed that incompatible driver from the incompatible adapter driver's list and found it to be working only after a simple Wifi off/on procedure.

May try incompatible drivers something to check your luck. My one worked fine.

Best wishes!

I did this and it worked. I am thinking that just the act of choosing a driver in this way maybe somehow resets the device and sorts it out.

I have a Lenovo 8" tablet and this issue was getting worse and worse. Last week in desperation I recovered back to the Windows 8.1 factory install and loaded all the W8 updates, but it still had the issue.

I find that the issue means that either accessing data just does not work - Windows App Store for instance, or web pages do not load OR web pages do partially load, sometime with no pictures, some times with no styling just basic HTML links on white.

Most of the time a disconnect from the WIFI and reconnect gets you maybe 10 minutes of use.

However this solution of choosing the drivers that apparently are already installed seems to work.

Thanks David for sharing Dennis's blog post.

I was having the same issue and finally found a solution.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dennis\_schnell/archive/2013/08/31/windows-8-1-wifi-showing-quot-limitied-quot-or-quot-no-internet-access-quot.aspx

This is quoted from their site.

Hi guys, i tried all the above methods but none of them worked for me. However i did find smt that worked, which is to revert your network adapter driver back to an older version instead of the one installed by windows 8.1.

You can do this by going to device manager, right click on your network adapter, go to update driver, then "browse my computer for driver software, then"let me pick from a list of...." , uncheck the "show compatible hardware" checkbox and finally select the older version of current driver (if you dont know which, just use trial and error).

I went up a version instead of down, but the 1705 version of the driver seems to be the issue.

This is no good for Win 8.1RT devices as you can't roll back drivers.

I was having the same issue and finally found a solution.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dennis\_schnell/archive/2013/08/31/windows-8-1-wifi-showing-quot-limitied-quot-or-quot-no-internet-access-quot.aspx

This is quoted from their site.

Hi guys, i tried all the above methods but none of them worked for me. However i did find smt that worked, which is to revert your network adapter driver back to an older version instead of the one installed by windows 8.1.

You can do this by going to device manager, right click on your network adapter, go to update driver, then "browse my computer for driver software, then"let me pick from a list of...." , uncheck the "show compatible hardware" checkbox and finally select the older version of current driver (if you dont know which, just use trial and error).

I went up a version instead of down, but the 1705 version of the driver seems to be the issue.

Also happening with Surface 2. Only with one network and that is my uni's Eduroam (where I work). All other networks are fine. As Surface 2 is RT drivers cannot be changed. I get 'limited connectivity' or no connectivity at all.