What drivers do I need to make my network adapter work?

klofle

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So I have a TP-link tl-wdn4800 wifi card that I can't get to work. I had a previous pc that it worked completely fine in. Recently I switched over to a build that has a different motherboard and I switched over to windows 10. When I tried to get the wifi card working, I get absolutely nothing. It doesn't show up in the device manage at all and when I try to install the tp-link driver it says no adapter is detected. So the things that I believe I have the issue limited to are that the adapter just won't be recognized by windows 10, that the adapter got busted in the move, that the PCI slots on the new motherboard aren't working correctly, or that I just don't have the right drivers for my motherboard or something else driver related. The motherboard in question is a Z97-A. I'm betting there's some sort of driver issue and I can't get to another pc to check whether its the wifi card itself for a few days. So my question to you is what drivers, if any, might I be missing that I need for my pc to recognize the motherboard. I went to their website and downloaded the chipset and a few other drivers, but I'm not 100% confidant in what I need. And outside of that, if you have any ideas that I could use to help diagnose the problem it would be much appreciated.
 
which PCI slot are you installing the card into? I ask because if your Z79 A board is an Asus board, then that board has pci and pci express slots, you should have your TP-Link tl wdn4800 in a pci express slot
 
Yeah, I've got it in an express slot. And I've also tried all of them. I wish it were so simple a fix. Thanks for the response though!
 
Okay, so minor update, someone told me the issue could be there is something turned off in the bios that shouldn't be. I went into my bios, but I couldn't find anything related to turning something off or on in relation to networking. It looks like I'll be able to get ahold of another pc later today, so I should be able to test if it's the card itself or not. If not, any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
If it was a driver issue the hardware will still show up in device manager as unknown, can you check under "other devices" and make sure all the drivers are installed.
 
To test if it's a driver or OS issue, best bet would be to try booting off of a Linux Live CD (such as Ubuntu) and see if it recognizes the adapter.

If it recognizes the adapter, then it's an issue with your Win10 install. Did you do the in-place free upgrade over the top of your existing OS or did you do a fresh install? If you did the in-place upgrade, then I'd suggest creating the Win10 media from Microsoft and doing a clean install of Windows 10.

If the Linux LiveCD doesn't recognize the adapter, then it's most likely a hardware issue.
 
If it was a driver issue the hardware will still show up in device manager as unknown, can you check under "other devices" and make sure all the drivers are installed.
The hardware just isnt showing up at all. I had the option "sms bus controller" under other devices earlier. Which I found out meant I had an error with my chipset drivers. But I fixed that already and there isn't an option at all for "other devices" now. And I've also looked under hiddden devices and the adapter doesn't show. I'm beginning to think more and more it's a physical hardware failure. But again, I'll be able to look into that a bit later today. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
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