Adapter A6210 not detected

[DannyOBoy]

Same Issue here... the new update of the A6120 Drivers v35 made it somewhat not work anymore. It used to have worked perfectly fine before, the utility worked, connecting the adapter worked fine too. But when I installed the new update, it made the utility app/thing no longer open and the Genie won't detect the adapter, but the weird thing is that it allows me to still use wifi. Is there a way to go back to v34??? I need help please!!

[Dunks]

From what I could understand from Curry's/PC World's tech people, you can't go back to V34 (I tried). My own IT consultant advised me to ditch it and move on. The fact Curry's refunded my money (very honourably - not their fault) confirmed to me this is a dead end. As mentioned in my previous post I got an Edimax AC600, and it works perfectly with W10. 

Netgear's indifference to this is contemptuous and beggars belief - still no reply to any of our posts . The only hilarious thing out of this crappy episiode is that they've just 'congraulated me' with some sort of reviewer badge for slagging them off. Seriously, move on... 

[Retired_Member]

Couldn't agree with you more Dunks, am probably gonna go with the D-Link AC 1900, it has the 3.0 connectivity where the Edimax doesn't ( still a very good adapter tho ).

Netgear has really dropped the ball on this one, like I said in my other post; they will be going the route of the "Pandigital E-Reader" --- into oblivion & the Twilight Zone !!!

Thanks for all your tips, g/l......

[DannyOBoy]

What should I do with the a6120 ... I bought it from bestbuy a quite a while ago. Do you think they will refund me the whole price or exchange me for a different one. What adapter should I get that is good for games, should I stick with netgear or a different company, and what

[billcoghlan]

Solution!!

Try this -

1. Install v35

2. Stop the istallation at the point where you would hit next to detect the device

3. Plug it in to your USB

4a. This is the step that fixes it -> https://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/30146

4b. From Device Manager / Network Adapters choose scan for hardware changes

5a Hopefully this should find "USB"

5b Right click on USB and then choose detect / scan for new (not sure what the actual description was

5c There are some prompet to follow but this is where Windows finds the USB driver to discover the A6210 via the USB.

[steveath]

Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately when I plug my A6210 adaptor in and scan for hardware changes it only recognises the adaptor as " 802.11ac Wireless LAN Card". (As previously). Unless I have missed something - the link you provided only works if the A6210 adaptor is recognised - and the driver can be updated manually. As the main problem is that the adaptor is not recognised with the 35 update then I cannot see a way around it until Netgear come up with a solution (This year if possible!!).

As the adaptor does not work and it is still well within warranty I am tempted to return it. The problem is - I think - that it is not the adaptor that is at fault, but Netgear's 35 update so a replacement adaptor would suffer the same problems.

Thanks again for the help and if you see that I have missed a point please let me know.

[jprife]

Same exact thing happened to me this morning.  Got the message from Genie that the '35' update was available, and when I went through the installation steps, it failed to detect my A6210 WiFi Adapter.  Uninstalled and reinstalled several times but no luck.  Also uninstalled and tried to reinstall with the original CD, but it did not work either.  This is a very frustrating problem since up until this morning, my adapter had been working for over a year (bought it in July 2015) and only broke because of the update.  Hope that Netgear responds soon with a fix!

[DaveinNE]

See my previous post.  The fix is to install the Netgear file that says '..standaolone' .  Then, go to the wifi settings and set the device up from there.  Do not go back to the so-called 'genie'.  

[jeffmiles]

I go back to my original post ...

Why should I even have to think about a fix? There is a whole world out there that is not computer savvy and has no interest in the techie issues. All they want (I want) is hardware and software that works first time, everytime, straight out of the box. That's what we pay our money for and in any other consumer market Netgear would be in the small claims court.

We are 16% into the 21st century with AI a near reality, with MS hawking psuedo AI for W10, and Netgear which is a $1.3 billion global company can update its basic software properly. I guess the A6210 is a minute part of its revenue but that is absolutely no excuse.

I guess Mr Patrick Lo, Netgear's CEO doesn't look at this forum, perhaps he should.

