Wif-Fi adapter must be removed and reinstalled EVERY TIME I start my laptop

[Marcd2k]

New HP laptop for Xmas will not automatically operate at my normal home wi-fi speeds. Every time I start the laptop, the 802.11 adapter must be uninstalled and reinstalled in order to get the normal speed of 450 to 500 mbps. I tried the disable and enable option, but that only worked once. Now it will only reset after uninstalling and reinstalling the adapter.

I contacted HP support, but they will not support their brand new computer, right out of the box unless I pay someone to "troubleshoot" the problem. I talked to three different support employees who all told me the same thing, pay us and we'll look at it.

So, I'm looking to see if there is a permanent fix for this, or if I have to return ANOTHER HP laptop that has failed me?

[BeemerBiker]

The problem may be that board is not waking up properly.  Try the following

In the device manager, bring up the wireless network device.   I have Intel but you should find similar items for your Realtek.

make sure the power management does not turn off (let sleep) the device.

Force the 5ghz band, and  "AC" .  You may have to use a different SSID in your router to make sure the 5ghz band is found.

if the above does not work then it is possible (but complicated) to force an automatic uninstall/reinstall on every power up.  Lemme know if that is needed.

[Marcd2k]

Hello BeemerBiker, thanks for the reply, and Happy New Year!

I'm not quite sure on the steps to take for my computer when you say "force the AC". Also, I do not have a standard router, I am using a Gateway from T-Mobile for wi-fi internet. 

What are the steps to force the uninstall / reinstall? that sounds like the way to go, as I'm doing this manually every time I turn the laptop on.

[BeemerBiker]

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@Marcd2k wrote:

Hello BeemerBiker, thanks for the reply, and Happy New Year!

I'm not quite sure on the steps to take for my computer when you say "force the AC". Also, I do not have a standard router, I am using a Gateway from T-Mobile for wi-fi internet. 

What are the steps to force the uninstall / reinstall? that sounds like the way to go, as I'm doing this manually every time I turn the laptop on.

---

Sorry, I had the wrong picture posted. AC should should have been shown instead of ARP

The AC mode has the best bandwidth in the 5ghz band

T-Mobile has 5ghz band, please use that band if your gateway supports it.

Also make sure the power management does not turn off the Wi-Fi device.

What does the device manager show for the name and model of the Wi-Fi adapter?

[Marcd2k]

A couple of things:

1. I have an app for T-Mobile Internet, but it does not allow the changing of frequencies. It is preset to Auto and greyed out for any selections.

2. I don't have the selections you are showing for the adapter. My adapter is a Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCle Adapter, but there is no choice to select AC. It is defaulted to 802.11d and Enabled. There are selections for 802.11n for either 2.4Ghz or 5.2Ghz, but no choice of Enable. It is defaulted to Auto.

Where do I check on Power Management to see if it is turning off the adapter?

Thanks again, I really don't want to return the laptop, but this is crazy for a brand new machine.

[BeemerBiker]

[edit] I assume you got new drivers even if the laptop is new. Try this network driver

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp148001-148500/sp148266.exe

You may want to return the laptop. Possibly that might cause the vendor to fix the problem.

Possible we can duplicate the  uninstall / reinstall that is a workaround.

I am not sure it will work but we can try it

We will be using the application "pnputil" and it needs to be run from the Admin Command Prompt

This application is documented here 

I have not tried the remove or uninstall driver and if you want to wait a day or two I can see if I can get it to work.

I am going to show how to do a disable followed by an enable as I have done this before and have some documentation handy.  Note that it is complicated.

To disable a device you need to find it first.  The device id for my intel wi-fi is "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2725&CC_0280"

From the admin command prompt I make sure the device is connected and visible and ONLY ONE device is listed.

 It can then be disabled and enabled with the following commands

pnputil /disable-device /deviceid "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2725&CC_0280"

timeout 10
pnputil /enable-device /deviceid "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2725&CC_0280"

the timeout is needed to make sure it is disabled before being re-enabled.

If you have the device manager up and are watching your RealTek device you will see the a "disabled" icon show up and after a few seconds it go away as the device is enabled.

See if you can do the above. 

if it works you can create cmd or bat file and simply click on the file to run those commands.  Alternately the windows tasks scheduler can be made to run the job every time the system turns on.

I had to do the above when I had an external disk drive that did not wake up after going to sleep.

If the above does not work then pnputil needs to be used with "remove" to remove the driver.  I do not want to do this on my current system but i can try it on another that I don't care about too much.

[Marcd2k]

Thank you for your time today. One thing I wanted to mention is that being a new laptop, it does have the latest driver for the adapter. When I check for an update, it says the latest driver is installed, with no option to reinstall. I was wondering if you could reinstall the driver anyway, if it would set up correctly, but I don't know how to get it to reinstall.

I'm going to check with a friend that is more familiar with Command line entries, as well as creating BAT files. I haven't done much on that end, so I'd rather let someone familiar with that try it.

Thanks again, and Happy New Year!

[BeemerBiker]

That 802.11d is used in countries where the abg etc are not allowed. 

Possibly our expert @Paul_Tikkanen might have a better RealTek driver newer than July 2023 or can suggest a service in your area that knows about the 802.11d

I looked a BIOS updates but did not see anything pertaining to this Wi-Fi problem.

hp worldwide contact https://www.hp.com/us-en/contact-hp/ww-contact-us.html

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @Marcd2k 

If I had a dollar for every post I have come across regarding that model Wi-Fi card and its continuous issues, I have at least several hundred more dollars in my bank account.

There is a newer driver you can try.  The one that BeemerBiker gave you installs version 2024.10.228.3, 04/18/2023.

This one will install version 2024.10.228.7, 09/14/2023

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp149501-150000/sp149656.exe 

Cross your fingers and hope that helps some.

[Marcd2k]

Thank you, BeemerBiker, I will read through Paul's recommendations