Wireless Network Card Appear Installed, But Does Not Work At All

Nameless579 · 02 Jan 2016

Hey guys. I have a really weird issue with my Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. Here are the details.

I tried to install a wireless network adapter. The installation appeared successful. Device manager tells me that the device should be working properly. It also shows up as an entry in System Information. But it does not show up in ipconfig/all and it does not even work or scan for network. When I try to use the Window diagnostic tool, it says that something is wrong with the driver.

I've tried two network adapter:
PCIe TP-LINK 450Mbps
USB D-Link DWA-160 Xtreme N Dual Band

My friend tried replacing my hard drive and did a fresh Windows 10 install and the card worked fine. So it is not a hardware issue.

Here are security softwares that I use:
Microsoft Security Essentials
Zone Alarm
Spybot

I am looking for a solution that does not require me to re-install Windows 7. My Windows 7 disc is buried in a pile of boxes.

Can anyone help me to solve this mystery?

Kevin

Sven1458 · 02 Jan 2016

Hi Kevin,
welcome to the 7 forums.

Since the error said there is something wrong with the driver, I would uninstall it and unplug the adaptor, then reinstall the driver and after that insert the adaptor. something went wrong with the installation.
Sven

Ztruker · 02 Jan 2016

What does Device Manager look like? Any yellow marks?

Do the following:

Open a Elevated Command Prompt:

Click on the Start button and type cmd.
DO NOT press Enter or click Go.
Look at the upper part of the window and you will see cmd.exe.
Right click on it and select Run as Administrator.

Paste the following into the Command Prompt window, exactly as shown, including double quotes:

cmd /c "ipconfig /all > postme.txt & ping yahoo.com >> postme.txt & reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" | find /i "proxy" >> postme.txt & notepad postme.txt & del postme.txt"

and press ENTER.

A file will open in Notepad. Please copy and paste the contents here. Close the Notepad window and the file will be deleted and the Command Prompt window will also close. Post results in a reply here.