Reinstalling your WiFi Driver

A common troubleshooting step for when your Wi-Fi card might be having issues is to reinstall the driver associated with it.

A driver tells components how to operate and function to perform specific tasks, and sometimes through normal usage, a driver can be corrupted. When this occurs, removing the existing driver and installing a new one can resolve most issues with a wireless device.

Uninstalling your Network Adapter Driver

Before you follow these steps, please download your wireless adapter drivers for your motherboard by following this guide here.

You can uninstall the driver for your wireless network adapter in Device Manager. To access Device Manager, first, you will need to press the Windows logo key and X at the same time on your keyboard. Then select "Device Manager" from the menu that has come up. You'll be prompted for permission. Click "Yes" to open Device Manager.

The Device Manager window will now pop up. First, find and click the drop-down arrow for "Network Adapters." Then look for your wireless adapter. Common names for a wireless adapter will sometimes be Intel Wi-Fi, Intel Wireless, and Realtek Wireless. Sometimes an MHz or GHz will be listed in the name as well.

Once located, right-click on the name of your wireless network adapter and select "Uninstall device" to uninstall the driver for your wireless network adapter.

A new window will pop up. Check the box next to "Delete the driver software for this device" and click Uninstall.

Reinstalling your Network Adapter Driver

This is the easy part; you need to restart your PC. When Windows reinitializes at startup, it will automatically find a generic driver to reinstall to your PC. You will need to reconnect to your internet again and input any network passwords as this removal of the previous driver has forgotten them.

Windows will automatically download the correct non-generic driver once a network connection has been established. This will happen discretely and not interrupt your usage of the system. It's recommended to open Device Manager again to verify that Windows has reinstalled your wireless adapter.

Note: If this has not occurred, please use the driver we had you download prior to these steps to get your wireless adapter up to date.

If you run into any issues with this process or need assistance, please reach out to our customer service team. We'd be glad to help!