Wi-Fi Troubleshooting on Mesa 3 Windows or Mesa 2

14 Apr 2021

If Wi-Fi appears to be missing or is no longer working properly on a Mesa 3 Windows or Mesa 2 unit, some possible solutions are as follows.

Disable Airplane Mode

If Airplane Mode is enabled, disable it in the Action Center from the right edge of the screen.

Disable then Enable Device

Tap and hold on the Start menu (bottom-left Windows logo button) to select Device Manager. Tap on the arrow next to Network Adapters then tap and hold on the "Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter" on Mesa 3 or “Broadcom 802.11abgn Wireless SDIO Adapter” on Mesa 2 for selecting “Disable device” and then “Enable device.”

Reload Correct Device Driver

Tap and hold on the Start menu (bottom-left Windows logo button) to select Device Manager. Tap on the arrow next to Network Adapters then tap and hold on the "Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter" on Mesa 3 or “Broadcom 802.11abgn Wireless SDIO Adapter” on Mesa 2 for selecting Update Driver > Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer, select the driver that is actually from "Broadcom", tap Next, verify it installs successfully, and then Close.

Run the Troubleshooter

Go to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot > Additional troubleshooters > Internet Connections > Run the troubleshooter.

Re-Enable WLAN AutoConfig

You may need to re-enable the WLAN AutoConfig or other related services in Windows.

Install Latest Firmware and OS Patch

If this issue occurred after running Windows Update, such as if it installed Windows 10 Build 20H2, then you may just need to also manually install our latest required firmware updates and OS patch. These are available from our Mesa 3 Downloads and Mesa 2 Downloads web pages. If the firmware is already up-to-date, sometimes you may need to force it to re-install such as from the command prompt using a command similar to the following example.

m3updater_uefi_148_ec_128.exe /uefi

Hard Reset

Performing a Hard Reset may help. You must first tap on Start > Power > Shut Down, wait until this completes fully (such as the red light goes off after a minute or two), then hold the hardware Power button for 17-20 seconds, release then wait a few seconds, attach wall charger, briefly press the hardware Power button again, and wait for the unit to complete boot to then verify Wi-Fi is functioning.

Roll Back Driver

Tap and hold on the Start menu (bottom-left Windows logo button) to select Device Manager. Tap on the arrow next to Network Adapters to then double-tap on the "Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter" on Mesa 3 or “Broadcom 802.11abgn Wireless SDIO Adapter” on Mesa 2 to open the Driver tab then select "Roll Back Driver". On Mesa 3, it can help to roll back from the Microsoft version 7.77.113.0 drivers to the Broadcom version 1.558.53.33 drivers. If you are able to Roll Back the driver, either immediately, or after manually installing the previous functional driver (as described below) then update driver then roll it back again. Doing so should set a flag in the operating system to prevent Windows Update from trying to update that driver in the future. Update 30 Jul 2020 - Microsoft has now removed that incorrect driver from the Windows Update service, so it should no longer attempt to load.

Uninstall then Re-Install Device

Open Device Manager > Network Adapter then tap and hold on the "Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter" on Mesa 3 or “Broadcom 802.11abgn Wireless SDIO Adapter” on Mesa 2 to select to "Uninstall device" then confirm that you want to Uninstall. You can then tap on the Action menu to select "Scan for hardware changes" to see if the device is detected and the drivers reload properly. If it is still not working, repeat these steps with this time checking the box to also "Delete the driver software for this device" before then confirming to Uninstall. Perform a Start > Power > Restart to restore the original functional driver. You may need to have an alternative Internet connection on the Mesa 3 or Mesa 2 unit while performing these steps.

Reset Network

Go to Start > Settings > Network & Internet > Status > Network reset > Reset now. This will take five minutes and then it will Restart.

Manually Install Correct Device Driver

For the Mesa 3, you may be able to manually install the previous functional Wi-Fi driver using the following web file links and instructions.

Newer units - https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/99445/intel-wirelessac-9260/downloads.html

Older units - BCM-4324.zip

If needed, a USB flash drive can be used to copy this BCM-4324.zip file to a Mesa 3 Windows unit. You must then extract the ZIP file, open Device Manager, locate the "Unknown device" with yellow exclamation mark (you may need to again scan for hardware changes) or go to Network adapters > Broadcom 802.11ac Network Adapter, tap and hold on the device, select to Update Driver, then “Browse my computer for driver software”, then “Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer”, then “Have Disk…”, then “Browse…” to the folder containing the drivers, select the extracted “bcmwdidhdpcie.inf” file, tap Open, then OK. The correct model “Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter” will now be shown. Tap Next. When it has finished loading the good driver, tap Close. Wi-Fi should now again be functioning. A reminder that you may want to update and roll back the driver to set the flag for possibly preventing any future unexpected driver change.

On Mesa 2, the Wi-Fi drivers can possibly be updated or just reloaded from the following web page.

Wi-Fi 802.11 and Bluetooth Driver Update for Mesa 2

Original article from 18 Jul 2019