Formatted laptop- even with right drivers cannot get a network connection.

Aigo

Aigo

Aigo

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Started a new course, so I figured I'd format the laptop and get a fresh start. Downloaded the drivers of my laptop's model onto a usb beforehand. Formatted the laptop and installed the drivers. No network connection. I see no options but airplane mode, and can't even turn that on. No wifi network search button (the laptop is wifi only, no ethernet). I need to jump into a video lecture that evening, so in a panic I try a Debian install, and then an Ubuntu install (which I am on currently). Both automatically sort out a network connection for me without anything needing installing. Great to see from Linux, frustrating behaviour for MS as usual. Unfortunately I will need a Windows install for all the software I will need, or I would happily stay on Ubuntu. My question is, is there a free software that will magically sort me like Linux does for Windows? Something that tries a few different generic network drivers perchance?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.
 
Do you have access to another PC to download the drivers? Next time you have Windows on the laptop, check device manager to see what's missing, and note down the hardware ID. Search that and find what drivers matches them. It could be the laptop manufacturer forgetting to upload drivers for the network, or the drivers for an older version of windows might work with the current OS too.
 
Yep I have a Legion Go I can use to build a new install USB or do other stuff with, but Device Manager isn't any good for me here because I wouldn't know what's off with it or what's missing. I have the latest drivers from the model number's page, but no go. I'm wondering if there's software out there that can automatically try a few drivers to find what works, like Linux did for me.
 
Until your back on Windows its anyone's guess what the issue is.

If you use device manager and double check network adaptors you should see any network cards (wired and wireless) appear.

If you do not have network adaptors listed in device manager this means that they are currently not installed or the driver is missing.

What make\model is the laptop?

Edit - another thing to try is hold the Windows key and press R, in the run box type ncpa.cpl.

This will bring up the network connections window, if this is empty then the drivers are not installed for the network card, if they are installed they will be listed.
 
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@Aigo

On your spare machine, download Snappy Driver Installer Origin (SDIO). Let it run on the spare machine so it can download the indexes. The confusing part, but easier in the long run, is to find out which driver pack you need to download. This way you won't need to download 40GB+ just for one driver.

With the indexes download and SDIO closed, copy the SDIO folder to a USB stick then run it on the laptop. Because it's a new install that hasn't ran Windows Update yet, there will probably be a long list of drivers that you can deal with later. But for now look for the wireless card which should be fairly obvious - if not post a screenshot and we can try to help identify the wireless device. When you find it, on the keyboard hold Ctrl and hover the mouse pointer over the wireless device listing - this will reveal the driver pack that you need to select to download on your other machine, which hopefully won't be too big.

I'm expecting the name of the driver pack to be DP_WLAN-WiFi_24090.7z or similar, so if you feel the above is a bit of a pig to work through, just try downloading that. In SDIO on your other machine, there will be a box at the top that says updates are available - click this, check the driver, then press Ok to start the download.

Let me know if you need any help.
 
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Oh man. Maybe I did something stupid here. I did the OOBE\BYPASSNRO thing upon setup to skip the forced MS account bit- maybe that's why WiFi is not available? Do I have to re-activate something through the terminal when I eventually get into windows?
 
Aigo said:
Oh man. Maybe I did something stupid here. I did the OOBE\BYPASSNRO thing upon setup to skip the forced MS account bit- maybe that's why WiFi is not available? Do I have to re-activate something through the terminal when I eventually get into windows?
Click to expand...
That won't disable your WiFi

Where did you download wifi drivers from?
Laptop manufacturers?
Tell it to show all/older drivers
Download all the versions they have
And try older ones

Alternatively
If you know wifi make and model number
Download drivers from them
Manufacturers tend to update drivers less/slower
Than the people who make the network components

As mentioned snappy driver installer is worth a try too
 
Aigo said:
Oh man. Maybe I did something stupid here. I did the OOBE\BYPASSNRO thing upon setup to skip the forced MS account bit- maybe that's why WiFi is not available? Do I have to re-activate something through the terminal when I eventually get into windows?
Click to expand...
As @Mcnumpty2323 says, that won't prevent your Wi-Fi drivers from installing. Just use Snappy Driver Installer Origin to install your drivers, it should only take a few minutes to download the driver pack and install the needed drivers. If you get stuck at any point, upload photos or screenshots to ImgBB and use the BBCode full linked option to give you code to post here - the forum will do the rest.
 
darael said:
As @Mcnumpty2323 says, that won't prevent your Wi-Fi drivers from installing. Just use Snappy Driver Installer Origin to install your drivers, it should only take a few minutes to download the driver pack and install the needed drivers. If you get stuck at any point, upload photos or screenshots to ImgBB and use the BBCode full linked option to give you code to post here - the forum will do the rest.
Click to expand...
This is likely exactly what I'm looking for. Do I just move the application over to the laptop with the issue or do I need to download the driver packs it offers via torrent?

EDIT: That torrent is 45gb, that's probably not required right? Am I supposed to run the software on the borked laptop or my other working machine? How will it be able to download anything on the borked machine?
 
