Question Device Manager says motherboard's Internal Wi-Fi Adapter is not connected (Code 45) after Power Cycle ?

May 20, 2022
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Early today my home's electrity power-cycled for a second, shutting off my computer with it (If it matters, mid video game). When I rebooted it later, it seemed that there was no way to connect to the Wi-Fi with it anymore. As far as I am able to tell my motherboard's built in Wi-Fi adapter is no longer being recognized as connected, and despite trying a number of things I have not been able to make any headway in fixing it.

Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (Wi-Fi)
Router: NBS AT&T BGW-320 500 (I believe, I'm not 100% certain on that).
Operating System: Windows 10
ISP: AT&T Fiber
Number of Devices: 10+

Main Error Message: Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45)
(Via Device Manager).
As well, the lights for the Motherboard have been off ever since. The only lights that still light up are the POST lights.

As for a list of everything that I have already tried:
  • Restarting a lot lol
  • Restarting the router
  • Updating Windows and restarting.
  • Running the Windows Troubleshooter for Internet Connections, Bluetooth, and Network Adapters. They say that there is either no hardware available or that I need to plug in Ethernet.
  • Checking BIOS to see if they were disabled (However, I'm not absolutely certain this was done correctly).
  • Updating drivers automatically through Device Manager for both the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Network Adapters and restarting.
  • Removing drivers for Wi-Fi Network Adapter and restarting. (This has had the added side effect of the old Wi-Fi Network Adapter no longer being accessible through Device Manager).
  • Updating drivers for the Bluetooth Network Adapter manually through Device Manager and restarting.
  • Running the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi drivers manually
  • Scanning with SFC
  • Running DISM
  • Running chkdsk (None of these seemed to indicate any faults).
I don't see any easy way to check the hardware itself, as I'm pretty sure that the adapter is under the Heat Sink as well..
At this point I have little idea myself what steps to take next for either fixing it or acquiring more information, nor have I been able to find any reliable next steps online.
 
Pretty much that message means that you have a driver installed and it can't find the wifi hardware. It would be as if you removed a pcie card.

Although it is uncommon it could be the wifi chip just decided to fail. It does not even have to be power related it could have just decided to die even if you shut the machine down clean. It was always a worry when we did something like turn off racks of servers that had been running for years that some would have some hardware issue.

You could do something like reset the cmos on the motherboard but I doubt that will fix it.

I would first try a ethernet cable to the router to be sure there is not more damaged before you start to spend money on stuff.

You can get pcie add in cards fairly inexpensive. You might as well buy ax210 wifi6e devices because they cost the same as ax200 wifi6 devices. Your motherboard uses intel ax200 currently.