Wireless device not showing on Device Manager

Hello there. I have an HP dv9700 notebook, which about an year ago began having serious screen problems. It went black and nothing made it come back, even though Windows still booted (sounds came up and everything).

After almost an year repairing, and 3 Intel motherboards later, the technician found out the problem was on the dedicated graphics card memory, and put an AMD motherboard on my notebook which didn't have dedicated graphics memory anymore.

So now my notebook is recognized by HP automatic product detection as a dv9010us one. Plus, my graphics card is now shown as a GeForce Go 6150 (I bought it as a GeForce 6800 GS).

Since then the PC has been working flawlessly, except for now. Last night I was using the notebook, turned it off and went to sleep. Now I turned it on once again it simply can't detect the wireless device. It's like it doesn't exists!

I never changed the position of the notebook or anything to say the card moved or something internally. I check the Device Manager and there's no sign of the 802.11 adapter. It only shows the local ethernet adapter (wired connection working flawlessly as I'm writing right now from it) and bluetooth adapter. And yes, the light on the wireless switch on my notebook is blue (which means turned on). I tried putting it to off (orange) and then on again (blue), but it doesn't works. All that happens is that windows "disconnected" sound (like when you remove an USB device) when I turn it off.

I have tried downloading the drivers from HP support webpage, but it also doesn't work. Not even automatic hardware detection detects it. I have no idea what to do.

Please please someone give me an useful tip for this one.

Thanks!!!!

No one has any ideas?

It was too late for System Restore, as the last restore point available was already before the problem happened.

I have opened up the WLAN compartment on the back of my notebook and it seems OK,as it's well placed and the cables are also plugged in.

Please, any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

Originally Posted by ghnogueira

It was too late for System Restore, as the last restore point available was already before the problem happened.

I have opened up the WLAN compartment on the back of my notebook and it seems OK,as it's well placed and the cables are also plugged in.

Please, any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

Sorry, but I spent some time looking over the HP support site regarding specific drivers available for your HP Pavillion dv9010us, and I was unable to find anything more current than some Vista Drivers from 2007. Have you talked to anyone from HP, or whoever replaced the motherboard for you to see if they have any ideas as to a potential solution? I see the Wireless device looks like a "Broadcom" but I couldn't find any actual Model number or Rev. Number to help search elsewhere. I see HP has something called the HP Wireless Assistant available for download, which I assume is their software for managing your wireless devices, have you tried using that particular piece of software?
I know that sometimes these software apps provide configuration options that allow you to turn off and on the actual radio, so possibly there may be an issue there. Failing all that and a quick look into the BIOS to make sure that the onboard device hasn't inadvertently been disable in there, then I would guess you may be stuck with purchasing a third party USB Wireless dongle from Linksys, Netgear or D-Link to get you back on the road again.
When you got the new MoBo, did you do a clean install? Have you considered doing another just to see if the device for some reason might become available again. Not the best of options but something to consider and of course if the device is actually DOA, then that would be all for nothing
If the device is not present in device manager, then of course you can't do much from within the OS, normal stuff like rolling back a driver or removing / uninstalling the device is not an option

First of all, thanks for trying to help. I'll reply in parts:

- Yes, the drivers from HP support seems to be exactly those. I have also tried downloading one from Broadcomm's website (yes, you guessedit right), but without success as well.

- HP support was useless as I can only try the chat, and to a limit extent as I am outside the US with an US notebook. Local HP doesn't touch my notebook as they say they only accept local ones. I haven't been able to reach the technician that swapped my mobo, so I'll keep trying reaching him.

- The HP Wireless Assistant is also useless. I have tried that one, but it simply showed me I had no connection, and didn't offer any "tuning" options (like turning devices on and off).

- The BIOS from this notebook is real crap, I'll tell you. It gives me barely no info at all. So there was never an option there to enable/disable the WLAN device. I can only change boot order, enable/disable boot from CD/DVD and do HD checks from therer. Can't even over/underclock the processor, for example.

- Yes, I did a complete clean install. And everything worked fine for almost 2 months. I am currently installing another instance of Win 7 on another partition hoping it can work. But I'm not too keen on that one


Either way, many thanks for looking into my problem...

Originally Posted by ghnogueira

First of all, thanks for trying to help. I'll reply in parts:

- Yes, the drivers from HP support seems to be exactly those. I have also tried downloading one from Broadcomm's website (yes, you guessedit right), but without success as well.

- HP support was useless as I can only try the chat, and to a limit extent as I am outside the US with an US notebook. Local HP doesn't touch my notebook as they say they only accept local ones. I haven't been able to reach the technician that swapped my mobo, so I'll keep trying reaching him.

- The HP Wireless Assistant is also useless. I have tried that one, but it simply showed me I had no connection, and didn't offer any "tuning" options (like turning devices on and off).

- The BIOS from this notebook is real crap, I'll tell you. It gives me barely no info at all. So there was never an option there to enable/disable the WLAN device. I can only change boot order, enable/disable boot from CD/DVD and do HD checks from therer. Can't even over/underclock the processor, for example.

- Yes, I did a complete clean install. And everything worked fine for almost 2 months. I am currently installing another instance of Win 7 on another partition hoping it can work. But I'm not too keen on that one


Either way, many thanks for looking into my problem...

Keep us posted as to how the parallel install goes. I'm not holding out much hope but you never know until you try. Has the notebook been subjected to any recent electrical anomally, which might be responsible for your current issue. Does AMD have any recent BIOS update for that particular motherboard that might offer some feature enhancement, fixes to known issues or just the potential to repair a current corruption issue?

As imagined, the new installation didn't help at all

I haven't tried new BIOS updates for my mobo. Would AMD site find the model automatically, coz I certainly have no idea which model it is.

Okay, I won't even try to understand, but I was playing a game on my couch unplugged from the net. As I exited the game, suddenly I saw the wireless icon on Win 7 active, and a message popped up that the driver for my Broadcomm 802.1 card was successfully installed.

Just like that! The same way out of nowhere it stopped recognizing the card, it suddenly found it again.

It's really something I'll prolly never guess... but thanks for all the help. By the looks of it, seems like any "regular" fix attempt would have worked!

I'm guessing, if you have Automatic updates turned on, you did not notice that an update for the wireless adapter was being downloaded. During the update process, Windows disabled the adapter and service, in order to apply it. Just a guess! Why it would have made such a big deal of it is beyond me.

Can't think of that as a possibility as I had the wireless device "unshowed" for over a month.