Hello everybody!
In today’s video, I’ll show you what to do if your laptop or desktop PC suddenly lost
a Wi-Fi connection.
If you decided to connect to the Internet by Wi-Fi, but you can’t see any available
networks, if your Wi-Fi connection stops working properly, or you see a red cross over the
network icon in the system tray - in this video, I’ll show you what might cause the
problem and how to fix it.
First of all, you may think - all right, there are no Wi-Fi networks nearby, so that’s
why my laptop can’t find them.
But what can be done if you know for sure there must be at least one network available
- since you are at home?
To begin with, let’s find out what could cause the problem.
For starters, make sure there are available Wi-Fi networks in your location.
To check it, try establishing a Wi-Fi connection from another device - for example, your smartphone.
Open the settings, Wi-Fi and search for wireless networks.
If your phone can see at least one of them, go back to your laptop.
If you see a red cross here - that’s one problem, but if there is no Wi-Fi icon at
all - it’s a different matter.
First of all, let’s see what happens if you see a red cross here.
At once, make sure the Wi-Fi module is turned on.
To do it, open Network & Internet settings / Network and Sharing Center / Change adapter
settings.
Look for the wireless network to see if it is disabled.
Right-click on the network icon - Enable / Disable.
Troubleshooting Following that, you can run the diagnostics
tool - sometimes it can help.
Click on the Internet connection icon in the system tray and select “Network troubleshooter.”
The diagnostics window will show up and Windows will try to find and fix possible issues that
prevent your laptop from detecting the Wi-Fi network.
Wait for the process to finish.
As you can see, it says the Wi-Fi module is disabled.
By the way, most laptops have specific key shortcuts for various functions, and turning
the Wi-Fi module on is one of them (it could be Fn+F2, or a dedicated button).
Check if it is in the right position for Wi-Fi to be enabled because you may have pressed
it unintentionally and cut your connection for good.
So find the button or key shortcut on your laptop and see if it can improve the situation.
Enable WLAN Auto Config If everything is enabled but you still see
the red cross...
Run the diagnostics and Windows may inform you that the wireless service is not running
on this computer.
You can try recovering it as administrator.
If such solution is not available, or it doesn’t work, open the “Services” window by typing
this word in the search field, or by right-clicking on the Start button / choosing Computer Management
/ Services and Applications.
Find “WLAN Auto Config” on the list and look at its status.
By default, its status should be “Running”, and startup type - “Automatic”.
If the service is disabled, right-click on it, select “Properties,” set startup type
to “Automatic” and click “Ok,” and then restart the computer.
Now check the connection.
Also, visit Mobility Center to see if wireless networks are enabled.
To open Mobility Center, right-click on the Start menu and select “Mobility Center.”
Otherwise, open the Run window by pressing the key shortcut Win+R and type the following
command: mblctr.exe.
When Wi-Fi is disabled here, you see the red cross in the system tray.
Click “Turn wireless on.”
This way, you enable the Wi-Fi module.
Driver issues The next thing to be checked is to make sure
you have proper drivers installed for the Wi-Fi module.
In order to find out, just open the Device Manager.
Right-click and select “Device Manager” from the list.
Open “Network adapters.”
Look for the line containing the word “Wireless” or “Wi-Fi.”
This is the adapter your laptop uses to connect to a Wi-Fi network.
If you have such line, look at the icon next to it.
It should look exactly the way it looks in my example.
If the “Network adapters” section shows you only one adapter, the LAN network card,
and there is no wireless adapter, probably you need to install the corresponding driver.
Visit your laptop manufacturer’s website, use the search field to find your laptop model,
go to the driver download page and download the latest driver for your WLAN (that is wireless)
adapter.
After that, install it.
If you have a wireless adapter but it doesn’t work:
Right-click on it and select “Properties.”
Read attentively what is says in the “Device status” window.
It must read like this: “This device is working properly.”
Right-click on the adapter again and check if you can see the option “Enable device.”
If it is present, choose it.
As you do that, everything should start working properly.
Also, you can try rolling back the driver (if you have updated it recently and your
Wi-Fi connection stopped working) or updating it - all of these can be don through the “Properties”
window.
You can also try reinstalling the driver.
Click “Uninstall device” here, but before that, you should have already downloaded a
proper driver from the manufacturer’s official website.
Alternatively, switch to the “Details” tab, select “Hardware Ids” and use this
data to find a driver on the Internet, so that you can download it and install it after
you uninstall the device.
One more way is to uninstall the device and let the operating system install a suitable
driver automatically.
Change region settings There is one more way of solving this problem
- to change the region settings.
In the Device Manager, open “Properties” for the Wi-Fi module, switch to the tab “Advanced,”
select “Country Region (2.4GHz)” and change its value to this one ("#5 (1 - 14)").
In your specific case, setting a different value may also help.
Finally, if there is no button displayed to manage your Wi-Fi adapter...
Open Settings / Network & Internet, and if you don’t see the Wi-Fi line, while the
“Airplane mode” tab doesn’t make you happy either because it can’t find wireless
devices....
It means that you either don’t have a driver for the Wi-Fi module or the module is disabled,
or even that there is no Wi-Fi module in your computer at all.
But.... you already know how to install the driver and turn the Wi-Fi module on.
And if you are using a desktop PC, all you need is a Wi-Fi adapter.
All these solutions for the missing Wi-Fi connection problem will work equally well
in Windows 10, 8 or 7.
That’s all for now!
I hope that my recommendations helped you fix the problem.
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Leave comments to ask questions and share your opinion.
Thank you for watching.
Good luck.