Windows 10: Wifi adapter not showing

Hi

My wifi connections are no longer showing. Every time I start my laptop, all I get is the airplane mode option. I have looked at previous discussions on the topic, but none of the suggestions are working for me. I have an HP laptop running on Windows 10, version 2004 with OS build 19041.450. I have not made any changes to my computer in the last few weeks either. The problem has been recurring since the past 4 days. Can someone please help? Thank you.

:)

 

Wifi adapter disappears - goes 'hidden'


Running Windows 10 on an Acer laptop. Over the past month, the wifi connection dropped without explanation/warning.

First time, the adapter was visible in Device Manager (with a yellow triangle next to it). An interent search found the suggestion to uninstall it and restart. That worked.

Today, the connection dropped again. In Device Manager at first I could not see the wifi adapter listed. I clicked to see hidden devices and found the adapter and the Bluetooth (which I had not noticed was missing).

I again uninstalled, restarted, and both the wifi and bluetooth have returned.

Anyone any ideas as to what is happening, why it's happening, and what I need to do, please?

I have attached a screenshot of the DM windows as it is now, showing the wifi adapter name, etc.

Thanks very much

WG

 

Wifi Adapter

Here are several methods:

• Look in the user guide - see if 5 GHz WiFi is mentioned.
• Find that model on the manufacturer's website - see if the manufacturer advertises 5 GHz capability.
• Look for independent reviews of your model - the reviewer will certainly mention if the adapter supports 5 GHz

If none of those provide the answer, I can suggest many more ways to find out.

 

Problems when sharing WiFi with the Virtual Adapter

For many years I have always shared Internet to my devices like phone and tablet with my PC's WiFi antenna through the Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter, I only use it for that, since I have a cable connection, and I start the wifi with the command NETSH WLAN start hostednetwork previously having done the settings of NETSH WLAN set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid="Wifi" key="password".

For my devices to connect it is necessary that the Virtual Adapter that is created with that command has access to the Internet, for this I have to share the Internet from my Ethernet adapter to the Virtual Wifi adapter.

For some time now (a couple of months) I've been experiencing problems when sharing the Internet through that medium. The problem is that when I start the WiFi my devices do not connect, they say "Getting IP address" and never connect.

I have found the solution and I have to do the following:

1. Disable the Virtual Adapter with the command netsh wlan stop hostednetwork.
2. Remove the connection sharing from the Ethernet Adapter.
3. Activate the Virtual Adapter with the command netsh wlan start hostednetwork.
4. Adding connection sharing from the Ethernet Adapter to the Virtual Adapter again.

By doing these steps my devices can now be connected to the Wifi, but sometimes it doesn't work if I do these steps too quickly. I have noticed that if I do step 3 and 4 too quickly it does not work and I have to repeat the process but doing these last two steps more slowly, until the Virtual Adapter gets an IP address 192.168.137.1 from Internet Protocol version 4

Also this problem does not occur 100% of the time. Sometimes when I run the command to start the Wifi everything happens fine and my devices connect well but this only works after my PC has been on for at least 5 minutes (I haven't counted it). If I run the command as soon as my PC has turned on then it doesn't work anymore.

As I mentioned before this problem didn't occur before because I had configured a .bat file that ran as soon as the PC was turned on with the NETSH WLAN start hostednetwork command and everything worked fine.

Now, I would like to go back to before when everything was fine so that when my PC starts up the WiFi too and I don't have to do all this protocol all the time, but with a simple command everything is solved.

Could someone give me a hand with this?