WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

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surensniper

WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by surensniper »

Dear Gurus,
This problem is happening for the 2nd time in this same month. I am in dual boot but with completely separate SSD's for LM and Windows and it's been a while since I even booted into windows. Today after a normal shutdown, I booted as normal and found my wifi hardware is completely missing (again)?! Last time when this happened, I went to Windows and found the hardware was not listed there as well. So, I downloaded driver pack solutions and installed all missing drivers from there and after several boots the wifi card randomly appeared. Same thing happened today but no luck with the method i used before. Let me give you guys as much info as possible,
My system info:

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System:    Host: suren-official Kernel: 4.10.0-42-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.6 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3)
           Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: LENOVO product: 80QA v: Lenovo E41-80
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Lenovo E41-80 v: SDK0J40679 WIN
           Bios: LENOVO v: D7CN30WW(V3.03) date: 04/18/2016
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i5-6200U (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9600
           clock speeds: max: 2800 MHz 1: 499 MHz 2: 499 MHz 3: 499 MHz
           4: 499 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Sky Lake Integrated Graphics bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1366x768@60.06hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 520 (Skylake GT2)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.10.0-42-generic
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 3000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 370.1GB (51.2% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: Samsung_SSD_750 size: 250.1GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: ADATA_SP580 size: 120.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 19G used: 7.7G (44%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1
           ID-2: /home size: 84G used: 11G (14%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb3
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 8.19GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb2
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 41.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 217 Uptime: 8 min Memory: 1140.0/7840.4MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35
output of ls -Nn (wifi card is not even listed)

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Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169
           IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: 1c:39:47:d8:ee:06
from rfkill list all (again no trace of wifi)

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lo        no wireless extensions.

enp1s0    no wireless extensions.

enp0s20f0u2  no wireless extensions.
from ifconfig

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ifconfig
enp0s20f0u2 Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 7e:30:16:ed:b8:63  
          inet addr:192.168.42.154  Bcast:192.168.42.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: 2405:204:73c6:5aab:348c:7c1a:dcd9:14d1/64 Scope:Global
          inet6 addr: 2405:204:73c6:5aab:7c4b:734a:10e8:fb64/64 Scope:Global
          inet6 addr: fe80::f7ff:1c19:515d:291/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3806 errors:13 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:13
          TX packets:3654 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:2224930 (2.2 MB)  TX bytes:625489 (625.4 KB)

enp1s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 1c:39:47:d8:ee:06  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:369 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:369 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:32337 (32.3 KB)  TX bytes:32337 (32.3 KB)
PS: I was USB tethering my samsung phone at the time of executing all the above commands.

Any help please guys? Thanks for your time.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Pjotr
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Re: WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by Pjotr »

Sounds like a hardware problem. Because it happens both in Linux and in Windows, and because it's apparently random.
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surensniper

Re: WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by surensniper »

Pjotr wrote:Sounds like a hardware problem. Because it happens both in Linux and in Windows, and because it's apparently random.
Does it mean I lost the internal wifi antenna for good? :shock: If this is the case, external wifi dongle is my only chance right? Any suggestions for wifi dongle (linux compatible)please? Just in case.. :roll:
Thanks Pjotr
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Moem
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Re: WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by Moem »

Hardware problems can very often be fixed but there will be screwdrivers and other tools involved. I recently replaced my CPU cooling fan... it was not very hard. There are manuals available for most laptops, it's mostly a matter of carefully taking things apart, replacing a faulty part and reassembling everything.
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Pierre
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Re: WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by Pierre »

those inbuilt WiFi cards do seem to fail, over time,
and it seems to me, that the Windows System loses the WiFi first, then the Linux System, some time later.
- at that point, the inbuilt WiFi seems to be permanently gone.
so, you then have to start using an USB WiFi Dongle, instead.
8)
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surensniper

Re: WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by surensniper »

Thanks for all the replies guys but know what? when i switched on my laptop again in my home (just now), the wifi card was proper and straight away connected with my home network. Wow, this is weird. I thought the hardware was gone forever. I think, whatever causes this problem, will definitely return! When that happens, i wish i would know why :roll: Anyone got any assumptions towards what might be the actual problem? :shock: thanks
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Re: WiFi Hardware vanished without a trace

Post by Moem »

Could be a bad connection, that's influenced by transportation.
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