Wireless no longer works after having recieved new HDD

[Dee Rhymz]

I've been struggling for a week now trying to get my wireless internet working on my "repaired" Acer computer. But till this date, I still haven't made any progress. At all. I feel my sanity slipping away from me.

My computer is able to find all the previous connections I'm familiar with, but I'm just not able to connect. I even dare to say the connections are pretty strong, so I doubt it it's the antenna(s).
But really, I wouldn't know.

I've tried pretty much every "solution" I could find on the internet, while still waiting for the Acer customer service to respond and for someone to say anything useful at the Acer forums, but it's all taking a very long time.
I recon a specific problem needs a specific solution, which is why nothing worked, so I'm hoping I'll find a clever and patient person out here who would like to help me with this mess.

Computer
It concerns an Acer Aspire X3475, running Windows 8.

Repair (replaced HDD) Details
Approximately 2 weeks ago I had to send my computer away to the Acer repair team because of a defective HDD. On oktober 15th I was in possession of my computer again, with the HDD replaced; and since day one I haven't been able to connect through WiFi.
I have two laptops sitting here, and they manage to connect just fine, so I am sure to say I find this very confusing and upsetting.
Before my computer was taken away, everything worked just fine. Nothing changed about the router/connection/key during that time, so I'm having trouble determining the cause of the issue.

Today I was bored enough to see if ethernet worked, and it does, but it's in no way handy for me to use this option. I need WiFi. Please, help me.

For people who need it, a short while ago I made a screenshot of the IP configurations (ipconfig/all) through the command prompt: http://i43.tinypic.com/inv3ph.jpg

 

[Dee Rhymz]

Well. Not all at once.

 

[learninmypc]

A stab in the dark, but is there a switch you need to turn on?
My Vista has a switch I've unknowingly turned off occasionally, kinda frustrating,too.

 

[Dee Rhymz]

I recon your Vista is a laptop. My Acer isn't a laptop, it's a regular desktop computer, so there is no switch for me to turn on or off.

I wish there was and that that was the solution.

 

[learninmypc]

Correct,it is a laptop. You might try clicking Start>Connect to & find your wi fi connection & go from there.
Even if my switch is on, I occasionally reboot & can't get online so I have to click start> connect too. Good luck.
"EDIT" You might try a forum search for this.

 

[tipstir]

Ask ACER to send you their recovery DVD or CDS for this system. Sounds like a driver or Chipset drivers that get installed when you install the OS. You might be missing some drivers or some unseen hidden driver that have which is required for the WiFi to function. I know on my HP system they have one so they had to send me recovery CDs to load the OS when their HDDs failed.

 

[TheHawk]

Hey Dee. Are you saying your desktop, when used in wireless mode, is able to actually "see" previous wireless networks you connected to when you look at the available wireless networks, or are you looking in the Properties of the wireless connections and see them listed?. If you are currently seeing them listed, that to me anyway, says that the wireless driver is installed. If you can see them, I assume you connect to your own secured network. I have very little experience with Win8, but if your other pc's connect wirelessly to your network and can get on the Net, I would delete your network from the Properties of this desktop,then uninstall the wireless adapter in Device Manager, then reboot. After Win8 finds your "new" hardware, see if you see it in available wireless networks ( assuming your router is set to broadcast it's SSID), and try to connect.

 

[tipstir]

He replaced the two HDDs in the system. One has suppose to have the image recovery with the chipset/drivers whatever ACER using. My 3 ACER desktops and 1 laptop and netbook I removed the recovery image. Drivers fro ACER WiFi are easy to find. But you need to know what you have in that system.

 

[Dee Rhymz]

No, Learninmypc, the problem isn't that I can't see/find connections, the problem is that I can't connect. It always says "Can't connect to this connection" (in Dutch) when I click on my personal wireless connection.
I already searched all over the internet for the solution, including this forum.

I don't remember the WiFi properties itself having listed connections in it, TheHawk, so I'll just say: I see everything exactly how any functioning pc or laptop would show it you. The only difference simply being it doesn't want to connect me to my own wireless connection. Which also shows up in the list just fine.
The driver I have installed is the same as the one in my Acer laptop, so I'm wondering if that's it. Besides, I do see the connections and Windows says the adapter is working fine.