[jeffmiles]

That should be " can't update"

[DaveinNE]

I agree 100%.  All I can think is that Netgear is so big they dont care about this 'little problem'.   I called the help line that requires a payment.  I only wanted to voice my complaint to a real person.  I didn't lay out any money.  The person from Netgear said it had been escalated to a 'Level 3', whatever that means.  It must be on a scale of 1 to 100 with 1 being the lowest.  

No more netgear products for me (I have 4 in my house), any replacements won't be Netgear. 

[Angus66]

I followed those steps from the link you provided (thanks for that BTW) and everything looked good - it found the A6210 USB, picked the adapter, pointed it to the folder where the new driver is and installed.

When I right-click on the adapter in device manager the driver listed is still listed from 4/21/15 & it still lists it as a "802.11ac Wireless LAN card.

[marcwx]

ANYONE WHO STILL NEEDS HELP; just reiterating what someone said here. 
1. Click "Install Windows Standalone Driver", should download successfully.

2. After search and bring up settings in Windows 10

3. Go to "Network & Internet"

4. Go to "Wifi"

5. Have the Netgear Wifi Enabled (could be titled Wifi-2 if you have another wifi card) and the other one disabled (if you have another wifi card)

6. Click "Show Available Networks"

7. If on Windows 10, it should bring up the list of wifi connections in bottom right. Make sure you are on the tab of the Netgear Wifi you would've typically used

8. Select the connection and enter your password, should connect and your problems fixed!

[marcwx]

ANYONE WHO STILL NEEDS HELP; just reiterating what someone said here. 
1. Click "Install Windows Standalone Driver", should download successfully.

2. After search and bring up settings in Windows 10

3. Go to "Network & Internet"

4. Go to "Wifi"

5. Have the Netgear Wifi Enabled (could be titled Wifi-2 if you have another wifi card) and the other one disabled (if you have another wifi card)

6. Click "Show Available Networks"

7. If on Windows 10, it should bring up the list of wifi connections in bottom right. Make sure you are on the tab of the Netgear Wifi you would've typically used

8. Select the connection and enter your password, should connect and your problems fixed!

[steveath]

Thanks for the information.

I followed your instructions and the adaptor does work. However the Device Manager still only recognises it as "802.11ac Wireless LAN Card" and it is still not working properly.

As an example I tested the speed on the Movistar website (I have Movistar 300mbs fibre optic):

A6210 Adaptor

 21.91mbps download, 31.07mbps upload

TP-LINK Archer AC1200 (Borrowed from my wifes laptop)

183.91mbps download,  32.20 mbps upload

The A6210 will not recognise the 5GHz option which does not help, but this is far from satisfactory. Pre the 35 update I was getting speeds up to 200mbps and I am 2 rooms away from the router.

Netgear still have work to do. If I had checked the support arrangements - only 90 days free advice - then I would not have purchased and for the same reason I won't ever be purchasing Netgear products again.

Thanks again for the information - I realise you are doing your best to help.

[Angus66]

I had the exact same experience as you steveath.

Additionally, the installed driver is still dated 4/25 and appears to be a generic version - not the Netgear driver.

Maybe there's left over driver files still lurking on the drive that are preventing the correct driver from being installed?

I'm going to try installing the A6210 on another PC that has a fresh, fully updated Windows 10 install and see if it works correctly.

[JanGro]

I've had the same issue. I finally called technical support (even though I've had my A6210 for over a year) and they had me reinstall (a couple of times) the updated software a couple of times, and, finally use the stand alone installation (which left me NO netgear icon on the desktop). In going to SETTINGS, NETWORK AND INTERNET, WFI, CHANGE ADAPTER OPTIONS, it showed that the adapter (802.11ac Wireless LAN card) was installed but NOT connected. While the tech was researching what to do next, I tried going to SETTINGS, NETWORK AND INTERNET, WFI, and choosing the WIFI 2 option, which led me to a list of wifi networks. I clicked on my wifi network, entered the wifi password, and the adapter connected and the power light came on. I still don't have a Network Genie icon on my desktop (probably because of the "standalone" driver) but I'm confident that the adapter is now doing what it is supposed to do. Hope this helps. BTW, I thanked the tech support representative for allowing me to teach HIM how to potentially fix the "not connected" issue !

