Tried to update NIC driver to Win 10 driver now all NICs are missing

Bill Kalbo · 22 Oct 2016

I have an ASUS P9X79pro with Win 10 ultimate? that was upgraded from Win 8. I have a multi boot system with old versions like Win 7, Win 8, etc.

I have been noticing that my Giga network will sometime reset from 1000 to 100 so decided to upgrade the drive to the Win 10, 64bit driver. The installation failed and I don’t recall what the issue was. Sorry, I didn’t expect to be in this much trouble so I just went ahead to fix the problem

The status now is that all NICs that I have or add to the system shows up nicely in the device manager under network adapters but when I look at the Network and Sharing Center, there are no networks.

I have deleted all the network adapters, rebooted and the devices are repopulated in device manager but no networks are available in the Network and Sharing Center.

I have tried adding various other network adapters like 2 USB Giga Ethernet adapters and 3 different WiFi USB devices. 4 of them are new, Win 10 compatible devices. They all show up in device manager and nothing in Network and Sharing Center.

Basically, it sees the network adapters in device manager but the Network and Sharing Center says I don’t have any devices.

I tried to restore to before the diver update but I don’t have a restoration point. I also don’t have a backup to restore.

It looks like I need to remove all network software from Win 10 and reinstall it.

Any ideas how to fix this?

bro67 · 22 Oct 2016

What do you mean that all Nic's are missing? How many Wifi Adapters and Network cards do you have installed? If you are trying to use Hyper-V, that can get screwed up also if you tried to make changes.

You need to use the drivers that ASUS has for your motherboard.

Bill Kalbo · 23 Oct 2016

Device manager shows 5 network devices

Tried to update NIC driver to Win 10 driver now all NICs are missing-device-manager2.jpg

Network and sharing shows no devices

Tried to update NIC driver to Win 10 driver now all NICs are missing-network-sharing-center.jpg

Tried to update NIC driver to Win 10 driver now all NICs are missing-network-hardware.jpg

Tried to update NIC driver to Win 10 driver now all NICs are missing-network-settings.jpg

This occurred when I deleted the old drivers to install the Asus network drivers. Now the Asus install software says that there are no network adapters.

How can I get Windows to recognize the installed adapters?

bro67 · 23 Oct 2016

Look at the motherboard info at Asus's support website for that motherboard. If you built the system or had someone build it for you, you would know that there is one onboard Ethernet and one Bluetooth adapter onboard. Running multi-boot systems will screw things up. It is easier to keep the older OS's as a Virtual Machine or on another drive that you can choose from Boot Option.

Any changes you make with one OS can screw up the other OS's.

Kbird · 23 Oct 2016

Did you try Settings>Network and Int.>Status> and at the bottom Network Reset ? and or the Network Troubleshooter on the same page

Did you check in the Bios everything is still enabled ? .......I guess it's alright if seen in DM though....

Bill Kalbo · 24 Oct 2016

I tried that but there are no networks to reset.

Tried to update NIC driver to Win 10 driver now all NICs are missing-reset-adapter.jpg

I need to figure out why the NICs are in the device manager under network adapters but when I look at the Network and Sharing Center, there are no networks.

Kbird · 24 Oct 2016

It's a strange one for sure , one I have not seen , but I don't think you will see a Network in NSC , if it is not connected to anything.

Did you remove the Chipset Driver or anything Else ? any other errors or exclamation Marks in DM ?

Did you enable/disable the Adaptor in DM and see if it will renew it's IP address ?

Did you try ipconfig /all at a command Prompt ?

Does you Router "See" the Computer on Ethernet or Wifi ?

Are you on the Latest win10 ? just curious as you settings windows looks different but that maybe due to having no connections.

It's almost like it thinks it is a laptop and Airplane Mode has got switched on somehow.....

I assume since you can Dual boot that everything is working in Win7 or 8 ?

Kbird · 24 Oct 2016

another thought ... You didn't uninstall the Network protocols instead of the Adapters did you ?

Ie if you go the Properties of the Adaptor ..... you have TCP/IPV4 ,IPV6,Client for Microsoft Networks ,File and Printer Sharing etc ?

if not .............
To run the Network troubleshooter

In the search box on the taskbar, type Network troubleshooter, and then select Identify and repair network problems from the list of results.
Follow the steps in the troubleshooter and see if that fixes the problem.

If that doesn’t fix your connection problem, try these things:

Reset the TCP/IP stack
Release the IP address
Renew the IP address
Flush and reset the DNS client resolver cache

To run these networking commands in a command prompt window

In the search box on the taskbar, type Command prompt, press and hold (or right-click) Command prompt, and then select Run as administrator > Yes.
At the command prompt, run the following commands in the listed order, and then check to see if that fixes your connection problem:
- Type netsh winsock reset and press Enter.
- Type netsh int ip reset and press Enter.
- Type ipconfig /release and press Enter.
- Type ipconfig /renew and press Enter.
- Type ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter.

KB

Kbird · 24 Oct 2016

And one more for today ......

do you have a 3rd Party Firewall or possibly Antivirus like Eset perhaps , which might be blocking Connections?

KB

bro67 · 24 Oct 2016

Bill Kalbo said:

I tried that but there are no networks to reset.

I need to figure out why the NICs are in the device manager under network adapters but when I look at the Network and Sharing Center, there are no networks.

See my post and your post in Device Manager. Disregard about going into System, since that is not how you will fix this. I have already stated that all that you need to know.