Solved Can't get on Internet - Wi-fi Adapter suddenly not w9orkin

Right after a recent update to Windows 8.1 64-bit, my wi-fi adapter stopped working and I was unable to connect to the Internet on that computer, an ASUS M11BB with AMD A10-6700 16 GB ram. There is a yellow exclamation point on the adapter in the device manager. I tried installing the latest drivers from ASUS (both chipset and wi-fi adapter drivers) and even restored the OS to a point 3 weeks ago when everything was working, and the problem remains.

I figured it was a hardware problem on the internal board for the ASUS Wi-Fi adapter. I bought an external USB wi-fi adapter that said on the box that it was compatible with Windows 8.1 but when I tried to install it in one of the USB ports, it failed with a message that the OS was not supported. How can that be? It said on the box it was compatible with 8.1 so what's the problem? Has MS updated 8.1 such that Wi-Fi adapters/device drivers are not compatible any more?

This is a serious issue. I cannot even troiubleshoot the problem on that computer because it won't connect to the internet. I have had to use this (an alternate computer) just to post this. Can anyone help?

The question I'd ask is if the machine's Ethernet/NIC has been tried with a cable to the Router and if it works? If the icon in the Notification Area shows it is connected I'd then open a Command Prompt window to type ping anydomain.com to see if it can be reached. I just checked and using ping google.com worked, some sites don't allow it. If that doesn't work try the command ipconfig to see if your Router is reachable.

I drove to Fry's and they sold me a different external USB wi-fi adapter/dongle that worked. I didn't try a direct cable connection because the router is too far away from the PC and I don't have a cable that long. I am going to mark this as solved. Thank you for your advice.