Many thanks for taking the trouble to respond.
Unfortunately, this does not solve my problem. I have updated various drivers, enabled, unenabled, installed, reinstalled all sorts of attempts to fix the problem. There were even forum suggestions about closing the lid, re-doing the BIOS and more. I am reasonably sure I have tried all of them more than once and in many different combinations.
Nothing works. The issue is a fundamental one to the internal workings of the HP and the incompatibility with upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8.
It sill amazes me that HP just could not be bothered to engage on this and offer to fix it. I am sure they will come up with something in a month or so -- just when the warranty expires. It is strange to treat your customers this way when your company is losing market share in a market that is already declining.
I would have to hand over my machine for some days to a desktop services professional (at my own cost, this is a private machine) to delete everything, reformat drives and take the installation back to Windows 7. I am not confident enough, nor do I have the time, to follow the detailed instructions to do this that one can find online. It seems you run the risk of totally messing up your drives and also deleting everything that was built in to this particular model.
In the meantime, I have bought a wireless USB dongle that connects just fine. It is a poor substitute on a machine that is quite expensive, but at least it works.