Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Adapter Will Not Start

[Yern]

My wifi will go off sporadically with no warning.  No networks are found to reconnect because the Realtek adapter has failed to start (but I haven't shut it down or gone on standby). The only way to get it working again was to run the troubleshooter which fixed it. Whilst Device Manager told me I had the best drivers I have downloaded and updated to 2024.0.10.220 and will monitor it. A pain working from home in online meetings.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

There is a newer driver if you want to give it a try.

 2024.0.10.221

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp112501-113000/sp112619.exe

That would be the only suggestion I can offer regarding the problem you are having.

The Realtek RTL8821CE is a lousy model wifi card and I have no idea why HP continues to use these cards in their PC's.

[Yern]

Thanks, I've downloaded the latest version and if it repeats I'll update the driver and monitor again. Laptop's only 1 month old! 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[Yern]

Typically Windows Update has just reverted the driver to 2024.2.10.217 which was shipped with the laptop. I can find that registry entries need to be updated to prevent automatic update of the device driver which I'm a bit loath to undertake, unless 2024.0.10.221 prevents this happening? Perhaps I should revert to my 8 year old HP ProBook which is still going strong!!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

If you want to try the v221 driver without having to do registry changes and whatnot, run the Hide windows updates utility that I zipped up and attached below.

With v221 installed, run the utility and see if the 2024.2.10.217 driver shows up on the list.

Check the box to hide the update.

If you need to revert to v217, run the utility again and this time select the show hidden updates option and you will be able to check the update to unhide it and then you can install it after the utility finishes running

[Yern]

I loaded the V221 driver. The Hide Windows Update utility never identified a wireless driver to 'hide from updates' so I'm just monitoring at the moment...fingers crossed so far so good but who knows 🙂

[Yern]

Nope just gone down again and 4 online meetings tomorrow!!