Wireless device problem

[Moraru Adrian]

Hello.

I got a brand new Acer Aspire E5-521-39BA.

It came with a Windows 8.1, which I tried to downgrade to Windows 7. After doing that, I noticed that my wireless wasn't working anymore. Now, even after I reinstalled Windows 8.1, I see the same error when I try to install the Wireless driver: "The Device may not be present or could have been ejected/unplugged from the system"

Can anyone help me with that?

Thank you!

 

[bazz2004]

To state the obvious you either need a suitable Windows 7 driver for the wireless card or to reinstall Windows 8.1 and customise the interface. There have been a number of similar problems posted after downgrading new computers to Windows 7. It is possible that there is no such driver because Windows 8 is a very different OS. A plug in wireless adaptor would work as a last resort but it would make a nonsense of the laptop. Have you tried Googling to see how others with new Acer laptops have got on if they have downgraded Windows 8.1? I doubt that Acer will be interested in providing support for your laptop. Good luck with the searches.

 

[Moraru Adrian]

I reinstalled Windows 8.1 already, so Win7 is out of the game for the moment.

I have to say that one the first 8.1, the wireless worked just fine, but the laptop was moving very slow so I decided to downgrade it to 7.

Anyway, now, on a 8.1, I still can't find the wireless card. And yes I tried googling, it seems like there have been a lot of problems of this kind, and most of them were cos of bad drivers. But I really don't know what other drivers to download (since I downloaded the official Acer drivers for my laptop) and I don't think that picking them randomly will help.

As a last resort I will send it back to the seller, since it's brand new, but I want to try and solve it though.

 

[bazz2004]

You are thinking on the right lines. Try and identify the model of wireless card that's been fitted in the laptop and look on the manufacturer's website for the required driver. There are sometimes 64 bit and 32 bit drivers so watch out for that. Windows 8.1 is a better OS and you will be able to set it up as you would prefer with third party software. This is either free or very inexpensive.

Is it possible that there is a hidden partition on the laptop to enable you to restore it to factory condition including the working drivers? You would hit certain keys at start up to do this.

 

[Moraru Adrian]

I have tried a couple of drivers already, I even downloaded one for the exact type of card (which seems to be Atheros WB335) and got the same error. The third parties won't even find it...since I can't even see it existing anywhere.

Since I've recently installed the Windows 8 from Windows 7, I had to do a disk clean in order to be able to do that, so no restore point in available atm.

It's getting closer and closer to warranty it seems Maybe it just fried, but it's damn soon for that.

 

[bazz2004]

Check in Device Manager under System Properties and see what's coming up about the wireless card. If it's not there it may have died and you'll need to make a warranty claim.

It's possible the recovery partition is still there but as you say installing Windows 7 may have completely wiped everything. Have you tried holding down the Alt key and tapping away at F10 on startup?

I've found a link that may be of interest.
http://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2631