I guess I'll mention the Acer customer service has replied in the meantime, but they didn't really give me options I haven't heard before. I either had to use Alt+F10, which did nothing last time I tried, or send the computer their way again.
But I'm having assignments this week and afterwards I'm leaving to another country for a short period, so I can't really afford it to try the recovery repair or send away my computer now.

I can keep your recovery CD tip in mind, Tipstir, but isn't there a chance I can fix the problem you described manually? Or get some kind of safe confirmation that that's the problem?

 

[tipstir]

Lets put it this way prior to replacing the 2 HDDs did the WiFi every work in this box. If it did then you know what missing. ACER has hidden partitions on their desktops, laptops and netbook.. I have 3 devices. I have removed such partitions when I had to replace the HDD in the desktops have all gone bad. Go into the BIOS and make sure on-board WiFi is enabled. If you still have issues then disable the on-board WiFi and replace with adapter WiFi Card or USB type.
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]

 

[Dee Rhymz]

Euh. Your first sentence confuses me.
Are you asking me if my connection used to work before I got the HDD replaced? Because the answer to that is "yes", I even mentioned that in my original post:

Before my computer was taken away, everything worked just fine. Nothing changed about the router/connection/key during that time, so I'm having trouble determining the cause of the issue.

I don't remember seeing any WiFi options whatsoever in the BIOS. And I looked there alot.

 

[TheHawk]

Wanna hear something strange Dee, I too am losing my sanity, because I'm currently working on the same problem. I am currently working on 2 desktops that a lady had some guy work on that were very slow. They were originally XP systems, an HP and a Sony All In One with a keyboard that folds up to the monitor. This banana puts an illegal copy of Win7 on both and just leaves them,no drivers and no Internet, saying Win7 was better, and disappears, and won't return her calls. I have a multi-user copy of XP Pro that I have used for years, so I formatted both systems and installed XP, loaded the drivers for each,and brought them both up to SP3 with the self executing SP3 file. The HP is about 12 feet away in an adjacent room and has a Realtek wireless PCI adapter, the Sony is by the Linksys wireless router and connects by Ethernet. I have reset and secured the router with WPA2. The HP sees her network and others in the neighborhood, but it will not connect at all, but my HP netbook running Ubuntu 13.04 connects and gets on the Net with no problem. I have done the following:
1) Checked and reseated the PCI card, checked Wireless Zero Configuration to make sure it's turned on
2) Reinstalled XP w/o another format, installed the drivers, SP3 update, and the PCI card drivers
3) Tried a USB wireless adapter after loading it's drivers and disabling the PCI card in Device Manager
4) Tried the same USB adapter in the Sony after disconnecting it's Ethernet cable, and it gets on the Net, so the USB adapter works.

The HP sees the wireless networks with both the PCI card and the USB adapter, but it will not connect.
The HP will connect via Ethernet and it will also connect wirelessly and get on the Net if I reset the router and leave it unsecured.
One guy at pc repair shop suggested I try WEP instead of WPA2, and I even thought to maybe try a router firmware upgrade, but I won't do that since the router works and the HP should work since it is newer than the Sony.
The lady then suggested I swap the pc's location and connect the HP via Ethernet and use the USB wireless adapter on the Sony. At this point, I will try the WEP encryption later today when I go back, and if it still doesn't work, I will swap the locations as she suggested,take out the PCI card and test it in the next desktop XP system I do over,and walk away not knowing what is causing this.

 

[TheHawk]

I came back to my problem machine, hooked it up and powered it on, and viola, wireless worked, with WPA2 enabled. It worked for a 10 minutes before it failed. Will have to investigate further next weekend.

 

[tipstir]

Euh. Your first sentence confuses me.
Are you asking me if my connection used to work before I got the HDD replaced? Because the answer to that is "yes", I even mentioned that in my original post:



I don't remember seeing any WiFi options whatsoever in the BIOS. And I looked there alot.

Acer Aspire X3475
This model on their site reads WiFi module on-board. But like you just said it was working. So the only thing changed right is the two HDD replacements. Didn't thing other than changed. Did you add anything else. Go back inside and check all the connections. Make sure the WiFi module is connected or is on the board. Like with HP buildin WiFi on the back of the unit.

