Easiest Realtek USB FE Family Controller fix

I’m going to post this easy fix here for my personal reference. I own a USB type C Ethernet adapter (aff) that uses the Realtek driver, and I use it quite often. Then today, it suddenly stopped working on my Acer Swift 5 laptop.

When I checked my Device Manager, under the Network Adapter, my Realtek USB FE Family Controller driver had a yellow tick, which meant that there’s a problem with it. Sure enough, I couldn’t connect. I tried re-downloading the drivers to no avail.

Turns out, I only had to do the following:

STEP 1: Open Device Manager, find the Realtek driver with the yellow tick, right-click on it, and select Update driver.

STEP 2: Then, select Browse my computer for drivers per image below.

Step 2 screencap

STEP 3: In the next prompt, select Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer.

Step 3 screenshot

STEP 4 (FINAL!): In the Model list, select Realtek USB FE Family Controller (Realtek) and select the Next button and any other button until you exit the prompt box.

Step 4 screenshot

That’s really it. For whatever reason, when I plugged in my USB Ethernet adapter today, Realtek USB FE Family Controller (Microsoft) was selected. When that happened, my adapter stopped working. I almost had a panic attack.

Weird, huh. If you come here for this fix, I hope this solved your problem.

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Posted on 19 August, 2021 under Life at work and tagged with ,