Solved Unable to turn on wifi

solaris7 · Sep 29, 2021

Hello , I recently did a windows 11 clean install and since then I am unable to turn on wifi or scan for any networks. I have tried network reset , netsh reset , uninstalling drivers , check services.msc for WLAN-autoconfig, using windows store apps to turn on wifi but nothing has helped so far.
I can see a Wifi adapter in adapter settings but cannot turn on wifi
My Laptop Acer predator helios 300 2018 model PH315-51
My wifi card is Intel AC 9560 160mhz using lastest intel drivers 22.70.0.6

I can use ethernet or mobile tether but not wifi.
Windows troubleshoot show I need to turn on wifi but I did not find any such option in BIOS also my laptop only has fn+F3 for airplane mode and nothing specifically for wifi.

Stigg · Sep 29, 2021

Hi solaris7.

I see that you are using the official Intel wi-fi driver.
Do you think it is worth trying the Acer supplied driver?

Product Support | Acer United States

solaris7 · Sep 29, 2021

Stigg said:
Hi solaris7.

I see that you are using the official Intel wi-fi driver.
Do you think it is worth trying the official Acer driver?

Product Support | Acer United States

I tried the official acer drivers but it didn't help. And Acer haven't updated them thus I doubt they would support Windows 11 anyhow.

Stigg · Sep 29, 2021

solaris7 said:
I tried the official acer drivers but it didn't help. And Acer haven't updated them thus I doubt they would support Windows 11 anyhow.

OK. Most of my drivers are Windows 10 ones. It doesn't have to state that they are for Windows 11 for them to work.
Most Windows 10 drivers should continue to work in Windows 11.

solaris7 · Sep 29, 2021

Stigg said:
OK. Most of my drivers are Windows 10 ones. It doesn't have to state that they are for Windows 11 for them to work.
Most Windows 10 drivers should continue to work in Windows 11.

Unfortunately It didnt help

Stigg · Sep 29, 2021

OK. It was worth a try.
I know that you have already looked, but over the years I have encountered laptops that have undocumented Wi-Fi switches. Some have been very obscure and hard to find.

By the way. I see that you also have the Windows 11 volume icon cosmetic bug.
I believe a fix is coming.

solaris7 · Sep 29, 2021

Stigg said:
OK. It was worth a try.
I know that you have already looked, but over the years I have encountered laptops that have undocumented Wi-Fi switches. Some have been very obscure and hard to find.

By the way. I see that you also have the Windows 11 volume icon cosmetic bug.
I believe a fix is coming.

I have checked pressing every key on keyboard with the fn key , the only thing that was related is airplane mode fn + F3.
Also my laptop has not buttons or switches on the sides or back.
As its 4 am here , tomorrow I will also drop some photos incase I missed something.
Also will try a live boot ubuntu if that can use wifi , I assume if some key is blocking wifi then even ubuntu shouldn't be able to use it.

And I genuinely appreciate your time and effort. Thnx

solaris7 · Sep 30, 2021

Thanks for all the help guys , I dont know how but got my wifi working.
I checked again and I didnt have any kind of wifi switch on sides or back of my device.
I once again tried
- uninstalling device from device manager , reboot
- uninstalling device with remove drivers from device manager ,reboot
- Installing drivers from acer support page , reboot

But any of it didnt work.
- I kept the stock wifi drivers installed that I got from acer

To check if it was a hardware problem ,
- Turned off Secure Boot from BIOS (cause of UEFI:NTFS rufus warning)
- I live booted a ubuntu 20.04 and and connected to wifi
- The wifi worked fine thus I exited the live boot , did a bios reset F9 , saved bios F10
- Checked that my secure boot is ON ( it probably doesnt matter for this issue)
- After booting windows my wifi started working.
- Also updated to the latest drivers from Intel to check if something breaks but everything still working , even after reboot

This issue was also discussed in acer community here

cereberus · Sep 30, 2021

solaris7 said:
Thanks for all the help guys , I dont know how but got my wifi working.
I checked again and I didnt have any kind of wifi switch on sides or back of my device.
I once again tried
- uninstalling device from device manager , reboot
- uninstalling device with remove drivers from device manager ,reboot
- Installing drivers from acer support page , reboot

But any of it didnt work.
- I kept the stock wifi drivers installed that I got from acer

To check if it was a hardware problem ,
- Turned off Secure Boot from BIOS (cause of UEFI:NTFS rufus warning)
- I live booted a ubuntu 20.04 and and connected to wifi
- The wifi worked fine thus I exited the live boot , did a bios reset F9 , saved bios F10
- Checked that my secure boot is ON ( it probably doesnt matter for this issue)
- After booting windows my wifi started working.
- Also updated to the latest drivers from Intel to check if something breaks but everything still working , even after reboot

View attachment 8744

This issue was also discussed in acer community here

Sometimes network cards need to be fully powered down.

It may be that the card was hanging, and by using Linux, you cleared the issue (hard to say).

The most important thing now is to make an image backup of current working device.

Suggest you mark it as solved now.