Why does my wireless network card need to be reset everytime I start or wake my machine?

Solution 1:

You're using Windows 8 preview, so it could very well be some issue with the driver not working under this new, unfinished OS. It's not that uncommon.

Solution 2:

What is the lease period for the network you are joining? This could happen if the leases are being issued for unusually small windows. So if the lease was only issued for 60 minutes and you reboot after 61 minutes the wireless manager could view the lease as expired and move on to the next available network in your list. Typically on my local networks I set lease periods for 7 days to keep this from happening.

First you should check your wireless networks by going to network and sharing center, manage wireless networks and make sure that the network you want to join is listed and that the networks you've joined are in the correct order.

When you "troubleshoot" the connection it is simply renewing your machines IP address on the network. You can see what is occurring the next time this happens by opening powershell or a command prompt and typing:

ipconfig /all

Look at the wireless adapter and see when the lease was obtained and when it expires. If it expired in the past then this may be your issue. type:

ipconfig /release

ipconfig /flushdns

ipconfig /renew

Your network should obtain a new lease. Once your connection is up connect to the device that is issuing your IP addresses. You can typically access your DHCP server, which is typically your Gateway, by opening a browser and navigating to its IP. Once you connect change the lease period to a higher value. Most commonly this is set to 18-24 hours but as I said, I raise mine in my environments.

Post back if this doesn't work and we can look at other options.

Solution 3:

Most laptops I've seen have a button on the keyboard for enabling/disabling wireless so you don't have to do it through your OS. If disabling/enabling resolves the problem, I'd be inclined to just use that button if you have one (out of some amount of laziness and lack of desire to waste my time on what is more than likely a driver bug).

Solution 4:

make sure to check the device manager, there is often an option under the properties of the specific device to " turn off device to save power"

This option will turn the network device off during sleep etc and can have problems when the machine fires up, seen it multiple times. Check that option and let me know

Solution 5:

I fixed mine by removing the check mark next to "Deterministic Network Enhancer" from the properties of my card:

I'm pretty sure it was from a Cisco VPN install I did a while back and have long since removed. The network card was working fine for months but suddenly it just started needing repair after every reboot. I just fixed it so I'll let you know if it continues to hold.