No Wifi with Iconia W500 and Windows 10

IMB
IMB Member Posts: 5 New User
in 2015 Archives

Hi,

 

I have upgraded my Acer Iconia W500 from the clean factory Windows 7 to Windows 10.  I've made sure I have ALL the updates from Microsoft.  Everything works great EXCEPT I cannot get Wifi to turn on.  The button to turn on Wi-Fi is greyed out. Airplane mode is NOT turned on.  If I go to Network Settings, the slider for Wi-Fi is Off and when I switch it to On it just moves right back of the Off position.  I have upgraded the Wifi driver to the lastest driver I could find which is Qualcomm Athereros Communications 3.0.2.181 with a driver date of 3/12/2015.  I've tried uninstalling the driver and device many times and letting Windows find the adapter again.  Every time it recognizes the device fine and installs the driver.  I've even looked in the bios to see if the Wifi adapter was disabled there but there isn't even a Wifi option in there.  I've tried unchecking the "Allow the comptuer to turn off this device to save power" option in the adapter properties but that does not help.  I don't see any errors in the event viewer (or anywhere for that matter).  I can use the LAN adapter fine but it doesn't make it very portable if I cannot use the Wifi.  Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks for your help!!!

Best Answer

  • becca-williams
    becca-williams Member Posts: 1 New User
    Answer ✓

    Hey there! I recently had this same difficulty on my Acer One 10 series. I was frustrated with it for about two weeks! What needed to happen is that the driver used to connect to any wireless networks  did not automatically update to a version compatible with Windows 10. In order to download the correct version, the only answers I could find were to go onto the manufacturers website and download a driver from there. The problem is that you can't really do that as easily without wifi.

    What I suggest is use a different computer to go onto the Acer Website. Click the "store" tab. Then choose your country. On the next page, scroll down to the bottom, under "support" there is a link that reads "driver downloads."

    From here, enter or search for your model. Once you've selected your model, below there will be a list of driver downloads you might need. The one you want is "Wireless LAN"

    From the different computer, download this to a flash drive, then download it from the flash drive to the device with the issues. Make sure it's in an actual folder so it doesn't go away when you take out the flash drive (obviously).

    Once downloaded, go to the start menu, and select settings. click update and security, then recovery. click restart now under "advanced startup." it's gonna do something that looks like restarting, don't touch anything until it gives you the option to select "troubleshoot."

    once you've selected troubleshoot, select "advanced options", select "startup settings" then "restart" it will then take you to a list of options, select the option to disable driver signature reinforcement.

    Once you've selected that, your device should restart. once it does, the new updated driver should be in tact and you should be able to access the internet.

    It took me like two weeks to figure this all out, but the process i've written out for you probably takes less than an hour and it actually worked.

    I know it's a lot of instructions but it worked for me, and i hope it works for you!! good luck!

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,672 Trailblazer

    Do you have any VPN clients installed?

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • IMB
    IMB Member Posts: 5 New User
    Hi, No I don't have any VP clients installed. Actually I haven't installed anything since I've upgraded. I've been trying to get the wifi working on it instead of using it. Smiley Happy

    Also, I went from a fresh Win 7 without anything additional installed to Windows 10. I'm stumped.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,672 Trailblazer

    You may have already tried this, but in the properties for the WiFi Adapter there is a power savings tab. Try telling it to not turn the adapter off to save power. Also, in Power Options; change plan; advanced; wifi there is a different setting for power that might override the one in properties.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • IMB
    IMB Member Posts: 5 New User

    Thanks.  I just changed the setting in the power manangement to Maximum Performance for both on battery and plugged in.  I also made sure that the power setting to turn off the wifi in the adapter properties was off as well.  It didn't seem to change anything.  I still can't turn wifi on.  I would think that I would see an error in the event viewer or something when I try to turn wifi on but it's not showing an error anywhere.

  • IMB
    IMB Member Posts: 5 New User

    Also, I was wondering if you thought it might be something with the keyboard shortcut to turn on wifi?  The keyboard shows "Fn" + "F3" to turn on wifi, but when I try, it does nothing. 

  • becca-williams
    becca-williams Member Posts: 1 New User
    Answer ✓

    Hey there! I recently had this same difficulty on my Acer One 10 series. I was frustrated with it for about two weeks! What needed to happen is that the driver used to connect to any wireless networks  did not automatically update to a version compatible with Windows 10. In order to download the correct version, the only answers I could find were to go onto the manufacturers website and download a driver from there. The problem is that you can't really do that as easily without wifi.

    What I suggest is use a different computer to go onto the Acer Website. Click the "store" tab. Then choose your country. On the next page, scroll down to the bottom, under "support" there is a link that reads "driver downloads."

    From here, enter or search for your model. Once you've selected your model, below there will be a list of driver downloads you might need. The one you want is "Wireless LAN"

    From the different computer, download this to a flash drive, then download it from the flash drive to the device with the issues. Make sure it's in an actual folder so it doesn't go away when you take out the flash drive (obviously).

    Once downloaded, go to the start menu, and select settings. click update and security, then recovery. click restart now under "advanced startup." it's gonna do something that looks like restarting, don't touch anything until it gives you the option to select "troubleshoot."

    once you've selected troubleshoot, select "advanced options", select "startup settings" then "restart" it will then take you to a list of options, select the option to disable driver signature reinforcement.

    Once you've selected that, your device should restart. once it does, the new updated driver should be in tact and you should be able to access the internet.

    It took me like two weeks to figure this all out, but the process i've written out for you probably takes less than an hour and it actually worked.

    I know it's a lot of instructions but it worked for me, and i hope it works for you!! good luck!

  • IMB
    IMB Member Posts: 5 New User

    Resolved!!  Thank you everyone for responding.  The problem was indeed the fact that I was not running the Wifi driver from the Acer website.  Right after the Windows 10 upgrade, Wifi didn't work as I believe it was using a Microsoft wifi driver of some sort (just going from memory on that though).  So even after upgrading to the latest official Qualcomm Atheros AR5B195 driver (not from the Acer website), Wifi still didn't work.  When I tried to install the latest Wifi driver from the Acer website (using the installer .exe file), I would get an error stating that it could not install it because the installer was not built for my platform (probably because it was built for Windows 7 or even Windows 8).  When I extracted the driver from Acer and tried to manully install the driver thru the device manager -> Network Adapter Properties, it always told me that my current driver was newer and would not install!! Yuck!  I could uninstall the driver but when after a scan for new hardward in the device manager, it would always just install the same driver.  So, my solution was kinda nasty but it was the only way I got it to work.  I will try to explain it well enough so it makes sense. 

     

    In the driver details of the wifi adapter properties I could see what files it was using and their paths.  There were three files:

    1.) C:\Windows\System32\drivers\athw10.sys

    2.) C:\Windows\System32\drivers\athwn.sys

    3.) C:\Windows\System32\drivers\vwifibus.sys

     

    I was able to uninstall the driver and then move the first two files out of their paths (1 & 2 above) to a separate folder.  I could not move file #3 because I did not have permissions to do so (even though I'm an admin!!).  So I had to force ownership of the file.  Once I did that, was able to move the file out to a separate location (keep track of it because you will have to move it back).  After getting file #3 moved, I was able to scan for new hardware (in the device manager) and then the device was finally totally unrecognized (which is what I wanted).  I moved file #3 back to its original location and then used the "Update Driver" button of the "unrecognized" device properties to point it to the extracted driver which I downloaded from the Acer website (driver version 10.0.075).  The driver installed and enjoying Wifi finally!  Whew! 

Categories