Okay if you don't see WiFi in the BIOS listed then they have crippled BIOS. If the WiFi is not working then you need to download free: Smart Hardware Detection Library get this from sourceforge and see if it can find the WiFi on the system. If it can't then either WiFi is not function or just gone DUFF (bad) or something else didn't get loaded. How did you restore the OS after replacing the two HDDs?

 

[Dee Rhymz]

I came back to my problem machine, hooked it up and powered it on, and viola, wireless worked, with WPA2 enabled. It worked for a 10 minutes before it failed. Will have to investigate further next weekend.

Your story isn't soothing me, my good sir.

 

[Dee Rhymz]

Acer Aspire X3475
This model on their site reads WiFi module on-board. But like you just said it was working. So the only thing changed right is the two HDD replacements. Didn't thing other than changed. Did you add anything else. Go back inside and check all the connections. Make sure the WiFi module is connected or is on the board. Like with HP buildin WiFi on the back of the unit.

Okay if you don't see WiFi in the BIOS listed then they have crippled BIOS. If the WiFi is not working then you need to download free: Smart Hardware Detection Library get this from sourceforge and see if it can find the WiFi on the system. If it can't then either WiFi is not function or just gone DUFF (bad) or something else didn't get loaded. How did you restore the OS after replacing the two HDDs?

I didn't add anything.
Are you asking me to screw open my computer to check?

Before I go around downloading more stuff, does this piece of software also come up with a solution, or does it just tell you what you basically already know.
The same way every computer installs itself after you've bought it from the store. It configured itself automatically when I started it up. I didn't have much control over it.

 

[TheHawk]

Just trying to relate a similar problem I'm experiencing Dee, maybe it might shed a little light on what may be causing your issue. I'm sure it's much more frustrating for you since it's your system. I just thought of something I experienced about 7 years ago with my XP laptop that wouldn't connect at home wirelessly, even though it did at a library. The last thing I did was uninstall the wireless adapter, power off,unplug it and remove the battery. I left it for a few hours, put in the battery and plugged it in,fired it up. After Windows detected the "new" hardware, it connected to my home network, and the problem never came back. Never found out what exactly caused it. The desktop system I worked on yesterday was unplugged for a week, and it connected right away on power up, so I checked to see if I left the router set for WPA2. It was, so I browsed to a few sites and all looked fine till I lost the connection.

 

[tipstir]

This is a desktop not laptop. WiFi Module is either on the board or on the back. Connected by power wire and ant wire. Of course you could pull the jumper for the CMOS but I won't gone that route just yet to put the system back to factory defaults.

The OP would need to snap image of the system board and case.

Also you said all this was working prior. What cause the system HDD to fail or what happen prior to them failing. WiFi working HDDs working then what? If I was you I would contact ACER about the issue and have them either do a remote into your system and see what's going on or send the system to them so they can fix it.

 

[TheHawk]

Yes, that I understood from my first reply, just trying to relate similar experiences to see if there might be a common thread to a similar problem with different types of systems.

 

[Dee Rhymz]

No idea what the deal was with the hard drive. I recon it was just a failure to begin with.

Acer replied a while ago and are happy to help me once again, but that means I'll be without a computer and without work even longer. I had just hoped to find a solution that didn't involve anything drastic.

I'll try removing the adaptor software just for the Hell of it, it can't become any worse than this.
And since auto-repair also doesn't work on this computer for some reason, I'll probably have to send it back to Acer either way.

 

[Dee Rhymz]

I DID IT, I AM A GENIUS/I did the last thing in the list I haven't tried yet.

I'll bother to explain what I did:
I indeed removed my wireless driver, then looked for the same driver on the internet, and reinstalled it. Internet didn't actually work the first time I did this, but I refreshed my router twice and now I'm typing this message while connected to my wireless connection.

I guess TheHawk came closest to giving me the solution. Thank you, guy.

 

[Dee Rhymz]

Lewl, never mind what I said, now my computer won't shut down. It keeps restarting itself.
If it's not one problem, it's the other. Good times.

 

[learninmypc]

If its still restarting/rebooting, perhaps it could be installing other updates needing it to reboot. Just a thought.

 

[Cobalt006]

If its not shutting down now,It is a good possiblity you have the wrong driver. If you can try uninstalling the driver you installed for your wifi. Then see if it will shutdown. If the laptop is still under warranty. Send it back and have them fix your wifi. Seeings they replaced your hard drive and the Wifi was not working after.