WiFi switch won't turn on

[poovi100]

The WiFi switch on my keyboard has become stuck at the orange light since yesterday. Everything was working perfectly until the day before. I have tried everything to make that orange light become white again, to no avail. I tried to turn it on using HP wireless assistant and Mobility Centre on Control Panel. But the switch won't turn on. I tried to restore the system to a date few days back hoping all will go back to how it was. That also didn't work. I saw somewhere that I'm supposed to go to device manager and uninstall and reinstall the driver for the wireless adapter. But no wireless driver is showing up in my device manager, and when I troubleshoot, it says Windows has detected that there is no driver for my wireless adapter. This message started showing up after I uninstalled something called 'VirtualBox Local host Ethernet adapter'(but that is not the driver we are concerned with for the WiFi right?). I just opened up the back of the laptop and saw a Ralink RT3090BC4 V20A component and by the research I did, I'm guessing it should be the WiFi component. But I am unable to find anything related in my device manager. I also couldn't find a corresponding device driver for this on the net. This is absolutely exasperating. I can't believe that my net connectivity is suddenly gone and I'm having to use my phone for every possible download or Google search. Please help.

Thank you

[CF4]

Hi

Make, Model and OS please.

There are at least 35 possible matches

Results for "HP Pavilion dv6" (35)

The operating system please, both of them, the main one and the one in the Virtual Box please.

https://www.virtualbox.org/

Sometimes the adapter is Hidden in Device Manager...

The Ralink RT3090BC4 V20A would indeed need drivers.

This should help...

Paul_Tikkanen

Provost

is a wizard for this kind of thing.

[poovi100]

Hi,

According to my System Summary, the model name is 'HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook PC' running Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium.

Whatever network adapters I'm able to view on the device manager, appear AFTER I do the 'Show Hidden Devices'. Without the 'Show hidden devices', no network adapters show(the only one that showed was the virtual box ethernet adapter, which I uninstalled).

Do you advise that I try installing the device driver provided in the above link?

Thank you

[poovi100]

And also, I had just recently installed virtual box. I'm not using it in any way to employ any other OS on my system now.

[poovi100]

I had also tried accessing the link you had given in your post. But the links provided therein, didn't give me any of the drivers. The first link couldn't be reached, and the ralink site wasn't taking me to a relevant page.

What about the link given here in this link?

http://www.driverscape.com/download/ralink-rt3090-802.11b-g-n-wifi-adapter

Would this be good?

Thank you

[CF4]

Try

WinKey + R and type msinfo32 and look for the SKU value,

System SKU    N6666ab#ABU

 and quote that.

[poovi100]

I followed your instructions and it opened the same system summary page from where I got the product name. There was no SKU value given there. Could you please tell me another way to find the SKU value?

When I explored the network adapters given in the System Information, I saw a number of other adapters that hadn't featured on the list of network adapters on the device manager. The Ralink WiFi adapter and the Microsoft Virtual Miniport adapter were featured here. However, their driver locations were not specified, unlike most of the other network adapters. There was also a Realtek GBE controller on this list. None of these were featured on the device manager.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @poovi100

It is possible the Ralink wifi adapter has a hardware issue, not a software one.

Anyway, this is the wifi driver you need for the model wifi adapter your notebook comes with...

This package contains the driver installation package for the Ralink Wireless LAN Controllers in supported notebook models that are running a supported operating system.

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp57501-58000/sp57538.exe

Now, if that driver doesn't get the wifi to work again, the first thing I would try is to remove and reseat the wireless network adapter.  Sometimes the contacts get oxidized and it causes the power to the card to get cut.

See if you can do that, and leave the tiny antenna wires connected to save you the time and hassle of reconnecting them again.

Since you already know where the wifi adapter is, just shut down, unplug the notebook from A/C power and remove the battery, then remove and firmly reseat the wifi adapter.  I think it is held down by one screw and it pops up on an angle.

I believe you must have a dv6-6xxx model notebook, because that wifi card model you posted, is listed in the service manual for the dv6-6000 model series.  See chapter 4, starting on page 67 for the wifi adapter R & R procedures.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02842252

[poovi100]

Hi,

I tried installing the driver you had given in the link. Once the installation was complete, the 'no driver for the adapter' problem vanished and the icon changed. But once again, the adapter switch itself was not working. So I inverted my laptop and looked up the manual and removed and reseated the WLAN module as per the instructions given in the manual on page 67.
But when I restarted the laptop following this, the previous change from the installation had disappeared and it was back to the 'no driver problem'. Then when I tried reinstalling, it would say the wizard will come up now and nothing would happen(perhaps, it forgot to come up :)) Anyhow, I'm looking to give up on this. I have been trying every possible solution to make this work. Probably I should take it to an HP support centre near me or something.(cause it is a little scary for me to open up the laptop and do things on my own, with no backup support in case something goes wrong)

So I guess we have come down to two things:
Either the WLAN module needs replacing
Or probably the driver is not matching with the adapter?

This is really sad. 😞

[CF4]

Hi

https://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-Model-Number-of-an-HP-Laptop

Also a ping command is one of the simplest ways to prove a network connection.

https://www.wikihow.com/Ping-an-IP-Address

If in doubt please ask.