[jprife]

I've been in communication with a Level 2 Support Engineer, who sent me a Trial Beta version of the software which he hoped might fix the problem, but unfortunately it didn't.  However, I did find this procedure on another similar thread and it DOES work for Windows 10 Anniversary:

1. Run the file: A6210_v1.0.0.35 and as usual wait for the 'Plug in your adapter' message. 

2. When you get the 'Adapter not detected', click Cancel

3. Leave the adapter plugged in, do not remove it and go to Device Manager.

4. Under Network adapters you will see: 802.11ac Wireless LAN Card

5. Double click on this and goto the Driver Tab.

6. Click on 'Update Driver'

7. Now choose 'Browse My computer for Driver Software'

8. Now click, 'Let me choose from a list of device drivers on my computer'

9. Choose Netgear A6210 Wifi usb 3.0 adapter and click Next. The driver will be installed

10. Close down device manager.

11. Go to your wifi / internet iceon in the bottom right of your screen. If you are wired, change this to wireless and then connect to your network. 

12. The adapter should now be working

13. I then went to here: http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/discover/apps/genie.aspx?cid=wmt_netgear_organic and downloaded the genie software independently of the A6210 software and installed it.

14. It actually worked and now runs ok under Windows 10 with anniversary. Its a pain, I know, but until Netgear sort themsleves out it works, and to be honest the adapter itself is very good and when connected to my virgin Superhub 2 I'm getting 140mbs download. compared to 10 over my very old powerline adapters.

[cgilmour]

Just wanted to add my lousy experience after receiving the update notification and getting stuck on the install.  No blanking support because it was bought last year.  It was working fine!  I did not need this aggravation and loss of time trying to fix this.  It was working fine!  Someone needs to teach Netgear "If its not broke, don't fix it!"  Now I cannot even get the Netgear Genie program to open.  Christmas time is not a good time to get an expensive little surprise like this !!!  Never buying Netgear ANYTHING again.

[kwajkid]

I had the same thing after the update.  And Netgear has been no help.  They new this update did not work with Windows 10 for weeks but still sent it out.  I've search hundreds of messages about this and netgear is not doing anything or helping anyone with this problem they caused.  I eventually had to uninstall windows 10 and go back to 7.  I had the free upgrade for 10. I am waiting for the delivery of my D-Link adapter tomorrow.  And then I will get windows 10 again and have to pay full price for it.  I am done with netgear, I use to swear by their products, but I will not have another netgear product in my house ever again and will not have one good thing to say about this company.  Goodbye Netgear, you've just lost a loyal customer

[RTKeen]

OK, I did something entirely stupid.  I admit it.

I used the instructions above and was able to get my A6210 working just fine.  I was cruising along, and then noticed that the "genie" software was somehow loaded (I didn't want it to be).  So I went into Control Panel and uninstalled it.  This had the very unfortunate side effect of also uninstalling the driver, which disabled the A6210.

OK, so I thought I would just go through and re-install it the same way.  No dice.  Everything seems to work, but the LED never comes on the adaptor and Windows says the interface is disabled.

I've completely uninstalled, and deleted everything Netgear, and tried again and still cannot get it working.  Any ideas?

Thanks.

[RTKeen]

Just an FYI for everybody, I fixed my own stupid mistake above.

Windows keeps a file repository of drivers, and no matter how many times I tried to force it to re-install, it was pulling files from the repository, not from a new install.  Unfortunately, you can't just delete a file repository.  So I searched and found a thing (from Microsoft) called RAPR that allows you to remove filestore repositories.  I deleted the Netgear repository for the driver, then ran through the installation instructions listed earlier in this thread, and the adaptor is now working for me again.

[CLAIRJAQUISS]

Oh dear, from messages below looks like this is a useless piece of kit.  Support phone line has now kept me waiting 40 minutes.  Very frustrating.

[TorrendotTaxes]

I've been keeping an eye on this thread; rather disheartening to see no assistance from Netgear thus far. I have to say I'll be thinking twice before I recommend this solution while assisting customers, if I can't get it working myself.

[Kevscout]

Most of your steps worked for me until it came to Step 11. I had to switch from Wireless to WIFI to get it to work.