The network adapter on the laptop is not detected. Driver for the network adapter - detailed installation instructions

When the operating system is reinstalled, the user may encounter the problem of a lack of a network driver. Without this driver, neither a wireless nor a wired network can be started. If you have a disk, there are no problems, just install the program. And in its absence, you need to find, for example, a mobile phone / tablet with a connected network in order to download the driver. To avoid such problems, when reinstalling operating system   it is necessary to adhere to the correct algorithm of actions.

The driver is the link between the operating system and the internal components of the computer, that is, this program connects the OS with the motherboard, video and network cards, office equipment. These programs are developed by the same companies that produce PC equipment and electronic office equipment, what they interact with personal Computer. When buying a computer, the user does not think about various drivers, since they are already preinstalled in the system. But, for example, after the first reinstallation of the OS or the purchase of a new computer, the user will be faced with their absence.



If there is no driver for the network on the computer, there is no way to access the Internet and download from official sites that are auto mode   scan the operating system and install all the missing drivers. When can you encounter the problem of installing a network device driver? In these three cases:
  1. Even on a new computer, only from the store, the operating system may be missing, and as a result, the driver.
  2. When the operating system is installed / reinstalled.
  3. When a system failure occurs, and the driver stops working.
The first case is the easiest. In the box with the purchase should be the driver discs. The network device driver is located on the motherboard software disc.


Since in lately   Since users are increasingly assembling computers themselves (choosing internal components), the DVD drive may not be available, and as a result, it is not possible to install any driver from the disk.

In this regard, we can advise you to keep the full set of drivers in a separate folder on your PC or upload them to a flash card. In this case you do not have to search mobile deviceto go to the official pages of manufacturers' websites and from there download a program that automatically installs the missing drivers.

Network driver installation

Before installing the driver, you must identify the computer. All brands and models of computer internal equipment are encoded with special “ciphers”. This is done so that during installation the driver can identify the model of the computer and its manufacturer. The network device driver code looks like this: PCI / TECH_xxxx & DEV_xxxx & SUBSYS_xxxxxx. TECH means that the computer hardware was manufactured by A4Tech, and DEV was the device ID.

Step 1. Equipment Identification

In order to find out the code, click Start, enter the device manager in the search field. Next, a menu opens with which you can identify the equipment. Press on " Network adapters»And select the name of the controller.



As soon as you do this, the Details section will open. Find their “Properties” and select “Model ID”. The first line contains full information   about the device model.


Step 2. Installing / updating the network adapter driver

This will be the identifier of your equipment. Now you need to find it on the Internet by entering a name in any search engine for example.
The search engine will give official page   drivers, and you need to download it to your PC. And then the installation procedure itself follows. If you need to update the network device driver, you are doing exactly the same thing: find the ID, enter in the search, download and install.

To install a missing or fresh version of the driver, use the “Device Manager”. Follow the same steps in the last step “ Update drivers».



Select "Search for drivers on this computer."



Go to the folder where you saved the necessary drivers downloaded on the manufacturer’s official website, and install them using the "Next" button.



Many users, before installing new versions of drivers, delete the old ones to avoid conflict and inoperability, because even if you did everything correctly, the Internet may not appear on the computer. In this case, you still need to take advantage of user advice and remove old versions.

How to do it! In Device Manager, you can delete old version   network drivers. Accept the choice, and the system will remove the network device driver that was previously installed on your computer.



There are two steps left and your computer will work fully. Step one - reboot and open Device Manager. In place of the remote driver, “ Network controller" In chapter " Other devices».



At the final stage, follow the steps from (updating / installing network device drivers).

Yesterday everything was fine, you enjoyed high-speed Internet, and turn it on this morning, and the computer does not see the network card. However, here you’ll think about it. The first thing that comes to mind is that it is out of order, you urgently need to flee to the technology store for a new spare part.

That is why it is a good idea to always buy two completely identical system units at once. So that in case of problems it would be possible to look for a malfunction by replacing suspicious modules with obviously working ones.

