Disappearing Wireless adapter

Rodrigo Marcial,

Below is information to resolve the wireless disappearing

There are 2 options that I am listing to help.

Open Device Manager, open the drop-down Network adpaters
Right-click Network adapters
Select Scan for hardware changes
If you can't see your Wireless adapter, go to step 11
If you can see it, right-click on the adapter
Select Uninstall ( this should only uninstall you driver software, not delete it)
Now right-click Network adapters again
Select Scan for hardware changes. This should re-detect your wireless adapter)
Once detected, restart you machine
Make sure your Wireless adapter in Network And Sharing Center is Enabled. Now try what you have to.
If you cant find you your Wireless adapter device, you may need to properly install a wireless adapter driver. You'll have to do it perfectly, or have a service person do it for your machine
PS: If you want to create a wifi hotspot (when your wireless adapter is working properly), try the following command in Command Prompt

netsh wlan connect ssid=YOURSSID name=PROFILENAME

Method 2

Fix WiFi Missing from Network & Internet Settings in Windows 10

Hello, Jesse L,

Thank you for the reply;

This morning when I woke up, I turned on the pc and took a while to log in; while the pc waited for me to get ready in the locked screen, before the password page, I noticed that the internet icon flipped a few times from ‘no internet access’ to no ‘wi-fi’ signals; it then stabilized on the no internet access icon. But, once I logged in with my laptop password, there was the following message:

"Exception: Acess to the path 'Global\IPROINST_BOOTSTRAPPER_COEX_LOCK_INTEL®_PROSET_WIRELESS_SOFTWARE_18_40_0_0' is denied"

And then, the wi-fi was back.

I immediately accessed the Device Manager and uncheck the "Allow this computer to turn off this device to save power" on device manager/proprieties/power management, as I’ve heard that it would fix the problem for some people. After that, I left the pc unattended for a few minutes while it was downloading Office, and it turned off by itself when finished. Again, the wi-fi signal disappeared.

I followed your recommendation (I only could do this because I formatted the pc to factory settings yesterday, before that I couldn’t even find the wireless adapter on Hidden Devices, where I found it today); the wi-fi icon didn’t appear at first in the log-in screen, but after waiting a few seconds of flipping icons, just like in the morning, the wi-fi was back – this time with no message when logged in, though.

I’ve installed several software ever since and rebooted sometimes, the wi-fi seems to be working properly for now. If I get any more trouble I’ll contact through here.

Again, thanks for the attention, hope the problem doesn't reappear!

This is just insane, everything was going normally for a while, then i uninstalled McAfee, that comes with the factory settings; after restart, guess what? No wi-fi connections. Waited for a while to see if it would fix by itself, but it didn't.

Tried uninstalling (not deleting) the Wi-fi Driver, rebooted, didn't work. This time, after reboot, the "Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless - AC 3165" wasn't there, not even under Hidden Devices. I'm back in the f-ing ethernet cable.

None of the solutions providade - from which very few are even applicable, because the adapter is not visible - have worked.

I have a Events log from the wi-fi adapter that i Saved just in case; don't know how to send it to you. I believe that the message i recieved after logging in this morning may be the only lead I have on how to fix this: (""Exception: Acess to the path 'Global\IPROINST_BOOTSTRAPPER_COEX ...").

Rodrigo Marcial,

Perform a factory restore on the system. It will put the system back to its original state.

I have a similar issue with my dell inspiron 7737 on which I'm running windows 10. The Wi-Fi has stopped working, the symbol to turn it on and off on the toolbar is non existent. I can access the internet fine over an Ethernet cable but the wireless driver is showing as not present in settings. The settings menu has no option for Wi-Fi. I have tried a system restore but can't go far enough back due to a system crash. Without the driver being present I can't update it or anything else. Any advice would be appreciated as I'd like to avoid a factory reset if possible. I have tried a network reset but still have this problem.

