Acer Aspire V3-551-7655 wireless adapter vanishes

[lordsmo]

My has an Acer Aspire V3-551-7655 running Windows 7. The Atheros wireless network adapter will often disappears for days at a time and I am unable to make it reappear, other than it randomly reappearing for reasons as mysterious to me as the original disappearance.

When the icon has disappeared, the entire adapter is seemingly gone from the system. If I go to device managers it is not visible at all. Command prompt ipconfig/all will not detect it at all when it is in its vanished state. I have downloaded the official drivers for this adapter from the Acer website and installed them several times. When the adapter is in its vanished state the drivers will not install at all; the installer simply seems to abort part way through with no error message or explanation. When the adapter is working normally I can install the drivers, but this does nothing to prevent the adapter from vanishing again the next time I turn on the computer.

Function+F3 is the hard key that supposedly turns on the WiFi on this computer, but it only works when the adapter is visible, and does nothing at all when it is in its vanished state. I have disabled the power-saving feature that allows windows to turn off the adapter under certain circumstance. The Atheros LAN (wired) adapter always seems to work, but when the wireless adapter vanishes the Microsoft VIrtual Wifi mini port also disappears from the device manager.

If anyone has encountered a similar situation please let me know how (and if) you fixed it. Any assistance is appreciated.

 

[lordsmo]

I also wish I didn't have two grammatical errors in the first sentence I've ever posted on this site...

 

[Saga Lout]

We're a global Forum with folks posting in English when it isn't their native language, lordsmo, so your missing word is hardly noticeable. The Edit button is in the bottom right hand corner of the post if you wish to address the issues. I might also add that in my experience, Atheros wireless adapter issues are the hardest to resolve but you may find a better driver at their own site than at Acers.

In the Properties pages, under the Details tab, scroll to HardwareIDs and take a note of the four characters which follow VEN for Vendor and also the four following DEV for Device.

Go to http://www.pcidatabase.com and input those characters in the two relevant boxes and follow the trail to the right driver. When you find the list of the Vendor's drivers, they aren't in order so use your browser's Find facility to track the Device details. With luck you'll have an executable file but some will be a zipped folder.

 

[lordsmo]

Thanks for the reply. My dismay at the typos was tongue in cheek, heh heh. I have now tried driver installs from every reputable source I can locate. Drivers for this particular model (Atheros AR5BWB222) seem hard to find though.

Hardware IDs
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_0034&SUBSYS_662111AD&REV_01
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_0034&SUBSYS_662111AD
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_0034&CC_028000
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_0034&CC_0280

Anyone have this adapter working with windows 7 64-bit? If so, do you know what drivers you are using?

I'm running out of ideas. It seemed to work fine for the first 4-5 months I believe, so I may just format and start fresh. Alternatively, I could try replacing the adapter; I assume it's integral to the motherboard but maybe I could open this thing up and try to find a spare PCI slot to put another one in. Any advice?

 

[Saga Lout]

This is the driver PCI Database finds and it's an Acer site http://support.acer.com/product/default.aspx?modelId=4090 so you've almost certainly either already had it or have tried it. The wireless adapter is a card similar in looks to a RAM stick but normally almost a square. It's usually visible beneath one of the hatches under the laptop and can be replaced by another identically shaped card but the answer to your problem is probably a USB wireless dongle. e-Bay usually has them for under £10 British or a lot less expensive in America but a computer store will sell them for a little more than that.

 

[lordsmo]

Thanks again. Probably gonna be the way I end up going.