Lost WIFI driver

Alanb

Been using my Toshiba laptop for the past 4 years. All of a sudden when I start up today it says I've not got a driver installed to conect to the internet. 'USB2.0 WLAN driver required'. I've tried restoring back past the last update and restarted a couple of times. I've tried to find a driver on the internet but am baffled. can anyone help me. I'm using my 3 dongle at the minute but it's a limited use dongle.

Mark_In_Hampshire

I'm guessing it's XP as it's 4 years old, so your menu options might differ slightly:

Right click on My Computer, then choose "Device Manager" then expand the tree at "Network Adapters". Right click on the WLAN card (will probably have a yellow ! next to it), choose Properties, Driver tab, Update Driver button.

Make sure you're online with your dongle, then allow the machine to search for an updated driver via Windows Update also.

Does it find one?

If not, try putting your make and model of laptop into the Toshiba website under "Support" then "Drivers" (usually on most sites, might take a little hunting) and see if you get the option to download one from there. (Don't just download a random apparently suitable one from the results of a Google search...!)

Come back and tell us how you get on.

Alanb

Thanks very much, I tried that before and lost pateince!!! Retried it again and it's worked. Is there anything I should do to stop it happening again?

Mark_In_Hampshire

Why it "lost" the driver is a mystery.

It's possible that it became corrupted. It's also possible that a Windows update downloaded a newer version which didn't work (the trick of last known good configuration e.g. revert back rarely works very well, frankly) and it's possible that the installation of the dongle driver or other software caused some conflict or issue.

Least likely, but if it happens repeatedly, it's just possible you're witnessing the early stages of a hardware failure.

You'll probably never know, but should it happen again think back to what you did last before you rebooted. If you have anti-virus type software leave a full scan running tonight just to check it out. (If not, have a look for something called Microsoft Security Essentials online - that's free I think)

Alanb

Cheers Mark,
I tend to wonder on the 'early stages of hardware failure' it has been playing up quite a bit recently.
Thanks very much for your help - you're a lifesaver

Cheers