Solved! No Wifi After Clean Reinstall of Windows 10 Pro?

[pauly01]

I used my usb stick with windows 10 to do a clean reinstall of my maybe compromised dell xps laptop. So wanted to wipe it clean. I did the clean reinstall of windows 10 pro.

But when the screen turned on, there is no wifi connection. When you click on the bottom right corner, you see that globe which means you aren't connected to the internet. When you click on it normally, you see a bunch of wifi connections for you to connect to.


Instead it shows

Network and internet settings
Airplane mode that is blank and you cannot click on it.


I went to troubleshoot and show available networks and it shows nothing.


This is what I see under device manager for network adapters and other devices


Network adapters

WAN Miniport (IKEv2)
WAN Miniport (IP)
WAN Miniport IPv6
WAN Miniport L2TP
WAN Miniport Network Monitor
WAN Miniport PPOE
WAN Miniport PPTP
WAN Miniport SSTP


These above appear to be installed? There is no yellow exclamation point or anything like that above. When I right click each one of these WAN, it shows device status this device is working properly for each one of these.


However the devices below do have yellow exclamation points and they show The drivers for this device are not installed (code 28) There are no compatible drivers for this device. To find a driver for this device, click update driver. Of course update driver does not work due to no internet.



3D Video Controller
bcm2045a0
Network Controller
pci data acquisition and signal processing controller
pci data acquisition and signal processing controller
pci device
pci memory controller
sm bus controller
unknown device
unknown device
unknown device



Can anyone explain why I have no wifi and apparently no wifi adapter driver if that maybe the case? Note, my BIOS was very old before I did this clean reinstall. I remember it was like over 5+ years old at least and I never did a bios update. I never did an update because the concern of it bricking... made me never do a bios update. Could that be a reason?


Obviously I prefer to not go this route but could this be the reason and fix it? Because shouldn't all the drivers be installed when you do a clean reinstall? My windows ten home desktop that I did clean reinstall did not have this issue. I do use a usb wifi adapter for wifi with that though.

 

[rgd1101]

download driver on dell website?

 

[AlHuneke]

All drivers should install, but they don't. On another machine, go to the Dell support site, enter your machine information and download the WiFi driver(s). Hopefully that will get you going. After that, download and install the Dell support on your machine. It will check things and tell you about updates. The BIOS really should be updated. If you follow the directions, there is little chance you will brick your machine.