If you’ve just built a PC and you’re looking to use Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet, we'll walk you through the steps to install Wi-Fi drivers on your custom built PC running Windows 11, ensuring you can get online this way. Whether you're a seasoned builder or a first-time enthusiast, this guide will help you navigate the process with ease and confidence.
Before we begin, the specific steps and windows you may see will vary based on the brand & model of motherboard that your computer has but the steps will be quite similar for any modern motherboard. Before installing drivers, you'll want to ensure you have your wireless antennas screwed into the gold ports on the back of your motherboard. These antennas should be included in the motherboard box or motherboard accessories box.
The antennas will look similar to this example:
Here is an example of the gold ports where any antennas like this will screw into. The exact location of these ports on the back will vary:
The first thing we’ll cover is to ensure that we get the drivers for your specific motherboard. To verify what motherboard you have, right click on the Start button, usually found on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, and click on Run.
In the run box, clear out anything listed here if necessary. Type in msinfo32 and then click on OK.
This will open a system information window that should be on the system summary option by default. Locate “Baseboard manufacturer” which will be your motherboard manufacturer. In our example, this is ASUS. Below that will be the “Baseboard product” or the model number of your motherboard. In our example, it is TUF Gaming B550-PLUS Wi-Fi II.
Now that we’ve verified the motherboard model, we’ll want to open up a web browser and head to the manufacturer’s website. So for our example, we’ll look up the ASUS motherboard model drivers online through Google.
NOTE: If you don't have internet on the computer that is in need of these drivers, we would suggest following these downloading steps from another system and transferring the necessary files via an external USB drive.
After locating the driver download result page, click on it to take us directly to the manufacturer's website. Keep in mind, that steps may vary on the manufacturer’s site depending on brand and model but should be similar.
From the drivers page here, we’ll locate the Wireless or Wi-Fi drivers listed here and click on Download. Typically, this will be a .zip file.
Once this file is downloaded to your computer, we will want to extract the file if needed.
In the driver setup folder, most manufacturers will provide a simple .exe (setup) file to click on and open up to install the drivers automatically with a program. If prompted for a user account control window, click on Yes to allow the installation to proceed.
Now you may see an application pop up, or it may just automatically install the driver to your system.
To see if it has been installed, go to Device Manager by right-clicking on the Start button.
Expand the options in Device Manager for Network Adapters and if you see Wi-Fi/Wireless drivers listed here, now you will be able to connect wirelessly with your new system.
If you still don’t see this driver listed in Device Manager, you may need to reboot your computer after installing the driver and then check Device Manager again.
