A friend asked me to look at her laptop but I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with it. It's an Acer ES1-531 and is having loads of issues with maintaining a network connection. Quite often, there won't even be an option to search for wireless networks. There's no single thing that always gets it up and running though. Sometimes disabling and re-enabling the network adapter in hardware settings works, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to uninstall it completely and reinstall it. Sometimes that doesn't even work though and other times all it needs is a reboot. I've updated to the latest drivers and it didn't make a difference. The router is working fine as there are no issues with other devices.
Any suggestions as to what the issue could be? Thanks in advance.
Hi, I would look at restoring the tcp/ip stack and resetting winsock, corruption there is the most common software problem for internet connectivity.
We can use the netsh cmd, for this, in win 10 MS have added another layer of security so the old netsh int ip reset cmd does not fully rebuild the tcpip parameters in services, this is required for this to work. After some work I have come up with a workaround.
All you really need to do is copy and paste.
First:-
Copy all below (highlighted in red to make it easier for you, does not need to be copied in red)
Now open Notepad and paste this text into it. Next in notepad go to the main menu and under"File" select "save as" call it Resetip.txt and save it to c: drive, the file is now located at c:\resetip.txt
Next press the win + x keys together, from the menu select, command prompt (admin) a command prompt will open.
At the prompt, please copy and paste:-
regini c:\resetip.txt (press enter).
This will reset the registry permissions on the above registry key.
NOTE:- this permission change will revert to defaults after a restart, so it is perfectly safe.
Now still at the cmd prompt we copy paste:-
netsh int ip reset (press enter)
The tcp/ip stack is rebuilt.
Next:- copy paste:-
netsh winsock reset (press enter)
This will reset winsock
You will be asked to restart your computer, please use restart not shutdown (important).
Try your internet for awhile let us know how you get on.
After I run the txt file, is the command prompt meant to say anything? At first it wouldn't work and it gave an error that said it failed to load and gave the code 161. I looked this up and saw that it's caused by a bad pathname. I tried putting a backslash right at the beginning of the text file and ran it again, and it didn't say anything this time so I wasn't sure whether it had actually done anything. I figured if it hadn't done anything, it probably would have gave an error, so I proceeded with the next steps. After a reboot it connected to the network without an issue, so I'll see how it goes. Thanks very much for your help.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have worked. I just opened it up and it said no network connections are available and the usual wifi button wasn't there, so I couldn't even search for networks. I turned it off for a couple of minutes though and when I booted it back up, it connected straight away.
Hi, well done, I miss copied that registry text file from my notes, it does require the \ at the beginning, I have added it. The regini cmd runs silently no indication is given, other then the cursor returns to default(means it has worked).
Hi
It did succeed in getting connected at the time, but the issue had returned within a couple of hours (you must have not seen my followup post). Turning it off for a few minutes got it connected, but that doesn't work half the time. Since the issue began, sometimes turning it off helps get it connected, other times I've had to mess about with the drivers before it starts working again. It's been a very inconsistent issue.
Hi, could be the adapter is failing, unfortunately Acer probably have the worst record for reliability, of any known manufacturer.
Worth a try run xirrus, look for conflicting channels, maybe changing to another to see if it helps, intermittent problems are difficult to diagnose, what AV and firewall are installed?
If it's a hardware issue, is a network adapter easy to replace? I've never wanted a laptop myself so I don't know much about them.
It just has AVG Free installed at the moment. I'll try that programme and see if it provides any helpful information.
At the moment, I'm struggling to get it connected again. I checked the device manager and the network adapter has the error “This device cannot start. (Code 10). This device does not exist” which I thought does seem like a hardware problem.
Use windows defender (free and built into win 10 from ms) and use the windows firewall, you will have better protection and this should solve your problem.
Thanks. I tried that but it also doesn't seem have worked unfortunately. I also noticed in the power settings that allowing windows to shut off the network adapter to save power was enabled, so I disabled that too, but I just went to try it out and the issue has reappeared. I checked the device manager and it has a different error to before. This time in the device status for the network adapter it says "Windows has stopped this device because it reported a problem (Code 43)." That's an error that I'd seen on the previously, before I started the thread. I turned the machine off for a couple of minutes and then it connected fine when I started it back up.
Is there anything else you think I could try? I guess can't find out whether the adapter is faulty without buying a new one and testing it. But taking it to a shop to have them test it to see if they find a hardware fault will probably cost a fortune too.
I tried an ethernet cable and it worked straight away. The network adapter wasn't even showing in the device manager at the time, but I tried the ethernet cable a couple of times and it had no issues connecting at all.
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