Wireless stopped working AGAIN- 11 months after HP Repaired

[kfane]

I have a presario V5000, just 2 years old and the wireless also stopped working.  It looks like they have a problem with the wireless.

[Andy]

HP already sent me a box and I am debating if I should even send mine in.  They want me to back everything up on my hard drive?  For replacing the same faulty motherboard, not to mention I have a dv9300 series with a extra hard drive installed in the other bay, so do I have to back that one up too.  Also by reading other peoples responses seems like it would be a waste of time for me to send it in anyways since they replace it with another faulty motherboard and in another couple of months to a year it will go again anyways.  I paid a 1000 bucks for this laptop and I'd expect it to be replaced or fixed "properly".  And since I am making due cause i bought myself a usb wireless adapter and am not experiencing other symptoms like other people here, i think i will stick with mine for now and if it does go completely on me then I can tell you this much I will never buy HP again, period.

Anyone notice that a HP admin/moderator chimed in at the beginning of the thread and then never said anything since?

Also did someone say something about a class action suit?  Well if there is one, then I'm game.

[billyray444]

I hava a pav dv9308, bought it in may 07 and am having all the same issues I am reading here, this SUCKS!!! Fixing the problem with another sure problem is not a fix it's a delay and a sham!

first all the issues with Vista and now this no wonder so many  folks go to MAC!!!!!

If HP will not cover this with a free repair I will not be bying another HP product that includes printers etc...! isecond thought...if they do fix this piece of crap I will be out geting a new book and it will NOT BE A HP!!!!

thanks for the vent, I feel better.

[AndrewD]

Haha, leave it to this laptop to stop working right after I tell you the updates had solved the problem.  When I woke up the computer, wireless was gone again.  I flashed the BIOS and reinstalled the Broadcom driver--again.  It works again, but I have little desire to reinstall these things every three days for as long as I have this laptop.

I'll be sending in for a box, but I too am unsure if I want to send this in if it's just going to continue to be a problem.  I'd be much happier with a similar replacement.

[San_Soma]

Yep, i've also got the same 'orange light' on my DV6000 - Vista, nVidia, AMD. While initially intermittent, It became increasing worse. Today i installed Vista Sevice Pack 1 which gave me a blue light...YAY!

10 minutes later, it was back to orange GRRRR!

I've reinstalled drivers, updated BIOS and everything else HP recommends without success. As nobody here - or anywhere else - seems to have a cure it would be nice to see someone from HP in here offering solutions...

[tout-petit]

two hours later after discussing the issue and what i did with hp support; no resolve other than they will escalate it....ironically, they won't even admit it is a problem.  they want $300 bucks because I'm one month past on my warranty to fix it.  Searching dell site as we speak to order a new lap top.  I just hope i can pull the info off this one....

good luck and good bye to HP

[carolinekiwi]

I am not an HP tech nor do I have much knowledge of how computers work, but I did have this exact same problem yesterday and was successful in fixing it myself.  I'm going to explain every detail, so sorry if this is a lengthy post.

I have an HP notebook (Pavilion dv2500 to be exact) and I've occasionally had the wireless stop working (the light turns orange even when the wireless switch is in the correct position).  Restarting my computer has always fixed this problem until yesterday.  I was online, then I closed my laptop and it went into sleep mode.  When I opened it later, the screen was black even though the computer was on.  To restart it, I pressed down on the start button until it shut down.  When I started it up again, the wireless wasn't working.  No matter how many times I restarted it, it was still broken.

I determined that the wireless LAN had been disabled and I tried to follow directions to reenable it, both from the HP Home Network Center and the mobility center.  Neither of these attempts worked, and I noticed that the mobility center didn't even detect that I should be able to have wireless.  I tried a few other things which I think did end up fixing it, but it wasn't apparent at the time (I will get to those in a minute).

I called the tech support number but they were unable to help because I am no longer under warranty.

I went online (on my dad's desktop which is a dinosaur) and found this thread in the forums.  I was shocked to find that it was a common problem, and worried that it was a deeper problem than I realized.  I was still hoping to be able to fix it myself - all this talk of sending notebooks in to have their motherboards replaced with more faulty hardware was freaking me out.

