XPS 13 9310 - Wifi not working after disassembly

Question

I recently took apart a coworkers XPS 13 9310 to apply some new thermal paste due to the fans being very loud when using it.

I wore an anti-static strap, used all the right tools to open it up, using a plastic pic with a guard to ensure i did not insert it too far when opening up the housing. I disconnected the battery during the repair. The repair fixed the fan noise, but after successfully booting back up windows will not allow me to turn the wifi on and it is not detecting the network.

Under device manager it shows the network adapter as detectable and working properly. The driver and network card is made by Killer.

I opened it back up making sure I had not damaged the antenna, network card, or anything else in that area and I had not. Other troubleshooting steps I have done:

Restarted the PC
Ran windows diagnostic on the wifi (said the wifi is not turned on, but when I hit the switch to turn it on it just immediately turns it back off).
Reset the network settings.
Tried restarting windows with only the necessary processes.
Tried both updating and using on drivers for the card.

For some reason the option to restore to a previous restore point of windows it not available. Complete factory reset is a last resort. What am I missing here? It seems like a software or setting issue, but happened right after taking it apart and disconnecting the battery.

Things I tried the second day:

Bit of an update for new things I have tried:

Tried enabling and disabling in device mangager
Tried uninstalling and restarting, it did detect the device and it was visible after restart but still not allowing me to switch on wifi.
I deleted and redownloaded the driver from dells website for that specific make/model.
Updated to latest version of Windows 11 and most current bios update provided by Dell.
Turned the WLAN controller from manual to automatically on.
Restarted the PC with all non-essential services turned off to make sure nothing software related was bugging it.

However, under wifi I still am unable to turn on the wifi. Im at my wits end here... what am I missing?

Haiko · Accepted Answer

I had the same issue on a DELL XPS 13 1910 - and I FINALLY was able to resolve this!
I tried really a lot. While in a booted Ubuntu, Wifi worked, but in a second Windows 11 installation, Wifi had the same issue. Even using another Wifi stick worked like a charm...

What solved the problem:

Open up REGEDIT, go to

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000
(Your Wifi card may be in another folder instead of 0000, look through all of them in {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318} and look for "DriverDesc" - mind had "Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX500-DBS Wireless Network Adapter".

Within that path, I have found two reg keys that had my attention:

EnableHardwareRFKill
and
SoftwareRadioOff

Both were set to 1.
I set them both to 0 and after reboot, WIFI is finally back!

DELL-Jesse L · Answer

To receive assistance from Dell chat support, they need to verify the warranty status and ownership. Then you must troubleshoot with them.  Click the 'Get Help Now' icon on the right to start a live chat session. If already out of warranty, click here for the Dell out of warranty offering.

tcorney · Answer

@Osaout I replaced the battery in one of the same models recently. After this the wifi does not work in Windows. The adapter shows in Device Manager as active and the drivers are loaded. But it cannot be "turned on". However, I did boot the laptop with a Ubuntu Live USB key and the wifi works. Something seems fishy to me with this..

Did you ever find a resolution?

Consilium01 · Answer

@Haiko​ I cannot believe you figured this out. I scoured the Internet for ages before finding your answer and got only junk. This worked. You genius, this worked.

user_5f8c5e · Answer

@Haiko​ thank you very much sir, you have totally saved me from discarding my laptop. I did a battery replacement and thermal paste replacement + fan cleanup while at it and ran into the same issue. I can't understand why this happens, however, in my case only hardearerfkill was at 1 and this was the troublemaker appearently. Wouldn't have ever figuerd that out. Thank you.

Ahct · Answer

@Haiko​ thank you so much for this!! So much brain damage over the last couple of years trying to get this fixed on not one but two XPS 13s (notably the 32GB Costco models). I will note that after the fix, I applied a year's worth of Windows updates and the registry settings reverted. Simple enough fix, but will be curious to see if it continues to break with future updates.  Really grateful for this post!

eddie79 · Answer

@Haiko OMG thank you thank you thank you! as other said, such a frustrating issue that Dell was absolutely no help with! thanks again!!

Juul Dekeizer · Answer

@Haiko​ Thanks, this worked for me. My registry key was Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0003  where one of the 2, EnableHardwareRFKill / SoftwareRadioOff was 1. Set to 0 and the wifi worked after reboot.

user_913064 · Answer

You are a lifesaver. I thought I had damaged the laptop replacing the battery!!

Nii_Mantse · Answer

@Haiko​ This definitely saved me some bucks. I replaced the batteries on 2 xps laptops and run into the same wifi issue. This worked. Thank you for posting.

XPS

XPS 13 9310 - Wifi not working after disassembly

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