This is the way for advanced users and computer geeks. For a mere mortal user, such excesses most often cannot afford. In this case, one should recall the popular wisdom: “The strong and the brave are quick and easy, and the weak and timid are long and hard.”

Decryption - if there is nothing to check the equipment, you will have to check all the problem areas sequentially and methodically.

The computer does not see the network card - the main reasons

  1. Faulty board itself.
  2. Violations of the operating system.
  3. Network drivers are corrupted.
  4. Changed network connection settings.
  5. Windows anti-virus or firewall intervention.

In fact, Chinese electronics are far from spoiling as often as Chinese boots. Therefore, if you did not drop the system unit to the floor, did not climb inside and did not switch anything there, the probability of failure of the network card itself is extremely small. Most likely, the settings have changed.


Go to Control PanelAll the controls on the Network and Sharing Center and change the settings

But the Windows operating system is not only smart and smart, but also represents a rather fragile organization. A sudden outage can easily cause serious damage. system files   and connection settings.

Recovery Options

  1. Make Windows roll back to an early recovery point. It is possible that after such an operation and overloading the computer, everything will work for you. And not only the network card will appear, but also something else good will restore its performance. Sometimes you need to restore several times. Anyway - this is better and safer than starting to rearrange the blocks and buses in the system unit. Moreover, nothing is needed so far.
  2. A more radical means is a complete rearrangement of the operating room. windows systems. This path may turn out to be the most rational, provided that your system has been standing for quite some time and recently you began to notice a general deterioration in the performance of your computer. Regular cleanings do not give tangible improvements? It's time to upgrade Windows. New RAMs, Seven and Eight are reinstalled within half an hour, so there is no problem.

Why is it useful to reinstall Windows? Because the distribution includes all the drivers necessary for work. When installing the system in automatic mode, all the necessary settings for all devices are made, and the user does not need to do anything except press the Enter button from time to time. Updating drivers separately is not an easy task. More suitable for advanced users.


In addition, to reinstall the drivers, you will need an Internet connection, which is not there. If you have backup Internet access, you are sure that you are able to find exactly the driver for the network card that you need - then try this way.

You can download a whole package of drivers from the manufacturer’s official website and then let the computer itself determine the most suitable option automatically, using the Driver Installation Wizard.

If the problem really was with the driver - after the update, the computer should normalize.

The network card was not found by the computer and was not installed as a device

When you connect some new element to the computer, the operating system detects the connection and then tries to configure it yourself as expected. Sometimes automatic connection does not occur and then you need to perform manual installation and configuration.

Go to the Control Panel and select the menu item Install New Equipment. The Connect New Hardware Wizard interface opens. There are two options to choose from:

  1. The device is already connected to the computer.
  2. The device is not connected yet.

Try the “connected” option and in the list that opens, look for your lost device. If it is not in the list, then the computer has not yet found it. Then click “not yet connected” and reboot the system. You can do this - turn off the computer, then open the system unit, disconnect and reconnect the network card, the contact may have deteriorated.

After starting the system, repeat the procedure with the New Hardware Wizard. If the device appears in the list of connected devices, continue to configure for all items of the Wizard.

Incompatible driver update

Sometimes a card malfunction can be a failure windows update. Or, in the process of downloading automatic updates, interruptions occurred in the Internet connection, some of the files downloaded with violations. Then you need to reinstall the old-style driver.

If you have a Windows OS distribution, it is best to grab the file directly from disk. Did everything work before? Or search previous version   drivers on the internet.

Viral infection

Sometimes the cause of the disappearance of the network card from sight is a virus infection. Scan your computer with antivirus. Try to cure the system using Dr. Web CureIt. If it comes to viruses, everything will work out.

One of the problems that the user may encounter after reinstalling windows   - lack of a driver for a network adapter (network driver) for a wired or wireless network.

And if there is no driver disk at hand, you will have to look for a driver and download it using another device that has Internet access.

In this article, we will consider an algorithm that will avoid the troubles that may arise after installing the OS.

What is a driver? This is a program by which the computer operating system interacts with the hardware of the device ( motherboard, video card, network card, printer, scanner, MFP, etc.).

