AX200 disappears from Device Manager each morning, after fix

[HondoMan]

Right then,

Around the beginning of February, I bought a custom PC for my workshop. Separately, I purchased a uBit WLAN / Bluetooth PCIe card. At first, all was well. Then after about a week or so, when I would boot the PC in the morning, the card was no longer listed in the Device Manager. This would occur once or twice a week. Then it became everyday.

In order to have the PCIe card recognised again, I would power down, pull the card's cable from the mainboard, wait 20 seconds, plug back in and restart.

After working with the card's seller, which was fruitless, I returned the card and bought a TP-Link Archer TX50E AX3000 with Bluetooth (the Intel AX200 Wifi 6). It's doing the same exact thing. At first no issue, then once in a while, now each day.

If I restart the PC during the day, no issues. It reboots and the card is still recognised. Shutting down at night and rebooting the following day..the card is gone from the Device Manager.

Yesterday I experienced something rather new.  I booted the PC, and the same matter - no longer listed in the Device Manager.  Frustrated, I powered down and went for a coffee.  I returned about 20 minutes later ready to tear into the PC.  I booted the PC and the card was suddenly recognised and working.  Happy days.  This morning I booted the PC and again not there.  So I powered down, waited 15-20 minutes, powered back on and it was there.

There is definitely something wrong.

PC Specs:
MoBo: Gigabyte A320M (BIOS 11/03/20)
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600X
RAM: 16GB Crucial
On Board Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 710
Windows 10 Pro

Card driver is the Intel driver 20/01/21.

Any ideas on what might be causing this or possible methods to search for an issue?

Cheers!

[Khun_Doug]

HondoMan,

I have read a few forum posts with a similar, but not exact, description. I suspect one of the following things might be happening.

1- Windows Fast Start is enabled. Unfortunately the steps to get to the settings for Fast Startup vary by PC custom power plans. You will need to research this for your specific motherboard and CPU settings. Since you have a Ryzen CPU, it is possible there is a custom power plan specific for your CPU. Your research will ferret out the place to adjust Fast Startup. For the purpose of diagnosing this I recommend turning off Fast Startup.

2- The BIOS needs to be updated. It is possible the motherboard is not refreshing the slots properly between startups. Caution needs to be mentioned here. By upgrading the BIOS it is possible that something that was amiss in an older BIOS will cause startup issues. Make sure you know how to get your OS to boot if there is a glitch-up with BIOS after updating to a newer BIOS.

3- There is something odd with the motherboard that was resolved with a newer revision of the board. This usually happens when you have gen 1 board, and there are 2nd and 3rd generations of the same board.

If you don't find anything useful in my suggestions, the next best thing is to speak with Gigabyte. It is unlikely this is a driver issue, or a Windows issue. That leaves hardware, and in this case the motherboard is a Gigabyte.

[HondoMan]

Thank you for responding.

1.  Read years ago about fast booting.  When the PC arrived, I went into the BIOS to ensure it was disabled.  Also, included with the PC was the Gigabyte CD.  One of the programmes included is called Fast-Boot.  I didn't install it.

2.  The BIOS is up-to-date.  This is REV 3.0 and the date of the current BIOS (before the PC arrived - Nov 2020) is the current BIOS.

3.  This is the most current version of the Mainboard.

[Khun_Doug]

Hondoman,

The Fast Startup I am referring to is in Windows, not the BIOS. It may already be disabled, but you should take a look at the Windows power management and search for Fast Startup there.

If you don't find anything with Fast Startup I recommend contacting the motherboard manufacturer. The problem you are describing is not a driver problem. This really points so something with the hardware.

[Douglas_I]

I have the same issue with my AX200. Couldn't get any response from Intel yet and don't know what to do. 

[HondoMan]

Good morning Douglas,

I can't find a solid solution.  While I'm no going to point a finger, I don't believe it's anything to do with either Intel or the mainboard manufacturer.  However, Intel, I am concluding after weeks, does play a small role.

For weeks on now, I've been googling like a mad man to find a solution.  The 'AX200 sporadically disappears from my device manager' is rather common.  The mainboards vary in models and makes, so to blame this that, is fruitless.

Windows 10, I feel, is the culprit.  Something is happening each day to cause this.

1. I boot up the PC at 8.30 and the PCIe card is not in the Device Manager. 

2.  A restart does not fix the matter.

3.  One need shut down the PC and wait 5min.  Then boot up again and the card will be working.

4.  Can restart anytime during the day with no issue.

5.  Can also shutdown as I have done at 18.00.  Came back at 21.00, booted and the card worked.

6.  Return following morning to the same of no card, wait, boot again, works.

7.  While we're concentrating on the WLAN aspect of this, there's a wee chance this could be caused by the Bluetooth side of the card.  It's possible.

There must be some internal process within Windows 10 (svchost?) that each day 'renews' and effects the PCIe card.  I'm no sure what that process may be, but I'm working on it.

Should I find a solution, I'll report it here.... and a few other forums I've joined due to this.

For now, boot - shut down - wait - boot again.  That is the easiest work around.

[Khun_Doug]

So "back in the day" there was a way to use MSCONFIG to check and uncheck an option called PCI Lock. This has since been removed, and I am sure Microsoft had good reason for doing so. Essentially, PCI Lock told the operating system that wherever BIOS located devices, to not change that. The reason was to avoid issues where devices were clearly visible in BIOS, but would not appear in Windows because the device IRQ and other hardware resources had been moved in the boot process. Does this sound like the case with these motherboards???

Today, it looks like PCI Lock is now part of BCDEdit. You will need a command prompt with elevated privilege to use BCDEdit. From what I read, the command would be "bcdedit /set usefirmwarepcisettings yes".

I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND creating a Restore Point before making this change. And here is the link to Microsoft's page describing this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/bcdedit--set