WLAN AutoConfig detected limit connectivity, performing Reset/Recover.adapter.

[SteveBallantyne]

We have about 20 of the 840 G2 Elitebook's in production (and a couple G1's too). Throughout the day, they are all randomly dropping their network connection. There is no rhyme or reason to when it occurs. I have been working with the support folks for my WiFi controller and AP's, only to find today that I can reproduce the problem at home with my TP-Link AP.

These event log messages have been echoed over the Intel community forums for the better part of five years, and as far as I can tell - there is only one successful resolution - REPLACE THE CARD WITH SOMETHING ELSE (or get a USB NIC)! And it doesn't seem to be limited to one NIC ... it's any of the Intel Dual-Band AC-XXXX adapters. Again - five years this has been happening!

I noticed that Intel is telling folks "you should try the latest driver". And when that fails they say "go talk to your OEM, you should use their driver". Well, I have used five or so different drivers, Windows 7 and Windows 10, etc. And now I am back to the OEM driver - waiting for it to fail again!

In the meantime, does anyone have a real solution for this issue?

Here are the errors in the order that they occur ...

First a "DNS Client Events" error for whatever you were doing at the time. In this case, I was watching a YouTube video.

Name resolution for the name www.youtube-nocookie.com timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded.

Then these two "WLAN-AutoConfig" errors, always right behind one another ...

WLAN AutoConfig detected limit connectivity, performing Reset/Recover.adapter.

 Code: 1 0xC 0x4

WLAN AutoConfig detected limit connectivity, performing Reset/Recover.adapter.

 Code: 2 0xDEADDEED 0xEEEC

At this point the user gets the exclamation mark over their WiFi symbol in the task tray, and the connection goes "kaput". Then I get several "Netwtw02" errors. Most of them don't have error descriptions - just event ID's. Why? How many years have they had to write some error messages?  🙂

The description for Event ID 8000 from source Netwtw02 cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

\Device\NDMP2
Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

The specified resource type cannot be found in the image file

The \Device\NDMP7 service entered the Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 state.

The description for Event ID 7001 from source Netwtw02 cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

\Device\NDMP7
Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

The specified resource type cannot be found in the image file

The description for Event ID 7001 from source Netwtw02 cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

\Device\NDMP7
Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

The specified resource type cannot be found in the image file

The description for Event ID 7002 from source Netwtw02 cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

\Device\NDMP7
Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

The specified resource type cannot be found in the image file

The description for Event ID 7002 from source Netwtw02 cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

\Device\NDMP7
Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

The specified resource type cannot be found in the image file

And then another WLAN-AutoConfig error (this is the death knell)

WLAN AutoConfig detected limit connectivity, performing Reset/Recover.adapter.

 Code: 8 0x0 0x0

At this point, sometimes the WLAN connectivity comes right back, and the user just has to start over what they were doing, which is maddening enough when you are dealing with patient care. But often times they never get connectivity back and they have to reboot.

I can't imagine that nobody has seen this before, but i had a hard time searching these community forums for these exact error messages. Meanwhile, I can Google them and get a million results.

[SteveBallantyne]

So last evening I installed the driver from the HP support site.

This is an Intel driver, v18.33.3.2 (5/3/2016). It has remained stable (no drops) for nearly 24 hours. I am going to test it through the weekend. It may be that the older drivers don't work - and the newest driver from Intel doesn't work? I'm not holding my breath though. Seems like just when I think I have figured out what works, I get a drop!  🙂

[SteveBallantyne]

OK, this is still dropping. It seems that there is no fix for this issue. The fix is NOT buying one of these HP laptops, replace the network card with literally *any* other brand card, using a USB stick instead, or running Linux. As it seems the problem is with Intels Windows drivers.

Good luck to anyone else with these issues!

[DelaneyA]

We have been seeing the same issue. It is always fixed with a reboot so it never makes it past the Help Desk. I went on site and actually saw it last week so it really is an issue. We're going to try out what you suggest by giving them a USB wifi adapter and see if this fixes the problem. The real question is who do we need to open a ticket with to fix this issue? HP or Intel or both? Reproducing it is another issue since it doesn't happen by any known cause, just seems random.

[SteveBallantyne]

From what I can tell, this issue with the Intel drivers has existed for at least a few years. On the Intel forums the advice from Intel goes like this:

1. Update to the newest Intel driver
2. Try turning on/off feature ___________.
3. Roll back to an older driver.
4. Uninstall everything, deleting the driver, and then install the latest.
5. "You should never have installed the latest driver - you should only install what HP tells you to" (this gets me every time).

Then they tell you that it's not Intel's problem and that you should call HP. As if HP would have a better idea of how to fix a problem with a driver that Intel wrote?

It's definitely a driver issue. Because I can reproduce it under Windows 7 and Windows 10, but *not* Linux.

I would like to see one of these two parties actually take an interest and fix the issue. But as of yet, the only fix I have found is to bypass the card by installing something else.

*EDIT* I wanted to mention that you should be able to disable/re-enable the wireless adapter in Windows to temporarily resolve the issue (enable/disable "airplane mode" in Windows 10). That will at least save you the time of going through a full reboot.