Wireless adapter not found in Device Manager

The wireless card is an Intel Centrino-N 1000. All of sudden I lost my internet connection.

• Initially in the network connection icon in the Windows taskbar there was a red X. In Device Manager on the icon for the adapter there was an exclamation point. What is weird is in Network and Internet Settings t the adapter was not there. Usually if it appears in Device Manager it also appears in the Network and Internet Settings in the same manner as in Device Manager. It might be a clue as to what is going on.

• After I did a Power Cycle there was a change in Device Manager. This seems bizarre. Initially the adapter did not appear. Then I selected "Show Hidden Devices" and it appeared but was dimmed. Then I am not sure how but it disappeared and another adapter showed. "Microsoft Kernel Debug Network Adapter". Then that disappeared.

Even though the Troubleshooter indicated it was a hardware issue I still believe it might be a Windows issue. I did a Power Cycle like this


Completely discharging your PC might fix the unresponsive state of the network adapter. This might shake off any power surges that were registered in the adapter.


Unplug your charger, power off your laptop, and remove your battery. If you are using a desktop PC, remove all the power cables.

Hold down the power button for at least 30 seconds and then wait around 10 minutes.

Put the battery back in, with the charger and reboot or plug back your power cables and boot your PC

Check if this fixed it


Then the Adapter did not appear in the Device Manager. Did I fry something with the Power Cycle?


I have seemingly done every possible Windows solution. Ran the Lenovo Solutions Center. The adapter did not appear in the hardware to check but I do not know if the adapter is usually listed as a line item.


I also removed the adapter physically and put it back in.

 

Something like this happened to me when I force removed 2 Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport adapters. Their removal also coincided with an Intel driver removal (maybe RST). In any case, I went to my mobo's driver support page and simply downloaded and reinstalled the wireless driver I needed (go with the barest bones driver compatible with your rig). Guessing you did this -but maybe another driver's uninstall geeked your wireless driver? Weird it only sporadically shows-up in Dev Mgr though. Is it visible/enabled in BIOS? Id also disable any other Network Adapter drivers you have (ethernet, TAP, for eg), and force your machine to see only the wifi connectivity option after reboot? good luck!

 

Do you have a physical switch to turn the adapter on or off you could have hit accidentally?

Do you have any unknown devices in the device manager, the adapter may not show under network adapters if the driver is borked. I've had that happen to me before. I had to hunt down where the now "unknown device" was and then tell it to install the right driver. Afterwards, it worked again.