Drivers are developed by companies that produce computer components and peripherals that interact with a PC (for example, office equipment).

Often, modern operating systems (including Windows 7) already have a certain set of drivers that allow you to work with the main components of the computer, we will consider the case when such programs are missing.

The peculiarity of the situation when the network driver is not installed is the lack of the ability to use programs for the automatic installation of drivers, since all of them use an Internet connection for their work, and since the network driver is not installed, there is no Internet access.

The user usually encounters the installation of network adapter drivers in the following cases:

1. After buying a new computer and the absence of an installed OS on it.

2. After installing the operating system.

3. After a network adapter driver failure.

To solve the problems that arise in the first case, you need to look for the disks that come with the computer. On the driver disk to motherboard   and is what we need.

In the past few years, a trend has clearly emerged that involves the rejection of the use of optical disc drives not only among laptop manufacturers, but also desktop PCs.

Users who independently choose the components from which their computer will be assembled also refuse to install a DVD drive.

Advice!   We recommend downloading all the necessary drivers (and not just the network one) to a separate directory on your hard drive and / or flash drive. This will avoid situations when after installing the operating system you will need to look for a drive or PC (tablet, phone) to download drivers from a disk or the Internet.

Network driver installation

The procedure for installing drivers can be divided into 2 stages: hardware identification and driver installation.

In order to identify manufacturers and specific models   equipment, a coding system for models and brands of computer components was developed.

As a rule, the code for the network adapter is as follows: PCI / VEN_xxxx & DEV_xxxx & SUBSYS_xxxxxx, where VEN_xxxx is the equipment manufacturer's identifier (Vendor ID), DEV_xxxx is the equipment model code (Device ID).

Step 1. Equipment Identification

In order to find out the code, click Start, enter “Device Manager” in the search field and go to the corresponding menu.

Next, you need to find the “Network Adapters” or “Other Devices” submenu and right-click on one of the submenu items, for example, in our case it will be “Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller”.

Step 2. Installing / updating the network adapter driver

After we find out the identifier of the equipment, copy its name (right-click - copy) and enter it in the browser search field. After downloading the necessary program, you can proceed to install it.

Similar actions will be in the case of updating the network driver.

To install / update the network adapter driver, you must go to the "Device Manager" as it was described earlier. Select the required item and in the context menu that is accessible by clicking the right mouse button, select "Update drivers ...".

Select "Search for drivers on this computer."

We go to the directory where we recently downloaded everything we need, using the "Browse" button, click "Next" and wait for the driver installation process to complete.

There is also an opinion that if you are updating (reinstalling) the network driver, you must first remove the old one, and then install the new one.

Important!   To remove an already installed driver, you need to go to the “Device Manager”, select the network adapter, right-click and select “Delete” in the context menu. After that, the system will warn that the device driver will be deleted, agree by clicking "OK".

Program for updating drivers Updater drivers from Carambis

If you have a need to search for universal programs that can operate on different OSs: we mean utilities for creating group policies, programs for cleaning the system from viruses and, of course, software for working with OS drivers - the best solution would be to use the Carambis Driver Updater program.

Thanks to Driver Updater, you can not only get what you need softwarebut also good to save. After all, one purchase of a subscription allows you to connect two computers at once.

As for the work process, the utility does an excellent job of the tasks. Now there is no need to fix errors of connected hardware components on each computer.

Setting automatic search and installation of updates now independently updates all devices.

But, if you need to speed up the computer, we recommend using another utility from the same manufacturer - Carambis Cleaner.

Its features:

  • Comprehensive optimization of the operating system;
  • The ability to remove components and temporary files that are no longer used and are not needed for the OS to work;
  • Delete all OS error reports;
  • Quick registry cleaning;
  • Ability to delete files that the user selects;
  • Delete installed programs in the main program window with a few clicks.

Remember, files that were deleted by the program can no longer be recovered (unlike the usual deletion procedure using the built-in OS functions). Diagnose your computer several times a month to keep the system in good condition.

How to Install a Network Adapter Driver Without Internet Access

Driver for the network adapter - detailed installation instructions