Question What are the key commands to enable/disable wifi on Dell Inspiron 5391 laptop

[mac_angel]

My son has this for school. The wifi card is no longer seen in Windows, or even the BIOS. I know there's keys on the keyboard (usually 2 at the same time, etc) that disables and enables the wifi, and I think he accidentally hit them. I did the same thing to my Alienware laptop a couple of years ago and had to go digging to find out how to turn it back on again.
Normally there are icons, either on the number buttons, or F keys that have a wifi icon on it. His doesn't. The common combinations are Function and F2 (which is volume on his), or Function and PrtScn, which did nothing.

I've updated the BIOS, no change (which I didn't think there would be). BIOS doesn't see it, but does see Bluetooth, which was the same when I accidentally did it with my Alienware laptop.
Dell tech support was no help.

 

[Ralston18]

Are the laptop's network adapters shown in Device Manager?

Ensure that "Show hidden devices" is checked under the View tab.

Once, if seen, you should be able to enable the wireless network adapter via a right-click that presents the necessary menu.

 

[mac_angel]

Are the laptop's network adapters shown in Device Manager?

Ensure that "Show hidden devices" is checked under the View tab.

Once, if seen, you should be able to enable the wireless network adapter via a right-click that presents the necessary menu.

no. That's what I was saying. Windows doesn't see it, the BIOS doesn't see it. It's a function on laptops that's been around for a long time. You can disable the wifi and it completely disables it from the rest of the computer. Different than Airplane mode.

 

[Ralston18]

FYI:

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/...ireless-devices-on-a-dell-notebook-on-and-off

= = = =

Failing that

So the wireless adapter is not showing up in Device Manager - even with "Show hidden devices" checked?

Is there also an Ethernet cable plugged into the laptop? Does a wired network connection work?

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt.

Copy the full results and post (paste) herein.

Also run "netsh wlan show interfaces" and post the results.

The objective being to determine what Windows may or may not be seeing.

Reference:

https://www.cyberithub.com/31-most-...mple_5_How_to_Check_all_the_Wireless_Profiles

Specifically Example 10.

However, some of the other available netsh commands may prove helpful as well.

First explore and see what can be found and learned. Then go from there.....

 

[mac_angel]

So the wireless adapter is not showing up in Device Manager - even with "Show hidden devices" checked?

Is there also an Ethernet cable plugged into the laptop? Does a wired network connection work?

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt.

Copy the full results and post (paste) herein.

Also run "netsh wlan show interfaces" and post the results.

The objective being to determine what Windows may or may not be seeing.

Reference:

https://www.cyberithub.com/31-most-...mple_5_How_to_Check_all_the_Wireless_Profiles

Specifically Example 10.

However, some of the other available netsh commands may prove helpful as well.

First explore and see what can be found and learned. Then go from there.....

no offense, but I'm not interested in other trouble shooting. I'm not going into the things I've done already. It's a keyboard command. That's the question I asked, that's the only one I'm interested in getting an answer for.