It's no secret that most of the problems that are related to Wi-Fi in Windows arise from drivers. Either the driver for Wi-Fi is not installed at all, or the driver is of some kind of "curve" and nothing works. Finding the right driver is not an easy task. Especially for users who have never experienced this. I have already written a lot of instructions on this topic, links to which will be left in the process of writing this article.
In the case of laptops, the most correct decision is to download a driver from the manufacturer's website specifically for your model and installed operating system. I already talked about this in the article which driver is needed for Wi-Fi to work on a laptop. But it is not always possible to download the required driver from the manufacturer's website. Mainly for two reasons:
- The site has several drivers for Wi-Fi (Wireless LAN) and it is not clear which one to download and install. This is because manufacturers can install different Wi-Fi modules in the same laptop. Different manufacturers. Therefore, the site has several drivers. If you look closely, then under each it will be written for which manufacturer it is intended (Intel, Atheros, Ralink, Broadcom). To determine the manufacturer, you can use the HWVendorDetection program, which I talked about in the article How to install drivers on a Wi-Fi adapter in Windows 7. But the problem is that this program very often simply does not show the Wireless LAN manufacturer.
- And the second reason is the lack of a driver for the version of Windows that is installed on our laptop.
In separate articles, I have shown how to find and install the wireless adapter driver specifically on ASUS, Acer and Lenovo laptops.
If we have a stationary computer, then the situation there is about the same. On a PC, either PCI (inside the system unit) or USB (like a flash drive) Wi-Fi receiver is most often installed. This adapter has a model and there is a manufacturer's website where we can download the required driver. Unless it is, of course, some kind of Chinese, unnamed Wi-Fi adapter. In that case, this article will come in handy.
But there is a universal solution with which you can find out the manufacturer, model and find a driver for any device. Including for a Wi-Fi adapter. The bottom line is that if the device is physically connected to your laptop or PC, then it should be displayed in the device manager. If we are talking about a network wireless adapter, then it can be displayed on the "Network adapters" tab (when the driver is installed and it works). Or, for example, an 802.11n USB Wireless LAN Card device is displayed, and we need to find out on which chipset this adapter is built (find out the manufacturer). Since Windows (especially Windows 10) very often automatically installs the standard, old driver. At a time when the manufacturer has already released a new driver.
Or it can be displayed as an unknown device (with a yellow exclamation mark), or "Network controller", "USB2.0 WLAN". Usually unknown devices are collected in the "Other devices" tab. For example:
Solution: look at the special code "Equipment ID" in the properties of this adapter (known or unknown) and already by this code, through a search, or on a special site (more on this later in the article) find out the manufacturer, model, or immediately find the required driver ...
Find out the "equipment ID" and copy the code
Everything is very simple. In the device manager, right-click on the required adapter (which is already installed in Windows, or displayed as an unknown device) and select "Properties".
Next we are interested in the "Details" tab. There in the drop-down menu you need to select "Equipment ID" and copy the first line in the list.
Using this code, we will search for all the necessary information about our device. Including the driver.
We determine the manufacturer, model and find the driver
You can simply copy the hardware ID and use the search engine.
Important! Some of the code will most likely have to be removed. So that only the VID and PID values remain. Here's my original "ID": USB VID_148F & PID_7601 & REV_0000, and here's the one I'm looking for: USB VID_148F & PID_7601.
Just insert the ID into Google or Yandex and look at the information found. Immediately in the search results, I can already see that my adapter is built on the MT7601U chip from Ralink. We know the manufacturer and can go back to downloading the driver from the official website (laptop / adapter). Or look for a driver for the Ralink MT7601U chipset (by model).
Or in the search go to sites that offer to download drivers for this device. Just be careful with these sites! If your goal is to find and download a driver, then it is best to do it on the DevID.info website.
We go to the sitedevid.info and insert the "equipment ID" code into the search bar. Do not forget to remove unnecessary items in the code. Leave only the VID and PID value. Otherwise, the search may not return any results.
A list of drivers that are suitable for this device will appear. Each driver will indicate which operating system it is suitable for, release date and driver version. As well as the manufacturer of the device.
Download the driver to your computer. Most likely it will be in the archive.
After that, you need to extract the folder with the driver from the archive and install it.
If the archive contains an .exe file, then run it and follow the installation instructions.
In the event that this method does not work, you need to install it through the device manager.
Right click on the device (for which we downloaded the driver) and select "Update Driver".
Then the item "Search for drivers on this computer" and specify the path to the folder with the driver.
And if everything went well, then a message should appear that the driver is installed or updated.
That's all! If anything - I'm in touch in the comments. Good luck!
