Wifi Woes

[mmitcham]

Am having a major headache with a Packard Bell Easynote R1910 Laptop running XP SP3. It was given to me to fix as it wouldn't boot. Have managed to get it to boot up now but the wifi doesn't see anything. When I view Wireless Networks it says 'No Wireless Networks were found in range" even though I know that there are around 6 Networks around me. I have tried using Fn + F1 to activate the Wifi and the machine just beeps. According to to Device Manager it says it is working ok.

I have taken the machine apart and there only seems to be one antenna wire going to the Internal Wifi Card, which is connected to the Main connector. Shouldn't there be 2? The Wifi Card is an Atheros Wireless Network Adapter.

I have taken the wifi card out and tried it in another laptop (which has two antenna wires) and it works fine.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[redwudz]

Does it have a WiFi switch somewhere on the side or front of the laptop? I've ran into faulty switches that won't activate the card and show the same symptoms as you describe. No idea about two antennas, but others here may be more familiar with that possibility.

And welcome to our forums.

[edDV]

My Compaq laptop's internal wifi failed in a similar way. User forums say it happpened after a particular Windows Vista update. HP/Compaq still hasn't fixed the driver so I'm using a USB2 N stick instead.

[AlanHK]

Sounds like a driver problem rather than hardware.

To check use a bootable Linux CD and see if it can detect and use the wifi.

See eg http://wirelessdefence.org/Contents/WirelessDistros.htm

[SLK001]

As for two antennas, some machines have them, others do not. You only need one antenna, but they install two for diversity purposes. The software continually scans the antenna ports and connect to the strongest signal (two antenna would be orthogonal to each other).

The first thing that I would try would be to fire up a Linux distro as previously suggested and check the operation. If it works, I would reinstall the wireless driver and the hotkey function driver. On my computer, Fn-F8 will enable and disable the wireless card.

[mmitcham]

Thanks everyone. Have done a bit more investigating and have swapped the Wifi Card for the one in my own laptop and, after installing the drivers for this one, I get the message saying that the Radio is disabled. I have tried to re-enable it using the Fn + F1 key and all the machine is doing is beeping.

As a result I will tell the owner to buy a USB Wifi Adapter and everything should be ok.

[SLK001]

It says that the radio is disabled, not defective. You should have the Atheros Client Utility installed, which will give you signal bars in the icon tray. The ACU will allow you to "enable" (RE: turn on) your radio. You can also turn the radio on by using the Network Adapters under the Device Manager.