Function Key not working, how to turn on wifi on Windows 7

[Ian50]

Another development in this issue:

I was browsing the Notebook Wireless and Networking Discussion Borad (ie. this one) going back a bit.

There was this post:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Wireless-and-Networking/How-to-enable-wireless-adapter/td-p/5...

And there it was - someone had reported in 2016 that he could *USE* the AirPlane key on his HP notebook running Win7 to turn the internal wifi adapter on and off ... something we were assuming could not be done until Win8+, but here was someone saying he did it in 2016 in Win7.

I have an HP250 G5 (not a Celeron) about 15 months old running Win7 Pro x64 as well as the newer HP250 G6 Celeron that is causing the wifi off irritation.

So I tried the Airplane key on the older machine (hadn't tried it before, no need). Well, it worked !! The wifi turns on and off with the Airplane key at will, albeit each push takes 2-3 seconds to respond, not standard keyboard instantaneous.

No luck with the HP250 G6 Celeron. Still stubbornly mute.

So it's *NOT* a Win7 problem per se. Make of it what you will, but are MS, Intel and HP in the mix here ?

The HP250 G5, where the Airplane key works in Win7, uses an IRQ of 0xFFFFFFFD(-3) for the AC3165 adapter. I will try using the INF, CAT and SYS files from the older machine driver to install on the N3060 adapter.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

There has to be some kind of deliberate block on the G6.

Microsoft doesn't want to support these new models for anything but W10, and I guess they are getting the PC manufacturers and device hardware manufacturers to ensure that only W10 can be used.

For example:  There is no Intel graphics driver for the 250 G6 models with Kaby Lake chipsets, except for W10.

If you saw that post on the link I posted, someone figured out a way to modify the W10 graphics driver to work on W7.

Unfortunately, to date, there doesn't seem to be a way around the 3168 AC wifi card not working on W7.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

This problem is not limited to the 250 G6, so it is not model-specific.

This is a consumer-class notebook.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Wireless-and-Networking/problem-with-turning-on-the-wireless-...

[Ian50]

Yes, the block is deliberate - and clever in that we cannot yet figure out how it is done. Hardware, software, combination ?

Hard, quite sneaky, marketing. It does tell me that informed consumer resistance to Win10 was expected ! (Understandable, given the persistent reports of the forced updates constantly overwriting installations and in some cases, crippling them).

I did try to modify the Win10 AC3168 driver as per the reverse engineering done for the graphics driver. As I commented. lots of squawking on install, no damage or nastygrams, but no effect on the wifi either.

It seems unlikely we will find it, but we do have a better definition of the problem in that it is not Win7 per se.

What now can we see as the difference between the G5 and G6 Win7 installations where the earlier PC has the Airplane key working but the later one does not ? Put in that way, the answer I think is a deliberate hardware block.

Been fun, Paul. I respect true warriors

[Ian50]

I should have added, and meant to, that the hardware power block in the AC3168 is unblocked by some registry input on W10 bootup, a bootstrap time instruction I think, as the operating, connected wifi icon turns up on the W10 boot screen (bottom right-hand corner) early in the boot sequence way before one logs in with the normal password.

The AC3165 and earlier adapters do not have this issue. Certainly the AC3165 does not.

 I'll stop here now. My coding skills are so poor that even in a hex editor I have no hope. Coded bootstrap instructions are quite a few bridges too far.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

I wonder if you put an AC 3165 or AC 7265 M.2 form factor wifi adapter in the G6 if it would work properly on W7.

The AC 7265 would be a superior card.

[Ian50]

The AC3165 would. The other one (AC7265) I don't know.

I no longer have a W10 installation (don't miss it, either) so I cannot test this next possibility:

use a safe registry editor to search a Win10 G6 installation for "AC3168" or some equally likely phrase

It's not in the adapter driver as that assumes the power will be turned on by some other instruction. In fact, the driver is clearly unaware that the power is turned off - that's why the Device Manager message for the adapter driver reports all is working correctly.

So if anyone can examine a W10 G6 registry for this instruction (maybe more than one) perhaps progress may occur.

[Ian50]

Think we have an almost full picture now.

The news gets worse, I'm afraid.

An older thread from about 10 months ago contains comments about "Airplane key stopped working" with various HP notebooks so the wifi was unable to be turned on. The mix of O/S is always Win7 and Win10.

One comment gave advice to download and use an HP programme called HP Wireless Assistant.

So I did. The HP download page advises that the programme is for Win10, 8, 7, Vista, XP  ... this page is still there, one can see it at:

http://hp-wireless-assistant.en.lo4d.com/

This programme will *NOT* now install on Win7. The message is that "the programme is not supported on this system". I tried this on both a G5 and a G6 - same result. Extracting the files from within the downloaded exe showed file dates of May 20, 2010.

So we have an Intel driver for Win7 for the AC3168 that installs perfectly yet the wifi remains unuseable, without power.

We have an HP programme designed for exactly this situation, loudly labelled as compatible with Windows O/S's from XP to Win10, but which will not install into Win7.

Such an unpleasant stench, it would appear.

[Ian50]

Groan ...

I meant this link:

https://support.hp.com/au-en/document/c01667669#AbT0

I hate it when I do that - my bad !

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The HP connection manager software does exactly the same thing, and superceded the HP wireless assistant software.

It will install and work fine on W7, but when you turn on the wifi adapter, it will tell you that the radio is turned off.

This package provides the HP Connection Manager for supported notebook models running a supported operating system.

5.0.15.1 Rev.A

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp75501-76000/sp75771.exe