W10 - lost wi-fi

J_B

Friends 'upgraded' their W7 Sony Vaio laptop to W10 last Wednesday.
All worked fine till Monday (?) when it wouldn't connect to wi-fi

In Settings/network & internet, the first option on the list is 'airplane mode' whereas on my two W10 PC's it says wi-fi.

Device manager reports the presence of an Qualcomm Atheros Adapter which is 'working correctly.
They have removed it, rebooted and still no wi-fi, although it reinstalls fine when connected to LAN

Confused.com ....................

NiftyDigits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYHgBZaf-xo

J_B

Thanks Nifty, but sadly, that nor the next video were any help at all.

There is no fn key for the wi-fi
The 'wireless' light on the front of the laptop remains lit at all times, but it doesn't appear in settings/network&internet (the top item on the list is 'Airplane mode')
Turning Airplane on/off makes no difference.
The laptop connects fine with the LAN cable
Other devices connect to the wi-fi just fine.
I looked for a restore point, but there wasn't one.

I rolled it back to W7 and it worked fine.

I won't get the opportunity to visit them again for 3 weeks, so will maybe try to re-install then .... or not bother!!!

I_have_spoken

Sony have walked-away from supporting customers hoping to get Windows 10 on Vaios.

J_B

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Sony have walked-away from supporting customers hoping to get Windows 10 on Vaios.

Hmm, it worked for three days then .... didn't!

Most bizarre!

Jivesinger

On my old laptop which I've put Windows 10 on, it was losing WiFi on resuming from Hibernate/Sleep.

Since a Windows 10/8.x "Shutdown" is actually a form of hibernate (unless you disable Fast Startup), this meant it worked fine one day but then failed to connect to WiFi when switched on the next day.

The cure for the problem on my laptop is to go into Device Manager, go into Power Management for the WiFi device and switch off the option to 'allow windows to turn off this device to save power' (can't remember exact wording).

However I think the symptoms may have been different to what you experienced.

Perhaps worth a try though? Especially as the whole 'works one day, fails the next' behaviour is a bit reminiscent of what I had.

GunJack

J_B wrote: »

Hmm, it worked for three days then .... didn't!

Most bizarre!

not really, it's been quite common on a lot of machines, especially "older" ones, and on Sony machines where they have specifically stated no W10 support.... W7 better anyway

Terry98

I just had a similar problem with a very old Sony Vaio running Win7 which I could not solve https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5498830

In the end I got a WiFi USB Mini Adaptor from ebay for a couple of quid and it's been great. I always had the impression that these adaptors were very hit and miss but I have had it a few days now and it has been rock solid.

J_B

Jivesinger wrote: »

The cure for the problem on my laptop is to go into Device Manager, go into Power Management for the WiFi device and switch off the option to 'allow windows to turn off this device to save power' (can't remember exact wording).

Nope, I tried that!

Fightsback

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Sony have walked-away from supporting customers hoping to get Windows 10 on Vaios.

I've two old Sony VAIOs, a VGN-SR26 and a VGN-NW11SS both of which run W10 fine with no issues, the Wifi cards are intel 5100 AGNs in both. I suspect there are still on going issues with drivers for certain cards.

J_B

Fightsback wrote: »

the Wifi cards are intel 5100 AGNs in both. I suspect there are still on going issues with drivers for certain cards.

It's not Intel, it's Atheros.