Unable to update Intel wireless drivers - no wireless internet connection

[Mel222]

Hello,

I went to update my Intel Centrino Advanced-n 6200 AGN driver via my Device Manager and while it found the right update and downloaded it, I got an error message (Code 31) saying it was not able to be installed. And then I lost my wireless internet connection. The driver shows the updated version number but has a yellow triangle next to it. Under properties, the "roll back driver" button is grayed out.

I am unable to do system restore (which is an ongoing issue that has yet to be resolved), so I can't undo anything. I ran Windows Troubleshooter for hardware and devices and nothing related was found.

I contacted Intel via their community but have not received a reply and I really would like to get my internet up and running (currently using someone else's computer) and was hoping someone here may know how to resolve this.

One other thing I think I should add is a few days ago prior to this new issue, I received two BSOD's within an hour of each other and per the deciphered minidump report the culprit was Intel Wireless WiFi Link Adapter/Driver (NETw5s32.sys). First BSOD was a "Bad Pool" and the 2nd one was "Driver Corrupted Expool". I then went to my Device Manager to find that driver and see if it needed an update, but there is nothing by that name found in the list.

Computer Specs: Lenovo T410 & Windows7 Professional 32-bit.

If anyone can help me out with this I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,
Mel

[RealBlackStuff]

UNinstall the wifi driver(s) completely, then DISable the wifi.
Switch off and connect via ethernet cable to your router.
Reboot.
Go into Device Manager to the wifi card and ENable it.
It should now search (select online) for new drivers.

As for No Restore:
Go to Control Panel/System/System Protection and check if Protection is Off.
If so, Restore has been disabled.
Enable it again at your own risk (I wouldn't).

[Mel222]

Hi RealBlackStuff, Thanks for your reply.

Regarding uninstalling the wireless drivers...as far as I know there is just one? The Intel Centrino Advanced-n 6200 AGN. There is only one other Intel product in the Device Manager list under Network adapters and that one is the Intel Gigabit Network one. I am not savvy on what is what.

The other thing is my laptop is not connected directly to the router...it resides in another room in the house and my laptop connects wirelessly to it...so no ethernet cable.

Just curious, can you explain why you don't recommend enabling system restore?

[RealBlackStuff]

Go into Device Manager/Network adapters, rightclick on the wifi card (NOT the Gigabit...) and select UNinstall, then rightclick and DISable it.
Switch off.

Then pick up your laptop, walk to the router-room, connect via ethernet cable to your router.
Reboot.
Go into Device Manager/Network adapters, rightclick on the wifi card and select ENable.
It should now search (select online) for new drivers.

Every time Windows update runs, or a new program(version) is installed, a Restore point is made.
Waste of time and HD/SSD space, as I have NEVER (in at least 20 years) needed to Restore anything.
That's why I switch it off.

[precip9]

Every time Windows update runs, or a new program(version) is installed, a Restore point is made.
Waste of time and HD/SSD space, as I have NEVER (in at least 20 years) needed to Restore anything.
That's why I switch it off.

I think that's a minority opinion. A personal tale: I installed a PCI ESATA card on a W500. Thereafter, every fourth or fifth attempt, the machine would bluescreen on boot--even without the ESATA card in the slot. The explanation was finally discovered. The Windows driver format contains boilerplate code that chains the drivers on bootup. The driver was badly written. The erratic nature of the failure prevented immediate discovery.

Ironically, I did not have a restore point for this driver. By the time I figured it out, the restore point had dropped off the sliding window of retained restore points. I manually deleted the driver, and since then, three years ago, everything has been fine.

The moral lesson remains.

[jdrou]

Certainly you need some ability to recover from problems like that but there are better options than Windows SRP if you know what you're doing. If I run into something like that I can usually undo it manually and if not I'll just reload my most recent partition image (which can be stored offline and doesn't "expire" like SRPs).

[precip9]

Do both:
restore points
&
offline system image

You can never have too many ways to recover from a corrupted system.

[Mel222]

Thank you RealBlackStuff for "dumbing the steps down" for me. I was not thinking clearly when I read your post then...obviously.

I will follow the steps and report back.

[Mel222]

Ok, I followed your steps RealBlackStuff, and it did not work...however, I obviously did something wrong even though I thought I followed to a tee. Here is what happened:

When I right clicked on the wifi card and selected "uninstall" the pop-up window that came up had a box to check that said something about 'delete driver software files'. I did not check that as you did not specify to do that and I thought I needed to keep those files so I could do the next step of disabling the wifi card. However, when I hit "ok" in that pop-up window to uninstall, it disappeared from the list and therefore I cannot right click it again to choose "disable". Was I supposed to NOT hit ok to uninstall before right clicking again to disable? It was confusing to me what to do when that uninstall window came up before doing the disable step.

From there I went ahead and just followed the rest of your instructions...

First I went to switch the wireless OFF, but the window that comes up didn't have anything in there but for the Bluetooth so I just continued on with the steps.

I then shut down the computer and took it down to the router and plugged it in with ethernet cable and rebooted. The machine automatically started checking for drivers before I did anything and I got an error message that said it failed to install.

Since the wifi card is no longer in the Device Manager list I cannot enable it.

I went back to the Device Manager > Network Adapters and now what is showing instead of the Intel Centrino is "Network Controller" and it has a yellow triangle with exclamation point next to it. The properties status for Network Controller shows: "Reinstall the drivers for this device (Code 18)" so I clicked the "Reinstall" button and the message told me that the best driver was already installed and is up to date.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it all but my Windows Automatic Updates is turned off. I just choose what updates I want when they show up (it is configured to show me the updates but won't install them automatically). However, when I went to try to turn it back on, I was unable to do so (I am signed on as ADMIN). I believe the previous owner of the laptop turned that off via Group Policy and I have no idea how to fix that...tried to google it and wasn't able to figure it out, but I am not sure if that is what is keeping me from updating this driver appropriately or not.

