Surface Laptop 3: Intel(R) Wifi 6 AX201 160MHz can't access the internet

Question

As the title says, my Surface Laptop 3 has an issue that recently popped up making it unable to access the internet through Wifi.

I've tried searching online for an answer to the problem but even after trying to update the driver of the Wifi card, updating my windows 10 amongst other things, I've yet to fix my laptop's inability to access the internet through Wifi.

I'll link some snips I took while troubleshooting this issue below. If anyone knows what the issue is or how to solve it, I would greatly appreciate the help.

Thanks for any help in advance! :)

Fig. 1 Snip taken from my device manager

Note: As seen, I believe the root of my Wifi Woes are from my Intel(R) Wi-Fi6 AX201 wifi chip

Haven't been able to solve that one via uninstalling and reinstalling the wifi card driver, updating it to the latest version or simply restarting my laptop.

Fig. 2 A snip of troubleshooter having no clue what any issues on the network adapter might be.

Fig. 3 A snip of my laptop driver's current version

Note: I do believe this is the latest version of the network driver available as of 20 Nov 2021.

Fig. 4 I saw this message and figured it might help ID the issue with my WiFi Card. Hope this helps!

Fig.5 Went into events viewer to figure out where things went wrong. I can't really make out what the error are trying to say so I left it here. Hopefully someone can tell me more about this. And what I can do to fix this.

Fig.6 Error message in event viewer that is most likely a direct result of the error in Fig.5

Fig.7 An Error in the event viewer that would probably be linked to the mystery of the WiFi Woes of my Surface Laptop. I just hope this doesn't mean that there's a hardware issue with my Wifi card...

That's all folks!

As in all the information I could gather by myself and my limited knowledge of the working computer. I do hope the info I've collected can help someone troubleshoot this issue for me and hopefully give me a solution for this problem.

Many Thanks!

Answer 1

Updated 9/1/2022: Thank you for reporting the issue. A fix is available through Windows Update.

• Some customers were intermittently unable to connect Wi-Fi after installing the updated Intel WiFi 6 driver version 22.80.0.9.  This update re-releases the Intel Wifi 6 driver version 22.40.0.7 with an updated driver date of 9/19/2021 and will be installed in place of the 22.80.0.9 version of the driver.

Answer 2

Edit 12.22.21 - Microsoft has now acknowledged an issue:

Surface Laptop 3 update history (microsoft.com)

Answer 3

I found that the device wont start, I tried a few things to get that to happen, airplane mode on/off, reset network adapter/reset computer...

Also uninstalled drivers, remove device settings and reinstall driver 22.90.0 which seems to be stable.

So, after al that, I held down the power button continuously until and after the screen prompted me to slide down to turn off.

Continue to hold the button down until the windows icon appears and the loading halo is rotating and then release.

Do the hokey pokey

and resume using the internet.

I assume its a power management issue and a later update will resolve it.

Answer 4

Try going into the UEFI and disabling the WiFi and Bluetooth. Wait 30 second, then re-enable and restart.

1. Shut down your Surface.
2. Press and hold the volume-up button on your Surface and at the same time, press and release the power button.
3. When you see the Surface logo, release the volume-up button.
   The UEFI menu will display within a few seconds.

Any change?

Answer 5

This fix worked for me (Surface Laptop 3 Windows 10 latest firmware):

Update to latest driver and firmware using Windows updates whilst logged in as a local admin (include optional updates)

Then go to device manager, AX201 - Click Advanced tab, then set all options as follows:

802.11 a/b/g mode 6. Dual band 802.11a/b

802.11n/ac/ax Wireless mode 4. 802.11ax

APR offload for WoWLAN Disabled

Channel Width for 2.4Ghz Auto

Channel Width for 5Ghz Auto

Fat Channel Intolerant Disabled

GTK rekeying for WoWAN Disabled

MIMO Power Save Mode No SMPS

Mixed Mode Protection RTS/CTS Enabled

NS Offload for WoWAN Disabled

Packet Coalescing Disabled

Preferred Band 2. Prefer 2.4Ghz band

Roaming Aggressiveness 3. Medium

Sleep on WoWAN Disconnect Disabled

Throughput Booster Disabled

Transmit Power 5. Highest

U-APSD support Disabled

Wake on Magic Packet Disabled

Wake on Pattern Match Disabled

This should immediately resolve the issue and wont even need a reboot. There are obviously options I have changed from the default that may not have affected the output but I haven't gone through every combination to see which one or ones actually fixed the issue.