Lost my network adapter

I have been having intermittent problems with wifi connectivity so decided to uninstall my network adapters (Realtek and Dell) and then reboot to see if it would solve the issue. Unfortunately I must have checked uninstall driver on the Dell adapter because after rebooting, the Dell adapter had disappeared.

I would really appreciate some advice on how to get it back. I remember in the (good) old days of XP I would get a "found new hardware" message on a reboot, but no more.

Thanks in advance.

Dell Inspiron 3521 Win 8.1

Go to Control Panel > Device Manager. You should see the device there (probably with yellow exclamation marks). Click on the device and have it look for device driver - if that doesn't work use the computer your posting with to go to Dell website and download the drivers, then tell Windows to use those drivers.

If you don't see the devices in Devices Manager, post back. That's a different problem.

Download the drivers you need from here: Product Support | Dell US on another computer. Put on a flash drive then install on this computer.

Thanks CB. That particular device is no longer showing on Device Manager.

Thanks ZT, could you give me a quick heads up on how to install off the flash drive to the problem pc.

Tradedog said:

I remember in the (good) old days of XP I would get a "found new hardware" message on a reboot, but no more.

Click to expand...

Start Device Manager and right click on your computer's name and there you go.
Unless you have selected delete during uninstall, then rescan should install it back.

Thanks TO, did that and nothing reappeared under network adapters. I did click delete driver when I uninstalled it. I think it was called
Dell Wireless 1704 802.11b/g/n(2.4GHz) I am presuming this is hardware as it appears under Device Manager.

Is Dell Wireless 1704 802.11b/g/n(2.4GHz) hardware or software?

That's the driver you need. Download it and put on a Flash drive.

Take the flash drive to the computer with the network problem and install it by inserting the flash drive then double clicking on the file you downloaded.

That should take care of it.

Thanks ZT, done exactly that already, no result. Weird thing is I can connect to any other WiFi except this one easily. Everyone else in my family can connect to this one easily. Confused.

Please post a screen capture of Device Manager with the Network Adapter section expanded.

Also do the following:

Open a Elevated Command Prompt:

XP, Vista or Windows 7:

Click on the Start button and type cmd.
DO NOT press Enter or click Go.
Look at the upper part of the window and you will see cmd.exe.
Right click on it and select Run as Administrator.

Windows 8 or 8.1:

Press WIN + X to open Start context menu.
Select Command Prompt (Admin)​.

Paste the following into the Command Prompt window, exactly as shown, including double quotes:

cmd /c "ipconfig /all > postme.txt & ping yahoo.com >> postme.txt & reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" | find /i "proxy" >> postme.txt & notepad postme.txt & del postme.txt"

and press ENTER.

A file will open in Notepad. Please copy and paste the contents here. Close the Notepad window and the file will be deleted and the Command Prompt window will also close. Post results in a reply here.

Working on the screen shot, does not want to paste into here. Below is the IP Conguration. Thanks


Windows IP Configuration


Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : mylaptop
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No


Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 12:


Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Hosted Network Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 56-35-30-6F-78-81
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes


Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 11:


Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 16-35-30-6F-78-81
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes


Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi:


Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell Wireless 1705 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHZ)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 54-35-30-6F-78-81
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes


Ethernet adapter Ethernet:


Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : EC-F4-BB-7C-43-3A
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : fdf4:dcf9:2060:500:4423:b86:7581:a8ed(Preferred)
Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : fdf4:dcf9:2060:500:8dfa:42d4:6a70:b8c0(Preferred)
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::4423:b86:7581:a8ed%3(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.15(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 02 July 2015 10:30:26
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 03 July 2015 10:32:33
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 267187387
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-1A-7B-DB-45-EC-F4-BB-7C-43-3A
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::1%3
10.0.0.2
10.0.0.2
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled


Pinging yahoo.com [98.139.183.24] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 98.139.183.24: bytes=32 time=1702ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.139.183.24: bytes=32 time=1841ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.139.183.24: bytes=32 time=1961ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.139.183.24: bytes=32 time=1968ms TTL=46


Ping statistics for 98.139.183.24:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1702ms, Maximum = 1968ms, Average = 1868ms
MigrateProxy REG_DWORD 0x1
ProxyEnable REG_DWORD 0x0
ProxyOverride REG_SZ *.local
AutoConfigProxy REG_SZ wininet.dll

Thx ZT

All looks good.

Have you tried pressing Fn+F2? That's the key combo to turn the wireless on and off.

Yes, done that. I can connect to any other wifi. It's definitely some kind of incompatibility with this particular router.

What OS are the other computers in the house running?

Can you select a different channel to connect to the router with in your wireless settings?

Other devices are all IOS. On the channel thing is that on the router or on the pc settings?

Not sure. I know the router has the ability to specify what channel to use, was wondering if the same was true for the wireless device on the computer?

Just tried with router installation CD to configure wifi, came up with error message saying "connection with network adapter is abnormal" and would not continue.

Weird thing is I can connect to any other wifi.

All I can think of to do at this point is save your data (image backup to an external USB drive would be the best way) then try a Repair Install.

If that doesn't fix it, try a Clean Install.

Alternative is to try a different router.