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Archived This topic has been archived. Information and links in this thread may no longer be available or relevant. If you have a question create a new topic by clicking here and select the appropriate board.
HP Recommended

Hi there, I am having some trouble with my laptop recently. The wireless will not turn on and stays off no matter how many times I press the wireless switch button that's above the keyboard, always remaining that deathly orange colour which indicates that the wireless is off.

 

Product Name and Number: Compaq Presario CQ50-215-215CA

Operating System installed: Windows Vista 32-bit OEM

Error message (if any)        : No Error message kinda. First time I press the wireless button, the HP Wireless Assistant popup says "WLAN: Off". I press it again and says "WLAN: Disabled" and the cycle repeats when i press it a bunch of times.

Any changes made to your system before the issue occurred: This is what I think the problem is. A few days before my wireless stopped working, I had my battery disconnected and just running off the AC adapter. My dad accidentally unplugged my AC while he was vacuuming the living room. At the POST I got an cmos checksum error message. Computer normally booted with an incorrect time/date in the bios, but at the time internet was still working. Fast forward a few days later, my wireless then stops working.

 

Other info/Thins I've tried

-I goto Manage Network Connections->There's a red x on my Wireless Network Connection icon but upon right clicking it it says its "enabled" with only the option of disabling it. Click on diagnose and it says "Wireless capability on this computer is turned off."

-I goto the Atheros AR5007 802.11b/g WiFi Adapter Properties screen, and the device status says "This device is working properly.

-I go into the device manager and theres no "!" or anything on my Network adapters.

-Tried going into the bios and see if there was anything about my wireless adapter that was turned off but the only thing I could find was an option in the boot order that would enable the internal network adapter to start when the laptop boots up. Tried the enable / disable options and nothing really happened.

-I can still stick a ethernet cable and have the internet work ok on my wired connection.

-Tried uninstalling driver/restart computer. Upon restart, it reinstalled the drivers but still the wireless doesn't turn on.

 

At this point, to me it looks like its a hardware issue and kinda outta luck. Had this laptop about 3 years and kinda really need it still for school. Can anyone suggest anything I can still check/fix?

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
HP Recommended

try to reseat your wireless card... this might help in doing so....

~reikableu~
...KUDO's to me and if this resolves the issue, please tag this as "AcceptedSolution"
~I MAYBE working for HP Consumer Notebook Support but any opinion stated are not at anyways connected to those of HP.~

View solution in original post

255 REPLIES 255
HP Recommended

Hi,

 

Try a Hard Reset as follows.

 

Shut down the notebook, unplug the AC Adapter and then remove the battery.  Hold  down the Power button for a full minute.  Re-insert the battery, plug in the AC Adapter and see if this helps the issue.

 

Regards,

 

DP-K

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****


Windows Insider MVP

HP Recommended

Still no wireless. Button still is orange and pressing the wireless button just gives me the same "WLAN: Off" and "WLAN: Disabled".

 

Also another thing i forgot to mention is when shutting down the laptop, right before the laptop shuts down the orange briefly switches to blue and then the laptop shuts off. Don't know if thats of any significance though.

HP Recommended

try to reseat your wireless card... this might help in doing so....

~reikableu~
...KUDO's to me and if this resolves the issue, please tag this as "AcceptedSolution"
~I MAYBE working for HP Consumer Notebook Support but any opinion stated are not at anyways connected to those of HP.~
HP Recommended

Just took out the mini wireless card and put it back in following the FRU Remove/Replace(AMD) link that you gave. No luck 😞

 

 

HP Recommended

you can either try doing a recovery on your notebook to make sure all the drivers for your notebook are the correct one or you can buy another wireless card (same as what you have of course) cause it might already be the problem...

~reikableu~
...KUDO's to me and if this resolves the issue, please tag this as "AcceptedSolution"
~I MAYBE working for HP Consumer Notebook Support but any opinion stated are not at anyways connected to those of HP.~
HP Recommended

Ok so im not 100% sure what fixed the problem but ill kinda outline what I did that lead to the fix.

 

-Using the link Reikableu provided, I just popped out the mini wireless card out, removing the 2 antenna connections, then screwing out the 2 screws and pulling out the wireless mini card. RESULT: Didnt work, wireless button still remains disabled

-Pretty much dissassembled whole laptop to remove the dust in the laptop, mainly in the heatsink(wow so much dust blocking the vents) and reapplying thermal paste on cpu. Once I put the laptop back together and test wireless, still doesnt work.

-Read somewhere about the turn off wireless card to conserve power or something like that. Turned that off. Reboot. Wireless still didnt work.

-party dissassembled again, to the point where i could see the wireless antenna cables and the ribbon cables of the power/wireless button PCB, keyboard PCB ribbon cables. Made sure they were snug in the ZIF connectors. Put it back together and VOILA wireless is working now. Thanks for the help.

HP Recommended

i dont know what to do, and i cant get to use the wi fi at school

HP Recommended

This is a common problem a lot of lap tops are having problems with.  Same thing happen to me and I tried EVERYTHING!  This worked for me.

 

-Go to device manager (if you can't find hit the start menu and search device manager)

-Find your wireless device and click on it.

-you should see a button to enable wireless and it should work.

HP Recommended

HP Tech support just walked me through fixing this problem.

1. remove battery and unplug power supply

2. press and hold power on button for 30 seconds

3. leave battery out but plug power supply back in 

4. press power on button and then tap on the f10 key immediately (a number of times)

5. the bios setup menu appears

6. select reset defaults 

7. select save and exit

 

System boots and the wifi key turns from orange to blue

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