Wifi not working. No wifi device shown in Device Mgr. Have run about every test I have seen.

[dcmretme]

This a granddaughter's laptop.  Don't know exactly what she was doing. Wifi just quit. Am using my HP notebook to read up on network adapters and as  noted above I have run about every test I have seen, including created the wireless network report, the HP Diagnostics test, both of which indicate there is no wifi network adapter, and a power reset.  I noticed that one reply to another post mentioned taking the back/bottom off the notebook to check if it is loose. Is the adapter a little plug in module that can come loose?  At this point I am willing to try getting into the innards to look, or to replace the adapter.  The unit is about 6 years old,, and at some point will have to be replaced, or get a new HD anyway.  Here is part of my post on the MS Forum: 

On the problem laptop, I created the wireless network report with the following results:

There are nine network adapters shown.  No history of connections are shown, because there haven't been any recently, due to the problem.

Under "netsh wlan show all" it says

   "There is no wireless interface for this system"

Under "show interfaces" it says the same thing. 

I didn't go further.  I looked for updated drivers on all with no success. They are all up to date.

I then looked at Device Manager/Network Adapters on two laptops of mine on which wifi is working.   Aha!

Both of these laptops show a Network adapter having 802.11xx in the name. (xx is different on the two names.)  I recognize this as a wifi standard. THE PROBLEM LAPTOP DOES NOT HAVE AN ADAPTER THAT HAS THAT STANDARD OR ANYTHING SIMILAR. It only has the ethernet adapter and 8 WAN items, which all the laptops have.  One of mine has the Bluetooth adapters for the mouse.

So either the actual network adapter hardware has failed, or it is "working" and there is a software problem.

What do I need to do to determine which it is?

If the hardware has failed then I guess I have three options:

Buy my granddaughter a new laptop, Buy a USB network adapter, or take the laptop apart and buy/install a replacement for the built in adapter. 

[dcmretme]

One more thing: The red light on the wifi button stays on no matter whether the screen shows Airplane Mode is on or Airplane Mode is off.  Is there someway the software can get stuck in the on mode?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

It is not unusual in W10 for the Ralink RT5390R 802.11bgn 1x1 Wi-Fi adapter that model has to just up and disappear from the device manager.

See if this works to get the wifi card to work again.

Go to the device manager, click on the View tab at the top of the Device manager window.

Select the Show hidden devices option.

Now look under the Network Adapters device manager category.

You should be seeing a lightly colored Ralink wifi adapter showing up.

Right click on that device, select Uninstall and check the uninstall driver box.

Restart the PC and see if W10 will reinstall the wifi card so that it is no longer hidden, and hopefully it will work again.

If the device does not show up, the next step you can try would be to open up the notebook, remove and reseat the wifi adapter.  See if you can leave the antenna cables connected when you do that, so that you don't have to reconnect the tiny antenna cable leads to the wifi card.

Sometimes the contacts get oxidized thus cutting power to the card.

Here is the link to the service manual.  The wifi card R & R procedure can be found in chapter 4.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03575298

If nothing works, your other options would be to purchase another notebook, or purchase an external USB wifi adapter.

It would be a waste of time replacing the wifi adapter on that model, because none of them are really supported for W10, and you can only install one of those listed in the service manual, and they must have the HP part number on them, or they will not work due to a BIOS restriction that will not allow any cards not tested by HP to be installed in that model series.

[dcmretme]

Looking at Hidden Views showed the wifi adapter.  There was a note that device was disconnected from computer.

Uninstalling the driver and restarting the laptop resulted in the wifi adapter being removed from the hiddenview, and not shown anywhere, so I will take the back cover for that part off and check the connection tabs.  I have installed components in my desktop but not on a laptop. Thanks for the link to the service manual.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

[dcmretme]

Took cover off the wifi section, removed and put back in twice w/o removing the antenna. Did not help, The device is not shown in either regular view or hidden view. When shown in the hidden view it must have been as a legacy. and now that the driver is uninstalled there is nothing to "connect" it to. It must be defective. Maybe the vents got blocked by accident and it overheated. We will just get her a new laptop, because she is resuming her college education on line and needs one with wifi . I'll post this as resolved because I know at least it can't be solved by software alone. I see there are lots of USB wifi adapters available. Any advice on selecting one so as to use this computer as a back up?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, I would agree that the wifi adapter has gone bad.

Since it is a notebook, I would be looking at a USB device that doesn't stick out too far from the USB port.

This one seems adequate for use on a backup notebook, and it certainly shouldn't get accidentally bumped because of its size.

https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-Adapter-Supports-MU-MIMO-EW-7822ULC/dp/B01MY7PL10/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=...