Q: OSX Yosemite Wi-Fi: no hardware installed

I guess everyone has the same problem & various ways of solving the issue.

However, for me after all my previous methods posted in this forum started to not work & started to fail .. including re-installing OS Yosemite, I figure the problem must be the Airport & it turns out I was right. I changed the airport & almost everything is now fine.

I can now use wi-fi out side my house, but at home it still does not work haha+ I guess now the problem is my router at home.

Same problem after update to 10.11 El Capitan. No solution so far.

Granitic and Paulbkkl19, bad news the solve for this problem is the mainboard replace!!!! Sorry!!!! Is the same problem what I have!

Hi guys, having the same problem here! I had it before and I temporarily fixed it using something like USB Panda Drivers (I don't remember exactly). Tonight, I plugged the ethernet cable to run some speed tests, unplugged it, turned wifi back on and got the message "WiFi: No Hardware Installed"! I tried everything, but with no luck, I have El Capitan. I'm sure it's not an hardware issue, because I have another internal HD on my MBP and when I boot from there, the wifi works just fine!

Did anybody find any working solution? Thanks!

So, I just had this happen with my MacBook pro (2015) & OS: El Capitain and called apple support.

Did the update and restarted and then my Wi-Fi stopped working and gave the "Wifi: No hardware installed" error.

Here is what they recommended that worked for me:

1) Shut down all applications (except for Finder - leave this open).  To do this press Option + Command + Esc at the same time.  Then close all apps.

2) Completely shut down your computer

3) While its off, press all of these at the same time Ctrl+option+shift+power and hold this down for a good 5 seconds.  Then release at the same time.

4) power on your device normally using the power button.  Hope this helps.

Thank you chilelime7! I installed the software system update a couple days ago and it fixed everything! Thank you again for your reply.

Didn't have wifi for almost two weeks. Computer said no wifi hardware installed. Took it to an IT center at my school. I upgraded to newest Yosemite via ethernet. Closed all open tabs and then reset NVRAM. Works so far! Saved me some money! Totally worth trying.

Worked like a charm thank you.

Resetting the NVRAM worked for me just now on my 1 month old MacBook Pro.

I ran into this problem on my mid 09 macbook pro, and did several steps.  Finally, when I tried to reset the NVRAM, even though it wouldn't recycle the start on it's own, it did fix the problem.  I came from a cold start, used the (cmnd, optn, P, R) code and got to the control screen.  I shut it off again, and did the same thing a second time.  Again, it did not automatically restart.  But, when I rebooted the third time, and let it start all the way up, my WiFi was back and functioning.

Thanks for the help!

This was really helpful. Thank you so much @chilelime7

I have the same issue. I see there are many different solutions people are saying worked for them - and also it's reported that many of them don't work the first time but after several tries - and that it often comes back again later. All the solutions include a reset at some point. What I've concluded is that it's the reset itself that corrects it but it may need several attempts - and it does tend to come back again later whatever you do. So what I do now is the famous "turn it off and back on again" until it comes back to life.

The one thing I haven't tried yet for a possible permanent solution is the full OS re-install. That might work because I do believe it's a software issue, not hardware. The reason I say that is that I started having the problem the same day I installed El Capitan - and I'd never ever had anything like it before that.

Open Network Preferences,, usually an "X" indicate u've (or some softwaer perhaps?) deleted the wi-fi  adapter..

add it if its not there..

Thanks for the reply. However, with this fault the OS is not aware that the WiFi hardware is present - therefore it does not offer up WiFi as an option in Network Preferences.

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.

Select the  menu with the option/alt key held down and select System Information. Wi-Fi show there?