Can't find wifi drivers for hp pavilion g6-2312ax

[Rhaegarnoob]

I have hp pavilion g6-2312ax laptop. After some recent microsoft updates wifi stopped working. Its driver also doesnt show up in the network adaptor. And, I also couldnt find any wifi adaptors on hp support website. What to do please help...

[banhien]

@Rhaegarnoob

Your machine has  Ralink RT3290LE 802.11b/g/n 1x1 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 combination adapter . Please try

   https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp59501-60000/sp59525.exe

and for BT

    https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp59501-60000/sp59632.exe

Regards.

[CherylG]

Latest driver I can find:

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp69501-70000/sp69543.exe

[Rhaegarnoob]

I installed the driver but nothing changed. Maybe there is some method to install it properly which I don't know.

[CherylG]

@Rhaegarnoob

In Device Manager what is showing? Do you have "unknown device", a device with no driver or an error next to it, or?

Did you try the driver suggested by banhien and the driver I posted?

[Rhaegarnoob]

In Device Manager, under Network adaptors I can only see 'Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller' & bunch of 'WAN Miniport's. But can't locate any wifi adapter.
Yeah, I tried both the drivers suggested by banhien and you. But, nothing happened.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Rhaegarnoob

Under the circumstances, I would say there is a hardware issue with the wifi adapter itself.

If the parts list was correct, you should be seeing the Ralink wifi adapter listed along with the 'Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller."

If the parts list was not correct, you should be seeing a device in the device manager labeled as a Network Controller with a little ! mark next to it.

Since your notebook's device manager is free of any unknown devices or devices with ! marks next to them, it points to a hardware failure.

Sometimes just removing and reseating the wifi adapter will resolve the issue.  The contacts sometimes get oxidized or dirty, causing the wifi card to disappear from the device manager.

The first troubleshooting step, is to remove and reseat the wifi adapter.

See chapter 4 starting on page 49 in the service manual below, for the wifi adapter R & R procedures.

If you can, leave the antenna cables connected to the wifi card to save you the hassle of trying to reconnect those tiny antenna contacts.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03593126

If that troubleshooting step fails to get the wifi card to show up, then most likely the wifi card died on you and needs to be replaced.  It could also be the motherboard, but that is less likely.

You would have to replace it with one of the wifi adapters listed in the service manual for your notebook, and it must have the HP part number on it, or it will not work.

I would replace it with the same card and part number as it appears to be the best one available for your model as it also comes with bluetooth.

[Hyoma]

In Device Manager make sure to select "show hidden devices" under view in the top menu otherwise you can't see the full list of components.

[Rhaegarnoob]

Hi @Paul_Tikkanen

Thank you for the reply.

As you mentioned, I didn't see any Ralink wifi adaptor along with the 'Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller', nor did I see any '!' mark. So, yes I came to know that my wifi card must have gone faulty. So, I removed and did reseat but the problem still persisted.

Finally, having no other solution I replaced my 'Ralink RT3290' with 'Dell wireless 1397 wlan mini card'. Now it's working fine.

But I didn't observe any faulty marks or something like that visually on my 'Ralink RT3290' whatsoever. Is it normal?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

For wifi cards, I don't think it is normal to find things such as burn marks, etc.

Somewhere in there a delicate circuit connection got broken.

You did bring up an interesting point though.

I was under the impression that the g6-23xx model series had a BIOS whitelist which would have prevented the Dell card from working.

Since you are sucessfully running a Dell wifi card in there with no problems, that means the g6-23xx model series does not have a BIOS whitelist and end users can install any HMC wifi card they want.

That card uses the Broadcom wifi chip, so it makes sense that with no BIOS whitelist, that card would work on your notebook's AMD chipset.

An Intel wifi card would not have worked.   It would have installed, and you would have been able to install the drivers for it, but it wouldn't have worked. 

Back in those days, Intel wifi cards only worked in notebooks with Intel processors and chipsets.