can't enable new network adaptor

[spasmoid]

I just installed this product USB Dual High Gain Antenna Wireless N Wifi Adaptor
USB Dual High Gain Antenna Wireless N Wi-Fi Adapter (eBay item 170608181616 end time 25-Jul-11 14:23:40 AEST) : Computers

Soon as I plugged it in, my Win 7 (64) machine instantly identified it and installed the driver. Only problem is, the adapter remains disabled. I try to enable it, but it instantly disables itself when I do.

I could not find any clues in the System event log.

It's actually an rtl8187 chip by realtek. I tried installing drivers from the manufacturer (from the CD and from the internet) but windows insists that the microsoft driver it installed on detection is the most up-to-date driver and it ignores mfr driver. I tried installing a "legacy device" and I manually chose the mfr driver, but it does not work (and still has the microsoft driven device listed in device manager).

I tried this unit on another PC (also running windows 7 64bit) and it worked flawlessly. But on the two machines which really need the device, they both cannot enable the device once installed.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[MvdB]

Hello Spasmoid, welcome to SF!

A couple of questions to help me understand what happens better...
- From your (limited) system spec's I gather you're connecting this on a tower (desktop pc)?
- Did this tower did have a previous wireless USB connection?
- Did the pc on which it DID work already have a USB connection + is that PC also a tower/desktop (i.e. not a laptop)
- Did you try removing all related installed drivers, reboot, install software from disk first and only then connect the device?

 

[spasmoid]

Hello Spasmoid, welcome to SF!

A couple of questions to help me understand what happens better...
1) From your (limited) system spec's I gather you're connecting this on a tower (desktop pc)?
2) Did this tower did have a previous wireless USB connection?
3) Did the pc on which it DID work already have a USB connection + is that PC also a tower/desktop (i.e. not a laptop)
4) Did you try removing all related installed drivers, reboot, install software from disk first and only then connect the device?

Hi Mvdb, sorry I didn't provide adequate info. I will answere your queries here.

1) It is a desktop PC which I purchased second hand. It is a HP DC7900. The specific p/n is NA191PA#ABG. full spec here https://h10057.www1.hp.com/ecomcat/hpcatalog/specs/provisioner/05/NA191PA.htm

2) No, the target PC had no previous wireless network interface. No other USB wireless device was installed on it since the operating system was installed.

3) The test machine, that I used to check whether or not the new wireless device worked on Windows 7 x64, is a tower (custom build) and had no prior USB wireless device installed since it's creation.

4) On the target HP system, the first time I plugged in the device, windows detected it and installed the driver. I tried "uninstalling" the device from device manager and installing the software (with driver) from the CD and then plugging the USB device back in. When I did this, the microsoft drivers came back and the CD mfr provided drivers were ignored. I tried using the "update driver" option from device manager, but windows said that the installed (microsoft) driver was newer and it did not even attempt to use the CD provided driver. It's worth noting that the test system (tower) worked fine with the microsoft driver. On the target HP system, device manager says that "this device is working properly". The issue is that i can't change it from DISABLED to ENABLED

 

[MvdB]

Thx, a lot clearer... though I don't have an answer yet... but we'll get there...

Where exactly do you try to set it to ENABLED?

And a question on these HP machines... The difference between them and you custom built one (where it does work) could be some inherited stuff as those HP's seem to come out of a company stock. Is that correct? If so... are you 100% sure you've got clean machines with full admin rights + BIOS permissions? Sometimes ex-company machines still have limited HW rights set in their BIOS as part of the companies security policy.

 

[spasmoid]

Thanks for all the help.

The place where I try to enable the network interface is
Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections
It's successfully enabled as a "device" in device manager.

I'll have to go through the bios and have a look. Never thought of looking there.

So here's the deal. I have two of these USB recievers and two identical HP machines. My neighbour fixes computers so I had him around yesterday and he got a receiver to work with one of the boxes (after a long battle). However, we haven't been able to get it to work with the second box. There shouldn't be much difference between the two machines since the one was created from a system backup of the other.

He got it working on the first machine by rebooting into safe mode (with networking support) and installing the drivers there.

We tried the same on the second machine, but no dice.

Still hacking away at it.

 

[Eudaimonic]

I found a solution, and it involves temporarily bridging the wireless and lan connections (then unbridging). See Technopaideia: Frustrating but ultimately successful fix for Internet connectivity