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Question

WiFi will not connect after fresh Win7 install

Sep 11, 2016 4:19AM PDT

Hi All,

I'm tearing my hair out a bit with this one.

I have Samsung NP305U1A Notebook which was previously running very slowly. I just replaced the HDD with an SSD and installed Windows 7 from scratch.

After installing what I believe to be all the correct drivers, my network adapter can detect wifi networks but when I attempt to connect to them I just get a message saying "Windows was not able to connect to XXXX".

Here are the things I've tried so far:

1. Restarting the router
2. Deleting and reinstalling the device drivers
3. Renewing my laptops IP address through ipconfig

The next thing I'm planning to try is reinstalling Windows again but I'm not convinced that will make any difference. I've seen plenty of people posting the same problem around the internet but no one has ever seemed to find a definite solution.

The network adapter I have is a Broadcom 802.11n

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Notebook
Sep 11, 2016 8:04AM PDT

Put the hdd back in the machine.
Can you now connect?
If so 'clone' the hdd to the ssd.

Put the ssd in the machine.
Can you now connect?

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Cloned
Sep 14, 2016 1:52AM PDT

So I've cloned the HDD to the SSD. The HD actually has Windows 10 installed on it due to the the free upgrade offer. I had hoped to downgrade back to Windows 7 hence why I was choosing to do a fresh install rather than cloning.

So long story short, I now have Windows 10 on my new SSD. Wifi was working fine with W10 on the old HDD but I now appear to be having the same problem that I was having before with not being able to connect to wifi.

What's more. Now when I put my old HDD back in, the Wi-Fi will connect but runs very slowly.

I know this is pointing to a problem with the network adapter but I just dont see how it could be when the Wi-Fi was working absolutely fine before I tried to install this god forsaken SSD.

I am the original poster by the way. Cnet wouldn't allow me to log on with my original username for some reason.

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Answer
Windows 7 rarely does WIFi on a fresh install.
Sep 11, 2016 8:07AM PDT

That's a Samsung so you should use their restore media or ask Samsung for what drivers and APPS (yes there is often an app to turn on the WiFi) to install. I can't know this but Samsung should.

If the HDD was working, I clone that to the SSD to avoid all the work.

That said I'm running into folk that didn't know that installing Windows is not easy. And no one knows all PCs. That is, what works for my Acer does not work on your Samsung unless I take the advice of using factory recovery media.

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Answer
Try This.
Sep 12, 2016 8:35AM PDT