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gedc

355 posts

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#214285 5-May-2017 07:54
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Wifes HP laptop. About 4 years old.  Been running fine apart from a new battery several months ago.

 

Switched on several days ago and wifi light on keyboard was orange. No connection. Dug around settings and airplane mode was active. Couldn't disable it as it said " Windows could not find Wireless Devices on this PC ".

 

Rebooted and it resolved - wifi light on keyboard went white and all appeared well until I realised it was running slow and after more digging HDD utilisation was 100%

 

Played around with it, tried some things and killed off superfetch using the cmd line and all good.  Put it aside for a weekend review.

 

She's been using it fine (wirelessly) and again this morning, turned it on..Same issues. Airplane mode active. No wireless devices found on laptop.  Rebooted and it works fine again.

 

I've also ran System File Scan and that returns all good.

 

So, does this sound like a failing wireless device in the laptop which gives me an excuse to buy a new one :)  or software related.  The HDD was also backup at 100% after reboot again, which fixed the wireless but seemed to create the HDD issue again.

 

Thanks for any advice as to what to try next. 

 


Ged


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sbiddle
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  #1776034 5-May-2017 08:35
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Do you have the latest wireless drivers installed?

 

What OS?




gedc

355 posts

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  #1776063 5-May-2017 09:46
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Hi. Thanks for the reply. Win 8.1  Haven't changed or updated any wireless drivers on it for a while but why would the driver 'randomly' be causing an issue if I haven't changed any hardware or software in the house setup etc ? 

 

 

 

 


yitz
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  #1776170 5-May-2017 11:58
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It will be some sort of power management issue if it is 'fixed' with a reboot as shut down and sleep since Windows 8 just put the computer into various suspend states. You will find disabling and re-enabling the network adapter in Device Manager achieves the same as restarting/rebooting.

 

 

I would review the power settings (battery, plugged in) used on the laptop and reset any custom power plans back to HP defaults.



sbiddle
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  #1776412 5-May-2017 16:10
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What model laptop is it? I found airplane mode to be incredibly buggy in 8.1 after some MS updates on my Probook. Wireless driver updates fixed things.

 

 


Rickles
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  #1777155 7-May-2017 14:21
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Might need new CMOS battery?  That item going flat overnight does weird things to PC's undecided

 

 

 

Easy to test by leaving power connected one night, and turning off the next.

 

 


gedc

355 posts

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  #1782718 15-May-2017 18:34
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Thanks for all the replies. It's been working fine since !  Odd. I'll keep an eye on it and upcoming sales for a replacement


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