Wireless access to the network is provided in two ways: via a wifi router or via a wifi adapter (or, as it is also called, a modem). We will not consider here a Wi-Fi connection through a router, since a router is not an independent network device, but only distributes the network services of a cable provider. Here we will deal with wifi modems, or more precisely, drivers for these devices for laptops. A desktop computer can also have a built-in or external wifi adapter, for example: PCI adapter directly on motherboard or an external USB modem. But, the topic of our conversation will be laptops, as well as similar devices.
For some time now, more precisely the last ten years, almost all laptops are equipped with a built-in wifi module and can themselves be the main node of a home wireless network.
But to take advantage of this opportunity, it is necessary to provide normal support this device operating system. Simply put, find and install the driver for this OS for your laptop model.
Someone was lucky, and Windows independently recognized the adapter and was able to install drivers for it. Someone was less fortunate - for these people is our note.
Checking adapter operation
If wifi is not found on the laptop, then you should check if the drivers for the built-in wi-file adapter are installed. If not, then they need to be found and installed. Let's check the driver like this:
If the laptop does not have a wifi driver, it must be found and installed manually. What we are going to do now. We will search on the Internet.
Search and installation
It's good if the driver for the adapter is found on the disk with the drivers for the laptop. If you can find this disk. Otherwise, you need to go to the website of your computer manufacturer and find the driver there. Usually there is no problem with this. The software database is searched for your laptop model. You can find the model number by turning the laptop upside down and reading the number on the sticker.
Typically, drivers are supplied as executable files, so installing the wi-fi will not be a problem - you just need to run the downloaded file for execution and follow the instructions of the installer.
The easiest way: the adapter model is often indicated on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop... Often its MAC address is also indicated there.
These stickers look something like this:
This is usually a small sticker. It sometimes says Contains WLAN module[adapter model].
If you did not find such a sticker or could not find out which adapter, then there is a more reliable method.
You can find out which wireless adapter is installed using the utility Everest for this manual Search and install drivers on Windows. Wi-Fi adapter usually in Device manager denoted as Network Controller or something like that. It is usually found in the section Network adapters... It is important not to confuse it with your network card (LAN).
Your task is to find out the VEN and DEV codes of your Wi-Fi adapter. They indicate the manufacturer and model of the Wi-Fi adapter and contain 4 digits each. Here is the VEN code and download the drivers from the links below.
Drivers for Wi-Fi adapters
One archive
Download
Drivers for Wi-Fi adapters from Intel (manufacturer VEN code 8086 )
The question of how to find and download a driver for a USB wifi 802.11 n adapter has become more and more relevant lately, since it is these simple devices that are increasingly being ordered on the Internet today. I, too, have recently become addicted to taking network adapters in China, since it costs much more profitable than ours, despite the fact that the quality of the goods is absolutely the same.
Devices from little-known Chinese brands - Comfast, Edimax, Ralink, Edup, LB-Link, Kebidu, Elisona, and so on - have gained particular popularity for their low cost. For all their advantages, there are three big disadvantages that you often have to deal with:
- lack of russification
- vague support and software updates
- it is not clear how to download the drivers
How to download the driver for the 802.11n USB wifi adapter?
To be honest, personally, I rarely encounter the problem of installing a driver for a network wifi adapter - Windows 10 finds them automatically in most cases. For example, connecting a TP-Link adapter, it is immediately found in the list of connected devices.
But even if this did not happen, our Chinese friends always send a CD with drivers complete with a USB adapter, which is enough to insert into the CD drive and install by running the "Setup.exe" program.
It is more difficult for those who do not have this drive. For them it will be written this instruction... So, to start looking for firewood, we need to find out what kind of device is installed in the computer. To do this, go through the "Start" menu to the "Windows" device manager
and look for the section "Network adapters" here. I have displayed unknown device for which Windows could not find a driver - "802.11n WLAN". Click on it with the right mouse button and go to "Properties"
Switch to the "Information" tab and select "Equipment ID" from the drop-down list
We see two lines - this is the identifier of our adapter. We can use it to find drivers.
Now go to the site DriverPack Solution we write the first line from this window.
As a result of the search, we find the required driver for the 802.11 n wifi adapter. As you can see, the site automatically determined that I have Windows 10 (64x) installed on my computer - all that remains is to download it from the link
Run the downloaded file
We check the device in the manager - yes, the adapter has been identified. Now you can connect with this computer via wifi to the Internet.
As you can see this way Driver installation for USB WiFi 802.11 n adapter is very simple and does not require any special knowledge. He never let me down, use it too!
