Aspire 5600U - upgraded to Windows 10 and now no WIFI drivers. Can anyone help???

Ok - I've contacted Microsoft and now Acer. No help. Basically, I upgraded to Windows 10 and my WIFI completely disapeared. When I go to Device Management and Network Adapters I have to select Show Hidden to see the 3 drivers that I'm guessing need to be working properly. They are all gray-ed out; when I try to update them it says that I have the correct drivers installed. Microsoft claims that Acer hasn't updated these drivers for Windows 10 compatibilty. The Acer rep pretty much said the same - that my machine was not compatible with Windows 10. Are they freaking kidding??? Is there anyway around this?? Any third party drivers or ways to make them work? Is anyone running this same machine (Aspire 5600U) on Windows 10 with WIFI working?

If anyone can help - I'd greatly appreciate it and consider you a full blown genius!

Thanks,

-Nathan

Accepted answers

All comments

IronFly

can you please report the wifi adapter model listed on device manager?

vagrantnathan

Hi - thanks for reply,

Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222 Wireless Network Adapter

There's also two others grayed-out:

Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter

Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter #2

Not sure what those are - guessing the above Qualcomm is most critical? At any rate - those are the three that I see if I select to show Hidden Files; all three are grayed-out.

Thanks!

-Nathan

IronFly

try this:

download this driver, clicking on telecharger:

http://www.station-drivers.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=352&func=fileinfo&id=1895&lang=fr

double click the downloaded file to extract the files, then run the install/setup .exe file.

reboot and check if the wifi is available.

vagrantnathan

No luck. Smiley Sad

Downloaded, extracted, ran executable and installed. It detected a previous version so the first time I just chose to update. No changes after a reboot so I ran the executable again and this time chose to completely uninstall the previous version first. Still nothing after a reboot. When I go back into Device Manager and Network Adapaters the same three are still grayed-out.

What do you think? Thanks.

IronFly

if you right click your wifi adapter on Device manager, do you have an enable option?

if so, click it.

vagrantnathan

No option to Enable. Here is what I see:

netadap.png

IronFly

and it's missing also on Network connections panel?

windows logo key + s

type

network connections

click on the first result

vagrantnathan

Yes. All that's shown is Bluetooth and Ethernet. Nothing to do with WIFI.

billsey

You might be looking at the wrong solution. Some VPN software locks out all other networking in Windows 10. This gives pretty much the same symptoms as you have. Check to see if you have a VPN client installed and work toward getting that replaced with a W10 compatible version. I had a machine using the Cisco Global VPN Client and had a heck of a time getting things working. I finally rolled back to 8.1, uninstalled the VPN client, installed the updated VPN client, the upgraded and everything worked fine.

vagrantnathan

Thanks for the reply. I saw posts about the VPN issue when I originally researched my problem. I'm not aware of any VPN software on the machine; it's a home PC and I've never put anything on it. Would an Acer machine like this intended for home use have a VPN client of some kinda naitively installed? I just looked through programs list and didn't see anything that looked like VPN software. How would I know for sure?

If it were VPN or something else odd to do with Windows 10, would it not matter that Acer hasn't updated the drivers for WIFI for this particular machine of theirs? Just wondering if anyone else running this same machine has been able to get WIFI to work on Windows 10? (Aspire 5600U).

Thanks!

TerranceTD

Bluetooth headphones being dropped all time time, so poked the drivers and lost wifi.

Would quite like to have wifi back again.

Any luck?

Ta muchly

aniawa

I have a 5600U, windows 10 (upgraded from 8.1). WiFi worked fine until last night. AT&T messed around with the DSL phone wires out front last night. The WiFi is now working for all devices except my PC (the only PC in the house). My PC was working just fine until AT&T starting screwing around. The tech came out and tested the WiFi. "Yep, looks fine. Your PC needs some work, though." We hard-wired my PC to the modem and it works. He suggested a dongle in a USB port. I suggested something else.

If anyone finds an answer, please let me know.

kenz101

You could try this just make sure you have the correct driver instlled for the wifi:-

Open cmd.exe in elevated and try: winsock reset and restart the computer this will reset the adapter properties to default and get rid of any corruptions with in the adaptor.

this might even wipe the driver out so make sure you have the driver to install again!

Hope this works for you.

Kmor

I've been using windows 10 for the past year on my Acer 5600u without any issues. A few days ago, Microsoft did the creative upgrade on my computer and since then, my wifi driver has been gone. I have tried going back to the previous version and it is still gone. This problem seems to be well documented among many windows 10 users all over the internet. How can microsoft get away with this? There should have been a warning and maybe a way to check to see if computer is compatible with new upgrade. The driver should have been saved. Acer does not have an update to the driver for the windows 10 so I am out of luck getting it from them. There is no way to contact Acer by phone unless computer is still under warranty. I shouldn't have to buy a separate wireless adapter for a computer that is really not that old. Microsoft should be held liable for reimbursement of any costs associated in getting computers back up and running.

mwmwmwkwkwnivv

just did my windows 10 update yesterday, same problem here as Kmor above....any help? Not a fan of acer moving forward if this is how they maintain their products.