I've always use this as a SOP with any system after learning the hard way. When exiting the Bios settings or any program or control system (even a non-windows device), if you didn't make any changes, don't use the save and exit or save changes option. Please don't take this for more than a constructive criticism, I'm only trying save you potential grief in the future. I also wanted to draw attention to one small detail I saw in your post above.
I've had the experience more than once where windows seems to lose it's brains and contact with installed devices and a few boots later, it suddenly wakes up. I would have been inclined to start with a simple reboot or two and see if the adapter suddenly appeared in the device manager, maybe you already did that. I then tried rebooting into MX Linux and the adapter was working there too. When Windows started up again, the adapter was working. Apparently it was, so I changed nothing and then selected "save and exit". I rebooted into the UEFI settings and looked to see whether the adapter was listed as enabled there. By this point I was convinced that the BSOD had killed the wireless adapter hardware, but I tried one more thing. I then booted into MX Linux from a USB stick, but that couldn't see the wireless adapter either. I ran "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" and then "sfc /scannow" in an adminstrator PowerShell, but still no joy.
I plugged in an ethernet adapter and tried downloading and twice reinstalling the driver and then rebooting, but that didn't work. The network troubleshooter couldn't bring it back and it had completely disappeared from Device Manager. When I rebooted, my wifi adapter had completely disappeared (a Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4A the computer is a Lenovo Yoga 710-14IKB). I had a BSOD (an undiagnosed graphics issue that is triggered by Skype conference calls). īUT Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files KB929833 was updated last year and now advises the use of Dism before running SFC.
I have also seen people report that the act of toggling a Bios setting off then on again. I have seen people report that the act of looking in the Bios made a piece of hardware start behaving itself again. Which of the steps I took is most likely to have resolved the problem? Was it when I opened the UEFI settings and saved them without changing them?
I'm asking this question not for myself but for anyone who might run into the same problem as me in the future, to save them a lot of time and possibly panic.