Adaptater not detected in the PCIe
Hey,
I’ve got a new prebuilt gaming PC (specs: Ryzen Gaming V3 | AMD Ryzen 7 8700F | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 12Go | 32Go DDR5 RAM | 1To NVMe SSD | Windows 11 | WiFi) that came with a TP-Link Archer T2E PCIe Wi-Fi card. Ethernet works perfectly, but I need Wi-Fi since there’s no Ethernet port in my room.
Problem: the Wi-Fi card is only detected randomly after multiple reboots (like 4–5). Most of the time, Windows doesn’t show Wi-Fi at all and the adapter’s status LED stays off. Once it finally works, the connection is stable, but detection is unreliable.
What I’ve already tried:
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Reseated the card in PCIe x1 slot.
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Updated TP-Link driver, Windows, BIOS, chipset → everything is up to date (checked both manually & automatically).
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Disabled Fast Boot.
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Forced PCIe slot speed (Auto → Gen3 → Gen2).
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Disabled PCIe power management.
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In BIOS, PCIEX1 often shows as “N/A” when the card isn’t detected.
I can’t test the card on another PC, so I’m stuck with this setup. Before I go to support/RMA, does anyone know if there’s a fix or workaround? Is this a known issue with the Archer T2E on Gigabyte boards?
Thanks!
Hi,
Looks like you have already tried everything that there is to try.
By the way, when the T2E is installed in the PCIe slot, do the golden contacts of its PCIe connector completely disappear within the PCIe slot or are they still visible? (picture below shows a good example)
If a PCIe card isn't detected by a motherboard, then sometimes it helps to plug it into another PCIe slot. But since yours is a prebuilt PC, I take it that there are no additional PCIe slots available that you could try, are there?
Hi, thanks for your reply.
Yes, when the Archer T2E is installed, the golden contacts are completely inside the PCIe slot, none of them are visible (just like in your example, see picture at the end). The card feels solid in the slot.
Unfortunately, my motherboard (Gigabyte B650M-H S2H) only has one free PCIe x1 slot. The x16 slot is already occupied by the GC, so I cannot test the Wi-Fi card in another slot without removing the graphics card (which is quite large and heavy).
That’s why I was wondering if a CMOS reset could realistically change anything here, or if it’s more likely that the card itself is faulty.
