Hi folks! I'm posting here because I found a lot of reports of problems with the TP-Link AX3000 / Archer TX55e wi-fi and bluetooth card, where the wifi adapter intermittently disappears from Device Manager. Many of the threads never found a permanent solution. I think I may have found a solution which would hopefully save a lot of people. 

 

tl;dr: It turned out to be a loose connection between the card and the slot, caused by the mounting bracket. Adjusting the card's antennas made it worse. Unscrewing the mounting bracket and pushing the card firmly into the slot fixed it. Optionally you can also bend the mounting bracket, to allow it to be both screwed in and the card seated properly. Here's a before and after image (imgur album link). More details below.

 

Problem

Archer TX55E uses the Intel AX200 Adapter. That device should show up in the list of Network Adapters in Device Manager, but it keeps disappearing from Device Manager for seemingly no reason. Wifi won't work when this happens. Here's an example thread of people with this problem (7 pages long)

 

Facts I had:

 

* Archer Tx55e (UN) v1.20, a Wifi and Bluetooth card, mounted in a PCIe slot

* Bluetooth works consistently, no problem at all

* Wifi adapter (Intel AX200) disappears from Device Manager

* Wifi stops working

* I tried updating drivers, it didn't help.

* I tried updating BIOS, it didn't help

* I tried turning off Device Power Management (allow Windows to turn this device off to save power), it didn't help

* Upon viewing Hidden Devices I could see the device sometimes, but with Error Code 45: this hardware is not connected

* Hard-rebooting the computer would sometimes work, restoring the device to device manager

* The problem would reappear for seemingly no reason

* One thing that would cause the problem to reappear: when I physically adjusted the antennas for the card. The card would be working / appearing in Device Manager, I'd adjust the antennae slightly and see my wifi stop working / the device disappears in Device Manager.

 

I searched for a while, i found many posts expressing similar problems. Some people reported finding short-term fixes, some not. Finally I found one comment from a Reddit user saying that it started working after he unscrewed the mounting bracket. This seemed improbable but I'd tried everything else. So here's what I did:

 

Solution

1. Unscrewed the card's mounting bracket from my PC case
2. pushed the card more firmly into the PCIe Slot, noting that it slid in much further than before
3. rebooted my PC (turned it off, turn off PSU, hold power button down for 5 seconds, turn PSU back on, turn on PC)
4. Success! The device shows up, the wifi works

 

Optional extra long-term solution

If you want to also have the card bolted in, you can do that, but it requires you to bend the mounting bracket. This might void your warranty and isn't official advice!

 

1. Remove the card from your case
2. Bend the arm of the mounting bracket slightly. Bend it away from the card, so that the insertion point for the mounting bolt will line up with the hole in the case.
3. Re-insert it, with the card firmly in the slot
4. Ensure that the mounting bracket can be bolted to the case, with the card firmly remaining in the slot.

 

 

this was a great relief after encountering issues with this card.

 

Why this was happening / why it works

Previously, the card was only half-inserted. When I looked at my card, I could see some of the golden contacts still exposed. They were only partially in the slot. After I unscrewed the mounting bracket and pushed the card in, they were fully inserted in the PCIe slot and invisible. The card feels a lot more firmly seated as well.

 

My guess would be that adjusting the antennas (or any physical movement of the card) simply pulled the card out of the slot and caused it to disconnect from the motherboard.

I'd also guess that various other conditions (moving the PC around, temperature, etc) caused the problem to disappear or re-appear, thus causing the intermittent symptoms that people saw. 

 

I will update this post with long-term results, to report if this fix worked after a month.

 

I'm posting this because I sincerely hope it'll save time for people who have this product and have this issue. Good luck and i hope this helped!

 

Before/After Photos

I'm also going to try to share two photos, a before and after, to better illustrate the issue. They may not show up. Here's an imgur link if they don't.

 

Here's the before (click here to download the image if it's not showing up). Note that you can see the gold contacts of the PCI card; that means they're not actually pushed into the slot.

 

 

After going through all the steps above (click here to download image).

 

Note that you can no longer see the gold contacts; this means they're inside the slot, where they should be! Also note that the mounting bracket is slightly bent, allowing the screw to hold the bracket to the case, but the card is still properly seated.