Drivers update went wrong

[cesar211]

Hello guys.
I'm here seeking some help about something that happened to my pc yesterday. I had a lot of drivers out dated, so I used driver booster to update them. After updating all the drivers, I was unable to connect to internet (that yellow icon with a "!" appeared in front of the network icon). Due to previous problems I had, I can only access internet using LAN. Therefore, the first thing I've tried to do was a system restore. After hours of waiting, realized that it probably was stuck on an infinite loop so tried a startup repair. I left the computer on during the night and it kept doing his thing. Finally, gave up on those solutions and started to make some research about what could probably be the error with the network drivers. I ran the troubleshooter and something like "Local area connection 2 doesn't have a valid ip configuration" seemed to be the problem.
How can I solve this?
Appreciate all the help, cheers.

 

[bazz2004]

Find out the details of your wireless card in Device Manager and download the drivers for your version of Windows from their website.

When you get this sorted refrain from updating drivers. The only exception is graphics drivers if you are a gamer or generally if there is a problem with a device. Currently nVidia has problems with their drivers with Windows 10. I've updated the drivers for my GPU several times this year but they are still not right and there's plenty of others finding the same. If it isn't broken there's no point in fixing something and that applies to drivers.

 

[cesar211]

I have a problem with my wireless card. It all happened when I was doing some research about how to change mac address due to the control I had throught router's firewall. I've used a program that successfully did change the mac address but it kinda messed up my wireless card. In Device Manager, network adapters tab, my wireless card "802.11 n/g/b Wireless LAN USB Adapter have that yellow triangle icon, and it says that the device cannot start. That happened years ago, I had no clue how to fix it, so I started to use LAN since that.
My question and my doubt is why updating the drivers messed up something which is not allowing me to connect to internet using LAN.
You suggested to upload wireless driver, but as I said in the previous thread I updated all the drivers that were out dated with Driver booster.

 

[bazz2004]

You have forgotten how you got into this situation in the first place. Uninstall Driver Booster and avoid such programs/utilities even if they come with five star reviews. They are not necessary for managing Windows and are likely to cause you grief on a regular basis. Maybe you can roll back to the earlier WORKING driver in Device Manager. That would be the easiest way.

 

[cesar211]

But I have no idea how to fix this, Im just know a couple things about pcs, not an expert. I already uninstalled the program, what else should I do?

 

[cesar211]

Do you think a factory reset would fix this?

 

[bazz2004]

First of all don't panic because it's not that big a deal. Even if your wireless adapter never worked again you could buy a USB wireless dongle on eBay plug it in and run the installation CD to give you back a wireless internet connection..

You need to find your way around in Windows to be able to do anything and the different versions are not that different under the bonnet. I'm using Windows 10 so these directions are based on that. You need to be able to find the Control Panel.

Click on the Windows icon button in the Task Bar and look through the programs installed for Windows System. Left click and find Control Panel. Now look for System and Security, then System, then Device Manager. Open that and the list of your hardware is there. Find the entry for Wireless Adapter.

Right click it then look in the drop down menu for Properties. Click on Properties then on Driver. Hopefully there will be an entry there for Roll Back Driver which isn't greyed out. Work from there and see how you get on.

It's useful to explore Windows and get to know your way around without changing anything so it's never time wasted. It takes quite a while to know where everything is.

 

[bazz2004]

Hopefully you've solved this as you didn't post back. For a brand new computer a factory reset is a good solution but as things move very quickly in computing and we add stuff like extra software this is not great for a computer that has been in use for a while. You will lose software, require Windows updates and dare I even say it maybe some driver updates? Better to find another way. You can set backup points in Windows and roll back to an earlier congfiguration if something goes wrong.

As you don't know much about computers yet I'll mention a very useful and trustworthy program that helps to maintain a Windows PC. Yes, I know that I warned against Utilities but CCleaner, which is free to download, is very handy and has been recommended many times on the forum. I've used it for many years and it does make it very much quicker to tidy things up behind the scenes without worrying that all is going to go pear shaped. Security software can be downloaded as freeware and does an excellent job. Make sure though that you don't have more than one installed at a time or you will have much less protection than with just the one. They don't play well together.