Wi-Fi: No hardware installed

Thank you, I had a go at that this morning but it wouldn't work for me. I can toggle the menu bar status OK, but the Network preference panel already showed wi-fi as being off (so I couldn't turn it off as you suggest) and trying to turn it on had no effect; it remained off. I have upgraded to 10.7.2 (build 11C74) since originally asking for help on this, but it has had no effect.

Well, after clicking on the restart button a couple times, it just wouldn't work. But, after clicked shut down, and then turning it on right after it started working!

I can add my macbook pro to the list of 'wifi: no hardware installed' victims.

At the London Regent Street Store yesterday (after an hour's wait beyond appointment time) the Genius test said it was a hardware fault and the airport card must be faulty/dead. However, when I got home I turned the mbp on and, as if by magic, wifi was working normally. About 3 hours later it failed. I switched off overnight. It's been dead most of the day so I did a complete clean up using Onyx, restarted and, yes, you guessed it, wifi was back.

I guess it could be a faulty airport card but it seemsthere are an awful lot of airport cards failing all at the same time! Coincidence or a software glitch post 10.7.2? Various forums now seem to have plenty of entries from mac owners with this same problem.

How do we get an official response from Apple on this? In my experience Apple are fantastic at addressing this kind of issue once they know. How can we ensure they are aware?

Macbook Pro 2.6 17" OS 10.7.2

An update:

I have checked with my TechToolPro edrive and there is no problem at all with the airport connection.

The edrive was set up under 10.6.8.

When I switch back to 10.7.2 the wireless connection is fine for an hour or two then freezes and eventually registers 'wifi: no hardware installed'. When I switch back to the edrive Wireless is working perfectly.

So it looks like the issue is a software issue with Lion. That's not a scientific response of course! I am going to go back to a Genius and show the difference between Lion and the edrive and see what ideas they have.

If there' s no solution I'll switch back to Snow Leopard until I see reports of a fix.

So as I had run into this problem in good timing (the semester just began) WIFI: No hardware installed decided to bless me with its unwanted troubles. Now I tried every solution that everyone has posted. Reset this and that, flick on/off this and that. Even tried for giggles changing the firmware to SL. NOTHING WORKED!!

Then I for fun decided to tear apart and hunt for the problem in the hardware.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Mid-2010-AirP ort-Card/6024/1

I followed those instructions and took apart the display to get the airport chip. I got to it with no problems at all. the black clutch was a bit tricky. But I digress. I took the airport chip out. blasted it some compressed air, cleaned the connectors( i used one of those rubbing alcohol pad and LET DRY). Put the everything back together. I left everything torn apart for a good 20 minutes.

Boot it up.

Saw the WIFI symbol up top and Bada Bing it asked me to install the "new airport card" to get it functioning. So far its working like a charm no problems. NO MORE WIFI No Hardware installed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after it worked amazingly all night. i closed the lid on woke up and back to square one. Wifi not working. I at least can say this to apple.

APPLE ITS ON YOU THE HARDWARE IS FINE, THERE IS SOMETHING SOFTWARE WISE THAT IS NOT WORKING WITH WIFI CHIPS!!

Well, I'm aware it's kind of off topic posting, but I've always had exactly the same issue you all are describing on my MBP-mid 2010 13", which came with SL 10.6.3. And I do still have running 10.6.8. It doesn't seem to be widespread among SL users, but I suspect Lion Wi-Fi problems may be rooted in previous SL ones. Just a couple of threads:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2459597

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2613453

I too am having the same problem. I stumbled upon the following solution from a blog. It worked for me:

Just UNCHECK that "Re-open windows when logging back in" button when you log out or shut down and then restart.

http://macnerd-presents.blogspot.com/2011/08/os-x-lion-wifi-no-hardware-installe d.html

Unchecking did not work for me! Along with many other so called fixes, I am on an imac dual core intel with 10.7.3......at 10.7.2 my wifi was dropping badly then i Updated and got 10.7.3 thinking ah the fix is here ....instead it killed my airport card. I now have a grayed out airport icon that says no hardware installed ...I had a partition on my hard drive for bootcamp which I never use so I erased that and then put my system discs in and then my snow leopard disc and voila I have my airport running again ...but when I restart back in lion it is gone? So clearly there is nothing wrong with the card it is just the program Lion. I mention this because many people are being told it is their hardware (remove card and re-insert blah blah blah) but this is not the case..maybe some cases ..but not mine...Had I ripped apart the computer and spent probably an hour or so ..I would have come up with the same results. So I am going back and fourth now with "FIXES" to see if any work...I have to restart in a dif partition to get on the internet and read and then restart in lion in order to try the fix..........none have worked so far. At least in leopard I have a connection and everything runs fine.......although all of my files and programs are in lion...so I really want it to work. Hopefully soon! Then I'll just keep leopard in case this happens again. There was supposedly an imac wifi update...so i downloaded it put it on a usb removable then went back to lion and try and install but was told it will not work with my system? no idea now why that is happening it could have only been for quad core ..not sure. I have to go back to the page and read again.

Second wifi card on my MBP (late 2009) is gone bad. I have decided not to replace it any more and purchased a USB Adaptor from Frys Electronics. The Model and Make are as below: IOGEAR Compact Wireless N USB Adaptor Model GWU 625. Works well with Mac. The adaptor comes with a driver mini CD. Please do not put this in MBP CD Side Loading Drive. Download the drivers from IOGEAR website. In 2-3 minutes everything gets installed and works perfectly. They have drivers for SL (10.6) and Lion (10.7). Hope this helps who want to know which USB Adaptor to purchase.

I've just got this problem. I'm on Lion 10.7.5 and Wi-Fi hardware can't be found either by Lion, my Snow Leopard disc or any problems in Apple Hardware Test. What to do? I am not allowed to contact Apple Support without paying for it (bought my MBP almost exactly 2 years ago).

I've got a 2009 Mac mini running Lion 10.7.5, and this issue just cropped up for me. Multiple restarts didn't fix it, but when I "shut down" and restarted manually, my network came back online. Not sure if it's a permanent fix, but it's running now.

I just fixed my "Wi-Fi: No hardware installed." problem.

Plugged ethernet cable into macbook. Restarted holding down alt and D together. This, I read, performed a diagnostic test. Screen went grey and I left it for ten minutes or so. When I went back, I restarted the MackBook and the wi-fi came back. I hope this fix is permanent.

Hi all, I've tried numerous strange and exotic processes and mystical spells as described here to make my daughter's laptop grow back a healthy piece of wifi hardware. Some worked for a fee days but eventually failed.

I thought it seemed like therein issue was going to continue for a long time, there's a lot of frustrated people here and a very silent Apple too busy trying to create the next wow product but no interest (and no money) in supporting legacy issues. So I decided to give up on this painful waste of time and purchased a USB wifi adaptor called the Edimax EW 7811UN nano USB wifi adaptor which sits less than half an inch outside if the USB port (so low risk of being snapped off when laptop is used in 'bed mode').

We now have wifi and it isn't going to fail again. Ever.

I'm, as many, exactly in the same situation, but my MacBookAir has only one USB port so this is really not a solution in my case.

BTW 10.8.4 did not solved the problem. Apple is so busy making money.