We have had a string of users with this issue lately. I already discovered that reinstalling the Wi-Fi in Device Manager helps, but why is this happening? It's especially difficult to resolve when you have users who work off-site and far away and the only remedy requires them to be connected via Ethernet. Everybody uses Wi-Fi these days and nobody has an Ethernet cable. So if they can't connect via Ethernet we have no way of dialing in to troubleshoot, and most of our users are not very savvy on how to do this. Has a root cause been identified? If seems like this issue has increased within the last month. We are using Dell 7240's, 7250's, 7270's and 7280's with Windows 7. Thanks!

Just bought my Inspiron 13 7375 - it had issues out of box with the wireless nic not even showing in device manager.  I updated firmware to 1.2, downloaded wireless nic drivers off the webpage - and installed.  On reboot the nic came up and I thought it was resolved.  Powered down my laptop after work, went for a haircut, came home and powered back up - low and behold the wireless nic disappeared again, reboot resolved it again though.  

FWIW I have a QCA9377 Nic.  I did notice it entirely disappeared from device manager but bluetooth still showed, isnt that typically on the same mini adapter internally?  Would love this resolved because other than this issue this thing is incredible.  I'm on the latest Windows 10 update.

I have the same issue.

I have a Dell Wireless 1704.802.11b/g/n that continues to disappear from a laptop.  I have to go through the process of uninstalling it and then shutting down the laptop, and letting the laptop find it again on boot up and then I am good for a few days.  Seems like it may be tied to Windows Updates, but not sure. This is on a Inspirion 15, Windows 10 Dell Laptop.  I have tried a bunch of different solutions from this Dell site, including updating BIOS, checking for latest drivers, disabling BlueTooth devices - and nothing seems like a permanent solution, only thing that bids me the most time in a solution is uninstalling and re-installing the wireless adapter.  There is not two drives on the computer - so reinstalling Windows is not an option, and neither is a factory restore.  Seems to me with all the posting on this matter, Dell has a defect on these systems.  I am a Tech  Support person in a company with many Dell laptops and this is the only model with issues.

I have the same issue.

I have a Dell Wireless 1704.802.11b/g/n that continues to disappear from a laptop.  I have to go through the process of uninstalling it and then shutting down the laptop, and letting the laptop find it again on boot up and then I am good for a few days.  Seems like it may be tied to Windows Updates, but not sure. This is on a Inspirion 15, Windows 10 Dell Laptop.  I have tried a bunch of different solutions from this Dell site, including updating BIOS, checking for latest drivers, disabling BlueTooth devices - and nothing seems like a permanent solution, only thing that bids me the most time in a solution is uninstalling and re-installing the wireless adapter.  There is not two drives on the computer - so reinstalling Windows is not an option, and neither is a factory restore.  Seems to me with all the posting on this matter, Dell has a defect on these systems.  I am a Tech  Support person in a company with many Dell laptops and this is the only model with issues.

how to send you a private message with computer details?

Has anyone found a fix to this?  I just got a 7375 and if it's powered off for more than 5 minutes, the network adapter is not detected.  If I restart the computer, it's still not detected.  I have to shutdown and push the button to turn it back on and then it works fine.  Very annoying.

I haven't found a fix to this either. My Inspiron 15 5565 randomly stops recognizing my WiFi adapter at boot, and takes multiple reboots and BIOS resets to get it to be recognized again. Of course, my warranty had ran out just before I started experiencing this problem - I even switched to a different WiFi adapter and still have the same intermittent issue, reappearing almost every time I reboot my laptop. It seems like there's a bug in the firmware of this laptop that randomly stops WiFi adapters from being recognized by the system, Ubuntu still doesn't recognize a WiFi adapter when I reboot into it from Windows. Dell's built-in diagnostics don't pick up that the WiFi adapter is installed and state that the wireless switch is "off" - there isn't a wireless switch on this laptop, aside from the airplane mode button. My Bluetooth adapter, which runs off the same exact card, is always recognized by my laptop. Can someone from Dell chime in on this?