[dagakron]

I've got an Acer desktop PC.  I was online this morning just fine, but I left the PC on and it went to sleep.  Upon waking up the PC after a few hours, there were no network connections available.  There should be at least 2 - ours and another one in range.

Rebooting the PC did not help.

System restore to a restore point made this morning (around 10AM) did not help.

I've spent 3 hours trying various things I've seen online (reset wifi via a powershell shortcut, the ipconfig series of commands, netsh int ip reset, power cycling the router and the cable modem, etc.).

 

The wireless adapter in question is Intel Technology Access TAP Driver (NDIS 6.30).

Windows 10 updated 12/27/17.

 

I did not knowingly install anything since the time when the wireless was working and other devices in the house have no problem connecting to wifi.

 

The wireless adapter on the network device status screen says that Ipv4/Ipv6 is disconnected.

 

If anyone has any suggestions (short of using a sledge hammer to work out my frustrations), I'm willing to try just about anything.

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Appears the driver is installed and used by VPNs. 

https://www.thewindo...ters-vpn-driver

 

Do you have any VPN software installed?  (might not call itself VPN but instead say it will make you invisible on the Internet or allow you to download videos that aren't supposed to be available in your region). I would uninstall any VPN software and also uninstall TAP-Windows x.x.x if you still see it after the uninstall. Then reboot.

[RKinner]

Appears the driver is installed and used by VPNs. 

https://www.thewindo...ters-vpn-driver

 

Do you have any VPN software installed?  (might not call itself VPN but instead say it will make you invisible on the Internet or allow you to download videos that aren't supposed to be available in your region). I would uninstall any VPN software and also uninstall TAP-Windows x.x.x if you still see it after the uninstall. Then reboot.

[dagakron]

Best Answer

My initial information was in error - it is the Qualcomm Atheros wireless network adapter that this PC uses.  If I remember correctly, it wasn't even showing up in the list of network properties yesterday.  (Never had VPN or any proxy servers on this PC that I am aware of.)

 

Turns out one of the simplest approaches that I read about actually worked - one I initially discounted as being too simple.  I turned off the PC and unplugged it for the night.  I turned it back on this morning (after plugging it in, of course) and I am now online.  I'm actually posting this from the previously wifi-disabled PC.

 

It seems this is a fairly common issue with Acer laptops and desktops, although I can't remember experiencing it before yesterday.

[RKinner]

Search for

 

device manager

 

hit Enter

 

View, Show Hidden Devices

 

Now look under Network Adapters (hit the arrow in front if there is nothing under)

 

Do you see the Tap Driver?

 

Can you run minitoolbox?

 

Please download MiniToolBox, save it to your desktop and run it.

Checkmark the following checkboxes:

• Report IE Proxy Settings
  
• Report FF Proxy Settings
  
• List content of Hosts
• List IP configuration
• List Winsock Entries
• List last 10 Event Viewer Errors
• List Installed Programs
• List Devices
• List Users, Partitions and Memory size.
• List Minidump Files

Click Go and post the result (Result.txt). A copy of Result.txt will be saved in the same directory the tool is run.

 

Please copy and paste into a reply.

 

That will give us a baseline in case the problem returns.