# Wireless PCI card suddenly stopped working



## hmcb (Nov 26, 2010)

Windows 7 64-bit (Home Premium)
TP-LINK TL-WN350GD PCI 54M Wireless-G Network Card.
ASUS P6T deluxe v2 motherboard.

Sooo... I turned my computer on this morning to see that I had no network connection. I got this yesterday too but after a bit of troubleshooting it reset the card or something and told me to reset my router and everything started working again, however this solution did not help me today (maybe because the adapter was actually being found yesterday).

In the device manager, the properties of the adapter is telling me "This device cannot start. (Code 10)" and wireless connection #3 - the Atheros AR5007G Wireless Network Adapter - is not coming up in the adapter settings part of the network and sharing centre, and it is not coming up when I do ipconfig in the command prompt.

I've had problems in the past with this adapter. I have left my computer on overnight and it has put itself to sleep but when I came back there was no wireless adapter being found. I fixed this by removing it and loading up the computer, then turning it off and putting it back in and loading up the computer again.

So today when I had no network connection, the first thing I did was go through the same steps that I did yesterday by going around the network and sharing centre and troubleshooting everything and restarting my router. This wasn't working so I went through what I did the first time it stopped working a few months ago which was taking it out and putting it back in after a loading up the computer without it just to try reset the PCI slot or something. No luck here either...

Next I checked to see if the drivers were all up to date, and they are. There is no option to roll them back. I tried disabling them and then enabling them, I uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them manually off the disc that came with it. I tried different combinations of leaving the drivers installed while taking out the hardware and also uninstalling the drivers then taking out the hardware and reinstalling everything from the top. All I get is a nice big red X and "failed" when I try to install it after scanning for hardware changes in the device manager.

I tried to do a system restore back to a few days ago when everything was working fine, before some updates were installed. I got an error there and it couldn't restore. It said something about not being able to access a file.

I am borrowing a USB adapter right now for internet. Windows update has found 1 update for the "Atheros AR5007G Wireless Network Adapter" though when trying to install it I am getting the windows update error "80070103"

The weirdest thing happened though... After taking it out one of the times, upon loading my computer it said it had found a new CPU installed... I just made it load with default settings and hoped nothing had gone wrong. It was ok though, the only thing it did was be weird with the asus start up software for some reason. Next thing I know is a floppy disk drive being installed and that I need to format drive A before I can use it. When I double click on it, it tells me to put a floppy disk in... It really believes there is a drive there for some reason.

All this weird stuff has been happening since I installed Microsoft Security Essentials and removed AVG free. I have tried uninstalling MSE and reloading everything but as far as I can tell it is just coincidence unless AVG has decided to screw up my system after I got rid of it.

It has been driving me crazy, and the last time I had problems like this was on my laptop on vista. All my network drivers on there just started going one by one, then the rest of the OS started failing until I had no choice but to just wipe it and install linux. I hope this doesn't end up going the same way. I've tried all that I can think of so far

Here is a lovely JPG collage of what's happening.


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## Wand3r3r (Sep 17, 2010)

"I have left my computer on overnight and it has put itself to sleep but when I came back there was no wireless adapter being found. I fixed this by removing it and loading up the computer, then turning it off and putting it back in and loading up the computer again."

correct path was to go into the nics power settings and set power save to disabled so the OS doesn't put the nic to sleep.

"After taking it out one of the times, upon loading my computer it said it had found a new CPU installed... I just made it load with default settings and hoped nothing had gone wrong. It was ok though, the only thing it did was be weird with the asus start up software for some reason. Next thing I know is a floppy disk drive being installed and that I need to format drive A before I can use it. When I double click on it, it tells me to put a floppy disk in... It really believes there is a drive there for some reason."

This indicates you are not removing the power cord to the pc when removing the card. Sounds like you caused a short when pulling the card that cleared the bios. You then loaded the bios with defaults which include a floppy drive that, from your statement, appears not to exist.

These days the mainboard slots specifications need to match the card specifications which makes just trying slots a shot in the dark.

All indications are the card died. Can you try it in another machine?


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## hmcb (Nov 26, 2010)

Yeah, I think it may have shorted out when I didn't plug the power cable back in properly and it fell out while it was booting up. eek. I make sure that I switch the power off at both ends, and remove the cable after about 20 seconds before touching anything inside, to save myself and the hardware any risk.

As for the computer going to sleep. It does this very often while still on the same power settings so that was just a one off time.

I have 1 other computer though this card will not fit. I can try borrow another computer to test it out. It would suck if it has just randomly died overnight because I didn't really do anything to it until after it started failing.


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## BASeffect (Oct 25, 2013)

I am having pretty much the same problem with my PC. I am on Windows 8 with an LB-LINK 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter. I was using it fine for the past couple months (I am new to building this computer) and it just stopped working. one day it stopped working for like a couple minutes, the next day it stopped a couple times, and now it has stopped working and won't start again. After trying to reseat it, the lights won't even turn on on the card itself. I also tried installing the driver which I hadn't before when it worked. Do you think the card is dead? Should I buy a new one? Should I buy a USB one? Any suggestions are appreciated. ( I realise this is an old post )


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