Networking & wireless forum: Windows cannot use wireless network adaptors

But could not find the make and model.

Dell for instance will do that if the user forgot to install Dell's Quickset. My Toshiba does that if my WiFi switch is to the right.
Bob

It's an Acer Aspire 5552.

Your statement about the OS makes me think it's not Acer's version of Windows. I can't tell you all the drivers and APPS you need to install.

It's an interesting issue about Windows. Makes you think there's got to be a better way.

In short, install Acer's version from the restore media and it should work again.
Bob

I don't have any system restore, and Acer didn't ship any backup disks, but I did download the original driver from their support site. That didn't work. The problem was the same, "the device is working properly", but no connection.

Now that I have new hardware installed, I have installed the latest of its drivers too. But that hasn't made any difference either.

You need Acer's management apps to turn on the WiFi. And no, I don't have those or which ones. They should be at Acer.com for your model. And again, that's no driver. It's the control app to turn it on and off.

As to your comment about disks. We make those when we unpack the machine. Folk often ignore that and now you see folk take a road trip without a spare.
Bob

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/31782-43-solved-help-wireless-issue-hell is very interesting.

Makes you wonder how they got there. In other words I never see that issue but can re-create it. I can only guess folk are trying to enable bluetooth and in their tinkering, broke it.

Is there a series of buttons above the keyboard? The WiFi one to the very left. looks sort of like a dish antenna; a dot and an oval.
Bob

Hi again Bob. Thanks for your help with this.

Above the keyboard is the power button (top left) and beside it, two lights. One for HDD and one for Wifi. I thought they might be touch buttons, but they're not, I checked.

Until the helper app is installed.

Now that we know it's not the supplied OS, we can begin to see why it doesn't work.

She had a HDD failure about 2 months ago and never reinstalled the Acer helper apps. The wifi worked after this reinstall, but was a bit unreliable; it kept dropping out every so often.

I'm installing the helper apps now and will let you know what happens.

All bets are off. I'd order the restore media. Interesting it worked without the helper app. My encounters are always where it doesn't work and we have to install such.
bob

Hi Bob,

We've installed all of the apps from Acer's support page for this model laptop. It made no discernible difference.

Just out of curiosity, I went to network and sharing centre, then clicked on manage wireless networks, then clicked on Add, manually, then it said "an unexpected error occurred".

Alec

But we are not using the Acer supplied restore media or OS. Try an Ubuntu OS as it works without driver hunts. If that fails, try some USB WiFi stick.
Bob

Hi Bob,

I want to get this working on her Windows installation. I have never used Unbuntu and don't really have any interest in changing to it and I'm pretty sure my daughter will want to stick with Windows too.

As I mentioned in the original post, I've tried using a USB wifi stick, and it gives me the same error as the internal wifi adaptor (Windows shows that the device is working properly, but say "no connections available"), that's what made me think it was a problem with whatever layer sits between wifi adaptors and Windows, rather than a driver issue.

Alec

Is either an OS issue or a hardware issue. Ubuntu is not hard to use to see if the hardware works.

Since you (a) don't have the Acer OS and (b) don't want to test the hardware I fear a repair counter is next unless you find a cure or another idea such as the date/ time/ expired Antivirus issues.
Bob

I'll install Ubuntu tomorrow and see if the wifi works. Will I need to find drivers?

I have booted off the LiveCDs for years to do this test. Today I can boot from USB sticks.

Why? Because I don't want to bother the installed OS.

Here's a link to many LiveCDs.

http://livecdlist.com/

Bob

PS. About drivers. I find these LiveCDs to have all I need 99% of the time.