I am not sure what to do from here.

[precip9]

There are so many suspicious things about the behavior of this machine, you really should do a clean install. If it has a legitimate license, ask around for an install image.

So far, the following behavioral oddities have been described:
1. System restore cannot be enabled.
2. Automatic updates cannot be enabled -- meaning that for some period(s) of time, the machine has been particularly vulnerable to viruses.
3. The wireless problem, whatever its.

You should know that this is not par for a modern Windows system. That kind of stuff used to happen with Windows 98, rarely with Vista, almost never with W7, and only with W8/8.1 in the context of bugs people are discussing on the web.

Something is badly broken. It can actually be very difficult to determine whether it's software or hardware. The best way to rule out a rare one-time OS corruption, and viruses, is to do a clean install.

[Mel222]

Hi Precip9, I appreciate your concern and your advice, however, I think it is worth noting that the previous owner of this laptop is an IT professional (owns an IT company) and the machine was used by that the company, therefore the settings were configured for professional and company use purposes. He got it ready for "personal use" for me but I don't think he reconfigured everything (namely the Windows updates settings and the System Restore settings).

Also, I can do and have done Windows updates, but it shows as having been disabled by the system admin (not me...the previous owner I presume). I assume he set it so Windows will find the updates and users can do the updates but they just won't happen automatically, but I don't know how to change that. I don't mind remembering to go in and look to see what updates are needed, but as I mentioned in my previous post I am not sure if having it disabled is causing the failure of the updated driver.

I also suspect that he turned the system restore off as he knows his stuff and could fix things himself or such. I followed BlackRealStuff's steps to see if the protection was turned on or off and it's on for Windows7 but off for SYSTEM_DRV. If I click on the "configure" button it shows it is turned off. I can choose to turn it on again from there but trying to decide if I want to do that based on what RBS said about not recommending to turn it on.

[cannongeorge]

Having very similar issues, with a Lenovo W510. Only difference it uses the 6250 driver. I am running WIN 7 64 bit professional. Trouble only started within past two months.
Disabled and removed the Wimax 6250 driver, as well as the Centrino Advanced N6250 AGN#2 driver, reinstalled both; for a short while I can use machine but never in wireless mode and even if under a hardwire connection it won't last long. The system "tray" shows a peculiar blinking vertical line, and have to force a restart from Ctl-Alt-Del to regain any operability. I rolled up and down on drivers but no joy. I even advanced the Wimax driver 6250 one generation past what is available on Windows, (using the LENOVO site,) but no go.

PLEASE MARK THIS IS VERY SERIOUS! MY EXPENSIVE LAPTOP IS NOW WORTHLESS!

I, like many other users, cannot afford to be strung to a "BOAT ANCHOR" in executing our work.

I admit I'm not a Windows Debug guy. So, open to any and all suggestions; but believe me this is very serious and I'm not the only one experiencing this!

[RealBlackStuff]

How about replacing the possibly defective wifi-card?

[precip9]

Cannongeorge, try this:

Go to this page, https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... Windows-7-

download WiMAX_7.5_s64.exe ,
and install it over whatever you have.

Mel222, if you haven't already, go to this page,
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... Windows-7-

download Wireless_17.1.0_Ds32.exe
and install over whatever you have.

If that does not work, Intel offers a later driver version for Windows 8.1 that I have running on all my machines, both W7 and W8.1. And my machines are older than yours. These can be found here:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... ndows-8-1-

Intel software packages, with a lot of engineering in them, check for misconfiguration as part of the install. If none of the above work, the next step would be to clean-install, thereby ruling out software as the cause.

[RealBlackStuff]

Before you reinstall, try to boot from a LifeCD/LifeDVD Linux.
That won't install anything, it just runs from your CD/DVD drive.
If wifi is still not accessible, you'll need another wifi card.

[Mel222]

Thanks for the link to the download Precip9. I actually was able to get my wireless back yesterday. I simply uninstalled the PROset Wireless software and then uninstalled the Network Controller and lo' and behold the Intel Centrino Advanced-n 6200 came back and is working fine. It is the older version however, and I tried to upgrade it via Device Manager and Windows thinks it is the best and latest version update. So I am going to leave well enough alone for now.

Thank you Precip9 and RealBlackStuff for your help and for your patience!

[cannongeorge]

Precip9 thanks for the tips. After my latest incarnation I ended up with the Intel Centrino N6250 AGN#2 driver version V.15.11.0.8, dated 11/17/2014. The link you provided took me to a page which offered me a new driver; after the installation I was right back where I started, V.15.11.0.8, which is unstable. I went to the Lenovo driver support site; they show two drivers; V7.5.0.000 (11/2012) and V.17.13.11 (4/2015). I had already tried the V.17.13.11, it too was unstable, I went ahead and installed the V.7.5.000; but in order to get a clean install (The first attempt failed) I first had to remove the driver using the Windows Device Manager tool.
So, at this point I am rolled back to driver V.7.5.1007.26, dated 7/3/2012. I hope this works! I will run for a few days and report back to this forum.

[cannongeorge]

Update, my WIN 7 W510 machine (with the rolled back Centrino AGN 6250 driver) is now working with apparently no more WiFi issues. But the weird (Power Manger Related?) issue with the machine locking up and two batteries showing up in the task tray continue, never had this before but I will post as a separate topic.