Wifi router not recognised after reinstalling W7 (other devices fine)

[albradley3am]

Hi folks

I've recently had to reinstall W7 onto my Dell PC (W7 Professional, 32 bit) - it's an old PC & so I have a TP Link USB & software to connect to my Wifi (Talk Talk router). I know the router is working because I'm able to use wifi on my other devices, but my PC just will not recognise the router at all. Prior to me reinstalling W7, I had my PC in the room directly above my living room (where the router is) & it worked perfectly for over 3 years. I've checked the drivers for the TP Link USB & everything is up to date. I have my PC in my living room at the moment & attached to LAN cable, so I can use it for the time being, but the main use for my PC is making music, hence I ordinarily have it in the room above, where all my music stuff is. I'm pretty tech-savvy & have tried as many things as I can, but this one is baffling me!

Just to add, it was a completely clean W7 install (I deleted the old partitions etc) so I am unsure if that has anything to do with it & if there's some driver for the wifi which I now need? Oh yes, as I have LAN I've made sure I've run all relevant Windows updates (about 290+ in total!) so I don't think there's anything that side which I've missed! I just have a red 'X' over the wifi connection symbol & can't figure out what else to check! Any help is massively appreciated.

Thanks so much
Al

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. It seems you just need the driver for it have you not got a disk that came with wireless if not go-to there website

 

[albradley3am]

Hi Samuria

Yes, I checked that & it says it's the up-to-date driver; I uninstalled & re-installed the wifi software too just in case but still no joy?

 

[samuria]

If you open a cmd prompt then type

netsh wlan show networks

What does it say

 

[albradley3am]

It says "Interface name: Wireless Network Connection 2. There are 0 networks currently visible". But I know the router works - I'm using it to type this on my phone

 

[TrustMe]

It sounds like your wifi driver is missing. Go to Dell's website and download the correct driver for your wifi card. Drivers are usually listed under Support > Drivers. Input the make and model number of your computer or the service code. Once you find all the drivers for your computer, download the Wifi one.

There could be one catch though. Some times Dell lists two or more Wifi drivers for the same computer. If there are, let us know and we'll try to sort it out.

 

[albradley3am]

Hi TrustMe - thank you, one final question before I do; the PC was originally for XP & has had W7 installed on it. Therefore do I look for the original driver (for XP) or for W7 (apologies if that seems a stupid question....)

 

[samuria]

I thought you were using a tplink not the dell one did you install drivers from the cd that comes with the usb wireless?

 

[albradley3am]

Hi Samurai; the TP Link driver is totally up to date. The person TrustMe (above) said they felt I must need a driver for the PC itself too. So far nothing I have tried works! I even bought a brand new WiFi USB (Netgear) in case the TP Link wasn't working & that also doesn't work! For whatever reason the PC will simply not recognise the WiFi network! As it was a 100% clean install of W7, do I need to reinstall a driver which allows the TP Link (or Netgear) to connect with the router? It was working perfectly prior to this W7 clean install. An it's not a router issue as again I am using it on my smartphone right now.