Windows 7 RC – disapearing NIC on HP laptop – workaround
// May 18th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Software
I have been running the windows 7 RC on multiple machines and have generally been very impressed, finding very little that doesn’t work. One issue I have had is that on my HP 6730b laptop every so often the LAN network adapter (NIC) would disappear, giving no option to connect to the wired LAN.
No NIC Windows 7
Windows 7 Device Manager no NIC
I narrowed this issue down to the fact that when running on wireless and on the battery, the laptop puts the NIC to sleep to conserve power (and you hear the removed hardware ‘bong’), a good idea, but it doesn’t seem to wake it back up when you insert a connection into it, either plugged in or not (did on vista). A reboot solved the issue but is hardly convient.
A workaround is to turn the NIC powersaving feature off in the bios, on the HP its called “LAN Power Save”, set to disable and your NIC won’t go to sleep, at the expense or a little bit of battery life.
Under the device there is also an option to stop windows turning off the NIC which I suspect may also solve the issue
Turn off NIC Powersave Windows 7
For those who are interested, below is the driver version, which is the latest from the HP site. Hopefully we’ll see this issue solved with a driver update/in the Windows 7 RTM.
Broadcom driver windows 7
If anyone else has noticed this issue or has a better resolution I’d be interested to hear. Please leave a comment or catch me on twitter