All modern laptops are equipped with a built-in Wi-Fi module, and this is not just the norm, but one of the basic requirements for the hardware, otherwise there would be no need to talk about any laptop mobility. Like other hardware components, a Wi-Fi adapter requires an appropriate driver for its operation, without which the device will not be able to receive or distribute a signal. In the latter Windows versions, in particular in 8.1 and 10, the universal Wi-Fi driver is included in operating system, which saves the user from having to search and install it separately.
But with Windows 7, everything is a little more complicated, since in some assemblies the driver may be present, in some not. However, users of Windows 8.1 and 10 may also face problems, if the wireless adapter "does not want" to work with Microsoft drivers, or the system "loses" them for some reason. This, of course, is unlikely, but it does happen occasionally. In general, it may turn out that you have to search, download and install drivers for the Wi-Fi adapter yourself.
How to find out if the Wi-Fi adapter drivers are installed on a laptop
So, you have installed Windows, try to connect to a wireless network, but nothing works. It is very possible that the problem is just in the driver, but before starting to search for a solution, you need to check whether it is installed at all software... This is not difficult to do. Open the Device Manager, expand the "Network adapters" item and see if there is one among the devices that has "Wi-Fi" or "Wireless" in the name. If not, there is no wireless adapter driver. Also, its absence or incorrect installation will be indirectly indicated by the “Network Controller” device marked with a yellow icon or some unidentified device.
The presence of a wi-fi driver does not yet guarantee that the adapter will work. Perhaps the driver is not suitable for a specific device model or simply does not work correctly. In this case, you can try to reinstall it, and if this does not help, replace it with the one downloaded from the adapter manufacturer's website.
Where and how to download drivers for HP, Asus, Lenovo, Acer and Samsung laptops
It is quite possible to find and download a Wi-Fi driver for Windows 7/10 from the website of the manufacturer of the wireless adapter, from third-party resources and using special programs, which will be discussed below. Also, the driver can be installed from the disk with the proprietary software supplied with the laptop, if, of course, you have such a disk. If not, first of all download the driver from the manufacturer's website.
Search the manufacturer's website by device model
Let's look at the whole thing on the example of a laptop from Asus. In addition to the brand name, you need to know. It is very simple to define it - the required designation should be indicated on the lower part of the case, on a sticker. You can also execute the command in the Run (Win + R) window msinfo32 and look at the Model column in the system information. In our example, this is ASUS X55VD.
We go to the official website of the company www.asus.com and drive the model number into the search field.
If your laptop is not very old, it will be found. Immediately in the search results, follow the link "Drivers and Utilities", select your operating system, find the Wireless section and expand it.
That's it, the drivers can be downloaded, there is, however, one small "but" here. There may be several Wi-Fi drivers from different manufacturers in the proposed list, for example, Ralink Wireless and Qualcomm Atheros Wireless. Which one do you need? To determine the manufacturer will help a small free utility HWVendorDetection... Run it and see what is indicated next to Wireless LAN. This will be the name you need.
Similarly, Wi-Fi drivers for Windows 7/10 installed on laptops from HP, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung and other brands are searched for and downloaded, the URLs of which you can easily find on the Internet. Of course, the web interfaces of the official sites will differ, but they have a common search principle.
Search by ID
If suddenly you could not find the drivers for the laptop model, and the HWVendorDetection program did not help, try using the Device Manager. So you can kill two birds with one stone - and determine the manufacturer, and find a suitable driver. We will search by device ID.
It is clear that since the Wi-Fi driver is not installed, you will not have a corresponding item in the "Network adapters" section, but you can look for an adapter in the "Other devices" section. The module can be called WLAN, Network controller, and the like. Open its properties, go to the "Details" tab, select "Equipment ID" in the drop-down menu of properties and copy the first value in the list.
Trim the resulting string to the right so that the second ampersand is left at the end:
PCI / VEN_1814 & DEV_3290 & SUBSYS_E055105B & REV_00 PCI / VEN_1814 & DEV_3290 &
Next, go to the devid.info/ru resource, paste the edited line into the search field and click "Search", indicating your OS version in the drop-down menu. We look at the manufacturer's name in the search results. For example, we have this MediaTek (Ralink). From the same resource you can download a Wi-Fi driver for a laptop with Windows 7/10 absolutely free.
This method of searching for drivers is especially relevant for Windows 10, for which software is not always offered on the websites of device manufacturers.
Automatic and manual installation of Wi-Fi drivers in Windows 7/10
There are two main driver installation modes - automatic and manual. Let's consider the first one first. Open the Device Manager, find the desired device in the list (in this case, a Wi-Fi adapter), right-click on it, select "Update driver" and click "Automatic search for updated drivers" in the window that opens.
