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38129
April 25th, 2015 10:00
Inspiron 15 wireless disappears
Running Windows 8.1 (64) on Inspiron 15 (5537, mid-2013) laptop. I'll start by saying that, to solve this problem, I've read the sticky on this forum, I've tried the windows-driven troubleshooting, the Dell web-based diagnostics, multiple tutorials, and searched forum archives.
A month ago, the wireless began disappearing. It's not that I'm losing the signal, and it's not that the wireless is disabled (not being firewalled or disabled by power saving options). The card disappears: the unconnected ethernet icon appears in the tray, and there is no wireless card to be found anywhere in Windows. Sometimes it's not there on reboot, sometimes it disappears after a random amount of time of use. For the latter, the signal disappears, no networks are detected, then the wireless disappears, in that order.
Initially, the card would reappear on reboot. When this "fix" stopped working, re-installing the driver (and rebooting) would "fix" the issue. Now, neither work. My wireless card is not recognized (i.e. "disappeared", although physically it's still there of course).
Thoughts? Replace the card? Where can I get one?
Thank you for your help!
kirkd
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5.2K Posts
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April 25th, 2015 13:00
Sometimes the router IP DNS address causes problems like this. A solution to some issues involves changing the router IP DNS address to an OpenDNS address. The two to try are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. Write down the current addresses if you need to return. If you don't know how to get to the router settings, search the web for the procedure. The initial step is typing the router address into the browser site line. Many addresses are 192,168.x.y, where x=2 and y=1 or something similar.
KYLPR_01
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April 25th, 2015 15:00
Thank you very much KirkD. To start, I flushed my DNS and everything seems stable for now. If the problem comes up again, I will switch to an OpenDNS address and see if this helps. I will update regardless!
Thanks, again. I'm learning a lot!
KYLPR_01
3 Posts
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April 28th, 2015 14:00
After a couple of days playing with it, this definitely put me in the right direction to solve the issue. Flushing the DNS solves the issue, although it does create a strange work-around and I have to use Win8 trouble-shooter to re-locate the network adapters on reboot.
This seems to be triggered by a specific wireless network. For some reason, the "secured" network at work does not jibe with my system configuration and apparently deletes my wireless card (or at least the driver).
I have not yet tried switching the IP address for an OpenDNS, but I'm satisfied with the fix as it is.
Thanks, again for your help.
kirkd
4 Operator
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5.2K Posts
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April 28th, 2015 16:00
Great!!!
This seems to be a good general purpose fix for wifi problems
I know how frustrating wifi problems can be. In the past, about the only thing we could recommend is to change the wifi channel number, which works in some cases.