Solved Cannot enable wireless adapter (desktop)

[ecw90]

First off, hello, I finally joined the forum after using it a lot to fix problems! I cannot find a solution to this issue.


I have an HP ENVY H8-1414 desktop.
My internal wireless adapter is a Ralink RT3290 802.11bgn.


When I go to the right of the screen to connect to my network, it just says no networks found. My laptops and other devices work fine though connecting to my network.


In the control panel the Wi-Fi adapter is disabled, when I try to enable it, it says "Enabling" and then "Enabled" but remains Disabled. I also have a USB Wi-Fi adapter (Belkin) that I have tried and it recognizes it in the network adapters but still to the right, it says no networks are found. The Wi-Fi light is lit on the front of my PC.


To get internet on my desktop, I am using Internet Connection Sharing with an ethernet cord from my laptop to the back of my HP Envy desktop. This works fine, but I'd like to not have to do that, haha.


I tried downloading the drivers from HP's website, then uninstalling the WiFi adapter in my Device Manager (checked the box to the delete the drivers too). I ran the HP exe for the drivers and they installed them and I restarted as requested. Still nothing.


I'm an IT student majoring in Network Systems Administration and I usually never get stumped, ever, I just solve it myself or use Google, haha.


Properties of Wi-Fi adapter in picture. Those two unchecked boxes, I don't know what they mean (still a sophomore going for my AS lol) looked odd to me.

I checked the Microsoft LLDP Protocol Driver box and hit okay, it didn't help. If i try to enable the other one, it tells me that I am actually disabling it?

I'm stumped.


Anyone have any ideas or what other info do you need?


Thanks for reading!

PS:

I ran a system restore to a couple days back but once it comes back to my desktop, it says the restore failed. I will try an even older system restore, if that will work. Right now I am going to boot into safe-mode with networking and see if it works, to eliminate any third-party software issues. Reporting back soon.

UPDATE: Back from Safe-Mode land, still nothing helped, not even the Belkin USB. I know it must be something small and simple... or I hope.

 

[chev65]

I'm not clear on this but did the current driver ever work correctly?

Is your router set up with WPA2 security with AES encryption, have you tried updating the firmware on the router?

Do you have any third party anti virus software installed on this system?

Have you tried using a different driver? This one might work for you.
Ralink 802.11 b/g/n WiFi Adapter | HP® Support

 

[ecw90]

Solved!


I booted to safe mode and restored to about two weeks ago to a point labeled "Windows Critical Update" and all is well. Thank you for your input though, I don't know how the problem occurred but at least its fixed for now. Creating a fresh restore point as we speak.

That driver you linked is the one I ended up using before and there was still no go. It couldn't be my router because I have neighbor's and none of their SSIDs showed up either, but my other wireless devices worked. Weird.

Thanks again though.

 

[znod]

Were any Windows updates undone when you did your system restore?