Windows will search for the driver itself and install it. In Windows 10, if the driver is not found, the system will offer to search for software in the Update Center. Automatic search also implies the use of special programs, which is described below.
Installing drivers in manual mode is done again either using the Device Manager, or by running executable file installer, if the driver was downloaded from an official or third-party Internet resource. Searching for and installing drivers in manual mode using the standard Device Manager utility is not much different from the same procedure, but performed in automatic mode... All you need to do is select the option "Search for drivers on this computer" in the update window and specify the directory.
You can install the Wi-Fi driver on a laptop as regular program by running the executable EXE file and following the instructions in the wizard. If you downloaded the archive with the driver and found that there is no EXE file, but there are SYS, CAT and INF, then install the driver as follows. Right-click on the INF file and select the "Install" option from the menu. After receiving a notification about the successful completion of the operation, restart the computer.
Convenient programs for installing Wi-Fi drivers
The methods described above for finding and installing drivers are quite working, but not very convenient. For novice users, they can cause difficulties, so the best option in such a situation would be to use special programs. They have a significant advantage, unmistakably identifying devices that need to be installed / updated, downloading and installing the latter automatically.
Perhaps the most popular manager for finding and installing drivers. The program is fully automated, so the user just needs to launch it, and she herself, without any help, will identify all devices and offer to download and install the most current driver versions.
DriverPack Solution can work both online and in offline, which allows you to install drivers without connecting your computer to the Internet, but you will need to download the appropriate DriverPack Solution for your version of the operating system in advance and transfer it to your computer in any convenient way. Launch from portable media is possible. It is advisable to work with DriverPack Solution in expert mode, since in addition to drivers, the manager installs additional free software.
Download the Wi-Fi driver for Windows 7/10 and install it will help another program - Auslogics Driver Uрdаter. The principle of its operation is very similar to DriverPack Solution: the application scans the computer for missing, outdated or incorrectly working drivers and offers to download and install them from official sources. current version... Custom installation of packages is supported.
Of additional opportunities application can be marked creation backup installed drivers, restore from backup and launch scheduled operations. Unlike DriverPack Solution, this program is shareware, for full work with it you need to activate the full version.
Free and simple tool for installing drivers in Windows. Extremely simple and straightforward. After launching DriverHub, click the "Find Now" button, after which the program will analyze the system and present a list of drivers that need to be installed / updated. Supports viewing driver information, working in expert mode, backing up and restoring drivers, viewing download history, etc. The program works with devices from most companies, including Asus, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung and Toshiba.
Outcome
With the absence wifi drivers on laptops it is relatively rare to encounter. As a rule, Windows 8.1 and 10 already contains all the necessary drivers for wireless adapters, the same applies to Windows 7. The absence of a compatible Wi-Fi driver in the system is more likely an exception, however, it may turn out that installing drivers in You will need Windows separately. Be that as it may, now you know exactly how it is done.
Wi-Fi is the ability to transfer data over the air without wires, or rather, over radio channels. With the advent of this technology, comfort and mobility, connection speed and endless possibilities of all-round use of all electronic devices: from smartphones and tablets to web cameras and Smart TVs came to our homes and apartments, offices and public institutions.
On our resource you will find a huge amount of information related to wi-fi technologies... Each article has a detailed overview with screenshots, characteristics, scope, instructions, our tips and other useful information.
Everything related to wireless equipment and its classification can be found in the section. We will tell you what it is and why you need to understand network equipment (you consider yourself an advanced user, don't you?). You will learn a lot about the prospects for the operation of wireless routers, repeaters, access points, adapters, antennas, Wi-Fi bulbs, sockets, etc. We assure you that this information will definitely come in handy.
We also have a unique selection of the most versatile and popular programs for. We have collected in it best apps such a plan according to experts, users of Internet forums and social networks... Each utility has a clear description, detailed specifications and download links.
- - an innovative program for distributing the Internet with large functionality;
- - a small but functional utility for distributing the Internet using Wi-Fi on any device (where there is a WiFi adapter).
- If you are interested in WiFi hacking software, be sure to take a look here:. We will delight you with portable applications for Android devices and modern Windows programs for qualitative analysis and super-fast scanning of networks:
- Is a quality analyzer Wi-Fi networks for Android devices with advanced capabilities (port scanners, signal frequency detection, etc.).
- Is free software that establishes a connection to a closed network (for example, provided that you have forgotten the password for it).