Anyway, I shut down my computer for the day with no hope that the wireless would be fixed anytime soon.  This morning my dad bought an external wireless device, so I turned on my computer to see if that would work.  When the computer started up the wireless light was still orange (as I expected), but a pop-up appeared in the bottom corner saying that a wireless driver was being installed (not the external one, I hadn't plugged it in yet), and to my amazement the light turned blue, I connected to the network, and here I am telling the whole story on the HP forum!

Sorry for the long story, and here is what I did that I think fixed the problem (I did this yesterday and it didn't seem to work until today, so be patient):

1. From the Start menu, click "Help and Support"

2. Click "Software, Drivers, and BIOS Updates"

3. Click "Reinstall individual software and drivers"

4. Launch the HP Recovery Manager

5. Choose "Driver Installation" and click Next

6. At this point, there were 3 drivers that I reinstalled (one at a time).  They were:

     -Broadcom Wireless LAN driver - Vista

     -Intel PRO/Wireless Drivers

     -Marvell Yukon 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller

I don't know if it was significant to reinstall all of them, but it was the INTEL PRO/WIRELESS DRIVERS that I saw being installed when the light turned blue.  I can't guarantee that this will work for everybody experiencing this problem, but this worked for me.  Hopefully I won't have the same problem as AndrewD where it stopped working again.

Good luck to everyone trying to fix this, I know how frustrating it is!

Caroline

[aylwin_forbes]

We experienced apparently the same phenomenon with a refurbished Pavilion DV6000 that had been purchased in February 2008, and the wireless card became nonfunctional about 2 weeks ago.  The light shows amber rather than blue.  After a couple of hours of immense patience with the online chat tech help, all the recommended fixes and reinstallations were performed, the net result of which was that nothing is any different.  The amber light is amber.  I was wondering if the wireless card was faulty, though it sounds like the light glowing amber is diagnostic of the failure to communicate with the wireless card.

This really does sound like a fundamental fault with the device.

[jz007]

Could we please get some tech support in here? We've been using each other's resources and it seems that none of us have found a solution that actually works.It's your product, help us fix it!

[Sabian]

Hello all, long-time listener, first-time caller.

I just experienced the same problem with my dv6436nr notebook. All of a sudden, it won't detect any wireless networks (at my or my friends house, when other laptops detect them just fine). No WLAN network adapter installed--can't run a driver with something not installed--doesn't appear in the device manager. And the blue light won't come on, even though the switch is on. I have tried numerous things that MS and HP recommended, to no avail, checked the Netgear router, etc., so I decided to peek at the forum for suggestions. Sorry for all the text.

Wow! Not only is it this notebook series, but other series and manufacturers' installations as well. Yep, I have the AMD/NVIDIA/Broadcom combo, but I don't think this is the problem by itself. Believe me, I took the time to write down and try almost every suggestion that you have all offered, in multiple postings, none worked. This is obviously a hardware/design issue.

I bought this laptop 15 months ago; the problem occurred conveniently 3 months after the limited warranty expired. I did find my P/N on the recall list (they call it something else, but it's a recall) and I have a Geek Squad 2-year. Unfortunately, they don't cover manufacturer's recalls; I'm sure they will classify it as such. Pass the buck. On the recall page, they recommend updating the BIOS. I checked my BIOS, I had the latest and "greatest." But I updated and installed anyway. Now, what this does if you read the whole page is it runs the cooling fan constantly while powered on, at a slower speed (different algorithm). Now I'm no HVAC genius, but looking at the BOTTOM of my notebook, where the fan is located (not a good spot), and considering the 1/4 inch gap between the machine and the tabletop, it seems to me that this will always be a problem for my laptop. For my computer, it seems that this board will continue to fail, and my laptop gets plenty warm, even idling. I read the message from the woman who actually burned herself. I also read about the numerous times motherboards have been replaced, only to have the same failure.

I think it's time I start shopping for a different design, but I will send it in if it's free, for the time being. Sorry I can't offer a solution, but in my opinion, there isn't one. Maybe the $20 USB internet card isn't such a bad idea (fortunately I have one) until HP figures it out.