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Aigo said:
This is likely exactly what I'm looking for. Do I just move the application over to the laptop with the issue or do I need to download the driver packs it offers via torrent?

EDIT: That torrent is 45gb, that's probably not required right? Am I supposed to run the software on the borked laptop or my other working machine? How will it be able to download anything on the borked machine?
Click to expand...
Apologies, I've just realised that my instructions were lacking. I'd forgotten about the torrent option.

Choose the download in the top of the table, Snappy Driver Installer Origin Version 1.13.4. This will download a ZIP to your PC, just extract this and run the 64-bit version (SDIO_x64_R771.exe). Download the indexes only at first.

Once the indexes have downloaded, at the top of the SDIO window click on the box with the message "Updates are available: 64 driver packs". From the list, go down and tick only DP_WLAN-WiFi_24090.7z for the time being. It will take a couple of minutes to download, just go and make a brew while you wait. Once the download has finished, close SDIO.

Now copy the folder containing SDIO with the now downloaded indexes and driver pack on to a USB stick. Plug the USB stick into the laptop, run SDIO again and it will hopefully detect the missing wireless device and give you the option to install the driver. Only tick the wireless device and leave everything else for now, then click Install. In about a minute you should have a working Wi-Fi adapter again - the fun part is entering your wireless key. :D

It's up to you if you want to install the rest of the drivers. Avoid anything to do with keyboard, mice, touchpads and other HID-input related devices - SDIO makes a hash of these in my experience, leaving me to reinstall Windows just to get a laptop's touchpad or keyboard working again!

Again, just upload some screenshots if you're not sure of anything.
 
Do you know if the software you need can be run in linux using either WINE or bottles (if you can ever figure out how bottles works and can configure out how to configure it correctly, because I sure as heck couldn't).
 
When launching Snappy drivers, I don't get the UI guides on YouTube get to download indexes only. Don't see a button for it in the standard UI either. How do I download indexes in this software?
 
Aigo said:
When launching Snappy drivers, I don't get the UI guides on YouTube get to download indexes only. Don't see a button for it in the standard UI either. How do I download indexes in this software?
Click to expand...
Have you definitely extracted SDIO before running it? And are you running it on the machine with an internet connection?

The first time you run SDIO, you will get a screen asking you to accept the license, so just accept it. Windows will probably give you a pop-up telling you that SDIO wants access to the internet - grant it.

Now a welcome window should appear with three options. For now, just press "Download Indexes Only". The welcome window will now close and the main SDIO screen will appear, showing the download progress at the top. You'll know when the indexes have downloaded when the message "Updates are available: 64 driver packs" is shown - click on this message and tick "DP_WLAN-WiFi_24090.7z" then press Ok and wait for the download to complete.
 
Got it this time- and it's giving me a exception (std::bad_cast) when hitting Download Indexes only.

Would the button above 'download network drivers only' do anything of use?

https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-ho...helpdesk_download?model2Name=VivoBook-15-M513 is my model's driver page. If you expand the network driver section there are more than a dozen versions from numerous vendors- if I'm to go through them all should I be installing and uninstalling them one at at time with a restart or can I just go ham and try them all at once? (Probably not right?)

About to go become a ludite tbh. I just reinstalled windows that's all, had my driver's all ready too. Linux builds sort this out automatically. This is unbelievable.
 
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Aigo said:
Got it this time- and it's giving me a exception (std::bad_cast) when hitting Download Indexes only.

Would the button above 'download network drivers only' do anything of use?

About to go become a ludite tbh. I just reinstalled windows that's all, had my driver's all ready too. Linux builds sort this out automatically. This is unbelievable.
Click to expand...
You can try the downloading just the network drivers, you don't have much to lose. :D

What's the make and model of the laptop?
 
Aigo said:
https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-ho...helpdesk_download?model2Name=VivoBook-15-M513 is my model's driver page. If you expand the network driver section there are more than a dozen versions from numerous vendors- if I'm to go through them all should I be installing and uninstalling them one at at time with a restart or can I just go ham and try them all at once? (Probably not right?)
Click to expand...
Most of them are older drivers. I would download Realtek - dated 2021/12/09, Qualcomm - dated 2021/11/25 and Intel - dated 2022/03/07. The installer will check if the laptop uses that driver, if it doesn't it will cancel the install, so then you just proceed with the next network driver and see if that works.
 
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Thanks to everyone who posted- you all deserve pints. SDIO did it in the end- the exception I was getting today was my Pixel 6a's stupid hotspot (that's ANOTHER thread) but on another connection SDIO sorted things just fine.

Pretty sure in the stress of this week I accidentally formatted another drive I had in my laptop (knew I should have physically removed it), I was careful not to but must have deleted a recovery partition it had because it's mounting, and is showing as empty... expected to have to activate it as a 'new volume' at least and hopefully keep it's contents but it's already mounted.

What would people recommend for getting all kinds of drivers back in and up to date? MyAsus, or keep going with SDIO?
 
Will boot it up tomorrow and see what it thinks is missing.
And I guess will uninstall Radeon Software and download Adrenalin edition. No idea why AMD maintains two launchers, the default one not having a driver update check at all that I can find...
 
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