Network Adapter Not Detected and Not shown in Device Manager

Hi,

I own a Acer Aspire S3-951 ultrabook.

I accidentally installed the wrong drivers yesterday while updating the device drivers as I ran into internet trouble and diagnostics said there seems to be a problem with either the drivers or hardware. Ever since the system is unable to detect my network adapter. It should be an Atheros ar5bwb225 adapter. When I boot the system there was a big red X and no connection, so I ran diagnostics and it said I didn't have the drivers (the incorrect drivers installed over the old one). In Device manager, unfortunately neither the old nor new(wrong) drivers are displayed, so I tried to uninstall the Atheros installation program to remove the wrong drivers.

That ran into trouble as the wrong drivers could not be uninstalled because it was unable to locate the network card for the wrong drivers. So I downloaded the correct driver from the Acer website and ran setup. Setup could not be completed because it says my network adapter is unplugged.

Followed a few different links on this site including the IP reset in this post: https://www.sevenforums.com/network-s...but-s-not.html

Also disabled, uninstalled and removed Bonjour. With IPconfig, as I'm using a USB wireless adapter temporarily it shows:
Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection 4:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter #
2
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

With the USB Adapter unplugged and no wireless connection, IPConfig /all Does not show any headings with the word Wireless, nor LAN.

I installed HWVendorDetect from Acer and running that it detected a network adapter from Atheros. However, the adapter is not shown in Device Manager, and there are no unknown/other devices and no yellow question marks.

Is there anything else I can try please?

Hey,

Thanks for the link.

I did get the right drivers now, but when I tried setting up the driver,it said the network adapter is unplugged, and so installation cannot be completed.

I don't actually know at this point if it's got to be more of a hardware problem.

The internet even starts cutting out sometimes when I'm using this USB wireless adapter - which shouldn't be affected if the network card itself is the issue, right?

Just wondering if there are any other ways or reasons as to why a network adapter cannot be found or recognized in windows, and isn't found on device manager, even!

Sorry it means unplugged in terms of it can no longer detect the card/adapter. The computer works fine hooked up to Ethernet, so it's definitely only a wireless problem.

If I may need to change the network adapter card (some forums say the Atheros card for acers normally need to be changed every few years anyway because they're not long-lasting) where can I get one say from a reliable place online?

List any Problem devices

• Make sure devices are connected and powered on
• Click the Start Orb, type msinfo32 in the search box. Hit Enter
• Click the + sign next to Components to expand it
• Click Problem Devices. Anything appear?
• If yes, click on it, Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy it, Ctrl-V to paste into next post
• On the other hand, if no devices are listed, tell me so

Generate and attach a DirectX report

• For XP, click Start->Run, enter dxdiag
• For Vista and later, click Start, enter dxdiag in the search box
• When DxDiag opens, look along the buttons at the bottom of the DxDiag window
  ===> If you’re running 64 bit Windows, you’ll see a 64-bit DxDiag button. Click it to run the 64-bit version of dxdiag
• Notice progress in lower left window corner
• When done, click Save Information button and save as a text file to your Desktop
• Upload the file to your next post