missing wireless connection

Dave

Dave

Well-Known Member
on my laptop. the WLAN icon is gone. the LAN icon is still there but the wireless connection icon is gone too. i looked in the device manager and dont see the 801.whatever wireless card. i havent changed any settings/hardware recently.when i go to the control panel and click on the wireless icon (looks like an antenna), nothing happens.
any idea what happened?
 
Right click on the LAN icon and open network connections. Does it show there?

You might as well check if the wlan service is running, go to control panel, admin tools, services and check that "fast wireless configuration" (or something like that) is running.

What type of wlan card do you have?
 
it shows the LAN and 1368 (or 1638...some 4 digit number. cant recall off the top of my head) connections. my wireless showed on the other icon that had disappeared. the one with only one computer screen for an icon.
i dont remember the WLAN card type. it doesnt show on the device manager anymore.

i'll check on the "fast wireless config" and get back to you.
 
"wireless zero configuration" was the only thing listed that had the words wireless and configuration in it
 
That must be it, and by the looks of your problem, it shouldn't matter what the state of the service is, thou it is desirable to have it running.

On device manager, look under unknown devices (or something similar) for a LAN adapter. Perhaps the driver got uninstalled and you need to put it back.
 
You "pegged it" with your initial post.
The hardware is no longer showing in the device manager.

Is this a PCMCIA type device?

"a credit card sized thingie"
that slides into the slot on the left side of your computer?

it ain't werkin'
 
how would i put the driver back if it got uninstalled?

not a PCMCIA thing. its internal. Broadcom 802.11b
 
if winders ain't seein' it
you can't reload the driver...

in device manager there isn't an

'other devices category'?
 
you can show hidden devices.
the broadcom is showing but it is a scheduled packet miniport....whatever that means...

i connected the laptop with the LAN cable and dl'd the updated drivers. already updated the firmware for my router.
aside from bringing it to a local computer store to see if they can fix it, any other ideas?
 
mebbe right click the broadcom and remove it
reboot and see if you can load the driver

this is XP not Vista
is the Laptop still under free phone support?

it is hard to believe the hardware (WLAN) has failed
prolly just needs the driver loaded...
 
yeah...its XP

waiting for tech support now. hope the phone battery lasts long enough to actually talk with someone...
 
got it back briefly. restarted the machine and went to get something to eat, when i went back, it was up. had to reboot after updating the Norton and it was gone with the reboot.
tech support did just about everything i had already done but did have me reset some of the defaults on the BIOS screen at startup. i'll try that again later. their only other suggestion was to wipe it and start at the factory settings. i dont really want to do that....
 
aaaand its back again...just taking a super long time for it to recognize the card.


i'll try the download later. have a bunch of stuff i need to do. spent most of the day trying to troubleshoot this.

thanks :)
 
Did the thing get knocked loose somehow? I don't know about your laptop, but mine has the wireless on some sort of daughterboard that's under a cover on the bottom of the machine. I have two such covers... one for the RAM upgrade slot, the other for the wireless adapter. It makes sense to me that the wireless adapter could have been knocked a little loose.
 
HP support had me take the card out and re-install it. its screwed in so accidently knocking it out is not an issue.

reset the defaults on the BIOS screen at start up then redownloaded the drivers.

seems to be working fine now. the blue light for the card is lit. got all the icons back in the systray too.

:shrug:
 
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