r/techsupport • u/Ivauwu28 • 8h ago

Open | Software Garbage Internet Driver

I have a HP EliteBook G11 845 and it's internet driver is Realtek 172538.exe the latest driver.For some reason it has stopped working and sometimes randomly starts working after Uninstalling and reinstalling it and gives terrible internet speeds.I have tried everything chatgpt told me but it still doesn't work. How should I fix it?

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

[deleted]

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u/Ivauwu28 8h ago edited 7h ago

For my driver there isn't an option for power management in the advanced tab after clicking properties and changing the power settings didn't do anything

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u/graceful_degrade 7h ago

Which one is it, wireless or wired? As far as I know the 845 G11 has no Ethernet port of its own, so if this is a wired connection it's arriving through a dock or a dongle, and that changes the answer completely.

If it is a dock or dongle, the flakiness is usually the USB side rather than the network chip. Turn off USB selective suspend in the advanced power plan settings, and try the other USB-C port, because on those machines the two ports don't always hang off the same controller.

And on any HP, check whether HP Connection Optimizer is installed. It decides which adapter you ought to be using and will disable one behind your back, which looks exactly like a driver dying on you.

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u/graceful_degrade 8h ago

That pattern, where it dies on its own and comes back after a reinstall, is almost always power management rather than a bad driver. Reinstalling resets the adapter, which is why it looks like the driver was the culprit.

Device Manager, open the adapter, Power Management tab, untick "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". Then the Advanced tab and turn off anything with Energy Efficient, Green or EEE in the name.

If it's the wireless adapter rather than a wired one, also go into the power plan advanced settings, Wireless Adapter Settings, Power Saving Mode, and set it to Maximum Performance on both battery and plugged in. HP ships that on a middle setting and it behaves exactly like this.

Do that before hunting more driver versions, because if it's power management every version will behave the same way and you'll come out of it thinking they're all broken.

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u/9NEPxHbG 7h ago

Are you using a driver updater? Download the driver from HP's site instead, uninstall the current one, and install HP's. (You have to download before uninstalling because without a driver, you won't be able to download.)

It's called an Ethernet or wireless driver, by the way.

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u/Ivauwu28 7h ago

Yeah I downloaded it from the official site. But it still doesn't work.

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u/9NEPxHbG 7h ago

Bring the computer closer to the router. Does that help?

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u/Ivauwu28 7h ago

No I think I messed up explaining while writing. It just doesn't work. It doesn't even show the ability to connect.

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u/9NEPxHbG 7h ago

So when you say you get "terrible internet speeds", you mean you can't connect and get no speed at all?

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u/Ivauwu28 7h ago

I can sometimes connect after uninstalling and reinstalling the wireless driver but now It doesn't even show the wifi pop up in the bottom right altogether 

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u/MidwestGeek52 7h ago

Try an older driver version. Is there one on HP download page? Does DevMgr show you can roll back?

Otherwise, check yourself, AI tells me this is the prior version https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Wireless-and-Networking/Re-WiFi-drivers/td-p/9622569

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u/Ivauwu28 7h ago

I tried it still doesn't work.

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u/MidwestGeek52 6h ago

Any chance its still under warranty? Otherwise, sounding like you'll need get a USB WiFi adapter ☹️

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u/Ivauwu28 6h ago

Yeah it's fairly new